Couches!

A friend of a friend was giving away couches. Thanks to Jon and Jonathan who helped me get them up the stairs! Another picture can be found on my gallery.

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later.

Some poor kid got named google.

Arm Photon Torpedoes

So, it's been 75+ days, and I still have not gotten back my security deposit from my former landlord. Chicago gives them 45 days, after which I can sue for double + legal expenses. I've called several times and gotten a different excuse each time, so the other day I sent a nastygram. Very polite, very professional, with a complete log of our communications (cell phones are cool!) and a Final Deadline. I gave him until the end of the month. If I don't have the check by then, it will be time to start asking my lawyer friends for a referral. I'd rather not have to go that route; it's nasty and time consuming. But I can't let this behavior continue, either.... Update: The deposit just showed up! It was two days after I mailed the other one, so he could have gotten that in time. Or maybe he sent it a bit earlier. There's no postmark on the envelope (weird) so I can't tell. I called to tell him that I received it. Moral: if you're going to do business, be organized. Not fulfilling terms of a contract looks the same whether it's by disorganization or malice.

Calling

A friend recently asked about my sense of calling. Here's my reply. Wesley once said that if God would give him 100 people fully committed to following Him, then Wesley could change England. God did, and so he did. My pastor has a similar vision for Chicago. Whether or not he ends up being a Weslian figure, I want to be one of the 100. How that plays out is not all that specific. All I know (or think I know) is that I'm supposed to be in Chicago, and that I'm supposed to be me... striving always to be more like Christ and impact my surroundings by being more like Christ.

An old favorite

I just discovered this link to the audio of the infamous WKRP Turkey Drop!

Three more years!

Good news: I just got word that my contract has been renewed for another three years!

Modding the Kitchen, part 1

About the only bad thing about my kitchen was the refrigerator. There's only one spot where it will really fit, which is fine---it's a good spot---but the hinges were on the wrong side of the door, so the opening of the door faced the wall. Very inconvenient, to say the least. One friend made a comment that the hinges can be reverse, though, so after some looking at the fridge, I decided to spend some quality time with my Craftsman tools. It took about 30 minutes, most of that was on one part. There were a lot of plastic screw-like thing that went in the ``other'' side. I pulled them out, and remounted the hinges there. The plastic things were a pain, because they clearly were meant to be inserted and never removed, so a couple of them got destroyed in the process. I don't think it will matter though; you wouldn't really notice unless you were looking for it. So now my fridge opens ``correctly''. And I have a few leftover fridge parts that I'm wondering what to do with. Next project: modding the coffee maker.

Brew 18 --- Irish Red

First brew in the new apartment!

This is a standard from morebeer.com. Usually I add some red pepper and oak to turn it into a Burning Forest, but I decided to do something more normal this time. Yeah, I know. I'll be feeling better soon. John came over to watch, he's getting into the hobby soon.

I decided to try the V-Vessel for beer this time. It seems to be working, mostly. There seems to be a cone of sediment forming that didn't make it into the little ball at the bottom. I will probably try pushing it through with a wine paddle and see what happens.

One scare: I forgot to oxygenate the wort. After about 48 hours with no sign of fermentation, I decided that desperate times called for desperate measures, and oxygenated the wort. Fermentation started within an hour. Note that times are given in terms of time remaining for a 60 minute boil. Date of Brew: Saturday, August 13, 2005 Date of Bottling: Not yet! Ingredients

• Malt Extracts 7 lbs Ultralight
• Grains 1 lb Crystal 120L 8 oz Aromatic 8 oz Caramanich 2 oz Black Roasted Barley 2 oz Special 13
• Hops 1 oz Magnum (Bittering, -60 mins) 2 oz Willamette (Flavoring, -5 mins)
• Water Treatments Whirfloc (1)

Number of Gallons in Boil: 5 Boil Time: 60 mins Gallons in Fermenter: 4.5 Yeast: White Labs Clifornia Ale Quantity: 35 mL

The Move

The Move is finally completed. Well, there's still a bucket of cleaning stuff at the old place, and I need to drop by there to give it a once-over before I hand in my keys. But all the stuff is in the new place. I hired movers this time. The new apartment is on the forth floor (SBC thinks it's the third floor; it must be one of those first floor/ground floor things) and I thought it would be much better to pay someone else to sweat and risk injury than to ask friends to do it. My friends all thought this a very good idea. I hired King David Moving and Storage, partly because of the cool name, partly because their rates seemed reasonable, partly because one of their competitors "forgot" to tell a friend that furniture wrapping would be an extra $120. They sent four guys over, who did an excellent job; they only took 3 hours to do everything. I learned a lot of neat tricks for moving by watching them, too... especially about how you can use tape to do move just about anything. Later when it was time to move the plants (I thought it best to move the plants myself), we bubble-wrapped the Cactus of Doom and put it into a granny cart. So to all of those who wondered how I was ever going to move the cactus, there's your answer. The new apartment is very nice. I just got the office and computer set up, and will be trying to get the bedroom and kitchen set up today. Well, at least started....

The New Building Owner

Well, the new building owner just knocked on my door, and gave me his address. Turns out that he is not planning to condoify the building! I wish he'd said something earlier; I would have been able to stay here. Oh well, it seems this is what's meant to be. I am really looking forward to being in the new place, though, and having a real kitchen for once!

Ruby on Rails with Postgresql

I've been learning a new system called Ruby on Rails; it's a pure object-oriented programming language with a web application interface. It is supposed to be able to do the kinds of things you get with all the cool google web applications like gmail and google maps. I was following the instructions on http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/01/20/rails.html and having a difficult time getting it to work, since the instructions are written for MySQL, and not Postgresql. It would come back with an error about column id not honoring the not null constraint. After playing around for a bit, I discovered the solution. Postgres needs to be given a sequence first in order to automatically fill in the id numbers. Here's the SQL code I used to create the database:

create sequence recipes_id_seq start 1;

create table recipes (
  id int primary key default nextval('recipes_id_seq'),
  title varchar(255),
  date date,
  instructions text);

This causes the ID numbers to be inserted correctly.

Brew 16 Bottled

Brew #16 has been bottled! I got 27 bottles of Cabernet/Shiraz blend, (and one 500mL bottle) which should be "ready" in 1-3 months. I tried some; right now it tastes something like a Beaujolais Nouveau. The bottling and corking went very smoothly except for the little filler thingy; a couple times it got stuck---in the open position! Fortunately not much wine was lost. I'm not sure if it's the sediment that got stuck, or the divot in the bottom of the wine bottle, which caused the problem. I might use a Phil's Filler that I inherited when a friend left the hobby next time.

Found a new place!

So on Wednesday I was at Galway Arms, and complained to one of the servers (Liz) that I had to move and was trying to find a new place. "Oh, did you know that Ian (the bartender) works for Apartment People?" He took down a few bits of information and said that he could get me something like that. Jack looked at my list of "Must Haves" and said that I was asking quite a bit.... Yeah, perhaps, but for the amount of money it costs to live someplace around here, I want to really like it. Well, the first place we saw I got to meet the landlord. He owns the building, and you can tell immediately that he really cares about the place. It has a very nice courtyard, and all the wood inside has been sanded down or replaced. He replaced all the pipes, and all the wiring. The kitchen even is quite new (that's very important)! The previous tenants had stayed there for three years, and were only leaving to buy a condo---another good sign. The specs: two bedrooms, one main room, all with south facing windows. Large closets, a back porch, bathroom closet. Oh, it has a dishwasher. I've never had one before... well, I did, but all that one did was spray the food off, spray it back on, then dry it onto the dishes. So I never used it. I think this one will be better. And, there's a very large tree in front of the windows. During the summer, the light is diffuse---this will keep the building cool. During the winter, all the leaves will be gone and the light will be quite strong, right when it will be most welcome. Those of you who know me well will not be surprised to learn that it's on the fourth floor, the top one available in this building. Here are some pictures; I didn't get to take pictures of the inside. You'll just have to visit me. Oh, the punchline....the building I live in now is about a 3 minute walk away. I looked all over the city for a place, and ended up almost right where I started!

I can stop when I want to....

You are a Black Coffee

At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

Ravinia

I went to Ravinia with Ji to hear music inspired by Don Qixote. The music was great, and the weather was perfect for a picnic in the park. During the picnic, she insisted that I take this picture and ask people what they think it is. :-)

Brew 17 -- Extra Special Bitter

This is an morebeer.com kit for the Extra Special Bitter. No modifications were made to this recipe, mainly because the last two heavily modified versions I gave to my bartender didn't go so well. So, I decided to make something more normal that she might like. Heidi, John, and Laura came over to watch. John is starting to get into the hobby, so we were hoping to give him an idea of how to get started. The brew went very well; no surprises, no panicked contingencies. Note that times are given in terms of time remaining for a 60 minute boil. Date of Brew: July 1, 2005 Estimated Date of Bottling: July 15, 2005 Ingredients

• Malt Extracts 7lbs Ultralight Malt
• Grains 8 oz Crystal 40L 8 oz Honey Malt 4 oz Special Roast
• Hops 1 oz Magnum Hops (-60 min, bittering) 2 oz Kent Golding Hops (-5 min, flavoring) 2 oz Kent Golding Hops (-1 min, flavoring)
• Water Treatments Whirfloc (1)

Number of Gallons in Boil: 5 Boil Time: 60 mins Original Specific Gravity: 1.045 Expected Final Specific Gravity: 1.011 Expected Alcohol Content: 4.42 Gallons in Fermenter: 5 Temperature of Wort at Pitching of Yeast: Room Yeast: White Labs English Ale Yeast (#WLP002) Quantity: 35 mL Time of Pitching: 22:30

Trip Report: California 2005

I went to California to attend Matt and Tina's wedding. Of course, since weddings don't actually take that long (the actual ceremony, that is--the planning is another matter, but I didn't have to do any of the planning), I spent a lot of time with other friends as well.

Adventures on the ATA: Kintergarden in the Sky

I left on Friday morning out of Midway. The plane wes full, holding about 250 people, and left at 7:00 am. From where I was sitting in the back, I could see seven little kids. I think there were more that I couldn't see. They were well organized... they took turns crying so that someone was always making sure that this important task got done. Two of the kids only knew how to communicate by screaming, so that's what they did. I didn't mind it all very much, actually, I mean, they're kind of cute... But the lady I was sitting next to had a different take on it. "I hate kids" she muttered several times. She really wanted off that plane. "Maybe if I tell them I'm a terrorist, they'll stop the plane and let me off." Okay, so maybe I should say that I saw eight children, not seven. Do people really forget that they were once kids, too?

Uncle Mattox

I was met at the airport by Jan and Jubi. Jon was at work at the time, so he met up with us later. Jubi (who just turned two) had a doctor's appointment that morning, so we went there. Jan said I could come in with them (she didn't want me to be bored in the waiting room). There was a new doctor that day; the usual doctor for Jubi was on maternity leave. She went over the growth chart, asked a bunch of "is development going smoothly" type of questions, and gave a lot of advice about things to try next. She looked at her growth chart and commented "well, she's very small, but you two are both petite so she'll probably be short for the rest of her life anyway". Neither of us bothered to correct her, so she'll be very confused when Jon comes next time. :-) After that we went to a Pho restaurant, visited their home off of a small lake, and had afternoon tea. We spent a lot of time playing with Jubi as well. For a two-year-old she has an amazing vocabulary! That evening, Jon came home and we all went out to a Malaysian restaurant called Baba Neo, in Mountainview. Their food and service is very good, I'd go there again. Conveniently, it was located just a few minutes away from Nicole and Glen's place, where I stayed during my trip.

The Wedding

The wedding was held in a beautiful church just outside San Jose. The windows are all glass, I wonder how anyone can pay attention to the service? The reception was fun. I got to see Sam Abraham, and Steve Kilgore. Nicole and Glen were there, too. Matt and Tina did a first dance that had everyone asking them for lessons.

Hakone Gardens

The next day I went to church with Nicole and Glen. After that, Nicole took me to the Hakone Gardens. In many respects it looks like many other Japanese gardens I've been to. Nice presentation, some water, tea rooms. One thing I noticed that's different about this garden is the incredible variety of bamboo they had. There were many different kinds there. We then came back, picked up Glen, and we went to a sandwich shop called Plutos, in Palo Alto. It had a very Chicago feel to it. It also had a wall with the names of all kinds of Space/Sci-Fi personalities... the kinds of names that geeks would know. Glen and I knew all but one of them, which I looked up on Google from my phone, thereby ensuring our geek status is safe. After that, we went to the Tied House in Mountainview. I got to try a small flight of their beer, and get a souvenier logo glass to take home. Glen and I agreed that their dark beers were the best.

San Francisco

The next day I took the Cal Train to San Francisco. It had a very metra-like feel to it. The ride cost $4.95, a bit more than a comparable Metra ride would have cost, I think. I met Vicki at the Sony Metreon. For the second time, I got to be Uncle Matt. We went to the Yerba Garden next door and Vicki had me ride the merry-go-round with Wesley while she took pictures. Wesley has a lot of energy. We went to Chinatown, and then Vicki and Wesley had to get home. So I stayed in Chinatown for a few more hours, had dinner at a nice but touristy restaurant. (Bad sign: almost no locals there!) Next time I'll research a bit more before coming. All in all, a fun trip!

Trip Report: Chicago 2005

My parents and niece came over to visit last week! The weather was not the best---very hot and humid most of the time; but it was clear most of the time so I really can't complain. We went to the Millenium Park, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Field Museum, and one day while I was at work my parents went to a lighthouse in Evanston.    My niece really loves the CTA. She drew all kinds of pictures of the Chicago El stop.

Gotta Move....

Well, I got confirmation from the landlord last night; they're selling the building, so now I have to move. On the one hand, I'm bummed, because I really like my unit; not to mention that I hate moving. On the other hand, it's an opportunity. Maybe I'll get a nice veiw of the City or the Lake. Or maybe a basement in which to keep my brewing supplies or my tarantulas.

Chocolate!

My friend Jane has been in town for a conference, and Heidi organized a trip to the Chocolate Bar at the Peninsula Hotel. They have an all-you-can-eat chocolate buffet. Good chocolate and good friends... hard to beat that combination!

The buffet itself had all kinds of chocolate treats... Raspberry chocolate, creme brule, hot white chocolate, chocolate covered pretzels, white chocolate chips with dried fruit, chocolate covered strawberries... I think you see the theme by now.