Whoops

A few weeks ago I made some RyePA (India Pale Ale made with Rye). At the time I was extremely excited about this batch and could not wait to transfer it it secondary, dry hop, and keg.

I transferred and dry hopped two weeks ago.

For those non-brewers in the crowd two weeks is a long time in the life of an ale. I was sitting at my desk this morning and remembered this fantastic brew.

Tonight: the kegging.

In response to Sarah

Yes! Citrus can survive in the upper midwest!

I picked up these two fine specimens ($29.99 each) at Lowes here in the Roch. I could have picked up a Mexican Lime (aka Key Lime) but decided to wait until one of my seeds grows up.

Mandarin (Satsuma variety). This will produce some b-e-a-utiful Mandarin oranges. They will be ready for picking this fall.

Lemon Drop (aka Sunquat). This is a cross between a kumquat and a lemon tree. You eat the whole fruit, rind and all!

A baby mandarin orange. Yum

As you can see these plants live on the rocks outside my front door. They'll live out there until about mid-September, when I start weening them to the indoors. They'll require lots of light during the winter but it's OK: I have south-facing windows. Come April-May next year I'll reacquaint them with the great outdoors in preparation for more fruit.

Hooray for citrus!

When Life Hands You Lemons....

Grow a lemon tree! (or 27)

Yes, I have 27 Meyer lemon trees available. I also have 5 Ruby Red Grapefruit trees. I'm looking for some good homes for these trees. They'll provide the sweetest lemons (or grapefruits) you'll ever taste. Leave a comment, send me an email, or give me a call and I'll get you a tree.

Did I mention they're free?

I know, I know

When I logged-in to blogger I noticed the "Last Publish Date" was "March 18, 2008."

Yeah, I'm lame.

Even though Sarah says I'm cool, I'm still lame.

Let's see...what's happened since March 18...

I sucked at curling. Which is a surprise since I'm the team's skip/captain. After two weeks of practice I've improved dramatically. Time to finish the season strong and win the next two games.

Hmm, now there's the Hydukovich clan. That was six tons of fun. Met a lot of great people, had some awesome food. Maybe drank a wee-bit much. Maybe.

That led to a work trip to Vegas. Also six tons of fun. I highly recommend the Red Square at Mandalay Bay. It's a vodka bar. Guess what they serve.

After that I made hefeweizen (mmm, wheat). Then I passed the brewing torch to Eric & Xmas. I also sparked some interest in winter curling at the Owatonna curling club. Mwahahaha.

What else...oh. I have yet to pick up Mario Kart Wii. On May 11 it will be mine.

Why the lapse? Back to Vegas for work. I leave May 3, Saturday. Back to the land of frozen margaritas and Penn & Teller.

woot.

Oh, and this. Excitement.

It's been a while

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy.

Eik graced us Minnesotans with her countenance last weekend. We went to the Barnes & Noble in the old Chateau Theatre, ate some good food, went to Wisconsin (and bought clocks! and beer).

Oh, and played Rock Band. A lot. Like it played the same two songs every set list alot ("Roxanne" followed by "Buddy Holly"). Like 4am a lot.

Good times.

Then curling started at Dakota County Curling Club on Sunday. I was very nervous. I haven't curled since last July when the instructional league ended. Practice was rough. I couldn't find my balance, my throws were all over the place, I couldn't hit the broom. Yuck. Then we decided who played what position and I was nomitated skip (the captain). The skip directs the other members of the team and throws last to (hopefully) score more points or prevent the other team from scoring. Anxiety abounded.

Then the game started. Let's just say I found my groove. We scored a five point end(!!) and after seven ends we won 11-4. I think it was 11-4, I only remember our eleven points. :-).

Unfortunately I'm sore as hell from using those forgotten muscles. I forgot how much hard work sweeping is. But it's worth it. Thirteen days until our next match!

League Standings

It was a rock lobster!

Tomorrow is the true due date for the lab. Last week was a warm up. I have the lab done and am currently proofreading it. I will not have gone through the lab per-se, but I've done all the steps I've written down at some point in time. Let's up they like it.

Also, this.

Yeah, that's going to kick some serious ass.

Back to proofreading. Oh, and writing a set of PowerPoint slides (they're "due" in the same way the lab was "due" last week).

I live a pretty avant-gard life.

I hate Microsoft Office

and it hates me. Labs are due in two days and fsckin' Word freezes every time I open it.

Green Thumb

Yet another hobby: Gardening.

That's right. As if home brewing, steeping, infusing, curling, mixology, photography, etc. weren't enough.

What plants do I have so far?

• Areca palm (small)
• Areca palm (medium)
  
• Peace Lily
• Norfolk Pine
• English Ivy
• Rosemary
• Christmas cactus (it's just a little baby)
  

What's on tap?

• Pineapple
• Meyer Lemon (germinating as I type)
  
• Cinnamon basil
• Lime Basil
• Peppers
• Meyer Lemons
• Ruby Red Grapefruit
• Mexican (key) lime

I'm waiting for about 20 Meyer Lemon seeds to germinate. After germinating I'll place them in water bottles filled with soil. Eventually they'll make their way into a large pot as "dwarf" Meyer Lemons live inside during late fall and winter and outside during late spring and summer. In three to five years I'll have the sweetest lemons ever (no really! Meyers are a cross between lemons and oranges).

I'll post progress as appropriate.

I expect I'll have extra lemon/lime/grapefruit trees so if you want your very own citrus tree drop me a commnet or email.

Sign me up!

At the caucus, someone thought we need a new state flag and thought the party should support this resolution. There was very little discussion and went to vote. I was the only dissenting vote. Idiotic. There's nothing wrong with the state flag. Personally, I think it's way better than South Dakota's.

Discuss in the comments.

Today's been a career day...

...futures made and fortunes lost.

One of the joys about working at the biggest of ceruleans is that first quarter is re-org time. The first week back from Christmas break was filled with news of new directors, moved VP's, resignations, promotions, etc. The team I work with moved down the totem when a new VP inserted herself between the directors and the "main" VP (that's what she said). No big deal. Things like that don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Less than a thousand people were affected.

Luckily no re-org for my department.

Maybe.

I found out yesterday that the team I work with is "moving." They're not physically going anywhere but they/we are moving to a new reporting structure with a new mission. What's this new mission? What was the old mission? What the hell does Zeke actually do? I don't know where I am. There's blood on my knife. I think I killed someone. :-) very inside joke of me.

Our team focused on getting things to work for the first time. We create intellectual capital (a fancy way of saying documents) that fellow works and/or customers use to get their own setup running.

This new org focuses on a word that isn't even a word: consumability. <-- Not a real word! HA!

Instead of focusing on depth we're moving to breadth. Cross-product interaction. Integration. e-buisness. SOA. SaS.

This may or may not affect me. The VP who's leading this charge and taking the team under his wing will visit the lab tomorrow (Jan. 31). I don't know how or if this will affect me but I'll know more tomorrow morning. Maybe I'm leaving my lofty position in the department of product architects. My manager kept me in the dark so far so who knows.

More at 11 (and after some Office Space).

German Alt

That is all.

Nothing's Going to Touch You in This Golden Year

Sorry Bowie, I couldn't resist.

This year I celebrate my golden birthday. It begins in precisely T-15 days.

What's my plan for the year ahead?

• A trip, in April, to Las Vegas for work.
• A second trip, in May, to Vegas for work.
• Another trip to the BWCA this summer
• A trip to Germany sometime this coming fall/winter. Either Oktoberfest in September or the Christkindlesmarkt in November/December.
• More Camping!
• Exercising more
• Getting Outside
• Watch less TV (the WGA strike makes this easy)
  
• Not working so much
• Reading more
• De-clutter
• Play with Tyson more than I have over the past year
• Not worry
• Save $$
• Enjoy life!
  

Lucky you...

you get two posts today! Yay!

So now I'm hooked on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s. There are some gems:

• Hootie and the Blowfish: Only Wanna be With you
• Collective Soul: Shine
• Marky Mark (need I say more)
• Jewel: Who Will Save Your Soul?
• Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit
• Weezer: Buddy Holly
• etc...

I'm quite surprised: most of these songs rock!

...and what's the deal with muffins?

They crumble and leave big messes in your workspace. Oh, and they're freakin' huge. Where's that dog when I need him?

That's it for today's topic of "muffins."

I'm putting off writing my Personal Business Commitment results for the year 2007. "They" use that information to determine how I performed over the past year, which, in turn, determines how big a raise/performance bonus I'll receive in March.

I know I should write them but it's Christmas time; there's next to no one in the lab, we're waiting for conference acceptance emails, our products hit the streets Friday, and really there's nothing much to do.

However, I fill my days with food and drink blogs:

• Slashfood.com
• hogwash
• Jeffrey Morganthaler
• SpiritsAndCocktails.com
• The Cocktail Chronicles

*EDIT - 2 pm*
I just finished the first draft of my PBCs. Whew. Supid muffins.

Mmm!

Conferences!

I just found out that two of the abstracts I'm attached to have been accepted to Impact 2008! April 6-11 in Las Vegas baby!

I'm waiting to hear back from two other conferences; Tecnical Leadership Exchange (April 6-9 in Orlando, May 19-22 in Rome) and WebSphere Services Technical Conference (May 5-9 in Las Vegas). Yes, there is an overlap between TLE and Impact. If I'm accepted to TLE we have enough people where we can send some to Orlando and others to Vegas. Also, if they accept the TLE abstracts there's a 50% I'll get to go to the European TLE in Rome! Hopefully I'll know before Christmas. :-)

Mmm, accidental lambic

I love pleasant mistakes. For example, I made a Scottish 80/- (eighty shilling) about this time last year to enter in the "Eis-anything" category at the Upper Mississippi Mashout Homebrewing Competition. Unfortunately I didn't make the deadline so the bottles sat in my beer closets for the past year. Also unfortunately the beer was infected Brettanomyces when it was outside freezing (that's why it Eis-Scottish).

So the bottles sat. And sat. And Sat. AND SAT.

Until today.

Tomorrow I meet with some of my fellow Rochester Area Zymurgy Enthusiasts (R.A.Z.E) to discuss brewing. Naturally there's beer involved and I need something to bring. Of course I'll bring some kickass oatmeal stout. I'll also bring some 1+ year old Bourbon Vanilla Porter. But I needed something more. Did I mention I forgot to label all the beer I made over the past year? Oops.

So I had to figure out which bottles were which beer: Bourbon Vanilla or Eis-Scottish. I was apprehensive when I opened what I thought was the Eis-Scottish. It was a gusher. I knew it was Eis-Scottish. But instead of throwing it out I decided to give it a try.

Man, it's gooood. Really good. I love me some sour beer and this hits the spot. It's tart, fruity, clovey, acidic, and complex. I may let it age some more and see where it is in another year.

What about the Bourbon Vanilla? Some are flat and lifeless. Others taste like medicine. Not a winner.

Trying something new.

While driving home last Wednesday I listened to an interesting story on NPR about Partial Fasting and what happens to the body throughout the fast. I decided to give it a try and today's the day.

Up until about 2pm I was feeling like I do on a normal day, except for the caffeine withdrawl. After that I started to slow down and right now, 5:30pm, I feel like I'm a little bit drunk from light-headedness. It's a little hard to concentrate, but I did kick Dorn's ass at Set yet again. Oh, and there's the constant peeing. I've drank like 50 oz. of water so far today and there's more to come before the end.

And the cravings, boy I could go for some pistachios right now.

Food time: 8:30pm
Food: Spaghetti & Sausage & OLIVES

Musical, anyone?

I have my eye on Sweeny Todd. Anyone else want to go?

Show	Date/Time	Venue	Sign-up deadline	Price	Seat Location	Quantity of tickets
Sweeney Todd	02/09/08 2 p.m.	Orpheum	12/20/07	$58	MF3-4 F-M
My Fair Lady	03/01/08 2 p.m.	Orpheum	01/10/08	$65	MF3 F-N
The Drowsy Chaperone	03/29/08 2 p.m.	Ordway	02/28/08	$58	Orch Right J-M
Jersey Boys	04/19/08 2 p.m.	Orpheum	01/10/08	$80	MF1 Q-S Balc5 D
Jesus Christ Superstar	05/03/08 2 p.m.	Orpheum/ State	03/28/08	$60	MF1 A-Q
Cabaret	05/18/08 2 p.m.	Ordway	04/16/08	$54	Orch Right L-R

Writer's Guild of America Strike

Well, if you didn't think the WGA strike affects you, you're wrong.

Especially if you love The Office or Family Guy.

This Thursday is the last new episode of The Office until after the strike ends. The reason: Most of the writers also star in the show! Oscar (Oscar Nunez), Angela (Angela Kinsley), Kelly (Mindy Kaling), Toby (Paul Lieberstein) and Ryan (BJ Novak) are all striking. Steve Carell and Jenna Fischer won't cross picket lines.

I support the writers' strike. They don't receive any income from the "new media", the Internet. The writers, actors, directors, producers, hair stylists, grips, etc. don't see a dime of that ad money.

For a list of how many episodes are left for each show, check Wikipedia.