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There's no boosting a man up the ladder unless he's willing to climb.

Well, we had quite the weekend. :)

We were able to get away for a night to Room 5 at the Carriage House Inn in Chatham. We had taken a nice ride up to P-town to walk in the dunes, and made it back to Chatham for sunset. After enjoying a bit of wine, I gave Melanie her birthday presents, which included the pedometer she already knew about, and a nice little pair of earrings. I had also smuggled in some of Gregg's Death by Chocolate Cake (the pic on the link doesn't do it justice). So after presents and presentation of cake, Melanie said to me "I can't imagine having a better birthday." Hehe, I got her good.

So, a few minutes later, I broke out the second card, which asked if tonight might be a good night to propose... and foreshadowed the ballet/interpretive dance/ballad that will win both the Tony and Grammy in 2026. (Thank you Hallmark, and with possible attribution to Erik Buckholz)

When our story is told,
and it will be told in song and fable and interpretive dance and puppet show,
people will weep with joy, and through sobs, say,
“Today we have witnessed love. How can our lives not be bettered by this?”

So, I then continued, telling Melanie about the ring that was found on the ground, doing a nice job of downplaying it, and having her completely unready for a 16-diamond cluster around a .3ct brilliant-cut diamond. But the story of me (well, my family) finding the ring at Brown, and me finding her at Brown 15 years later, while my mother held onto the ring for safe-keeping is the gods'-honest truth. It's 14K white gold, and it fits :) Yeah, I'm the man.

Everyone's trying to plan the wedding already, but we're doing nothing for an extended period of time, except for enjoy our engagement. See you on or about 9/13/08.

Well, the trip to Princeton started ignominously - we got on the train, to find out that the train wasn't going anywhere soon. I had time for a snickers, but instead, went with my co-worker to get a train refund, and walked downtown to rent a car. We ended up driving to New Jersey, and arrived for dinner only half an hour late.

The conference was nothing to write home about. I got named to the Vista coordination group - whee!

Dinner at the Ferry House was excellent. I caught the Monday night Pats game at Triumph Brewing. Surprisingly, even though I was at a good brewpub, I drank scotch. Felt good.

It turned out that renting a car and driving it to NJ and back in 2 days costs about the same as the cost of a rembursement for mileage. THe drive back was not as trafficy as it could have been, and Iwas home in time for Halloween candy.

Picked up a 6 of the real thing tonight - Magic Hat Blind Faith. Opened the bottle, and immediately got the Cascade hop aroma, which my fermenting beer does not have. I'm now wishing that I did the dry hopping, after all.

While talking with her sister, Melanie came up with the name of the first batch - Crapshoot. Given the recipe issues, and my lack of confidence in my racking technique, this seems appropriate.

I'm going to a conference at Princeton next week - hopefully the beer will be good.

Went to Springfield last night for the Wussy show at Theo's BBQ. It was great to see Mark Messerly - we had a bit of time to hang out before and afterwards. The music was good, and I'd highly recommend buying the CD. You can get it on Amazon, but the band is selling it here.

Theo's was an excellent rib joint, and had a nice beer selection. Over the course of the evening I had 3 pints of Spaten Oktoberfest. I'd rather be in Munich than Springfield, but at least the beer was good. Springfield may be the armpit of western New England, but I wish Providence had a couple more bar/restaurants like this.

The ride home was better than expected. Considering that we left Spfd around 12:30am, we were home a little after 2am. I was tired, but not unmanageably so.

Moved the beer from the primary into a 5-gal glass carboy. Took a sample, and tastes ok - no real mouthfeel, and not as much aroma as I was hoping for, but we'll see. Now I'm second-guessing myself about the dry-hopping. I suppose I could still try that, but I'll probably let it sit.

My siphon skills were somewhat lacking, but practice makes perfect. It was extra nerve-wracking, as there were a couple of fruit flies in the kitchen - they kept buzzing near the fermenter. Man, I hate having bananas in the house.

Current gravity ~1.012, which means I have a ways to go, I think. Expect to bottle in 3 weeks.

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Found out today about the 1st Annual World BRUfest Beer Tasting on Thursday the 19th at Snookers on Clifford St in Providence. 95 Beers available - $12 in advance, $15 at door. Tickets available from BrownPaperTickets or directly from WBRU. Not sure if I'm going to make it, as I'm going to Springfield, MA the next night to see my friend Mark's band, Wussy.

It looks like the fermentation is progressing ok - I'll probably rack to a 5-gallon carboy on Monday. The original Blind Faith clone called for dry hopping, but I'm going to pass on that - I didn't get to Brew-Hah today, and since I overhopped with Cascade, I'm thinking that I probably don't need it in this recipe.

My Beer of the Day today was the Adam and Eve Ale from the fine folks at Great Sex Brewing. Don't know how good the beer is, but I like the name.

I messed up my RSS feed last night... and just got it fixed now. My next step will be trying to get a Beer of the Day to add to the right pane.

Edit: Done! Not sure that I like it - it pushed over the right column by about 30 pixels. What do you think?

Stopped home for lunch. Something's eating my beer. I'm taking this as good news.

I'll run out of brewing puns eventually.

Well, I went for it today. Realized that I forgot to get the Wilamette Hops, but I had enough Cascade to substitute. I indeed forgot to get a grain bag, so I tried making my own with cheesecloth.

Recipe, as brewed:

10 oz. Crystal Malt
0.5 oz. Chocolate Malt
6 lb. Muntons Light DME
1 lb. Muntons Wheat DME
1.5 oz. Cascade Hop Plugs (bitterness)
0.5 oz Cascade plug at 30 mins
1 oz. Progress Pellets at 45 mins
1 tsp. Irish Moss at 45 mins
1 oz. Cascade at 58 mins
Wyeast 1056 American Ale

Steeped grain for 30 mins at ~150F. Had trouble controlling temp in new pot, and with new stove. Might try to do in a different pot next time, especially since I lost a lot of grain from my improvised grain bag. Used strainer to pull a lot of it out. Added water to make 2.5 gals or so, and boiled.

In fermenter, added enough water to be the difference of 6 gals. My faucet adapter didn't fit the wort chiller, so I'll save that for next month.

My other lesson for the month was not knowing my yeast as well as I should have... I bought a yeast that required a starter, but was already brewing before I knew that I should have had a starter running for 24-48 hrs. I didn't run the starter, and am hoping that even though I'm underpitching, I'll make it. Pitched 6 hrs after brewing complete - temp around 75F, and my starter bag was about to pop. Let's go yeast!!!!

OG 1.052

We'll see...