Anthony Rants

Well, I suppose since its official with paperwork and all, that I can reveal Matt as one of the newest employees at the Beckman Institute. He will be starting in December. Matt & Kate were up yesterday and today looking for a place to live, no final word yet on what they have chosen. Last night after having burgers at a kind of not-noteworthy place, we went to the Blind Pig. The Blind Pig is very noteworthy (at least in my mind). They have something like fifteen beers on tap, fourteen of them are what I would consider craft-beers, and one of the taps is occupied by Pabst (It is Illinois after all). Getting past the fact that the bartender was a little pissed I didn't start a tab, the place itself has a great atmosphere. They don't serve food, so its all business there: beer business. Matt & Kate had Rasputin Imperial Stout (a beer I consider a very worthy contender to Flat Branch's Oil Change stout) and I had a Belgian Strong Ale by the name of Delirium Tremens, which I would later come to find has a quite interesting history (oh, click that link, you know you want to). We retired pretty early, which is good, because this morning I did not feel well at all. I doubt it had any link to the small amount of drinking we did and more likely linked to the awful weather that blew into town. All day it has been rainy, windy, and cold. And most of the day I have been congested, achy, and cold.

I have officially started a new hobby. Well, I guess I officially started back in October, but it has been awhile since I have substantially written about stuff. After lots and lots of research (as I'm known to engage in right before a hobby), I have taken up the home brewing of beer. It is actually quite a bit like cooking, also quite a bit like cleaning, ironically enough. I have brewed two batches so far. The first was an American Amber Ale that I named after Anna, since she was so understanding and surprisingly supportive of the idea. Its called Anna Maria's Amber Ale. I may post the label that I have for it later. The second batch was a Nut Brown Ale (Northern English Brown to be more exact), it is yet to be named. The amber ale is just about ready to keg, probably sometime on Sunday or so is my best guess. The brown ale still has quite a bit of fermentation/resting left to do. In conjunction with this brewing enterprise, I actually ended up building what will eventually be a kegerator. Right now you have to open it to dispense, but eventually there will be taps mounted on the outside of it. Maybe I'll take some pictures and post about that whole setup later. Many people start home brewing by bottling, but the prospect of cleaning and sterilizing 48 bottles everytime I had a batch of beer did not really sound that appealing, so I've decided to keep only a small stock of bottles on-hand. I'll bottle some of each batch for kind of archival purposes, and also I will use bottles to give the beer away. At home, I'll drink it off of the CO2 dispensed goodness of the kegerator. My brewing sessions seem to last about six hours when it is all said and done, and I would say at least 60% of that time is spent cleaning, re-cleaning, or sanitizing some piece of equipment. The next batch to be made is a yet-to-be-named Chocolate Hazelnut Porter. That will bring me to 15 gallons brewed (or about 160 bottles), luckily I know someone(s) who is(are) moving to the area who likes beer :) I'm also hoping that maybe some of you people out there will take an opportunity to come and visit, if for no other reason than to sample the latest beer from the Benjamin Brewing Company.

Today, after I spent six hours trying to get two small combo-boxes to correctly display some database data, I confirmed a realization I had a few weeks ago. I no longer enjoy programming. I may be good at it, but it definitely does not yield any satisfaction. I am attempting to market my other skills at work, but seeing as how I was just promoted in August to uber-Programmer, its a long row to hoe... But I guess good things don't come easy? I'm hoping that when Matt arrives here, he lets me lend a hand to some sort of photographic enterprise. That should be different, exciting, and maybe give me an opportunity to explore the what-if (What if Anna made so much money, I could quit my job and do some sort of photo-thing for a job?)