Mah Dawg

... drives a hard bargain.

If you like this, you'll like all sorts of other things from the always awesome pianolessdevil.  Seriously, go there.

Slap Yo Momma

Regarding the cliche that something is "So good it'll make you slap your momma," don't.

Seriously, no matter how good those baby back ribs seem right now, it's going to sound really stupid when the cops show up.

This was of course established in State of Virginia v. Sweet Baby Ray, in which the court not only held the defendant in contempt of his momma, but also upheld the suspension of habeas porkus.

Update: The court did acknowledge that the ribs in question were corpus delicious.

My Reading List Lately

The Integral Trees, Larry Niven
Slow start, but it really picks up.  It's essentially a vehicle for exploring how life might evolve in zero-gravity, with a bonus of how orbital mechanics can be turned into a catchy tribal poem.  Plus some tribal warfare in a mixed-gee environment.

Forty Signs of Rain, Kim Stanley Robinson
There aren't a lot of sci-fi authors who can pack in as many ideas per page as Robinson.  He also tends toward realism - there are no one-dimensional Heinlein-cutouts in his books.  This one tackles the meaning of science to humanity, the applicability of game theory to altruistic behavior (that there's some hard science, ya'll), the tensions between traditional scientific journal culture and the culture of high-tech businesses, and a lot of other stuff in between.

The Magicians, Lev Grossman
This book grabbed me by the hair and held my eyeballs to the page for two straight days.  I loved it.  It's a Harry Potter/Narnia story done in a realistic manner.  While there's a protagonist the story follows, he's no more the protagonist than anyone is in their own real-life story.  Characters and situations are played for some genuine shades of gray, and the standard-trope density is very low.  Fun times.

The Golden Compass/The Subtle Knife/The Amber Spyglass, Phillip Pullman
I picked these up at a used bookstore, and enjoyed them.  If you're not familiar - Phillip Pullman wrote these as Narnia stories for atheists, as an alternative to C.S. Lewis's Christian apologia.  They're nowhere near the sophistication of The Magicians, but if there's a young adult in your life struggling with their natural tendency towards heathenism, I'd certainly recommend this series.

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
I hate to seem like one of the unwashed masses, but this seemed like a rambling story about a bunch of rich kids boffing and jaunting around Europe.  I know it's supposed to juxtapose these folks against the realities of war and violence and such, but I couldn't help imagining Holden Caufield narrating it: "And then all these phonies went to a phony restaurant and ordered some crummy wine and got in a fight and it just makes me sick."

American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
I didn't really research this book beforehand, but about halfway through I glommed onto the idea that he was equating wealth inequality, entitlement, and excess with murder, and I really started to dig it.  Just in case you missed it, this fantastically wealthy mass-murderer screams "I need more tax breaks!" about 40 pages before the end.

Under the Dome, Stephen King
Stephen King's thousand page metaphorical indictment of the second Bush administration.  If that's the sort of thing you'd like, then you'd really like that sort of thing.  For the record, I enjoyed it.  Dick Cheney, I mean Big Jim Rennie, isn't exactly a nuanced character, but even King's flat characters don't suffer from lack of interesting detail.

Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik
This is the cotton candy of the list: fast, sweet, and not too filling.  It's the second in a series of historical fantasy books that imagines a Napoleonic War, but with dragons.  Given the main character is a gentleman in a profession that doesn't pay much attention to rules of etiquette, there's are usually shades of a novel of manners.  If you need a book to read on the plane, you could do far worse - Tom Clancy never had dragons.

Raz Learns a New Trick

For the last month or so, Raz has known how to fistbump.  You can hold out your fist, shake it a little, and he'll jump up and nose it.

Rock.

Mr. Mojo Ryesing

Mr. Mojo Ryesing

1lb Briess Caramel 20
6 lb Extra Light DME
2 lb Fawcett Rye Malt (3.5L)

1 oz Cascade (5AAU) - 60 min
2 oz Ahtanum (10.4AAU) - 30 min
1 oz Williamette (4.7AAU) - 15 min
1 oz Cascade (5AAU) - Dry hopped 2 days into fermentation


This is a modification of Bad Moon Ryesing, with twice the rye, and some different hops.  Planning on brewing this on Saturday, after I've kegged the Jack-O-Lantern Ale.  Plan is to brew on the 23rd, keg on the 13th, and try the first draw on Nov 20th.

Jack-O-Lantern Ale

So I wanted to make a Pumpkin Ale, like Schafly's or many of the others that show up around this time of the year.  Here's how I did it.

One ~5lb Pie Pumpkin - Cut it in half, put it face down on a sheet pan, and bake at 350 for about an hour.  Once it's done, scoop out the good stuff and put it in a muslin bag.  Steep that bag for one hour at 160 degrees F.  About a half hour in, start steeping your Partial Mash grains.  The traditional bits of the recipe are below.

8 oz Victory, 28L
1 lb Munich, 40L
7 lb DME
10 oz piloncillo sugar
1 oz Nugget (60 min)
1/2 oz Mt Hood hops (25 min)
1 oz Tettnang (5 min)
Wheat Ale Yeast

Once I had cooled it down, I added in
1.5tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1.5 tsp Allspice
0.5 tsp Cinnamon
2-3 cloves

Since there were nearly 10lb of fermentables, I split it into two fermenters to make sure I ended up with lots of head space.

Brewed: 09-26-2010
Keg: 10-17-2010
Drink: Halloween

Sunset Wheat

First Gold - 7.5 AAU @ 60 min
Kent Goldings - 10 AAU @ 20 min
Kent Goldings - 5 AAU @ 5 min

1 oz (about 7AAU) Kent Goldings dry-hopped after about 3 days in primary

4lb Wheat DME
4lb Extra Pale DME
1lb Carastan Malt (steeped at 160F for 30 min)

Before cooling the wort, added
Zest of one orange
Zest of half a grapefruit
1/4oz coriander

Brewed: 08-22-2010
Kegged: 09-25-2010

The Cloud Cult

Went to Portland this weekend to see a Cloud Cult show.  I've loved the band for a couple of years, and the show did not disappoint.  It's been living in my head ever since then - I can't stop thinking about it.  Think of the first time you saw the Matrix - just like that.

A few high points

Crazy spinning easels - Two artists, Connie Minowa and Scott West, do painting on stage during the show.  They're auctioned off afterward (the paintings, not the artists).  They both have sweet custom rigs that will let their paintings spin.  It looked like they had them set up to spin by pump action, like a pottery wheel, and according to Scott's blog, they have disc brakes.  Hell yeah.

Great instrumentation - Let's see... Acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electric bass, drums, keyboard, violin, cello, french horn, toy megaphone, half-sheet pan plus mallet, toy xylophone, vocoder...  That's most of them.  So yeah - I was really stoked to find out that the weird vocal distortion in some of the songs is Craig Minowa singing into a kid's megaphone that probably came from the dollar store.

Big songs - Seriously, a lot of Cloud Cult songs are like orchestral rock opera epics, and I can't help but dance and shout and sing.  On The Exploding People, five of the band members crowd around two bass drums and slam out the rhythm in unison.  It's huge.  It made me wish I had a drum too, so I could get my tribal funk on.

Intimacy - It was a small venue, and their a band that's niche enough that everyone in the audience has some level of love for them, and probably knows their songs very well.  I've been to a Paul McCartney show where 70,000 people all sang Hey Jude.  It was way better at the Cloud Cult show where maybe 300 people all sang Everybody Here is a Cloud.  Especially since it's a song with multiple harmonies and vocal counterpoints, and people around me were singing every one of the different parts - there's something about that that makes you say "These are MY people."

A crappy picture I snapped because I wanted a good shot of Craig's Country Gentleman

For those of you listening along at home (*chirp, chirp, chirp*), here's an incomplete set list, in no particular order.
Unexplainable Stories (opener)
Today We Give Ourselves to the Fire

You'll be Bright
The Exploding People
Forces of the Unseen
Running with the Wolves
There's So Much Energy In Us
No One Said it Would Be Easy
Everybody Here is A Cloud
The Story of the Grandson of Jesus
Love You All
When Water Comes to Life
A really Cloud Cult-y cover of Tambourine Man

I'm sure there was at least one song off the Meaning of 8 as well, and probably a few others I missed.

If you were on the fence as to whether you should drop a few g-notes to fly to a far-off city and see the Cloud Cult before the tour is over, waffle no further.  Get your ass on the road and rock out.  It will be the best show you've ever seen.  You'll laugh, you'll cry, and it'll be better than Cats.

If you're not a Cloud Cult fan, run, don't walk, down to your local record shop and purchase their entire catalog.  Or, just come to my house, and I'll play them for you and thoroughly annoy you with minutiae about the band and the songs that I read on the internet.

Seared Chicken

For years, I've stuck to roasting or braising my chicken.  No more!  Here's a few guidelines to make seared chicken unbelievably awesome.

• Let it come up to room temperature - Or at least 40 degrees F all the way through.
• Cut it into smallish chunks - Say, half a thigh big
• Adequate Lube - Olive oil works real nice
• Don't be afraid of high heat - Crank it up, get some brown crusties

I've been experimenting a little with this, and seriously - done properly, it's ludicrous how good it tastes.  Done badly, it tastes like fast food grilled chicken, which is what pushed me to roasting and braising for so long.

Pictures from Camp

Dear Mom and Dad,

Having a great time at camp.  Meeting lots of new friends!

Love,

Dan

6.5 Gallon Carboy vs Vertical Epic 06-06-06 Clone

My local brew shop had a special this month on a clone of Stone Brewing's Vertical Epic 06-06-06, so I decided that would be a good brew to test my new glass carboy with.

So I did the partial mash/extract version of this recipe.  Nine (!) lb of Extra Light DME, plus an lb of some seriously dark crushed grain (Weyermann Carafa, I believe).  An ounce and a half of some very fruity smelling hops, unidentified.  (Need to ask Tom the beer guy next time I see him)

Anyway, the result is below.  After only about 16 hours, the beer is ready to blow the top off the airlock.  I've removed, sanitized, and refilled it a few times, but it doesn't take long for for the foam to start filling it up again.  This one is really rolling.  If I had a couple of 5 gallon carboys, I probably could've safely split the wort between them, and I'm still not sure I'd have had enough head space.

Willow Garden

After I did She Lets Me In, my friend Barton said "That's great, but that's my least favorite Big Smith song.  Could you do something else?"

Picky, picky picky.  So I did Willow Garden.  

They seem to do it differently than any version of Willow Garden I can find on the net.  Art Garfunkel does it mostly with G and Em, and it sounds wrong when I play those along with the recording.  There are a few other versions that even seem to have different intervals.

If you have a second instrument (say, a guitar, banjo, or mandolin), there's a lot of pickin' between lines.  It seems to usually be on the notes of whatever chord that line ended with.

Also, note that there are lines where the chords spell out DEAD.  Surely that's some kind of music major joke.

Willow Garden
Big Smith version

     A       D     E   A
Down in a   willow garden
   D            A        E
where me and my love did meet
   A         D     E     A
was there we sat a courtin',
   A          E      A
my love fell off to sleep

   D        E         A        D    
I had me a bottle of burgundy wine
      A       D           E
Which my true love did not know
    A         D            E          A
And there I poisoned that dear little girl
     A       E     A
Down on the banks below



  A      D      E       A
I drew a saber through her,
   D      A      E
It was a bloody sight
  A          D     E    A
I threw her in the river,
   A      E        A
It was a terrible night

   D       E     A   D
My father often told me
     A            D      E
That money would set me free
   A        D          E            A 
If I would murder that dear little girl
        A       E       A
Whose name was Rose Connelly.

    A       D          E      A
And now he sits at his cabin door,
  D         A            E
Wiping his tear stained eyes,
A       D        E   A
Mournin for his only son
   A         E     A
Upon the scaffold high.

   D        E     A        D
My race is run beneath the sun,
     A        D         E
And hell is waiting for me
    A      D           E          A
For I did murder that dear little girl
       A       E     A
Whose name was Rose Connelly.

Update: This same chord progression also works pretty well for Blowin in the Wind.  The song, not the activity.

She Lets Me In

From Big Smith, one of my favorite bands.  These are the chords played, as best I can figure them out.  Pretty all the verses have the CDG pattern except one.  These guys need to get up to Nashville so I don't need to drive 8 hours to see them.

SHE LETS ME IN
(Mark Bilyeu / Jeff Wiens)
C        D          G
I was so sad and so lonely
C               D            G
Out walkin' the streets once again
C       D           G        C
She was chasin' the barflies out
         C   D  G
When she let me in

We talked a couple of hours
We shared a bottle of gin
We stammered and stumbled to her front door
When she let me in

The boys at the bar they amuse her
For a tip she might flash them a grin
But she saves up her laughter 'till after she's home
When she lets me in

F              G            C
Now there's no more sad and lonely nights
         F         G            C
When I'm near the warmth of her skin
F                  G          C             F
She turns back the covers and turns off the light
         F   G  C
And she lets me in

When I come home late from drinkin'
And runnin' around with my friends
You think she'd put me in the doghouse
But she lets me in

You ask what I treasure about her
It's hard to know where to begin
But I'll start with the way that she opens her heart
And she lets me in

Lead vocal: Mark
Banjo: Bill Thomas

My Whiteboard

The office I work at had this marked with a "Trash" sign on Friday.  As of Sunday, it's on my garage wall, and I've routed a well to hold markers in a scrap pine board from my shed. 

Garden Notes for Next Year

First - turnips get too big for a square foot.  They crowd out plants around them.  The only way that's okay is if the plants around them are tall, like sunflowers or corn.

Second - start some stuff early next year.  For example, it would be great to have had marigolds to stink up the place earlier in the year.  This goes double for jalapenos and anaheims and such - they need a head start.  Same goes for the flowers by the mailbox.

Potatoes and arugula are two more that'll crowd their neighbors.  The thing to do would be to have a box of things like that, and then at harvest, replace it with late-planting stuff like corn, okra, sunflowers, etc.

I need:
Some sacks to bag up my compost
Pinwheels to scare off animals
Mole poison

New Beers

Bad Moon Ryesing
Brewed: May 26, 2010
Kegged: June 12, 2010
OG: 1.06-1.065

1lb Briess Caramel 20
6 lb Extra Light DME
1 lb Crystal Rye Malt

1 oz Cascade - 60 min
1 oz Simcoe - 30 min
1 oz Williamette - 15 min
1 oz Cascade - Dry hopped 2 days into fermentation

Just kegged this one.  It smelled real tasty.  We'll see in a couple weeks.  I'm a big fan of Terrapin's Rye Ale, so I figured I'd make something along the lines of an American Pale with a little rye.

The Adventures of Peat and Peat
Brewed: June 13, 2010
Kegging: Planned for June 28, 2010
OG: TBD - waiting for the foam to settle in my test tube

6.6 lb Amber Liquid Malt Extract
1 lb Crystal 80L
8 oz Victory
5 oz Peat Smoked Malt

1.5 oz Fuggles - 60 min
0.5 oz Fuggles - Dry hop 2-3 days into fermentation

I had a Peat Smoked beer in Seattle that I really liked, so I figured I'd make one.  I'm not sure whether 5 oz will be too strong - we'll have to wait and see.

I did change up my post-boil filtering method a little.  I basically dropped my small wire-mesh strainer into my larger metal strainer (which is big enough to sit on the lip of the bucket).  The combination of these two meant I could basically dump the whole boil into the bucket at once.  Rock.


 Anyway, all three of my kegs have run out within a few weeks of each other.  My Baby Bunny Brown Ale just got down to the yeasty crud at the bottom last night.  I guess that means I need to add another keg to reduce the risk of that happening again :)

More Garden

Since the last pictures, lots has happened.  I've harvested all my turnips, potatoes, and arugula.  Flowers have started blooming.  In the week since I've taken these pictures, lots of marigolds have opened up.

Mah Garden

A few pictures of my garden.  Some of my hops are starting to really move - the biggest bine grew about 2 inches overnight.
Also, pretty much all the plants are actually identifiable now.  The cilantro looks like cilantro.  The basil looks like basil.  The tomatoes look like tomatoes.  The snozzberries taste like snozzberries.

Beers

Just kegged Baby Bunny Brown.  It's called that because it's a Brown Ale that's just a little hoppy.  *rimshot*


Baby Bunny Brown
Nugget - 1/2 oz - 60 min
Williamette - 3/4oz - 15 min
2 lb CaraRed
4 oz Chocolate Malt
1 lb Caramel 40
4 lb Extra Light DME
2 lb Pale Malt
Some sort of English-Aley yeast

This recipe had the most non-extract grain I'd ever used.  I ended up running water over the grain, sparge-style, to get all the goodness out when it was done steeping.  I also heated that water beforehand, so there wouldn't be so much of a wait between steep and boil.

Today, I'm making a traditional American Pale Ale.  Nothing too fancy.  I want a beer that folks will drink come pig-roast time.

Grandma's Rolls

Fresh-baked bread soothes the soul.

That said, here's my Grandma's roll recipe:
Mix 1 cup warm water, 1 tsp sugar, 1 package yeast - Let the yeast bloom.

Mix
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup sugar
1.5 tsp salt
1 cup warm water

Add
6 cups AP flour, gradually. Knead, let rise. Punch down and form into rolls. Place in greased pan, let rise again. Bake at 375 until brown and delicious.

Sounds simple, right? Well, it wasn't for me at first. Here's some of the places I went wrong, and how I fixed them, as well as some things I've changed.

Warm Water - Yeast will bloom faster if the water is 80-90 degrees F. If it's up over a hundred or so, it'll kill the little guys. Use a thermometer.

Yeast - I prefer Rapid Rise yeast. You can skip the blooming step. I take about half the flour and mix the salt and yeast directly into it. Just don't forget to add the extra cup of water.

Where to rise - If I've got time, I let the rising happen in the refrigerator. It takes longer, but the rolls end up tastier.

Kneading - This is all about making holes in the dough for the yeast to blow up with CO2. I use the Alton Brown recommended method: Spread the dough out flattish, and make a trifold wallet with it. Repeat for five or ten minutes.

Oil - Grandma doesn't use extra virgin olive oil. I do. It's yummy.

Water - Depending on where you're at, the tap water may have enough chlorine in it to kill yeast. For instance, I was never able to make bread with tap water in Fayetteville or Dallas. To be totally safe, use bottled water. You can usually find 8-oz bottles, which is convenient, because 8 ounces equals one cup.

The Pan- Don't be afraid to pack them in - It'll make them rise taller. Tall rolls are tasty rolls, and they look good too.

The Pan, part 2 - Heavy is good.

Garden Update

SFG #1
Achillea x1 Feb 20, 2010	Jalapeno x1 April	Chard x4 April	Turnip x6 Mar 6, 2010 July
Cilantro x4 April	Nasturtium x1 April	Shallots x16 March	Turnip x6 April/August
Marigold x2 April	Thyme x2 May	Shallots x16 April	Beets x9 May
	Tomato x1 per two squares Basil x1 per square April		Tomatillo x1 May
Trellis
SFG #2
Anaheim x1 Mar 6, 2010	Chard x4 May	Onion x16 March	Onion x16 Feb 20,2010
Zinnia x1 April	Marigold x2 April	Chard x4 April	Onion x16 April
Corn x1 June	Okra x1 May	Arugula x2 Mar 6, 2010 July	Arugula x2 April/August
Corn x1 May	Okra x1 June	Potato	Potato x4 Mar 6, 2010

Kegerator v3.1

How could a kegerator get any better? How about two faucets? Bam!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen

I present to you Death of a Joke: A Play in One Act, based on a shocking true story.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

DANIEL, a WISE GUY, who mayhap thinks he is some sort of comedian or something

TRENT, a CASHIER, thoroughly familiar with both TRACTORS and SUPPLIES

ACT I

Daytime, inside a Tractor Supply Company. DANIEL has just selected a dollar's worth of carriage bolts and a Diet Coke. He approaches the cash register.

TRENT: Wow, big spender today, huh?

DANIEL: Yep, sure am. I don't like to brag, but sometimes... [glances back and forth, gestures toward the Diet Coke]... I'll buy these six at a time.

TRENT: [pauses] So I guess you really like to drink them, then.

DANIEL: Well, they... er... come in six packs. [Takes receipt and leaves, dejected]

[Curtain]

Note to Self

Start horse tack shop, call it David's Bridle.

Kegerator v3

Finished up revision three of the kegerator today. This version will eventually have four or five kegs inside, and maybe a small one up in the freezer, if I can make sure it doesn't get too cold.

Had to buy a new barb for my distributor to match barb sizes with the regulator. Learned about plumber's tape. Learned that it's very hard to make a compression union hold pressurized gas. (That's why I bought the second barb, so I could ditch the union.)

I may end up drilling two holes for the distributor, so I can use bolts instead of screws. We'll see. I'll probably wait until I've got it loaded up with kegs, in case the position of the thing ends up changing.

Shoutouts to some great tools: My bench-vise did a damn good job of holding the distributor in place while I swapped out the input barb. Also, by big cartoony crescent wrench guaranteed that the barb will never, ever come out.

When Do I Change My Air Filters?

Seriously, how do you remember?

Well, I just replaced mine, and I wrote today's date on the edge of the air filter in permanent marker.

If the Nobel committee is reading, you can go ahead and just mail the prize to my house.

Curious Corgi Cherry-Smoked Porter

Steep @ 160 degress F for 30 min:
3lb Briess Smoked Cherry Malt
6oz Black Patent Malt

Malt:
6lb Amber DME

Hops:
2oz Fuggles, 90 min
1 oz Fuggles, 30 min
1 oz Kent Goldings, 20 min
1 oz Kent Goldings, 5 min

I used whole hops because they were out of Fuggles in pellets. One thing about whole hops: They're a heckuva lot easier to strain out. I scooped most of them out with a slotted spoon, and squeezed the liquid back in.

First Planting

I planted some onions and achillea today.

Achillea x1 Feb 20, 2010	Jalapeno x1 April	Chard x4 April	Radish x6 March/July
Cilantro x4 April	Nasturtium x1 April	Shallots x16 March	Radish x6 April/August
Marigold x2 April	Thyme x2 May	Shallots x16 April	Beets x9 May
	Tomato x1 per two squares Basil x1 per square April		Tomatillo x1 May
Trellis

Anaheim x1 March	Chard x4 May	Onion x16 March	Onion x16 Feb 20,2010
Zinnia x1 April	Marigold x2 April	Chard x4 April	Onion x16 April
Corn x1 June	Okra x1 May	Arugula x2 March/July	Arugula x2 April/August
Corn x1 May	Okra x1 June	Potato	Potato

Watered both just to dampness. Also planted some achillea by my mailbox.

Here's the fun part. Check out the wikipedia page on achillea. Some highlights:

In antiquity, yarrow was known as herbal militaris, for its use in staunching the flow of blood from wounds.

Several cavity-nesting birds, including the common starling, use yarrow to line their nests. Experiments conducted on the tree swallow, which does not use yarrow, suggest that adding yarrow to nests inhibits the growth of parasites.

In Classical tradition, Homer tells us that the centaur Chiron, who conveyed herbal secrets to his human pupils, taught Achilles to use yarrow on the battle grounds of Troy

Old folk names for yarrow include arrowroot, bad man's plaything, carpenter's weed, death flower, devil's nettle, eerie, field hops, gearwe, hundred leaved grass, knight's milefoil, knyghten, milefolium, milfoil, millefoil, noble yarrow, nosebleed, old man's mustard, old man's pepper, sanguinary, seven year's love, snake's grass, soldier, soldier's woundwort, stanch weed, thousand seal, woundwort, yarroway, yerw.

In the Middle Ages, yarrow was part of a herbal mixture known as gruit used in the flavouring of beer prior to the use of hops.

Hey, that last one sounds right up my alley. Maybe I'll make some gruit beer this summer.

Anyway, there's a lot of information about yarrow's use as an herbal medicine. I'm generally in agreement with Dara O'Briain on this point. Herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years. That means they've had time to test it all, and the stuff that worked became just plain medicine. The rest is potpourri.

But, that doesn't mean I won't brew up a cup of yarrow tea. I want to see what this "mild stimulant" thing is all about. Are they talking a cup of coffee, or a shooter of five-hour energy? Inquiring minds want to know.

Latest Beer

The beer I'm kegging today: Kyle's Shamaly Wham Pale Ale
6 lb extra light DME
0.5 lb Caramel 40 malt
0.5 lb Caramunich malt
1 oz Saaz - 2.8% - 60 min
1 oz Centennial - 9.2% - 15 min
1 oz Cascade - 7.5% - 0 min

It came to about 1.050 OG. I've not yet checked the final gravity. It spent two weeks in primary before kegging.

Hex Hop Planter

Because I figured it would be prettier than a square. The interior sides are about 8.4", which means the area is
((8.4/12)^2) * (1.5 * sqrt(3)) = About 1.3ft^2

So it's a little bigger than my 1 foot square box, but will probably provide way more room for the roots. I'm no gardener, but I figure roots branch out in a pattern that's a lot closer to round than square.

Garden Plans

Plants take research. I've scrapped the squash - it turns out those bushes can eat up about 9 ft^2. Shallots moved to their spots, and I'm planting potatoes in their space, as that's the deep end of the garden.

Deodorant

I ran out, and had to use Tiffany's. It was Dove Smooth Cashmere brand. Now I have to take my armpits to the dry cleaners.

Garden Planning

I've made some beta plans about what to plant in my gardens. Here they are.


The numbers (x1, x2, x3, etc) denote how many to plant in each square foot. The months denote the planting date. I've tried to stagger things throughout the season, within their limits.

North is roughly up in the image. You can see that I've also put the tallest things on the west side. The idea is that even the short things will get sun most of the day this way.

I've put some marigolds in each garden to help with bugs. Same thing with planting basil among the tomatoes - I've been told the smell keeps bugs away.

This stuff is entirely new to me, though. Still looking for more good gardening books. It's tough to find one that strikes a balance between being way too simply written, and annoying me by repeating itself (like Mel's Square Foot Gardening book), and ones that assume I know quite a bit. I'm sure that somewhere out there, there's an Alton Brown of the gardening world that'll go through all the details in an entertaining way, but not patronize me.

Seriously, Mel Bartholomew's writing annoys the bejesus out of me. SFG is an interesting system, but he seems like the kind of guy that would just never, ever shut up.

My Square Foot Gardens

I built a couple of Square Foot Gardens.

The big ones are for general vegetables and such. The little ones are for hops.



Hops need something to grow up. To keep things contained, I built a tower.

Building a tower goes roughly as follows:
1. Take a metal fencepost, and sledgehammer it into the ground a ways.
2. Take a ten foot piece of iron rebar. Sledgehammer THAT into the ground, inside said fencepost.
3. Compression-couple two ten foot pieces of 1-inch electrical conduit to each other.
4. Bolt a couple of ears onto the top piece to hold your line.
5. Run some twine or nylon line through the ears, and secure it to some stakes.
6. Insert tab A into slot B. Make sure you've got someone to hold your stakes so the line doesn't get twisted. (I didn't do this, and look what happened. I need to take it down and untangle things)



When you're building your boxes, I highly recommend long screws over nails. Nails don't hold together in that shape.

To get the boxes sitting flat, I used a long level along with a ruler, and measured the dropoff from a staked-off point. Then, I pretty much sharpied a line at that angle onto a 2x6, and cut it with a circular saw. I used some board-joiners to stick it all together.

HOWTO: Work CO2 Regulators

Here's how you work a CO2 regulator.

The regulator has a hex nut that screws it onto your tank. This is a big hex nut - Something like 1 1/8 inches. Just go to Lowe's and buy the biggest crescent wrench they've got if you want to be able to get this on and off.

The left gauge shows your tank pressure. If you've got a five pound tank, it'll hold about 600-700 PSI at room temperature.

The top gauge shows your line pressure. This is the pressure being applied to your beer. This should read around 10-15 PSI.

The big screw in the middle sets your line pressure. Turn it inward (ie, clockwise), and you'll increase the pressure. Turn it outward and you'll decrease the pressure. At about halfway out, you'll stop the pressure entirely. That means you've got to screw it about halfway in to START the pressure.

That safety/test valve - It should be horizontal. If it points straight up, you're hemorrhaging CO2. This took me about 50 psi to figure out. 50 psi equates to about ten seconds.

Turn the line valve to match the direction of the line to turn it on. Turn it perpendicular to turn it off.

And that's that! There's your howto, internet!

They Said it Couldn't Be Done

Can you fit a whole pile of ten foot conduit and rebar in a Prius?


You bet your sweet ass you can.

More on this project later.

Tile Pictures

Tile!

Tiff and I tiled the kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms a few weeks ago, and today I did our entryway. It's a big damn project, and worth commenting on.

What do you need to do tile? Here's the hardware:

• A wet-saw. This is like a table-saw with a sump-pump built in, to keep tile dust under control, and make consistent cuts in a medium prone to random breaks.
• A couple of big-toothed trowels. These make nice ridges in your mortar.
• Lots of little tile-spacers. I had a gallon zip-loc bag full that I got from the 'rents.
• A few grout trowels. This is a flat trowel with kind of a soft textured bottom.
• Some buckets. You know, the kind that are $2.34 all over Lowes. Get, like, three, and you won't have to clean them out so much.
  
• Assorted pencils, rulers, tape measures, and loose paper. There will be measuring, and you'll not want to lose anything.
• The contents of your toolbox - Hammers, screwdrivers, etc.
• A couple of stiff, thin boards. 1x2" boards a couple feet long work real well.
• A butter knife - You're going to need to take off all your baseboards, and you don't want to damage them.
• Some bad-ass pliers. Because some of those finishing nails won't come out with the hammer.
• Caulk.
• Concrete backer board
• A scale that can weigh a couple pounds at a time
• Multi-cup measuring cups that you're willing to sacrifice
• Ear plugs and safety glasses. The wetsaw is fecking loud, and it throws little bits of stone very fast.
• A set of tile-breaking pliers.
• An angle grinder - (And a box fan)
• A vacuum cleaner
• Couple of grout sponges
• A nice pile of towels.
  

The software?

• Tile

• Thinset
• Grout
• Grout and Mortar additive
• Grout sealer
  

Okay, so let's go through some of this and explain why. From the bottom up...

Do you need grout and mortar additive? It really depends on what goes underneath. I laid my tile directly on linoleum, expect in the case of my entryway, where I laid backer-board. Supposedly the additive works better than water, and will make the whole setup more resistant to temperature change.

Grout and grout sealer - Don't bother with the spray-on grout sealer. Why? The color the grout comes out will have NOTHING to do why what's advertised on the package. It's a cruel trick. Just get some traditional colored sealer and paint it on.

For both grout and thinset - Get about 50% more than the package suggests.

On the measuring cups and scales - If you're living in your house, you'll probably have to do things a little piecemeal. That is, unless you really plan your day out very well and have ALL your prep work done, you're not going to be able to go through a whole bag of thinset or grout. That means you'll have to do the math for figuring out some fraction of the bag and the liquid, and you'll need to weigh and measure.

Caulk - When your baseboards go back on, you'll need to make them look pretty.

Use a butter knife to get your baseboards off. Screwdrivers will just break them and leave nasty indents.

The tile pliers - These have a flat edge, and leave a little space when you squeeze them. They're for breaking off danging bits of tile to clean up edges.

Earplugs - I'm not kidding when I say that the wetsaw is LOUD. It sounds like a screeching demon pterodactyl that's angry you've caged it up. Put those earplugs in before you throw the raw meat into its cage.

Some other notes:

If you've got to do a particular angle cut all the time, sacrifice a piece of tile. Use that one to get the angle exactly right, and put it up against the guide of your wetsaw to make that exact same cut every time.

Tile is expensive. Even the people buying your house will never, ever look under the fridge, the oven, or the dishwasher. Use those as an opportunity to creatively get rid of scraps.

Pretty much any tile you buy can have a 5% variance in size. This is a PAIN IN THE ASS! Why? Let's say you're using 18" tiles. Five percent of 18 inches is 18/20 of an inch. 18/20 of an inch is damn near a whole inch. So... Be on the lookout for exceptionally big or small tiles. You can always shave a little off the big ones.

Get a straight line going right at the start. Things like bathtubs and cabinets are bad for this. Walls are pretty good. Before you lay down any thinset, lay out some tile in a couple of directions using the spacers. That will give you an idea of the lay of the land - that is, if something isn't quite straight, and you'll need to account for it. Once you get a straight line started, life is much easier.

At some point, you will have to do an interior cut on a piece of tile. Let's say you have floor vents, for instance. The floor vent will force you to cut a U-shaped piece of tile. To deal with this, cut the outside lines, and then cut lots of little 1/4" strips. These you can knock out.

On interior cuts - your tile is square edged, but your blade is round. This means if you need a perfectly straight cut on an interior edge, you'll need to turn the tile over and cut again. You'll probably have to go so far as to hold the tile up at an angle and grind it down so it's smooth and straight.

The angle grinder - this particular thing is not necessary, but you'll need some way of dealing with your door frames. That is, you'll probably need to cut away the bottom 1/4-1/2" of doorframe.

When using the angle grinder for that, you'll want a box fan. That's because the smoke will set off your fire alarm.

The vacuum cleaner - Clean the floor before you lay down anything, you filthy pig. That angle grinder will make a lot of sawdust, and you'd be surprised at the ecosystem under your stove.

Anyway - pictures to come later.