Archive for the 'Life' Category

Hi, I’m David…and you are?

Published
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on March 31, 2008
in Bikes, Brewing, Dirt, Life and Snowboarding
. 6 Comments

Wow, almost 2 months have gone by since the last post, insane. Time to add some air in the tires of this dusty thing. As I’ve said before, most of the time I post is due to getting a moment at work where I can jump online. That becomes much harder to do when you’re stuck in a windowless secure lab for 8 hours a day. Once I’m out of work I end up doing other things than looking at a computer, so I’m behind on posting, behind on reading my newsreader, but not behind on mountain biking through sunsets, brewing kick ass beer, and most certainly not behind in snowboarding into the wee hours of the morning. We’re still living life up here in beautiful New England and while it’s still cold, you can smell Spring all around.

Did my first group mountain bike ride, um, probably more than a month ago now. 5 of us took to the PR to do our part in breaking in the trail after a fresh snow. Good group of guys and girls and I had a lot of fun. Hope to do some more rides with them, especially as we warm up here. I also got in a TNS, while it was on a Monday and it was a solo effort, I’ll still call it a TNS for now. Basically rode out to the bike path and over to the dirt BCT extension and out to Concord. Made it out to Main Streets Cafe, where I had a Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale before hopping back on the bike and riding home. The ride was good and the classic American Brown ale was the topping on the cake.

One of my recent night rides with Hog turned out to be an eye opening experience. My lights for biking are old. How old? Old enough that the batteries no longer hold a charge longer than an hour and if the moon is bright I wonder if my lights are actually on or not. So on this night, I just didn’t bring my lights figuring we would ride until dark and then I would get myself out to the road and slum it home. Hog had other ideas and whipped out a NiteRider Minewt X2. This thing is small and bright! An LED light that also comes in around $160 street price and lasts for up to 7 hours…yea, thats a long time, ha. So when it comes time to replace my aging (dying) lights, the Minewt is definitely on the short list.

As most of you know, it’s been a pretty cold and snowy winter. One night Mike and I were taking advantage of a current snowstorm and using our season passes at the mountain and go figure, the mountain has one night a year where they are open for a full 24 hours and that was the night. We stayed out on the snow until about 2:30 AM, riding some uber soft smooth closed trails. Best snowboarding night…ever.

Oh and the beer! I’ve been having some issues with my mash tun lately, so Mike and built a new one out of a 52qt cooler. Figured if we were going to go all out, we should go big time. Just for anyone wondering, a 52qt cooler can hold 33 pounds of grain and around 12 gallons of water…and it’s f’n heavy! We brewed up two IPAs from the one giant mash and seperate smaller mash was used to do up a Belgian Dubbel. 3 batches in a day, not too shabby.

But the biggest announcement on the blog, has to be this:


That’s right damnit, it’s official…

Boston Globe article

Published
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on February 8, 2008
in Bikes and Life
. 2 Comments

The Boston Globe just ran a really good article on Sheldon Brown, including a really nice photo of his family. Check it out here. More importantly though, they gave this bit of information:

A memorial service will be held at 1:30 p.m. March 2, at the First Unitarian Society in Newton, in West Newton.

Might be an excellent time for a memorial ride to show support for Harriet, George, and Tova…

RIP Sheldon Brown

Published
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on February 4, 2008
in Bikes and Life
. 0 Comments

Looks like the news is starting to circulate, Sheldon Brown has passed away from a massive heart attack.  Whether you prefer dirt to road or Sunday strolls to races, you’ve probably at one time or will in the future use information provided Sheldon.  He was a champion of all that was cycling.  Our thoughts go out to his family, may he rest in peace.

Memorial ride tonight…

More Snow!

Published
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on January 14, 2008
in Bikes, Brewing, Commuting and Life
. 3 Comments

So we’ve had a couple of big storms here in the last month or two. After today though, I can certainly say I’ve been through a Nor’Easter and survived. The weather forecast for today said 10-15″ of the white stuff. Out to shovel this morning and we had about 7 inches or so already and it’s supposed to keep on snowing clear through the next rush hour. A nice powdery 4 inches on top of a wet and heavy bottom layer. Sure makes shoveling a good workout.

Last Friday I ended up getting a bum foot somehow. The muscle on top of the foot just below the ankle area is really swollen and red and the tendons or ligaments or whatever the cables are that run down through the middle of your ankle and into your foot are tender to the touch. Tender meaning it hurts like F when you simply touch it. So I got a bit of a limp and I look a little gimpy, but other than that I’m hoping it will fade away fast. Hoping it was just from doing a lot of walking in my trainers (British enough for you Fletcher!) that are pretty old and used up.

Mounted up Aretha this morning and made a beeline for work. Only a few cars out there, which was nice. With some heavy snow still coming down I got to work with that nice covered in white look, but luckily I remembered the sun glasses to keep it out of my eyes and the scarf was a nice touch. Too bad that after I got to work I found out that both of the labs I needed to do some work in were off-line and closed until further notice. Right….nobody could send an email about that before this morning?

Hm, if I can figure out how to duct tape the camera to my head, maybe I’ll get some commuting video, ha.

Kristin’s parents made it into town this weekend. We had planned on heading over to Walden Pond and checking it out, since neither of us has been there yet. Instead we ended up playing Wii most of the day. It would have been nice to get outside, but it’s really hard to pull people away from the Wii the first time they end up playing. Bet they were sore yesterday!

I did manage to get two starters going. A smackpack of Wyeast 3787 Trappist ale yeast I had smacked a few days ago was now nice and swollen, figured I should step it up a little more, so it’s in the flask and showing signs of fermentation this morning. Hopefully I can quadruple the yeast by the end of the week. Also made a starter of Brettanomyces Bruxellensis. This is supposed to be a more mellow strain of Brett and it’s supposedly what is used in Orval. Hoping to do some experimenting as I also have a tube of Brettanomyces Lambicus, which is supposed to be much more funky. As the name says, this is the strain most often found in Lambic beers and is much more intense. I think it will be interesting to try and make two of the same beers and only change up the Brett strain that I use. Guess I’ll see if Brett can be stepped up in a starter like a regular packet of yeast…hope so!

New England New Year

Published
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on January 8, 2008
in Life and Snowboarding
. 1 Comment

First weekend of 2008 and it ended up being really nice out. Not nearly as cold as it’s been lately, got all the way up into the low 40’s. We took the warm weather opportunity to do some snow hiking out in the PR. Looks like a few other hikers have been out there and packed down the snow previously, but not a whole lot of fresh tracks. Saw some cross country ski rails, but again, nothing fresh. We managed a few miles of rolling hills, saw some of the old cars buried under the snow, left over from when the area used to be car junkyard. Showed Kristin the over under, a rickety old tree branch bridge that has seen better days with a nice trail that dips under the bridge. Good stuff.

Also managed to get in two nights of snowboarding at Wachusett Mountain. Saturday night was a little packed, since it was in the 40’s and it wasn’t a school night. The lifts always clear out with about 30 minutes to go in the night and you can pack in a few clear slope runs. Sunday night was a lot less packed, so we managed to get in a bunch of runs in the 2 hours or so of riding. It’s funny, no matter how much I board, my first run of the night is always a relearning session, slow and steady carving. By the end off the night I’m back up to speed and really enjoying myself. Hopefully the skills will get better as I get more riding in. At some point I’ll also be selling off my board to get one more suitable for my size, since JB tells me I’m running a little big. All in due time!

Hope everyone is enjoying their weather, it’s just loverly up here today. Might get as high as 60 up in this place. At 40 something for this morning’s commute, it was like a Spring day!

Comments

Published
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on December 31, 2007
in Life
. 0 Comments

Time to answer some comments -

fat bob | cyclenut.blogspot.com

Yo fool, good to see you posting again. Nice crib, I’m gonna have to bring the wife up there in the fall so she can see how nice the NE is in the fall, we should hook up for a ride.

Anytime Bob! I’ll treat you to the grand tour of trails and homebrew on tap, ha. Only thing is you gotta share the guest bedroom with Buster…

CL

DT, what do you think of the Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA? I really dig the Simcoe hops.

Dogfish just opened a brewpub in Falls Church. JK and I tried it. Nothing special really, i think it will just be convenient for growler fills.

The Double Simcoe IPA is a great one, super hop aroma. Simcoe tends to be really floral and citrusy, a lot like Amarillo. Add in Centennial and you’ve got my three favorite hops. The Dogfish brewpub - I’ve heard mixed reviews. I bet it was nice when they opened it and had a ton of their vintage beers for sale. Like you said though, nothing super special about the place except you can get really good beer now in a location that was pretty lacking before. Not to mention it’s pretty much across the street from Derek’s homebrew shop (next to the Sears), makes for a good way to kill a couple of hours.

Rob L | rahlrob.blogspot.com

Yo! DT good to see you back and posting. Your new place looks pretty sweet but you forgot the most important foto’s, that of your bike area and beer brewing area in your basement. Hhahahaha!

Damn, I need to get out and try snowboarding again. I had a semi-bad fall last year out in South tahoe and I was sore for a couple of weeks. Ugh. Gotta find somewhere nice and easy. Any suggestions for down here??

Cheers on the brewing notes, I think my wife is finally getting me a kit for the holiday of commercialism. :)
Cheers and have a good one!
rob

Don’t let us fool you Rob, brewing is disgusting…disgustingly awesome! It’s a dangerous path, much like mountain biking, that once you start going down, there’s no coming back. Hope that kit treats you well.

Snowboarding isn’t that hard, it’s just kind of freaky to not be able to move your feet like you can on a skateboard or skis. My first season of boarding I had a few rough runs. Once I knocked myself out so hard that my head bounced off the snow/ice and bent all the way forward hard enough to severely bruise shoulder/chest. The kind of bruise that starts off black and ends up green/yellow. That was a hard one to come back from. Then there was my first time trying a table top ramp. Up the one side, got way more air than I thought I would, rotate backwards and fall 8 feet out of the air onto my back…breathing was a little hard that day. All that said, I’m still boarding, still pretty rubbish at it, and it’s still fun. Down in your area you’re probably looking at either Massanutten (down near Harrisonburg, VA) or Seven Springs in PA. Both are probably within 2 hours from you.

I’ll see if I can get some photos up of the basement area, particularly the brewing and bike area. I need to get some updated photos of the whole house anyway. Might take a few days to get the basement back to a state where photos are possible, ha.

I. Conoclasst | wrenchinthegears.blogspot.com

Fatty Dee, please come home, all is forgiven! I need my ridin’ buddy!

Hey man, get something up on this rusty cog of a blog, will ya? I’m askin’ nicely… ;)

The rusty cog has been cleaned…and it’s your turn to come up here mofo!

Fermentation Station

Published
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on December 31, 2007
in Brewing and Life
. 1 Comment

Holidays are almost over. We had a nice whirlwind trip, Boston to Killadelphia, where my brother and his wife took us to Monk’s Cafe. Our first time there and it was definitely impressive. The moules and frites were just as they should be and the Belgian beer selection was spectacular. It was a good night for sour beers! Next day we stopped off to visit with Kristin’s family, since they were all holed up in Philly this year. Then it was off to Ocean City, MD for the next few days. We got back late Wednesday night and took the next couple of days to get the house in order. We needed to caulk the bathroom and fix the fan so it actually pulled air, not to mention we needed to get out on the roof and break up the ice dams that had formed on the edges. All in vain though, as it’s snowing again right now and we’ve got another storm on the horizon.

Anyway, we took a break on Saturday from all the house stuff and set in for a full day of brewing action. Friday night I finished up making a second mash tun out of an old rectangular Igloo cooler, a ball valve kit, and an 18″ stainless steel washer hose with the vinyl tubing removed. A little caulk on the outside and it was water tight. So Mike came over on Saturday and we did two different batches. He wanted to do another Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter and I was feeling the Belgian Dark Strong. We made a couple of changes to his recipe since the shop was out of certain grains and hops. I also dropped the amount of base malt in mine to make a beer at the lower end of the Belgian Dark Strong category, instead of the very top of the category like I did last year. Last year’s recipe went on to the second round of the National Homebrew Competition and received a few comments of having a lot of alcohol, um yea, it’s supposed to! Brewing session went well, no major hitches. We ended up with some extra wort from both batches, so we put about 3 gallons of blended imperial porter and Belgian dark strong into a bucket and dropped a packet of T-58 yeast in it. Started bubbling about 2 minutes later and hasn’t stopped yet. Mike filled his carboy up to the tip top and as expected got enough blow off to put the air lock on the floor, check it:

At least everything stayed on the towels. Next we put our two batches of single hopped IPAs down in the basement to hopefully cool down and drop some crap out of suspension. We’ll probably keg/bottle them tomorrow. Finally, we took a sour starter I had been working on, a mixture of Roeselare and the dregs from a bottle of Orval, decanted and pitched into a carboy of double IPA.
Funny story about the double IPA. It’s a recipe I came up with more than a year ago for Mike. He brewed it, but ended up having too much unfermentable sugars (I think it finished at over 1030) and the bottled beers just never carbonated. So flash to a year later (he bottled this on 10/1/2006) and he still has an entire case of Hop Dog that is cloyingly sweet and fairly undrinkable. So we proceed to open all the bottles and pour them into a carboy. Out of the entire case, one bottle had carbonated and was at the perfect level. We split that one with dinner and damn was it a fine IPA! Glad at least one bottle turned out great, but it’s sad to know what the entire case could have tasted like. Instead we poured the sour starter into the carboy and we wait to see if the brettanomyces will take hold and chomp through the remaining sugars, yielding us a sour IPA…fingers crossed. Now we also wait to see if everything I brew from this point on ends up infected, ha.

Microphone Check

Published
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on December 17, 2007
in Life
. 2 Comments

Time to clear out the cobwebs and brush the dust off this old thing. It may have been 5 months since I last posted, but it doesn’t mean there hasn’t been anything going on, quite the opposite. Most notably, Kristin and I bought our first house. The amount of crap one accumulates year in and year out really adds up, it’s just amazing. We’ve got the process down…pick a box, unpack box, decide what gets tossed and then find a spot for what remains, breakdown box for recycling…then repeat over and over again. We moved in and started unpacking in September, yea, and now it’s December. Theres only five boxes left, one box of Simpsons Christmas Village and four boxes of crap to be sorted. The house actually looks like a house now. We can actually find things again, not to mention I’ve got my first basement since I lived in Arlington about 6 years ago. Plenty of space to hang the bikes AND hold all the brewing equipment. Kristin even has her own glass fusing area. So we moved into a new house, I’ve been learning the local bike trails, and I’ve finally started brewing again. Life is good.

Then came Winter, that’s right, with the W in caps baby. We have had a couple of flurries, nothing more than a few inches, that was until this past Thursday. The storm came on fast just after lunch and started dumping 2-3 inches an hour. When it was all said and done, we had around 10 inches of fresh powder. No worries, just gotta shovel a few times during the storm. Streets and sidewalks were plowed and clear before Friday morning rush hour. Then comes Sunday. Sunday blew through and dumped another 8-10 inches, only this time it wasn’t all powder. There was a lot of wintery mix, also known as ice, which makes the snow you gotta shovel much heavier. By the end of the weekend, there was a total of something like 18 inches of snow outside. I’m digging it, but you know it’s rough when even your dog has a tough time getting around. Check out the wall of snow, click on the pic to see Kristin’s gallery oh photos she took:

DT shovels as Buster watches

That’s not our house in the background, but theres a couple of shots of our new house in the gallery or you can check out the house gallery here with photos that were taken before we moved into it.

Saturday before the storm, M&M came over for a big brew session. No big beers were brewed, but we filled my 10 gallon mash tun with 25 pounds of grain and pulled off enough wort for two 6 gallon batches of IPA. More info on those brews in another post, but like I said, I’m brewing again and loving it.

I’m back to commuting again too. Put back together the Bianchi Pista a few days ago and rode that into work this morning. I would have ridden the Tricross fixie, but I need to press in some new bearings I just got with a new updated axle for my LeVeL hub. The Pista did it’s job, although I obviously didn’t tighten the track nuts down enough as my wheel slipped forward in the drops. Not a huge deal, just a little rubbing. Hopefully I can find a wrench around work to tighten it up before I leave. The best part was some ass in his SUV. Hate to stereotype, but damnit, there are generalizations for a reason. This overweight guy was driving his Jeep Cherokee, he was in the left lane of a two lane road and I was riding in the right most left hand turn lane. So looking down the street he came up on my right. He leaned out his window and gave the obligatory tough guy threat “Get off the road!” to which I responded with a cheerful wave “Hope that made you feel better!”. I’m in the left turn lane, so the stoplight is obviously close. About 20 feet further down the road, he no doubt was paying more attention to my cheerful waving and smiling as he blew through the red light only to come to a skidding stop in the middle of the intersection, literally 2 inches away from the crossing cars…yea he almost hit two cars. I gave him a “Nice!” and a round of applause, which he responded by cutting off the rest of traffic to peel out and continue on his fat pathetic way. Damn if that didn’t make my morning! I mean if he had hit those cars, it would have been the cherry on top. The funny part is this was actually my first real road rage encounter in New England. For the most part, people are extra careful to give you room when they pass, it’s actually quite pleasant.

Anyway, living up north is going well. Looking forward to posting some more recent updates on a couple of bike rides and the recent brewing experiments. Steve…you happy now…you lucky cab dodging bastard…

HopHead ThrowDown

Published
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on July 24, 2007
in Beer and Life
. 1 Comment

Well I guess I know where I’ll be on Saturday…the 4th Annual HopHead ThrowDown. So far they’ve posted a pretty incredible list of hoppy beers and it looks like this:

Bear Republic Apex
Bear Republic Racer X
Bear Republic Racer 5
Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye
Avery Maharajah
Great Divide Hercules
Founders Devil Dancer
Oskar Blues Gordon
Mojo Risin’
Southern Tier Unearthly
Rogue I2PA
Smutty Big A
Portsmouth Imperial IPA
Berkshire Really Lost Sailor
Piraat
Houblon Chouffe
Urthel Hop It
Allagash Hugh Malone
Offshore Stonewall Double IPA

I’m particularly looking forward to the Bear Republic Racer X. Just thinking about it has me reminiscing back to the old TNS rides when Dremo’s had the X on draft. Remember the X boys?

Harry Potter Dies!

Published
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on July 20, 2007
in Life
. 3 Comments

According to my magic set of 18 shided dice, Harry Potter dies by candlestick in the old library by the hand of none other than Frodo Baggins!

Haha, just kidding. Scared you didn’t I? If it means that much to you, you should think about doing a media blackout until your done reading the book like my boy Gary.

Peace and lot’s of book grease!