tubbylobster

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Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:05:39 -0600

bears!

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:05:15 -0600

last week was barrel-aged week at town hall, and being the poor and/or lazy grad student that i am, took full advantage of that fact this weekend. on friday i ditched ‘work’ early to watch the us hockey game and try the port barrel-aged baltic porter (see above), which was as good as i remember it being, although i’m not sure how much the port flavor really added to it. i tried the barleywine next (which had been aged for a year in a jim beam barrel), and it blew my mind. it was a tad over-sweet maybe, even for a barleywine, but the complexity added by the aging process was incredible. i’ll really fail to do it justice by trying to describe it, but it was everything from butter and honey to the wood-and-bourbon flavors of the cask. easily one of the best beers i’ve ever tasted.

on saturday brian and i went back to sample the imperial stout, which had been aged for 8 months in a bourbon barrel. this was also an incredible beer, especially once it warmed up a bit. easily one of the tastiest stouts i’ve ever sampled. we also tried a wine-aged scotch ale (the only one they still had left from the week), but it was a bit underwhelming after the glorious stout, which was admittedly a tough act to follow. overall it was a good weekend for beer, albeit an expensive one — guess i need to get a real job to support my habits.

saaaam wooong this is good music!

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:32:31 -0600

saaaam wooong this is good music!

This befalleth when thou firk’st a stranger ‘twixt the buttocks

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:37:04 -0600

So the weekend got off to a bit of a rough start when I awoke Saturday morning to find that Brian’s car had been broken into with an ice chipper. Upon closer inspection I noticed they had not touched any of his CD’s or his (rather nice) soccer shoes, and was rather puzzled, thinking it a crime of spite. Of course it turned out that Brian had left his backpack in the front seat, and they had stolen it in hopes that it contained a laptop or ipod. However, they were ultimately foiled in the end since all it had was a textbook and an old calculator. After patching up his window with some garbage bags and ducttape (it was raining after all — just the usual January weather in MN), we fruitlessly searched the nearest dumpsters and alleys. At this point my contempt for Saint Paul, which had previously seemed so chill, was starting to grow. I would have expected a car break-in in any of my old ‘hoods in Mpls, but in this part of Saint Paul? Really?

A few hours later, after using my anger to take out the remaining ice on the sidewalk, Brian got a call from our parents that someone had found the bag and gotten in touch with them via an old fishing license Brian had left in one of the pockets. Turned out that nothing but the TI-83 had been taken from the bag, and even that had been discarded in the snow a few feet away. It still works. To top things off, the gentleman who found it was apparently from Des Moines originally, so it ended up being a fellow Iowan who bailed Brian out. Iowa ftw.

In the end I suppose I’ll give Saint Paul a pass on this one, even if its flawless reputation has been sullied. After all, it just seemed like an intersection of too many conveniences. If our neighbors had not left a shovel and ice chipper sitting in a snow bank next to the sidewalk (for the last 3 weeks, I might add), and if Brian had not left his bag in the car, and if the cars were on the street rather than in our relatively secluded driveway, none of this would probably have happened. I’m guessing some drunk students happened to be on their way home from a party or maybe someone was just in a really bad mood. However, the ultimate loser is Brian’s poor car, yet again =(

the victim: brian’s car.

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:33:00 -0600

the victim: brian’s car.

the weapon of choice: our neighbor’s ice chipper.

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:32:00 -0600

the weapon of choice: our neighbor’s ice chipper.

twenty-ten: year of the lobster?

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:44:00 -0600

we’re more than two weeks into 2010, figured the new decade was worth an update. so far not a lot going on, but the semester starts up again tomorrow, and while for the last couple years this hasn’t meant much, i have to TA again this semester. i had planned on being done at the end of last semester, but that plan got derailed when i had to teach. the only thing i got out of that experience was that it confirmed what i always knew to be true: i could never be a professor, and i don’t want to teach. however, what this means is that i need to put in some extra effort if i want to be graduated and unemployed by world cup time…

in other news i also turned as old as steve this week, which means i have just under a year to enjoy what’s left of my 20’s. i’m pretty sure i used to imagine 30 as a somewhat arbitrary gateway into full adulthood: i was supposed to be gainfully employed in my career field, have a wife and kids, a dog, and a house (with a 3-car garage for the boat). well, i have the dog. got some work to do on the rest. but perspective certainly changes with age, and it turns out there’s really nothing terribly special about 30 after all. if by year’s end i can secure a decent job (is abuck inc hiring janitors yet?) in a good location i’d be content for the time-being =)

scallion!

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:21:20 -0600

having been thwarted the last 4 or 5 times i’ve tried to eat there, i would have put the chances somewhere around 1 or 2% that it would actually be open, even to the extent of trying to decide what i was going to order at our backup option. perhaps it was steve’s proximity, or maybe just the decade’s last effort to throw us a bone, but the scallion was open for lunch! given that it wasn’t exactly busy (and closes at 2:00), we probably ate the last meal they will serve this decade: a double order of bulgogi and a stone-bowl bibimbop, served with the usual dose of love. made my day.

woo

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:22:00 -0600

it’s been a pretty awesome christmas break, i’ve really enjoyed being back in ames and relaxing a bit. i think i’ve managed to hit up most of the ames staples (jessbar, chc (2x), gps&d, sg, and the cafe) and engage in all the usual activities (playing mario + watching foreign-language war epics at sam’s, drinking lots of coffee and generally overeating, and last but not least, hanging out with STEVE). we even had a white christmas and got to see a bit of snow. but it’s definitely time to head back to the great white north tomorrow, especially if i intend to graduate next semester.

one of the big acquisitions this christmas was a new roaster: a nesco ‘professional’ coffee roaster with a catalytic converter for ‘smokeless’ roasting. with the demise of my old roaster just a day before heading back to ames, santa’s timing was excellent; needless to say i’ve been roasting a lot this week, trying to get a feel for the new roaster. it’s definitely going to be harder to get a darker roast, as this one runs at a lower temperature over a longer duration than the old one, but this also provides more room for error and lowers the chance of nuking a roast (always a hazard with the old one). the lower temperature also makes the cracks less explosive and harder to hear, but i’ll get the hang of it. another nice thing is the auger maintains an incredibly even roast, even for unwashed beans or varieties with lots of chaff. so far i’ve been really impressed. gwncc is back in business!

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Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:32:04 -0600

smbw update

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:16:11 -0600

janke bros: world 7-1, 100% stars + cannons. performance really suffers after about 1am.

‘working’ at town hall this afternoon. baltic porter...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:33:09 -0600

‘working’ at town hall this afternoon. baltic porter a+, mn harvest (wild rice and maple syrup) strangely awesome.

new smbw update

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:16:00 -0600

janke bros: world 5-ghost, 100% stars + cannons. could do without the dark levels.

wo

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:24:00 -0600

as sam was kind enough to remind me, it’s been almost a month since the last update. guess i’ve been getting a bit lazy but there hasn’t been a whole lot going on, save one pretty awesome weekend when steve graced mpls with his presence. sadly the weather was not too cooperative (we had snow… in october) but we managed to hit most of the usual highlights: post-band beers at town hall (thanks steve for being a good sport), one last trip to the uptown bar (r.i.p.), muffuletta with brian and sara (aka dinner club with steve instead of sam — a good upgrade in my opinion), birchwood cafe for a tasty pre-ride breakfast on saturday, a bikeride around the best third of the grand rounds, and even a stop at kopplins before steve had to catch a plane. we spent saturday evening in rochester where steve got to partake in the time-honored tradition of crashing samm’s place, drinking lots of tasty beer, eating too much food, watching football, and playing rock band until the wee hours of the morning. was a good time and i’m glad b+v allowed steve enough time to come out and visit!

as for the beer, they were all pretty excellent; i think we decided the barleywine was probably the best, although the j.w. lee’s was pretty interesting, even if hardly beer-like. i’m definitely liking the trend of aging beers in bourbon casks — it’s a magical combination of two of my favorite forms of booze. also the maximus is a good subsitute for those of us who crave a well-balanced dogfish ipa but have no access to it here in the midwest, and the breakfast stout was definitely worth waiting for. on a related note, brian and i enjoyed a growler of th’s pumpkin ale on halloween, which was surprisingly tasty; easily superior to last year’s offering in my opinion. wish i’d bought another to save for thanksgiving.

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Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:27:54 -0500

win

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:26:42 -0500

well i survived the marathon, and not only did i manage to go the whole way without stopping but i ran it a lot faster than i was aiming for, finishing in 3:19 (good for a 7:36 mile pace). i owe this partly to the good fortune i had to avoid any gastrointestinal disasters, but also to the fact that i forgot to bring a watch. there were precious few timers along the route, so i just ran as fast as i felt was sustainable. it worked out well, and i found myself accelerating as the race went on, even kicking the last 6 miles or so when i got a little buzz from being back on my home turf of saint paul. but i surprised even myself when i saw the clock at the finish line!

in spite of running well, i can’t really see myself running another one. it’s just too long a race to be completely enjoyable. the first 18 miles or so are really a blast, there’s tons of spectators (thanks everyone who came to watch!), people are in a good mood, and you get a little rush from the cheering. it’s fun. but the last 5 or 6 miles of the race are pretty miserable. you’re hurting enough that you just want to be done, none of the runners are talking anymore, and people are dropping left and right. but when you get done it all seems worth it, it’s a pretty cool experience. and to top things off my parents managed to finish the 10-mile race, which is awesome. in the future i think i will probably stick to marathons/2 from now on, though =)

here we go

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:29:04 -0500

just finished up my pre-race breakfast of oatmeal and a banana and had some time to spare before the marathon starts in 90 minutes. pretty sure this is my earliest post ever. it’s currently 47F (a bit warmer than it was supposed to be) and so far i feel pretty good… but what i have i gotten myself into???

the rain bubble is not a lie. i know i joke a lot about how it...

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:08:41 -0500

the rain bubble is not a lie. i know i joke a lot about how it never rains here and that there is some sort of bubble over the city, but it turns out there’s actually some truth to it. this colorful diagram shows the mn rain deficit/surplus from june 1 of last year. the lower white blob on the east side of the state is pretty much centered on my apartment in stp; we’re missing about 16 inches of rain over the last 15 1/2 months (which doesn’t count the foot of snow we didn’t get last winter). we’re short about 9 inches of rain this year for the growing season (apr-may). to put this in perspective, average annual rainfall in mpls is just under 30 inches.

if it weren’t for a single rainy week in early august (in which we saw tornados in the city) we’d still be under ‘extreme’ drought conditions instead of ‘severe’. things are really really dry and the sad thing is that it’s starting to look like most of the leaves are going to just dry up and drop off rather than change colors first =(

/weathernerd

Happy Birthday Oscar

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:56:51 -0500

the goofball is two years old today, nearly forgot!

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Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:54:02 -0500