Obviously, the bad news is that doesn’t win me another free trip to Denver.

The good news is that this is still a heck of an honor, especially since the Stout category can often be very crowded. After the results it garnered in the AHA National Comp (won first round in my region, advanced to 2nd round but didn’t win a medal), I was hoping to see some additional positive results for this beer.

I think this recipe is a good one. Considering I’ve got some of this beer, plus some of a very similar recipe to the beer that was a national finalist for LongShot last year, both in my kegerator right now, I’d say I’m in good shape

SAFER, Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, which got a ballot initiative passed to make enforcing marijuana laws the lowest legal priority in Denver, is now pushing to allow passengers to get high before they fly. But since the FAA oversees the airport and smoking pot is against federal laws, the idea has some people scratching their heads wondering how it would work.

SAFER members aren’t mapping out the legal landmines. Instead, they just say that the smoking lounge, outside of security at Denver International Airport, falls under Denver Police jurisdiction. And since the new city ordinance was enacted, all penalties for adult marijuana possession have been removed. So they think adults should be allowed to smoke either marijuana or cigarettes in the airport’s smoking lounge.

So why should you support this?

10. It’s the mile-high city. Duh!
9. It makes the jerk in the seat next to you for 5 hours much funnier.
8. Letting a drunk out of his window seat three times during a flight to pee is annoying.
7. Flying 500 mph at 35,000 feet in a steel tube is just plain trippy, man… Whoa.
6. It’s probably easier to get weed through security than liquor.
5. The event of a “water landing” is a great cure for cottonmouth.
4. Pilots fly better stoned than drunk.
3. No sober person wants to watch “Snow Dogs.”
2. Because it’s natural, dude. It’s from the earth…

And the reason that it might actually happen?

1. The airlines will find it a lot easier to sell a bag of Doritos for $5 if passengers have the munchies!

Wyatt, as usual, was a little angel on the airplane. When he was around my family (who he doesn’t know very well), he did take a few days to warm up to them, but by Sunday was doing well. He did have a lot of fun with his cousin Jack, who’s now about 2 1/2 years old… Jack (and his parents, of course), are moving back to San Diego from Texas, so that should be a lot of fun.

Soon to be best of friends!

The family outside the church after the wedding.

Wyatt gets Pizzeria Uno– the best pizza in the world– at 10 1/2 months? What a lucky kid!

He was very interested!

One was the Rye Pale Ale, which is probably well beyond its life at this point. One was the milk stout, which has already had some very promising results, but didn’t medal at the NHC competition. The third was our recent IPA, which hasn’t been introduced to any competitions prior to this.

Well, the IPA took second in category, which is particularly nice because they split the American IPA category from the English and Imperial IPA styles. A very hoppy IPA, it really seems to have come together exactly how I envisioned it (maybe slightly darker). I’m not sure why the Milk Stout didn’t do well, but I’m still waiting on the score sheets, so maybe I can figure out what happened in the judging process.

Up next is the Orange County Fair, where we entered the same three beers. More to come once we have some results. Based on the milk stout and the IPA, I really would like to see a blue ribbon between those two.

It’s only fitting, then, to post one of his later bits, about our response to the death of friends and family.

Thank you, George. You will be missed.

So that leaves an opening. I’m not sure how many of my readers are in the Atlanta area, or would be looking for a house in Marietta. But if you’re interested, the house is a really nice place and may go CHEAP at auction, especially considering the current credit crunch. And for homebrewers, my former backyard-sharing neighbor is a homebrewer who studied under my tutelage for a year

If anyone is interested, it’s going up for auction sometime in July. Drop me a note and I’ll fill you in on it.

Space Camp!

The premise would be simple. Take 12 (or more, as the producers see fit) people who want to go to outer space. Put them through many different astronaut-style challenges, like someone training to be an astronaut would have to do, but with competition. At the same time, throw in all the twists and turns of a reality show to make it interesting.

The winner, then, would be given a ticket to ride on Space Ship Two (the joint venture between Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites and Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic). The pre-sale tickets for that are currently going for something like $200K, but my guess is that the advertising/branding opportunities for Virgin would make production of this deal a no-brainer.

It’s got all the requirements for a good show: exciting premise, simple concept, and like most reality shows, can be a very lucrative commercial for Virgin (who is trying to break into the US airline market), and can reach viewers [like me] who may not be interested in the typical “American Idol” talent competition.

I think it’s a winning idea. I’d even try to get on the show!

Click the picture for a high-res version, as the small size doesn’t do it justice.

For each action you wish to undertake, there is an equal and opposite mountain of paperwork and bullshit that you must complete.

He was a legend in life, and he was a martyr in death.

I’m reminded of The Princess Bride: “I do not think that means what you think it means.”

Dale Earnhardt’s death, while tragic, was an accident. He wasn’t martyred. To suggest as such would be nearly as bad as comparing a presidential candidate to another who was assassinated in June– to score cheap points.

This is just one more reason why I’m glad I no longer watch Fox News (or any of the cable news channels) on a regular basis any more.

So each member who wanted to participate has brewed some Russian Imperial Stout, and all of those beers will be blended after fermentation and aged in one of the bourbon barrels for 10 months. It should be a very cool thing to be a part of.

Due to the strength of the beer, it needs to ferment at least 3 weeks (preferably 4) to be ready to be added to the barrel. This past weekend was that 4 week mark, and our plan was to brew on Saturday morning. Between my brother-in-law (Dustin) and I, we were brewing 10 gallons, so that when the beer is complete, we’ll each get a full keg out of it.

I was running late, so Dustin started the brew without me. By the time I arrived, the mash was just about complete, and it was time to transfer our mash tun from the floor onto the rack we use during the sparge. This mash tun, of course, had 10.5 gallons of water, had 40 lbs of grain, and itself weighs about 20 lbs. All in all, it probably weighs 150 lbs when completely full, as it was on Saturday.

When I arrived, Dustin had placed the wooden handle of a rake through the handles of the mash tun to lift it. I looked at the rake, and thought to myself, “that doesn’t look as sturdy as the handle we usually use”, but I didn’t say anything. We picked up the mash tun, and started walking over to the destination. We got to the destination, started lifting the tun, and CRACK!

40 lbs of grain and the entire jet-black imperial stout mash ended up on the garage floor.

That cut our brew day very short. We didn’t have time to go out and re-start the brew, and that means it’s pushed out until this weekend. It has to be done this weekend, or we miss the window for the group brew, and they’re expecting us to have that beer ready, as having less than the expected amount will screw up the whole process. This is now twice as hard, because Dustin will be gone all weekend, so I need to find an extra pair of hands to help out, and still end up brewing in his garage. All while not pissing Joanna off, since it was SUPPOSED to be the last brew day for a few weeks, and now I’ve got to do it again.

About the only bright point was that we kegged & bottled the IPA. There are a few competitions coming up, so we really needed to get that done. It’s not fully carbonated yet, so I don’t have any real tasting notes. It did come out a bit higher in alcohol than intended (at about 7.5%, rather than 6.5%), but overall appears to have fermented cleanly and is on its way to where it should be.

But oh, how I wish I had stopped and told him to use a different, more sturdy, handle!

She had asked me to download the Sheryl Crow “Lullaby for Wyatt” song a few weeks ago, and when I downloaded it to my work PC, she was understandably wondering how she’d even be able to listen to it. At that point, I decided that I’d create a special Mother’s Day gift from Wyatt, containing that song and all the lullabies that she sings to him at night.

There was just one problem: putting the song and 10 lullabies on a CD really only takes up about 25 minutes! So I went on a week-long search for appropriate motherhood/baby songs that would just absolutely tug at heart strings to break up the lullaby monotony.

I ended up with the below song list. I’m not an emotional guy, but even I was tearing up a bit listening to a few of these. For other new fathers out there, I hope you can get some legs out of this idea.

1. Sheryl Crow - Detours
Lullaby for Wyatt
2. Mae Robertson - Dream
I See the Moon
3. Amy Grant - Greatest Hits
Baby, Baby
4. Carly Simon - Into White
You Are My Sunshine
5. Céline Dion - Miracle
Beautiful Boy
6. Shannon Moore - Night Night Songs
Itsy Bitsy Spider
7. Vienna Teng - Waking Hour
Lullabye for a Stormy Night
8. Susie Tallman & Merrie Amsterburg - Lullaby Themes for Sleepy Dreams
Hush Little Baby
9. Carla Lynne Hall - My First Child CD Single
My First Child
10. Lisa Loeb - Catch the Moon
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
11. Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon
The Circle Game
12. Cathie Ryan, Robin Spielberg & Susan McKeown - Mother
Baby’s Lullabye
13. Sarah McLachlan - Wintersong
Silent Night
14. Ingrid DuMosch - Fun Bedtime for Alyssa
God Bless the Moon
15. LeAnn Rimes - You Light Up My Life
Amazing Grace
16. Melissa Errico - Lullabies & Wildflowers
Rockabye Baby
17. Alison Krauss - Heartland: An Appalachian Anthology
Slumber My Darling
18. Barenaked Ladies - Stunt
When You Dream

I particularly like #7, a song sung by a mother to her child, who is scared of a late-night thunderstorm. #9 is also very moving. And #18, though slightly out of place (the only song not sung by a female lead), is really a fun song, wondering what’s going through the mind of a day-old baby when they dream, since they have no real life experience to dream about. Very cool.

And, of course, no CD would be complete without a label! (I created a classy front and back label for the CD case, but this is the “fun” one that goes on the CD itself.)

The AHA National Homebrewing Competition is the granddaddy of them all. With likely more than 6,000 entrants nationwide, it’s roughly three times the size of LongShot, and thus instead of a 3-region competition, there are 10 regions. With a competition that size, they break it into a 1st round and 2nd round. Also, with the size of the competition, simply making it from the 1st to the 2nd round is a big thing.

I submitted the Rye Pale Ale and the Milk Stout. Given that the Rye had scored very highly in the two competitions I’ve entered it (finishing 1st and 2nd in its category), I was almost expecting it to place. But results were released today, and the Rye didn’t do a thing.

But the Milk Stout took 1st in its category*, beating out 40 other stouts. That means it’s definitely advancing to the second round, where the stakes get higher (and the competition gets tougher). It’s one step closer to one of the top honors in homebrewing, a medal from the AHA.

Going up against 20 or 30 of the best stouts in the US, I’m not going to say that I’ve got a lot of confidence that I can make it into the top 3. But I’m mighty happy to get a shot against them!

* To see our names in lights, click here. In the Southwest region, scroll down to category 13, which is the Stout category.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Even worse, it finds that there are zero people with the last name Warbiany in the US!

Does this mean I can stop paying my taxes, since I don’t live here?