So, my site was hacked.  Actually, it seems that many sites on Dreamhost were hacked do to some type of security error on the part of Dreamhost.  The hack affected my site as well as my daughters two sites, and while easy to fix, did take some time, as it was necessary to physically view each page, as Dreamweaver failed to replace some of the malicious code by doing a Find and Replace.

I did take my gallery off-line until I can restructure the entire gallery, and I totally eliminated my forum, as I am really not that interested in keeping up with it.  Maybe as the election draws closer I will re-establish the forum

Anyway, I will start posting back posts that I did not post because of the hack.

In other tech news, I totally fried my OS on my Win 7 notebook trying to install Mint Linux 12.  I think that Mint corrupted the MBR and I could not find Windows.  So, I took the opportunity to reformat the HD and reinstall Win 7 Pro x64 without all of the HP crap that the notebook came with.  Works better than it ever has! Now, if I can only get Rainmaker to work as it was before the format…..

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Have started hiking again, after a very disappointing winter of absolutely no hikes of any kind since the end of October.  The trails are still very slick, with between a few inches to a few feet of snow and ice.    

Because of the ice, and slippery snow, I usually wear Stabilicers.   My last pair of Stabilicers lasted 3 years, with it only necessary to replace some of the screws on occasion.   Because the straps were starting to fray, I bought a new pair this year, but also purchased a pair of Kahtoola Microspikes. 

I used the Microspikes for my first hike, and all I can say is that I absolutely love them.  They are much lighter than the Stabilicers, and also more stable on wet snow.  The Stabilicers always slipped on wet snow, as they have no real spikes that help stabilize shoes and prevent slipping.  One are of concern was the Microspikes slipping on my boots.  However, when on an icy slope there was absolutely no slippage, and stayed perfectly on the boots.  I still like my Stabilicers, but will use my Microspikes from now on, especially on wet snow.

The above picture is of the trail at the beginning of the hike, while the picture on the right is of the “trail” on the way back.  The sun had set, but there was still a bit of light left.  Thanks to daylight savings time, most of my hiking will be in the light.

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Meet Mustachio "The Gumshoe", twin brother of the recently deceased Gimpy The Gimp, AKA Roly Poly. Mustachio is a real detective, and like many detectives, is often referred to as a Gumshoe.  Anyway, Mustachio is in town to visit the grave of his brother Gimpy, and also to find and arrest, or kill, Albert the Assassinator Killer and his side kick, Little Al The Gunman.  As you can see, Mustachio came prepared for action, with his gun full of ammunition, and ready to deal death and destruction upon the killers Albert and Little Al.

 

 

Friends of Gimpy held a wake, and this is a picture of the get together.  From Left to right, there is Shorty The Schmo, Mustachio, newly arrived Blocky The Blockhead, Charles The Snitch with his new hat, Cecil The Tooth, and the also newly arrived anonymous monster that continues to refuse to give his name.  Everyone thinks he is in the witness protection program, and simply forgot his new name.  Oh well, we are sure that we will find an appropriate name for him someday.

 

As the day progressed, the wake was continued in graveyard Gimpy is buried in.  The picture on the right shows Cecil The Snitch keeping a lookout for Albert and Little Al.  While you know that Mustachio is in town to arrest or kill Albert and Little Al, Albert and Little Al could also be hunting Mustachio, and may want to kill him before he gets them.  The tension was palpable!  Everyone was on guard.

 

 

A bit later in the day, Mustachio visited the grave of his brother Gimpy.  Sitting on the headstone, remembering his brother and how he missed him and his cute little gimp, Mustachio was unaware of the danger that was right behind him. 

Can you see them?  Albert The Assassinator Killer and Little Al The Gunman?  The great Detective Mustachio can’t.  Amazing.

 

 

In case you could not see them, where is a closer image of Albert and Little Al.

What happened next is something that will be talked about in the Monster community for years.  It seems that the newly arrived anonymous monster is actually an FBI informant!  His, now her, name is Petunia The Spy! 

Well, it seems that Petunia was working with Mustachio.  Petunia, it seems, saw Albert and Little Al in the graveyard and told Mustachio where they were. 

 

Mustachio tracked Albert and Little Al to the main house, and a chase ensued.  Well, not really a fast chase, because no one can really run to fast, but it was a chase.

As you can see, Mustachio is somewhat far behind, but he is a detective and you know what that means.  Donuts!  Lots of donuts!

Because they keep in shape training to kill, Albert and Little Al escaped.  And, they found Petunia!

 

Albert and Little Al killed Petunia.  She was assassinated in a cruel manner, but having a gardening book dropped on her, crushing her slowly.

Look at Albert and Little Al.  Sitting on Petunia like a hunting trophy.  How cruel and heartless they are.

 

 

 

A memorial picture of Petunia The Spy is being posted in hopes of finding some of her relatives, and letting them know she is dead.  Killed.  Assassinated.  Murdered.

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The image to the left is my final calculations for this batch of mead.  The calculator is available at gotmead.com, a mead site that contains quite a bit of very good information. 

I have decided to change my Blueberry Mead just a bit.  I have a couple of large primary fermenters, so I am going with an 8 gallon batch.  Actually, the batch will be between 7.5 and 8 gallons.  I also am beeping this batch in the 16 – 17% ABV range, a bit low for mead, but a level that I think makes this mead just a bit more accessible.  22%+ ABV is fun, but I want something I may actually like.  Then again, everyone loved my 22%+ ABV blueberry mead last time, so maybe this summer I will do a 23% mead and a lower ABV wine.

I transferred the mead to a 3 gallon carboy so it can continue fermenting.  I transferred the remaining liquid to a 7 gallon secondary, and added 5 pounds of blueberries, which I let ferment for 4 days.  Today, I added an additional 9 pounds 3 ounces of wildflower honey to the blueberry secondary.  I will let this sit for about 2 weeks, and then rack again.  I will also rack the 3 gallon batch to secondary.  I imagine I will bulk age for at least a year, and then bottle age for another year or so.  In the end I plan to combine the two batches for bottling.  What I figure I need now is a few 10 gallon secondary/aging fermenters for these batches.  Strange how you can always think of things to buy for wine/mead/beer making.

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I brewed a Oaked Belgian Tripel today. I have brewed a tripel before, and everyone really liked it, so I thought it was time for another. The main difference this time is that this tripel will be oaked for 30 days using 3 ounces of French medium toast cubes that have been soaked in Jim Beam for 37 days, as well as the use of two yeast varieties. I am planning on doing my usual 30-day primary, and then another 30 days (without racking) with the oak. I see no point in racking, as I have done 60-day primaries before and they always produce a very clean, clear beer.

I also used 1-pound of table sugar in place of 1-pound corn sugar. The sugar is only a bit over 6% of the grain bill, so there should be no issues with taste, and I added it during the last 15 minutes of the boil – the wort should invert the sugar anyway.

As previously mentioned, I am using two strains of yeast for this brew – A Wyeast Belgian Ardennes and a White Labs Belgian Ale yeast. I just made a 2L starter for each yeast. I was planning on no starter, one starter with the yeasts combined, or one starter on the stir plate and a regular 2L starter, but settled on simply making two 2L starters to keep everything even.

As with many of my recipes, this one comes from Homebrewtalk.com

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/allagash-curieux-clone-250654/

Recipe: Bearded Hen Oaked Tripel

Boil Size: 7 gallons
Batch Size: 5.5 Gallons
Boil time: 90 Minutes
SRM: TBA
IBU’s: TBA

Grain:

86.7% -13 lbs. Pilsner German 
6.7% – 1 lb. Carapils
6.7% – 1 lb. table sugar

Hops:

0.5 oz. – Tettnang (pellet – 6.3 IBU’s) – 60 Minutes
1 oz. – Hersbrucker (pellet – 11.2 IBU’s) – 60 Minutes
.25 oz. – Tettnang (pellet – 2.4 IBU’s) – 30 Minutes
.5 oz. – Hersbrucker (pellet – 4.3 IBU’s) – 30 Minutes
.25 oz. – Tettnang (pellet – 1.1 IBU’s) – 10 Minutes
.5 oz. – Hersbrucker (pellet – 2.0 IBU’s) – 10 Minutes

Yeast

1 pk – Wyeast #3522 – Belgian Ardennes – 2L starter
1 pk – White Labs WLP-550 – Belgian Ale Yeast – 2L starter

Misc:

3 Oz. French Medium Oak cubes soaked in Jim Beam for 37 days.  After 30 days of primary fermentation (March 18th), place oak cubes in primary for additional 30 days.  No additional Jim Beam will be added.

The brew went well with the exception of my efficiency, which was only 70%, much lower than my 75% estimate. 

Next Brew: Caramel Amber Ale

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I am starting another Blueberry Mead.  This time though, I am doing a very simple recipe.  My previous Blueberry Mead was a bit over 22 ABV, but people seemed to like it, and most of them asked for more.  I however, did not like it at all.  A bit to hot for me and, while I hate to say this, it tasted too much like – mead.

The blueberries are a mix of wild berries that we picked this past summer, and store bought berries.  We just did not go out and pick berries this year, except for one time.  That left us with only 7.5 pounds of berries.  A few years ago, we did two pickings and came home with over 50 pounds, 25.5 pounds of which I used for mead, and 24 pounds for wine.  This year, I am only using 24 pounds of berries in the mead, with 17 in the primary and 7 in the secondary.  I also put the berries through my Green Star Juicer and made a puree this time.  What I found with the last batch of mead is that even with freezing the berries, it was very difficult to crush all of the berries to extract all of the juice and flavor.  I also used a fruit bag to hopefully eliminate some of the seeds.  Last batch required over 7 racking’s to eliminate all (most) of the seeds – they are really, really small and difficult to filter.

Below is the recipe.  The SG is a guess as I do not have an idea of the sugar content of the berries.  I am assuming a sugar content of 9.8% for this recipe.  Also, I do not have an accurate way of determining the water content of the berries.  I started with 5 gallons of water, and will adjust the water when I get to the secondary.  It worked last time, so hopefully it will work again.

Recipe (Revised – 18 February 2012):

Volume: 7.5 Gallons
Calculated SG:  1.135
Measured SG: 1N/A
Expected ABV:  17.25%

Sugars:

11.5 lbs. – Arizona Wildflower Honey
6.0 lbs. – Clover Honey
9.0 lbs. – Clover Honey (In secondary with blueberries)
17 lbs. – Blueberries – Primary
7.0 lbs. – Blueberries – Secondary

Yeast:

White Labs WLP 720 – Sweet Mead Yeast – 1L Starter.

Starter:

1/2 cup – Honey
1/2 cup – Table Sugar
1/2 tsp. Yeast Nutrient
3-1/2 cups water
Notes: Boiled for 10 minutes, cooled and pitched yeast, placed on stir plate for 24 hours.

Misc: 

6 ea. – Campden Tablets
2.5 tsp. peptic enzyme
1.5 to 3. tsp. – Fermaid-K – prior to pitching yeast and at 1/3 sugar break

I usually do not heat or boil my honey, but all of my honey was totally crystalized.  To prevent any infection, I heated all of the honey along with 2 gallons of water, to 169 degrees for a bit over 15 minutes.  As usual, I added one Campden tab per gallon of water.  I will let that sit for 24 hours, and then pitch yeast.  Hopefully, a berry scented aroma will fill the house not long after that.

What I did differently this time:  Last batch of blueberry mead and wine saw the addition of acid blend, and tannin, and there were problems with those additions even though they were one-half of the recommended dosages.  The resulting wine and mead was very acidic and had a bit too much tannin.  It a long time and a lot of experimentation to get the products drinkable – I suppose I succeeded, but only because I was lucky.

Other additions:  Yeast nutrient – will probably add 1.5 tsp. Fermaid-K at 1/3 sugar break but will add 1.5 tsp prior to pitching yeast.  I will see how things go.  I will add 2.5 tsp. peptic enzyme about an hour prior to pitching yeast – more than likely along with the Fermaid-K.

Starter:  I was not going to make a starter but I did after thinking about how difficult my past adventures with blueberries were to start.  Last time it took 5 days or so, and a lot of additions and re-pitching’s to get things moving, so a starter was made.

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Waiting for this on a t-shirt.

Face Book Page at:  John McNaughton

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It was a nice day in Juneau, with temperatures somewhere in the upper 30′s to lower 40′s. The chickens were happy and perching in the sun drying off after a long wet winter.  Tired after getting up early to cycling class, I decided that it was a nice enough day to drive out the road, and Albert and Little Al hitched a ride even though I made them leave their assassinator weapons at home.  The picture on the left is of Albert and Little Al soaking up the sun at Sunshine Cove. 

 

While I was going back to the car to put my camera away, some strange woman walked by and tried to kidnap Albert and Little Al.  However, because I had a picture of her, she put them back and both were able to return home unharmed.  Oddly, the stranger woman got in the car and came home with us also. 

 

 

This is one of my favorite views in Juneau.   Almost at the end of the road, when you turn the corner that leads to this straight piece of road, this mountain is framed between the trees.  You really cannot see how high the mountain is in the picture, but I like the picture anyway, so here it is.

 

Just thought I would throw an image in of Kowee Creek.  I thought the sun shining at the end of the creek was interesting.  The road leading to the creek was slick with a very thick, smooth layer of ice. 

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Well, Charles The Snitch is leaving the school district.  Charles was offered, and accepted, a job with one of the State agencies.  So, the office decided to throw a little party for him.  Albert The Assassinator Killer, Little Al The Gunman, Cecil The Tooth, and Gimpy The Gimp all showed up to wish Albert good luck and to say good bye.

 

 

Little Al The Gunman brought some alcohol, in violation of school district policy, but no one seemed to mind, and soon things started to become a bit more fun.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the office staff is very friendly, and with alcohol, really friendly.

 

 

 

Albert the Assassinator Killer has a drinking and sharing problem it seems.  In this candid image, you can see that he took all the booze for himself.

 

 

Gimpy The Gimp was not amused.  Though The Gimp only has one leg, and hence the moniker “The Gimp”, he is very mobile and agile.  He gimped over to Albert and took the booze back to share with the group.  Visibly upset, Albert went over to The Gimp, and a fight ensued.

 

 

The Gimp should have known that picking a fight with Albert is not a good idea.  Albert is called The Assassinator Killer for a reason.  Primarily because he is an Assassinator Killer.  Albert’s weapon of choice is a knife.  Albert, in a fit of rage pulled out his trusty Assassinator Killer Knife!

 

 

 

While the others watched, Albert hacked off The Gimp’s only leg!

 

 

 

 As Cecil, Albert, Al, and Charles look on, The Gimp, now called Roly Poly because he can only roll around, rolled onto his stomach and died.   Or did he?

Hopefully, Roly Poly will find his other leg and with the help of medical innovations, get his leg back and once again live.

As for the fate of Albert The Assassinator Killer – As usual, he escaped and his whereabouts is unknown.

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The past few days have been clear, and cold. Single digit temperatures  during the day, and a few degrees below zero at night, at first I was worried about the chickens.  However, the chickens are doing great, though they do look a bit ragged in the morning. 

The only thing that I am doing differently with the chickens is that I am feeding them an extra time during the night to ensure that they have a full crop when they go in to the coop to sleep.  No heat is being provided to the chickens, as they come with a nice down coat and are perfectly capable of surviving single digit above and below zero temperatures.  The coop is big, dry, and draft free, with adequate ventilation to eliminate excess moisture from regular chicken activities (like breathing and pooping, the two main activities of chickens).  Still getting large egg counts form the chickens also – another indication they are doing well in the low temperatures

Finished RSH 9103MME – Mixed Methods Research – today.  Submitted my final paper, and just waiting for a grade.  My next course is RSH 9104E – Concept Paper, and is the last “normal” course prior to comps and the dissertation sequence.  I came very close to withdrawing from 9104 and simply receiving another Masters, but have decided to continue towards my PhD (or EdD depending on how I structure my dissertation topic).  Sometimes, I just want to take a break and not have to worry about having to submit another assignment.  However, maybe with a bit better time management, I can have time to do the activities I want, and also have time for school.  So, depending on successfully passing comps, I will go on with the rest of the program.

Oh – I am picking my dissertation committee this week also – Fun times!

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