Devourer King

I just bottled my first batch of wine. I am pleased to introduce to you: Devourer King 2009 malbec with spices.

Olivewood goblet

I took off from work a little early yesterday to hit my workshop. This goblet is the result. I think I am going to give it to Sarah's uncle Stan and aunt Kim in thanks for all of the olive wood they gave me.

New Website

I registered a domain name today for my new website project. After about 50 e-mails (no joke) back and forth between friends we finally decided on a name. Now I am just waiting for the registration to finish resolving. Next is getting a host (a friend whose opinion I respect recommended that I keep the host and registrar separate). Then I can begin the real difficult process of building the website. I know that I want a blog as well as individual how to pages and project walkthroughs. Time for more brainstorming and lots of work.

Beach trip

Went to the beach this weekend.

Want to Make

I really want to make a website to bring together all of my scattered interests in one place. To share and collaborate with my friends and with strangers. And for some reason I want to make some absinthe. I think I will need to much new equipment to make it happen. Oh well, I had better focus on my wood turning since Thorin is going to help me cut down the olive logs I have into turn-able blanks. I love making goblets in clay or wood, and now I have a chance to make some more

A beating

Yesterday I went out to my local martial arts supply and picked up some sparring gear. Today was sparring at my dojo, and since my Wednesday running partner rescheduled for tomorrow, I found myself fresh out of excuses. I went in and did a little fighting.
For my first match as an adult I was opposite Jujitsu black-belt. He had clear control of the fight with superior aim and timing despite the fact that he was old enough to be my father. He landed one punch squarely (if not very hard) on my nose giving me a double nose bleed. I retired to the restroom to sort it out. After I stopped the bleeding I had to reconsider my enthusiasm in the sport. I had been fighting less than 5 minutes in a light contact easy manner and already I had my own blood on my gi. I pulled myself together eventually and went out with a green belt (I am what is called a red-stripe-1) and managed to get some good even light sparring. He did at one point kick me square in the balls, bit it was a light hit and I was already a little pumped up so it barely hurt. Last I faced a Hapkido black-belt and we traded punches and kicks in a more easy rhythm. Overall I learned quite a bit. I will be going back but I am not sure when, as I do go running on Wednesdays.

Mead batch 5 Bottled!

Sarah and I bottled our 5th batch of mead last night. It is excellent. This batch had a few additives: freeze-dried cranberries, vanilla, and oak. Since the batch was 6 gallons to start we divided it into a 5 gallon batch with all of the additives and a 1 gallon batch with none. They are both good but i think the plain one is better. It is a bit dryer and I think that leads to a bit more drinkable. This batch is the first one that I have used a filter on. I bought a Jet mini-filter, and it worked wonderfully. The mead is clear and beautiful, and now I don't have to worry about fermentation restarting and blowing the corks. I had 4 bottles of the plain, and 20 bottles of the cran-vanilla-oak (4 of which are magnum 1.5L bottles). I am now going to design the label for the batch. This is probably the best batch yet.... I didn't get the final specific gravity measurement for this batch. Next I have to move mead batch 6 (apple cinnamon) to secondary fermentation, and hopefully to a cooler place than my 85+ degree apt.