Pursuing Calefaction

But it’s what I’m doing right now anyway. It’s the end of the semester, and everything is due. And I feel like a completely incompetent failure. The only way I got through my final semester in undergrad was by essentially crashing and burning; I had run out of meds that spring, and rode out the [...]

Since leaving the clinic in mid-October, I have been left without a regular schedule. My classes are in the evenings, and with the wedding I had no shortage of things to pester me at all hours. But as the semester comes to a close, I find myself languishing in the apartment. This is a bad [...]

The krausen on my stovetop amber fell while I was out and about in northern New Jersey. There is still a ring of foam, but the center of the beer’s surface is more or less free of yeast. (I did some reading, and apparently US-05 can be quite bubbly for quite some time, so the [...]

This weekend has been an exultant blur. Everything about the wedding lined up right–the well-planned schedule, the things that actually coincided with it, and everything else that was off-course but still managed to be right. I am proud to be an official participant in generating documents of historical record as signatory witness to Rob Carlson’s [...]

Today I set off on another grand adventure. I am bound for northern New Jersey to participate in Rob & Caitlin’s wedding, but I have many stopping points both on the way there and on the way back. First stop is my mother and her fiancé, where I’ll finish labeling the beer and have dinner [...]

The amber ale has more or less finished primary fermentation. The frothy mess at the top (the krausen) hasn’t yet fallen, but CO2 outgassing is down to one bubble every twenty seconds or so. I am not in the habit of transferring to secondary, as I haven’t done any dry hopping, and there’s no need [...]

I just took a 24-hour computer holiday. On the plus side, I got lots cleaned in the apartment. On the down side, writing for the two projects I have due did not fare as well. On the oh-shit side, I have a nice to-do list of things to do for the wedding instead of sleeping [...]

So many things rushing up to be due at the same time. I am, as ever, down to the wire on several fronts. As I get older, it gets harder and harder. I have begun to accept failure. Maybe I am growing weaker–or maybe my perception of the past is rosier than it merits.
I must [...]

Is very hard.
I feel like I have been built to fly, but my wings are stunted and deformed such that I can only waddle around and look up at my fellows who are soaring in the air around me. “Why don’t you join us?” they ask. “You have wings just like us!” And so, in [...]

I brewed the third in my series of stovetop batches tonight. I shot for an American Amber, and you can download the recipe in XML from my wiki. It uses US-05 yeast, a variety that produces pretty straightforward American ale, and Centennial & Cascade hops, both signature American cultivars. The malt body is the same [...]