Time to move on...

As Solomon is quoted as saying in Ecclesiastes, "There is a time for everything". Well, the time for this blog ended a while back, and while this blog was a great transitional evolution from my early days of Xanga, and helped me explore what I wanted to write about and what I didn't, I felt that after finishing my master's degree, I needed to move on once more. Because of the bulk of posts, I plan to leave this blog active for a while yet, so you can feel free to browse back through the mind-ramblings of a wanderer who is finally settling down.

Even so, I am faithful to Blogger.com, and the new blog is housed here on the same site. For those interested, check out the new blog, "One week at a time". This new blog hosts my journey through a pursuit of a doctorate in animal science, with a post fairly regularly scheduled for each week. I'll admit that I haven't been perfect about this, but so far the experiment has worked, so I am ready to share it with anyone who is interested.

Thanks to everyone for hanging out on here, for the comments and followers. It was a good run, and we saw so many things happen in the world around us, together. Cheers!

The Final Frontier is Outsourced

Headline news brought me out of my thesis-induced retirement today....

I was down in class when it happened and I'm sure the video doesn't do it justice. But the idea of it can make emotion rise deep in your gut. Imagine for a minute, growing up with a model spaceship. Your parents and grandparents talk about the great moments when astronauts landed in space. The last and greatest frontier, where all mankind raced to be - Americans landed on the moon. It was a symbol of American accomplishment, an inspiration as a child that anything could be done.

The toy spaceship was the integral part of my imagination. Together we soared over the confines of the house, landing for exploration on faraway places. I later got a LEGO space shuttle with an arm for launching satellites and run training flights from a 747. My brother had the fall away launch pad with detachable rockets. Our obsession with the space shuttle was entwined with our ability to dream about the future. Nobody could tell me it didn't exist in space because nobody I knew had been there before. We lined up on the couch upside down and pretended to launch off into the great unknown. My parents drove us by the big launch site as kids and while I don't remember much, I remember excitement. The space shuttles were exciting, inspiring, powerful and unique.

The pictures and video are awesome. There is no more epic way to go out than to be flown around the mall before retirement at Dulles. While I'm excited to see what's next, the passing of this era leaves me nostalgic. When I help teach my kids history and we reach the space shuttles, I don't know what words will do it justice. My kids will never understand.

JawSaw

I saw this on TV the other day, and I know you want one. You can get it discounted through the TV price, so order now! Frankly, it's probably a waste of your money, but it would be cheaper than some peoples' nights out at the bar - and safer too. Why not order it, then break it trying to cut stuff that's too big and whip yourself in the face with the leaves when it all gets tangled up? Why not?

Or you could always just buy the rodenator with a month's worth of bar savings...

In other news, it's the end of another long week. Amanda has a new job at a place which will hopefully make her very happy. Finding your first real job out of college is a challenge, especially after a Masters too, and she toughed it out. Let it be known, I'm really proud of her.

Work is going well, and there may be rumors in my life for a Ph.D. around the corner. My adviser told me he thinks I'll be done with my Masters in June. Goes without saying that I love research, but I can't wait to be done.

Go Green!

Michigan State Spartans got a win in the Shoe!!! It goes without saying that as much as I want Luke Fickell to keep his job and for the Buckeyes to do well, this was the one game where I had to cheer for the visiting team. And we didn't get flicked off by more than a few students, either. Honestly, I was very impressed with the civility of the OSU students around us. Maybe they were just shocked, or maybe they had low expectations for the result of the game, but they hardly bothered us - something that would never fly at MSU where students pelt "traitors" with insults in garbage until they get kicked out or arrested. Anyhow, props to Buckeye student fans for setting a great example. And to those 4 jerks two rows in front of us, well, your mommy probably bought you those Sperrys and brand new baseball caps that float on top of your head but never provide your face any shade, but she'd be ashamed to know you shoved your mouth full of chew and shook your hands unintelligibly at the air for two quarters before you once again left the game. Too bad you only bought football tickets to impress the girls in the seats around you, because you've failed at that.

My sincere gratitude to Dani and Gail for making huge drives to see Amanda and I, and for braving the weather to go to the game with me and cheer for the alma mater. Amanda was right when she said that MSU would always be in my heart, and my heart was glad for the team which has struggled against itself since Saban left.

Go Green!

Homemade Hard Cider

I don't post a lot of how-to's in my blog, mostly because I'm usually the one Googling those same how-to's on other peoples' blogs. But this time it's my turn to tell you about my modified process for making hard apple cider. This comes with the predictable disclaimer: 1) I have a far superior immune system to most people - having lived in a virology laboratory, kicked H1N1 in the butt, swam in dairy farm runoff, swam in virtual sewage flow named the "Red Cedar", and commonly beat the cold up over some Advil and a glass of beer, 2) This method of making cider worked for me but try it at your own risk; I am by no means a brewmaster.

Before I started my first cider, I read up a lot of sites on how to make hard cider. Of course, there's lots of high-maintenance recommendations such as this one (yes, it does link you to "Mother Earth News"), but while I would love to put the time and money into this kind of cider-making, even to peel and press the apples myself, I'm a graduate student who had an interest in making my own alcohol (safely) and had neither the time nor money to dedicate to this exercise. I kept looking and as much as I hate on Cornell at least weekly, I have to commend them for their simple and accurate outline of how to make hard apple cider.

I modified this method slightly. My cider experience begins with delivery of thawed, deep-frozen cider from last year (thanks to Liz and Chris!). The cider was unpasteurized and unpreserved (except for the freezing), thus it was still well-populated with the wild yeast accumulated during the cider-making process. It sat in the fridge for a week or so before I finally had the time to make it down to the Winemaker's Shop and pick up my supplies. I decided to make the cider in the original gallon jug and to keep the wild yeast. This meant I needed only a #6 stopper with a gas release valve (~$2) in order to get started.

Unfortunately, this coincided with our Pelotonia ride. I got up early in the morning and before we left, I opened the cider and attached a funnel through which I poured about 1 pound of sugar. Motivated by fear that the gallon would explode while we were gone, I was in a hurry to get out the door and the sugar activated the yeast in a frenzy of bubbles which shot out of the jug like a Mentos-infested Diet Coke. Needless to say there was some clean-up involved, and I had trouble finding a place in the fridge to shove such a tall contraption (hadn't considered how tall the gas release would make the jug). However, I was afraid to leave it out after the previous explosion, so it went into the fridge. That was the 3rd week of August.

The cider started smelling really good about the 2nd week of September. I started calling knowledgeable beermakers about how I might know if the cider was safe to drink, etc. Everyone assured me to just try it. However, there was a week where the cider got really smelly and I was sure it was gonna go bad. I let it continue to sit in the fridge and just figured that the process needed shook up more often and that the gas valve, which was slightly contaminated during the explosion, could use a little cleaning. It wasn't until my birthday party this past Sunday that I finally found someone brave enough to try the potion with me.

Of course, I should've known Ryan would be game for anything, we've nearly killed each other doing stuff at this point that it's only funny. We each took a shotglass and sipped away. I had to be careful pouring out the cider because it was still in the original jug - I didn't siphon it off like the instructions said I should. This just meant I needed to keep an eye on all the debris that was floating at low levels in the jug. I think I said something along the lines of, "I'm a ... genius." Pretty proud of the taste, we convinced our significant others to partake as well. This was followed by my brother and the originators of this fine Michigan cider.

I have no idea the alcohol content in it, but on the test subjects, a few of us got color in our faces after about 3-4 oz, and one or two reported some lightheadedness similar to a light buzz. It has a lot of bubbles to it, similar to champagne. That will be the biggest challenge because it limits what I can bottle it in. The last thing I want is more exploding glass in the house like back on New Year's. Plans to limit bubbles in my next batch are already in the works, but I'm not really sure how to do that yet. I'm going to try wine yeast for starters to change things up. Also, the temperature might limit how much escapes in the process versus how things act once it's poured. Anyhow, that's the short and very sweet on how I made hard apple cider in the fridge.