You Have Spoken!!

A couple of weeks ago we had a poll as to what hair color Angie should try next. Well, by a vast majority you said pink, and what do you know, she is now sporting the pink do. And looking quite hot in it I might add.

Should I??

I received this email from Teddy (see Parenting II below) the other day. This leads me to the pole question...

"Since i was a non smoker when i moved in. and now I'M unfortunately a smoker. what if. during the aweful, cruel, brutally and painfully cold winter i only smoked inside the office next to the window while the window is open. and make sure lots of insence is burnt in this room, and when guests are over i tell them there'S no smoking inside so it won'T become 'Bar like' to ensure that only i smoke in the house every couple of hours in the event that its raining or so painfully cold it hurts to go out. until i quit smoking again..... just a question. your approval matters, seeing as to how your the thoughtful and supportive landlord you are. let a nigga know."

Lone Wolf Body Art Christmas Card

A Few Of My Favorite Things

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics by Ozzy Nelson

Large black round gauges and
Beards without staches
Walls decorated with
Nudes and with flashes
Young hard bodied coeds
Wanting belly button rings
These are a few of my favorite things
Niko with coffee and
Bob Dylan blaring
Customers hurting and
Artists not caring
Tattoo an armpit and
Damn it sure stings
These are a few of my favorite things
When Brandon’s late
When Tim B. glares
When Teddy gives me the bird
I just remember Lone Wolf Tattoo
And I feeeeel sooooo WORD

Top Ten Disturbing Things That Were Said While Setting Up an Air Mattress With My Father-In-Law

Thanksgiving at the inlaws means you have make shift sleeping arrangements. Setting up the air mattress with a 73 year old man can yield some entertaining comments.

10. Is it in far enough?
9. Feel it. Is it hard enough yet?
8. It isn’t going to work if you don’t keep it pushed up in there.
7. You have to use a certain size thing to stick in.
6. Do we need to try to stick it in the other hole?
5. This one isn’t getting it done like the other one was.
4. Do you have something to punch through this membrane?
3. Its supposed to hold it in there while you screw this thing on.
2. This hole is too big, its gonna leak out.
1. Let me get on my knees before you pull it out.

Parenting II - Land lording

I was wakened by a call on my cell at 3:30 Sunday morning, it was Teddy Monster, one of my renters. Teddy was more than slightly inebriated. He commences to tell me how much he appreciated me and that he was quite frustrated with his work situation at present. He explained that he was telling his girlfriend Angela about his woes at work and he kicked the oven in his house breaking the glass in the door. (When you break the glass in an oven door, its like breaking a car door window. There are 100,00 pieces that you continue to find a year after the "accident.") Anyway, drunk Teddy tells me he doesn't know how he's going to do it, but he's gonna buy me a new range. Being the caring person that I am, I tried to get him to tell me more about his job situation, but he ignored me.

I visited them the following day to survey the damage. He had done a number on the oven door. I asked his girlfriend, Angela, if she approved of his calling at 3:30 am, she said she didn't. I asked what she was doing while he was babling to me on the phone she said, "cleaning." This week Teddy is on the hunt for a new oven door and is sorry and feels like "an ass". Angela is not planning on roasting a turkey next week.

Parenting

Sometimes you can't help but be proud of your kids for thinking outside of the box. Wyatt is in 4th grade. His artistic abilities may be in question, but he certainly knows how to get straight to the point in the spelling exercise where the student is supposed to draw a picture that represents the word. Unfortunately, his teacher counted off for Wyatt's pictoral description of the word "rear" in #4. Her comment being, "didn't discuss this definition!"

Hmmm

Gotta make some more beer tonight because our latest batch spoiled. I want to cry when I have to pour 5 gallons of love and hard work on to the compost pile. I am 90% sure that our problem is with the liquid yeast we are using. I tasted a little of it after I poured out our latest batch and it was bad. So, we will now use dry yeast only.

On a more happy note, I began growing my moustache for Moustache May this week. You find out who your true friends are when you have a luxurious moustache.

My first velvet painting arrived last week. The Great Brandini has agreed to display my collection at his new office.

Beer Making

A wise man once said, ""Brewers enjoy working to make beer as much as drinking beer instead of working." I have to agree. I made my first batch of beer ten or so years ago, then quit because the bottling was too much of a hassle and I didn't have a partner to enjoy the process with. Then, I met Shularbrau. He told me the secret of carefree brewing is to keg your beer instead of bottling. I felt as if I were a college student who was forbidden from taking her car to school and her parents suddenly changed their minds. Free of bottle washing, rinsing, filling, capping and washing again.
I made my first batch - alone. The beer was good, and Pam loved it, but I needed to share the brewing experience with someone equally as enthusiastic. Then, Scott and Katherine came along. Scott is easy to get along with, is all about beer making, and not only that, he has nice boobies (that was a joke).
We have made more than a few batches and have committed a few very serious errors. But we have come through with something we are proud of.
Our goal is to make relatively inexpensive, easy to drink beer that tastes good. We use the same basic formula each time, but we change the variety of hops and yeast to make each batch taste unique. We have written detailed recipes a couple of times and each time it came out tasting like crap, so we quit doing that.
Our basic formula is as follows this batch cost in the $50 range and makes 5 gallons (2 cases):

1. Get the yeast going with about 2 cups of lukewarm water and 3 tbs light malt or honey. Cover it.
2. Boil 3.5 gallons of water - we boil outside on a propane turkey fryer
3. Add 3lbs Dry Amber Malt, 1 lb Dry Light Malt and 2lbs Honey
4. Wait till it boils again and don't let it boil over (that is a mayday)
5. When it begins boiling, add .5 oz of boiling hops (hops with alpha acid > 6%)
6. Look at the time and continue to boil
7. Wait 30 minutes continue to boil
8. Add a dash of Irish Moss to help clear the brew
9. Wait 10 more minutes continue to boil without boiling over
10. Add one oz finishing hops (hops with alpha acid <>
11. Wait 5 more minutes and continue to boil
12. Take wort (not yet beer) off heat and put it in a big sink full of ice water to quickly cool.
13. Add a 2 gallons of cold water to the pot of wort
14. Wait until wort is 80 degrees F and rack (siphen) to a sanitized 7.5 gallon bucket.
15. Pitch (add) the yeast
16. Cover the wort with lid and top with an airlock
17. Let it bubble at room temp for 1 week
18. Rack to glass carboy
19. Let it bubble at room temp for 1 week - at this point it shouldn't be bubling much
20. Rack to keg
21. Add 2 cups corn sugar. Put about 10lb co2 pressure on top of keg and ensure that there are no air leaks.
22. The sugar will ferment in the keg and will naturally carbonate the batch
23. Wait 6 days.
24. Refrigerate Keg
25. Wait 1 day
26. Hook up Co2 tank
27. Drink
28. Drink more

This is where I start...

My wife Pam is out of town taking care of her mother, so now is a good time to start this thing.

Cell phones are a wonderful invention, but I am hacked that no one calls them out on how non-green they are. Hey, I'm not a tree hugger by any stretch, but this is obscene. My dog ate one of my phone chargers and my daughter lost the other one for this phone. My bride took the third to her mother's with her. No problem right? I have a drawer full of old chargers. None of the damn things fit into the hole in my girly phone. Don't tell me Samsung can't make one bloody charger for all of their phones and sell the cords separately. They do sell the cords separately now, but I don't want to pay $32 when I have a drawer full of Samsung chargers. I'm sure phone chargers will soon overtake disposable diapers and telephone books as the items that take up the most room in the landfills. So, maybe they can't put the same little female hole on each phone. Well, if you can't do that, then you should have a small device that adapts that phone to the standard. I asked the guy at the phone store if they had such a device. "No, you have to buy the whole cord." Of couse.
So, I acquiesce and buy the $32 charger, and the guy says, "do you have a blue tooth?" I reply, "were you going to throw one in for the purchase of this charger?" Of course not. He just wants me to buy one. I told him if I could use one of my chargers out of my drawer, maybe I would have the resources to buy one.
Problem solved. I now have a phone charger. Getting in my car (which is kind of my daughter's car, but she is in college and I won't let her drive it there) I hear the distinct sound of a seam ripping. I have ripped a 4 inch hole in the butt of my pants. I haven't been to work yet and it's 10:00, so I go on in. I give Pam a call just to share my predicament. She can't believe i'm not going home. I am very committed to my company and my job. I'm going in.
At the door, I ask a coworker, which is also a coworkers wife if she can tell I ripped my pants. "Oh no, you are fine", she says. I'm feeling a little breeze, so I have to get a second opinion. I ask two more friends and they say for sure you can tell. Well, I was going to lunch at 11:00 so I'll just sit at my desk the rest of the afternoon.
I am getting in the car to meet some friends for lunch and I hear that now familiar ripping sound. Oops. Now there is a huge rip in the seat of my pants. Ironically I'm meeting my friends at the CRACKer Barrell.