So I successfully defended my master's thesis in January, and just submitted a final copy of my thesis to the graduate school. I'll likely have that shiny crisp piece of paper to frame and hang up within about 6 months. I've started work on my PhD degree, although it's been a slow start, finishing up the thesis, revising a paper for publication, getting ready for two conferences in the next month. I'm busy, but I really can't complain, I've got a good life going down here in South Carolina and I'm happy.
I've recently had an addition to my family, a 1.5 year old pitbull named Riley. I picked her up from a rescue shelter in Greenville. She was really skinny and had a bad case of kennel cough when I picked her up. A week later she was back to get fixed, which went fine, two days later I adopted her. She's been here ever since, a bundle of energy and always excited to see me. She's somewhat well behaved, and learning the rules every day. Prevail is definitely helping me out on this one, he's kind of miserable sometimes though, since all he wants to do is relax, and Riley wants to jump around and spazz.
I've started renovating the kitchen of my house with my tax return money. Step one was building a closet to house the washer and dryer that were crudely located in the kitchen. When you did a load of laundry, you better be sure to either not be around, or turn the TV or music up to 11. They were really loud, which may be a hint that I need to get some new gear, but for now, they're in a closet and it's wicked quiet now, plus I have some extra space in there that I can use for storing pots/pans/etc. The next step is to modify the wall between the kitchen and the living room to make it more open. I haven't settled on exactly what I'm going to do yet, but it might involve moving or removing one of the doors (most likely the one to the carport) and removing a closet which is now obsolete with the addition of the new one.
And yes, there is a window in my closet. I might leave it there, I might take it out. What sucks about having it there is that I can't install any cupboards on the back wall, but it looks nice with the sun shining through it. I'll keep in it the back of my mind, and maybe I'll have made a decision by the time I do the finishing work around here.
Last, and certainly not least (if anything it's a save the best for last), I purchased all the required equipment for brewing my own beer! Propane burner, big kettle, mash tun, carboys, etc. All together about $200 invested in the equipment. I settled on a recipe, a La Fin du Monde clone, and picked up the ingredients. To end my day yesterday I decided to brew. I've learned that my setup needs some revisions. (WARNING: BEER JARGON AHEAD) The screen I bought to strain the wort from the mash gets clogged very easily, so it took me nearly 2 hours just to sparge the mash. I tried using a colander instead, which worked, but I got some grain into my wort, which isn't a huge issue, but it's not a desired attribute of the wort as it adds to tannin in the beer. On to the boil, the burner that I bought was equipped with some safety BS so I took that off, turns out the design needs it for the propane to burn right, however, this thing was $50 at Lowes and the pot alone is worth that. Speaking of the pot, after all the hops were added to the boil, it was time to cool and put it into fermentation. The appeal of this pot was that it has a spigot on the side of it. The spigot was easily clogged with the hops though, which made it difficult to transfer the wort. Regardless of all these complications.......I present, beer.....
About 5 gallons worth of it, which will be about 8-9% alcohol. Checked it this morning and it's bubbling, which means the fermentation is beginning and the yeast is active. BABY!!! A week later, this will get transferred to another carboy for secondary fermentation where it will sit for a couple weeks to finish up. Then it's bottling time!!
Well that's all for now, stay on the up and up. Come visit, it's nice down here, minus the recent tornadoes.
Love to everyone.
Adam
