News and mead

Truer words have never been spoken

All right people, New Years Eve is almost upon us. Those end of year lists and those looking back remembrances? Yeah, I'm sick of them too. Generally I like to avoid them. This guy with the laser beam stare is Henry Rollins. He was the lead singer for a punk group called Black Flag. He has his own show on satellite radio. Occasionally you'll see Henry turn up on the big screen. Last I saw of him was on Sons of Anarchy. Henry is one all around bad ass and I admire the man greatly.
This picture was floating around on my hard drive and I put it up for no reason other than it's cool.

Spent all day bottling my metheglin, or dry mead. It is about as simple a recipe as you can get. I would go so far as to say that it is the equivalent of Rice Krispie treats in terms of making. When it hits the tongue, the flavor is slightly sweet. As you swallow it, the crispness rolls over your pallet. I recommend serving it chilled.
I also have over Twenty-three bottles.

I'm gonna need a bigger wine rack

If you enjoy white wine, you will definitely enjoy this drink. Now I need to make labels. This was an all day task. Soaking and scrubbing the labels off the bottles. Then cleaning them inside and out. Finally sterilization, siphoning and corking the bottles. My friends come out of the woodwork whenever I announce it's ready. New rule: if you show up to help me brew or bottle it, you are entitled to enjoy it with me. Special thanks to my lovely wife who helped me get though bottling day. She also made the labels. Now we need to print them up.

Cards for Christmas

I'm going to make this a quick one while the girls get the dishes taken care of. One of the traditions in our house is the girls get to choose between two books for me to read before sending them off to bed on Christmas eve. The first is 'The Night Before Christmas', by Clement C. Moore. This particular edition is illustrated by Mary Engelbreit. I think the whole book is wonderful. Maybe it's just me but Santa on the cover looks suspiciously like Jerry Garcia.
I never get tired of reading that poem. Each time I get up in front of my audience, I find something new in it that just makes me feel warm inside.
The second choice is 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas', by Dr. Suess. Another classic that will never get old.
Tonight we played a card game called Five Crowns. The beautifully illustrated cards will do their best to keep you from concentrating on the game itself. A simple rummy-style came with ever changing wild cards. This game is good because it helps my youngest with her math skills although she doesn't know it. My middle daughter the card shark actually managed to remain scoreless for nearly the entire game. 
I have a feeling there is going to be a rematch tomorrow after presents and possibly before I make pancakes.
Merry Christmas one and all!

Winter Solstace

It wasn't that the day was short, the sun never truly showed it's face. It was dark enough to turn on the Christmas lights at 4:30. My intention was to write this over the course of a few hours, however life had other plans. My oldest daughter arrived on Greyhound from Colorado. Just in time for Christmas. They always come home and for that I'm grateful.
Last post I stuck a lot of links in. Some right next to each other which is a no-no, but there's a lot going on and we are becoming part of a weird and wonderful world.
Bionic men like myself are not behaving like disabled people. For those of you joining us this evening, I detest that word, disabled. It's an ugly word. Society expects me to behave a certain way and my life should be curtailed to a cultural norm.
Fuck that shit.
Last night I got a notice somebody bought my book. Last month a dear friend overseas bought a copy. I felt ashamed because I've been working on it and she didn't buy the tighter, stronger, improved version. To my chagrin, I had to take the old version down. Createspace and Amazon were nice as far as self-publishing goes, but I soon lost patience wrestling with the format. As of this writing I can't get the margins and the bleed to cooperate. This results in sentences being cut off, chapters sliced and general shoddy appearance. I won't allow that. I turned off the distribution channels and there it will sit, until we can get this sorted out. If you were to look up Travelers Road under my name, it would show you the books are sold out. That much is true. I will be submitting TR to another publisher before the year is out, never fear. With it being professionally edited and much leaner, we may be seeing it again soon.
My mead proceeds. 

Beginning

Middle

There's another picture in here, but it doesn't want to load properly. By properly, I mean doing what I want it to.

Almost the end?

I find it fascinating with the color change in just a few weeks. I was worried that this might not be ready in time for my sister's birthday in a couple of weeks. This might come in just under the wire. More likely than not, I'll be bottling this on her birthday. Almost time to fire up the label maker.
There is another person who is defying the norm. The video I'm going to try to load and or link to is an singer named Viktoria Modesta.
Confession time. I have no idea what she sounds like. My kids say she's not bad. I looked up the lyrics and thought they were kind of lame, but a lot of songs when they're laid out on paper look a bit on the dull side. We can't all be Bohemian Rhapsody.
Here is what I see. A beautiful girl who is bravely defying conventional norms. She's not talented because of her leg. She's talented despite her leg. 
I pointed this out a long time ago. In a retail store that employs hundreds, I can go nearly a full day without people talking to me. Oh yeah, I tested that one out. We're nearly invisible. After a quick search, (my Google-fu is strong.) it turns out there are a number of authors who are deaf. Seems I'm in good company.

Target rich enviorment

With so much in the news lately, I can't help but have trouble choosing what to point out. There were good things. Also, not so good things. Things that made me say, finally! and events that made me have hope for us wee humans. I can't say we've solved all our problems, but we're getting better at it, and that's promising. From the I'm-not-dead department. The Kepler telescope is back on track, sort of.  And proof we don't know everything.

There is life out among the stars. The odds are surprisingly in our favor of finding life. We're discovering life in the deepest recesses of our own planet. Is it just me or can anybody see the similarities of exploring the bottom of the ocean and the solar system? The probes that we use to explore the Marinara trench would be equally effective when we get around to exploring Europa. I'm fairly certain that was a story by Asimov or Heinlein, somebody comment on this if they remember the title of the story. Personally I think the two fields share similar obstacles. Pressure, gravity, exploration, funding. 

As far as North Korea goes, I'm reminded of a pearl of wisdom from J.K. Rowling, Tyrants fear the population they oppress. Despite it being 60 odd years into the Kim regime, something inside tells me we might see the words Korean Spring in our future. Kim Jong-un has a unique opportunity. He can follow in the footsteps of his father and continue to self-impoverish his country, or he could pull a Mikhail Gorbachev and do a Korean version of Glasnot. The world does not abide a hermit kingdom. Choose wisely Mr. Kim.

CRomnibus?

CRomnibus sounds like a weird name, huh? Well, let me put it as best as I understand it. An omnibus bill is nothing more than a spending plan for the government when everyone agrees how the money should be spent. It tells us how much is going to which agency and department. The CR part is simply a Continuing Resolution when they can't agree. So they're telling us that they can't come to a deal on how to spend the money for the next fiscal year. So we have a budget that no one is happy about. Par for the course.
I was happy about the bill, then two heartbeats later I hated the bill. First understand the bill is 1,600 pages long. Some of it I approve of, such as increased spending for NASA. There are some other stuff in there that makes me sick, like increasing the amount of campaign donations a person or corporation can give or did you know there's another bailout for Wall Street in there?
Nobody wants another shutdown, which is why the lawmakers did what they did.
I'm beyond annoyed there were so many pork riders attached to that bill. This is why we can't have good things people.

In the brace for impact department, the Texas ledge is considering repealing the ban on open carry firearms. However,  An open carry advocate has already second ammendmented her family.  By their very definition, these people are not responsible or intelligent.
Things will not go well from here. I know a lot of responsible gun owners. They're against the open carry laws. There is a four hour course and license you have to get for a concealed weapon permit. That's not good enough for these bullies who want to terrorize the average person while they do their holiday shopping.
I've met these rednecks too, we all have. These guys think owning and brandishing a weapon makes them powerful and important. When I see them there is only one thing to do. Make fun of them. 

Too late for a photo opportunity

My wife and youngest child piled into the car on Saturday. One of my wife's cousins was tying the knot over in Houston. It seemed pretty straight forward and we made it with just under an hour to spare. Houston traffic is notorious, but with a little timing we managed to avoid the worst of the rush hour snarls. As we were closing on the final mile to the wedding, we passed Johnson Space Center. Yes, that Space Center. Of course it was on NASA parkway. I didn't think to stop and get a picture as we drove past. Then it was so late when we went by it again, I thought we might drive by it the next morning. Whoops. The best laid plans of mice and men...
I know, I know, pics or it didn't happen. I must be some kind of dork or something because I don't whip out my camera every thirty seconds. What surprised me was that it was so close to the bay. We're talking about less than a mile from the harbor where the wedding took place. Yes, the wedding pictures had a lot of sailboats and docks in the background. It was a nice touch. Very classy. I keep promising myself to go on a little research expedition to all the places I read and write about. A tour of the back roads and byways. Life is more than what you see outside the car window as you dash down the freeway. It's all right to take the back road and the long way around. We discover some of the neatest stuff that way.
A little over a week until Christmas. Is your shopping done? I'm thinking of stockpiling foodstuffs because the grocery is so jam packed. Not only do I try my best to avoid the malls after Black Friday, I only do my grocery shopping very late at night or early in the morning. Those places are crazy. I'd rather be in my pajamas with a mug of coffee or hot cocoa, not venturing out to test my blood pressure.

That feeling again

Last post I was going to mention some stuff that happened earlier in the week, but got side tracked with all the space stuff.
It was 35 years ago on December 8th that John Lennon was assassinated. I was only 12 at the time. Do you remember where you were when you heard the news?
I'd discovered the Beatles from my parents record collection as well as listening over the radio. That's where I was, getting dressed for school and the announcement came over the radio. I was shell shocked for the remainder of the day, in some ways I still am. He touched a lot of people and still does. A few years back, we bought that Beatles Rock Band game. My kids enjoyed it so much, even my oldest who quipped, 'Dad, these songs make sense!'
Yes, dear, they do.
The man who shot him will be up for parole in 2016, but I don't think he is ever going to see the light of day. I really don't want to mention his name, seeing as he did what he did for notoriety. So by burying his name is my little way of saying, 'fuck you bastard.'

My latest brewing experiment proceeds apace. A couple of posts ago, I took a photo of the mead right after I transferred it to the secondary carboy. Here we are five days later.

Does this make be look fat?

Notice the color change and the yeast starting to form on the bottom. If I've done this right, it will look like white wine in color and consistency when done. The readings I took when I started indicated this will be around 14 to 15 percent alcohol. The last batch I made didn't taste alcoholic at all. It simply crept up on you like a ninja. The drinker never suspects a thing.
Hopefully this will clear up by the end of January and I'll bottle it. While every thing I've been able to read says it will be ready to drink at that time, several forums suggest that I store the mead for a year to let it mellow in the bottle. Hmm... let me get back to you on that one.

New viewers

A couple of people asked me to give them the link to my blog. That was right after they said, 'I didn't know you could spell.' Ha ha, thanks guys.
So for new viewers, here are some of the guidelines.
I try and not use individual names. Gotta protect my friends and conserve what little privacy I have.
Public figures and politicians are fair game. If you're stupid, I will call you out. Some other guidelines to go by:
My rights end where yours begins.
Treat people the way you want to be treated.
Don't be jealous of other people's success.
Do no evil, or, don't be a dick.
Never refuse home made brownies.
Beware of fast talkers.
Watch out for the little guy who thinks he has nothing to lose.
Talk to a friend.
Too much of anything is bad for you.
Be slow to trust, but steadfast in friendship.
Let go of the negative feelings.
Volunteer at least once a year.
Donate blood.
Vote.
Speak your mind, but be prepared to back your view up.
Have a garage sale.
Be honest.
You're stronger than you think.
If afraid or uncertain, fake it. No one can tell the difference.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

In two weeks the whole family will be together. My intrepid adventurer will be home from Colorado for Christmas break. To that end we are getting ready for her arrival, both on the outside.

And inside was well

Be that as it may, I have to get busy wrapping presents and I spent the morning doing this.

It may not look like much  now, but over the next month that is going to change color and appearance. Yes, I can see where I'm going to start giving bottles of mead out as presents. Note to self: make some labels.

In other news, the New Horizons spacecraft is coming out of hibernation as it approaches Pluto. Brush off your science books, they are about to be rewritten. This is the fun stuff for me. As our knowledge of the universe around us increases, so our understanding changes. Now here's the interesting part. Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet years ago, like Ceres and Vesta. When we launched New Horizons nine years ago, we had just figured out Pluto had a moon. In 2005, 2011, and 2015 we discovered the other moons. Talk about changing your flight plan. As fantastic as discovering five moons can be, another couple of problems unfolded. Charon, Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos have enough mass to effect Pluto. In fact the current theory talked about is Charon and Pluto are tidally locked to each other. Here's a page where they are counting down to the closest approach to Pluto.
Here's the second problem. New Horizons is going fast. How fast?
Try 58,536 km per hour. And it still took a little over nine years to get out there. Pretty impressive, huh? Except it can't slow down. It will be taking pictures and recording information as much as it can, but the actual time in the Pluto system will be about two hours. If all goes well, it will use Pluto's gravity to help point it toward one or two objects in the Kuiper belt. Proto planets, if you will. Don't worry, they were only discovered last year.
Things are so far away, we are only beginning to discover them. Scientists are also getting better at figuring out orbits. The link to Sedna I provided above indicates it would take 10,000 years to  go around the sun. There are other indicators that are making the scientific community scratch their collective heads.
The math doesn't add up.
Sedna's orbit and rotation would indicate it had a moon, but so far they haven't seen it. When a planetary body behaves oddly, an outside force is typically suspected. That's how they found Neptune and Pluto. Uranus was behaving oddly. Scientists in the late 19th century had plotted the orbits for Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. The only problem was Uranus wasn't where it was supposed to be. The math was correct, but nevertheless, Uranus failed to be where it should have been. An outside force must be acting on what was then considered to be the last planet in the solar system. Using the information available, scientists theorized an unknown planet would be in such and such a general area, and they did eventually discover Neptune, but it wasn't behaving properly either. It seems Newtonian law is a bit on the thin side at the edge of the solar system.
Actually Newton's laws worked, but the Sun's pull was reduced and influenced by the planetary bodies exerting their own dance of gravity. It took several teams of scientists on two continents looking through photographic plates in the beginning of the 20th century. At first they didn't recognize what they were seeing, but Pluto was eventually discovered in 1930. Now flash forward to the dawn of the 21st century where we are discovering satellites around the not-quite-a-planet. And we are discovering more.
The universe is a lot stranger than we think.

Oh boy!

In the about damn time department. The Orion spacecraft is due for it's maiden launch in two days.
Here's what's going to happen. It's a two orbit shakedown to test the rocket's systems. In addition to checking out the radiation shielding and the two stage rockets, Orion is heading to an altitude of 5,800 kilometers. That's higher than humans have been in quite a while. Here's a list of the itinerary.
When Orion launches, it will look like it's on fire. That's because it is. The rocket is propelled by liquid hydrogen and right before liftoff, some hydrogen escapes near the engine bells. So when the count reaches zero and the engine fires, it really does. The surrounding air catches fire and scorch marks can be seen on the tanks. I think they did it that way to look cool.
Here's what the launch will look like.
This is all in preparation for the next big mission. NASA put dates on going to Mars and some asteroids. 
This is a short film called Wanderers by Erik Wernquist. I'm told Carl Sagan is narrating the feature. On the link I just provided there is another to Erik's page. There's a neat gallery and Erik provides some commentary. My only criticism is it's not captioned, but that's okay. I've been dreaming about exploring the stars since I was a kid, and it looks like we are finally getting around to it. Perhaps I won't make it to the moon, but my children or grandchildren will grow up knowing about the next wave of human colonization. As long as we humans are doing this now, within my lifetime, I can be at peace with it.