Benz0.com

It’s been two months since the last time I even looked at this site. I told my self when I started this little project that if I ever got to the point where I wasn’t posting at least once every few weeks, I would just stop and tare the fucker down. I haven’t done that yet, which means I’m a dirty liar. Lying to myself too, thats pretty terrible. Worst of all, I don’t even really have a great reason for my absence.

In reality, I have a half decent reason why I haven’t been writing on here lately. The reason is that until recently, anything decent that I wanted to say I couldn’t because of some binding agreements. But now, the truth comes out. A few weeks ago my company was acquired by a bigger company. Don’t worry, it’s mostly good news. I’ll still keep my job, and I even got a promotion. I’ve had the opportunity to do some traveling for the company as well. For some reason they think I’m important enough to the success of the product that they sent me all the way to Silicon Valley to bigger company headquarters to train some folks. It wasn’t a very fun trip, but it was valuable experience and I’d do it again for sure if I had the opportunity. This weekend is another work related trip, though this time Jen and Noe get to come along. We’re taking a nice leisurely 8 hour drive to Ann Arbor, to look for a place to live. Thats right, I’m probably moving for work. Odds are I’ll be picking up sticks some time next spring and taking the family to the midwest. Should be loads of fun, and a great adventure…hopefully.

Looks like thats about all I have time for right now. I’ll try to post some more details next week.

~benz0

I finally broke down and got an iPhone on Sunday. I’ve been wanting to buy one since the new 3G iPhone was released but I hadn’t because of my contract with sprint. My contract expires this month so I decided it was time to switch. I love my new phone! It’s tons of fun and really handy. I can’t see that this is a tool that I’ll be using much but i’ve installed a blogging app for my iPhone that let’s me post directly to my site. So this is the first and probably last post that I’ll make from my phone. But I had to do it at least once.

~benz0

When I first heard that one of my good friends had enlisted in the Navy, I thought to my self, “Self, what kind of crazy fuck enlists in the Navy…during a war…in his late 20’s?” Then I realized that it was Ninja and the questions just sort of stopped there.

I supposed in order to understand the answer to my question you just sorta have to know Ninja. But to be honest I think a lot of us do know him (both figuratively and literally). Ninja is the guy who is always there when you need help moving. He’s the only one of my friends who has helped me move either into or out of every place I’ve ever lived in after I left my parents. He’s also the guy who you can count on to offend your parents if thats the sort of thing you need, though typically only by request. He is also the guy that you call if you ever need to have a good time in a hurry, or need your party to liven up in a hurry.

Ninja is a self proclaimed martial arts bum. Though I had no concept of what that meant before I met him, I soon found out that it entailed living with your brothers, in a house that hasn’t been cleaned since 1972, spending every free dime on either weapons or conventions (nerdcon’s and/or martial arts seminars). Martial arts bums are also apparently continuously unemployed or under-employed and will, from time to time, brag about their work as carnies. Living on credit and through the generosity of others is a big part of the martial arts bum life style, though he will always be eager to pay back debts that he may never have even accrued. Though his body is a temple, alcohol abuse, profanity, and random sexual encounters are not out of the question for the martial arts bum, and are often celebrated with friends later over a beer (or several).

So it appears that the kind of crazy fuck who would enlist in the Navy during a war and in his late 20’s is my good friend Ninja. Who will soon be and unstoppable force with his military training and structure.

Today is the day that Ninja ships off to the Navy. Finally laying the groundwork for his legacy, and preserving our right to aspire to be martial arts bums.

Good Luck Ninja! Take care of your self, and all of us.

~benz0

Or at least some of you anyway, but regardless, the end is neigh. The harbinger of our doom will be, as expected, science. Death goes by many names, but specifically The Large Hadron Collider that sits about 100 m below Geneva will be the flavor of hemlock that will poison our Earth Mother. Just one day from today the fancy new gadget will launch it’s first beam of subatomic particles and then life as we know it will come to an end.

So it’s been nice knowing most of you, I look forward to pretty much nothing at this point. But look on the bright side, at least Ninja won’t have to ship out to the Navy on Monday

~benz0

About a month ago my brother-in-law came to help me brew my first batch of beer. We made two batches and intended to split the beer between the two of us. With approximately 10 gallons of beer it works out to about two cases of beer per person. The following is a brief rundown on the process.

Jeff made the choices for the beer, and since he is the seasoned veteran brewer that he is I yielded to his expertise. He decided on an Oktoberfest, using a Lager Yeast and a Winter Warmer using a Pilsner yeast. With out going into too many details, I’ll say that the four hours that we spent brewing consisted of boiling water, stirring hops and malt, boiling more water, doing more stirring, and lots of cleaning of buckets and implements and most of all sterilization of EVERYTHING. After all was said and done we weren’t sure how well it would turn out because the Pilsner yeast wasn’t activating as well as Jeff had hoped, but we kicked everything off, sealed up the fermenters and threw them down in my basement to sit for a few months. The next day when I checked on the two batches the bung had popped out of the Oktoberfest and shot across the room. I cleaned it, sterilized it, and put it back on the fermenter and hoped for the best.

After about a month of fermenting, today it was finally time to bottle the first batch. When we popped the lid of the Oktoberfest it smelled and looked fantastic. It was a nice dark amber color and I got so excited by the smell that I couldn’t wait to try some. Unfortunately it’s not quite ready yet but it’s in the last stage. All together it took us nearly an hour to bottle slightly over two cases of beer today. Two more weeks and the beer will be ready for consumption. I intend to give about half of the case away to a friend and my dad, and then hopefully I can take the rest of the case to work with me to share with the guys there. I’m really excited for the finished product though, it should be a delight to drink.

The Winter Warmer will take more time to ferment. It’s been going for a month now and it will continue to ferment for another two months. We are going to try to bottle it around Halloween so that it’s ready for the middle of November. It should be a nice dark beer to warm me up after a hard night of shoveling snow, or with a nearly 10% alcohol content it will probably just take the edge off after coming home from work.

I’ll be sure to let you know how it all turns out.

~benz0