Home Brew Adventures

Well, after too much time I've decided to launch into another Home Brewing Adventure. This time I am going to two meads. A three gallon batch of Raspberry and a one gallon mini-batch of a spiced Christmas mead. I purchased an additional carboy and some champagne yeast at Docs (the local home brew store) this week and once Steph goes berry picking I will have fresh raspberries too! Hopefully I will have something brewing within the next week. In the meantime I have begun to sketch some plans for building wine racks to install in my basement closet, soon to be wine cellar.

If you have any plans for easy to build wine racks (or cheap temp. control solutions) let me know!

The Invincible God

Many people have shower revelations. I have bathtub reflections.

A couple mornings ago I as sitting in the bathtub reflecting on the "invincibility" of God. My thoughts came down to two questions; 1. how has our culture and our need to vindicate ourselves in front of our culture shape the way we think about the attributes/character of God? and 2. how has this influenced our reading of the biblical texts?

Stopping short of blasphemy, I tend to think that we adopted an "invincible" notion God as a way to protect ourselves.

Mead Update

i racked my mead for the first time about three weeks ago. it was beginning to clarify, and fermentation was definitely slowing down. after a couple of days i noticed clearish white flecks beginning to develop on the top - i knew it wasn't mold, but it didn't seem like natural proteins either. after consulting the local home brew store, i determined my mead had been plagued by the flowers of wine - most likely because of too much head space in the carboy. i immediately treated it with a double dose of crushed campden tablets and racked again. it has been about 10 days since the second racking, and the mead is perfectly clear. ideally i would have liked to let it age like this, but i'm thinking i will bottle early due to my flowers of wine problem. such a beautiful name for such an ugly disease...

Oktoberfest

well, since it is the end of october, i thought i should try to get one post in. free time is somewhat of a commodity these days as steph and i work on the house to get it ready for move-in.

i've always loved october. weather just cool enough to need a jacket, but not so cold it bites. the red, yellow, and orange of the leaves. apple cider, pumpkin beer, and ginger snaps. hayrides, halloween, and high school sports.

it is the russet season, the harvest time. the soil prepares itself for rest, and we prepare ourselves for winter - the grey season. a season of coldness, of hardness, but yet a season of hope. and we are reminded now in a season of plenty, that though the hard days are before us, they also bring us the hope of humanity.

cheers.

Lost Dog

since it's restaurant week in binghamton, steph and i decided to check out the Lost Dog Cafe, a place we've wanted to try since we moved up here. we got there at 8(pm) and the place was packed. we got the last available seat.

the decor was what you might expect. bare brick, open ceiling, and artsy furnishings. but what made it all work was the assortment of japanese lanterns hanging from the ceiling. from big globes throughout the eatery to the squares and ovals over the bar, these fixtures gave the place that 'unique' feel.

the food was great. steph and i each ordered dessert. steph tried the flour-less chocolate cake, which was so rich i had to help her finish it. i had the 'geisha' - a dessert sushi made primarily of deep fried cheescake. it was delicious, and with my penchant for deep frying on my own i've decided to undertake trying it at home in the fry-daddy.

if you're looking for a classy place to spend an evening out, the Lost Dog Cafe is an excellent choice.

'Get Low'

last night steph and i decided to go see a movie. nothing decent was playing in either of the mainline theaters, and we had already seen everything the cinema saver had to offer. so we decided to go to the old Art Mission Theater in Binghamton. if you haven't been there, it's right across the parking lot from the Kilmer building, behind the Firestone shop.

The Art Mission Theater is a small boutique theater with two screens that typically play a wide variety of films. of course, the fact that it is also an art gallery gives the theater its name.

steph and i decided to see 'Get Low,' which is a film about an old man named Felix Bush. Bush is a social recluse and has lived on his on three hundred acre property by himself for forty years. throughout the film the audience is given hints of what caused him to become a hermit, but it is not until the end that it is revealed.

without spoiling the story, i can say that the title says it all - Get Low. a film filled with themes of forgiveness, redemption, and guilt i highly recommend it. and if you get to see it at the Art Mission Theater, that is an added bonus.

new project

in conjunction with this blog, i am starting a new one titled 'life is liturgy.' i know, i know, it's not like i can hardly keep this one up and running, much less have time to pursue any serious readership. but, as you may have noticed from sporadic posts, the idea of life as liturgy is one that i find deeply profound. here is the thesis of my new blog: "the idea of life as liturgy is one that has haunted me for several years now. at the core, the idea is simple; that the daily ebb and flow of life constitutes a rhythm of ritual that entwining the body, mind, and soul in such a way as to transform life into liturgical action."

check it out and feel free to offer your own contributions!