Hopgoddess

Diamond Anniversary

2008-12-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, Friday December 5th, is the 75th Anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.

Some of its lingering after effects are screwed up State laws, organized crime, and uber-regressive taxes.

There is a nice article here. It contains a 1924 quote from H.L. Mencken:

Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favourite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished.

It had more than those 5 years to work its ill effects. About every 75 years the USA has a Temperance movement...today it's smoking that they're after. 75 years before Prohibition, they were painting the cordial glasses out of George Washington's hands as he toasted his troops.

As much as I don't like smoking around me, and I don't, I try to tolerate it much more nowadays. They will come after me-- a shooter, drinker, motorcycle rider-- when they are done with the smokers. I need to hang with them or I'll surely hang alone (c.f. Ben F.).

Great minds think alike

2008-05-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

VDH says that Tet wasn't Tet.

Basra, then, was hardly a Tet, but then Tet wasn’t a “Tet” either.

I said:

Now when someone tells you Iraq is another Vietnam you can tell them: Vietnam wasn't Vietnam, 'tard.

OK, well he said it better, and left off the "'tard" tag, and he has the great mind, but we sorta think alike.

Size doesn't matter

2008-04-08T06:03:00.001-07:00

Pictures of a 15 year old girl with her 11 month old neighbor and classmates. Course, the really weird part is those school uniforms.Go here for more info, but no explaination for those clothes.

Weekend survived

2008-04-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to have video on the blog for the first time, but it's going to take a little more time to hone my video editing skills. Not much hope of artistic video, but eventually video none the less.

Saturday was an awesome megabrew, which included a seafood buffet that was spectacular. We made a strange summer ale from Radical Brewing, so I guess being strange goes with the use of a book that claims being radical from the get go.

This good time brewing probably goes a long way towards explaining the match meltdown on Sunday. It started with me forgetting my holster rig and then going downhill from there.

Careful analysis revealed some good news in the debacle: my times went down and not just because I kept forgetting targets.

Weekend

2008-03-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

Brewing Saturday at Ice Harbor Brewing Co for a club megabrew (we take over the big system and distribute it among many carboys), and shooting an 8 stage match at Yakima on Sunday.

Woooooot!

Point Blank?

2008-03-24T19:20:00.001-07:00

Sometimes it all goes to hell and you have to resort to this:

U.S. Army photo by Spc. Laura M. Buchta

Tibet

2008-03-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

Usually in Seattle, I see "Free Tibet" bumper stickers. They live amongst other stickers that tell me that the car owner will never lift a finger to "Free" Tibet. More to it---they would actively oppose any US policy that would give the people of Tibet the tools to free themselves. Not that we would even try to give them tools.

The odds are that the people of Tibet will never be free, they will continue to be ethnically cleansed by the Han and other Chinese ethnic groups---just like countless other groups who had the misfortune to occupy land destined to be part of China over the past few thousand years---and the world will never complain too much. Someday, the Chinese people living in Tibet will be free; that I will predict.

No decisive battle will make the Tibet people free, only a long, long insurgency has a chance---and most insurgencies fail. Ten to fifteen years of frenetic anti-Chinese fighting would have to pass before success or failure could be determined.

If the people choose to do so, I say good luck to you. Also, I can give them the words of Winston S Churchill, slightly rewritten:

Death and sorrow will be the companions of your journey; hardship your garment; constancy and valor your only shield.

Bjork has done all she can by shouting your name at a concert in Shanghai, now blood will tell.

Terrible Day in History

2008-03-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

No, not the attack on Iraq---that was a pretty good day on balance---I'm talking about Halabja.

This is the 20th Anniversary of the chemical attack (NBC) that defined all the attacks on the Kurds. You can read about it here and here.

As the latter article points out, it's also the 5 year anniversary of the effort to free Iraq of that same monster. The protesters will be against his "illegal" removal. She offers an award to anyone brave enough to carry a sign about the other anniversary.

My fav quotes:

On March 16, 1988, Iraqi warplanes bombed the Kurdish town of Halabja with chemical weapons including sarin and mustard gas, targeting civilians as part of the Anfal campaign to rid Iraq of its Kurds. Five thousand — three-quarters of them women and children — died from the chemical cocktail. Children trying to rush home fell in the street, while the insidious gasses claimed those who cowered in basements from what they thought was a traditional bombardment. Thousands were left with chemical burns, blindness, cancers, birth defects, etc.

and...

But as the war protesters take to the streets today, they won’t be terribly concerned with the genocide that should have made the international community bring Saddam to his knees. While busy painting the U.S. as the cruelest of warmongers, they won’t remember Halabja. To do so would give others the impression that taking out Saddam was, indeed, completely justified.

Chemical Ali, who left quite a paper and audio and video trail, will hang soon, but they never even got around to prosecuting him about this one.

Time to get back on the bike

2008-03-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been using a full face helmet. That makes the above mistake uncomfortably unlikely.

I think it's safer to just put ones shirt on backwards if you want people to believe you got your head turned around.

Never have ridden a scooter. When young, they were unbearably sissy things that had to stay in foreign films. Now, I would overwhelm them, looking silly in head to toe leather as garnish. So, I will shuffle off my mortal coil, like as not, without ever having experienced the thrill.

Vrrrooom!

Up for Spring

2008-03-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

I've come out of my winter burrow and sniffed the air; I think it's safe to start blogging again.

More to the point, we've replaced the digital camera with a coolpix, which will hopefully be more reliable. The old one was reliable as long as it was taking pictures, but would conk out when it was inconvenient that it did so. Picture blogging should resume shortly.

Some catch-up posts to follow.

It's all relative

2008-01-02T21:00:00.000-08:00

Strangely, in the paradise that is Venezuela, 33 people are killed by violence each day. Yet, Chavez rules a Bolivarian society of the greatest interest to Sean Penn, et al.

In the Iraq quagmire, the rate is only half as much. I suppose the right people are being killed down south or they count less than half as much as Iraqis.

You know, if I heard an IED go off, that's who I'd get behind too.

Never Trust the Narrative

2007-12-17T22:28:00.000-08:00

Unless you are a military history buff (or practicing/theorizing professional) who has kept up in recent decades, or were there, you probably don't know anything about the Vietnam War. If you were paying attention to newspapers and television back in the day, you haven't got a clue. But the link above will point you in the right direction, and you won't even have to study up.

Now when someone tells you Iraq is another Vietnam you can tell them: Vietnam wasn't Vietnam, 'tard.

Bum Steer

2007-12-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

OK, on the left is the old Swedish Military insignia and the new on the right. You may notice that something has been removed at the request of some female soldiers.

Now, I'm all for women soldiers. They do tough jobs. But I don't think that women soldiers are lions with their nuts cut off. They would more be lionesses with short manes trimmed for fighting and killing.

However, the symbolism of knackering the Swedish Military was too good to pass up evidently.

Over the years, I would expect to see that ol' knackered lion just get fat and happy.

"Why does everyone laugh when I roar?" The old-prune lion cried.

Signposts

2007-12-06T18:49:00.001-08:00

The sign clearly indicates that one is not to bring guns into the public space beyond, even if one is legally entitled to do so. But some people just ignore the sign. They just want to shoot people, and it's best really if no one around can defend himself/herself. So, I'm sure the friendly signs were welcome to him. And maybe he was confused because the rifle he was carrying didn't really look much like the picture in the red slash. Anyway, the strategy works well because the sheep rarely look up.

There's a reason why you don't need to post keep-out signs around your average star system.

This is a sign of something. Polygamy would be much more manageable in heaven, of course.

And a sign that new (actually old) tactics are working in Iraq, are detailed (pdf) here.

What happened?

2007-11-11T16:57:00.000-08:00

I follow events from Iraq and Afghanistan by reading blogs maintained by people there. That's because I like military history and I like to learn about what's happening in those terms. People reading our popular media may have been surprised that things are going well for the moment and war coverage has moved recently to page 19.

Well, here's a summary of what's been going on since June or so. Her regular site is here, with more background material.

I often read that there's "no military solution" in Iraq, but rarely the other true statement that there's "no political solution" there either.

It's the same here too, except instead of "kinetic" assets, political fighting uses earmarks and other legal corruption of the process. That's what we hope for in Iraq too. We want all these people fighting for their little piece of the federal budget in their own country and not murdering us where we sleep and work.

Scar

2007-10-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, the HK 2000 SK, covers just a naughty bit of Britney and you, gentle reader, may be wondering why so little. Well, I wanted to leave her "bikini" scar. If she would just wear her bikini it would be completely covered. However, Britney is a mama twice over and I salute that. Granted her ex has enough money to drag her through court and take the kids away with an assist from the 24 hour coverage she gets and he doesn't.

But she gets the credit in my book. So I hope she finds a normal guy and makes some more. The world needs more babies and if Britney can take the time to do it, all the power girls can.

Full Disclosure: I need babies not to pay for my retirement a couple of decades from now...Britney, make sure you spend all their money so they have to work and don't just endow a bunch of tax dodges like the Kennedy clan.

Maybe, but it's a long shot

2007-10-12T17:04:00.000-07:00

Victor Davis Hanson, VDH, makes a plea:

So the next six months of this war are critical, both for the Iraqis and for the very future of our country as well. Who knows, perhaps Fox News can spotlight and profile one of these rare officers each week, just one captain, major or colonel — and maybe just one less blond high school teacher frolicking with her students?

Or, everyone can just look at the latest one of these:

Oh my God! Britney's got a hot H&K P2000SK! Sweeeeet!

The Girl in the Glass Booth

2007-09-08T21:07:00.000-07:00

In a time of plenty or want, someone, a shaman perhaps, led a party up a mountain. In tow were three special guests: a teenage girl, who probably counted as an adult woman, and two young children. They'd been given special dispensation to chew coca, officially only for the elite.

The three were dressed finely and the teenager had makeup to make her look even younger or more pleasing. The trio were plied with corn liquor to make them drowsy in the cold thin air and left in a cleft to die of exposure.

The mountain enveloped the three in a cold, airless embrace.

The remains of the two children are back in the lab getting studied, but the teen girl was judged to be of such transcendent quality that she was allowed to have visitors.

Only we look, she is remote, she is still given to the mountain. What do we see?

Farewell Beer Hunter

2007-08-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson, The Beer Hunter, has passed away.

I've sat with him at a table at the Great American Beer Festival, talking about beers from all over the world with passion and gusto. I was proud that he loved the beers we made at our brewery and trumpeted them on his web page and on Seattle radio show interviews. I felt like I'd let him down when our brewery went under.

At the GABF, I saw him diligently tasting beer and keeping notes all day, then drinking beer after hours with us brewer-folk, then saw him from outside the window as we limped back to our hotel room, leading a scotch tasting at the host hotel bar. Found out later there was spontaneous wine tasting until early hours after that. The next day, I saw him diligently tasting beer and keeping notes, working his way through many of the 400 plus beers on the festival floor. He was an inspiration.

He loved Belgian beers, as do I, though I've not tried as many as he.

He made a living writing about beer for 30 years. 'Nuff said.

Abbey brewers say that in Heaven there is no beer, that's why we drink it here. So:

Godspeed Michael, I'll do my best to help hold up this end---but I'll need some others to help out. A great spirit has risen from the earth, and we must fill in where we can.

Vacation in Tuva

2007-08-24T08:54:00.001-07:00

Feynman famously wanted to go to Tuva, and Putin is taking his vacation there. It's amazing that the president of Russia would consent to having vacation snaps of him showing off his 6-Pak, but maybe more amazing that a former KGB head wears a crucifix.

Summer in Siberia seems pretty nice.

Match Analysis

2007-08-14T03:04:00.000-07:00

If you win matches, like Rob Leatham, match analysis is pretty simple. In my case, I have to resort to statistics to see if I did well or not.

USPSA matches are free form and can be wild, but your classification is based on standard exercises. In the beginning, I was much better at the standard exercises (not everyone is) and so my rating outpaced my general match ability---still does in Limited 10. I shot Area 1 in Limited, however, and that big Division is a good test of how much I've improved in non-standard courses of fire (or not).

My rating is 53.57% and I shot 52.25% so that's 97.54%. There were seven Grand Masters, so my average will count as another classifier.

In summary, I didn't have a great match, but I shot almost to my ability measured over a year's length with standard exercises. I didn't let the pressure of the match get to me. In fact, I had to do a reshoot on a stage that I only was down a point on because of a timer/official error. I'd been reading some books before the tournament that stressed that the shooter should only have positive thoughts. I therefore focused on the opportunity to pick up that point. Amazingly, I picked up the point---an upper A-zone hit---and bettered my time. There may be something to this positive focus thing.

Chrono Spider Bites, Prez Vanishes

2007-08-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

It's election time for USPSA, the shooting organization that will allow even me to join. The Prez is standing for election again with pretty stiff competition. So, I imagine he thought he should pop up to the Area 1 Championships and put on a good show to improve his elect-ability quotient.

Most of the big wigs just blow into town and do a shoot through, i.e. muscle on to squad after squad. Then, toss off a few hand smooches to the hoi poloi and head for the airport.

The Prez would have won too--looks great, he's winning matches, beating seven other Grand Masters, and leading our organization to greatness. But...he blew right by the chrono station...ooops. It's like he was never at the match. Those chrono-spider bites can be nasty.

Bye Bye Prez! Hope you pay more attention to detail when it comes to association business :).

Our other VIP shoot through did chrono and did win the match.

One of the other presidential candidates stayed through to the end, collecting proxies for the prize table so he could collect swag for the junior program. He was raking it in big time.

In other chrono-spider news, one of our club shooters went minor (scoring is less for off-hi-zone shots), but managed to win his class anyway. I guess if you're pure of heart, and accurate, the chrono-spider venom is not so deadly.

The group before us had a guy shooting 200 gr 0.45 bullets with a 223 power factor! No wonder we did ok---the poor chrono spider was still cowering in the dark hiding from the bad old hand cannon.

Roller Coaster

2007-07-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

I get a star, because I'm special!

So, I'm back working nights in an even more rigorous burn-out schedule than last year. Now, I get at most three days on the same schedule before switching.

And not just to the next shift, but skipping shifts---going against my rolling internal clock.

It's sort of like walking into a museum and dropping into some artistic roller coaster.

Or maybe a gravity assisted hamster ride.

Where you spin down... down... down... to... something. I forgot.

It's a metaphor for something....wait.... it will come to me.

World Building

2007-07-26T18:22:00.001-07:00

I would like the moon over that right peak please, and bring up the pink a little.

Gretchen, I'll have that Duvel now please.

OK, OK, less pink. How about violet fading to black at the top?

Angel Michael

2007-07-21T22:25:00.001-07:00

He pulled this guy to safety, and kept on fighting the good fight. Now he's no longer on this good earth, but he's still with us. Saint or Angel? I would say Angel, because he brings us tidings of great joy.

Turn Left...First

2007-07-06T20:21:00.001-07:00

One of the things course designers like to do is put you in starting positions that can put you out of your comfort zone. Like facing up range, with nothing but walls and closed windows behind you. This is at the Nationals, and I'm doing my best to stare down the spot behind and to the left of me where I'm going to run to. From that spot, I'll be able to see targets that will open one of the windows. Then, I'll be able to open the rest.

If I draw a split second too fast, the range officer staring at my gun will throw me out of the tournament. She didn't get me this time, but on another stage starting up range one of the shooters we meet regularly met his Waterloo. Ironically, I had warned him before the tournament to be very careful.

Opinions differ: someone close to him says he barely broke the 180-it was an over reaction by the ROs. Two people in his squad that I know (and that he didn't), told me that they'd looked up and "Holy S***, we're staring down the ports of his compensator."

One person DQ'd on the same stage by starting to load and make ready facing up range. The heat and pressure will do strange things to a person.

Happy 4th

2007-07-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

I'm spending the 4th working, but here's an essay from Red Square to explain it all.

If you have trouble getting up in the morning or hitting the snooze button too much, you might consider this alarm clock.

Chrono of Doom

2007-07-03T20:20:00.001-07:00

This time our squad faced the Chrono of Doom without any of our number going minor that wasn't declared minor. To be major, the velocity in feet per second times the weight of the bullet in grains divided by 1000 needs to be greater than 165. We had two at 165.5, whew. I was safely major.

You can see from the above chart, that a few people had monster power factors, some barely scooted by, and quite a few were bit by the chrono-spider, including at least one Open shooter on the Super Squad.
Slow bullets are caught by the spider, and remember Thou Shalt Not Whine.

Nationals Rush

2007-07-03T16:24:00.000-07:00

What happens when the excitement of being in the Nationals hits ya? How about double tapping so fast your brass is only a few inches apart?

I didn't have any misses on this stage, but I ran into speed kills on another one. I zeroed my first field course ever. Go as fast as you can see--and no faster!

If you can't win, at least learn something. I learned a lot.

Don't be Standing There

2007-07-01T19:23:00.000-07:00

I hope this is a remote camera behind plexiglass...

Army Strong

2007-06-28T20:12:00.001-07:00

Picture by Tom

The Army Pistol Team was a big presence at the Nationals in Missoula. Not big physically as you can tell by the guy on the right who can put his headphones around his waist. The back of their jersey has a big "Army Strong" on it. These two were shooting Open Class, and Max on the left won the whole thing.

Picture by Tom

Here's Max showing us his "Load and Make Ready" routine. These guys shoot fast but as a squad they are slow.
The guy on the far right writes books and was doing a DVD while he was shooting. He would set up a camera in the field and one or two others. He was mic'd for sound and had a hoser-cam in his hat. So he was acting, directing, and shooting good enough to get 4th in Open and high international shooter. He even blogged it.

Unfortunately, the Limited-10 supersquad was shooting at the same time as we were and on the opposite end of the range. Well, we'll just have to go back then.

Woooeeee!

2007-06-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

OK, let's assume you have your finger on a deadman switch attached to a Thermo-Zombification warhead. Lights are flashing, a siren is blasting, and you're fighting off disappearing and hostage-holding zombies one handed.

You'd wanna know how to do that, wouldn't you?

An Unusual Experience

2007-06-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

Update: Never mind. It never happens to me, but the second place shooter got his score corrected. Now I'm a distant second---so that confidence boost just before Nationals? Forget it. I'm back to just trying to not be disqualified.

I spent Father's Day out on the range, as planned, but managed to win Limited-10, which was unexpected. It wasn't just by default either (my usual method), but a third of the competitors were in that class.

I did OK with the rifle, on the side match but obviously need to practice shooting prone. Last time I shot prone, I lay a lot flatter on the ground. Now it's like using a beach ball as a rest.

I had one stage design in the pistol match. It worked out pretty well and seemed to be fun to shoot. I did OK on it, which is unusual as I make stages based on what is hard for me to do.

Both kids checked in and are still alive, so Father's Day was a success for 2007.

Road Sign Up Ahead

2007-06-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

In Happy Father's Day Mom, we get a little taste of the future that corporate America has already sensed. Father's Day has always had a tenuous hold, coming as it does after school is out. Mother's Day has the whole school machine behind it, pumping out personalized artifacts galore to bring home to honor that special day.

And, let's face it, the job of mom is pretty secure. Dads are mostly replaced already by the Nanny State after supplying their special contribution---more and more via syringe.

Maybe Father's Day will be better off as a back-up Mother's Day.

I still enjoy Father's Day, and love to hear those special words: Shooter Ready?

Notes for those who misinterpreted my previous post:
1. I'm not saying I don't like Father's Day.
2. I'm not saying I don't like my kids to call on Father's Day.
3. Shooter Ready? is a USPSA command and is not a reference to turkey basters.
4. I'm not saying that school teachers waste too much time on Mother's Day.
5. I'm not saying that Moms can't shoot their husbands and fathers of their children in the back as they lay in bed if they really wanted to.
6. Go away, don't look at us! (gratuitous LOTR reference)

Beer is More Important than Life

2007-06-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

For proof, let us consider:

Serving beer at your under-age son's party ---27 months in the slammer.

Shooting your husband in the back whilst he lay in bed --- about a week while they get the paperwork straightened out.

Should I be worried when the Justice System reaffirms my life priorities?

The World as Our Economy

2007-06-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

Click to go to the full size picture. The map makers took the Gross Domestic Products of countries around the world and matched them to GDPs of states in the USA. Kind of Amazing really.

Are you conservative?

2007-06-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

So, I've mentioned before that when it comes to our government, etc., I'm conservative with a small c. To my amazement, there is a top ten list of what small c conservatives mostly believe in. You may agree with more on the list than you might think at first.

Many have said that Liberals in America aren't; I think it's also true that Conservatives in America aren't so much either.

Revolutions are usually carried out by persons of little forward-looking ability for realistic outcomes. They are focused on their Utopian vision and don't see what else could come. For instance, Tony Blair in the UK has helped build a surveillance network (to make people safe, you see) that photos an average person in London going about his business 300 times a day---and increasing coverage is coming daily. The government may change several times before someone realizes what an ambitious man or woman could do with such a network. And acts.

Revolutions, like our American one, are better for everyone getting a say at a very local level before changing something that has served for generations. Like local people watching out for the public order themselves, not an apparatchik in front of a bank of monitors. How long before the job of watching the monitors gets outsourced to India, China... Russia---they'd be good at that and cheap. Once the video is in the network, it can go anywhere in the world.

Getting our say is not to foreclose the people from doing something stupid, however. Peoples can diminish and nations can fail though great they once were.

Dave for Prez

2007-06-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

Iowahawk is running for president. Here's his environmental platform:

The Environment

The scientific debate is over: man-made global warming is real. Finally! This means we can now stop paying for all those expensive redundant research projects to prove global warming. Not only will this save over $2 billion dollars per year in federal spending, we will see significant reductions in CO2 as unemployed global warming scientists sell off their Volvos and move to mud huts.

To further help reduce the nation's carbon footprint, I will order the Environmental Protection Agency to bulldoze the mansions of Al Gore, John Edwards, John Kerry, and Laurie David, and convert them to more eco-friendly use as free public drag strips. And for all serious environmentalists willing to make the ultimate Green sacrifice, I will offer discounted funerals with hybrid hearses, and framed federal carbon credits for their surviving families and animal companions.

Burqas Everywhere

2007-06-01T20:15:00.001-07:00

Well, above is a Burqini when you just have to swim where they beat women in the streets when they show too much. I'm sure I'll get used to it. Even the little mermaid is covering up:
Hans (Deleted by order of the Mufti) Anderson is resting more comfortably I'm sure.

MisCon

2007-05-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

We are at MisCon, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror fan convention in Missoula, MT. The guest artist is Myles Pinkney who gave a great presentation of his work over the last 20 years. I was surprised that it was his first invited talk at a Con. What! How is that possible? He puts incredible detail in his pictures, which end up on posters, calendars, plates, and even circuit boards.

Check out his gallery linked above.

I have the "Demon Refuge" strong Belgian Golden Ale here that I made specially for the Con. Instead of blowing it out in one big registered party, we're showing it off in the more intimate room-party format. That way, it lasts at least two nights (via having it in two kegs not both active). To keep the party in the unregistered, private category, you keep the door mostly closed. Door too far open... bam you're an unregistered outlaw room party. Door discipline is critical people!

Oh, and the beer is a success. It's smooth, light-tasting for its strength, and sneaky strong. Those Belgian brewers are the bomb genius.

Update: I bought this one... Babylon.

OK, Say you're swimming...

2007-05-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

...and suddenly you hear a splash behind you.

Woah, that's a big pussy cat.

Aww, eating with its little paws.

Hmm, where's Fifi?

Note: photos from Pravda (yep, that old Soviet rag), which seems to have morphed into a tabloid of somekind.

Multi-Gun Fun

2007-05-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

Yep, shotgun, pistol, and rifle all together in one stage---pictures from the USPSA site.

I got to do this yesterday at our yearly multigun match. Six stages with all three guns and one pistol-only classifier. Wow, what a work out. Took about 8 hours of shooting with a short break for a LATE lunch for about 9 hours total on the range.

Anyway, if there are weak points in your equipment or technique, you are going to find them in multigun. I did OK, but was sore Monday morning.

I played it safe (it was my first multigun match) and ended up right in the middle with 14 above me and 14 below me. Since my goal was not to get thrown out, I smashed through that.

It's taken about a year to collect what I needed to shoot multigun---just cause it took me that long to decide what to get that fit my budget. The gun cart of doom was converted to an extra-fine long-gun hauler for the occasion.

I'm going to keep with local multigun matches and side matches for the rest of the year and maybe do Area 1 multigun next year.

BBQ Season

2007-05-18T09:23:00.001-07:00

Costco steak burgers on the charcoal grill...
Brass suspended in air...

See ya out at the range.

Mom's Day the 13th

2007-05-13T20:45:00.000-07:00

So, if I was an EOD type who disposed of explosives for my job, I would stage a picture like this. It's all in the timing. Then I would send it to my mom for Mother's Day. You know, maybe say something like

Mom! You light up my Life.

This picture is from a "Women at War" series. There's a couple of things to note: She's not wearing ear protection or safety glasses and she's looking through a game gun sight. This is what the Open class guns in the game we play look like. These guns are big, fast, accurate, and picky picky picky. A war-fighting pistol it is not.

She might be on the pistol team though. Just because it's an artificially staged shot doesn't mean she doesn't know how to use that thing. Maybe it's like those college football pictures where the guy isn't wearing pads or a helmet. The Army sponsors a team and one of the members shoots at big tournaments in the NW. I would count that as a cool military job. It better pay well to buy one of those guns.

Her mom better not see her shooting without PPE (personal protective equipment)!

P.S. Check out the video of Travis above---he really does reload that fast!

in just spring

2007-05-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

Not all of Iraq is desert and blowing dust. Some of it affords a stroll through spring wildflowers.

To mark the anniversary of V.E. day, how about a reminder of how we used to view irregular war-fighting tactics and mistreatment of prisoners.

Why parody is dead:
Zimbabwe will be the Head of the UN Committee on Sustainable Development.

Even the Trotskyites at the BBC are concerned. However, I'm confident that Zimbabwe will be just as effective as any other at the UN, that great leveler of talent.

HK on Target

2007-05-09T21:54:00.000-07:00

This was a wild one where we had to run to 6 boxes in a zig-zag and engage all five targets from each box. Princess showed good form, but I was S...L...O...W... On the other hand I could have slipped on the damp grass...we don't have grass in the desert.

Thanks to he guys in Mica for the great shoot and the great pics.

Got the windshield changed today

2007-05-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

We got the windshield changed on our Suburban Assault Vehicle today. Wasn't this bad though.

U.S. Army Pvt. Brice Hinton looks through bullet holes left in his humvee after his convoy was caught in a complex ambush in Mosul, Iraq, April 30, 2007. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Vanessa Valentine)

Reads

2007-05-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

A couple of good reads from VDH's site.

First up, a Professor of English gets a questionnaire. Makes good reading for May Day.

And VDH gives 10 things to do about Iran. After discussing how they are playing us, of course.

I've seen suggestions that we turn May Day from an event where boomers in gray ponytails and braids showcase their partial knowledge of communist theory to a new Memorial Day for the 100 million plus victims of that theory in the 20th century. If nothing else, it would bring some balance to the conversation.

I was thinking of using a link to pictures of gray ponytails and braids, but thought better of it at the last minute...

Photo Op Delux

2007-04-30T07:02:00.000-07:00

Aircraft assigned to Carrier Air Wing Five perform a formation flight in front of Mount Fuji, Japan, April 12, 2007. The wing is embarked aboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63), which operates from Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jarod Hodge)

Pagentry

2007-04-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

That was back in the day of course. Tomorrow we're going to go clear some bays with aimed fire.

Eight stages designed by Yakimaniacs. Woot!

Comic

2007-04-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

You can see a bigger version here.

Reuters "Peace March"

2007-04-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

The actual caption:

Palestinians attend a demonstration against violence in Gaza April 23, 2007. REUTERS/Ibraheem AbuMustafa (GAZA)

I know when I go to a peace march against violence I always carry an AK-47 just so everyone understands I'm really for peace.

Course if you are not part of a political group Reuters panders to, I'm sure it would be more like: "militant thugs demonstrate in the street to intimidate citizens" if you carried an assault rifle or a RPG like this guy.

Bad Haircut

2007-04-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

Evidently, Al Qaeda began with a bad haircut in Greely Colorado in the 50s.

I've been to the Greely campus...I suppose it doesn't always have manure spread on the grounds, but that's what I remember most about the campus.

Fortunately, the trip had other features that turned out better.

Gun-Free Zone = Massacre

2007-04-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal does a good job of summing up what went wrong at Virginia Tech, including a quote from Thomas Jefferson which presents the most practical argument that is most in my mind:

The founder of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, understood the harms resulting from the type of policy created at Virginia Tech. In his "Commonplace Book," Jefferson copied a passage from Cesare Beccaria, the founder of criminology, which was as true on Monday as it always has been:

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Massacres only happen in Gun-Free Zones where killers know or suspect their victims will be helpless. Time and time again killers, using clubs, knives, guns, or poison gas, from concentration camps to shopping malls to Scottish kindergartens have proven that people who think themselves protected by others will wait to die---sometimes literally in line---even if they outnumber their assailants 100 t0 1.

Police, on the other hand, have gone all the way to the Supreme Court to get rulings saying they are not responsible for the protection of an individual. This line of argument is not even counting the millions of people killed by their own government--that our Constitution was written to prevent.

As a classical libertarian, I'm amused and horrified that the same people that accuse our present administration of taking away our civil liberties (i.e. Patriot Act) will the next day argue that only the government should have guns (i.e. take away one our most basic civil liberties).

One person did learn the lesson of history on Monday, Holocaust Remembrance Day no less. He was not a student or Baby-Boomer faculty, but a 74 year old Holocaust survivor. He knew that waiting to die with the others was not an option. Unfortunately for the other victims mowed down while the university/government security forces were deciding on the proper response for public safety, his only weapon was his life.

My Next Helmet

2007-04-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

The Heads-Up Display is going away and all the flight/weapons information (plus his/her brother's blog) shows up on the face shield of the pilot's helmet (visible from the inside). You may have seen an earlier generation of this thing in the attack helicopters where the gun points wherever the pilot is looking...

Can I have one for my motorcycle please?

Can it not cost 10x what my Harley cost please?

In other news, sun rises in east

2007-04-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

The state has spent some big bucks to reintroduce pygmy bunnies just north of where we live.

Wash. bunnies being eaten by predators

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

EPHRATA, Wash. -- Most of a group of 20 endangered rabbits that were reintroduced to the wild with great fanfare last month have been killed by predators, state officials said.

Only four of the rabbits released on March 13 remained at the Sagebrush Flat Wildlife Area as of Tuesday, said David Hays, pygmy rabbit coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

I certainly feel better knowing that we have a state pygmy rabbit coordinator on the case. Interesting that it's news to a Seattle paper that predators ate prey animals.

Around here it would be news if the hawks could tell how special they were and only ate non-native rabbits. I hear the magpies rolled them just to get their GPS collars.

It just looks like a hunter

2007-04-12T00:07:00.000-07:00

This is the F22 Raptor and like its namesake it's a hunter. However, unlike its namesake it doesn't have to kill to eat, and since it is superior by a large factor (at least 8) over any other combat plane, it will probably not fire a shot in anger for decades. In other words-SIC VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM.

Chasing Sun Rays to Waitsburg

2007-04-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

Friday evening I get a call on my cell announcing the potential arrival of bikers, assuming they are at the correct house. I look out the window and say, yep you're at the right house. A couple of Yamahas: big cruiser and crotch rocket.

I feel like a ride, so I get out the Harley. They want to go to Waitsburg, which is due east. The sun is low due west, so as long as we stay out until twilight it won't hurt too much coming back. I've learned from hard experience not to come home after a ride along that road later than afternoon.

Haven't had the bike out for a while, so it's a good thing there's gas in the tank and it doesn't run too badly. I take up the tail and the crotch rocket takes the point---the better to find the RCFDs (Road-crossing Farm Devices).

Coming home before twilight won't be a problem for there's a new brewery in Waitsburg.

Being as two of us were the President and Vice President of the brewclub and being as the owner/brewer was there, we got to tour the back room.

The owner had bought a system from one of the many Hopps Pubs that self-destructed a while back. It's one of the type called "The Pub" from a company that specializes in small systems. The brewhouse combines hot liquor tank, mash tun and kettle to make a 3.5 barrel brew length. The conical fermenters and bright tanks are 7 barrels. The only unusual feature is the heating is done by electric elements in the jackets of the kettle and hot liquor tank.

Doing anything other than single-mash infusion would be difficult, but that's not a problem for Irish-Scottish-English-style beers.

We'd had some of their Scotch Ale in a jug that had come my way via my friend Andy that I'd taken to a brewclub meeting, and we'd come to try it at the source. However, it turns out to be a somewhat rare specialty (not available till June). So I tried their IPA, which was tasty. Jeff and Tim tried some of their other brews. It's worth a return trip to check progress.

The brewery is one of the few plants in the US also bonded for making wine. I had not realized that was even possible since in Washington you can't even have tax-paid beer in a winery. Time and the regulator/taxman marches on, I guess. This calls for more investigation.

The ride home in the dark was made more entertaining by the big Yamaha cruiser blowing a fuse running the tail and instrument lights.

Problem fixed, the last of the bikers left Casa Hopgoddess about six hours after he'd arrived. No quick pipping to the pub for the likes of us.

Can't...Resist...Must...Have...Beer

2007-03-31T16:31:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure I would fall for this trap.

Shootin'

2007-03-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

Pictures by Brad Ogle.

Earlier this month, we went shooting at Mica, WA. You can tell we are someplace special by the trees. The things just grow out of the ground up there.

You don't need special hot-shot guns to play USPSA/IPSC. Above is a stock Glock and below is a stock HK. Pay no attention to the Kimber hat. I don't know about you, but I think shooting in a leather jacket is hot.

The gun below is a mostly-stock HK, but it's pretty special out of the box. Tom was playing hurt--- besides his house-moving elbow he also had a twisted ankle from a particularly intense gun-shopping session.

I guess it's good that I always look the same in pictures of me shooting.

My hat matches my gun.

I was having trouble with my "performance" springs at this match, so now my Glock is closer to stock on the inside. The only special spring is stronger than original---now. I'm a pretty slow shooter to begin with but waiting for the trigger to reset too... arggggh.

Taking aim at a pretty small target area, pretty far away... pretty aimer too.

The Mica match was unusual because all the courses were so-called Classifiers, i.e. standardized over the whole country. The resulting score tells you how you are doing relative to every other US shooter. Some shooters shot it in more than one class...so we had Production Bob and Limited Bob on our squad. I should probably have done that too with an Open gun, but there's always next time.

Mega Brew March 2007

2007-03-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

Update: pictures have been added at the club website here.

Today, March 24, the inmates took over the asylum---i.e. the homebrew club took over Ice Harbor Brewery. This is the brewlog of the event; check out the final report with pictures at our club website after a few days.

The original idea was to make a Marzen/Oktoberfest beer, but not everyone in the club can handle lagers. So the recipe was tweaked so that it could become an Alt-style ale. So the hybrid beast is a little hoppy for a Marzen and not quite hoppy enough for a full-on alt.

Notice that all the color comes from munich and vienna malts and not from crystal malts as is usual for a homebrew recipe for this type of beer.

Target was 280 gallons at 14P with about 32 IBUs and we basically hit it.

Grain Bill (14P):
Weyermann Munich Type I 330 lbs
Weyermann Pilsner 110 lbs
Great Western Vienna 100 lbs
Great Western 2-row 100 lbs

Hopping Schedule (about 32 IBUs):
at 60 minutes to go---
1000 g GR Spalt 3.3%,
300 g GR Hertzbrucker 2.8%,
800 g GR Northern Brewer 8.9%
at 30 minutes to go---
1000 g CZ Saaz 3.6%

Yesterday, we ground the malt and had it and hot water waiting for us.

8:05 Run in a little water and add 300 ml of 75% Phosphoric Acid

8:10 Mash in, take our time doughing, slowly adding water and malt.

8:55 Mash in done and mash at 152 F

10:10 Iodine test is negative after recirculating for 20 min, pH is 5.33

10:25 Wort to kettle

10:45 Fire the kettle, wort is covering probe

11:25 Half way there, looking for 2 hour sparge

12:40 Wort Collected, last runnings were still 5P by refractometer, pH is 5.3, 15.8P by refractometer (probably high)

1:15 Boiling

1:40 Added GR NB hops--- boil over--- lost 10-20 gallons--- added some replacement hops (214 g of GR-Northern Brewer)

2:30 CZ Saaz hops added

2:45 Add Yeast Nutriment

3:00 Strike the fire.

3:05 Add about 24 gal of water back in and do whirlpool

3:20 15 P by refractometer, but 14 P (1.0535 SG) by sacchrometer

3:20 Fill club carboys and 80 gal for pub (look for it!)

4:30 Start clean up

5:30 Work done. Have a beer!

The Future of Movies

2007-03-09T13:58:00.000-08:00

Now when producers make a movie, the stars can burst through with their own agenda or over-shadow a movie with their off-screen antics. But someday, they may be all like the young lady above---pure, immortal, unchanging---synthetic.

I eagerly await an Aragorn who is not a hollywood pussy.

VDH

2007-03-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

Dr Hanson has been writing up a storm. He's even writing a historical novel (check the "outtakes" in the last few entries in his blog here). Here are a couple of recent columns on Iraq: 1 and 2.

I suppose I should point out every once in a while that VDH is a classical scholar, military historian, and a conservative Californian Democrat.

News media put conservatives on the right, but that is because they themselves are on the pretty-much far left. It makes more sense to me for the American political spectrum to put conservatives of both parties in the center with equality-forced-if-necessary to socialism/communism leaning moonbats to the left and libertarian-free-market-uber-alles to extreme isolationist-rest-of-the-world-go-to-hell crazies to the right.

Other countries are different: Hitler and Mussolini came from the left in their respective countries in the 20s. Sweden's new center-right leadership would be pretty far on our left, etc.

My Brewhouse

2007-02-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

If you click on a picture, it should open up into a 4mega-pixel shot.

This post has taken a while---just to load all the pictures without Blogger choking.

Last Saturday, I brewed a Belgian Golden Ale---Daemon Refuge. So, I took the chance to introduce my brew system.

First Slide...

Here we have Long Johnson going out of its hidey hole---yes I do have a floor jack in my garage. The rig was so named by Cheryll because it has four stations instead of the usual three (she may have had other reasons). Obviously, the wheels are a necessity. Two wheels on one end steer and the other end's wheels are fixed. Steerable wheels on both ends is not an improvement---you are warned.

This is the end that's coming out, believe it or not. The motorcycle and couch have already been moved. Blow up the shot and you can see the mess in my garage in hideous detail.

The command center (Oh my, the other side of the garage is messy too). The two gray tubs contain all the with-it parts like hot pads, lids, hop-clearing-tools, etc. The mash rake lays across the brewmaster's chair and the heat exchanger and copper wort-volume-measuring stick are on the side table. After the brew starts, the side table is clear for the log book and lab ware for testing previous batches.

Here it is all assembled (yes I owned all the kegs before cutting them up). The vessels from right to left are: hot liquor (i.e. water) tank, lauter tun (strainer), mash tun (heating/converting), and wort kettle (boiling with hops). You can see the white propane tank and the orange hose going down to the hot water pump. The riser between the hot liquor and lauter tuns feeds hot water to the sparge lid on top of the lauter tun (shown a few pictures down). There is also a power outlet with a switch for the pump and a couple of other outlets for sundry devices like mills and other brew stands.

Here we see two of the three burners--with a high-pressure burner on the left for the kettle and a low pressure burner on the right for the mash tun. These burners are also set on the same level like this for decoction mashing (boiling the decoction usually take place on the left). The low-pressure burner was my original homebrew setup when I graduated from (got kicked out of) the kitchen. By the way, the rule is: if the fire doesn't go out it wasn't a boilover.

There is another high-pressure burner under the hot liquor tank. You can see the pump clearly in this picture. It's a little sanitary pump. I used to have a regular Grundfos hot water pump, but the intermittent, very hot water use broke two of them. I recommend that you just buy a hot service sanitary pump and then you'll be ready if you ever need to pump wort (like through the heat exchanger---I use my brewing partner's pump (Kevin) which is normally used to pump wort).

The mash: Still life with rake. I rake the heck out of my mashes because I use a separate lauter tun. Mash should be 12-18 inches in the lauter tun and a single batch of regular strength beer hits the low end of this range in this vessel. Don't stir much at all if you are doing a single step infusion with a screen in the bottom already. Just enough to mix out the dough balls.

Here's the mash resting at a temperature maintenance step. Bubble wrap goes on after the fire goes out and off before it comes on again. It will still get a little crinkly around the lower edge---but it's cheap to replace after a season or two. The ubiquitous bucket of water for the mash rake, et cetera.

The copper works at the bottom of the lauter tun are shown above. The scientific reason for the asymmetry is that a big chunk of it broke off. The cuts on the bottom are pretty thin (cut with dremel disk) so almost nothing gets through. And they point down with room below them so they almost never block (and stay out of the bottom dough).

Here we see the sparge water distribution lid on the left and the goose neck outlet from the lauter tun on the right. The goose neck brings the runnings up higher than the copper works before releasing it to atmospheric pressure so that a suction will not build up on the slots, plug them and collapse the mash bed.

Now it's time for the lauter tun to wear the bubble-wrap party dress. Sometimes there is a little sink to catch the runnings (after going across the atmospheric gap, but for this brew I just let it fall into the kettle and collect. Old School.

I use whole hops, so there is a screen in the kettle (because the outlet valve is not big enough to use a separate hop back. You can see what looks like a stain in the center that is really an experimental copper chore-boy around the intake. The massive pieces of stainless are there to keep the experiment squished down. There's still plenty of little holes for the wort to go out.

Running hot water through the heat exchanger to sanitize it. After a while, and especially if you can't examine it after cleaning, it's safer to just trust to temperature and time to kill unwanted organisms. I usually cast out (when brewing with Kevin) by running out the valve in the kettle into a collection vessel and then pump it through the counterflow heat exchanger to the fermenter. I was doing it by myself (and didn't have said vessel) so it just went directly into the pump. I got away with it, but don't wish to immortalize the operation in pictures. There was lots of trub glued to the hop screen...but not enough to plug it.

All done! Roll it away and put everything back...eventually. Come to MisCon in Missoula, MT for a sample.

Guitar Woah!

2007-02-24T21:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, here's a test of your quitar network:
Michael, Michael, Michael

Happy Birthday to a Photograph

2007-02-22T19:37:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month in 1945, the US invaded Iwo Jima, which evidently means Sulphur Island. You can certainly see the cinder cone that dominates the island in the background of the assault.
It is even more alarming from the beach where bare flesh was hurled against concrete. For unknown to invasion planners, the Japanese forces were all underground. Most Marines never even saw one---though they could often hear them under their feet.
The Imperial Army was still underneath these guys when they raised our flag on top of the mountain. This is the original E Company flag in the not-famous photograph---taken on February 23, 1945. Later in the day, the picture taken of a replacement flag would became famous around the world, eventually becoming a bronze monument for all Marines.
Before getting to the replacement flag, let's consider this nurse. She flew into the battle and her plane was mortared on the runway during landing. The Marines were digging the enemy out of bunkers cleverly scattered all around the landing zone who waited for the moment to cause the most destruction. They specifically targeted aid workers, everywhere during this battle and others, because the enemy felt that it hurt morale. You know, shoot the wounded on the stretcher and the medics carrying and caring for them. I don't think it worked, but the Imperial soldiers kept at it. This nurse knew all that before she went in.

And now, with a bigger flag, more soldiers, wearing proper head gear, with drive, determination, and a prepared photographer, I give you the photograph. Happy Birthday!

Massacre Postponed

2007-02-22T17:08:00.000-08:00

OK, so the Democrat's plan to back stab our troops got hung up in the Senate. But the congressmen(/women) will be back. In the meantime, they've signed the love letter on the left to the folks who've put their life on the line for me.

The latest Democrats have got a lot of work to do to start a massacre in Iraq that will even come close to the one they caused in 1974 by cutting off support to our South Vietnamese allies---about 2 or 3 million short at the moment.

As they say, America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend. I'm not sure that's really true, but there sure is a lot of evidence for that position of late.

Golf Course Politics

2007-02-20T14:06:00.000-08:00

The answer to the question what kind of oil company could lose money would be a government-owned oil company, viz Pemex in Mexico. The same answer would be accurate for a golf course in the middle of very populous San Francisco. How could you loose with all the beautiful people showing up? Maybe the beautiful people prefer to pay higher green fees?
I would say that it is typical of non-entrepreneurial middle-class professionals (and up) to make their fortune on the backs of the poor by providing (or withholding) government services---usually by blaming the entrepreneurial class for the poor's existence while doing so. But if we include all the buying, selling and inventing associated with golf, maybe it makes sense for the San Francisco government to take money from the development of parks (supplied by higher levels of government) to subsidize courses sitting on fabulously expensive real estate.

Too late to turn back now. Play on!
P.S. When people talk about shooting a round of golf, they don't really mean it! They are confusing shooting with hitting.

Over-Reaction

2007-02-19T20:32:00.000-08:00

OK, so I was working too much to blog...now I'm playing too much.

This weekend I went to RadCon to get my sci-fi writer fix. I hung out with Larry Niven, Patty Briggs, and a host of others. Saw some video from tv-pilots in the making, and met one of the big editors at Tor and drank her beer and scotch. Sleep is the only thing not scheduled at RadCon.

Sunday, I shot a six-round IPSC pistol match and a Rifle/Pistol side match. So yes, the rifle bought in November has now been shot and cleaned twice. My pistol had some weird hiccups, but the rifle was flawless---only I was the problem there.

Seeking balance in my work/play schedule.

Brew Tech Talk: Lagering

2007-02-15T13:12:00.000-08:00

Most beer brewed all over the world is lager beer. What does that mean? Lager. In the end, it means beer that has been stored in cold lockers for drinking later--dating from a time in the past when brewing could not be done in summer because the wild yeast were...well too wild.

By selection over time, a new variant of yeast developed-- bottom-fermenting yeast. Instead of rising to the top to be collected for the next brew, this yeast fell to the bottom out of harms way. It could work at colder temperatures too. Some yeast always stays in suspension, however, and therein lies our tale.

That beer stored away, or lagered, for a period of time was found to taste smoother and more refined. Drinkers began to seek out these beers that were brewed the new way. New in this case refers to a long time ago. What happens to lagered beer?

Backing up, let's consider primary fermentation. Here the yeast gobbles up sugars as fast as it can and injects lots of flavors into the green beer. Trub, parts of proteins, hops, etc., drop out. At the end, and that's how we tell it's the end, most of the yeast drops out too. Now we go to secondary fermentation by racking the beer to another vessel, leaving the trub and settled yeast behind. This may be the start of lagering or it may be just another way to settle the beer before sending to the cellar. One traditional way is to wait until there is 1 percent fermentable sugar left and then bung up the secondary vessel (or transfer it to a closed vessel). Another is to wait until it's done and then transfer it to a closed vessel with a little fermenting beer from a primary.

However we do it, we now have a stable environment with a small amount of no-longer-reproducing yeast slowly working on the fermentation products of the exuberant primary yeast. These few remaining cells will keep the beer safe from bacteria and put fine bubbles in the brew. Less is more in this case.

OK, now we really are in a closed tank for lagering. What are we looking for? Let's ask the Wizard. Read the whole thing.

After lagering, most lager brewers want a reduction in diacetyl (butter flavor), acetaldehyde (apple flavor), and sulfur-based aromas (rotten egg); full carbonation; and an improvement in clarity. Most brewers consider diacetyl reduction to be the key goal of lagering.

Well, OK. How long do you lager? Depends on the beer:

Some beers do benefit from longer aging periods, especially stronger beers. Doppelbocks typically lager for well over two months. Strong beers mellow over time — obvious flavors that are present when the beer is young slowly meld into a complex palate of intriguing, hard-to-describe flavors.

Yeah, hard-to-describe alright. Very few analytical tests can be used to back up the desire to lager a beer, especially for a long time. Human taste can far exceed any instrument that technology has come up with so far.

Now we, the consumers, know that lagered beer tastes better. Naturally, commercial brewers want to get that taste faster and cheaper. Here's more from the Wizard, but not all of these techniques are practical or even desirable:

Time saver number one: In recent years some lager brewers have begun warming the beer between fermentation and lagering, usually from about 50° to 70° F. This process accelerates the conversion of alpha-acetolactate (a compound normally secreted by yeast) to diacetyl and also accelerates the uptake of diacetyl by yeast. Diacetyl reduction is one of the key objectives of lagering, so this technique is used by many brewers, especially brewers in Germany, where this idea originated.

This technique does not make the beer fruity, because fermentation is complete and the yeast have produced all of their fermentation aromas. Many commercial brewers can’t easily employ this method because their cellars are not designed to warm beer; they are designed to keep it cold. Homebrewers, on the other hand, can easily change beer temperature by simply moving it across the house!

To try this method ferment the lager at 50° F, rack the beer to the secondary, and move it to a room temperature area for two to three days. Then chill the beer to 32° to 40° F for lagering. Two weeks of lagering should be long enough for lighter lagers such as pils and helles.
Time saver number two: Yeast contact is a good thing. The key to flavor maturation is yeast. Increasing the contact between yeast and the compounds they are modifying can reduce lagering times. Some people think beechwood chips are just for marketing, but in reality they are a traditional method of improving lager times. Oddly enough, they are such a pain to handle that very few breweries in the world continue this tradition (chip trivia: most American lager brewers in the 1800s used "chip tanks" for lagering).

Another way to increase yeast contact with beer is to use non-flocculent yeast. Although this makes clarification difficult, it does accelerate the aging process. With modern centrifuge technology the clarification issue is less important. After the beer is properly aged, the yeast is removed using centrifugation. This method cannot be practiced at home because a pilot centrifuge costs about $70,000. Sorry!

Time saver number three: The most modern lagering technique combines warming beer to convert alpha-acetolactate to diacetyl and a high yeast-to-beer concentration. First comes centrifuge, then pasteurization. The beer is recirculated through a column filled with yeast for rapid "aging" then filtered. The result is continuous lagering. It reduces lagering time from weeks to about a quarter of a day!

We have a spring megabrew coming up and one idea is to make a Martzen and lager it until our Octoberfest party. How's that for tradition? But what if you are not set up for cold fermentation or lagering? Here's some advice from Brewing Techniques. One item:

Ice is nice: During the 1800s the grandfather of the modern refrigerator, the icebox, was used in industry and home to maintain cool temperatures. The icebox is a very simple device: you simply put a large block of ice in the top compartment and it cools the bottom compartment. It offers no real control of the temperature, however, and as the ice melts, it cools less, which means you have to replenish the ice regularly. Back then, the ice used to stock an icebox came from Mother Nature. During the cold winter months, ice was cut from lakes and stockpiled in caves or sawdust-filled ice houses. Large breweries of that period used this same stockpiling technique to create lagering caves. Similar techniques can be applied, on a smaller scale, at home.
Modern insulating materials can be used to make a brewer's icebox. The carbon-insulated icebox that your grandparents had would be about the right size for a 5-7 gal carboy. Unfortunately, the only place you're likely to find one is in the local antique store, and usually antique means expensive. A more affordable option would be to build an icebox that combines modern insulation with old designs. Plans for these units can often be found in publications like Mother Earth News and Homestead.

I've used a water bath and soda bottles partially filled with water frozen in the refer. Use two sets and put one set in the bath while the other is freezing. I used to change them before and after work.

OK, the bath trick works good for fermentation but is too much of a drag for long time lagering. So you'll need one of the other techniques in the article.

One trick that always works: buy a new refrigerator for the kitchen before the old one breaks! Old one goes to the garage with a temperature controller on it. Have your brewing partner do it too and you get a fermentation and a lagering box--avoid the tedious :) changing of the controller.

Struggle, light seen

2007-02-14T23:53:00.000-08:00

OK, I've managed to get Sitemeter going again. Getting everything switched over to the new blogger has been interesting.

My field project that was eating me up is over. So, hopefully, I can get some more posts going. I just shot the rifle I bought in November today, so there's some catching up to do.

This weekend-RadCon.

Obviously, I'm not using enough firepower-as a metaphor, of course.

Motivation

2007-01-24T19:25:00.000-08:00

OK, I feel better now.

Update: The picture used for this poster (done by someone unknown) was taken by Jim MacMillan.

What can happen in a British Pub?

2007-01-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

Consider this lesson in irony. It's short and explains why you shouldn't drink too much if you make it to the UK.

...and don't pee in the water if you go way south.

Blog Note: I need to switch away from Templates to the new Blogger Way. So, assuming I don't totally deep six the whole thing, you may see some minor differences in the blog for a while---some custom items may not make it. It's supposed to make it easier to add stuff to the sidewalls, etc. Hey, onward and upward.

Comet Coments

2007-01-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

This view above was like our view of the comet. Not with a telephoto lens, of course, but low to the horizon, twilight, bright and clear--at least for one day. Low clouds were low hills in our case.

Other people got to see it in the daytime, as above. Our clear skies did not work out in their timing to allow us to see it during the day.

Now, the comet has headed south for those down under to wonder at.

Photos looted from Astronomy Picture of the Day. Check it, you know, daily.

Consorting with the...Duvel

2007-01-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

Duvel is probably my second-most favorite Belgian beer (after Orval). The USA importer has a content-free website here. Wikipedia, as usual quite chatty, has more information here. There is even a club, but my Flemish is not so good---I could get that their server just crashed on the 9th, however. A technical description of the style is here.

The brewers of Duvel are very secretive, but we do know that Duvel is bottle-conditioned, i.e. fermented in the bottle. That is believed to be the third fermentation overall. The first fermentation is assumed to be normal (i.e. for a Belgian beer), and the second caused by an infusion of candy sugar (and why not?). The homebrew digest (main site here) has had some informed speculation in the past (use the search function), but all of us brewers have our own truth when it comes to consorting with this beer.

I think of it as a light-tasting, velvet-wrapped bierhammer. I'm making 10 gallons for a party.

The head on this beer is awesome and it leaves a very delicate lace on the perfectly shaped glass that reminds me of a diamond string bikini...
OK, maybe this is more like they mean by Belgian Lace...

I bet I know the image stuck in your head now.

Dangerous Quotes

2007-01-07T20:06:00.000-08:00

Normally, people of the left refer to Hitler and the Nazis as being "right wing." There was a right wing in Germany at the time, but they were definitely not Hitler's party. The People's Cube hilariously demonstrates the danger of quoting Hitler in an attempt to smear right-wing or conservative targets.

Be sure and visit some of their other articles while there, especially Klaatu.. Barada.. Pinko!

Battle of New Orleans

2007-01-05T00:42:00.000-08:00

Well, not the historical battle:

The worst is that, if it continues steady for six months more, the city would have a 12-month murder rate about eight to 12 times the national average for cities its size, rather than this year's multiple of seven to 10. Three New Year's Eve killings brought the city's murder total to 161 for 2006. Depending on which population estimate is used, that works out to a rate of 60 to 81 killings per 100,000 residents. But two-thirds of the murders were in the last half of the year. The state's most recent door-to-door survey estimated the population at 200,000 down from a pre-storm figure of about 455,000. Using that estimate, the 2006 murder rate is 81 per 100,000 residents. If the figures remain steady, Peter Scharf, executive director of the Center for Society, Law and Justice at the University of New Orleans notes, that would mean a June-to-June rate of 105 killings per 100,000 residents.

So, the current death rate in New Orleans is about the same or greater than in Iraq? I'm talking Iraqis in Iraq here, including the people we are shooting and bombing--on purpose--along with all the ones shooting and blowing themselves up.

I guess D.C. is relieved that another city has taken over the lead.

500 miles per gallon of gasoline?

2007-01-02T21:41:00.000-08:00

Yes, well. It's all in the definition. If you have a plug-in hybrid, running on E-85, going short commuter distances, then yes. Most of the energy in that set up comes from plugging it in at night and ethanol. But, it does cut down on the gasoline to the equivalent of 500 mpgg.

Coincidence?

2007-01-02T20:36:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'm applying on-line for an EIN number... Props to IRS for letting me progress to the internet age... And, to be sure it gave me a number, which I copied down by hand---because I've dealt with computers for over 30 years. Good thing too, since trying to print the page locked up my computer.

Happily, Firefox deposited the print in the spooler before the IRS knife found a vital spot. So, I only lost time. The government is good at that---even when it is trying to save you time. I suppose I should be grateful that the gov is slowly saving more time than it loses. Progress.

Poverty is Relative

2006-12-29T17:18:00.000-08:00

Whether one is poor or not is sometimes hard to determine. Not too many years ago, I bought a 50 lbs bag of barley for 8 bucks and change, which could have fed a family for several days in a pinch. At the same time, I paid for a burger, fries and drink about the same.

Normal people can't live on foodstamps, but if you ate a la 19th century you could and bank the rest.

VDH from his Works and Days:

The Great Disconnect

For all the holiday depression with the state of the world, there is great munificence and affluence around the globe, and especially here in the United States that have brought us a long way, for both good and evil, from our primordial existence of even the immediate past.

Part of the pre-January rhetoric of the Democrats is the notion of great inequality. Yet despite the budget deficits, the piling up of national debt, and amid the doom and gloom of the vast amount of US capital held by Chinese, or oil payouts to the Arabs, or a declining standard of education, there are signs of American wealth never seen before among any civilization on earth.

I live in one of the poorest sections of one of the poorer counties in California, but consider: there were near riots to get the latest PlayStation 3 video games nearby. I was looking at a 4-wheel drive truck recently, and passed up all the “extras” offered by the salesman—leather seats, GPS, DVD player, extra chrome, multiplayer CD—but that extravagant Toyota Tundra was snapped up by a family on welfare in the booth next to me. With a zero-interest loan package, and no money down, apparently almost anyone can walk into a showroom and drive out with a $40,000 monster-sized truck.

Then I drove into the local shopping center and walked through Office Max, Wal-Mart, and Food4Less where there were more signs of America’s new encompassing wealth. There were new Camrys and Accords all over the parking lot, nearly everyone was on a cell phone. Nearly everyone was also speaking Spanish and no doubt a first generation immigrant (legal or not from Mexico). But in terms of traditional notions of poverty and the ability to acquire material goods, food, communications gear, transportation, etc. they were hardly poor.

Perhaps this new prosperity that encompasses almost all social classes in America is due to the miracle of science that now gives us such cheap appurtenances, or the addition of 1 billion Indian and Chinese fabricators to the world’s work force that results in endless consumer goods; or the ability of low interest and almost universal instant credit.

We are not talking of European vacations, second homes, or SAT camps for junior, but nonetheless there is something very different from the past that I remember when the poor nearby lacked indoor plumbing and at school in the early 1960s students ate thirds and fourths at our noon meal of barely edible surplus cafeteria food. Surely something has gone right in eliminating elemental poverty that we never hear in the din of constant accusations and complaints about American inequality.

This summer I bought on sale an old-style color television, 32-inch screen (the kind with the big tube in the back and curved front) for about $130. A decade ago it would have cost $500. The surprise was that the clerk laughed about what he thought was the idiocy of wanting one of these now obsolete, but perfectly fine, televisions. He probably made about $10 an hour, but would never have apparently stooped to such sacrifice. Again, any discussion about this surreal world is entirely lacking in the current political debate.

A final note. I wrote about such anomalies about three years ago when I broke my arm and visited the local emergency room in Selma about three miles away. Nothing much has changed since then, which is good—however little the credit this country gets from its critics.

We also bought one of those $150 regular TVs recently, because we are waiting for the new technology to get cheaper and also new-technology sources to become more plentiful, i.e. cheaper, too. Our most recent TV before that, a WEGA, was supposedly HD ready, NOT! Lies, Lies, Lies--still a nice TV though. Next time, the TV, the DVD-follow-on, the cable, everything will be to hand BEFORE we buy.

Oh, and why was I buying a big bag of barley? To feed my family for weeks, of course, on Pilsner Beer. The 19th century---when technology peaked.

David Brin Serves Up

2006-12-27T18:50:00.000-08:00

(Image looted from Lifeboat.com)

Dr Brin discusses the Singularity with its signposts and nightmares.

Hurrying or slowing it may be possible, but trying to do one might do the other in my opinion. He hammers on a point that always bothers me about calls from the extremes to use the coercion of government to shut off one avenue of research or another (left and right): in most stories and real life disasters it's the hidden, secret knowledge that spirals out of control and eats everyone's lunch.

I suppose you can spin anything

2006-12-27T18:25:00.000-08:00

John Kerry went to Iraq recently after:

insulting the intelligence of the troops

meeting with enemies of the US whose minions are killing our servicemen as he chatted them up (something he's done since the 70's)--here he charms the President of Syria.

When he got to Iraq, he didn't exactly draw a crowd at breakfast:

He had to cancel a news conference to avoid an embarrassing, obviously low turn out...

Ben was there.

I bet if you read the materials coming out of the Kerry '08 Exploratory Committee, they just loved him over there and really got where he was coming from.

This may or may not be about beer

2006-12-26T19:11:00.000-08:00

Most of the Belgium beers I like are from the Northern or Flemish part of Belgium. Maybe this is why.

Today was a wine day. I had most, or maybe all, of a bottle of my homemade white.

A Christmas Story

2006-12-24T11:25:00.000-08:00

Long before it would have occurred to me to build a Christmas Tree out of Grolsch Beer bottles(someone beat me to it anyway), I spent a few Christmas Seasons in an All-City Boys Choir.

Twas the Singing Boys of Houston, and as Houston is a large city and there were about 75 of us boys, it must have been somewhat of a select group I was in. It was not obvious at the time to me, but it was a big deal for everyone else that I was there.

I remember people mentioning that they had listened to me/us on the radio Christmas Eve and thinking Dang, I missed us on the radio.

One year, we sang in the lobby of a large downtown bank and the manager gave us all an un-circulated silver dollar in a plastic case. We all took ours out and played with them.

I was a second soprano, and therefore stood in the middle of the choir. We sang lots of songs, but being boys we liked the ones we could really project.

So, here's to the Christmas memory of standing, surrounded by 75 boys singing a very long Gloria.

If that doesn't do it for you, how about the Nutcracker Suit performed entirely on bicycle parts?

New Blogger

2006-12-23T13:11:00.000-08:00

OK, I finally had time to upgrade to the new Blogger software. Everything is supposed to be the same---except better. Well, everyone could use some push, I guess (Image looted from Lucianne).

There are slaves and then there are slaves

2006-12-19T21:42:00.000-08:00

Orson Scott Card, he of many words and author of famous SF, has a new interesting polemic---more or less comparing Rome to the USA. He does it in a good way, not the usual Rome Fell, so we Fall, etc.

On the way, he falls into to usual trap of saying that slaves were at the bottom of the economic system in terms of purchasing power. Well, some slaves were at the bottom: let's say salt miners. But, for example, Egypt was owned directly by the Emperor as his own personal property---therefore it was managed by one of his slaves. Now there is a slave with purchasing power. In general, slaves could have their own money, property, etc. During certain times of the empire, slaves---at least the better sort---had more rights than freemen.

OSC's article is a good read anyway. He's definitely a post 9/11 person.

I've had a bottle of my homemade wine so I laugh at barbarian invasions.

Beer Club Buys Engine

2006-12-18T18:59:00.000-08:00

Real Ale is a reference to naturally carbonated beer fresh from the cask. To get real ale ready requires some effort. The final product is pumped--not pushed with CO2, as in regular beer taps--with a beer engine, which the young lass above is preparing to yank on. It takes a few pumps and some wait time to pour a perfect pint.

Credit for saving real ale and beer engines and everything that goes with it can be laid at the feet of CAMRA. The lore and love of real ale is explored in this short polemic at the Beer Advocate.

Now, our homebrew club is a great club, and we hold our meetings at Ice Harbor Brewing Company, a local brewpub. They have a cask-conditioned beer every Tuesday, but carbonated and pushed by CO2, as per regular American beer. To say thanks for hosting us for our meetings and special functions (like megabrews on their equipment), we bought them a beer engine. It might just be for us, but I hope they take the hint.

Pump me a beer baby!

Weekend Blitz

2006-12-17T17:47:00.000-08:00

I've been working a lot over the past few months, missing beer club events and shooting opportunities galore, but this weekend I got to do both---beer club Christmas party on Saturday (more about that later) and local IPSC match on Sunday. Wow, maybe it's a sign of normality returning in my life.

The only COED NCAA sport is shooting (that I'm aware of), so it's probably doomed. Her team is doing well, however. I'm sure she wears eye and ear protection when actually shooting and not posing for photos.

The attack on Christmas as opposed to The Holiday Season continues. Mark Steyn has a funny/thought-provoking take on it as per his usual. Seattle is in the lead, duh, but they come out looking better than expected, probably by accident. Accident or not, a good outcome is good.

More Gas

2006-12-15T17:58:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I mentioned that some coal-seam fires in China put out more CO2 than US traffic. Now, we can see that Cows put out more greenhouse gas than all combustion. This is probably a thinly disguised vegan attack on steak and hamburger.

In other news, PM has 10 tech concepts you need to know about.

I really want to swallow that smart pill next time.

OK, What Would You Do?

2006-12-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

If you had mostly unlimited power?

A little fashion review of despots. Quaddafi really does have an all-girl troop of bodyguards. I guess these people are beyond parody, which is why, I suppose, plain ol' W gets all the attention of satirists these days.

Notes from all over

2006-12-12T14:07:00.000-08:00

It's a question of magnitude:

Fires in underground coal mines in China consume an estimated 200 million tons of coal per year, putting some 2-3% of all man-made carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—or as much as that produced by all the cars and light trucks in the U.S. And whereas auto transportation has considerable economic value, all the pollutants from coal fires are completely and utterly useless.

Of course, to ‘global warming’ zealots the purpose of fighting ‘global warming’ isn’t to save the environment; it’s to bugger industrially-advanced nations, especially (indeed, almost exclusively) the United States.

...and no, I won't explain what "bugger" means.

Compare and contrast:
General Pinochet recently died and Castro, who he is sort of paired with, is on his death bed. Pinochet seems to be hated by many, yet he stepped down voluntarily in favor of a democracy and Chile is currently the richest in South America--even with a current socialist government. Castro is swooned over by the whole world and Cuba is a totalitarian basket case.

Deja Vu:
The Seattle school district has a racist method of deciding who can go to which school and why. They have defended it all the way to the Supreme Court. I won't link to their website, but here's a nice write-up by Sowell. I'm sure it's OK to send a white girl across town because her neighborhood school is too white. It's just not OK to do that to a black girl because, well, just because, Diversity ya know.

December 7th

2006-12-07T19:27:00.000-08:00

A day that will live in infamy?

Fast Cancer on Demand

2006-11-28T19:02:00.000-08:00

A little review of killing with radioactive poisons by communist leaders.

We're pretty careful with this stuff where I work. Feeding it to people is right out.

Time Out

2006-11-26T07:50:00.000-08:00

As part of my moving towards 3-Gun or Multi-Gun shooting as part off my USPSA/IPSC hobby, I'm putting together a rifle.

I'm going for the Tactical division which lets me have one optic on the rifle, a shotgun with up to 8 shells in the magazine and a Limited class pistol. The rifle was the final component. Here's what I decided to start with:

Da rifle is a Bushmaster Varminter. Yes, I'm more concerned with my long distance shots than close in. So I've gone with a 24 inch barrel. I might add a compensator, but I want to try one with and without side by side before I add one. Yes it's a poodle-shooter .223, but I don't reload and I don't think I could afford to practice much with 6.8 SPC, 6.5 Grendal or 308 Win. I suppose once I got the lower shooting right I could add a 6.5 Grendal upper...and a long-distance scope. Hmmm, sweeeeet.

The rifle has a competition grip and trigger. I might want to add a JP trigger later, but for now I have a two-stage Bushmaster one.

The scope is a Leupold VX II 1-4x. I like the 1x cause I can keep both eyes open. Hopefully, this will translate into relatively fast close-in shots. I hope the 4x is ok for the 300 yard shots. I know it's mainly the shooter and not the scope...yeah well, maybe that's what I'm afraid of.

Oh well, I haven't been the worst one yet with a borrowed rifle. Maybe I can hide out in the middle for a while until I know what I'm doing.

I'm supposed to get two days off from work this week, so I can put it together---before I clean out the garage to get both cars in.

Take a seat

2006-11-26T07:18:00.000-08:00

Recycled AK-47s...take a load off and lean back with the help of a magazine.

A couple o' links

2006-11-24T07:52:00.000-08:00

Strategy Page is one of my favorite sites. It's a bunch of war gamers who look at the news feeds and rewrite them as "History."

Here's one on the uncontrolled women of Iran.

Here's one about the information war in the media.

Based on how Walter Cronkite spun the Tet victory and the almost total destruction of the Viet Cong into a defeat, we could credit old Walter with killing more Americans than Pearl Harbor and 9-11 put together by encouraging the North Viet Army---a pretty capable force. Walter used to be important, now he just works to keep electricity-generating windmills from being built off-shore of his vacation home.

An Embed Speaks

2006-11-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

Here are the rest of the pictures from Ramadi.

Here's his report for the Daily Standard, but better on his site cause the pictures are in there along with video.

As you would expect in a static situation as our troops are exposed to in Iraq, sniping and counter-sniping are BIG. Our snipers are wining.

I've got a rifle and scope to set up as soon as I have a day off...

Family Snap

2006-11-21T07:24:00.000-08:00

Young Saudi men in my dad's office referred to these as BMOs---for Black Moving Objects. You weren't supposed to take pictures of them over there either or the Religious Police would take your camera. However, duty-free shops in other countries used to sell cameras that pointed one way and took pictures in another.

No beer in Saudi, so I won't be visiting till civilization arrives.

No Tech Talk This Month

2006-11-15T07:24:00.000-08:00

Well, it's early Wednesday morning and I've already worked 70 hours this week. Plus the Princess needs nursing. So I won't make the beer club meeting and won't have time to prepare a technical talk.

I barely have time to drink a beer (and only at 7 am).

No complaints though. It's tax-free week at Sportsman's Warehouse. Can you say "AR" fifteen times?

Meanwhile in Libya

2006-11-08T22:51:00.000-08:00

If you pour three Pilsner Urquells into a liter mug, you can pretend you're somewhere else.

As our new Democratic masters settle in and go about signing death warrants for our light-dark friends in the Middle East---and probably for quite a few of us down the road---we move our gaze east where VDH is having a Libyan Holiday. You would think that a small country of six millions with all that oil would be doing well wouldn't you? Another indication that oil or any natural resource is not wealth in the modern sense.

Is it a coincidence that I have some books stacked that explore the '30s and the fruits of appeasement? Yeah, it's a coincidence---I already know what's coming for us---and I just like reading about what happened back then with some new volumes that have come out in the last decade or so.