Everything's Just Jake

The Great Outdoors

2011-11-03T13:01:00.001-05:00

Sent to you by Jacob via Google Reader:

The Great Outdoors

via Futility Closet by Greg Ross on 10/25/11

On Nov. 20, 1980, Leonce Viator Jr. went fishing with his nephew on Louisiana's Lake Peigneur. He might have noted two worrisome things: Below the lake was a salt mine, and above it was a drilling rig.

The drill punctured the mine's roof, and the resulting whirlpool devoured two oil rigs, 11 barges, a tugboat, a loading dock, "assorted greenhouses," a house trailer, several tractors, countless trees, and most of the Live Oak Botanic Gardens. Amazingly, the water drained so quickly that Viator's 14-foot aluminum boat was stuck in the mud at the lake's bottom, and the pair were able to walk away.

No one was killed, but Lake Peigneur is now saltwater.

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Nice

2011-04-28T22:32:00.001-05:00

Way to go Saturn

Powder

2010-12-13T22:29:00.001-06:00

Fantastic weekend up in the mountains. Rented a condo with some friends, and Vail caught 9" overnight (but it felt more like a foot plus in the back bowls. Best day of snowboarding so far. Ever.

2010-11-25T13:47:00.002-06:00

Well, the blog has fallowed pretty hard lately. Work has been busy; big hours for the most part and trials just about every week. Win some lose some.

Backpacking season is long gone, and ski season has started. A and I have gotten a couple of days in, one at A-Basin and one at Breckenridge. The snow was pretty decent, especially compared to last year.

My parents came out to Colorado for a few days, and we knocked about the mountains a bit with them. We managed to get Dad to the Columbine Lounge; his new favorite steak house.

I'm in Atlanta for Thanksgiving, which is warm and quiet, compared to the standard Minnesota Thanksgiving. A and I are headed back to Minnesota for Christmas, which should be fun. I was lucky enough to ask for the days off early enough to get them.

2010-08-09T22:26:00.003-05:00

Had a fantastic trip at Chris and Sophia's wedding. The wedding was fun, as was the bar tour of wonderful downtown Juneau. The bachelor party was on a salmon fishing charter, where we caught 19 fish and kept 5 cohos.

After the wedding, I tacked on an extra week to go sea kayaking with a couple of the groomsmen. We tagged along with a tour boat to get dropped off at the end of Tracy Arm in front of the South Sawyer Glacier. The glacier calved huge a few times, dropping off house-sized chunks of ice and sounding like thunder. We camped on Sawyer Island overnight, and then the next day visited Sawyer Glacier and went back to South Sawyer. We hiked up to a rocky campsite that overlooked the face of the glacier, and watched the glacier calve during cocktail hour and dinner. The next morning I woke up early and moved my sleeping bag and pad outside to doze and watch the glacier. The next night we camped along a gorgeous little gorge just above a class V rapid. That camp was complete with bear shit and claw markings on a rock. Our weather was gorgeous; we probably caught the best string of 4 days the area will see, with bluebird days and 75 degree temps. It rained on our last day, and we realized that the trip would have been a lot different if it would have rained every day as we had expected. We spent the last couple of days paddling out of the arm, but only ended up paddling 4 hours a day or so at most. One day it was so warm that we found a waterfall that formed a slip and slide into the ocean.

2010-08-07T12:16:00.000-05:00

Best. Campsite. Ever.

Trials

2010-07-17T12:04:00.001-05:00

I won my first jury trial last week. It was a lot of fun; hopefully my subsequent trials will go as smoothly. Moved into a new apartment last weekend, and I'm just about settled now. All I need are some dining room chairs.

Hunting

2010-05-19T10:54:00.001-05:00

It's apartment hunting season again. With the new job down south, I'm trying to cut down the commute without moving to the suburbs. So far I've taken a look at 7 places, and one of them is a strong contender. Things will just depend on whether I'll be able to get someone into my place early, or if I'll have to wait until the end of July to move. Hopefully it's the former, so I'm not doubling my commute for 2 months. Fingers crossed.

2010-05-11T11:46:00.002-05:00

Well, last week was pretty hectic. After interviewing for 4 different positions and receiving 3 different offers, I've figured out the path from here. On June 1 I'll be sworn in. It's going to be put-up-or-shut-up time in a sense; I've had the idea that I would enjoy the job and would be good at it, for the past 11 years or so. Now I guess we'll find out.

2010-05-03T15:43:00.001-05:00

Another beer is in bottles, an ESB this time from a split batch that I put together with P. The beer cellar is looking pretty good now, which is good timing for summer. 2 more job interviews this week. Fingers crossed.

Interesting Week

2010-04-30T14:48:00.001-05:00

Well, it's been a busy week. I've had three job interviews (two initial, one callback) and three additional invitations for interviews in the past week. After a pretty long drought, it's good to see that things are picking up. It's especially heartening that all of the positions are coming from cold applications, not from friends-of-friends or something of the sort, so I know my resume is holding up pretty well. We'll see what happens.

2010-04-20T18:56:00.000-05:00

Tearing down gabe's garage

2 Crashes 1 Month

2010-04-06T14:54:00.001-05:00

Well, another death-defying weekend. On Sunday Preston and I were going to go kayaking on Gore Canyon on the Colorado. We got an early start, and were driving down the put-in road at around 10:30. A storm had passed through the area, and the road was slushy and snowy, but manageable. We were in his little pickup; since it was rear-wheel drive (note the past-tense) it wasn't the most sure-footed vehicle out there. Anyway, the rear end slid a bit here and there, but bits of gravel were showing through the snow and it wasn't too terrible. Then we came over the ridge and started dropping over the other side, where nothing had melted and the road was still a sheet of ice. We were going slow, but the rear end started sliding out anyway. When we were traveling downhill and sideways, Preston said "we're done." I replied "this is not good" about half a second before we hit the ditch and, soon thereafter, a big aspen. It slammed into the right rear fender, or rather, the right rear fender slammed into the tree.

We got out, somewhat shaken but all right. Our kayaks had been thrown from the rear of the truck. An aspen branch had punctured the tire, and it was no longer pointed at the front of the truck. It looked like the bed had shifted about 4 inches to the left as well. We weren't driving home.

We hitchhiked to the take-out and met up with our friend Kevin. The rest of the morning was filled with dealing with cops and AAA reps. And building a snowman while Preston talked with those guys. No kayaking for us, though we may try it again tomorrow.

The rest of the weekend went measurably better. Saturday was basically eating and drinking for the duration; up early to try and catch the REI garage sale, dim sum, then brewing beer and eating cow, then beers at falling rock (Dogfish Head 90 minute on tap, mmmm) and then roller derby. Good times.

Weekend

2010-03-30T10:30:00.001-05:00

Hey, a weekend without any physical peril! Horray!

In fact, it was a nice, low-key weekend. A big of shopping with A$, then dim sum (my first time for dim sum. Oh, it was fantastic, let me tell you. Tasty, tasty pork buns), then a beer and cheese tasting (Sabetour from Odell's is going to be fantastic), a bit of shopping, cobbling together beer brewing equipment, drinking beer on rooftops, bottling a wheat beer. Tough to complain.

The beer tasting was a lot of fun; for a fair bit of it B. and I just hung out by some of the breweries' tables and chatted about (and drank) beer. Interestingly, one of the moments that really sticks out was when everyone was closing up shop. The tasting ended at 4, and it was probably 10 after or so, and most of the breweries were out of beer (15 or so in all). Upslope Brewing, from Boulder, has a lousy IPA and a decent pale ale. They had a case or two left, that their reps were packing up. B. and I wandered over and asked if they needed any help getting rid of their beer. They were downright rude. Rudeness + mediocre-at-best beer. Not a good combo.

Paralysis

2010-03-22T10:37:00.001-05:00

Well, I tried to paralyze myself this weekend, or so it seems. I went kayaking down at Confluence Park yesterday, just to get back in the boat and remember how to do things like eddy turns and paddling. I was fetching a bag of paddling gear from the big cabinet above my closet, when the leg of the stool I was standing on folded. My head and neck bounced off of the corner of my bed, and the rest of me fell past it. Quite sore this morning, which, all things considered, isn't all that bad.

Yesterday was gorgeous; got some kayaking in, played bocce ball with random people I met in the park, and halfway learned to knit while lounging about in the sun. Hard to complain.

Last weekend was a lot of fun; I had a great day tooling around on Saturday, biking around, shopping through REI, went to the beer store, hung out with friends. Then I was talked into going snowboarding on Sunday, when Breckenridge happened to get hit with 9 inches of snow. Plenty of powder everywhere, and even good coverage on the runs that were getting tracked up. Lots of fun, though the snow in the mountains meant that I was late fetching A. from the airport.

Car Crash

2010-03-11T10:32:00.001-06:00

Well, we were in a car crash last weekend. Everyone was fine; I think I ended up with the worst injury with a bruised elbow. Not bad for hitting a cement divider at 60mph. We were coming back from skiing at Keystone, and about 20 minutes out of Denver on I-70, Annie's left front tire blew out. We were in fairly heavy traffic in the left lane, and we bounced off of the cement divider and started swerving, hard. Fortunately, we didn't hit anybody, and nobody hit us. Annie managed to get the car back under control and get us to the right-hand shoulder. Everyone was a little shook up, but ok. The car, not so much. The radiator was bleeding pretty bad, and the bumper was trying to smear off of the front of the car. AAA and the cops showed up, and we got everything under control. An amazing feat of automotive engineering that you can ricochet off of a solid object doing 60 and everybody walks away.

2010-03-08T18:32:00.002-06:00

Annie and I attended a great yard sale over the weekend, put on by the Colorado Historical Society. They are moving when the courthouse gets knocked down, and they were selling off pieces they either couldn't move or didn't want to. When we showed up at 10 minutes to doors opening, there were probably 150 people lined up the door, and another 150 or so showed up before the doors opened. Some pieces they were selling were huge, 10' by 10'. They were selling off archival prints for $1 apiece. These were our finds.

Twilight

2010-03-05T16:48:00.001-06:00

A fantastic writeup of twilight.

Free as in Beer

2010-03-04T10:14:00.001-06:00

Had a good day up at A-Basin last weekend. The snow back in montezuma bowl, newly opened, wasn't fantastic, but it was nice to get onto some new terrain. We found some good snow on the frontside, though it took some looking.

Through the grapevine, I found out about a bar running a customer appreciation night last night, about 8 blocks from my house. Word around the campfire was that they had free drinks. I figured it would be free Coors for an hour or something, but it turned out to be free drinks across the board from 7-close. Nice.

New Style

2010-03-02T23:41:00.001-06:00

Trying out a new template; let's see how it goes.

Update

2010-02-25T17:06:00.001-06:00

Got some great snowboarding in at Keystone last weekend. We caught some snow, and I didn't realize how many tree runs Keystone has in some of the back areas. Some of them included some lengthy cat tracks to get back to the lifts, but they were worth it. Tight trees all the way down. Lots and lots of fun.

A. and I did the couchsurfing condo thing again, which was fun. We managed to catch some of the olympics live, which is a little tough without television. In other news, we had tasty fish and chips and pakastani food at a british pub while watching canadian hockey last night. Fun times.

Tonight I'm brewing again, a barleywine this time. This is going to be a big beer, weighing in at around 10%, with a lot of hops and a lot of time. It will be a rough clone of Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot Barleywine, which some people like young and others like to age. I'll definitely be aging some bottles for over a year. I've got an IPA going right now; that will get transferred to a secondary and dry-hopped. Once that gets bottled, I think I'm going to do a quick wheat beer to get the pipeline built back up, especially since the IPA will need to age a little bit in order to mellow out.

President's Day

2010-02-17T10:36:00.001-06:00

President's day weekend was a bit of a bust. I had a root canal on Friday, came down with a fever, and spent most of the long weekend laying around the apartment. Not fantastic. This weekend A. and I are headed up to Keystone to share a condo with the couchsurfers though, which should be fun.

Things have settled into a steady routine lately; A. and I both off to work in the mornings, dinner at home, and various social-ey things scattered throughout the week, usually skiing one day of the weekend or so. I've started to keep my eyes open for job openings that might suit me, and have fired off a couple of applications, though nothing real solid has come out of them yet. It sounds like things are starting to come through for people who have been hunting for work for a while, so maybe things are starting to loosen up. Fingers crossed.

Breck and Snow

2010-01-25T11:00:00.001-06:00

Had a good day at Breck yesterday; they caught about 6" of snow, which was enough to make a difference. Easily the best snow we've seen at the I-70 resorts this season. The drive home was tough though; Loveland pass was closed and the road up to Eisenhower was icy and full of blowing snow. It took us about an hour and a half from Frisco to the tunnel entrance. We listened to the audiobook of World War Z by Max Brooks. It was fantastic. The book is setup as an oral history of the zombie war, and they produced the reading with a bunch of different actors. It helped the time pass quickly.

Weekend

2010-01-20T14:37:00.001-06:00

The long weekend was a lot of fun. Annie and I headed up to the mountains for the duration, staying with the couchsurfers in a condo the first night and with some friends at a friends-of-friends' condo the second night (with a hot tub on the porch. awesome). We hit keystone the first day (icy, not fantastic), A-Basin the second (not fantastic, but had a great atmosphere and some pretty good skiing) and Vail on monday (beautiful skiing, though not enough snow yet).

The mock trial team that I've been coaching has fallen apart; we just didn't have enough committed students to make it work. I'm going to see if I can start helping out with another school soon.

I could definitely get used to the winters out here. 40s and 50s for the most part, with snow up in the mountains.

Pagosa

2010-01-04T15:04:00.001-06:00

We had a good Christmas and New Year's down in Pagosa. My parents rented out the oddly-sized lodge that they have access to. It was just the three of us for Christmas, but then things swelled to seven for New Year's. As the photos show, we managed to get down to Wolf Creek for a number of days. They had a ridiculous amount of snow. A., B., and I were out one day when we got dusted with 16" of powder. It was a lot of fun; I'm still at that point in my learning curve where I feel noticeably better at snowboarding at the end of the day then I do at the beginning.

Dad and I took a road trip up to Craig, CO for a job interview. It's a long way from anywhere. The drive was pretty though.

Though the trip was good, it was also good getting back. I drove through ice and snow to get out to Pagosa, but getting back was easy. Then I took about a day to unpack and play a bunch of video games. Fallout 3 is fantastic, as is Burnout Paradise.

Wolf Creek

2009-12-28T08:57:00.001-06:00

Riding Wolf Creek

Wolf Creek

2009-12-27T20:36:00.001-06:00

Mid Dec.

2009-12-14T17:09:00.001-06:00

Well, it's mid december. A$ and I have been getting up to the mountains a fair bit; we spent Saturday skiing Vail. The snow isn't great yet, but it's plenty for me to learn on. This time around we actually had snow to play on, instead of the man-made stuff that was freezing up at Keystone last weekend (it was at the end of a great condo trip with friends though, so I can't be heard to complain too much). It's nice to have a new sport for this season, especially since I think this is the longest period of time I've been out of my kayak since I started kayaking.

As the photos below can attest, I had a batch of beer turn south on me. Looks like it was a Brett infection, and it turned what should have been a nice pale ale into a cidery mess. I ended up tossing the bucket. In the meantime, I've made a tasty milk stout and another pale ale.

2009-12-11T17:52:00.002-06:00

My first infected batch

Breck

2009-11-22T12:19:00.001-06:00

A. and I went out skiing/snowboarding yesterday, and I'm starting to feel like an actual snowboarder. By the end of the day I was linking all of my turns and feeling very in-control. Of course, this was on one of the easier greens at Breck, but it was still good to feel like I had a solid handle on the basics. We headed down one of the steeper greens for a bit, but it was packed with people and I had a hard time concentrating on what I was doing. Hopefully as the mountains get more snow, other terrain will open up soon and spread out the people a little more. We headed up to the mountains early, and came down off the mountain at about 2:30, which let us miss most of the traffic in both directions, which was nice. Hopefully we'll be able to get out again after the holiday weekend.

2009-11-15T17:07:00.004-06:00

Beer Labels

Outdoors

2009-11-13T13:59:00.001-06:00

A., P., and I managed to get out on what will probably be the last hike of the season last weekend. We drove up to the Gore range, car camped, and then did a day hike the next morning. Our campsite was pretty, and pre-bonfire bocce ball went over well. Sleeping wasn't too terribly cold, though I don't think my sleeping bag is an honest-to-God -10 degree bag. The hike was pleasant, though it alternated between being icy and muddy. Then, pumpkin ravioli.

I had veteran's day off, so we headed up to Keystone for my first snowboarding lesson, ever. Things went fairly well, though I never got off of the bunny hill. By the end of the day I was able to link 2-3 turns together though; once I can link them together without getting close to stopping/falling, I should be good to go. I figure I'll need about one more morning on the bunny hill before I'm ready for more challenging terrain. We're planning on heading up to Breckenridge this Sunday, if the weather is decent.

Also, A$ and I have been playing Borderlands, an xbox game, quite a lot lately. It's a fantastic game, with lots of guns. Hooray!

2009-11-05T18:11:00.001-06:00

Zombies. A made a trick or treater cry.

2009-11-05T18:09:00.000-06:00

Zombie halloween. JFK style.

2009-11-05T18:08:00.000-06:00

The commute

2009-10-26T16:33:00.000-05:00

Getting sworn in.

Teeth

2009-10-26T12:47:00.001-05:00

Well, I'm now the veteran of a root canal. I had a tooth that had been bothering me some last weekend, and it continued to get worse. I managed to see a dentist, who referred me to an endodontist, and sure enough, one of my molars that had a deep filling in it had died. Root canal time. Fortunately, the procedure has gotten a lot easier than it used to be, and now it's really no different, experience-wise, from a deep filling. Also, the hydrocodone helped.

Not a lot else new around here, aside from my fantastic ski helmet. Spent the weekend hanging out with some friends, and had a tasty dinner at Le Central the other night. Today I get sworn-in with the other newly-minted attorneys, which should be fun.

2009-10-24T15:36:00.000-05:00

ND game watch

2009-10-22T17:56:00.001-05:00

Star wars ski helmet take 2

2009-10-22T17:56:00.000-05:00

Star wars ski helmet

Weddings/Teeth

2009-10-20T10:58:00.001-05:00

Attended another great wedding this past weekend; very fun and informal. It was preceded by a bachelor party that consisted mainly of shooting things, drinking beer, and cooking steaks in the woods. Oh, and an attempt to cook chicken-in-the-hole, which ended with a tasty meal of chicken-grilled-on-the-gas-grill-that-we-hauled-into-the-woods.

I went fly fishing up in Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday. It was my first time up there, and though I still think there are plenty of places to go backpacking in Colorado and avoid the crowds and cost of RMNP, it sure is beautiful. Didn't catch any fish, but saw some sizable elk.

I have a dentist appointment today, which promises to be pretty fantastic; I have a tooth that has been bothering me quite a bit for the past few days. Blarg.

Though we had a cold snap a week or so ago, it's beautiful around here now. Hopefully the sunny weather will stick around here and some more snow will start to drop on the mountains.

2009-10-14T00:17:00.001-05:00

Star wars ski helmet. Gonna be sweet

Denver

2009-10-10T11:32:00.001-05:00

Denver Snow.

Wedding

2009-09-29T11:18:00.001-05:00

This past weekend I flew to Chicago for M's wedding. It was a really fun weekend; mainly just bumming around Chicago with D. and his brother, eating giant pastrami and brisket sandwiches. The only stroke of bad luck came when we didn't make it to Hot Doug's before closing in order to sample their foie gras hot dogs. Something to look forward to for next time I suppose. The wedding was beautiful, and the reception was a lot of fun. It was nice to get a bit of a sense of the varieties that weddings come in; events with my family tend to be huge, loud, and always include the chicken dance. Getting back to Denver was a bit brutal; my flight left Midway at 6am. I'll try not to make that mistake again.

2009-09-25T22:29:00.000-05:00

Tour de fat

Posting

2009-09-24T16:34:00.001-05:00

Got out backpacking last weekend, which was beautiful. P&C and I hiked up to Crater Lakes near Moffat Tunnel. It was a short trip, just out for a night, but the lake was beautiful and the weather was good right up until when we hiked out, when it started raining. Then Denver was socked in with clouds and drizzle for about 4 days. First time that's happened since I got here. It looks like it's finally passed though. Feels like fall.

I brewed a wheat beer last night, and am brewing my first consignment beer tonight. My neighbor owns a brand-new graphic design firm and wants to give out bomber bottles of a stout and a pale ale as Christmas gifts. When I went to the brew store last night I stumbled into a presentation by a company that produces brewing yeast on their new lager strains. They had free food and beer. It was fantastic.

2009-09-24T10:35:00.000-05:00

2009-09-24T10:34:00.000-05:00

Continental divide

Spam

2009-09-24T10:33:00.000-05:00

Spam. Cheese. Dried pineapple. Awesome.

Work

2009-09-08T16:53:00.001-05:00

The only bad thing about the first day of work is that a woman walked off with my newspaper when I was having lunch in the park. You turn your back for one second to toss the sandwich paper, and your WSJ is gone.

2009-09-04T12:56:00.001-05:00

The readjustment to Colorado has gone well; I managed to get out kayaking and brew another batch of beer, a Cascade-based IPA, since I"ve been back. A. is back in Atlanta for a bit, which takes some getting used to, and I'm about ready to start work. The month or so off is just about the right amount of time. Not a lot else new and exciting; it took me a full day to get my car emissions-tested, titled, registered, and to get a Colorado driver's license. Good times at the DMV.

Santorini

2009-08-18T03:56:00.001-05:00

I failed my moped test the other day with the rental guys. You almost drive into a van in the parking lot and they yank that bad boy right out from under you. ATVs it was then. Santorini is beautiful, though it was good to get away from the crowds when we could. Today we're bumming around for the most part, and then we catch a fast ferry for Crete. We're in Crete for less time than we had hoped; the ferry and plane schedules didn't quite work out the way we wanted them to. So we're there for a full day, and then we're out on an early flight to London via Athens. Should be a pretty big change from the islands.

Santorini

2009-08-15T02:51:00.001-05:00

We have arrived in Santorini, perhaps the most beautiful of the greek islands, but maybe the most tourist-infested as a result. Most of those sunset photos you've seen where the sun is setting over whitewashed buildings on a cliff were taken here. Fortunately, we found a great hostel on the quiet side of the island that is on a cliff just above the water. We will be here for a few days, just hanging out today, but renting a moped tomorrow and cruising out to the volcano the day after. Naxos was great; my favorite day of the trip so far was probably tooling around the island on an ATV, hiking Mt. Zeus, and playing in the surf. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

No pictures for the time being; I need to have wifi to upload them from my phone.

2009-08-09T09:55:00.001-05:00

2009-08-09T09:54:00.000-05:00

Planes, trains...

2009-08-09T09:51:00.000-05:00

2009-08-09T09:50:00.002-05:00

Athens

2009-08-09T09:50:00.001-05:00

The acropolis

Athens

2009-08-08T11:26:00.001-05:00

A. and I have made it to Athens. Amsterdam was fun; we stayed with fantastic couchsurfing hosts. They let us cook dinner for them on the first night (we did burgers with blue cheese and balsamic, with sauteed shallots) and they made dinner for us on our other two nights. We did a boat tour, saw the Van Gough museum and Our Lord in the Attic (a Catholic church built among the attics of three houses while Catholicism was outlawed) and did a lot of wandering about. It looks like we may have budgeted an extra day or so in Athens, but I'm sure we'll find something to do.

Amsterdam

2009-08-04T13:57:00.001-05:00

Well, it's off to Amsterdam today. Annie and I are on different
flights but we will arrive within a couple hours of each other.

Beth and I went backpacking over the weekend. Out campsite was great,
but over half of the trail wa open to 4wd travel, which was annoying.
We were going to hike a peak too, but the wind was gusting to 60 or so
ond the ridges on both days which made it tough to stand. Fortunately
our campsite down in the valley was well-protected.

2009-07-30T16:30:00.002-05:00

Well, we're done with the Colorado Bar Exam. It went fairly well; I'm sure I missed some questions but I think it went all right on the whole. I'll find out in a couple of months. We brought a bocce ball set and played a few rounds during the lunch breaks, which was a nice way to break things up. Some people were studying during the break and looking pretty miserable. I didn't see anyone completely freak out, though when we started the second essay period, the whole group of us got a bit of a lecture about how they know that we're under a lot of stress but that we need to be cordial to the staff, especially since they're there to try and help us. Someone must have freaked out.

We had some people over last night to celebrate, and today is pretty low-key. A. wants to hit a water park before we take off for Europe, and I may go backpacking for a couple days. Then we're off.

2009-07-20T11:00:00.002-05:00

Study Study Study. We're less than a week and a half out from the bar exam. I saw Andrew Jackson Jihad last night at Rhino, and it was a fantastic show. It also must have been over 100 degrees in the venue by the time the show was over. Fantastic though. Harpoontang was also there, and similarly fantastic. I brewed some more beer the other night as well, this time an IPA that should be deserving of the name. We've got tickets booked for Europe; flying into Amsterdam, then Greece, then London. If you have a place to crash out there, let me know.

Now, back to studying.

2009-07-10T10:44:00.002-05:00

Had a good Fourth of July; did a lot of boating and got away from barbri for a bit. Now it's time to buckle down; the exam is about 20 days away. I feel pretty decent about it; I did well on the practice exam, though my essays are still a little hit-or-miss.

The beer continues to improve; I've got the IPA, APA, Red, and Wheat all into bottles, along with a german hard cider that needs to clean up a little bit. I've also got a Scotch Ale, a Stout, and a Brown Ale in fermenters. The APA is fantastic; it's a clone of Mighty Arrow, the New Belgium summer seasonal. Great hop profile, nice body; good beer. I'm still waiting for the Red to even out a little; it's still a little overly sweet. Both the IPA and the Red were from pre-packaged kits; I think I'm going to do recipes that I've hunted down from now on.

No other big drama around here; I've been trying to bike to class as much as I can, though we just have a few of them left and then we're on our own to study. A random guy with a cape joined our group at the bar the other night, and we did not-fantastic at the local pub quiz (we need a deeper bench). Now I'm off to MN for a de-facto family reunion.

Bread

2009-07-01T17:28:00.000-05:00

Fresh brew grain bread

2009-06-21T15:35:00.003-05:00

The beer brewing is going pretty well; the IPA turned out nicely. I'm bottling a Red Ale and maybe a wheat beer this week, a week after that maybe an American Pale Ale if I clear enough bottles, and after that a german hard cider. Then the brown ale that I'm brewing on Wed. That should build up a pretty healthy pipeline. After that, who knows. Maybe I'll get started on a porter or a stout to let it age for a long time before fall rolls around.

A. and I booked our tickets for our bar trip. We're flying into Amsterdam and out of London; staying in Europe for 22 or 23 days. We want to hit Greece and maybe France; flights through Easy Jet are pretty cheap, and it looks like we have somewhere to stay in London. Should be a good trip.

2009-06-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

I made beer

2009-06-15T18:54:00.000-05:00

Beer brewing party. Note brownies.

Cooling my third wort. Big time cold break.

Post-thunderstorm clouds over the first friday art walk on Santa Fe.

2009-06-07T19:02:00.002-05:00

Well, we're pretty well settled into Denver. The apartment actually looks like an apartment, and I've already hosted a number of houseguests. The bar courses are going into full swing this week. We just had a few courses the past couple of weeks, but now it's a 5 day week from here on in for some time. The classes are fine, though since they're being recorded we can't ask any questions, so we're just talked at for three hours every morning. I've been getting a fair amount of kayaking in; I figure that as water levels go down, studying will go up, and the water tends to run out once July comes around anyway, which is really when I need to start putting my head down.

In other news, I wish people would quit stealing my stuff. Annie and I went down to the Santa Fe district for First Friday, when all of the galleries open up their new collections. While we were there, someone unbolted my bike seat and seatpost. They brought tools. Jerks. They've both been replaced, through the generouisity of friends and dropping some cash at REI.

I've been brewing some beer lately; I have both an IPA and a Red Ale in primary fermenters. I'm going to bottle the IPA later this week, and a couple of weeks after that it should be ready to drink (though technically it's beer as I type this). Brewing is quite a bit of fun; it's like cooking with a little bigger focus on procedure and chemistry. It's nice getting somewhat immersed in something new and trying to get a handle on, if not master, the technique. Next up is probably going to be a Gumball Head wheat beer clone. We'll see how it goes. It's helpful that there is a pretty well stocked homebrew store not far from REI.

That's most of the major news. I've been meeting some new friends in Denver and trying to reconnect with some of the old ones. A. and I have gotten into watching Friday Night Lights, and saw Terminator last night. So far, she's studying more than I am, though I'm ok with that so far. We've picked up and rehabbed furniture, and broke down and bought a new bed after the first one was too marshmallow-ey. So far, the apartment is working out great, and now it's time for cocktails.

2009-05-25T23:37:00.003-05:00

What's that you ask for? A tour of the new apartment? I suppose. We actually got freaked out about the new apartment, since I tried to use my key in the wrong house, which had a trashy yard and, perhaps, a puppy farm. Then I found the right one. Horray! Flowers! High ceilings! A porch! The only other hiccup was getting ticketed when the landlord erroneously told me to move my car because of street sweeping, and I moved it to the far side of the street the one day out of the month it was illegal to do so. She let me knock the cost of the ticket off of rent. Awesome.

The sort-of-galley kitchen.

The TV now has something to sit on. Woo! More art to come once the frames get here.

Bookshelves. The bedroom is through the pocket doors.

Looking into the bedroom, past the now-deoderized couch.

The bar. Stools to come. Flowers from our landlord, from the garden.

Bed. With custom chalkboard paint.

2009-05-25T23:34:00.004-05:00

The drive out to Denver was fairly uneventful; A. and I were lucky enough to stay in North Platte, Nebraska. They had steaks there. And bears.

Bears.

"Beaver Crossing"

Hello, Iowa. Ug, Nebraska's next...

2009-05-25T23:24:00.003-05:00

That's a very tiny President of the United States.

Well, the Notre Dame Law class of 2009 has graduated. Grad weekend was fun; A's family and I met each other for the first time, we got to see the President give a fantastic speech, and we don't have to go to law school anymore. We had a very pretty weekend, which was full of packing and festivities. My uncle sent a batch of beer brewing equipment with my parents that I had a bit of a time cramming into my car, but it eventually all came together. Never mind the fact that my car was riding about 1" off of its back axle due to all of the stuff crammed into it.

Commencement was great, and of course Obama's speech was fantastic. I think 4 protesters ended up getting thrown out. My favorite moment of the whole thing was when the second protester started yelling, and was shouted down by chants of "We Are ND." It was fantastic.

Graduation Day

Packed.

Our section. There was a secret service agent in the front of our section in the same cap and gown; we picked him out thanks to the earpiece.

The dome is behind the statue.

2009-05-18T09:52:00.001-05:00

If you're not rolling down your windows to get more stuff in your car,
you don't know what real packing is like.

2009-05-14T15:51:00.000-05:00

Wrigley.

2009-05-14T15:50:00.000-05:00

Wrigley view.

2009-05-14T15:41:00.002-05:00

3L week has been fun, though pretty hard on the liver. We started things off with a wine tasting in southern Michigan, which was fun. Had some decent wines, though nothing out of this world, and got to hang out with some good people. Lead to a 5pm hangover though, which I suppose was part of the price of admission. The next day we had a 3 hour paintball game, which was a lot of fun. The fields we played at had a tire course, a big woods, capture the flag course, and a castle siege. Good times were had by all, and we only drew blood a few times.

After paintball I helped Dave move his stuff into storage; he's subletting in Chicago this summer before swinging through South Bend on his way to his clerkship in Fort Wayne. We almost didn't get everything into the tiny storage space, but we tetris-ed things enough so they fit. Then sushi for dinner, woo hoo!

Yesterday we went to Chicago for a Cub's game. We were supposed to spend the afternoon on an architecture tour of Chicago on a boat, which would have been a good time if the ND counsel's office didn't hate the liability waivers we got and canceled the thing. Annoying. Anyway, we ended up drinking beer for a few additional hours, then heading over to the game. It was a cool setup; Wrigley is small, but a number of the brownstones that are next to the field overlook the outfield. The owners have built bleachers on the rooftops, and have bars inside. We ate and drank and watched the game until it started pouring on us and we headed to the buses for a slightly soggy (and sloppy) ride home.

2009-05-08T17:02:00.002-05:00

Well, the fiddley bits for my bike finally arrived today; hopefully they won't fail catastrophically again. We're going with aluminum this time instead of carbon, so it's heavier but should be a lot sturdier. They even sent me a hat; probably since the turnaround was around a month. Chainrings too.

Started watching a few episodes of Breaking Bad; pretty decent show about a high school science teacher who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and starts cooking meth to try and set something aside for his family. Enough for a story.

2009-05-07T12:50:00.001-05:00

Well, that's it for law school, God willing. I had my last final today; Business Associations. It went well, though I was almost screwed on a big question because I remembered to bring all of my materials except for my supplement. Fortunately, the prof. handed out the relevant portions of the supplement to those who needed them about halfway through the exam. Aside from that scare, I feel pretty good about it.

If I bank a 4.0 this semester I get to graduate magna cum laude instead of cum laude, but I'm not very confident that'll happen. Who knows though.

2009-05-07T11:40:00.000-05:00

Done with law school celebration lunch

2009-05-03T10:20:00.002-05:00

We're rolling up on finals pretty quick here; I've just got one of them to worry about, so hopefully I'll be well-prepared. I've started doing a bit of packing and culling of my possessions, even though I'm not out of here for a couple more weeks yet. I'm really excited to be getting out to Denver, especially since it's starting to get nice and the rivers are starting to run. I've been hunting craigslist for a lot of apartment furnishings; I'm basically going to roll into Denver with a handful of cash and will start fresh. I'm only packing out to Denver what I can fit in my car. Should be an adventure.

2009-04-27T21:37:00.001-05:00

My favorite warning sign.

2009-04-27T20:39:00.001-05:00

Tasty new bread

Porky bits

2009-04-19T18:48:00.001-05:00

2009-04-19T11:25:00.003-05:00

Anybody know what this little spiky pear-thing is? I saw one at the local latin grocery. Also, looks like I've almost got an apartment in Denver. I just need to sign a copy of the lease and I'm into a cute little place in a victorian off of 28th and Curtis.

2009-04-14T19:36:00.001-05:00

2009-04-14T14:43:00.002-05:00

So, I park most of my day-to-day money at ING Direct, and use that account to pay off my credit card monthly. Instead of making a tiny amount of interest at the credit union where I have my checking account, the ING account fluctuates between 2.5 and 3.5%. If you're looking for a new account, let me know; with a referral you get $25 free, and I get $10. Not a bad deal.

2009-04-14T11:39:00.001-05:00

Chicago was a lot of fun; I went into town with a friend of mine and stayed with his sister and her boyfriend. There was a lot of eating good food, drinking good beer, and riding bikes. It made me even more excited to go to Denver and actually live in a city.

Saw an interesting thing on the way home; a UPS semi clipped another semi and tore open the side of the UPS trailer like an aluminum can. Packages and sweatshirts and DVDs were strewn all over the highway.

Only two and a half weeks left of classes. We're almost there.

2009-04-11T18:46:00.000-05:00

2009-04-11T14:52:00.003-05:00

I'm in the process of writing again; cooking up a law review article dealing with prosecutorial discretion and the war on drugs. I was going to try and do something about the oversight of financial crimes, but when I started doing the research on it it was just mind-numbingly boring to me. Since I'm basically just fishing for publication credit, not for any sort of grade or class, I'm not going to write for anything that I'm not interested in.

Had my first Seder dinner this past weekend, which was a lot of fun. It was busy, and made me thankful that I'm used to chaotic family gatherings. Now I'm off to Chicago for dinner and some bike riding tomorrow.

2009-04-10T20:29:00.000-05:00

Python bracelet.

Nice rack

2009-04-10T20:22:00.000-05:00

2009-04-06T08:20:00.003-05:00

Had a good weekend; headed out to Madison to help fire my uncle's kiln. Tossed big chunks of pine into a 2300 degree kiln for a day or so, split some logs, drank some beer, got acquainted with a ball python, lost at Settlers of Catan, and ate some beer curds. Yum.

In other news, I broke down and bought an iPhone. My old phone was barely functioning as a phone; about 1/3 of my calls were garbled. I managed to get a refurbished iPhone for $100 by starting a new contract. The thing is amazing. Feels like living in the future. Granted, I was pretty impressed just by camera phones, but to get weather, email, wikipidia, and THE ENTIRE INTERNET on a little hand-held piece of glass is pretty amazing. No more calling around trying to get someone to get online to give us river levels when we're stuck in the middle of Tennessee anymore. Driving back from Madison, I listend to my Pandora stations all the way home. Cool stuff. The only downside was that the iphone has a built-in SIM card, so I had to hand-transfer all of my numbers over from my old phone (though some didn't make the cut). The silver lining was that the iphone syncs with google contacts, so I could do it on my laptop instead of on the little screen.

It snowed here last night. Boo.

The last, and perhaps biggest, piece of news is that I got an offer on the house. It's kind of a bittersweet victory, since they're offering significantly less than what I owe on the mortgage, but I think I lost that battle a while ago. We're losing on the sale roughly what I saved in not paying rent while I was living there, so it should be about a wash. It could be a lot worse I suppose. Closing should be this month, and it's going to be a cash sale, so things should go pretty smoothly. Keep your fingers crossed.

2009-03-25T14:16:00.001-05:00

I made the local paper.

2009-03-25T09:34:00.000-05:00

Finally got something good in the mail yesterday; a $60 check from the Airborne class action suit. Woo hoo fake cold medicine!

2009-03-23T13:25:00.002-05:00

We had a pair of mock trials for our Trial Ad course; one jury trial and one judge trial; we also served as witnesses for two other trials. It was a pretty good experience; it was interesting to see some of the differences between bench and jury trials. The jury for our trial was made up of h.s. students; they were out of deliberations in about 5 minutes. On the bright side, a couple of them repeated my case theme when explaining why they found in our favor. It made for a pretty long weekend, but it was a positive experience overall. Now we just have to fill out hundreds of pages of self-analysis paperwork. Whee!

I missed a kayaking trip this weekend to do the trials, which worked out well, since the boys went up to Michigan's UP and were turned back by ice shelves at every turn.

Obama is coming to speak at our graduation. It's sparked a fair bit of controversy, with a lot of people (or at least a very vocal minority) feeling that ND shouldn't invite speakers that are pro-abortion. Seems like a terrible way to approach graduation speakers; to think that they should only bring those that fall lockstep into the Catholic dogma. It's intellectually lazy, at the very best.

2009-03-20T14:23:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm 25 now. The birthday party was fun; the ND SBA basically took over a small bar in town, with drink specials for all. Then last night A. and I went to the Carriage House, a really nice restaurant near South Bend, where I had the best steak I've ever had, along with a very good glass of wine.

I got a new tent; an REI half dome, with the dividend income. Still working on selling the old one.

I've been getting out on the bike quite a bit more often; some nice rides now that it's pretty outside.

2 mock trials this weekend, should be busy.

2009-03-16T15:09:00.002-05:00

I might be on the news in a couple of days; the local news affiliate came to our legal aid clinic to talk to us about the mortgage foreclosure mess.

Got my REI dividend. FREE GEAR WOO! Picking up a new pair of boots and a tent.

Phoenix with the family was good. Got to see a Titan II missile (see below) which was fun. Knocked some golf balls around (I can hit the crap out of the ball, but I always slice). Got some sunshine, got some work done, and generally relaxed.

Went straight from O'Hare to the car, and then off to Virginia and Tennessee for some kayaking (see boating blog).

Now it's back to the grind; not much school left on the whole. Still trying to sell the house, which is tough. It feels like spring has sprung around here tough, with makes things a little easier (except for going to class, which is made somewhat tougher).

2009-03-16T14:24:00.005-05:00

This past week my dad and I saw a nuclear missile silo, one of the Titan II sites in southern Arizona. It was quite the tour; the guide talked about how they kept the silo staffed, walked us through a mock launch, and showed us the silo. Some photos:

The first stage rocket engine. The missiles were mostly just big fuel pods.

The launch control booth. The tour guide, in blue, walked us through what a launch would look like from the control room.

Two mannequins staged in the silo, cleaning up after a fuel spill. The body of the missile is behind them.

The business end of the missile. The black bit is where the nuclear warhead would be. The glass at the top was added to the silo, largely for satellite ID, so the Russians and others can tell that the missile is inoperable.

The blast doors. That big metal pin to the upper right of the guide was one of 4 that held the 3 ton door shut.

Another shot in the control room. See that big spring behind the fan? The entire room was hung on those big springs. Lights and everything else were the same way, in order to insulate the whole place against shock waves in case Russian nukes were landing nearby.

2009-03-10T14:20:00.000-05:00

I was down in Indianapolis this past weekend for the state high school mock trial competition. I’ve been coaching a team since November or so, and they made state this year. We headed down in the short bus on Friday afternoon; we talked about religion and I taught a few of them how to play hot dice. We had been put up at a hotel that was far too ritzy for us; The Columbia Club. Lots of wood paneling; we valet parked the short bus.

I had brought my Xbox and Rock Band, but the TV in the room was a hotel special, and the RCA ports had been nerfed. Eventually, two of the other coaches and I went on a road trip and tracked down an RF modulator, which tricked the TV into thinking that the information from the xbox was getting piped in through the regular cable connection. We were on.

Saturday was pretty exhausting; 3 trials, all of them pretty close. I had to go judge one trial, and got to preside, which was fun (especially with a mohawk). After dinner, it was back to the hotel room for more rock band; this time most of the team joined us. It was the first time I had played rock band with a full cadre of backup singers.

Sunday was quite a bit more relaxed; just one trial in the morning, followed by lunch and awards. The team ended up placing 7th, even though we were 4 points away from being in the finals (out of about 700). I was really proud of them; they had done well, and had duked out close trials all around.

Now it’s off to Phoenix to hang out with the family.

2009-03-04T12:00:00.002-06:00

One of the ubiquitous features of law school is the lunch school meeting; some group provides pizza and brings in a speaker. Today I saw in on a presentation by a job-hunting guru. She didn't have a lot of real ground-breaking stuff to say, but it was good to hear the more basic points repeated. She made one good point that I hadn't thought of; that everyone in your social network should know what you want to do. So, for the record, I want to work for the Denver DA's or AG's office, or do civil rights litigation in Denver. I've got a year-long clerkship lined up (actually just talked to the judge to make sure the job's secure), but then it's back to the races to pin down something permanent. If you have a line on something, let me know.

2009-03-01T16:05:00.004-06:00

It's weird to think that I've been a member of a bowling league for going on three years now.

Looking at an interesting place in Denver, seen here. Annie and I played around a little with a 3D modeling program to try and figure out how big the place is, this is what we came up with: The tricky bit is that the owner wants to rent it a month or so earlier than I could move in; I'm trying to decide if it's worth the extra cash or not. Then again, it does have a rooftop patio...

Had a pretty low-key weekend; lots of Rock Band playing. Saw a so-so concert on campus on Friday; the Young Dubliners (who weren't young, nor were most of them Irish). Spring Break is in a week, and after that it's going to start feeling like we're headed for the home stretch. Less than 80 days left. Spring break should be all right; a trip down to Phoenix to visit the family, bracketed by the state mock trial tournament on one and and (hopefully) a kayaking trip on the other.

I have to go get an Indiana driver's license, which I'll hold for about three months. Annoying.