Man of Mystery is Revealed

I'm a little late today because of a

Cheese Cake Extravaganza

My most wonderful boss is leaving this week and he brought in three home made cheese cakes. I was in a sugar rush but am now getting a little sleepy.
====================

In other news I have the first recorded photo of Sue's dh.

The Man of Mystery

Here is an action photo of him working on the train station, which regrettably was NOT cement block, which he was prepared for, but in actuality it's plaster with super secret studs.

Total cost about $42 dollars on a super secret stud finder, anchors and drywall screws. We now have the ability to procrastinate even more with hanging posters and so forth.

We're getting there Nancy!!!!

=======================
HEY - for any of you that have ever watched All My Children - Make sure you record Thursdays show when EVERYTHING CHANGES!!! Long time stars die and Pine Valley is wiped out!! When Weather Changed the Soaps!
=======================

Look at this sweet setup - My dream brewing machine. That's what $3600 will get you.

Notice the grain mill on the right!!

I learned something very important last night and I'm PUMPED for the next batch. My alcoholic content has been a little low on the last few batches and I finally figured out why.

When I'm soaking the grains in 152 degree water I have been letting it get a little to hot, up to 160 at times. What this does is produce longer chain sugars which are harder to ferment, thus, the beers have ended with a little more sugar and a little less alcohol.

I THOUGHT I was going to get less overall sugar and was confused when my Original Gravity was right on the predicted number, but in reality, I get a DIFFERENT sugar, one that yeast have problems with.

That's why I love brewing - it's like chess, you can learn to play but there are SO many tiny things to tweak it's hard to master.
===============================
Columbus Postcards are becoming a pain to get. My supplier raised their price 52%, now I have to look for a different place, or wait for a sale.

==============================
I found this blog about The Columbus Carriage Classic called "My Own Private Idaho". Check it out, some nice photos.
===============================

Any LOST fans out there? Hurley has a personal blog called "Dispatches from the Island"
=================================

I was watching The Weather Channel last night and they had a show on the Chicago Fire. I did not know (or never thought about) that MOST of Chicago was built from wood that was cut near Peshtigo. In fact the mayor of Chicago owned most of the timberland in the Peshtigo area. He had a few BAD days there.

And one more trivial thing. There is a tunnel being built in New York. It was started in 1970 and should be complete around 2025. It's 80 stories underground and is for water. It seems water gets to Manhattan now by two tunnels build 100 years ago. They are afraid to check the tunnels because if then shut the doors they might not be able to open them again. Lose a tunnel and Manhattan loses half of it's water supply. Forever.

So they decided to build a tunnel. The problem is that New York City goes DOWN 30 stories so they had to go WAY below that into the bed rock.

Just cool stuff I did not know.

Rod