After stirring in the yeast to begin the fermentation process, the scent is divine. It’ll be a good month before its drinkable. Then, I’ve noticed, offering up one’s own self-brewed beer makes a great conversation piece.

Brewing a small batch - about twenty 12-oz bottles worth - of what I think will be a blonde ale. Currently stirring the wort.

The Tap House - with their amazing rotation of draft beers from around the world.

I came across an old CD full of photos from high school while doing some cleaning tonight. Since I was looking for a reason to be distracted, I popped the disc in my computer… and was reminded of this.

I have skin that does not burn easy, so when I do get burnt, it really stands out in my memory. I still shudder at the thought of this one. This was my senior year of high school in ‘05 after our first track meet of the spring. I remember one of the girls insisting that I put suntan lotion on and my stubborn too-cool-to-smell-like-lotion objection: “Nah, I don’t burn.” I was such a bastard.

Needless to say, this did not feel good the next day. My lips were swollen and my ears were on fire. This was a day spent with aloe and ice cubes. I can only think of one other time in my life when I was burnt quite like this - that first year that I lived in Florida after high school and was too stupid to understand the power of Florida sun as compared to PA’s (that one left a few scars). After those two incidences, I have learned my lesson. Lather me up, baby.

“The Judge” by Ben Nichols from his Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian inspired album The Last Pale Light in the West.

Listen to other songs from the album:

• The Kid
• The Last Pale Light in the West

1. Complete taxes (so that I may receive my refund sooner to put it all on red at the casino).
2. Complete and submit the first modules of both my graduate courses (so that I can instantly be pinpointed as the overachieving asshole).
3. Finish my economics lessons for next week (so that I can be lazy and not stay late tomorrow). 
4. Wash, dry, and put away my laundry (emphasis on “put away,” so that I don’t leave the dry clothes in the bin overnight). 
5. Attempt to fix the passenger side mirror on my car (because it fell off when a deer tried to make its acquaintance). 
6. Finish reading The Wettest County in the World (because it’s about 1930s bootleggers and John Hillcoat is adapting this awesomeness). 

Okay, Jonnyboy, if you are rereading this - I know you are tired, but stay on task, damn it! Just make another cup for coffee.

Desperately desiring an afternoon coffee.

As I get ready for bed, I wonder: do I make my students watch the entire State of the Union address or just show them the highlight reel tomorrow? I think snoring and cries for mercy would begin around the 18 minute point. Fifteen year olds can’t focus on a 15 second commercial without getting distracted.

And yes, I am shaving with my phone camera. Don’t try this at home, kids.

I spent an unreasonable amount of time on the sixth floor of my old undergraduate campus library - escaping to the same small one-person desk by the window, doing work or reading, sometimes getting distracted by all of the books surrounding me, sometimes getting distracted by the cute girl in glasses at the desk facing me a few rows away, and, more often than I care to admit, sometimes taking an hour here and there to put in my down in an attempt to sleep off a hangover.

It’s been three years now since I’ve spent a significant amount of time on the campus and it’s strange coming back, if even for just a few moments, taking note of all the changes and improvements (where were those suites when I was a student?), driving by buildings I spent so much time in, seeing how young so many of the students look, chuckling as I pass houses and apartment buildings that I associate with blurred memories - some good, some bad, some so ridiculous that I sometimes have to question the validity of my memory. 

I don’t miss college. I don’t miss the stupidity, the irresponsibility, or the erratic schedule. I don’t miss sleeping until noon on Saturdays. I don’t miss the ease of the classes, the difficult first lessons in financial responsibility, the absurdity of a near nightly bar scene where pitchers of the light beer on special were all we could afford, or the seemingly endless stream of young women who, like me, were experiencing and enjoying freedom for the first time. I don’t miss these constant discoveries as I transitioned from teenager to adult. I might slightly miss bullshitting with professors and the uniqueness of a lifestyle crafted by meeting new people every week, people from all over the world who were just as wide-eyed and naive about their own freedom as I was, but I don’t miss much else.

Damn though, it was still fun.

“Intro” by The xx

It took 26 years, but finally, Gary Oldman is an Oscar-nominated actor.

History Mini-Lesson of the Moment Vol. 4

Robert Owen: Social Reformer

There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying - that is by the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each.

And with this words, Robert Owen expressed his vision of utopia, an idea not unfamiliar even in the 18th and 19th centuries in which Owen lived, but made unique by Owen’s ability to personal finance his grand experiments of utopian socialism.

Born in Wales in 1771, Robert Owen worked his way into financial success at a young age. He used his riches as a philanthropist and social reformer - and soon, took to buying up entire communities in Britain with hopes of finding success in his ideas on a small scale, using his money to publicize and promote his ideas to British citizens and politicians. These ideas included ahead-of-their-time reforms of free healthcare, limited work days, prohibiting child labor, mandatory education for children, and continued education for adults - all at the expense of the community as a whole. 

Owen was discouraged by his lack of success in Britain, particularly New Lanark. In 1825, Owen decided to take his experiment across the Atlantic, and purchased a community in northwestern Indiana, USA. He named it New Harmony, a proposed “Heaven on Earth,” and sent much of his family there as he traveled back and forth between the two nations, deciding to put his son in charge of running the new experimental utopia. The same ideas used back in Britain were implemented in the new community, which also offered plenty of activities and events to keep up the community’s morale. Soon though, the community - which was filled with intellectuals (“thinkers, not doers”), vagabonds, and others from the edges of society, began to break into numerous sub-communities, effectively destroying Owen’s vision. By 1829, most deemed the community of New Harmony to be a failure.

Owen would live the rest of his life convinced that despite his failures, he had the solution to society’s woes - and on his deathbed, he left the world with these words: “My life was not useless; I gave important truths to the world, and it was only for want of understanding that they were disregarded. I have been ahead of my time.”

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

• Vol. 1: The Emerald Gem: Bare-Knuckle Boxing in 19th Century England
• Vol. 2: Roosevelt’s List: The Japanese-American Concentration Camps
• Vol. 3: Two if by Sealand

This is what will happen if you take me clothes shopping with you.

But really… what is this?