Stout Review!

Hanging out at home on Wed evening, watching a DVD. What the hell, it's not Thirsty Thursday but it's close enough ("It's always Thirsty Thursday somewhere?") - let's have a beer!

Anyway, today's offering is "Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout", from the North Coast Brewery. It touted itself as being "Brewed in the tradition of the 18th century English brewers who supplied the Russian court of Catherine the Great. Old Rasputin develops a cult following wherever it goes. It’s a rich, intense brew with big, complex flavors and a warming finish."


Hmm. That's a pretty impressive-sounding statement, would it live up to it, though?



It's labeled as a "dry" stout, and it certainly dd start out that way. The second sip yielded some sweeter undertones, with a hint of smokiness. Not bad, overall, but I'm hoping the rest of the stouts still waiting to be tasted will contain a true winner. Time will tell.

Costume Time!

It was time once again to come up with something for this year’s annual Halloween party at my work. The prizes up for grabs were the usual high-priced items (flat screen TV, laptop, iPads, Xbox’s, Home theatres, etc.), so you know I was going to dive in.

Being heavily slammed with the budget this year, I didn’t have time to plan anything until the week of the party. (That’s right – everything you’re about to see was done in four days. Imagine how well it would have come out if I’d started it sooner…) Anyway, I’d seen a humorous pic a while back about this guy who did a funny take on the Iron Man costume. Instead of the 'real' Iron Man outfit, he'd made himself up to look like an iron. A clothes iron! I thought that was a riot and Hell, I can pull that off! And, I could even take things a bit further; I could incorporate steam! How did I make out? Let’s see...

Hmmm...a canoe?
Uh-oh...cutting implements. This can't be good for the canoe...
I think it's safe to say this canoe will never float again (no worries, it was old and didn't float when it was in one piece, either.)
Gotta drill that seat out and get it removed...
Ok...now what?
The plan was to use the canoe shell as the body of the costume. I'd need arm holes on the sides, but I didn't know how big they needed to be, or what alignment (front to back) would work best for me. So, it was back to outside, to do some test holes on the other canoe half...
I had a pretty good idea on how/where to cut the holes, but I wanted to get a little further along on the costume so that I could stand up inside it and measure it more precisely, before I went ahead and cut the actual holes out. It was getting late and I didn't want to be keep making a ton of noise outside, so I opted to knock some other things out of the way. Things like a first coat of paint on the canoe-half, as well as what would be the face plate of the costume.
Day 2; outside for cutting of the face plate and fitment to the canoe half. Nice, what a fit!
Cutting of the arm holes - sure hope my measurements are right, because there's no going back now!
It was at this point that I had my first setback. When I stood the (half) canoe up so that I could stand inside to try and measure where the arm holes should go, I realized that keeping the full half-length of the canoe would make things too tall for me to be able to walk at all, so I shortened it by about a foot and a half. Unfortunately, by taking some of the length off, it also removed some of the rigidity of the sides, allowing them to flop open wider than they had been. Why was this a problem? Because I'd already cut the face plate - which now was narrower than the sides, causing it to just fall into the canoe, rather than resting on the side rails. Damn. To fix this, I had to measure and cut a piece of 2x4 to screw at the bottom of the (half) canoe to hold the sides back in to the width they had been, previously. That fixed the width problem but it now meant I had a piece of wood down where my legs go - would it interfere with my mobility? Time would tell...

Next, I wanted to cut 'steam' holes into the face plate so I tried a number of different templates to get a size that I thought had the right size perspective, overall.
First mock-up! Arm holes are cut (and lined with foam to protect against the sharp edges), second coats of paint have been applied, face plate has been shaped, and face/steam holes have been cut in.
To hold the face plate against the body, I first tried hinging it, but that wound up being a headache and a half, so I just went with velcro. Overall, this wound up working great. (I had to sand the aluminum to get a nice clean surface for the velcro to stick to. The face plate, however, was a wood-composite material and the velcro stuck to it "well enough" to last the day, but not much longer.
Next step; cut holes into the top aluminum, where the steam would come out.
The Dremel came in very handy during this whole costume creating process. I don't remember what I was grinding here, but it was the trusty Dremel to the rescue again.
Ok, the plan to incorporate the steam involved using a fog machine. But where to hide that?? There wasn't room inside the canoe for it, so I had to tuck it into what would be the handle of the iron. But that was made out of cardboard, so to make sure there would be enough support for the fog machine, I cut some wood, bracketed it together to make a shelf, and then screwed it tightly against the canoe. (I drilled from inside the canoe, through some backer wood for support, and into this shelf.) I also cut a hole where the fog would be fed into the canoe.
Cool! It looks like it'll work!
Uh-oh...the fog machine is a tad too long, and sticks out the back. Crap!

Ok, not a problem, not a problem. Working some magic with spare pieces of cardboard, I rigged up an end cap...

That flap sticking up would help attach the middle part of the handle to this bottom part. Next; build the middle and top parts and mold them to the body of the canoe.

Here, scribing the curve so they would come together nicely.


Things are cut, taped together, and I cut/screwed a piece of wood inside there that I could drill into from inside the canoe, to pull it tight.


Sweet, that's going to come together nicely.


Ok, going in a different direction now, I needed to create the Arc Reactor thing that Iron Man has in his chest. I'd gone to Home Depot (yet again!) to pick up some materials which we'll get to in a second. But something else I needed was a piece of cloudy plastic for the front of it. Here, you can see it took me many attempts before I finally succeeded in cutting something nice and round, and to the size that I needed.

Next step; cut a piece of styrofoam and mold it to the shape of a PVC threaded coupling.

Put 'em together and viola - not too bad.

Ok Dave, that's all well and good, but how are you going to make that thing look like the Arc Reactor? Simple! I'd picked up some LED lights at Target, and using a small drill bit, I poked out holes for the LED's to fit into. I taped 4 of them together to make the center light and then arranged 6 lights in a pattern around that. Using the cloudy piece of plastic over the front (which actually threaded in nicely), it diffused the light in a way as to light up the entire styrofoam. Not too shabby, eh?

Ok, back to the costume body. Second mock-up, this time with fog/steam!
What you may not be able to make out in this pic is that even though I'd connected a section of hose to the fog machine and had then run the hose up into the top of the costume, the fog was pouring out of the sides, where the aluminum edges met the fiberglass. Ok, not a serious problem, I just need some caulking. Hmmm...no caulking. Wait, here's a tube that's about 2 years old. As expected, it had pretty much cured into a solid piece of unsuable crap. But, I got lucky; I cut the hardened stuff out of the plastic, and then sliced deep into the middle. Success! Inside, was just enough to use to fill the gaps.
I rigged a copper half-clamp and some wire to rig up a holder for the hose to keep it in place. Stuffing a towel around the hose, I had a pretty air-tight pocked at the top of the costume for the fog/steam to come out.
Ok, let's get final paint taken care of. Here, the canoe is taped off and the handle is getting its flat black coats.
I had to cut a small hole in the end cap that I'd made, for the fog machine's plug to fit through. But I didn't like how the rough edges of the hole took away from the aesthetics, so I used a small piece of foam insulation and notched the middle to make a grommet that would sit inside the hole.

Ta da! It's the little things that show you really care.

Hmmm...I see that I didn't take any pics showing the install of the Arc Reactor. That didn't prove to be too hard, and it looked pretty sweet in the middle of the face plate.

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Whew! Thursday night around 10pm. The costume party was the following morning and I'd managed to pull things together in 4 nights, start to finish. I moved the costume up to the garage, ready to be loaded the next morning. What was left in the basement, was a frikkin' mess!
I didn't care - cleanup would have to wait. For now, it was beer time.

The unveiling! (We each get our pic taken and the pics get posted onto the company's internal employee page and then during the day, employees vote on their favorite costumes.) I did have one setback, though; the hose kept pulling off of the fog machine so I had to hit up Facilities for some wire and pliers, to safety-harness the hose in place.

Things seemed to be going well, but the true test would be later that evening, at the party. That's when you have to show your stuff to the execs and then hope all goes well and that they are impressed. When I checked on things later in the afternoon, I found a major setback! The fog had apparently heated up the hose so much in the morning, that it had turned soft as jelly and collapsed upon itself, effectively crimping itself. And it had cooled in that position! Damn - the fog won't work now!!! I had to hit up Facilities again, this time for some copper tubing, a pipe cutter, some more wire, and some duct tape. Jeez McGyver, what the hell are you going to do with all that?
I had to cut the saftey-harness off that I'd put on this morning, then cut a section of pipe, then wrap the edges of that with a piece of duct tape so the sharp edges wouldn't snag on the plastic, then I managed to work the section of pipe down into the hose, straightening it just enough that the fog would work again. Ok, let's wire everything together once again and get ready for the party!

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The party itself went ok - I was lucky enough to make the top 15 (there are 15 prizes to be given out), but when it came time for the execs to announce the winners, I was majorly disappointed to hear that I'd only landed at #8. 8th!?!? Oy. There were other good costumes, but after hearing other employees tell me during the course of the day how blown away they were and that I had to be in the top three, it was a big letdown. As it turns out the costumes that landed the top 5 spots were all modeled after company products, so I guess there's a lesson to be learned there; you can either make a kick-ass costume and do 'ok', or you can be a suck-up and do really well. Between last year's disappointment (coming in 6th, when I was a walking, WORKING shower) and this year's disappointment, I might just hang things up. Who knows.

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Ok, enough bellyaching. The other part of the costume fun each year is showing it off to Sam and Zak, my niece and nephew. Halloween is still a week away, so their costumes weren't fully ready yet, but Zak at least threw a wig on for me.

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They thought the costume was kinda odd at first - until I let loose with the fog! Then they each wanted a turn inside!
Zak went first and hammered the fog, hard. He loved it when it got so bad that he couldn't even see. (The costume had suffered a bit from being transported to work and back, and some of the seams were leaking fog again.)
Next was Sam's turn and she hammered it pretty well, too.

People asked me what I was going to do with this thing now. Well, the plan is to put the second half of the canoe out to the street tonight and see if the trash guys take it. If they do, then I'll see what they think about throwing Iron Man in the trash.

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Unless you think I could get anything for it at the scrap metal yard?

Seriously?

This is the sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in these days. Dumb people are all around us! Take for example this thing I spotted on the side of a jar of peanut butter;

Ingredients: Peanuts, Salt.
But what's this? Whoa, whoa, whoa...this stuff contains peanuts?????

All I can do is shake my head.

Let's try some humor to cheer us up, shall we? I came across some funny quotes the other day and here's a few I got a chuckle out of. (You may have heard these before.)

I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad...I take something for it.

My short-termed memory is not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my short-termed memory is not as sharp as it used to be.

In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.

I may be schizophrenic, but at least I have each other.


Ok, that's all I have for you today. Been working on this year's Halloween costume like a fiend this week and I'll get some pics up here soon. (I'm definitely going for the humor-thing this year.) We'll find out how I do at the contest; the party is in two days.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Weekend Part II

Michigan Paul texted me that he and some buds are gonna be in TN this coming weekend and they have an extra bed if I’m interested. Interested? Hell yeah I’m interested! But work is still too busy for me to take off for a few days so I had to pass, regretfully. Those bastards will be toying with temps near 80 degrees while we’re hunkering deeper into our jackets. Screw it, let’s hit the Sunday wrap-up.
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The plan was to hit the Pot Belly Pub for one last hurrah as our season (in conjunction with the temperatures) begins it’s slow and painful decline. Rally point was bandied about during the week, with Rex’s abode finally getting the nod. As the week had progressed, though, the attendee list began to dwindle, and come Sunday morning, it was just the Three Amigos; Rex, Matt and yours truly.

We started the festivities in the usual manner, with a frosty or two (or even three, for one of us – not me, though!), and discussed which route we would take (we’ve gotten lost before). It was during this time that Matt tossed out what was to be the #2 line of the day; “I’ve been to the Pot Belly three times, and I’ve come home five different ways.”

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Time was getting on, and the Pats’ kickoff time was approaching, so we finally agreed on a route and were off. We made the trek without issue and pulled into our destination to find a smattering of other bikes already lined up and waiting.

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Strolling inside, there was a decent headcount at the bar, to the point where not a single seat was available. Not a problem, we’ve been sitting a while, we can now stand for a while. The Mayor was holding office down the bar aways and we exchanged hugs, handshakes, and hello’s. And who is this fine looking gentleman sitting beside him? Why, this is Chuck, the owner of this fine establishment. Chuck was a hell of a nice guy and we all got along great. So great, that he wound up buying us a round. Well, we’d just grabbed a round ourselves, but not to worry, they’ve got things covered. And get this; instead of using chips or shot glasses to signify an owed-drink, they were using little skeleton tokens (in the spirit of the season, ya know?). Sweet! These things are cool, we’re not going to redeem them, we’re going to keep them. “Nope” says Slacka (the bar manager), she says if we like them, we can run down to Walmart and get a whole bag for 99 cents, but don’t take hers. Ok, we won’t.

Whoops.

Now as it turned out, there was an annual meat feast going on today at the PBP. One of their regulars (Ka-Bang) and his wife (Judy) do this every year, where they prepare venison meatballs and kebobs for anyone and everyone that would like to show up. Anyone else that would like to contribute something, can, and let me tell you; there was a table set up with food like you wouldn’t believe. There’s multiple crock pots with meatballs, pans and pans of kebobs all made up and ready for the grill, baked ziti, double-baked mashed potatoes, pasta salad, stuffed jalapeno peppers, baked beans, desserts, etc, etc, etc. And they wouldn’t even accept a dime for it!
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Here is the esteemed Ka-Bang…

As mentioned, he and his wife Judy do this every year. We asked if we could toss them a few bucks for the food and he said no, they do this for the enjoyment of the PBP patrons. We then said how about setting up a jar for folks to toss contributions into, and while they (the Mayor was now involved in the conversation) said they didn’t want money for themselves, it might not be a bad idea to accept donations and then give them to the local food pantry. Talk about an upstanding group! So next year, that will be a part of the plan. Hell, I think part of the plan is for us to mark it in our calendars and bring something down, too!

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Now even though Ka-Bang wouldn’t accept any money for the food, we figured he’d be hard-pressed to turn down a beer, so; Chris! (the bartender), Buy That Man A Beer! Ok, ok, he’s not ready for one yet. Well Ka-Bang, you just let us know when, ok? What’s that? Oh, ok; not ready for a beer yet, but always ready for a shot of Goldschlager? In fact, upon closer inspection, I saw the shot glass sitting on the bar in front of his seat. Turns out this man has a system, and anytime you want to buy him a shot, just get Chris’s attention and point at Ka-Bang’s shot glass. Chris will bring the Goldschlager over and pour him one. Well hell, that works for us! Chris! Buy That Man A Shot! (AND, when you’re ready for a beer, Ka-Bang, you let us know!)

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Right about this point, it was Feast Time! Everyone grabbed a plate and dug in. The place got sorta quiet as everyone took turns going up for firsts, seconds, thirds, etc. Myself, I’m not much of a venison person but I gave the meatballs a try and they weren’t half bad. (As an aside, we also discussed the topic of hunting with Ka-Bang and he only bow-hunts, and always hunts for food-only, letting nothing go to waste, which I thought was pretty cool.)

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His wife Judy was a riot; at one point she walked by me and happened to kick my knee by mistake. When I (teasingly) yelled at her, she made me forget about that pain…by coming back and kicking me in my other knee. Tough crowd!

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We also got to meet Mike, the non-Jap (his words) that’s half Japanese. I dunno, I don’t get it either, but I did get that he was one funny bastard. In fact, everyone here is funny. Everyone here is friendly, going out of their way to say hello to strangers they don’t even know. Impressive behavior for a full-fledged biker bar. Hell, they even want us to go there on Thanksgiving morning and get tanked with them. Between the drink specials they have that day, and the offers to make up booths for us to crash in if we get too crocked, we figured our best move was to not show up, LOL. (It sounds a lot like what goes on at Lewis’ each year. I don’t go to Lewis’ anymore, and that’s only one town over! Although…maybe I should give it some consideration…it’s been a long time…)

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And while all this fun and frivolity is going on, the Pats are taking their sweet time in eking out a tough victory. All eyes were focused on the TV screens as regulation time expired. Curses and encouragement were shouted out as momentum shifted back and forth in OT, but then all was right in the world as Gostkowski’s kick sailed between the uprights, giving Patriots’ Nation a sweet victory. Yeah!! Now it’s time to celebrate!

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The beers were flowing, the bellies were full, and the laughter was everywhere. At some point in the afternoon, Matt tossed out what was to be the #1 line of the day; someone commented that he (Matt) was pretty cool and he replied “Man, I’m SO cool that if I get any cooler, I’m going to have to hibernate.”

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Jeezus, what a fun place the PBP is. We’d planned this as our last one for the season, but we always have so much fun there, we gotta hit it again before the snows set in.

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The sun hadn’t bothered to slow its progression across the sky and (all too) soon it was time to break for closer-to-home. We said our goodbyes amid many handshakes and backslaps, raised the kickstands and broke for more familiar territory. The Eagle Brook Saloon wound up being said “more familiar territory”, and we finished off the day with a few more rounds of frosties.

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Another successful day, another successful PBP run. We agreed that yes, today was to have been “the last one before the season ends”, but we also agreed that we still need to get down there “one last time before the season ends”. And with any luck, it’ll happen. And while that may wind up being “the last one of the season”, if they keep showing us such a terrible time, it may not be.

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Ride Hard, Take Chances

Weekend Part I

Still busy here at work but wanna get something posted up here today. The weekend is over and overall it was another successful one. Saturday found me around and about the homestead, doing work on the yard, the house, and the bike. No need to bore you with the household chores, so let's move on to the bike real quickly.

I'd noticed a few days ago that my bike had been winking at oncoming traffic.Not one to tolerate wanton flirting, I made the trek to the dealership and picked up a replacement bulb and put a stop to that nonsense.

While at the dealership, I picked up a couple of the antivibration/support brackets that we talked about a few posts back. Get this; when I was talking to the parts guy, I said "I don't remember what the right name for this thing is, but it's a bracket ..." and he cut me off and said "It's a support bracket inside your fairing, right?" Yep - this problem is so rampant that the parts guys know what you need before you can even say it. Wonderful HD technology again. And get this; the guy tells me that Harley is on their FOURTH iteration of bracket! In the pic below, you can see the part # ends in "-96C". Apparently the stock part # is just "-96". Well, those were breaking left and right, so Harley came up with a modification and it was called -96A. And that one sucked, so they re-engineered things again, and that was -96B. And I guess that one sucked, too, because we're now on -96C. I wonder how long this will last for? Maybe, just maybe, instead of wasting all their time fixing the brackets, maybe they should be focusing on reducing all the vibration? Ha! That's just crazy-talk, Magraw!
Anyway, here you can see the broken one still in place, and the new one lined up below it. It certainly has more meat on it, but will it be enough? Time will tell...
I don't rememeber why I took this pic but I'm sure it was for a good reason, so here you go.

Why? Why does Harley make things so difficult? For example, why do they use two different bolt-heads for the same piece? It's not even that they're different sizes, they require two different types of tool. (Left bolt = Torx head, right bolt = Allen head.) Someone, please help me here.
Without any real trouble, here is the new bracket, in place and ready to do its thing.
Ta da! And there you go. Replace the one on the other side, and you're good to go. Ok, not really, I still need to get the main brackets mig'd, and then everything will be good to go.

Next up will be the write-up for Sunday. The grand plan was to assemble the masses and make our last pilgrimage of the season down to our home away from home; the Pot Belly Pub. Naturally, things didn't go as planned, but all was good, for those of us that did make it had a fantastic time.

With any luck, I'll get that one up here tomorrow. In the meantime;

Ride Hard, Take Chances