Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
This weekend was pretty awesome… except for the Eagles losing but… let’s face it, we can have high expectations all we want but we had the #4 pick this last year and “improved” by signing… a college coach… and a 3rd string quarterback in Matt Barkley. So yeah, back to realism in that regard.
Saturday, Dizzy & I went to the Dragon Boat Festival on Treasure Island to see our good buddy Bubbles compete for the first time here in her home town (she did Vancouver a few months ago). After the series of races, her team finished in 3rd so that was pretty impressive, she got a medal & everything!!! The festival itself was also very nice… a few booths for selling things, the usual carnival style food offerings with an Asian emphasis, some fairly traditional ceremonies… but yeah, here are some pictures…
This was in the kid's area...
BEHOLD! Your tax dollars at work!!!
After the festival, we ran some errands, ate some Nation’s with her mom & Uncle Ed, then went back to my place to start batch number two of our Homebrewing Adventure – Smashin’ Pumpkin Ale!!! Here are some pictures of that…
We start by taking the Red Ale from Chapter 1
and siphoning it into a 2nd fermentor...
Then we clean out all this stuff from the first
carboy for the next batch...
Pumpkin Ale - Sh*t smelled like pumpkin pie...
Now they ferment for about two weeks side by side...
or until Chapter 3 if you prefer that terminology
A little something to hold you over...
Maple Bacon kettle chips
Anchor Steam's Autumn Maple Red
Afterwards, we went upstairs & watched a few documentaries. First up was “Chasing Ice” about a man who has been photographing & documenting the scary decline of glaciers in the Arctic circle from Alaska to Iceland & Greenland. Basically he tracked it by going to some of the most remote & dangerous climates in the world… set up some cameras to take pictures every hour of daylight… and then when you set it to the usual 24 frames per second you basically see these glaciers just break off & disappear. Over the course of like six months, it basically looks like a river of ice just flowing out to the ocean. The photography & cinematography were absolutely breathtaking for this movie & I recommend it just for that… but the point of the documentary is to show that… basically global warming IS a concern & the glaciers are basically evaporating before our very eyes.
Next up was “Beer Wars” which of course struck us personally. The documentary was made by a former CEO of Mike’s Hard Lemonade (Anat Baron) who basically showed the back-story of the cutthroat world of the nearly $100 billion industry of American beer. Obviously the direction of the movie is a little biased, but the main theme is that there are the BIG BOYS of Anheuser Busch (about half the market share) and the new Miller-Coors-InBev conglomerate (over 40%) and then all of the other little guys (including Samuel Adams, Blue Moon, Sierra Nevada & all the other microbrews and “supermicrobrews” COMBINED) make up the remainder (about 4-6%). Of course, because they’re the big boys, they increase profits by cutting down on the quality of beer, increasing advertising to compensate & muscling out the little guys making the quality stuff by having a major lobby in congress & using still illegal tactics of cutting out the wholesaler distribution options whenever possible… so basically it’s just another big business in America! It’s a very interesting story complete with interviews with some of the CEO’s & owners of other small guys like Jim Koch with Samuel Adams, Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, Kim Jordan of New Belgium & others. Basically what I pulled from it is that if I’m looking to get into the industry, I have to focus on my product & keep my expectations realistic… because it’d be like opening up a Ma & Pa shop next to a Walmart… with even more government regulations & restrictions. I’d recommend it for anybody interested in the subject of Beer & seeing how it gets from the brewery to your fridge.
Oh & we've won the past few softball games. My batting stats for the year thus far as the designated hitter & right fielder are: 2-4 with a double... and I believe eight walks now. That's an on-base percentage above 80% & I can definitely deal with that. If they don't want to pitch it to me, that's their choice. We're hitting a good stride and have one more game before the playoffs I think.
Sunday was mostly football & cleaning up around the apartment… but yeah, pretty fantastic weekend overall. How was yours? Please leave a comment & let me know. I’m not sure who all actually reads this stuff anymore so it’d be nice to know who’s interested in this jibber jabber. Have a great day everybody!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment