The Cat's Nuts

So today we decided to take our Milk Stout that measured out at a MASSIVE 2% alcohol and bottle it. More than likely it's going to be a super sweet very very very non-alcoholic beer, but whatever. We had the bottles and if we end up pouring them out or seaoning beef with them so be it.

So at the end of the bottling process I decided that I would take the specific gravity of the English Ale that we brewed on Friday... Yeah, I was worried that the Yeast Smack Pack that we used wasn't that great and that we would have another beer that was hovering around 3%...
so to check the gravity we use this little hydrometer thing that sinks to a certain level...a high gravity means that there's still a bunch of sugar in the beer, well this time it came up as 1.02... using our calculations that means the beer is currently at 11.3% alcohol. I was amazed... Damn .. looks like that's going to be an Old Ale or Barleywine style beer. Think we'll end up drinking that around Christmas time to allow it to mature. Either way it was a nice little upper considering the failure of our Milk Stout.

The other interesting thing was the today when I got home, I walked outside to look at the Jungle and I was shocked... There, slightly off to the left is a crop circle... "A crop circle?" you say...yes.

There's a 3' in diameter circle pressed down in my lawn. I don't know why. I don't know where it came from, but I really woudld like to find out. Hopefully it'll bounce back up so I can mow it before it rots there, but I doubt it. I think that tomorrow after work I'll go and get a pair of sheers or something from the hardware store so that I can cut down the jungle before I mow it.

I personally think that it was Princess Jill and her kittens that went and made a nice little area to lay in the sun, but I'll never know. Anyway, I got my lawn mower in the mail today, so that's sitting here on the floor of my living room in pieces.

It's resterant week in the city, so Wed. Laura and I are going to Blue Smoke to get some ribs and some beer (Surprisingly they have quite the good beer selection) so I'll explain that further once I head over there.

Anyway, it's time to relax.

Posted by Michael at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I was pretty busy last night. I was finally able to get the brewing process (full-mash of course) down to about 4.5 hours, not counting the time it took to get the water up to temp. So that's pretty damn good. Erik and I brewed up a 5 Gallon batch. It's going to be pretty kick ass. We designed it after an English Ale called Young's SLA which is a tasty brew. We added in a different strain of hops and upped the grain content...Jeez.. it came out to a specific gravity of 1.105 which is pretty high. Hopefully we'll be able to get the alcohol content up to around 10%, but we'll see.

On a less excited note, we took the specific gravity of our Milk Stout and did the calculations to find out that it only has a whopping 2% alcohol... So we pitched some more yeast in there in hopes that it'll restart the fermentation process, but I have my doubts. It may be a lost cause.

Laura and I are heading out to the Six Point Brewery in Red Hook today, so that should be exciting. I'm looking forward to it. The two guys that run it are pretty cool, so we'll see.

http://www.sixpointscraftales.com

Of their beers that I have had the chance to try, they were all quite hoppy, which, awhile ago I wouldn't have liked but things are changing a little bit. We're hoping that we can get a bunch of home brewing supplies from them (they said we could) so we'll see.

Anyway, we're off right now.

Posted by Michael at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting article there about a BIG ASS camera. 4000 Megapixles or something outrageous like that.
Anyway...
That's almost as interesting as MIT students figuring out that there's really a 5th state of matter...(Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma, and now Superheated Fluid Gas) or something like that. Check out http://www.slashdot.com...It's on there.

I have been very bad. Very delinquent. I haven't written in here in quite a few days, so I have much to catch up on.

So the other day (Tuesday) Laura and I went to the homebrewers meeting. It was interesting, a little weird, but interesting. People there were hitting on Laura, but at least we were able to get some good brewing information out if it. Figured out what was wrong with our first brew (we needed more flavored malt) and got some dirrection for our next batch. We also learned how to make malted lemonade and Spiced Cider which will be excellent for a winter time beverage. I'm excited...

Tonight we're going to brew our third batch of beer. It's going to be a London Ale with a kick. We've purchased 14 lbs of grain, and a nice ammount of Hops, so we'll see. Should be something similar to a London SLA but a little darker. This time we're just flying by the seat of our pants, so we have NO IDEA how this will come out.

Our Milk Stout is currently sitting in the kitchen... We're kind of scared about it. The fermentation was REALLY quick. We're talking like 36 hours quick. So we hope that our yeast was happy and eating heartily at that time, but I have my doubts. We'll rack it to the secondary fermenter tonight.

In other news, at the homebrewers meeting the guys from 6 Points Brewery were there. We were speaking with them for a bit, and they told us to stop in this weekend to tour the facility. Hopefully eventually we'll be able to help out. They are a brand new brewery (4-5 months old) so it's just the two guys that are working there.
They were telling us how they are going to attempt to brew the strongest beer in the world. It'll be around 28% or so... They offered yeast strains to any home brewer that was bold enough to give it a shot. So I think that we're going to have to make a Double Black Chocolate Imperial Stout with it, and have it ready for Christmas time as a nice winter warmer. That or a Barleywine would be nice. We'll see.

With our current setup we can brew around 3 times a week, so hopefully we'll keep up that pace and have more beer than we can handle. Also, we found out that we can get bottles for cheap at American Beer Distributors. So we won't have to scrounge to fine enough bottles anymore.

On a more personal note, I can no longer call the Lawn a "Lawn" or hell.. even a lawn...yes, it's true, it's more like a jungle right now. Freaking Home Depot and UPS couldn't get the delivery directions right (Or maybe I entered it wrong...whhooops) and the lawnmower I ordered didn't come in yet. I doubt that the little manual lawn mower is even going to work on those huge tall weeds. We'll see. Maybe we'll have to go and get a little weed whacker to kind of tame down the lawn. I just hope that the weeds haven’t choked out the nice little grass that we planted. I'll have to go and get some weed killer in a few weeks
to really put a stop to this lawn madness.

So the whole ranch thing is coming along. Laura and I have been looking into the various things about it. Doing data entry and just trying to make sense of it all. We looked into Cattle software called CattleLog... I thought that was such a fun name.. Anyway, yeah good stuff. Much too boring to put up anymore than that, but anyway.

So I put up a few things on Ebay. I finally did it. So that's cool. They are actually ending in like 2 hours or so.
I should make a good bit of money from them, but that'll go right towards expenses.

Speaking of expenses, I think that I may have found a way to really take off some of the cost of school. Friend of a friend owns the company that does the staffing at the US Open, much to Laura's chagrin, I will hopefully be working there as either a Staff Manager or bar tender. Bar staff last year walked away with something like $12,000 for two weeks work. If I could do that, that would REALLY bite into this year's money issue with college. At least I know that when I get my tax returns back I'll get much more money that I should :) So there is a silver lining. We'll see, that's still hypothetical.

Work has been about on par. Nothing too special to report. Just wishing that I could go outside more often, and walk around more. I just hate sitting behind this desk for so damn long every day. Oh well. I've been really active recently in getting control of everything that I do here. So like a month ago I sent a letter to a local paralegal asking for a list of cases that were settled but money hadn't been sent yet. So what happens? Nothing. They never send it. Then I get a Nasty-Gram yesterday saying that money is 120 days overdue and that there are motions pending on the money. I was pissed. Oh well, whatcha gonna do?

Anyway, speaking of which, I gotta get back to work and write up those requests for money.

Posted by Michael at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's 9:50pm on Sunday night. I've had a nice weekend. I can't say that I did a whole lot, but that's okay. I had a good time. Brewed up a batch of Sweet Stout. Hopefully the other brew materials will come pretty soon so that either Tuesday or Thursday night we'll be able to brew again.

I posted a bunch (3) things on E-Bay today, so that's good. Finally getting on the ball with clearing out the junk in this house, so that's good. I am sure that I could go around the place and find like 10 more things that I should shed, but that's okay.

I'm actually looking forward to each week that passes, it's kind of strange. I've finally gotten to a point where I am looking forward to the futre, and not looking back on the things that have passed. Yes, I may be counting the days, but in a good way. Before I was like "Damn it... 15 more months till things turn around" now it's like "Wow.. just a few more days and my life is back on track..." very exciting times.

A few days ago I posted something about not wanting to head back to school, and really dreading it, but then I got to thinking. You know, not matter what other things there are, an education and being able to challenge yourself by learning is always a good thing. Laura and I have been working on this Cow stuff for our eventual trek across the country in July, and it's actually starting to look pretty good. It's hard for me to get excited, especially when all we're really doing is data entry, but it's becoming more and more of a real scenario, so that's pretty cool. We spent a good part of this afternoon working on the main spreadsheet. There's still a bit to do, but it's coming along.

Oh, and can I just say that I love living in Brooklyn? I mean damn, it's a good time. So many good places to go out to drink at and to see. The fact that we have a back yard with a lawn... yes, it's true.. it's a lawn now, not just a weed filled patch...is just so nice. I actually ended up ordering a lawn mower today from Home Depot. Yes... it's going to be a good time cutting the grass. Right now we have such a buildup of weeds I think it may actually be hindering the grass growth. I figure that once we mow the thing 3-4 times we'll be able to put down some weed killer. I'm hoping that the weeds will need all their leaves to grow, unlike the grass, and that the lawnmower will take a good chunk of them away, but I have my doubts. Anyway, I'll let you know how that works out.

I still haven't made it out to B&H to use my gift card, so that kind of sucks. Looking foward to doing that, but I still don't know what I'll be getting. I was thinking... I know, it's terrible, that I may just get an Ipod. I think that I would enjoy it for running. I've been running everyday now.. cept today.. and I think that it woul dbe nice, but who knows. I am going to try to borrow Laura's tomorrow morning when I go running and see how I like it. It may be more of a pain than it's worth.

Today, as a break from the cow data stuff, Laura and I went out and got a few hair brushes for the cats. I swear I pulled a small kitten off of Seven, but wouldn't you know.. you pet the bastard and the hair still comes out. They are shedding like mad. It's rather irritating when you can't even hold them without them just covering you with hair.

Anyway, it's time that I go and do something productive.

Posted by Michael at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Laura and I brewed our first sweet stout today. It's in the fermenter hopefully starting to ferment. I'm quite excited. I've not had much experience with sweet stouts as it stands, but what I have had has been pretty good. Mackson's XXX Sweet Stout is available most places for those that haven't sampled the style.

So I figure that in about a week it should be all done fermenting and we'll be able to transfer to the secondary fermenter. We're hoping that we'll be able to brew again on Monday so that we can transfer the Stout to the secondary at pretty much the same time as the Scottish 80 Pence that we'll be brewing. I don't think it'll happen. Or another good scenario would be to transfer to the secondary (the Sweet Stout) while brewing to take up some time. We'll see how that all works out.

Tried a Dopplebock today. I wasn't impressed. The bottle that I had was called Celebrator Dopplebock. So many people really love it, but I just don't. I dunno, I think that I'll stick to my perenial favorites of Imperial Stouts and IPAs... can't beat your strong beers.

I told Laura that I would bring her to dinner tonight, so I figure that we'll head out to a Mexican joint that's pretty close to our house (not Crazy Nacho...well...Loco Burrito for the uninformed).

Anyway, it's off to get some Mexican food then possibly head out to a bar or something.

Posted by Michael at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was just reading this story and although it deals with the child porn stuff, that doesn't really seem to be the central issue to me. It's kind of disturbing. Let's look at it like this... you, John Q. Smith, are sitting there browsing blogs very similar to this one. You get into a strange one that's talking about sexual adventures or whatever. Nothing too scandalous, but then there is a link. Like many people, you click the link...NAKED BABIES.. or pre-teens for that matter come up in hordes. All the sudden you have this stuff in your cache. Let's say that John Q. Smith is ignorant on how to change that. He quickly leaves the site after he realizes that that's FUCKING DISGUSTING and goes about his blog reading. Two days later, his business is audited or some other sort of crazy shit happens and someone with authority is searching his computer. All the sudden he's got Child Porn on his computer even though he never wanted it there. He gets arrested and his life is ruined. There are certain labels that you can throw on people that RUIN lives and friendships. One is Rapist and the other is Pedophile. You say that someone is either one of those words, and I don’t' care if you are the pope or a father of 5, you are screwed. People assume guilt. Believe me, I'm talking from experience here.
So anyway, John Q. Smith gets arrested and sentenced to 5 years in jail, and he's a felon.
Courts claim that because it was on his computer he had possession...how is that fair? How is that just? That you take possession of something because you look at it? You can't tell WHAT is going to be on a web page when you click a link. You may have an idea, but you can't KNOW. If you did the why the hell would you click it?
I'm not being an advocate for Mr.Edward Ray Barton... that bastard looked at little children for 4 hours...sick and twisted shit. But I guess you have to wonder, is four hours worth 20 years of his life? Why is he to blame? I understand that if people don't look at it, then there is no demand and the industry will stop, but let's be honest...it's not going to happen.
I guess the question is this... is he a repeat offender in the sexual predatory world? Does he do this all the time or was this a one time curiosity thing. If I go to a bestiality web page and look around because it's a curiosity and I'm disgusted, does that make me an animal fucker? No.
It just disturbs me that someone can get 20 years just like that. Maybe I don't know the whole story, but that's just lame.

Posted by Michael at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

81 Days. Just 81 Days tills school starts up again. It's been 2 years now since I've set foot on campus. Two years since I've been in a class. I have to say.. I'm not really looking forward to it. As much as so many people enjoy their college experience, I'm not really looking forward to my senior year. I mean I get all the responsibility of being an adult, I don't get to participate in sports, and I have to go to classes and actually put in effort to get my GPA up because I messed it up so badly my other three years. But...on the bright side, I'll have few distractions and I'll be able to have something to focus on again. So that's a good thing.

Recently Laura and I have been plotting out our post-grad...well my post-grad, her post-spending a year living with her boyfriend, which has been exciting and scary at the same time. For those that don't know (I may have written this already) we're going to be moving to Texas to work on her grandfather's cattle ranch. Very exciting, but we're also planning (hold your breath) on opening up a brewery in Austin after we spend a year or so at the Ranch. Super exciting. Laura came up with one of the best ideas for a name of a brewery, and we're looking into trademarking it right now... who the hell knew that it was $325 to trademark something? Crazy right? And if it's not successful, then they just take you money and you get nothing but a letter saying you suck.
Needless to say we're a little bit cautious about it. I have an attorney that I'm going to call to talk about it so we'll see how that goes.

In other news, Princess Jill is officially gone. I haven't seen her in about a week, so I figure that she has taken her kittens to greener pastures. I was glad that I could help for the little time that I did. Oh well.

Also, thank you all that attended my BBQ this weekend, I had a wonderful time barring my one incident near the end of the evening...I'm sure you can figure that one out. And I blame whoever was mixing the margaritas...because those were not margaritas; it was Tequila on the rocks with a splash of lime. Bastards.

Fantasy Football: Starts in 50 days. So if you want to be in the league, it's $50. Sent me an email at mlastname@asdfasdf.com and I'll send you the information. Should be a good time. Cash prizes obviously.

It's Thursday. I can't believe that I have one more day of work to do. I even took off Monday (Thanks to Laura we had a nice day off together and went shopping around town...hence my earlier B&H story) so I really have no excuse.

Oh and as for the beer brewing...well... yeah we didn't do it. Laura and I sat around talking about stuff, so we had to put it off. It's going to take place on Sat. or Sunday, depending on how much we procrastinate. I also ordered Scottish 80 Pence, which is amber colored ale. Should be pretty good. Figured that we couldn't keep brewing just dark stuff.

Erik, our other brew partner, couldn't be around on Sat. so we're going to brew on Tuesday or Monday next week also. We're going to have more beer than we can drink. It's going to be great.

At least we won't be so stingy with it. That's the hardest part about the homebrew. I don't want it to be gone because we made it, but I guess all good brews have to come to an end. Anyway, I'm out for the day.

Posted by Michael at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, June 14th, 2005. Another 364 days till my birthday. It's coming right around the corner. Anyway...moving on.

Beer tonight. Yes, beer. That's what I said. Going to be brewing it. I'm going to make a concerted effort to document the brewing process on my blog here. I'll give a little time chart or whatever. Who knows. Whatever I feel like actually. I've been quite lax in writing, so I feel that I should try to make up for it.

Tonight we're going to be brewing a Sweet Stout from http://www.northernbrewer.com so that should be interesting. A sweet stout, also known as a milk stout is a stout that you add Lactose. Lactose is a non-fermentable sugar so the yeast that you put into the brew won't ferment it, therefore leaving sugar in your brew and making it a little sweeter. Should be interesting. I've had Mackson's XXX Milk Stout and I enjoy that, so hopefully this'll be similar.

We had some more of the homebrew Porter that we made about a month ago, and that's getting to be quite good. I was very happy with the progress.

Also, I just learned that Sam Caglione, my hero, just published a book about his brewery "DogFish Head" and the trials and tribulations of starting it up. That's exciting considering how Laura and I have been tossing the idea of a brewery as a business around quite a bit. Just worry that the financial aspect of it won't be feasible. We'll see. We're two intelligent...well okay, 1.5 intelligent people (ahhh but who's missing the 1/2???) so we should be able to do whatever we put our minds to... or at least that's what my parents always used to tell me.

In my bathroom at home, there are two hot water pipes that run recessed into the wall and are separated from the bathroom by a metal grate. You can't take off the grate, so it's really of no interest to me... not like I could use it as a garbage chute or anything, but for some reason the cats LOVE IT. Seven just sits there for hours sniffing at the grate peering into the darkness. I don't know what the hell is down there, but it kind of freaks me out. I can just picture the guy from the X-Files that could stretch and would eat people's livers sitting in there all stretched out being very pissed off that someone put a grate over the pipes. Oh well, I'm sure that Seven being who he is, will eventually sprout thumbs and figure out how to pry the grate out of the wall.

B & H Photo Video store pisses me off. Yesterday I went there to cash in on a birthday card from Allison (Thanks!) and they were closed. I had been there the previous day and had been disgusted by their limited hours of operation, so yesterday I made sure I was there in the appropriate time space... No, those bastards were closed. Why? I don't know. Just a sign in the window saying that they will re-open. They probably swindled enough people and made enough profits for the month and figured they would just close their doors to save on payroll. I hate them. I wish there were a camera/computer store in the city that wasn't so damn...irritating.. I mean even if you go to J&R they suck too. You walk in there and it seems like they hire the most illiterate uneducated salesmen EVER. They don't seem to ever know anything and they LOVE to make you feel stupid for not knowing the one fact they DO know about the product. Screw them both, I'll stick to Ebay.

Beer. Drink it. Love it. Brew it.

Posted by Michael at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's upsetting. It bothers me. I'm poor. So Princess Jill hasn't been around. I think it's because I stopped feeding her. With all the rain the food was getting wet (not that that stopped the kittens and mother from eating it) but I figured ehhh. Not to mention that I was out last night so I didn't have time to get food. So besides feeling bad about not feeding Princess Jill and her brood, my own cats didn't have food. As you can probably guess (for any of you that have met Seven) he was at the foot of the bed being VERY vocal this morning. So I ended up getting up and going to the store to get some food. I guess that's the "right" thing to do.

I was just thinking about it this morning that I need to start inserting some pictures into here so that you people can see what the hell I'm talking about. I know that I put Seven in there a little while ago, but I figure that I should get one of the lawn and maybe of our beer fridge (with our homebrew in it). Ehh. We'll see.

So from me "Secret" sources I have found out that I will be having a birthday party this weekend (Excellent). So hopefully everyone that comes will be gentle on my newly sprouted "lawn". I mean it's looking damn good and it's only going to get better as Saturday comes along. So please...for the sake of the grass and earthworms...tread lightly.

(NOTE: Editing has been done here....because people have delicate sensibilities)

So this week, Laura and I have been attempting to start getting back into shape. Since we went to Ireland last month, we haven't really done shit to be nice to our bodies, so we've really scaled back the weekend drinking and pretty much decided that there won't be any drinking on "school nights".

For any of you science geeks out there: http://slashdot.org/articles/05/06/09/0044259.shtml?tid=99&tid=126
I thought that that was an interesting little tidbit. The idea of it just amazes me. I dunno, maybe that just makes me a weirdo. Anyway. Off to work.
(The real reason I put the link in was to see if it would automatically link to http://www.slashdot.com We'll see.

Posted by Michael at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning, because of the rain I was quite pleased that I didn't have to water the "lawn" (I wonder how long it'll be before I'm okay with calling it just a lawn without the quotes...) so I got up early and went for a run. Uneventful, so that was a good thing.

Came back, was sweating because it was getting into the sweltering temperature range. So I sit on my computer and start to check www.cnn.com. All the sudden Pud jumps into my lap. You know when you just get finished working out, your face is all red, you are just dripping sweat and then a cat rubs her shedding body against your arm. Not the most pleasant thing. So I throw her to the ground (lightly) and continue. Bastard animal did it again...and again! So I said screw it and I went outside.

And who did I find outside? Yep.. it was the Mother Cat. I think I'm going to name her. I think that from now on, she will be known as Princess Jill. Why? Why not. Anyway, so Princess Jill was out there, hanging out in the "lawn". Just sitting there, so I brought her some food and it out. She ran away (as usual) , but I was surprised to not see her kittens around. I wonder where they went. Hmmm.. We'll see. I'm sure they'll be back. Especially if I keep shelling out more money for cat food. Speaking of which, I can't forget to get some of that tonight or poor Seven will wilt away... not that it would be a bad thing for him to shed a few pounds.

So Seven is a pretty sharp cat. He knows that if he comes into the room when I'm about to fall asleep and starts to meow, I'll pick him up. He knows that I'm lazy and won't use two hands. He, being the corpulent blog of fat and bone that he is, assumes the "hook position" so that I can extend my arm from lying in the bed, and he puts his body, perfectly balanced in "the hook" and I tow him up into the bed. It works out well for everyone involved.

Allison is going to be here on Friday evening, so that's exciting. Haven't seen her in ages. I have also been given a task. On Sat. I am going to Happy Deli and getting beer for the evening. For those of you that don't know, Happy Deli rivals Disney World as "the happiest place on earth" apart from having the stoic Russian guys behind the counter, they have perhaps one of the best beer selections (bit overpriced) in Manhattan. Either way, it'll be a great time.

So one of my perennial favorite web pages, www.beeradvocate.com just instituted a "want" and "got" list. You put up the beers that you are looking to try and the beers that you have, and people contact you for a trade. I really like the system. I already found someone that'll trade something with me, so we'll see how that goes. I'm only doing a one bottle test run so as to not get too badly burned. I know how this bastard of an internet works. Anyway.

I should get back to working on this deposition.

Posted by Michael at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes. It's true. The grass in our "Lawn" is continuing to grow. I suspect (That's Dad) that it's the Rye grass seed that's growing like crazy. Hopefully we'll have some sort of lawn by this weekend, at least enough so that if we were to have people over they won't trash it. We'll see. At the current rate of growth, and considering how warm it's been we should have quite the excellent growing week. Makes me happy anyway. Isn't that kind of sad? The fact that I'm actually looking forward to grass growing? At least I've stopped watching it. After all... it's dark outside.

So as for an update on the Kittens... well yeah. We didn't see them tonight. So no update.

Tonight Laura and I finally bit the bullet and decided that it was possibly time to think about installing the A/C units if nothing more than to get them out of our living room. So I put the thing together (screwed on the side flaps) and went and got an extension cord and was all ready to put it in and then I remembered something. There is a security gate thing outside my bedroom window. Of course to make it secure they put fucking screws into it that can't be backed out. Yeah, that's fucking great. I can open the window and no one will get in. Whoop-d-fucking-doo. I guess tomorrow I'm going to go and get a hacksaw and fix that little issue. It's that or try to drill out the screws. That's not going to happen so I'll try my luck with the freaking hacksaw.

Did I mention that I love our grill? We have this bag of chicken that's been with us through like three apartments. Each and every piece is so freezer burned that it's just amazing that it's still edible. So we de-thawed some tonight, cut off the freezer burned areas, and threw it in some BBQ sauce (I made some honey mustard marinate that was sub-par) and put it on the grill. 15 minutes later we had succulent chicken that was 10x better than anything we could make on the stove. I don't know what that says about my cooking prowess, but I love the grill.

Our Cattle research is going well. If you don't know what I'm talking about, to give you the short and sweet, Laura and I are making plans to go and run a cattle ranch in Texas. Won't be till after I finish school, so we have quite awhile. Right now we are preparing for a July trip to Texas for the calf sorting where they weigh all the little cows. Should be a good time even with the 100 degree temps... but it's a dry heat...ya. We'll see. I'm looking forward to it. Anywho, so we've been working on these spreadsheets of cow data. It's pretty interesting, but at the same time quite confusing, especially because things are matching up as they should. Gives me a good Excel workout so that's good. Not that I don't use it at work enough.

Anyway, it's about Midnight and I think that I'll go to bed....sans A/C in the bedroom... fucking people and their security bar. If I weren't so damn worried about hurting the window frame outside I could kick the freaking things in. Oh well. I'll hacksaw it tomorrow.

Till then.

Posted by Michael at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday I FINALLY went up to get the cats. But let me first explain why I didn't go up Saturday night as planned. It all comes back to hating on the MTA. Because well... they are bastards. So instead of just replacing the L train (which was down ALL WEEKEND) with a bus that would stop at all the stops (which would have been nice and convenient) they decided that they would just run a shuttle bus from Bedford (first stop in Brooklyn) to the Marcy Street JMZ train. That sounds like a good idea, but they don't tell you that it takes 40 minutes of being surrounded by dirty people, thugs, and generally impoverished people. Not that I really care, but it's 40 MINUTES TO EVEN GET TO A TRAIN. I was pretty damn pissed off. Oh well. So I went back another 40 minutes on the damn bus and had this thugged out 19 year old sitting next to me. Of course I was reading, so the bastard in his puffy coat is all seeping into my seat and looking over my shoulder trying to read what I'm reading. The worst part was I was only browsing a camera store catalog. Not really the more interesting reading material, especially for someone (that I assume) that isn't into cameras. Anyway, so I finally get home and had a nice evening after that. Hung out with Tim and then some of Laura's friends came over. End of story.

So the morning I work my ass up super early and took the G like an intelligent human being, and was into Penn Station in about an hour and 20 minutes. Not too bad. Trip was uneventful. So I got to the train station and met my father who had loaded up the mountain bikes and was all ready to go. We proceeded to go to McDonalds (worst move EVER, but I'll get to that later). So we arrive at the Buffer Zone (which is a huge Mountain Biking Mecca...amazing...anyway) and unpack the stuff. My bike was just upgraded to a dual suspension rig (by way of frame) so that was my first ride on it. Had an excellent time. Father decided to bring me on the hilliest section to test my lung capacity in the 85 degree swelteringly humid day... It didn't end up so well. That McDonalds was sitting quite heavy. Guess next time I'll stay away from the "Go Large" or whatever they call it. Anyway, so after 8.5 miles we were on the way home. Good time.

Anyway, the rest of the weekend consisted of swimming, hot tubbing post swim, and various other relaxing things. I got back on the train with cats in hand and met Laura at Penn Station.

Poor Seven.. he was all out of sorts when he first got home. But in a little bit he got better. I think the turning point was that night when he realized that he was going to have a warm bed and two people to annoy all night. It kicked him into high gear. OH well, it was nice to have him back.

Pud on the other hand only has interest in the CatNip that I brought back with me. I swear that she is addicted to it. I gave her a stalk last night and when I woke up in the morning she was sleeping on the twig which was barren of all leaves. I suppose she ate them, got all high and went to bed. Crazy little cat.

So last night we cooked up some burgers on the grill. And as I was cooking, who did I see? It was the mother cat with Kittens in tow. Laura and I debated about if we should bring the kittens in. Decided that we should, and attempted to, but my lack of planning allowed 2 of the three to escape. We could have gotten the third, but then saw that his nose and eyes were all runny and the fact of the matter is, I don't have the money to bring stray animals to the vet. Sorry guys. So we put out food and water for them, and I suppose we'll keep doing that. Maybe they'll just end up being our outdoor cats.

Laura got her hair done. She looks like a Tiger. She's going to kill me when she reads this. Oh well. Grrrrrrrr.

Posted by Michael at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So Laura and I went to Columbia University's Casino Night last night...well I suppose it was tonight. Either way. It's 3:00am, and Laura is passed out on the couch. I'm up and VERY ready to go to bed. It was interesting now that I put the tracking script on this Blog to see who logged in and I was able to see that some people from all over the country were checking it. Very interesting. Anyway.

So we went to the Casino Night for Columbia Alumni. It was a good time. I ran out of money and Fran (Ryan's GF) gave me $600 in play money. That prompted me to hit it big on the roulette wheel. Made about $3K off that 600, so that was nice. So at the end of the night we handed in that "Money" for prizes which included, 3 Coffee Mugs, 4 pint glasses, a 250th Anniversary CU DVD, a bottle opener and a picture from. Not too shabby for the $20 entry fee. Wish we had gotten there sooner so that we could have gotten a sweatshirt. Oh well, I guess that's the problem with waiting till the end of the evening.

So we decided that it was best, because the L train wasn't running, to take a cab back to the apartment. So we get in this cab, Laura and I a little intoxicated at this point, but not that bad, and sit. I tell the Cabbie that we want to go to Brooklyn and the fucker starts telling me that "I don't know that area. I'll kill you if I go to that area" I explained to him that it was necessary for him to drive there because it was within the 5 boroughs. He refused, threatened to kill me once again and we got out of the cab. I proceeded to call 311 and report the bastard. I was so pissed. Ya know, it's one thing to say you don't know the area, or you are going off duty and you don’t want the fare, but it's another to tell someone that you are going to kill them if they force you to go there. Either way, I called 311 and I'll end up going to a hearing. I hope that I can press charges against the bastard. I hate people that are difficult for no reason. Damn... It's not even like I live in the boon-docks of Brooklyn. He could have EASILY gone to Bedford Street and gotten a fare into the city. Oh well, whatever. I hope he loses his medallion for it.

So anyway, we got home and watched "Dangerous Catch" that show about crab fishing (I love that show) and now we're off to bed. I guess I should rouse my sleeping beauty and go to bed.

Tomorrow is Cattle planning and Cat Fetching day, so it should be a good time. Time for bed.

Posted by Michael at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dragon Naturally Speaking Ver.8. It's pretty damn amazing. The doctor used it yesterday (allergist) while I was in his office. I was very impressed so I figured that I would get myself a copy. It works practically flawlessly. I couldn't have been happier. So I hooked it all up at work with a headset and all (yes, I'm fully aware of how dorky I look sitting there with the headset on) and I just speak like I normally do and it just chugs away. It's perfect if you make sure that you annunciate, but even when I slipped into my slurringness it was able to get a good bit of what I was saying. Anyway, long story short, I, who am not very easily impressed by software, was thrilled to use this program.
I'm so happy that the weekend is almost here. I have plans on going Mountain Biking for the first time, so that's going to be great. I just got a new frame, a Tomac 98 Special. Got it from the Bike Shop working brother. Pretty nice frame, but haven't even gotten to throw my leg over it yet. It'll be odd for me to ride a softtail (dual suspension mountain bike), but I'm looking forward to it. I'm also going to be bringing back the cats.
No luck in finding the kittens. They weren't back there last night, so I just left them some food and hope for the best. Maybe we'll see them tonight. I think that Laura and I may head out to see StarWars. I can not believe that my dorky-ass self hasn't seen it yet. Ehh just been busy.
I know I've said it before, but it'll be nice to have Seven back in action at our place. I miss those guys.
So I saw an article today on www.slashdot.com that was talking about the new PS3 and how it was going to destroy the PC gaming market. When I first saw the headline I was like "No, not a shot, too many people love to game on their computers with their mouse and keyboard." But it brought up the interesting point that when people can buy a comparable gaming system for the same $400 that is cost for a super high end video card, then why would they invest in their computer? Hmmm... now that I'm typing this all out, I don't really understand it myself. But who knows. Interesting topic of debate though. I personally don't think that you will ever stop PC games, because unless you start putting a mouse on a PS3 then you still can't play real time strategy games like Warcraft, Rise of Empires, and Rome Total War, just to name a few. I guess we just have to wait out the year and see.
So I was pretty pissed off last night when I went to go and defrag my hard drive. Found out that I was down to like 5 gigs. Terrible. I guess I'll be asking the birthday Fairy to bring me a new hard drive for my puter. I figure that once I pay the Fairies back for the mountain bike and plane ticket to Europe they'll be more willing to dish out the cash :) I'm terrible.
I have to get on E-Bay pretty damn soon. I have too much stuff just sitting around the house that needs to be taken care of and sold. RC Truck, Mountain Bike Frame, parts that I bought for the mountain bike that didn't work (FUCK) and other various things that just take up space. Maybe I can convince Laura to start selling off some of the clothing that is dominating our bedroom, but I doubt it.
So I've been thinking that now that I have this wonderful outlet here, I should really start posting up images and other fun things, like those pictures of the kitten that I took, with the mother cat staring at me. I guess that's going to have to be a project for another day.
Hmmm...maybe a Photography Blog? Ya. I think that it should be in the works pretty soon. I'll obviously post something on here when I set it up.
Back to work. I hear the boss coming.

Posted by Michael at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Laura has been bugging me for MONTHS to go to an allergist to get some tests done to see how badly I was allergic to verious things such as Rats, Hamsters, Fruit, Pollen, Horses and Cows (Yes...all proper nouns..deal). So today I finally went. Turns out she was right. I'm allergic to just about everything there is to be allergic to. You name it, Horse, Guinea Pig, Rat, Cat, Pollen, Grass, Ragweed, Mold 1, Mold 2....It's terrible. The one nice thing was they told me that I in no way have asthma. I've got lungs like a strapping young oxen. Of all things, I wasn't very allergic to cat and dog. Go figure.

Speaking of Cats. I was supposed to go and get mine the other day, but as it turns out that may have been a blessing in disguise that I didn't end up going. Turns out last night as I was watering the dirt patch...I mean... Lawn, I turned and there were 3 little kittens. One black and two tiger striped. Very cute and very fat and lovable. Laura and I debated on taking them because their mother was standing right behind them. Laura thought it was cruel to take them from their mother and that the Momma cat would be sad. I said no this wasn't the case, but either way we put food out for them.

I could have so easily snatched them up while the were eating, but by the time we finally decided to get them and bring them in, they were finished eating and had dissapeared behind the house.

Maybe tonight they will come out again to feed and we'll be able to nab them. Not that I want 3 kittens around, but they are super cute and I would like to find them homes before they become road pancakes or get abused by someone in the city.

Finally got all those damn RSA forms finished that I was working on, and what happens? I get more of them. Come back from the allergist and there they are...sitting on the damn floor next to my desk. Oh well. That's what I get paid for I suppose. Speaking of which, I have to do some damn overtime to pay off my Mountain bike and various other debts. Damn I hate the real world sometimes.

Back to work.

Posted by Michael at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So the plan last night was to go up to the parents house to get the two cats. Yes, well I, being the idiot that I am, failed to double check the train schedule, so once I realized that I was going to be sitting on a train for 5 hours, not to mention the fact that the L isn't running into Brooklyn after Midnight, I decided that it was in my best interest to just skip going up to get the cats. As much as I would like them to be back, I had to pass. Oh well.

So instead I plopped myself down on the couch and watched the rest of ConAir and proceeded to play some video games. Recently I've been getting into Socom II, but I don't have the headset, so the online game really lacks a bit when you can't taunt others. Maybe I'll get it for my birthday...or splurge and get one anyway.

Threw on some MLB 2004 after that. Played for a bit, but ultimatly the PS2 couldn't keep my attention. I got up and watered the lawn (which I didn't do this morning...damn it).

Last night I had a very short dream where I stepped into a deep dark hole and was flailing so hard that I woke myself up. Scary shit. But apparently in my current gluttonous phase (post vacation and BBQing) I tend to snore a bit. I couldn't find a position to lay in where Laura wouldn't nudge me and be like "STOP SNORING" so I got up and went to the couch and slept there for the rest of the night. Surprisingly enough, the couch is more comfortable than the bed (YEAH IKEA) so it all worked out.

Anyway, I have an Ass Ton of work to do today, so I am going to get started with that.

Posted by Michael at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)