Leg Troubles

I was recently posed a question: Would you rather have a bionic leg, or a bionic arm? I thought that was pretty silly: What would you do with ONE bionic leg? Run really fast in a circle? Better question: ONE bionic arm or TWO bionic legs?

I would choose the legs.

I was down at Dauset Nature Trails for some riding on Saturday afternoon with Mr. Vit-One and Drew. We did about 16 miles of mountain biking. Dauset is really awesome. It has a lot of trails, plenty of hilly stuff, as well as plenty of not-as-hilly stuff for all levels of bikers. One hilly section got to me though and I wiped out pretty hard. As soon as I hit the ground Drew was heard to remark, "this would be a better way to do it." Drew was right. There was a better way very close-by. I was still on my ass though, and it cost me some serious bruising on my right though and left knee.

Sunday I went back with Ali and I took the better path. I did not fall Sunday, tired though I was. I did about 12 miles on Sunday making the weekend total 28. Good distance for a nice weekend.

Last night at soccer (men's team), I cleared a ball from our goal area and felt my right quad separate just a little. OUCH. It was pulled pretty nicely by the end of the game. I don't know if the big bad bruise from Saturday had anything to do with it... or just being worn out maybe? Either way, end result is a pulled quad muscle in need of rehab. Sadly that means no co-ed socer tonight.

Hopefully this won't affect my trip to the Carribean next week!! It actually should be fine, just a little healthy paranoia.

Speaking of the trip, I got a new digital camera last night too. It is a Canon Digital Elph (SD550). The technology is pretty amazing. It is tiny, but very very powerful and fast. I got a removable memory card too, it can hold 1GB of data on it! That's a lot of quality pictures of my ass on the beach. I guess I can take pictures of other stuff too, but why not take four hundred pictures of my ass and the sand?

Soccer

I've been playing co-ed soccer on Wed. nights for the past few months. Last night I played in my first men's league game. This is the first competitive men's soccer I've played in about eleven years. It was really fun to get back into it. Indoor is very different from outdoor with regular large size fields. It's much more about good field sense and sharp passing. The team I picked up with is really fun. They all seem to know what they're doing and they were pretty cool with having me on the team. I also don't have to play goalie like I have been on the co-ed team. That's pretty awesome itself. That only lasted until the second half last night though. Our goalie got a red card when someone pushed him down and he got into a fight. So I went in and finished out the last ten minutes. I guess I'll be filling in next week to while our guy spends his suspension at home. That's OK. I don't mind playing in goal, as long as there are no shots on me and we're scoring at least five of our own... Just kidding, it's OK back there.

I'm still on the co-ed team too. That season starts tonight, and we have a new player who played goal in college, so I am off the hook for that team too. That's so cool! I'll be playing the field until that guy gets a card I guess. :)

BEER Explosion

I wish I could load these pictures, they are worth thousands of words.

As you know, I brew beer as a hobby. Today, I had two major beer explosions in my kitchen. The first happened last night, the second just happened minutes ago. Both put hops and malt all over my kitchen floor and the cabinets.... tonight most of the kitchen was saved because the explosion was blocked by my face. I look pretty funny covered in sludgey green hops and malt.

So, this past Tuesday was a pretty normal brewing day for Adam, Matt and I. We bottled a few batches that we has brewed over the past few weeks and months. We also brewed a Belgian Saison. It has three pounds of candy sugar in the boil, which is three pounds more than most brews we make. To appreciate the story, you must first know about the process of beer: Boil and mix it, cool it down, add yeast, let sit to ferment, bottle. That's the short, short version. The functional part is the fermentation stage: the yeast eats the sugars and produces alcohol. It also produces a lot of gas that must be let out of the sealed fermentation bucket. It is sealed with an air lock which lets gas OUT, but not IN, past the bubbles. This particular brew ferments very furiously. So much, that it puts abby-normal amounts of pressure on the inside of the bucket. I'm not sure if it was overfilled when we added the yeast, or if there is a problem with our air-lock, but the system broke down somehow.

Last nights explosion left a big puddle in the kitchen floor and the air-lock several feet from the bucket. It happened quite on its own, and I did not witness it first hand. I boiled the bung and air-lock and replaced them in the mouth of the bucket this evening. Adam came over to survey the damage, but I had it pretty much cleaned up by then. Then later, he left for the airport and I inspected the roiling fermentation. It looked like our fermentor was bulging in a strange way, so I checked on the tightness of the bung. I twisted it slightly, and BANG, I had hops in my eyes and green in my hair. It was everywhere. Yuk. Weird feeling to be sober and covered with beer.

Never fear, another five-gallon batch is just around the corner.

Drew Bought a House

He's our new closest neighbor (after Ali and Shannon of course).

I'm excited for him, but it's going to be a heck of a project to fix it up. He got a mostly-bare-stud project house pretty close to us. It has three (two and a half) bedrooms, and currently one bath. He's adding a bath, but that's a little while off.

I really like the location, and the house will be sweet when it is finished. Last night we stayed late getting it ready for contractors to build up. It was a good night of hammer swinging and crow-bar bashing. Fun stuff.