Happy Turkey-Day folks.
Last night I made three loves of home-made sweet bread. Although I don't know why they call it "home-made" when you tell people you made bread, it's just assumed that you made it. Then again there's probably something I could have purchased that was frozen and with the help of a microwave oven produced something that resembled bread.
It was however a productive evening:
Three loaves of bread and an apple pie. It only took me 5 hours and 6 coronas. So worth it though.
Woke up this morning, the house smelled of fresh baked goods. Fresh sweet bread with some "I can't believe it's not toxic" spread. UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Hope you all have a safe and warm Thanksgiving!

-R

Yesterday I took the day off to visit the Atlantic City Convention Hall.
The Convention Hall Auditorium Organ is the pipe organ in the Main Auditorium of the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company.
The massive organ has 33,112 pipes in 455 ranks. The electric blowers that power the organ approach 1,000 horsepower.

After the tour we were led on a private tour of the building which has been recently renovated. We got to see, not only the organ, but also the various systems in the building that create the ice for the hockey arena, the HVAC rooms, pre-1950s boilers and steam plant and DC-power vaults that were used up until 1944 when the entire building was flooded. Unfortunately as a result of the flooding, much of the organs systems were destroyed, but several divisions of pipes are working as efforts are underway to restore the instrument to it's full working order.

I have to admit that I'm a huge fan of engineering marvels. Having the opportunity to spend 10-hours exploring the organ, pipe chambers, electronic controls and the building itself which dates back to 1928 was truly amazing! I vow to return there in the not so distant future and take some pictures of the sub level basements that house the old equipment. Did I mention I got to play it?

Surprisingly the fermentation was ahead of schedule.
Got a SG of 1.000 8 days in. Racked into a 6-gallon carboy and awaiting malolactic fermentation to kick off in the next few days.

That's right. My buddy Jeff Peroxide260000 and I went to this white-trash indoor flea market thing over the weekend in desperation. We had just come from a open-house at a small local Jersey winery when I procrastinated that I could make better swill. So in search of Apple Cider donuts we stumbled on the Columbus Flea market in search of a wine & beer making supply establishment. It's kind of like the one place that just doesn't fit in at this market. Not to knock the fine folks who frequent said establishment, but what the hell. Seriously, there's not an i-phone in sight at this place, hence the reason nothings been submitted to the online websites like peopleofwalmart.com.
So where was I, O yea, so we walked around and sure enough, there it was. I paid the guy $45 for a 6 gallon bucket of fresh California Shiraz and away we went with our bucket of juice and packet of yeast. It took a little over 72 hours for the fermentation to start, but alas, my basement smells like fermentation.

Can anyoen recommend a good HD Video camera? Somewhere in the $1,000. - $1,600. price range.

Thanks!

A friend of mine once used this quote:
"The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism, and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners."
-Florence King, American Author, Critic

6:45pm, attempt to pull in driveway thwarted by angry mob of soccer-moms, octo-moms and perhaps p

6:59pm: 3 kids arrive at the door.
Randy: "HI!"
Kids: Trick-or Treat
Kids Father: Jake, show him your mask, you have have your mask on.
Kid: He's not afraid of anything!

I tried really hard to watch Pineapple Express last night. Thirty seconds into it, I realized I had Netflix'd it before. Not sure what it was, but just wasn't in the mood to watch it. I made chewy-oatmeal cookies instead.

Baxter the Therapy Dog Dies - Paw Nation

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An email from FedEx this morning informed me that sending packages can be done with as little as a single click!

Having to send a package to my father resulted in slightly more steps however.
1. Log into Fedex.com
2. Reguest your user ID, since you forgot what the hell it is.
3. Check email for Fedex UserID
4. Request your password, since you forgot what the hell it is.
5. Log into FedEx.com
6. Prepare online waybill thingie.
7. Click "SHIP"
8. Realize that you can't ship your package because the "ExpressSaver" doesn’t ship to a residential address.

*Note* It's important to mention here that there's some unknown shipping chart that correlates the potential shipping methods with the package or envelope. Whereas you can have a package sent overnight, but you can't schedule a residential delivery for Monday mornings since they dont do ground on that day. However if you pay a brazillion dollars and use the gold lined shipping envelope made out of Saskatchewan seal skin; they'll allow you to print a shipping label.

9. Print Waybill
10. Find FedEx box.
11. Cram all of your shit into said box
12. Affix clear label holder thingie onto box.
13. Pry end of clear label holder thingie apart to insert the waybill.
14. Drive to Kinko's
15. Hand package to Kinko's dude in FedEx attire.
16. Listen for "You can't ship this ground in a white box that says express"
17. Threaten to take box back and send USPS instead.
18. Hand box back to FedEx\kinko's dude because he already scanned it in and doesn't want to bother voiding the shipment thing... Not to mention the sigh's and grunts from the already staggering number of people in queue behind you.
19. Sharpie marker out the word "Express" on the FedEx box.
20. Lessons learned. (Always use your own box. Don't try and be smart and process your own labels. Shipping FedEx is a shit load of money)

I hope this blog offers some insight to the "1-click" FedEx shipping approach.
Just remember, you too can send\RMA your defective Hitachi hard drive to the opposite coast for only $41 and 20 easy steps.