Stargate SG-1 commentary podcasts

This is an incredibly cool thing for Sci-Fi channel to do.

They are distributing files in MP3 format to be played while watching Stargate:Atlantis (like the audio commmentary track on a DVD).

Link

Cingular sucks the most

Not only do all cell phones suck, but Cingular sucks the most as a service. Consumer's union ranks them #1 in consumer complaints.

Grapes and Dogs

While reviewing some other information online I discovered this little tidbit -- grapes and raisins can cause acute renal failure in dogs.

It's relatively well-known that hops are toxic to dogs so you must be careful during the brewing process and dispose of hops so dogs don't get to them.

But grapes?  That's a new one to me.

 

First Contract Beer Brewed

Yesterday I brewed my first "contract" brew. Several people in one particular group of friends were upset that they could never seem to get any beer I make, so I offered to brew a batch just for them.

This is a straight clone of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, with two slight modifications.

It should be an excellent winter warmer.  It will be bottled, so if anyone can start to think of names, let me know!  Labels should be fun.

For the brewing-minded, this is a no-sparge 6 gallons batch scaled down from a 10 gallon recipe.  The efficiency of my system is such that most 10 gallons recipes will scale down to exactly 6 gallons without altering the grain bill.

It uses America Two-row malt, american crystal 40L, and american carapils.  Chinook hops for bittering, and a lot of cascade at the end of the boil. Centennial and Cascade will dry hop.  This is straight from the Sierra Nevada page.

The two modifications I made are -

I did not sparge this batch.  I did this for two reasons.  First, I want to enter this beer in a competition in February, and my best results for beer seem to come from no-sparge batches.  Second, I brewed with prepared water instead of filtered tap water, and I didn't want to lift all the water to the top of my hot liquor tank!

The second modification was yeast.  There seems to be debate over which strain Sierra Nevada used for Celebration, but I don't have good luck with the Chico yeast at all.  So I split this into <a href="Danstar">http://www.lallemand.com/Brewing/eng/PDFs/Fiches%20NOTTINGHAM%20av03.pdf">Danstar Nottingham (caution PDF)</a> and <a href="Safale">http://www.dclyeast.co.uk/DCL_Main/main_brewing/homebrew_index.htm">Safale 04</a>.  I have extremely good luck with both of these strains.  In particular, I brewed a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone for a "mini" competition last year, and submitted the same beer fermented with both Nottingham and Chico (WY1056) yeast.  The dry yeast came in first, the Chico second.  That convinced me.

 

Back from Winfield

Got back a day or so ago from the Walnut Valley Festival at Winfield.  


What a blast.  Got to see Yonder Mountain String Band live for the first time, and they did not disappoint.

The usual performers were there, Tommy Emmanuel, John McCutcheon, Sp. Combustion (guys, get some new songs!).  A special treat was Split Lip Rayfield on Stage 5 very late Thursday night.

The weather turned sour the last day or so, but we were prepared.

BTW, next year the festival starts one day earlier.

 

Alison Brown comes to Town

The Alison Brown Quartet played a free concert last Friday at the here in Lawrence. 

If you just want the pictures, they are here.

This was an outdoor concert, the day after Lawrence was the hottest spot in the nation at 109 degrees.  Everyone was moving a little slower than normal, but it was worth the heat.

From memory, here are a few of the songs they played, not in any particular order.

My Favorite Marsha
Spiderman Theme
The Wonderful Sea Voyage (of Holy St. Brendan)
Etouffee Brutus?
Shoot the Dog
Mambo Banjo
The Devil Went Down To Berkeley
Leaving Cottondale

Almost every song she played had a nice story behind it.  "Shoot the Dog" was the best, but I must leave you in suspense.  You have to hear her tell the story.

Grapes in Kansas

The local newspaper ran a story about some local vineyards and grapes as a crop in Kansas.

Earl Scruggs in Wichita

On August 7, I got to see Earl Scruggs perform at The Cotillion Ballroom in Wichita Kansas.

Pictures of the show can be found here.  It took me a while to get the lighting and flash settings right. Sorry some of them are dark.

I knew nothing of the opening band, Mountain Heart, but Barry Abernathy's banjo playing was the highlight of the evening.   I didn't know this until I saw him play, but Barry has only one finger on his left hand.  Watching him play is just fascinating and exciting at the same time.  Granada told me he only recently went to a banjo with a 5th string tuner at the peg head (I didn't get a look but I am assuming it's tunnelled).  I can't imagine playing the way he does with the 5th string tuner in the way. 
Toward the end of their set we had a broken string incident, but that gave us about a 15 min fiddle solo.  Wow can Jim play.

Mountain Heart only played for about 20-30 minutes.
Earl came out about 9:00.
I only recognized one other person, and that was Glen Duncan (who plays on the Three Pickers concert), though I had seen pictures of Gary Scruggs I did not even recognize him.
Earl played mostly down the neck but went up the next a few times.  He also finger picked the guitar for a couple of songs. He sounded good but there wasn't much new to hear.
The performance lacked energy.  Everyone there was clearly excited to see the legend, but I think the combination of the poor turnout (this show was very poorly publicized) and the choice of songs greatly affected the energy level of the crowd. I think the banjo fans were there to hear and watch Earl, and the non-banjo fans were there to hear the songs they know.  By playing the more recent stuff (like from the Scruggs and Friends CD) most of the songs didn't fall into either of these categories.  I suspect this is a trademark of the "& Family" performances.
The sound in the middle of the audience was very bad.  I scooted over to get a picture and ended up way on the left side and I could not even believe the difference.  I thought Earl was badly mic'ed for half the show, but it was the speaker placement or something else.  You could hear him on the side but not in the middle.
To top this off, this was a darn late show for the middle of the week.
Earl signed autographs after the show.  That's where several of the banjohangout folks met each other (staghorn?, Granada, me).  I had him sign the back of my Three Pickers DVD.

I came out of the concert exhilarated from seeing and hearing Earl in person, but it was not because of the music they played.  It was because he's, well, Earl.
This is a partial set list, from memory.
open: salty dog
earls breakdown
a couple of songs from "Scruggs and Friends"
you are my flower
another carter family song
ballad of jed clampett (which I just started to learn this week so that was a treat)
foggy mountain breakdown

encore: reuben
Gary Scruggs elec bass
Jennifer Kennedy dobro
some guitar dude
John Jorgen Mandolin, elec guitar
Glen Duncan Fiddle
didn't catch the drummer's name (drums in bluegrass, grr..)

Recent letters to Journal World

I need to toot my own horn for a moment.

I sent several letters to the Lawrence Journal World over the past year or so and was surprised that they published all of them.

Most recently, in response to this article in the paper, I wrote this.

Lawrence was considering stop-light cameras (and probably still is) and told them how I felt about that as well.

Finally, I wrote this letter a while back and wouldn't you know, just last week the local news runs this story. (This is in reference to national no-call, but it contains the same provisions as the state no-call. WARNING- video on page.)

Get to the Point

Jacob Nielsen's column has a very good analysis and solution for what we already know but too often don't say.

Excessive word count and worthless details are making it harder for people to extract useful information. The more you say, the more people tune out your message.

I disagree with his terminology of this as "pollution." It's just laziness on the part of people conveying the information.