Busted Beer

Well, here’s a first which puts me in with a part of home brewing tradition and folklore I’d rather not be noted for having achieved. Exploding beer bottles – Yikes! (Hmmmmm. “Exploding Beer Bottles” would be an excellent name for a band.)

Back in the day, prohibition that is, the goal was to make alcohol. Brewing beer was the easiest and fastest way to do that. Stories abound of beer bottles exploding like popcorn in cellars, the result of covert brewmeistering in clandestine operations. In those dark times the knowledge for how to brew beer was, shall we say, an oral tradition passed down by anyone who managed to collect an audience. Inconsistent strains of yeast better suited for baking bread than brewing beer were used. Quality and environment control were at the mercy of the brewmeister’s patience. No one engaged in this practice had a biochemistry degree to help them through the subtleties of dealing with temperamental strains of yeast.

So what’s my excuse? I have a biochemistry degree. Actually, I have two of the darn things. Plus over 20 years of home brewing experience. Hard to say. That the bottles are uniformly over carbonated doesn’t suggest a poor distribution of priming sugar. A review of the notes by both my brew partner, Chris, and myself doesn’t reveal anything unusual. We certainly gave both the primary and secondary fermentation steps plenty of time, even for a stout. Me thinks a problem with the yeast. Something to follow up on with the yeast supplier.

But then, there is the potential terrorist angle. However mind bogglingly impossible the odds and chances that al-Qaeda, the Talibandidos or the Middle of the Road Progressive Isolationist Weekend Radicals had a hand in this, I would be remiss if this possibility wasn’t chased up every possible tree. Because one of those trees just might possibly potentially happen to be the right one to bark up at. I will, of course, need DHS money to follow these leads and fund multiple batches of decoy beer in order to bag the bastards. Neither can I dismiss the real possibility this is yet another strike of George Bush’s International Conspiracy to inconvenience me. I suppose a true Patriot would stay awake at night with a baseball bat guarding his beer against these threats. That or lobby for a law to guarantee Constitutional protection for my beer. Yeah, that will do it. Than I can sleep at night knowing there is a law to protect my beer.

Ah, well. This will all make more sense after I’ve kicked back and enjoyed a couple of home brews. Actually, for security reasons, I had better enjoy this batch as soon as possible. For now all the bottles from this batch are safely stashed in the refrigerator. Putting the chill on the yeast should stop any further pressure buildup and if any of the bugs decide to blow the frig should serve as an adequate blast container. Certainly better than the spare bedroom closet. What a mess.

The streak is alive. With the project management class behind me, and another “A” in the books, I’m just about 1/4 the way through DU’s CIS Masters program. Thus far, I can say I’m not quite getting what I expected or wanted from the program. There are three factors which lead me to this assessment. First, I’ve only completed 1/4 of the program and much of what I want and expect depends on a successful graduation. In this respect, my evaluation reflects impressions on an emerging trend. How close I get to my target will depend a great deal on my experiences with future classes and what ever course corrections occur along the way. (more…)

These good people deserve a plug for making me laugh. I’d ordered several Zoe Keating CD’s and this is the e-receipt that was sent. Normally I barely glance at these things, but this one managed to make the transaction a little less electronic.

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make
sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that
money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Monday, March 13th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did. 
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year".  We're all
exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music
phone: 1-800-448-6369  email: cdbaby@cdbaby.com
https://cdbaby.com

This is also where you can find the excellent tunes from David M. Bailey.

As a self proclaimed act of public obedience, some students from Atlanta took it upon themselves to drive down the highway, four cars abreast, at 55 miles per hour.

In my view, this was a poorly thought out stunt. Alan, Esq has indicated this is far from being an act of public obedience, rather it was against the law (Follow the link for an excellent discussion on the stunt.) Without the consent from all the other “participants” in this stunt, their act was certainly unethical. Without a plan in place to respond to the dangerous situations that were likely to arise, their act was reckless. Watching the video leaves the distinct impression the plan was to just do it and see what happens. There is no sense they considered when things were getting out of hand and what they would to de-escalate the situation they created.

The lives and well being of real people were put at risk because of the irrational response from a few drivers this stunt provoked. What will never be known are the extended consequences of the delay this group imposed. How many appointments were missed or meetings and deliveries delayed? What other unintended consequences may have resulted from this stunt? There my have been no emergency vehicles involved during their 10 minute stunt, but the video shows how they almost created the need for one. How much safer, and less sensational, would they have been driving single file, convoy-style, in the far right lane?

The objective was “follow the rules and show them how stupid those rules are.” In the end what did they really prove? That some drivers are assholes? This bit of insight is about as profound as revelations the sky is blue. What they demonstrated is that assholes can take it upon themselves to run unethical and dangerous experiments at the expense of everyone else. Lets hope their next project doesn’t involve guns.