Let’s recap 2009.   We went to FL for weddings, Boston for conferences, work meet-n-greet, and family reunion.  We went to Seattle and did our west-coast trip (and i hit my first deer…ouch!) .  We went to Las Vegas for Christmas !

I have purchased a new (used) car.  This technically counts for 2010! A 2009 Ford Focus.  Pictures will follow.

Adam is engaged to Alex and he moved back to FL.  I miss making beer and firearms with him already.   We will chill out together again!

I’ve been working on some computer projects as well as firearm/machining adventures.  Some of my work has been up on weaponeer.net .    I am currently working on beefing up a 5speed drill press with angular contact bearings so that it can be better  (ab)used as a light-duty milling machine.

back in October, Cheryl and I moved into our new place. We got the place and started moving in on the 15th, taking the next two weeks to move over all our stuff. What ever didn’t fit, got placed into a storage locker in Goleta. In November, Adam Tout moved to Woodland Hills (near LA) and started working in Malibu. We’ve been rocking out some crazy home-brewing. It’s been good to get back into the homebrewing scene. It’s been a little while since I’ve whipped up a batch of anything. We did a 10gal batch of a Bastard Red. He used Irish Ale Yeast; I used American Ale Yeast. We’ll bring the batches together when they’re ready for comparison. In addition to that, we did up 2x batches of MEAD! I’ve got a 5gallon batch of Mesquite Honey Mead (using about 12lbs of Mesquite honey from Trader Joe’s). We both used Champagne yeast to ferment; it’s been rolling like crazy starting 24 hours after pitching. Hopefully will ferment out quickly and pretty dry (and higher alcohol!). I’m looking forward to starting up the NEXT batch once this batch goes to bottle.

Just the other day, Eric Baker from FL, just moved out to San Diego. Him and his brother were sort of stranded in SD looking for a place to live and decided to drive up to Santa Barbara. We did beers over at the City College bluffs, grubbed down some of my home-made lasagna, and had them crash on our futon. They drove back to SD the next morning; good road trip for them, I hope.

anyhow, more to follow…

Here is the most up-to-date map of the evacuation areas.
http://www.countyofsb.org/uploadedFiles/ceo/oes/Tea_Incident_-_Evac_Areas.pdf

For comparison , my office is at 223 E De La Guerra St *(1.6miles away)

I have some pictures that I found online at http://go-doyle.com/images/sb-fire/

**More updates to follow

I have had mom and pops send me more of my things: brew and reloading supplies. I have been working to replace the barrel for one of my m91/30s with a Remington 700 barrel in 30-06. So then I’ll have 2 rifles in 30-06 configuration. Another project I’ve sort of completed was the .400 Corbon conversion for the m1911. It consisted of a drop-on barrel (had to fit barrel link and link pin - no real biggie normally, but my tooling out here is waaay limited). I’m waiting for my reloading press to be shipped so I can resize some 45acp brass for .400 Corbon.

Site Updates: I’ve put more pictures up on the gallery area and have put in a live-chat / message application into the homepage.

The pLambic (’pseudo lambic’) fermentation turned out REALLY nice.  At first we weren’t sure what to expect.  The crazy-wild bacteria/yeast in the wYeast-Lambic smack-pack was pretty virulent stuff! It was rolling full-boil LESS than 24 hours after pitchin the yeast into the wort.  The week it spent gurgling smelled like fuckin’ DIRTY FEET wrapped in BALL SWEAT!   the airlock was getting clogged with this beige, rubbery, foam; really intense shit!   It rocked away on this steady BOIL of fermentation for a week straight. We had to double-bag it with trashcans b/c the bucket lid kept getting blown off by the pressure inside — even with the airlock (when NOT clogged).  Eventually the gurgling died down and we decided it was time to rack into a clean vessel for some secondary fermentation.  I dont like to let my brews sit on their dregs/lees for too long. i never trust it.     We didn’t add any raspberry puree or raspberry-extract yet, and it really tastes like a Belgian/Trappist ale right now; kinda like one of these:

The starting gravity was 1.080 ;  the gravity at this first racking was 1.023/1.020.   With these readings, we’re approximating about 7.5% abv .   i’m sure if we add some more ‘fermentables’ we can bump-up that #, but i like it slow and natural.  Inside the brew-bucket, malty/tart aromas wafted up from the lip…  yummy

We’re gonna let it sit in a clean 2ndary fermentor for another couple of weeks then add some flavoring (or pitch a berry-puree on it and sit it for another few months) then bottle the shit outa ‘em and let ‘em age for a few months.  Again, my offer stands:  anyone that comes to visit us in SBCA gets to crack open a few of these bad-boys with us!   Although the almighty ‘porch’ is not with us, we have been working to set a second-stage with our ‘balcony’.

For those who will be in FL this upcoming week —   my sister , Jessica, will be graduating from FAU and Cheryl and I will be joining!  We fly tomorrow on the breaths of dreams to go forth, under the cover of night, back to our homelands.   Come thursday night, we will dust off the porch and prepare for a merriment of monstrous proportions.  After her graduation friday, we will have a amazing party — reviving the PORCH to its former splendor!  Who is with me?  Who will join in this taking on this burden?       For SPARTA!!  … i mean, shit!   COME ROCK IT THE FUCK OUT AND GET CRUNK with Cheryl, Jessica, Eric (her b/f) and I…

p.s. there will be punch and pie.  

On a different subject, the current brews are coming along nicely. The mead is still slowly gurlgling away in secondary fermentation. The cider just stopped fizzling away in primary. I bought some frozen blackberries, boiled up about a 1/2-3/4 of a pound of em, and added them to the bottom of the 2ndary fermentor vessel and racked off the cider from primary vessel into this one. I’ll let it sit on there for a while and see if i can re-kickstart the suspended yeast to start working on the fruit-bits.

Last night we decided to do a ghetto-bonfire at Ledbetter Beach. Instead of going someplace far away and building a REAL bonfire, lighting, NOT getting caught, getting buzzed, then driving all the way home — we went a little bit across the street. We found a large picnic area with a 4′x4′ cast-iron grill — we lowered the cooking grate, poured almost a whole bag of charcoal on it, doused it in starting fluid, rolled up some newspapers, and set it ablaze. Meanwhile, I have never until this point, had a 40-oz. In Florida, law has it capped at the lame-ass 32-oz bottles (also known as ‘40-8′ bottles) . Pictures of the ensuing shenanigans can be found on the gallery page. Everyone is encouraged to create gallery accounts, and create albums + upload images.  I am physical so far away from many of you, i’d like to see what kind of fun things are happening. That, and unlike MySpace, I don’t really censor my site for graphic content *(well, not yet, that is… you folks always seem to surprise me with the shit you get yourselves into…)

I’ve been searching tirelessly for a job.   I’ve been interviewing like crazy and keeping contact with many companies. I had a great interview with CitrixOnline and was told that I am an amazing candidate for them. Unfortunately, them and many other companies here are under a hiring freeze until after the summer. This is putting the clamps down on me.  Today, I went to a temp-agency called AppleOne and started my search with them.  I keep in contact with CitrixOnline about once a week to let them know that I’m still interested in working for them.  I’m dreaming of the day when they call me, offer me good money and say COME IN TO START!  ::grin:: for the time being, I have set up shop next to this guy, walking up and down State Street: