The View From Above

And won't you think I'm pretty
When I'm standing top the bright lit city
And I'll take your hand and pick you up
And keep you there so you can see
As long as you're alive and care
I promise I will take you there
And we'll drink and dance the night away,
Drink and dance the night away.

Interview With An Evil Overlord

I received some inside information that Darth Vader was among the readers of this blog. So, I pulled a few strings with some friends in L.A. and was able to get a phone interview with the man himself. Here is my interview with The Dark Lord of the Sith.

Me: Good afternoon Lord Vader, welcome to Intentionally Left Blank.

D.V.: (heavy breathing)

Me: Hello, Lord Vader...can you hear me alright?

D.V.: I sense something...a presence I haven't felt since...

Me: Hmmm...Well, it's just me here, Josh from ILB.

D.V.: We meet again at last.

Me: ...Wait, what?

D.V.: The circle is now complete. When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the master.

Me: Uh...actually, this is the first time we have met, I think. You might have me confused with someone else perhaps. I just write for this blog.

D.V.: Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.

Me: Okay, I guess. I didn't know it was that terrible. Listen, is it alright with you if we begin the interview.

D.V.: As you wish. What is thy bidding master?

Me: Ha ha, sarcasm, I like the humor. Uh, anyway, welcome to ILB. I'm really excited to be speaking with you. I am a big fan, and I know some of the readers are fans as well. Now, my first question is: What is your opinion of the current economic status and the financial crisis?

D.V.: I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Me: Oh, I have faith, I really do. I'm sorry if my question lead you to believe that I am being pessimistic.

D.V.: Apology accepted Captain Needa.

Me: Uh, it's, uh, Josh actually, and I just meant to say, do you think Bush has made the right decision concerning the matter?

D.V.: If he could be turned, he would be a powerful ally.

Me: President Bush? Are you serious?

D.V.: He is as clumsy as he is stupid. He will join us or die, my master.

Me: Well, I suppose that's right, the first part anyway.

D.V.: So, you have accepted the truth? You were unwise to lower your defenses.

Me: Oh, trust me, I haven't. I have been pretty defensive.

D.V.: You have learned much, young one. Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them.

Me: I'm quite sure that you could, now if we could...

D.V.: I am altering the deal.

Me: What? But we were in the midd...

D.V.: Perhaps you think you're being treated unfairly?

Me: No, I mean...not really, I guess.

D.V.: Pray I don't alter it any further.

Me: Ummm...okay.

D.V.: Obi-wan never told you what happened to your father.

Me: My father lives not far from here, actually.

D.V.: I am your father.

Me: No, you don't understand. I just saw my father last weekend.

D.V.: Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Me: No, No! I will never join you. You are clearly nuts. I can't see how Luke puts up with you. This has been a big waste of my time.

D.V.: The Emperor will compensate you.

Me: Fine, I'll send him a bill. (click)

D.V.: (heavy breathing)

Star Wars Haiku

Ethereal ghost,
Obi-wan calls out to Luke,
The Force be with you.
--------------------------
Vader reaches out,
Together we could rule all,
I am your father.
--------------------------
To Luke Yoda says,
Impossible it is not,
That is why you fail.

Lost In Wichita

My wonderful wife has been gone for two days. While I don't mind being alone, it really makes me realize how dependent I am on her being here. Don't get me wrong, I'm not helpless, but I just take so many cues from her that when she's gone, I don't know quite what to do with myself. Here are a few examples of the things that go on when she's not here:

1. I stayed up entirely too late.
2. Subsequently, I accidentally fell back asleep this morning and got a later than usual start to the day.
3. I fell asleep with the bedroom light on, and it remained on all night.
4. I forgot to take out the trash for pick-up.
5. I forgot the movie I was supposed to take back.
6. I locked myself out of the house and had to pick the lock to get back in.
7. I forgot to water the tomatoes...twice.
8. My menu for the past four meals has been a turkey and spinach sandwich...that's it, maybe a glass of milk.

Please come home soon...

The Screen

Every time I walk into her office I see it, sitting there, perched on her desk. It angers me. They thought I wouldn't notice, wouldn't notice the late night, weekend switch...but I did. I noticed it first thing Monday morning. Something was amiss. Someone had been to my desk, and now it was gone. They thought I would think it was the same one, same size, same everything, but it was not. Mine was better, and they knew it, and they became jealous. And now when I see my screen on her desk, it angers me.

Beer Update

The Irish Draught Ale has already been transferred to secondary fermentaion. It was quicker than I expected, but hey, I guess the numbers don't lie. I was at 80.95% apparent attenuation after four days. I am in no real hurry to bottle. I will continue to let the yeast settle and do some more clarifying work for a full two weeks, then I think I'll be ready.

I will be brewing the cream ale tonight. My brew partner (my wife) will be gone so a buddy of mine will be coming over to help out. It's a different kind of yeast tonight. I have a hypothesis on which one I will like better, this or the one I used on the Irish, but we'll see.

Happy brewing...

The Wall

Three men came upon an immense brick wall blocking their path. The wall was obviously very old. Yet despite the cracks and crevices, it exuded a time worn strength and experience. "To continue walking this path you must find a way pass," the wall said. Noticing a pile full of tools, the first man impatiently grabbed the first thing he found, a sledge hammer. Taking the hammer to the wall the man thought he would knock out a hole just large enough for him to fit through, and he would continue on his way. After 15 minutes of futile swinging though, no more than a chip had been taken from the strong wall and the man threw the hammer aside and went back the way he came.

The second man, noticing the failure of the first, dug deep in the pile and found a sure-fire quick fix in some explosives. After carefully wiring them to the base of the wall and standing a goodly distance away, he lit the fuse. After a resounding boom, the man surely thought he had brought the entire wall down and would be a hero to all. However, after the dust had settled he found that he also made no more than a crack in the old wall. Dejected, the second man too went back the way he came.

The third man approached the wall and examined it carefully. He walked the base for one hundred yards in both directions taking note of everything he saw. At last he reached up with one hand and found one of the crevices just as his foot found another, and pulled himself off the ground. Again, higher this time, he found another crack with his hand, and then another. Before long he was many feet off the ground. Sometimes he moved laterally, sometimes even down to find the best path up the wall. Never looking back, he kept his eyes to the top and patiently picked his way with a careful ease. After many hours, the man finally made it to the top of the old, strong brick wall. He didn't linger long, and never did he look back to marvel at the feat just accomplished. Instead he looked forward, at path that lay ahead, and welcomed the next obstacle to come.

Beer Fest

I stopped in at the Midwest Beer Fest at Century II this past weekend and came away with mixed feelings. I enjoyed tasting some of the beer that I had been meaning to try lately and was pleasantly surprise with a few, very disappointed in more than a few. I have narrowed down my picks for the top 3 best in show.

1. Big Eye IPA-This was the only one I went back to for seconds.
2. Freestate Brewery Dark IPA-There was a long line for this pour, and for good reason.
3. Redhook ESB-This beer made me a fan of the Extra Special Bitter.

All in all it was fun. I wouldn't go back by myself. But if a few friends or some family came to town, I'd do it again. Only this time I would buy tickets in advance...

Dear Darren

Dear Darren,

All I have to say is 303-30...where were you last night? They needed you...and a defense worth a plug nickel. So why don't you come back and bring a few mates from your '02-'03 team with you, perhaps a certain Lynch Mob? I think you guys and Josh would get along very well.

Desperately,

Wildcat Nation

P.S. What the heck was with those purple pants??

Be Like Mike

So my son, Garrett, likes to play with my paint brushes so we let him take one in the car on a trip uptown. To my surprise, I looked back and he was looking up and "painting" the ceiling of our car.

hmmm...I seem to remember another guy who kind of like to paint on ceilings...

Sad, Sad, Sad Chad

This about does it for me...

What an idiot.

Whatever You're Doing

I've been hearing this song on the radio lately and it has been really inspiring to me, so I thought I'd share. I know we all fall short in our lives and live with self doubt and fear. It is in those times most of all that we just need to take a moment to listen to what God's saying to us inside and trust that what he is doing is right...

Whatever You're Doing
by: Sanctus Real

It's time for healing, time to move on.
It's time to fix whats been broken too long.
Time to make right, what has been wrong.
It's time to find my way to where I belong.

There's a wave that's crashing over me,
and all I can do is surrender.

Whatever you're doing inside of me,
it feels like chaos but somehow there's peace.
And it's hard to surrender to what I can't see,
but I'm giving into something heavenly.

time for a milestone, time to begin again,
re-evaluate who I really am.
Am I doing everything to follow your will?
I'm just climbing aimlessly over these hills.

So show me what it is you want from me,
I'd give everything, I surrender to...

Whatever you're doing inside of me.
It feels like chaos but somehow theres peace.
And though it's hard to surrender to what I can't see,
I'm giving into something heavenly.
Something heavenly...

Time to face up, clean this old house.
Time to breathe in, and let everything out,
that I've wanted to say, for so many years.
Time to release some of held back tears.

Whatever you're doing inside of me,
it feels like chaos but I believe...
You're up to something bigger than me,
larger than life, something heavenly.

Whatever you're doing inside of me,
it feels like chaos but now I can see...
This is something bigger than me,
larger than life, something heavenly.
Something heavenly...

It's time to face up, clean this old house.
Time to breathe in, and let everything out.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In8oOMf6gBI

Homebrew Saves Lives

Allow me a moment to share a story that many may not know. Charlie Papazian, the father of homebrewing and author of the homebrewer's "bible" has a modus operandi that has not failed him: "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew." In his homebrewing book, this phrase is repeatedly repeated and he emphasizes that if you find yourself stressing out that your wort may be a few degrees off, or if you think you have oxygenated too much/too little, or over primed the bottles, heed the words, "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew," and do just that. They are good advice for brewing, great advice for life.

Little do people know, but this mantra actually saved Charlie's life once upon a time. He was traveling with a buddy through the desert when his van got stuck in the sand. No amount of pushing, pulling, or cajoling would improve the situation. Mind you this was a time before cell phones or GPS navigation, and these two were stuck in the middle of the desert with thunderheads looming in the distance. They imagined themselves dying there in the sand and pictured their sun-bleached bones being discovered years later.

When hope was all but lost Charlie remembered a case of homebrew he had made resting peacefully in the back of the van. He said, "Let's just relax for a few minutes and have a homebrew." They proceeded to imbibe in some libations out in heat and put the seemingly futile situation behind them. After four bottles had been quaffed, and spirits had been renewed, a search of the surrounding area produced a piece of wood in the sand, a strange artifact to be found in the desert. They used the wood just as you might think and were able to get out of the sand and drive to safety just ahead of the storm.

Now, the obvious moral of the story is when life gets you stuck in the sand, relax, don't worry, have a homebrew. Charlie said that this story is how he came up with his now famous phrase. He passed it on to me, and now I'm passing it along to you. Follow Charlie's words. They won't only improve the results of your homebrew, they might just save your life as well.

So Far So Good

The Irish Draught Ale is happily bubbling away in primary fermentation. Everything seemingly went well Saturday morning as I began my first batch of brew. Beginning to end it took about four hours and two beers. My hydrometer reading was just a hair low, but I think I can live with that. I was just happy to see the yeast take off...now I feel that I can relax a little bit.

Marriage Is About Compromise

She said, "Alright, we'll take your truck after our wedding, but I'll be damned if you're going to wear those white socks."



(Editor's note: Yes, they did leave in this truck and yes, he did wear black socks.)

The Desk

The door opened at 7:32 AM. Ray Rei walked in letting it slam solidly behind him. Aiden looked up from his computer, surprised at the sight of the large man, let alone anyone at this time, he was usually by himself until at least 7:45. "Morning," was Ray Rei's greeting, smiling so his yellowed teeth would show. "Man, you always get here so early?"

Annoyed by this interruption of his schedule Aiden replied with a succinct "yes," and hoped that would be an end to the conversation. Of course it was a false hope. There was not such a thing as a succinct exchange with Ray Rei. "You ever, I don't know, like have the urge to just take your shirt off and run around the office when no one's here? You know, yell out stupid stuff just for the fun of it?"

After a couple of seconds, and some fake typing to make himself look terribly busy, Aiden looked up again. "No, I don't," he lied, knowing that just the other day he had in fact jumped up onto his desk and stood there for a few minutes, but he wasn't about to tell that to Ray Rei. He had just stood on his desk with the emergency lights on, no one else around. He was curious what the office would look like from that perspective, so he took a moment of his solitude to check it out. It turned out to be the most exciting part of his day.

This Is Not A Pipe

To All The Others

Allow me to clear the air:

Yes, I went to FHSU

No, I did not hang with Bill Shanahan

Yes, I know, he is kukoo crazy

No, he never mooned me personally

Yes, though eccentric, he is quite brilliant

Any more questions?

McMahan & Son Brewing

What a great day it was last Friday. My homebrew kit arrived via UPS. I turned the corner onto my street at lunch time and saw the brown truck just leaving my drive. I knew it would be a good day. With my son looking on and "helping", I opened all three boxes and identified carboy, bottling wand, siphon hose, etc. while my wife snapped a picture of my moment of glee. If all goes according to plan, I will brew my first of two batches this Saturday with hopes that they will be ready for the holiday season.

Batch #1: Cream Ale
Batch #2: Irish Draught Ale

More to come I'm sure...

Fine Brew & A New Love

This weekend found me in Cheney, KS, a small town just west of Wichita. There is a small brewpub there I have been wanting to try. They have 6 house brews and 2 rotating seasonals. Never having been there, I opted for the sampler, two ounce pours of each of the house beers. I have to be completely honest...I was a bit underwhelmed. It was fine brew, don't get me wrong, I just wanted it to be more.

The IPA could barely qualify even in the Pale Ale category. The server told me that the small community just hadn't warmed up to intense hop flavor. I realize they are running a business, but that compromise frustrated me. Being a hop-head myself, I was sad to say that the IPA was near the bottom for it's lack of flavor and that wonderful hoppy aroma. It was also a very cloudy beer. Upon further investigation, I found out that due to time constraints and demand that they don't do a secondary fermentation stage, which would help clarify the beer.

I won't go into too much detail of the others. They had some interesting seasonals that I wanted to try and the porter was surprisingly one of my favorites. I will be going back sometime, that's for sure.

The best part of the afternoon though, had to be my introduction to a new love: table shuffleboard. What a glorious game. There is no way it will happen, but I want one...in my basement...tomorrow. If you haven't played, you need to play. It's kind of like the traditional shuffleboard I am told (I have no idea), and kind of like curling on sawdust not ice and without the brooms of course. Grab a beer and a few friends and I promise a great time.

Experts

I was perusing the tops stories today and the headline in the sports section was, "The Experts Make Super Bowl Predictions." This has bothered me for a few years now. The "experts" spend so much time sitting around talking about things they have absolutely no control over. Do you think the "experts" picked the Giants to win last year's Super Bowl? Do you think they still gave them a chance at 10-6? I don't think so. All they do is sit around for countless hours and guess. They are as expert at predicting Super Bowl teams as I am at predicting the Kansas weather. There tune will change every week throughout the year until there are only 4 teams left and they then have a 50/50 chance and many of them will still get it wrong.

What's worse is college football. Did you know that the "experts" predict who will go to all 30 some odd bowl games? That's ridiculous. And preseason rankings are a joke, a vehicle to drive magazine sales. The only thing preseason rankings do is screw a really good, unpopular team. If you get preseason ranked No. 1 or 2 and go undefeated, then hey, I would say you'd be in favor of the ranking because you won't change your position and probably end up in the title game. However, what if you are preseason ranked 20, or not at all by the "experts" and have a great year and go undefeated? Unless you beat one of those top two teams, the chances of jumping one of them are slim. So, you are the odd man out because the "experts" couldn't foresee you having a descent year. Start the rankings in October, once league play starts. There are some good games at the beginning of the season, but for the most part a majority of the games are glorified practices in which DI schools beat up on DI-AA teams. Give everyone a clear shot in the end.

Here's my expert predictions:
Super Bowl: It will be someone you be picking right now.
College: Someone will get screwed.

They should give me my own prediction show...

Autumn

Ahhh...do you smell that? Autumn is in the air. I opened the windows in my house last night and I was actually cold when I got up this morning...cold! It was wonderful. I know it's still a little early to get excited and it will probably climb back up to 90 this weekend, but hey, I'm enjoying the moment now. It doesn't hurt to have something to look forward to.

Geek

I love being a geek on multiple levels in multiple areas. It allows me to say things like this: "You know, I'll bet the bat cave would be great for lagering."

Happy Labor Day

I spent my Labor Day Weekend in a place where there is no internet and cell phones don't work for the most part. It was nice to "cut the cord" for awhile...but it did not bode well for my blog addiction. But now I'm safely back into my electronic world, happily typing away. What have I become...