Triple boil over Beer

i have been more than a little intrepidacious about cracking open a bottle of the Barley Wine Geoff and I made on his last trip over. We had at least 3 boil overs, I changed the recipe a lot, and I went with a very diffrent hops that a big kinda homeless looking guy recommended at the brew store. Further more with the boil overs, we lost enough sugar that I was worried the champagne yeast would ferment all of the available sugar leaving a strong but empty tasting beer.

Lot of worrying about nothing. I had a sample last night, just to test quality, and it was good. Not outrageous, not awesome, but very nice. It has a full beer flavor and a subtle but strong kick.

While tasting the brew, I was bottling the second half of the batch. you see I split the batch after Secondary fermentation, bottling 2 gallons, and racking 3 off Tertiary fermentation where I added a bunch of oak chips. The 3 gallons has aged a additional 2 weeks, for a total of just under 6 weeks. I've never gone past 3 weeks before so we'll just have to see what happens. I think it's going to kick a little ass.

Little changes

Well for me it is just starting to happen. Lots of little changes that indicate my boy really is starting to grow. He is now big enough that I need to change the height in the jumper. When I kissed his head last night after bath time I was kissing a bunch of hair, not a cute little bald head. More than a few outfits are now to small, and he drinks and entire big bottle of formula in the morning and night. I remember when it was just 20mi in a tiny bottle, now it's 9 Oz. Does it always change this fast? I hope I can keep up.

Midge report

Hank is able to sit up now which very cool. He can't do it on his own, but if you put him in a seated position, he'll hang out for a while. He is also very giggly and interactive. Uncle Ryan hung out with us for dinner and bath time and got to spend some quality time with the little man. It was awesome seeing Ryan interact with Hank and have a good time. I look forward to more friends meeting the little man as he grows up.

Ryan and I did get up to the field and to a bit of flying. Ryan did not grab the controls as it was pretty busy in the air with up to 6 planes at a time flying. He was, as usual, a great wing man. I got to chat with him about his new place and life with "bride-to-be' Kristen. All the usual ups in downs of a move and merging of stuff, but I could help but be excited for them both as they get ready jump in. It reminded me of how fun marriage was in the beginning. The newness, and the excitement, and the permanent coed spend-the-night. I know it fades with time, and I just hope for Ryan and Kristen, that as the newness fades, and the weeks turn into months and into years, that it is replaced by the warm constant glow of love. Not that temporary full time coed spend-the-night type love, but the "we'll still be spooning at 80 type love".

I know my wife is saying "how fun marriage was in the beginning... it's not that way now...?" (women and only hearing what they want.... grumble grumble grumble). It's not new any more, and like more and more of my good memories, no matter how good things were I have no wish to go back. The road ahead is so much more exciting for me. The road I'm on with Erin looks better and better all the time. (Especially now that we have a little passenger.) I like my warm glow, it is constant and ..... well, warm and I just fricken like it.

No more babbling, night all.

Hank's Big Day

So it finally happened. Hank got his heart fixed. God willing that is that last in a long set of hurtles we had to clear to get hank here and healthy. He really is a modern medical marvel. From the fertility work in the beginning, to the genetic scare, to the early delivery, and now patching a hole in his heart. We have talk a lot about how lucky we are to have, and to have so close such excellent medical care.

The video shows you the day from our perspective.


This diagram shows you about how the procedure went down and how the device looks in place. They ran a line starting at his crotch up his femoral artery and into his heart. Once there they ran some test and determined that hand had twice as much blood circulating to his lungs to get oxygen, as there was going out to his body with oxygen. This is the result blood flowing through the hole in his heart and back to his lungs instead of out the vein and to the body. The Dr. later told us that 2:1 is way past the surgical precedent. After the test they then ran the device up the line and put it in place.



This is the actual device in hank. It's a crazy world when they can put this in the heart of my little boy and he comes home the next day with out a stitch.