the little hippie sat kissing my wife as they sat comfortably under the computer screen. surrounded by white washed walls and an El Salvadorian harbor. Segovya sat playing volleyball on the beach. the flags were unfurled and the bells rang out. Hooora! Hooora! and the crowd went red and wild.

sitting under the tree, the little hippie sang softly a song and knitted socks for her daughter. the night was cool . . . cool in a way that comes after a southern spell of hot steamy days. the first cool evening that you actually enjoy sitting on your porch, drinking, staring, talking softly. an Israeli speaks to me about his pet goldfish and how envies their simple existence. he is a mechanic in Jerusalem.

pay the rent!!! this is a reminder for those of you that have not payed your rent. granted, it is past the middle of the month, but we understand each other, don't we. sometimes it is difficult, existentially, to actually pay money for shelter. helter shelter. the envious man under the sign agrees.

love thyself, love thyself geometrically and judiciously and theologically. logic is a funny word isn't it?

chronologic. the logic of the chronos. the days, the rain, the diminishing light. painful it goes as painful it comes.

scotch and water

i'm tired of capitalization. it makes me feel egotistical. like when i capitalize any word, I feel like i am positing myself too much. do You know what I mean? I've seen people writing comments and (more commonly) instant messages without capitalizing. and God Forbid: not using proper, punctuation; furthermore.

what I would really like to say (ah, how the cogito does not pull out of it's settlement so easily) is that I have taken to drinking single malt scotch again. it's a habit I picked up, ironically, in Scotland (yes, places should be capitalized . . . probably) when I spent about a week in Edinburgh (pronounced edin-bura). I stayed at this hostel that I don't remember a whole lot about that served as a hub to my journeys around the city.

yes, ironbru did come in handy. i enjoyed some of the hand pulled ales that were fairly plentiful around the city. but first, i thought i would try various single malt scotches (as Scotland has many)and find what I liked. i walked from bar to various bar and asked for single malt scotch. glenlivet glenellen glenfidich (which i kind of like) darwinie mccallan mccallan mccallan.

yes, i am currently drinking 10-year-old McCallen single malt scotch, distilled and aged in Scotland, and made for a west coast store that I choose not to name at this time. McCallen single malt scotch is usually sold at a liquor store as a 12-year-old Single Malt Scotch for 30 or 40 dollars. the 10-year old at the affore-non-mentioned store sells for 20 bones.

McCallen was one of my favorites out of the single malt scotches that I tried while in Edinburgh. i also at fish and chips, toured the castle, and took at least two ghost tours. i spent the day with a family from a church, and we walked their dogs around some hill. i walked through a cemetary. and i walked. and i walked.

and i am drinking scotch and water Right Now.

YOUR COMMENTS ARE DESIRED AND ENCOURAGED, NO MATTER HOW TRIVIAL, VULGAR, INAPPROPRIATE OR UNRELATED TO THE CURRENT POST

chiefjason

Ice Hole!

It seems that someone had an "earthshaking" experience as a chunk of ice flew through their roof. I saw this brief news story tonight on a local Raleigh news channel about a man who had been sitting in his chair and got up for a minute. Next thing he knows, he hears a noise "like Hiroshima" and his chair has been destroyed by an ice chunk that apparently fell from an overflying jet airplane.

This is not the first time that a block of ice from an overhead plane has come ripping through someone's roof. It happened in 2004 to Constance Cotter of Lynn, Massachusetts. Constance says she thought her house was falling down. The ice left a hole 2 feet by 4 feet in her ceiling.

It happened on June 13th in Japan.

And in Portsmouth, an airplane's loo was taking a leak.

Airdisaster.com tells us another story about it happening in Auckland. There is also an informative discussion about "blue ice" incidents that follows.

Then there is this story (and this story) in the Santa Cruz Sentinel that quotes another website as saying "there have been at least 27 documented blue-ice incidents nationally in the past 24 years."

Then Susan Selzer of Long Island swears she has a guardian angel watching over her.

Then there's Dave Crandall of Tweaknews.net who has nothing to do with falling things from airplanes, but who created this pretty cool modification to his computer. He calls it Project Blue Ice. This is pretty interesting actually.

Word.

Benji, Beer and Babies

Benji and I call each other about once or twice a month. We end up talking about a lot of different things, but we always talk about home brewing. We have a tradition of sharing a homebrew while talking on the phone. He'll say, "Here's to you." And I'll say, "Here's to you." And we'll have a drink. The first time we did this I think we talked for about two hours and shared a forgotten number of beers.

I called Benji today on my way home from visiting a family that lives in Knightdale. It's about an hour drive home so I figured I'd call people. I talked to Jeff and Laura too. Alas, I did not have a beer to drink on the drive home, but Benji and I spoke about life while Elli (a.k.a. Eleanora Annabelle Bergstrand (sp?) was cooing in the background. Elli can apparently wave to people and say, "Hi." There are at least 6 documented cases of this. She is also fond of dogs and so far has gotten out, "Da." That's pretty damn good if you ask me!

I shared how Emily was doing. The baby is kicking quite a bit these days. I'm pretty sure she can already say the alphabet. I put together a crib last week--it's quite a cool crib, kind of old looking and very sturdy. It's also a transformer--it changes into a double bed down the line. Nice!

We talked about our most recent brews. He had brewed an IPA and said it had gotten better with age. The Porter I brewed was just delicious. I bottled it in 22 oz. bottles and have enjoyed each one. I took one to the guys at the brew store and they said the really liked it. I gave two to Mr. Hallmark--a teacher at camp who also homebrews. My friends Katie and Troy from Baltimore had a couple at my house. I'm bringing a few over to Phil and Liz's for dinner tomorrow night, and I'm taking the rest to the baby shower next weekend. This beer is getting some mileage!

Tonight I'm going to bottle the IPA that is in my fermenter (a 5 gallon bucket). I just got these blue glass litre bottles that seal like the Golsch bottles. I am very excited about these. Mr. Hallmark's logic about 22 oz. bottles is that "you never drink just one, right?" So carrying this logic even further, a litre bottle makes a whole lotta sense. He's gone to kegging his beer. I myself am just going to keep using bigger bottles. I suppose that growlers are next.

Perhaps I'll share a beer with you. You should come over to my house.

Ireland

I think Ireland is a funny country

Discuss