Fat Boy Deluxe

Time to clear out the cobwebs and brush the dust off this old thing. It may have been 5 months since I last posted, but it doesn’t mean there hasn’t been anything going on, quite the opposite. Most notably, Kristin and I bought our first house. The amount of crap one accumulates year in and year out really adds up, it’s just amazing. We’ve got the process down…pick a box, unpack box, decide what gets tossed and then find a spot for what remains, breakdown box for recycling…then repeat over and over again. We moved in and started unpacking in September, yea, and now it’s December. Theres only five boxes left, one box of Simpsons Christmas Village and four boxes of crap to be sorted. The house actually looks like a house now. We can actually find things again, not to mention I’ve got my first basement since I lived in Arlington about 6 years ago. Plenty of space to hang the bikes AND hold all the brewing equipment. Kristin even has her own glass fusing area. So we moved into a new house, I’ve been learning the local bike trails, and I’ve finally started brewing again. Life is good.

Then came Winter, that’s right, with the W in caps baby. We have had a couple of flurries, nothing more than a few inches, that was until this past Thursday. The storm came on fast just after lunch and started dumping 2-3 inches an hour. When it was all said and done, we had around 10 inches of fresh powder. No worries, just gotta shovel a few times during the storm. Streets and sidewalks were plowed and clear before Friday morning rush hour. Then comes Sunday. Sunday blew through and dumped another 8-10 inches, only this time it wasn’t all powder. There was a lot of wintery mix, also known as ice, which makes the snow you gotta shovel much heavier. By the end of the weekend, there was a total of something like 18 inches of snow outside. I’m digging it, but you know it’s rough when even your dog has a tough time getting around. Check out the wall of snow, click on the pic to see Kristin’s gallery oh photos she took:

That’s not our house in the background, but theres a couple of shots of our new house in the gallery or you can check out the house gallery here with photos that were taken before we moved into it.

Saturday before the storm, M&M came over for a big brew session. No big beers were brewed, but we filled my 10 gallon mash tun with 25 pounds of grain and pulled off enough wort for two 6 gallon batches of IPA. More info on those brews in another post, but like I said, I’m brewing again and loving it.

I’m back to commuting again too. Put back together the Bianchi Pista a few days ago and rode that into work this morning. I would have ridden the Tricross fixie, but I need to press in some new bearings I just got with a new updated axle for my LeVeL hub. The Pista did it’s job, although I obviously didn’t tighten the track nuts down enough as my wheel slipped forward in the drops. Not a huge deal, just a little rubbing. Hopefully I can find a wrench around work to tighten it up before I leave. The best part was some ass in his SUV. Hate to stereotype, but damnit, there are generalizations for a reason. This overweight guy was driving his Jeep Cherokee, he was in the left lane of a two lane road and I was riding in the right most left hand turn lane. So looking down the street he came up on my right. He leaned out his window and gave the obligatory tough guy threat “Get off the road!” to which I responded with a cheerful wave “Hope that made you feel better!”. I’m in the left turn lane, so the stoplight is obviously close. About 20 feet further down the road, he no doubt was paying more attention to my cheerful waving and smiling as he blew through the red light only to come to a skidding stop in the middle of the intersection, literally 2 inches away from the crossing cars…yea he almost hit two cars. I gave him a “Nice!” and a round of applause, which he responded by cutting off the rest of traffic to peel out and continue on his fat pathetic way. Damn if that didn’t make my morning! I mean if he had hit those cars, it would have been the cherry on top. The funny part is this was actually my first real road rage encounter in New England. For the most part, people are extra careful to give you room when they pass, it’s actually quite pleasant.

Anyway, living up north is going well. Looking forward to posting some more recent updates on a couple of bike rides and the recent brewing experiments. Steve…you happy now…you lucky cab dodging bastard…