Best Laid Plans

I was supposed to make beer Sunday. I had my ingredients, I had my brew-mate (there's one step in my brewing process that no man could do alone and I need someone to help me for that 15 seconds; I'm lucky enough to have a friend I can be hombrew guru to), ready to go.



Got my carboys out, got my cooker, propane tank, tool box full of brewing specific stuff, brewing log, the cinder blocks I use to prop stuff up...



I'm marvelling at the wonderful weather I have found. Not like August at all. Cool, with a breeze but not so much wind it'll jack with me on boil-overs.



When you're boiling wort to make beer, wind will cool the sides of the kettle so the boil stops. Kick up the flame and then when the wind takes a stop, you overheat and boil over. Bank on it. It's as reliable as Heath Ledger's friends' downplaying his pill-eating problem.



I was getting a bit of a late start, sore muscles from the BossTones show and all that, so I figured I'd better get my mash water heating. To that end, I put my King Kooker on the cinder-block tower and hooked up the fuel. Then I went and got the pot, a keg with the top cut out, and realized that I couldn't do that because that pot isn't in my house.



My three pots, AB brewery kegs I had surgically altered a decade ago. were not home.

Last time I brewed, I was at Bacchus & Barleycorn for a demonstration brew. As my gear won't all fit in my car, I'd driven some of it out the week before, and was going to go back on the way home from work for what I couldn't fit at the end of the brewing day.



Then I guess I forgot. My kettles were still in the storage behind the hombrew store Sunday morning.



Meaning there is a better chance I'm going to be in this week's People than that I'd make beer that day.





I was able to retrieve the pots, but not in time to save the brew day. It's the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster's year to have the honyocks for Labor Day this year, so that's when my Imperial Stout is going to be made.



Meanwhile, I had most of a Sunday to dispose of. I could have spent it cleaning my house. My house could take a month of such Sundays.

Instead, I went to Shawnee Mission Park where my fellow geeks were flying a few.


Shawnee Mission Park Launches 8/24/08 from Chixulub on Vimeo.

Hellboy, Curtis, The Inscrutable Hulk, Otis, they all got out to play for a bit.



Seven hours, that's the definition of a 'bit,' right?

Blake, Bucher and Lee were on hand, and we did more bullshitting than flying, but by excessive time managed an absurd number of launches. Blake had his boost gliders, Bucher had his scale models and I had my Clydesdales. First time I had a BT60 body tube rocket, I thought it was huge. That's the smallest diameter I flew this time. I love big rockets that make a lot of noise but don't stray too far.