Sunday, December 30, 2007

The Big Family Get Together...

Every year, the whole family gets together for a big shin dig. The past two years they shin dig went down at my parents' house but this year my aunt decided to host it at her place in Lancaster. She lives on a farm, and has 270 milking cows. Sometimes I wish I was a cow...

For some reason I agreed to come up with my parents a day before the gathering to spend the night in a modular home located 50 yards from the new barn that was just built this summer. Turns out there is not that much to do in Lancaster, who would have thought. So I was a little bored but it was nice to spend some extra time with the cousin's and meet the newborn.

Spent most of the night watching the Patriots vs. NY Giants game. Too bad the Patriots ended up with a perfect season, the Giants almost had the win but just could not pull it off.

After the game, left the Aunt's house to go to the other house that I would be staying in. Luckily I was at the house earlier and called a bed...so cousin Eric was the only one out of six that had to sleep on the couch. Eric and I tried watching a movie, The Goonies...his choice, but Eric fell asleep 10 minutes into it and I then went to my room and tried to watch The Kingdom but it was skipping and ended up just going to bed. Of course it took me forever to fall asleep and I did not sleep very well.

The next day we had some delicious egg casserole for breakfast and the rest of the family arrived around noon. I guess the biggest surprise was that Brent finally cut his hair. He's had dreads for what seems like over a year and got them all cut off thanks to his girl Adrianne. Now he actually looks like a person.
The family chatted for a bit and we had a lunch/dinner at 1 pm. I ate so much for breakfast I didn't have room for seconds.
After dinner, we cleared the tables off and did our "White Elephant" "Secret Santa" "Polly Anna"...okay, I'm not sure what we call it but I always end up with a ridiculous gift. Plus, when you do get a gift you like someone ends up stealing it from you...and when you're able to steal a gift, you can't get the the one you want because its been 'stolen' three times and you can no longer take it. The one thing I asked for was to not end up with a butter dish or a candle. So the game went on, there were a couple of gift cards which was kind of worth getting but I wasn't really interested in them...I wanted the Beer Mugs, for root beer floats of course, but after about 40 minutes of people opening ridiculous gifts and 'stealing' gifts...i was the last one to unwrap a present...and of course, the last present to pick...ended up being an Old Williamsburg Apple Cinnamon Candle...
Wasn't even a Yankee Candle...because apparently, according to a lovely friend, Yankee Candles burn evenly unlike most candles that just collect wax on the sides letting less light emit from the candle jar...

The whole family then got the tour of the new barn. Not a single barn like it in Lancaster. It has four milking robots that clean and milk the cows and there are a whole bunch of computers keeping track of how much milk each cow gives and a whole bunch of other statistics. There was even a poo pushing machine that went up and down the holding pens sliding the cow poop in an opening in the floor to be pumped out into a 'poo pond'. I need to get one of those machines, because when I poop on the floor...it just sits there and stinks up the whole place.

It was a pretty neat operation. The cows give milk 10 months out of the year, I don't think my utters could take that much milking...The milking machines have lasers on them to pin point the location of the utters and put the milkers on. I thought it would be fun to walk through the machine to see what would happen...but after hearing that the machine mistaken a cows tail for an utter...I passed, plus there was cow poo and pee everywhere.




It was quite an adventure in the barn. The cows have it good...

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Muller-Thurgau Update

Well, 11 days since the last process and it was a time to check the gravity again. It was 0.996 and it was time to put all the fun chemicals in. The metabisulfite, sorbate de potassium, and some crazy shellfish/egg shell liquid stuff all to help the clearing process move along faster.

The most annoying part of this step is just stirring up all the sediment at the bottom and making sure everything gets mixed together evenly. I need to get a drill bit or something because its kind of hard to stir it well with such a small neck on the carboy. We even added more grape concentrate in this step so hopefully it won't taste watered down at all like the red that was made.

Now we wait 2 weeks, and if the wine looks like its clear its time for bottling!

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

I want an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle!

As always, I fail to tell my parents what to get me for Christmas, so when it comes to opening presents I get nothing but a couple of shirts and possibly a sweater. A tasteful sweater, none of these ridiculous red sweaters with santas and snowmans on them.

The only thing I really enjoy during Christmas is watching my nephews and nieces open there presents, but half of them are in Saudi Arabia so I guess I only got half the joy that I usually get this time of year...
Some people did know what they wanted for Christmas, like a 6 foot 2 inch didgeridoo. Which is practically the only thing my cousin Brent wanted. Good for him, now if he could only play it...
One of the big shopping items this Christmas was a new LCD or Plasma tv. Although it was one of the most popular buys for families this Christmas, mine was not one of them. But Brent's was! Nothing is better than witnessing a father and son mount their new 42" plasma on the wall...ok, maybe there are some better things.
Something new this year was my mom organizing the Christmas play for her Catholic church. That was in Vietnamese, most of the Vietnamese children don't even understand Vietnamese very well so that made the rehearsals a little more interesting. But it turned out well, and I'm sure my mom will end up doing it again last year...she enjoyed way too much tell people what to do. Dano and Acacia even got to be in the play even though they never rehearsed with all the other kids until the day it was presented.

Super Smart Animal...

In the basement we have some drop ceiling. Almost every night, I hear some kind of animal above scratching or digging at the walls. But I never hear it run around, just a scratching noise. Though, the one night my sister was here...we were watching movie (Rush Hour 3) and heard the most ridiculous noises. Like huge thumps and all kinds of noises you would expect from a small animal running around on the drop ceiling. It was ridiculous, sounded like a small cat or raccoon was above us running all around in the basement.

The next day I told my dad about it and we went to the hardware store to get us a box trap. Never buy a box trap, they're worthless. I'm better off pulling a small tree over with bait, rope, and a stake like they do in the cartoons. I've set the trap several times and the cheese keeps getting consumed and the trap door will be open sometimes and other times it will be closed.

So either the huge animal i heard the other night is gone, and all that is up there are some small mice that can squeeze out of the cage, or we're dealing with some super smart critters that use team work...one holds the door while the other grabs the food...or the animals can walk through walls because it was part of some lab experiment and radiation...

I'm just going to keep setting it every night, I might end up having to put a video camera with a light to see what's going on.
I even set the trap with peanut butter holding the cheese to the plate, but the cheese was just nibbled on and the door closed with no signs of the animal other than the eaten cheese...

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Cookies!

Well, its December again...and that means making cookies and celebrating Christmas. I'm no cookie making all-star, and you can tell that if you witnessed the cookies I made last year, but I stepped it up this year. I've been watching the Food Network non-stop and getting pointers on this tricky art. Okay, maybe I haven't...but I have been watching the Food Network a lot because there is nothing on tv these days...

Every year, the Aunt Janice has all her niece's, their boyfriends, and me over to make cookies. So I can't take all the credit for the amazing cookies below.

I never now which cookie cutter to use...so I just picked the tree, and just made a bunch of those. After getting annoyed with trying to get the cookies onto the cookie sheet...I just pounded a piece of cookie dough with my hand and dropped it onto the baking sheet...

Monday, December 17, 2007

Silly Elder Flowers

Well, Day 6 and i got a gravity reading of 1.010. Racked the wine into the carboy. It seems to be bubbly more than the red that i made. Though it doesn't look very clear right now, hopefully it will start clearing up a little bit within the next 10 days until the next gravity reading. Some how managed to get some elder flowers through the siphon. I still have a good feeling about this batch.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Elder Flowers What What?

Just a little update on the white wine. 5 days have passed, took a sample with the wine thief to check the gravity. Got like a 1.018 reading...not quite ready to rack. Needs to be under 1.010. Bummer, the red only took 5 days to get that low. Hope i don't have to wait too long. The elder flowers are still floating at the top too, which is lame because it gets all over the wine thief.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Running Of The Santas

Oh dear, where to begin. Decided to start off the weekend with a Christmas party at Drexel. There were not that many people i knew there and it was mostly dudes, but where there is free beer... Just kind of sipped on a few beers until they broke out some beer pong. Pretty much my favorite game ever. Teamed up with rich and we won 3 games in a row and lost our 4th game. Later we signed up again and won two more...or three. Basically rich and i got pretty hammered, and only one team beat us. Kids from Penn, pretty sure they cheated somehow. So that was my friday...

Saturday was the big day. Running of the Santas, sponsored by Coors Light. Just an excuse to dress up like santa, drink a lot...and, well...drink some more. The game plan was to wake up at 8am, go to a bar in NJ where it was free beer and food from 9-11am, then pay $10 for a bus ride to philly where the rest of the ridiculousness would take place. Pick up the bracelets at noon...get lunch and hit up the other bars until 6pm where the huge party was in a heated tent with a live band and more drunk people.

Unfortunately between me drinking too much friday night and manthan spraining his ankle really badly friday...we didn't start the party at 9am...more like 2pm. Got some mexican food in us and met up with his friend Kat and her girlfriends at their hotel room. We then headed out to get our bracelets. Because of a little miscommunication, manthan and i went to get our wristbands while kat and her friends went to another bar having a little santa shin dig.

This is when the first lemon occurred, the website said that if you purchased your ticket ahead of time the line would be shorter than the cash line. Of course when we were there, we had to wait 30 minutes in line to get the wristbands while people that paid day of didn't have to wait in line at all. So i paid a $2.80 convenience just to stand in the cold.

Here you can see the fun line...














After finally getting the wristbands, headed over to Finnigan's Wake to get our drink on.














Here is Manthan, Kat, and her friends.














After about an hour and a half at Finnigan's, headed back to Mcfadden's for the party. Now Kat and her friends had to wait in line to get wristbands while manthan and i could go straight in and party it up. There were some pretty ridiculous costumes. An estimated 5,000 fools in crazy christmas costumes. One guy was dressed as a giant dradle, a bunny, some reindeer, elves, scooby-doo in a santa suit, the grinch...it just goes on.

Of course manthan wanted a picture with the dradle guy.

















The Band.














The first porta-potty i used..














The girl in green was being hit on by 40 year olds...














The place was so crowded, getting beer spilled on me the whole time...and getting pushed around constantly.














Here is the tequila girl, she was going down the bar pour shots of tequila down the everyone's throats during the 'tequila' song...of course the song was 30 seconds long and she didn't even get half way down the bar...i wanted some free booze!















Manthan "dancing".














Of course, the girls took over the men's bathroom. Man this gurl is so classy...














Of course guys and relieve themselves anywhere, so thats just what they did. Nothing like peeing up hill in some bushes...





























dancing?














Later in the night, the girl managing the coats looked a little lonely so manthan decided to talk to her. After a few minutes she had to go to the bathroom asking manthan to 'cover' for her. Who does that? Asking someone that doesn't work there to cover for them. I guess she wasn't too crazy about her job. Manthan being the nice guy he was decided to take over. Returned some coats to people and racked two coats for $6. Of course one of the beer girls got word of this and called in some staff and 'bouncers'...manthan got yelled at of course "you can't be here!"...so that was the second lemon of the night.

































Kat's friend that came later that she said was single but wasn't. At least her b/f was cool. I wonder what that guy was looking at in the background...

































































For some reason i wasn't allowed to dance on the bar...:'(














This is what happens when manthan has my camera, takes random pictures of people he doesn't even know the names of.


















Random girl trying to talk a bouncer into letting her dance on the table...or something.














Can't be a called a party until someone gets kicked out of the bar. Manthan managed to get himself kicked out. Tried to make me leave to, but we basically spent 20 bones for cover to be there. Something about shots, paying for them, not paying for them...then finally paying for them, then getting kicked out. But he didn't really get kicked out, just took his wristband, stayed for like another hour afterwards and kept drinking.














I lost count of my drinks after 9 of them...around midnight (i know thats early, but we've been out since 2pm!) we made our way into china town to get some greasy food into our systems. Of course all the places i knew of were closed, and ended up walking into a typical shady chinese restuarant. There was one other party there, with like 15 people having a great discussion about politics while also being drunk. Then a crazy bum would come in every once and awhile and rap for the girls. Something like, "What's you're name? Heather? In Greece it means..." and he would spit rhymes for a couple minutes...i'm sure he raps for all the girls he meets...sad thing was it was kind of good...he probably uses the same lines every time.




























manthan not eating his food.














Crazy bum rapper...














Pretty much what my vision was by the time we left to go home.














Of course after our late dinner, while walking home it was raining...We made it back to Kat's hotel room, and of course i'm the one that gets to sleep on the floor. i feel like my liver is failing...won't be drinking for awhile. Well, until Christmas...

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Bubbles!

Who couldn't watch this for hours?!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Too Bright!

Looking back behind my house a little ways, there is this massive house that has been built. It has 5 garages. It also has like a quarter of a mile long drive way and a guest house that's probably just as big as your average house.

Rumors have it that the owner of this house is the "Philadelphia Porn King" that owns club Risque. I wish I owned a club and buy newly built houses in ridiculous locations...

Anyway, to make sure that he or anyone that would drive there at night can see the ridiculously long driveway to the house at night...they put up light posts like every 20 feet. They then decided to put in bulbs with a million watts...

Now when you look out behind my house, it doesn't look like a house with a couple lights on....it looks like a small city.

Couldn't get a picture in focus...