And then.

The past two weeks have not been good for climbing. Transportation wise, I can get there on the bus, but it just takes so much time. Last week I seem to have acquired a slight cold, this week I have to be at work at 2ish three out of five days (which means leaving the house around 1230). Plus I am not feeling all that motivated.
I think the winter is getting to me. This year has just been cold and more cold. Our ten day forecast finally has a few days in or near fifty with lows in the high twenties, which means my hope of starting to ride my motorcycle again in a few weeks seems feasible. I am thinking I should have enough saved up by mid april to get something new.
Last time I mentioned the beer I had going had yet to start fermentation. Shortly after I wrote those words, it did. And boy did it ever. It was maybe the most active fermentation I have seen so far! Yesterday I racked it to the secondary, taking the specific gravity and having a taste. The sg went from 1.063 to 1.006 in six days. Right now that is in the neighborhood of 7+% abv. Taste wise, it was really good. Alot of those fruity esters you would typically find in a Belgian beer, some light tartness, and a light sour/funky aroma.
10 lb Pilsner malt
11 oz Wheat malt
5 oz Acidulated malt
2 oz Crystal pellets @ 90 min
.5 oz Crystal pellets @ 2 min
5526 - Brettanomyces Lambicus
Ferment at 78 degrees for one week, move to secondary and temperatures below 55 for 2-4 weeks. It is currently in my garage where I am sure the temps will fluctuate a bit, but should remain in the 40's.
I think when it gets warmer I am going to start riding my bike to work twice a week or so. I won't have to leave all that much earlier and I can start getting in shape.
I am also working on my application for CU. I still may be able to get into the fall semester, but we shall see.

Cont'd.

I decided that if I don't see any fermentation by tomorrow, I am going to grab a different yeast and see what happens. I think I will turn it into a saison.
Katie got a new job. It will be part time for the next month so she is still going to stay at her current job. After that I believe she will move to full time at the new place. They are opening a second location in Boulder so she would be part of the opening team. She got some really good references from past employers so that is good.
The weather this winter has been pretty crappy. Last year we had our fair share of warmer days (50deg+) during the winter, but this year is all cold. For instance, today and tomorrow we will be around 20 below our average. I was hoping to get out my motorcycle in a few weeks, but I am not sure when that is going to happen. It would be great not to have to take the bus again, though at least I don't have to pay for it.
And the snow. We haven't gotten bombed like those of you on the east coast (not yet anyway!). But we are getting enough in small 2-4 inch storms to be annoying. There is snow in the shaded parts of our yard that has been there since the beginning/middle of December!
Guess that is about all for now. Smell ya later!

Long time.

Wow, it's been awhile since I have written. Not really all that much to report. I keep hoping to get out on my mtb, but it keeps snowing. Not alot, but just enough here and there to thwart that idea. Been climbing pretty frequently. I have days when I feel great and strong, and other days when I don't feel so good. So it goes.
The porter that I brewed has been getting good feedback. With all the flavor additions, it seems like everyone gets something different. I have heard ginger, chocolate, juniper, and licorice from various people. Since then I have made a Belgian style strong ale (think Duvel) and a stout. I bottled half the batch of stout with coffee to make a coffee stout and half as is. I have tasted both stouts and they are good so far, but need a little more time in the bottle. The Belgian took a month to ferment fully and I am expecting a longer than normal time in the bottle to carbonate.
This week I started my first batch of all grain beer. It definitely took alot more time to make, but if you think the process though and plan it out, I don't feel as if it is any more difficult. It is fermented solely with a strain of wild yeast found in lambics called b. lambicus. It should be interesting, although I started it two days ago and have yet to see signs of fermentation.
to be continued....

Stuff.

Well I have finally got around to editing the video we shot on our fall climbing trip. I have it in two parts. Here is Elephant Rocks.

Bouldering at Elephant Rocks. from Andy Rose on Vimeo.

Also be on the lookout for SOILL. I have in in higher quality on my computer, but for some reason when I try to upload it, my computer crashes. Not good.
Life has been ok recently. Yesterday was bad as we went to the gym and I felt like I climbed poorly and also seem to have injured a finger in the process. Not sure what it was, but it feels pretty sore today. Fortunately it is only a pinkie so I can probably still climb ok with it taped up.
I had to do laundry and katie suggested using our washer since it was warmer out. So I did. It filled up with water but then stopped working. So I had to take out all of my sopping wet and icy cold clothes and then drain the washer by hand as much as I could. Not very fun. And of course, I still ended up going to the laundry mat as I had planned. Probably took me about three hours to do one load. Awesome.
It was warmed up here in the past few days, but there is still snow on the ground anywhere that gets shade. I was hoping it would rain today and finish melting it, but it doesn't look like it is going to. Oh well.
I started my next beer which is happily bubbling away. I am making a Belgian strong ale, something in the vein of Duvel. It seemed pretty pricey for the ingredients, but pricing it out, each bottle should cost me about $1.20, which isn't bad considering a 12 oz bottle of Duvel is something like $5 retail.
Not sure what I will make next. I was thinking of doing a stout and using some peat smoked malt in the mash. But we will see.

Palindrome day.

0102210.
I bottled my next batch of beer today. It is a porter brewed with alot of traditional ingredients, basically everything but the kitchen sink. The recipe comes from the joy of homebrewing, and is supposedly the number one homebrew recipe in the world, though how anyone can claim such a thing is beyond me.
Tumultuous Porter
5 lbs plain dried dark malt extract
1 lb med crystal malt
1/4 lb black patent
1/4 lb roasted barley
1 oz chinook hops (boiling)
1/2 oz challenger hops (boiling)
1/2 oz cascade hops (finishing)
1 c brown sugar
1 c black strap molasses
2 tsp gypsum
1 lb corn sugar
1/2 oz grated licorice
1/2 tbl szechuan peppercorn
1 stick cinnamon
1/4 c crushed juniper berries
6 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 oz grated fresh ginger
1028 london ale yeast
3/4 c corn sugar (bottling)
og - 1.046-8
fg - 1.012-4
approx 5% abv
Whew. Long list of stuff. I can't wait to taste it once it has carbonated. I am not sure what I will make next. I have a few ideas.
There is still snow on the ground here so I haven't been riding in awhile. I am really itching to get out on my mtb though. The snow and cold is also making climbing outside not feasible. I have felt very strong at the spot the past few days. I guess that week off did me good.

Real winter.

I guess this is a real Colorado winter. We are in day two of a three day snowstorm, though we have maybe 5 inches so far and are predicted to get 4-5 more. So that's not too bad. We have no highs above 40 degrees in the next ten days, and won't even be above freezing until Friday. I would say so far this year we have gotten 3 - 4 feet of snow.
I have really been wanting to go mountain biking lately, but of course with the weather as it is, that hasn't happened and doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon. I've even been taking it pretty easy climbing. We went to Movement last Wednesday and I think that was the last time I climbed.
I think our trip was a bit disappointing to me in that I spent so much time training and felt like I really didn't do much of anything and was wondering if it was all worth it. I can see that having an impact on the psyche.
However, this past week we saw a great movie called between the trees. It was shot in the spring of 2009 in Fontainebleau, France and documents Ty Landman and Keith Bradbury climbing a ton of problems there.

Teaser 1 from unclesomebody on Vimeo.

It was pretty inspiring and ends with Keith unable to finish off his main goal of the trip - Gecko Assis. He reflects on reasons why and of course, vows to return. It is disappointing sure to not be able to do something you think you should be able to do, but I did have fun on our trip, and it is really about being out there with friends and having a good time.
Anyway, this got be psyched to get out to Haycock when I am home visiting, so I am planning to get up early on either the 23 or 24 and spend the day there. I am trying to work out a list of problems I would like to do that are within my range and can be easily reached in one day. Should be fun.
I am thinking about my next batch of beer. I think I may do a porter that is in the book I have and sounds pretty interesting. My last beer turned out soooooo freakin good. I will definitely make it again.
Work was ok this week. Thursday was slow, but I was pretty busy on Friday. I took a few drinks up to a room and got a little bit of an extra tip. I forgot to open the bottle of Pellegrino they ordered and headed back a few minutes later and got to talking to the guy who was exceedingly nice. We talked a bit, and that would have been it, but I decided they were so nice that I got them a dessert on me and brought it up a bit later. Of course they were in the bathtub at that time, but he said to swing by the next day and he would give me his business card and talk some more maybe.
Unfortunately I didn't make it up as we were very busy Saturday night as our restaurant was bought out for a holiday party. But he left his card at the front desk for me. I will have to shoot him an email and say thanks.
People never cease to amaze me.

Over.

Unfortunately my motorcycling season has come to an end. I did get to ride in great weather on Friday (almost 70!) but had a chilly trip home and with the weather forecast looking cold - highs in the low 40's and lower - for the time being, I decided it was time to put er down. Today I changed the oil, oil filter, added a fuel stabilizer, and put the battery on a charger. That should take me through winter in good shape to get riding again in the spring.
I was thinking adding heated grips might get me a bit farther into the year, but really if it is 40's during the day it'll be 20's at night and heated grips or not, that is too cold! Plus that would be 100 bucks I would put into the bike that I wouldn't get back when I sell it, though it looks as though I may not be selling as soon as I thought.
Katie has expressed an interest in learning how to ride! We were going to go across the street today, but it is just too cold and I wanted to get it set up for winter. Once things warm up some, I guess I will teach her the basics and then she will take the same class I took and then take over this bike.
I have finally gotten some of our movies from our trip together, though I still have yet to edit. First I needed an external hard drive, as I didn't have enough room on ours. Then I tried the editing software that came with the camera. It sucks, so I went to windows movie maker which I have used before. But then the file format the camera uses isn't recognized by wmm. Eventually I downloaded a free program to convert the files to a format recognized by wmm. Hopefully soon I will have something.
Not much else going on really. I am really looking forward to some time off and seeing my family.