the Neutrino Food Labs is raging today, i started an experiment to culture my own cider yeast. over the past few weeks, i have been pining away for a good glass of home brew. we are very lucky locally because about 1 year ago the Pensacola Bay (micro)Brewery opened; they make a fine Brown ale which i have used as a component for my own fine chili. i am also spurred on by the price of a decent beer at the supermarket; last week when i wanted to grab a six pack for a small gathering i was holding the average price for a sixer of my favorites in domestics and microbrews was over $10. oooch! i went with a Leinenkugle specialty brew for about $8.
oi, i was feeling mighty sad this morning when the urge to brew came on strong. i keep missing the brew shop hours, they are closed Sundays and Mondays, because i generally have meetings all the rest of the week. then i saw an instructable by member, creasemaker, where he had sucessfully cultivated his own cider yeast from organically certified apples. not too many months ago i cultivated a strain of yeast for my sourdough breads, following some lore published by Peter Reinhardt. to do this, i soaked some organic raisins in warm water and slowly fed the critters in the tea flour and purified water. similarly, creasemaker took apples and soaked them in a good quality apple juice. my fingers are crossed and i can't wait to report back.
secondly, I was inspired by all the chatter on 'cold brewed' coffee so i started a pot today. i was impatient and i have dug into it after only 6 hours and it is amazing. very similar to a really lovely espresso, i think it is very high octane. i feel like i have taken some speed. lovely, delicious, Pete's French Roast speed, that is.
recently, i bought some Arduino clones known as the Teensy 2.0 from PJRC. the device is thumbnail size at 1.2 in. by 0.7 in., a ATMEGA32, and boasts 25 I/O, 7PWM, and 12 analog pins. there are many small clones available on the market, but most of the designs require you to use a FTDI breakout board. i was really sold because the Teensy includes a USB jack and all for $16 to $19 for the model with pins already attached. the ++ version offers 46 I/0, 130MB and is only a few dollars more.
i have purchased these as part of a wearable i am designing and hopefully i will be telling you all about very soon.
as part of the V2V project (Valley to Valley), I have started using Mineways to extract data from Minecraft. my charge is to direct an installation build in CA and Russia for the September. Colleagues will be modeling the Silicon Valley(CA) and the Titanium Valley(RU) for the project in an effort to seek out the heart of these places. Mineways is a stellar app that I have been using to extract STL's of the project server (code named) Orwell. to date i have printed about 8 models and Mr. Bickford in SJ has printed a few too.
today i needed to distract myself from some idiocy on campus, so i printed a maquette of the momnument I am building for the V2V project. this is a dual print pieced together. i am not happy with the monument yet but holding it helps me make some choices in my redesign.
