Small Thoughts for Small Minds

In addition to my perennial favorite, New River Pale Ale, and a sweet mead (which will be around a long time because it’s not really my thing, although I will submit some (on the behalf of my homebrew club) to a national competition), I have a couple of homebrews on tap:

The first is a chocolate stout with a hint of vanilla. I use vanilla beans in the secondary fermenter. The vanilla smooths out and enhances the chocolate flavor. (It’s difficult to actually separate the vanilla flavor, but I did a with/without batch to determine the effects of the vanilla. Needless to say, perhaps, I am still using the vanilla despite the cost…)

I call it Xoco Lall stout after the drink the Aztecs used to make using cocoa and vanilla.

Also on tap is a very hoppy IPA made using only Santiam hops. An experiment. I don’t see a real need to do it again, though. Not a bad beer, but I’d much rather dry hop with Cascades and Amarillo. Even Centennial or Chinook….

I really have to figure out a way to take a picture that shows off the amazing clarity of the beer. I can read newsprint through this beer. (Well, I’m not really sure of that, since I don’t get the newspaper, but you get the point…)

First we had Dyson starring in two TV commercials for a local automotive dealership.

Now, Kel’s best friend (and godparent of our kids*), Donna, is on a few local billboards!

Kel and Donna both went to Virginia Western for a couple of years before going on to Virginia Tech. I think Donna’s on their board or something. Kel, Donna, and some of their friends at the time have set up a scholarship at VA Western.

Jeez. Now Kel, Keira & I are under pressure to gain public notice…

* I’m not sure if there is any real meaning to "godparent" for non-Catholics. Kel was raised Catholic, so she’s sticking with the concept.

Kel and I are godparents for her niece, Mackenzie. Officially. Kind of. Since the ceremony was a full Catholic thingy, Mackie’s parents had to have someone in the church stand with us to fulfill the bit about raising her within the church. (Since there was no chance (in hell? hee) of us doing it…) During some portion of the shaman’s performance ceremony, the priest sprinkled "holy water" on us. Kel’s mom joked that she was surprised that the holy water didn’t burn me. I told her that it didn’t dare touch me - it evaporated before it could hit me….

Week before last, Keira spent a few hours a day at a drama camp put on by Mill Mountain Theater. Since Keira is constantly "acting", we thought she’d love it.

Of course, we didn’t count on the fact that there would be a large number of kids, which limits each kid’s role. Keira was bored. She also wasn’t as outgoing as we expected, and didn’t get one of the bigger roles. (The kids with the biggest roles had a lot of "character"…)

This picture shows Keira and one of her best friends, Maddie, who was also in the camp.

Oh, what the heck. Here’s a closeup…

While Keira enjoys acting out scenes, she seems to enjoy even more directing others. She recently put together some type of skit where she painted Dyson (and one of his swords) with red paint. Then they went out by the pool (where Kel was reading) and Dyson laid down, holding the "bloody" sword as if it had pierced his side. Keira proceeded to give a lengthy soliloquy while Dyson played dead.

Kel wants to get a new camcorder (solid state memory instead of digital tape). She plans on giving the "old" (two years old) camcorder to Keira. Maybe I should set her up with a YouTube.com account…

As mentioned in the previous post, we hired a face painter as "entertainment" for Keira’s birthday party. Given the hyperactive behavior of a typical 8 or 9 year old girl, we should’ve realized that only one would be "entertained" at a time. The other seven girls, with Dyson tagging along, ran throughout the house screaming for the two or so hours it took to paint all of them.

It was a real pain to round them all up for the picture. (And just as bad to get them to stand still…) In the confusion, I missed the fact that Cecilia was hiding. Refused to have her picture taken. Oh well…

Kel set up the party, doing all the arrangements (like usual), and then skipped out for some kind of alumni event with Virginia Tech. Leaving me to deal with all of these wacko girls.

One ended up with a bloody nose (I still can’t get the blood out of the plaster on the wall behind the sink in our bathroom…). One freaked out about some kind of trivial scratch. One’s mother forgot to tell me about giving medication, which resulted in some desperate attempts to contact the girl’s (divorced) parents to get confirmation. (I’m not giving out any kind of medication without express parental permission, of course.)

Once I finally got them all to at least pretend to be in bed, Kel finally got home. I had a massive headache by then…

All and all, a good birthday party. I think….

Yeah, I know it is pronounced like the writer of The Three Musketeers, but I just can’t read it that way. You wouldn’t expect a dumb ass to be a good speller, anyway….

While I was downloading a picture from my phone, I found a couple of pictures from St. Pat’s weekend. After the parade, we went to the Roanoke "Celtic Festival". The kids just had to get their faces painted. (We later hired the same lady to come to our house as the primary entertainment for Keira’s birthday party.)

I guess I now need to dig through my pictures and post the results of the birthday face painting…