Finally Home

Flying has become such a pain in the ass now adays I don't know why I even bother. It's not for the per-diem. It's not for the exotic locations.

This trip involved pushing back from the gate and THEN being told there was a ground stop in SFA. That meant 1.5 hours with a warm plane, lots of water, and no air. Which meant the 1.75 hour connection now was 5 minutes long.

The second plane, same issues- late. 15 minutes to make a connection from C to F concourse in Chicago (about 1 mile if I know how long it took me to walk).

And when I arrived home my house was exactly as I'd left it- even the ties I left on the sofa were easily found.

Of course I spent most of today going off and throwing crap out because, frankly, if it's got to be cleaned it looks like I'm going to be the one who has to do it all. So my new solution is to simply throw everything out.

Want some crap?

Food in Reno: Day 3

Reno, NV. Lots of Breweries. Lots of beer. Lots of good food. Day 3.

Today we snuck out for lunch to B&J's Brewery- 13999 South Virginia, Reno NV (Summit Mall). Walking into the place was overwhelming- it was one of the nicest laid out restaurants I've been in. Everything practically gleamed- and looked brand new. I was told they'd been open for about 2 years so they must really take care of their equipment (or replace it monthly). Hardwood floors were in great shape, too- no obvious discolorations on the white wood (implying no spills ;P)

They offered a sampler of 7 beers for fairly cheap and would substitute, but today they were out of their cask conditioned ale. Included in the presentation was a handy dandy (see photos) chart with the beers and a great description of everything about them. Scores to follow.

I ordered the Melt- and it was delicious. Cooked to perfection the garlic and rosemary sourdough bread crust was crisp and dry as it hid the caramelized onion and two cheeses beneath it. I couldn't stop eating it- in between samples of beers- and snatched huge quarter cut french fries like there was no tomorrow.

This place gets a 10/10 for service, food, and beer. Did I mention I learned about it by overhearing one of it's employees while at Great Sinkhole, errr Great Basin?

Blonde: 2/5/4. Just not a fan of Blondes...

Heff: 3/6/6. Fairly exploding with floral aroma the finish was great, for a heff, but again just not my beer.

Pirahnna Pale Ale: 3/9/9. Excellent Hops with a nice complex mixture (or at least no overwhelming one type). Flavor was excellent and bitterness was spot on. Could drink another one or 5.

Jeremiah's Red: 2/7/7. Nice soft malt finish with a good sense of floral hops. Bitterness could be a bit more, but don't let that distract you from this great beer.

Nutty Brewnette: 2/6/6. I wish it had had some bittering malt in it- but that's not the mark of a good nut brown. Was very well received by several members of the table.

Porter: 2/7/9. Great porter- excellent head (N2/CO2) and even better retention. This head slid down the glass the entire time I was sampling beres.

Stout: 2/8/7. The stout was excellent but the finish was weak- it should be lower but I just can't bring myself to nail it for finishing sweet. Drop the SG by another 1/4 point or so and it'll be perfect. Great head as well and excellent aroma.

Food in Reno: Day 2

Reno, NV. Lots of Breweries. Lots of beer. Lots of good food. Day 2.

Day 2 finds us at Great Basin Brewery, located at 846 Victorian Ave. The entire area is packed with food joints so Great Basin Brewery must have something special to attract attention.

It doesn't.

Now usually I can find a couple of great things to say about a place, so I will here too. There's free parking in the back in a garage, the beer is served cold and not over/under carbonated, and the lighting is great.

The food, on the other hand...

I had one of the more expensive items on the menu- a $17, 14oz (hah) "pepper encrusted rib eye". It was more along the lines of pepper dusted, and while I was very happy that it was cooked to perfection it quickly became a game of 'find the steak in the fat'. I don't get rib eye's from the supermarket with that much fat. This one was less than 3/4" thick- looking like it had been pounded to achieve that feat. The potatoes were excellent though.

My coworker had chicken shishkabobs. He remarked on their lack of ... ingenuity... when devising them. Chicken, green pepper, chicken, onion, repeat. Thats it. In a part of the country where practically EVERYTHING has colour, you can't do better than that? Can't even mix in some yellow/red peppers? How's about some mushrooms? Or onions bigger than 3 layers thick, sadly clinging to the chicken in a desperate attempt to flavour them.

Lastly, since this is a brewery, I should mention the beer. The beer was fairly good, if you didn't mind waiting over 25 minutes for the first waitress to come up to order one. Then to subsequently have to ARGUE with said waitress over the cost of a sampler pack (they don't do samplers, you can 'buy' 12 samplers for $12!!!!). When said samplers arrive you have to rely on the obviously busy waitress's memory to hope you get the right ones- they don't even provide a tearaway sheet for notes. I thought Silver Peak's was expensive from the night before- boy was I wrong.

The Icky (named after a fossil) was a strongly hoppy beer with an excellent finish- if you love cascade. There seemed to be quite a bit of that one particular hop in there with no other flavours- and if there were other hops they were simply overwhelmed. A score of 3/7/7

The Vienna Lager (At least thats what I think she brought me) was quite smoky and Delicious- it gets a 2/7/8 Score- very pleasant.

The Truckee Red had an excellently clean finish- could have used a bit more floral hops- and the malt wasn't overpowering at all. Score 2/8/7

Lastly she delivered a 'Boont Amber' guest beer from ?Anderson Valley?. Note the question marks and the quotes- I have no idea what I really was given and even though I asked her to repeat it 3x I still don't know. Score of 2/6/8

Overall the price for the meal was cheap but so was everything else. Good outdoor seating, lots of space, but just skip it unless you're coming in on "Tightwad" Tuesdays where beer is 2.50$ a pint.

On an aside, I overheard a conversation about another brewery south of town called "BJ's". Think I'm going to hit that in the next two days before I leave.

Beer Ratings

Since I'm going to talk about beer alot I ought to post a ratings.

There are 3 numbers- I stole this from my wine courses.

The first number: Aroma. How much I like, how much I can sense, the 'nose' of the beer. Score is 0-3. Even water can get a 1.... so if you see a 0 there must be a problem.

The second number: Taste. This is the 'mouth feel' of the beer. How does it sit- does it burn, is it pleasurable, does it hit the right nerves- literally how delicious is it? Score is 0-10.

The third number: Finish. How does the beer go down? Is it floral? Hoppy? Metallic (over hopped with Cascade can cause this). Do the little beer bubbles make themselves known as the beer disappears down your gullet? Can you continue to drink this beer? Score is 0-10.

All important questions that must be known. And yes, I get mocked for writing down numbers.. .but it's worth it.

Food in Reno: Day 1

Reno, NV- Lots of beer, lots of food- and all I have is a camera with 3 days to find out whats good and not.

A year ago we visited a restaurant called Silver Peak. Met the head brewer there- Trent- and he spent some time sitting down with us talking about his beers. I told him I was in love with the Porter they had by far- turned out it was his particular beer that he made his way. When you've got a good one, everyone beats a path to your keg...

This time we went to the original Silver Peak Brewery, located at 124 Wonder Street, Reno NV.

They have a sampler there which, for the cost of 8.75, can be yours. The one we received had Red Roadster, XXX Blonde Ale, Baileywheat Hefeweizen, Sierra Amber Ale, Peavine Porter, Silver Peak India Pale Ale, and three specialties- Sunset Raspberry, Honey Ale, and Kolsch Ale.
The samplers weren't over filled so they didn't spill or contaminate (you'd be surprised) and were served in a stainless tray with accompanying documentation. Of course, a pair of ours were out of order but it's fairly easy to recognize the differences between a Pale Ale and a Porter :)

Red Roaster: Excellent hops but too much malt/unfermented sugars. Far too sweet to drink more than a sip- 2/8/10 (based on a sip. Based on an entire glass that 10 falls to a 2/8/4)

XXX Blond Ale: Not a fan, but that's me. 1/4/5
BaileyWheat Hefeweizen: A good Hef, if only I drank it more. Got very spoiled in Germany... so the low scores: 1/5/7

Sierra Amber Ale: Excellent taste with mild malts and good hops to finish. 2/5/7

Peavine Porter. When I had this last I don't remember it being so ... limp. Maybe it was a bad pour from the bottom of a keg, maybe it was just a low pressure day, but this beer needed more head than it was served in. 2/7/4 - and I LOVED it the last time I had it. Great coffee and bitterness to round out everything.

Silver PEak India Pale Ale: Extra hoppy but not overwhelming with a massive burst of one type of 'alpha acid rules' hops. Great nose- and even better finish. I wish I'd ordered a pint of this over the roadster- 3/8/9

Sunset Raspberry- Specialty beer. Skip it- you'll burn your taste buds. In fact, cut it with the Hef or the Blond, but served as it is it'll strip the flavour centers of your brain to their bare wires. I didn't even score it.

Honey Ale: Great flavor, not overpowered by the honey. Little more hops to give it some bite and it would be perfect, IMHO. 2/6/4 (for finish was lacking aroma hops)

Kolsch Ale: Great tasting all the way. Can't get much better than this in the US I'd imagine. 2/8/8
As for the food- Delicious. I had Rosemary flatbread with roasted garlic + brie. The brie I wish had been spread out a bit but that would have ruined the aesthetics of the dish, I'm sure. the main meal was the Brewers burger- undercooked slightly (I ordered medium, got medium rare) but they hit my double cheese with no problems.





Wait staff was attentive and quick on responses. Can't go wrong there.
This was the original Silver Peak and it's quality is excellent- Thanks for a great evening!

Weddings and Washers

Yesterday was a friend of Liz's wedding- Sean. Sean and I had met once or twice but we really had nothing in common so I never went out of my way to see if there were updates in his life.

Well, a wedding counts as a major update, and so we went to theirs yesterday. The ceremony started 30 minutes late but was very fast- and then it was drinks and food. Alot of drinks. And alot of new people I'd never met (obviously).

Well, one thing leads to another and we're all out on the dance floor feeding the bride and groom drinks- and somehow I got the nickname of 'hazer' from her. Oh well, it was worth it. Sean was bombed by the end of the night- he has got to be hurting today (as well as I do). I stuck to Chard for most of the evening.... which leads us to....

Washing machines. Liz comes up this morning to tell me that she did a load of delicate last week and forgot about it- I immediately envision a rusted pitted tank. She just says it won't spin.

That sounds suspiciously like the LAST time the damn washer stopped working- the switch went. Getting the f-ing washer apart is a pain in the ass and I don't know why I even wanted to do it again, but again I must because the switch shows no electrical conductivity. I'm going to put it back together without a switch so she can do laundry, or I might just leave it apart- don't know yet given how bloody difficult it is to work on.

We'll see if the OEM will give me a new switch for free- 1.5 years on an item is a bit on the short side, ya know?

A few more days after a baby girl announcement

Every conversation has become gender- specific now. The baby girl. My baby girl. Our baby girl. It's cute. All pronouns, amateur as they are, are now feminine case.

Even so it's still not real- even as I see the swelling belly. I guess feeling the child kick will do it- maybe- before the girl shows up.

I've already decided to buy a new house- something much larger- and I can start the refinishing. I don't really want to support two mortgages and a kid at the same time but I know no other way of doing it. Best deals are in the summer- we're out- so unless I get lucky soon....

More remodeling. I've thrown the cabinets that were taking up so much space in the garage outside until my neighbor takes them (or I toss them to the street and burn them). That opened alot of space. I want to repair Liz's bike so she can go riding with me but I still don't have enough space to do so.

Upcoming: a review of my wireless radio slaves. If I clean out the den maybe I can put the studio here...