Rainy Days

It is a good thing we're in a drought with all the rain we're getting.

Didn't get to do a whole lot tonight. We did have to run out and pick up more extension cords for the Christmas light display. We find that we're needing to move the electrical sources around the house so we don't overload a circuit. We arrived home to see that the front of the house was dark. I figured that the rain was probably most of our problem. Indeed, the GFI circuits keep popping, so somewhere there is a connection that is not dry. We'll have to content ourselves with just the wreaths on the windows tonight. I'll attempt video tomorrow night if all goes well.

I heard from Jeremy, a lodge brother, this evening. His father passed away this morning. That so totally sucks. He didn't have any information to pass along at this point, but I'll make a special effort to head to the wake. I sent out a note to the brethren as soon as I got home to let them know.

I am looking forward to Lodge next Tuesday. My "nephew" doesn't read this blog, nor do I think he even knows of its existance. *chuckle* Anyway, I asked the Worshipful Master if he would mind if I did the Worshipful Master role during the initiation. He agreed to allow me this honor. I have been going over the part now for several weeks. I feel 90% confident that I won't have any serious glitches. I'm really hoping to do it well. Adam is signed up for the Marines and will be heading to bootcamp in January. Only thing that would make this better is that his father, Rob, is also very seriously considering joining the fraternity as well.

Veterans Day at Lodge Tonight

I did get the beer brewed this morning. The smells are still wafting through the air. I'm sure Mo is not going to be especially happy when she gets home and it still smells like wort. Although the wort was smelling pretty pumpkiny. Only difficulties I ran into was during the mini mash process, in that I was having problems maintaining the temperature. Seemed like it would either get too hot or drop faster than anticipated. It was a LOT of grain. Happy that I purchased a large nylon bag for the grain and pumpkin. After the mini mash, the pumpkin ended up back in the fridge (I'll make pies tomorrow) and the used grain ended up on the compost heap.

This was the first time I used a liquid yeast and it was pretty sweet. Had to start the yeast prior to starting the brewing so there was enough time for the yeast to activate. The package plumped up and it was ready to go in about 3 years.

After the brewing was done and during the clean up, you always want to make sure of disposing of the hops safely. If you have dogs, it is not safe to dispose of the used hops anywhere when the dogs can get at them. If they were to consume the hops, your dogs would be dead in a matter of hours.

And on that note, I did get a chance to my new pot for brewing. Well, the only problem with it that it is so big that I would not have been able to submerge the grains and pumpkin during the mini mash. So, it was back to the old 3 gallon pot. Did the mini mash in the 3 gallon pot and moved everything up to the big pot for the boil. It took about 4.5 hours from start to finish. Still working on getting the clean up finished. :)

Note from the lodge mail list that came today:

Brethren,

Tonight we gather at our Masonic Lodge to honor our Veterans. Those of you who served would you please wear your colors, pins, medals, orany other items.

There is no degree work tonight and I hope that we will have sometime to hear some stories from our honorable Brethren who served inthe military. We are truly lucky to have some of America's hero's inour Lodge who fought in WWII, Vietnam, Korea, the Gulf War,Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places.

Catered dinner consisting of BBQ Ribs, Baked Beans, Potato Salad,Rolls, and Pie begins at 6:30 and Lodge to open at 7:30pm.

Lodge Work - C2A Class July 26, 2008

OK, this isn't the post I've been working on. I just spent all day up at Polar Star Rose Hill Lodge #79 helping to put on a C2A class. We do these classes periodically throughout the year. This helps the brothers that don't have enough time to get the degrees done in lodge to at least be able to get up to the Master Mason level (3rd degree). We started the day off with a breakfast that several of our members helped to prepare, including Past Grand Master of Missouri Bob Berger.







People started showing up around 7:30 to grab a bite to eat before we started lodge. We provided eggs, bacon, ham, fruit, doughnuts, bagels, coffee and soda.



Then it was time to get people registered and start the day!



At the end of the day the new Master Masons were congratulated and I took a couple of class pictures.



Here is the class photo



Congratulations to all the new Master Masons in the St. Louis area and to everybody that helped put on the class.

Taking the plunge

I am either about to do something that is going to work out well for me or it is something that I'm going to look back, hit myself in the head, and say "What was I thinking?" I have decided, after talking with several friends, sought the advice of financial professionals, and talked to my boss that I am switching from a contractor-employee to a 1099-subcontractor. Whooo. My head is hurting. Anyway, the jury is definitely out on how well this is going to work out. I'm hoping to take on a couple of other clients in addition to my full-time gig. I would really like to be able to save up enough money that we don't have to worry about our plans for adoption. That's whole other story.

Working from home tomorrow because AT&T is coming over to set up a new phone line for me. Gotta love the customer service, they could only promise that the tech would be here sometime between 8am and 8pm. Wow. I'm so totally underwhelmed.

I've got to finish cleaning the basement where the tech is going to have to go and I've got documentation to finish before a teleconference tomorrow morning. Probably not going to get a whole lot of sleep tonight. It just has not been a wonderful couple of weeks, these last couple of weeks. Stress on the job is going to kill me.

One of the things that happened today, which the stress probably didn't help with my reaction, was that I received a bunch of emails from various friends that either loudly proclaim what an evil person Obama is or what an evil person McCain is. I love going to snopes.com to find out the back story. And as with most of the emails of this ilk, whether it is disparaging Obama or McCain (since that seems to be where most of these are aiming now days), most of the claims are spurious at best and racist or religion baiting at worst.

I was just talking with my cousin this morning about this. I feel so very disappointed that here, in the 21st freaking century, that there are people out there putting out *stuff* like this, rather than debating policy, ideas, records, and plans. We should be better than this by now. If nothing else, should we not be the ones to bring a little bit more light to the discussion? In the end, we are all immigrants here, strangers in a strange land of our own making.

Now, if you want a make a joke at the expense of a politician... I'm all for that. ;)

Anyway, it is great that everybody that I work with is cool, my supervisor is cool, and everybody up the ladder is very cool. I have made a lot of friends here and out in D.C. (where the HQ is). If I can just make it through tomorrow, I will be feeling a lot better and hopefully the stress will be greatly reduced. Then of course, it is back to the studying for my part in the third degree we're doing on Tuesday night. And I'm helping with a C2A class at my lodge next Saturday. I'm also waiting to see if I'll be able to help at the Fall Reunion at the Scottish Rite this fall. I'll be going regardless of whether I'm helping to present a degree or if I'm just going to be one of the guys that fills in where necessary. It's all good. I like to help.

And just to let you know, I'm very disappointed I wasn't able to get up to the Domain Street Wine Bar in New Town tonight, because Erin Bode and her band were playing. I helped get some of the chairs out there this afternoon. I was picking up the mail and they looked like they could use an extra hand. Dang, I wish I could have been up there. Oh well, my allergies wouldn't have made it very enjoyable for long.

Maybe I'll have a beer before I head back to the basement. Take it easy out there.

Catching up

Just a quick moment while I've got a program copying up to a virtual machine. Wanted to let you know about an event this weekend, which is not in St. Charles, but over on The Loop.

The Eighth Annual St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase (SLFS) will be held July 19-24, 2008. This event focuses exclusively on the work of local directors and filmmakers, as well as expatriates with strong local connections who have gone on to use their creative talents in other cities. Submissions will be accepted March 1 - May 31, 2008. Please click (here) for basic event and ticket information. Click (here) for full schedule of seminars, films, and film descriptions.

One of the directors (Wyatt Weeds) is a friend from back in the day. His film is Shadowland and will be shown on Sunday at 7pm. The website for the movie is http://www.shadowlandthemovie.com.

Last night, the St. Charles city council approved a blueprint for funding and operating a proposed community recreation center with the nonprofit ShowMe Aquatics and Fitness organization. City voters will get to vote on a bond issue of up to $30 Million on August 5th. If approved, the initial contract will run for 35 years. Among the features would be an indoor water park, an indoor track, four pools, three gyms, a fitness center, water exercise areas and activity centers for teens and older residents. It would also provide a way for Show Me Aquatics to fulfill their mission of providing barrier free access to for disabled people to swimming and other exercise.

Personally, I think it is a great idea. The city has needed a centralized community center and this will provide one with lots of features. It is a bond issue, which means no tax increase. Revenue generated from the center will be used to retire the bonds. The city tried to get a vote on community center last year and it failed because they didn't have a plan. Now they at least have a plan and a lot of specifics spelled out.

Some other good news came yesterday, when oil prices dropped by just over $6 a barrel. Current trading has oil at just under $137 a barrel. Which is still scary for long term prospects. And the financial markets were very jittery yesterday after the IndyMac collapse over the weekend and the Federal Government saying they were going to make sure Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac didn't have any problems. The share prices kept driving downward for them pretty much all day yesterday. This morning there was a report on the news that the stocks for these two companies may have been influenced by illegal stock manipulation in an effort to drive the price down so somebody could buy it at a bargain price. SEC and FBI are looking into it and apparently have a specific company in mind.

At lodge last night, we had our rehearsal for the second part of the third degree. Most all of the members that will be putting on the third degrees in the next couple of weeks have not had parts before. It was a good walk through. We have 2 of them at our next stated communication on Tuesday. If you are a Master Mason and want to stop by and help, the lodge website is at http://www.psrh79.com. The address and directions are there. Or you can drop me a line and I can try to help you find your best route in.