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Batch #4 happened on a beautiful Sunday afternoon after cleaning the BBQ and the garage.  I wanted to show Vero’s parents how it was done.

Nothing really out of the ordinary happened with this batch…pretty standard fare.  It takes HOURS to cool down from boiling though.  What a pain!

I did happen to take a hydrometer reading so that was foolish of me.

Three days later, I checked on the batch and it looked it severely bubbled over/through the fermentation lock.  There was beer on the floor and on my white shirt sleeve which was touching the top of the fermentation lock.  Upon closer inspection, it looked like the fermentation lock was still in place and bubbling away.  What’s strange is I also made a 4.5 gallon batch thinking I could get a higher alcohol content with less water.  So I find it quite strange that the thing fermented/created enough pressure to blow a little.  Any ideas as to what may have happened?

Update:  Well, because I failed to measure the original gravity, I have no idea what the alcohol content is.  Either way, it came out to be a fine tasting batch of Dark Ale, or as I have called it, Darktin as Vero’s family was up for the event.  I must say that I enjoy my other batches more…the dark ale is definitely an acquired taste and an entire batch is a lot to take in.  Plus, since it’s an acquired taste, it’s hard to let people try it and enjoy it if they don’t care for the darker beer.  That being said, I think in the future I will stick to one batch as experimental for yours truly, and the other for a beer that pleases myself as well as others.

Me: Babe, can you stop making that noise with your leg please?
Vero: Uh, I thought that was you.

The beginning of an adventure at dinner last night.

We got up slowly from the table and realized the sound was definitely some other thing in the house.  We went downstairs armed with broom sticks and a dustpan (where’s a baseball bat when you need one?) but the sound stopped.  We returned to the table and a few minutes later the sound started again.

We eventually deduced it was something inside the chimney of the wood stove.  Thank the lord that it was there, and not up in the ceiling tiles like I originally had thought!  The question, is, how to get to it?  What was it exactly?  We asked these questions back and forth and wondered how we would deal with this.

At one point we realized it had gone all the way down into the wood stove.  Of COURSE this had to be the time that I never bothered cleaning the glass window to the fireplace so visibility was quite low.  Vero grabbed a flashlight and she said she could definitely see something moving in there whereas I saw nothing.  She said it looked like a mouse tail.  Fair enough, we can handle a mouse!

Armed with a garbage bag to catch the critter on its way out, and Vero armed with the broom in case I missed it…I explained that if our grandmothers could smack a mouse with a broom, we surely could!

So we opened up the door a little…but nothing much was happening.  It’s kind of hard to poke a broom inside the wood stove and expect a critter to come towards us!  If anything it’s going to shy away!  So we opened up the door a little more.

This is when all hell broke loose.  As I remember it Vero yelled out “It’s big…IT’S BIG!  IT’S BIG!!!” and in my mind I’m thinking “What the heck is it?”.  Vero also recalls that I jumped back into the stairwell at one point screaming like a little girl, but I definitely don’t remember that part.  🙂

So out of nowhere this brown thing scurries right past my garbage bag and onto Vero’s broom stick and climbs up it.  To put this into context, this is all happening in one second flat.  This sucker is fast.

The memories of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation come to mind and I yell “SQUIRREL!!!”.

Yes, we had a squirrel in the basement.  Trish would have fainted.  So here the squirrel is running around in the basement and things start popping into my head.  “Don’t let it get in behind the bar!  It better not go into the well area!  Ahhh!  Get it out from behind the freezer!”

Luckily we were smart enough to close the doors and try and get it to go upstairs and out through the garage.  This critter was cunning…it bounded over furniture, climbed my guitar, had a run over the drum kit, hid behind some boxes a few times…at one point hid INSIDE the freezer (in behind it where the mechanics are).  When it got close to the wood stove it would scale the brick wall like Spider-Man and would jump from the wall through the air towards us.  Screams were heard for miles away…it was hilarious, thrilling and annoying all at the same time.  At one point I thought I had shattered the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling as my broom stick went for a wild swing.

EVENTUALLY we finally got the squirrel to start walking up the stairs.  Vero left me in the dust as she slammed the door to trap her and the squirrel inside the stairwell.  I followed once I knew the squirrel had moved outside.

Luckily for us the thing had jumped into a grocery bag.  Perfect!  I scooped up the grocery bag, ran through the garage and at the last moment realized it was trying to jump out so I dropped it onto the driveway but then accidentally stepped on its tail and it ran back into the garage!  Doh!

But at this point, the job was done.  We realized the scared thing would hide out until we left.  We left the garage door open and assumed it would leave once the coast was clear.

At least, that’s what we’re thinking is happening as I type this.  Who knows if the squirrel decided that his life was so boring that he would rather have a few giants chasing after him with broomsticks.

We surveyed the scene afterward and shared tales of our hunt and laughed at the absurdity of girls screaming and how I jumped five feet backwards when we realized it was definitely larger than a mouse.

Good times had out in the country!

Here’s a little tale about how I shipped some items to Ogdensburg NY and saved a few bucks.

I was planning on ordering a wall mount for my flat screen TV from monoprice.com considering it was a full-tilt, swivel type wall mount for a cool $35.  I’m not even sure where I can one for that price elsewhere!  Best Buy has one that says it’s full motion  for around $200.  That’s quite the price difference!

Unfortunately, to ship an item this size to Canada, it would have cost an additional $70 in shipping costs.  I would still save compared to paying $200 at Best Buy, but how would I be able to save some more money?

I have heard tales of people shipping their packages to Ogdensburg NY which is 45-60 minute drive from Ottawa, ON.  There are a few options available, but let’s chat about the UPS Store in Ogdensburg.  http://www.theupsstorelocal.com/2946/community.htm  They have some informative web pages that give you guidelines on how to pick up your package.  Simply put your name and THEIR address as the shipping information, and they will hold the package for $5/week in their warehouse.  You pick it up, pay your $5, head to the border, pay the HST and head on home with your savings!

You can also check out your family name in a database which will confirm if your package had arrived or not.

I hit the road around 9AM on Saturday and headed for the border.  There weren’t that many cars at the crossing so I made it to the UPS Store around 10AM.  There were already a good twenty people there from Canada (judging from their license plates) in there picking up their package.  The owners of this particular UPS Store were incredible.  They had a list of packages that had arrived in the past week and they would find your name on the list, cross it off, and go fetch your package.

My particular trip wasn’t as swift as the others waiting in the store.  They only had one of my packages (the wall mount) but they couldn’t find my Pearl Jam box set!  Luckily for me, I did have the tracking confirmation that it did arrive in Ogdensburg the day before.  He checked the listing in the system and for some reason the package had shipped without a name attached to it.  Strange!  30 minutes of searching the warehouse didn’t produce anything so we ended up phoning the Ogdensburg Post Office hoping they accidentally shipped it there instead.  No dice!

In the end, this very helpful gentleman brought me in the warehouse and laid down the law.  He said we would have to search for it.  Perhaps my name was misspelled or something.  We figured out how the big the box would be roughly and went to town.  I didn’t have much hope after searching for an hour in the warehouse.

The heavens did answer my prayer and on the last shelf that I was searching, I noticed a box that would have been roughly the same size as the box set.  I pull it down from the shelf and sure enough, there is a package from the Pearl Jam Ten Club!  It was addressed to a ‘Rich Grant’ or ‘Rick Grant’.  Strange!  Quite the mix up.  I was wondering if there was a Rich Grant out in the world who had shipped it to Ogdensburg as well?  Either way, after an hour of searching the warehouse, I walked out with my box set and the wall mount in hand for a cool $10USD.

However, I did find out three days later that the Ten Club had given me the wrong tracking number and there definitely was a Rick Grant who had ordered the same package to Ogdensburg!  Sorry about that mate!  I guess it’s a combination of Ten Club giving me the wrong tracking number, and the UPS Store giving me someone’s else’s package that led to this end result.

Here’s the breakdown of how much I saved by picking these items up in the States.  At this point, Canadian and US Dollars are pretty well on par so no need to calculate the exchange rate.

Gas – $17.
Toll Booth Entry – $3
Price per package per week – $5
Toll Booth Return – $3
HST at the Border (depending on whether or not the Border Services Guard wishes you to pay) – 13% of the value of the item (not including shipping).
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$28 + HST

So, as long as the savings on your item is under $28 + HST + Whatever you feel your time is worth, then it may definitely be in your best interest to head for the border!

In my case, I have heard horror stories of Canadians having to pay not only $20 extra for shipping for their Pearl Jam set (which is good according to the calculations), but also a $46 Duty charge COD!  So in the end, I saved $66-($28+$19.5)(HST) = $18.5 savings.  Mmm…some may want to stay home for that savings.

However, coupled with another item, I save on the gas and toll booth charges.  So if we assume that at Best Buy I would pay $200+HST for my wall mount, I essentially saved: $226- $35-$10(shipping)-$5(UPS Store package cost)-$4.55(HST Costs at the Border) = $171.45!!!  What the heck?!  That’s quite the savings!  However, this isn’t quite true considering I would have simply ordered the one from Monoprice which would have been $105 so the savings on that would have been $50.  That’s still money in my pocket.

I’m also looking at returning to get a vacuum cleaner.  Looks like I can save $80 on that purchase.

All in all, I think that if it’s worth my time and money, I will definitely go down to Ogdensburg to pick up some items.  As a smart consumer, it only makes sense.  Yes, I’m sure if you’re name is Mike, you will argue about supporting the Canadian economy.  But at this point in my life, if I can save myself a total of $68.50, that’s $68.50 I can use to buy a beer for my buddy who is the naysayer.  🙂

***UPDATE***
Years later, I have continually used this service and it’s fantastic.  I haven’t had any issues like I had when I had to search for my package from Pearl Jam.  Walk in, grab your package, walk out…fantastic service.

I switched to Teksavvy on March 17 and all was well and fine until a week later when I realized that the Internet wasn’t working.  I waited a day to see if anything would fix itself but nothing.

Friday evening I call them up and say they say that they have been getting reports of Rogers Cable physically disconnecting the cable afterward.  Sure enough, I look in my front door and there is a note saying they visited and they would offer me some kind of deal like ‘six months free Internet’ if I come back to them!  Doh!

So here I am waiting for my Internet to be reconnected.  What a pain in the ass!  They are trying to schedule me sometime this week but I haven’t heard anything from them.

I must admit that it is very, very strange to not have Internet at the house.  I had not realized how much I rely on the Internet for general life.  Let me point out a few things that occurred over the weekend:

– I was thinking of checking out some vacuum cleaner reviews and realized I could not.
– I wanted to check out the interest accumulated on my investments (for my taxes) but could not.
– I usually wake up on a Sunday morning and check out the new headlines…nada.
– I wanted to download some new True Blood episodes for Vero.  Ain’t gonna happen.
– I was trying to figure out a piano chord and it took a little more thought than simply searching on the Internet (this may be a blessing in disguise!)

Sunday was quite a strange day for myself.  I puttered around the house looking for a few things to do.  However, I realize now that I did get a few things in order…I started learning piano again, I caught up on a few TV shows and comic books I had been meaning to read.

All in all, it was a strange experience to not be surrounded by the Internet and I’m not sure if I’m better for it.  Perhaps I should adopt a ‘no-Internet policy’ on Sundays at the house.  I find that some of my time on the Internet is to waste away a Sunday morning.  But I could be doing other things to waste it away!  Like reading a book I purchased awhile back, or learning an instrument.

It’s been an interesting experience and I’m not sure how long it will last…

Saturday morning I drove Andreane back home and headed over to Mike’s place to help him with a little problem he was having.  There was a leak in the basement leading from his front porch that needed a little fixing.  Mike’s parents came up for the weekend to help out.  It was pretty cold during the day but we made do and I think Mike is impressed with how it turned out.  I know I would have been stressed out if I had a leak to my basement and didn’t have any clue on where to start fixing it.

It was a good afternoon of tearing apart a deck, and fixing the slope so that any water that may accumulate would run away from the house.  Plus as an added bonus, I got an excellent supper prepared by Louise.  I’m really happy that Mike’s parents came down to help Mike out because I don’t think Mike or I would have any clue on where to start with a project like that!

On Friday night we had Vince and Naomi drop by for dinner.  I was quite excited as I wanted to try out a spicy marinade my friend Nat provided me.  Vero picked up some T-Bone steaks and we lit up the BBQ for the main event.  It was a grand success!  The marinade was so good that Vince requested another steak!  I must admit that I don’t usually try out marinades, but I think I’m going to have to change that in the future!

The night was spent gabbing about everything and anything, making fun of Andreane’s lack of music knowledge (we introduced her to Nirvana’s Unplugged album…classic!) and at one point we headed into the hot tub for a few hours.  It was a perfect night to do so…minus five isn’t too hard to handle when sitting inside a soup bowl of boiling water!  I also notice that the water seems a lot clearer than usual.  I think this is because I have it above the corner filter.  It was hard to fill the hot tub back up in the middle of winter but with the thaw that we are experiencing I took advantage of it.

I had a personal shock when Vince and Naomi told me that they had never watched Flight of the Conchords before so we popped in an episode before they headed home.  They were quite pooched from the hot tub…a few hours in a hot tub is killer on people who aren’t used to it.

All in all, a grand night!

Originally from The Northern Times (but chances are will not be there forever, hence the copy and paste): http://www.kapuskasingtimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3042537

This was quite the inspiring read about Marc-Andre’s guitar business back home!  At least I was inspired to go out there and do something.

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Strumming it up

Tanja Ingram-Paquette

Lutherie Dubosq Guitars has opened it’s doors next to the Royal Theatre and Marc-Andre Dubosq said he has a lot of ideas for his new business.

“I will hand build custom made acoustic and electric guitars,” said Mr. Dubosq. “As well I will repair and restore guitars and other stringed instruments. Eventually I would like to teach guitar lessons as well as a guitar building course so people can experience the overwhelming satisfaction of playing an instrument they built themselves.”

He added that he has been interested in music for as long as he can remember but when he reaches back into the recesses of his memory, searching for that triggering event, he find myself in the front row at his very first concert.

“It was Robert Paquette live at the Centre des Loisirs,” reminisced Mr. Dubosq. “The music was so wonderfully loud you could actually feel it in your core. My interest in all things music hasn’t let up since. I was taught to follow my dreams and so that is what I am doing. I come from a family of entrepreneurs (my parents have owned and operated La Boulangerie for many years now) and enjoyed the idea of being my own boss and turning my passion for music and guitar building into my livelihood.”

When he and his wife started to talk about the possibility of the business, Mr. Dubosq said the first thing that came to mind was Carpe Diem (Seize the Day).

“Why waste away in a job that provides little personal growth and self-actualization when you can take a risk and hopefully turn your passion into your livelihood,” said Mr. Dubosq. There are lots of opportunities out there and I for one was accepted on the Ontario Self-employment benefit program as well as the NOHFC entrepreneurship grants and also found financial backing from North Claybelt.”

Born and raised in Kapuskasing, Mr. Dubosq said he is truly “un gars du Nord” and wouldn’t trade places with anybody else in the world.

He was a teacher for eight years and although he enjoyed the work the reality of cutbacks and school closings was slightly unsettling.

“My wife and I had talked at length about embarking on a once in a lifetime adventure before starting our family (what we now know to be the biggest adventure of our lives),” said Mr. Dubosq. “My wife was just finishing a contract and I needed to officially quit my job to qualify for the entrepreneurship grants. The timing was impeccable. I found a guitar building course in Australia and so we decided to take a well deserved break from reality, satisfy our sense of adventure and most importantly learn the intricacies of guitar building from a renowned Master Luthier. Now back to reality our lives have been turned upside down. The construction of my workshop is complete and we’ve welcomed baby girl Zoé, the future spokesperson for Dubosq guitars, into our lives.”

Mr. Dubosq hopes to combine his love of teaching with his passion for music and guitar building first by teaching guitar playing lessons but also, and more importantly, he would like to teach a guitar building course so people can experience the overwhelming satisfaction of playing an instrument they built themselves.

There will be a grand opening for the store front later this spring but Mr. Dubosq will be building and repairing guitars in the interim. Once the store front is open the hours will be open weekdays (except Wednesdays) and Saturdays and will be available to the customer through phone or e-mail.

A welcome surprise came yesterday in the form of my friend Kevin who had been living in Calgary with his wife Kathleen for the past seven years. They moved to Toronto in the past year and he was doing some work around Vars and decided to drop by.

I haven’t seen the man in quite a few years but it was great to get back to where we left off. Good laughs were had and it was nice to catch up on life events like the birth of his daughter and hearing about what he is doing in the renewable energy sector. Turns out that he is responsible for the solar panel projects that went up around St. Isidore and they are looking to expand. Quite interesting stuff!

I am glad that they are back in Ontario which will undoubtedly lead to a few more visits in the future!