Need a good laugh?

Then watch this video of me talking to a room full of people thinking about adopting.

Click on the link, click on "Core 4: Emotional & Social Implications of Adoption" and fast forward to 67.47

And by the way, I was just being funny Mom!

Russians Rock!

I have been excited about the movie Wanted since last year. First, it is directed by a Russian movie director, Timur Bekmambetov, who I like a lot. He directed Night Watch and Day Watch the two highest grossing films in Russian history and which have been elevated to cult status in that country, and Twilight Watch which is suppose to come out next year. These are unbelievable difficult films to describe to people. Basically, good (the light others) and bad (the dark others) come to a truce and create the night watch (light others who make sure the dark others don't break the truce) and the light watch (dark others keeping an eye on the light ones). A Great One is expected to come and choose one side over the other, tilting the balance in their favor. Like I said, really hard to explain and do it any justice, but I highly recommend you watch them if you can find them.

Second, Wanted is not a movie remake, which is something I thought Hollywood forgot they could do.

Third, it has Angelina Jolie. I can't help but love her and would probably go see her just standing and staring at the camera for two hours.

Fourth, it's based off of a really awesome graphic novel.

Beth arranged for a girl who lives a couple of houses down from us named Kate to come watch all three kids last night so we could go to opening night. This kid was great by the way and I see much babysitting in her future.

The movie itself, AWESOME!!!!! You should stop reading this and go see it right now. Really, go.

I have heard a lot of reviews compare it to Matrix. I don't really think that's fair. This movie is much more raw and in your face and has a heck of a lot better story line. The hero of the story, Wesley, leads a crappy cubicle life with an equally crappy boss and sad personal life. He's the kind of person we can relate to. Then he finds out that he has super human skills that he inherited from his father that left when he was 7 days old. How does he find this out? The super secret clan of assassins that his father belonged to came and told him that his father was dead and that he needed to come join them and use his mad skillz to kill the jerk who killed his dad. It was a bit much for Wesley to accept, but they did convince him.

The fun part of the story, which they don't spend a whole lot of time on, is that the assassins get their kill orders from fate herself. Fate weaves the names of those to be killed into fabric using a binary code which is interpreted by the leader. Sounds strange but it is explained well in the movie. I'm not going to tell you a lot more about the plot because I don't want to ruin it for you (you are going to go see it).

The visuals are fabulous. I think this is why people compare it to the Matrix. Yes, in some ways it is similar but I think the special effects are more polished and used better than in the Matrix movies. The Matrix had an annoying habit of using the special effects just so they could say, "Look what we can do!". But in Wanted, the effects help the story and never distract from it and still provides a feast for the eyes.

The music is also great. The score is by Danny Elfman who I love and can usually spot his stuff a mile away, but I never would have guessed that it was him. I saw his name in the credits and about fell over. The guy famous for the Simpsons, Beetlejuice and other kinda campy movies made an action movie score? And it was good?

The movie has all sorts of little details in it that I love, including the lead actor from the Night Watch and Day Watch movies, articles in his cubicle that are amusing, etc.

In general, awesome. Go see it. Really. Unless you don't like action films and bullets, in which case we might not be able to be friends......

This is how I pay the bills, people.

By working in places that inspire horror film scripts.

I spent all day yesterday in Ironton, Ohio at a former generating plant of ours. This was a tiny little plant that made power just for the little trolley system in town. It hasn't made electricity in decades, and it is used now by our storerooms as a storage facility. We are selling the property, which is where I come in. I need to do a Phase I Environmental Assessment of the property to look for any environmental concerns.

FYI, the pictures do enlarge if you click on them.

This place has a basement, unfortunately. I'm greeted by this door at the bottom of the stairs which just screams, "It puts the lotion in the basket."


Off of the stairs is a creepy side room/crawl space area. Throughout the property I found mystery jars and buckets of chemicals. I have no idea what Lithoform is, but we've got to get rid of it!
In the basement we found a lovely old boiler.
I went to open the doors of the boiler to see what might have been shoved inside. My boss announces, "We better see if there's a body in there! Wouldn't that be cool?" After opening the doors, I thought I HAD found a body. It wasn't very funny.
Here's a shot of the boiler and some of the room. All the concrete you see laying around fell off of the ceiling. The floor above us isn't very structurally sound and pieces keep falling off. I just knew one of us was going to take a header.

We are so interested in the boiler because it is wrapped in asbestos that is not in good condition.
My boss wanted to get photographic proof that I do actually work, on occasion. Smarty pants. I'm collecting a PCB wipe sample off of the floor in case we have spilled mineral oil that contained PCBs sometime in the past.

Here are three old timey fire extinguishers. I thought they were neat.

Mmmmm......Beer

As most of you know, I like to make my own beer (homebrew). Many of you have asked me how the process of beer making goes, and you usually look all glassy eyed when I explain it. Perhaps this will help.

Saturday, Max and I went to the Winemakers Shop in Clintonville to purchase the necessary ingredients, some grains, hops, malt extract, yeast and irish moss. I am what is referred to as an extract brewer. I do not have the skills or equipment to brew beer from all grain, so I do a mixture of grains and extract (which is a super condensed version of what I would get if I did use all grains). Saturday afternoon, I prepared the yeast which comes in a "smack" pack. A smack pack is a little pouch which contains yeast food and another smaller pouch with the yeast. You smack the pouch to break the little pouch open, spilling the yeast into the food. The yeast get all happy and fat for 24 hours.

I did get some new equipment for this batch. Previously I did all of this on the stove in our kitchen. Beth really despised the smell, which did linger in the house for a couple of days, and I really hated waiting for hours for the stuff to boil. So, I solved both of our problems by purchasing a big turkey fryer! Sunday morning I ran all over until I found a place where I could purchase a propane tank, then I came home and set up my new brewery (which by the way is called Cat in the Kettle Brewery).

Here's a picture of the set up.

I have the propane tank hooked up to the turkey fryer with a 10 psi gauge, on the fryer I have my brew pot. Next to the fryer you see a white bucket with a colander and an oven glove. Then a little pot.

At this point I have 2 quarts of water in the brew pot and I'm bringing it to 170F. At that temperature I will add the 2 pounds of grains and turn off the heat and let the grains steep for 45 minutes. After the steep, I will pour the grains into the colander and rinse them with water from the little pot that I have at 170F.

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I will then throw away the grains and put the sweet liquor from the rinse back into the brew pot and add enough water to get to 2.5 gallons. I will then add 6.6 pounds of extract and the whole hops to the brew pot and bring to a rapid boil.

This stuff can boil over pretty easily if you don't watch it closely, which I didn't do this time. I stepped away to help Beth take laundry downstairs and when I came back, it was a raging boil over! Don't do this.

Anyway, once the boil starts I will wait for 45 minutes and then add a fining agent, the irish moss. Irish moss is used to help the beer clarify. Kinda important since I don't filter. Now, in some recipes, there will be a complex series of hops additions done at certain times in the boil. Depending on when the hops are added in the boil will decide if they are bittering hops (early in the boil) or more for the hop aroma (towards the end). I am making a fruit ale, and therefore don't want much hops either bittering or aroma to compete with the fruit taste. So, only one addition of 1 ounce of Willamette hops right at the begining.

After boiling for an hour, I need to cool down the wort (what I've been cooking for the past hour) to around 70F as fast as possible. This needs to occur quickly to have a good protein break and to limit the possiblity for contamination. From this point on, I have to be paranoid of bacteria and fungi entering into the wort. If that happens, the beer will be undrinkable. There are a lot of ways to cool the wort, but being of limited funds, I opt for the cheap version, the tub. I fill the bath tub with cold water and let the brew pot sit in it, covered for about 30 minutes.

Then I will add the wort to the plastic bucket (the primary fermenter), straining it through the colander to remove the hops, which contains 2.5 gallons of cold water, . I do this as vigorously as possible so that I will areate the wort well. Then I will add more water, if necessary, to get to 5 gallons. Before I do any of this though, I have to sterilize the fermenter, the lid to the fermenter and anything else which might come into contact with the wort. After I check that the temperature of the wort is 70F, I will then pitch the yeast (pour the yeast into the wort)

I then put the lid on the fermenter and attach an air lock which allows the CO2 the yeast are making to escape, but not let anything into the fermenter. Then I let it sit for a week. Usually that is.

This morning Beth told me that I had some very vigorous bubbling going on. I looked at the fermenter and the lid was all bowed up and foam (technically called krassen) had filled the air lock. I pulled out the air lock and a huge hiss of CO2 came out. I put it back in and hoped. I stopped by at lunch and it was all jammed up with foam again and it looked like it was going to blow.

Beth informed me of how very unhappy she would be if it exploded all over the kitchen. I decided that I should probably do something about it. I ran to Home Depot and got a tiny diameter flexible PVC pipe to put into the hole the air lock goes into. Then I ran the other end of the tube into a pot of water. It appears to be working like a charm!

I'll tell you guys about the next steps in about a week!

And somehow she still likes me

Today is our 12th anniversary. I'm not sure where the time has gone. Can it really be 12 years?

I wanted to get Beth a present, but there is a problem. If I'm not at work, I'm home with her. Not great for gift shopping. There is absolutely no shopping located in downtown Columbus anymore and I have to pick Max up right after work since he goes to school downtown. No opportunity for solo shopping. So, my only hope was that Max would be agreable and shop with me after work and school today. It was the first day of summer camp and he didn't nap. You can guess how the shopping went....

Beth on the other hand, just had to deal with Wilson today. When I came home I was greeted with a lovely table all set with new placemats and linens and a very pretty center piece. She had gone to the grocery and got some food for me to grill for dinner. I have a lovely picture, but blogger refuses to upload it for some reason.

When I went outside to light the grill, I discovered that my lame-o grill had been replaced with a huge, fabulous new grill!

The grill has a cover, thermometer, two side tables, a bottle opener and I can raise and lower the coal rack to control the temperature better. It took her 3 hours to assemble. She also got me a plastic charcoal storage bin to keep the charcoal dry. It's large enough that I can grill a whole turkey, which I've wanted to do for a long time.

Bottle opener

Grillin' some chops

I felt pretty lame giving her the anniversary card that I was able to purchase before Max started crying that he wanted to go home.

I think she still loves me.

Whew, I'm tired

I'm pretty sure that I'm working on a case of strep throat. I had horrible muscle and joint pain last night, and now an incredibly sore throat. Blah. We watched Transformers last night, but I felt so crummy, I don't really remember much of it and we didn't really make it to the end. I do remember that it was really long, which is the extent of my movie review for now.

We had an IFIF picnick today at Adventure Park. The weather looked questionable, but the sun came out in full force and it was hot! Not much in the way of shade at this park, and with the heat, Max ended up looking like a lobster (no, he did not get sunburned). He had a grand time playing with all the kids, and we had fun not being the ones he demanded to play with for a change.

Mia poured on the charm, and everyone cooed and fawned over her. Just the way she likes it! There was a little girl there who was 14 months old, who came to check Mia and Wilson out. Mia stared at her a bit and tried to get her earrings. When the little girl smiled at me and started to come my way, Mia pushed her away from me. Man, we are going to be in trouble with her and her bossiness!

I wanted to go to the Columbus Zombie Walk today, but it didn't seem like the kind of thing I should take the whole family to, although it would have been funny to have a family of zombies. It's an annual fundraising event where everyone dresses up like zombies and meets at Goodale Park to walk up and down the Short North en mass. Maybe Max will be old enough to go next year.

Volunteering

I've decided to become a volunteer with CASA of Franklin County. CASA (short for Court Appointed Special Advocate) is a country wide program designed to help kids who have been abused and neglected and find themselves in the court system. All kids in the system are assigned a court appointed guardian, usually a lawyer, to advocate for them. However, they have multiple kids that they are appointed to and might not always know each case very well. Same thing is true for the social workers involved. This is especially difficult for kids who are too young to talk or have been too traumatized to speak out. CASA was created to help keep these kids from falling through the cracks. CASA volunteers are appointed guardian for only 1 or 2 cases at a time, which allows them to really get to know the kids. The volunteer also helps all the parties involved, biological parents, foster parents, children, potential adoptive parents, etc. know what is happening with the case. They will make sure everyone knows about court hearings and what is going to happen during the hearing, as an example. The CASA is also responsible for visiting the child(ren) at least monthly to see how they are doing and ultimately making a recommendation to the court as to what is the best solution for the child.

I have to go through a tour of the system in a couple of weeks, including spending some time in court. I also have to have a background check and go through 40 hours of training, then I will be sworn in. After that, the time commitment is really only about 10 hours a month. This was something I have wanted to do for years, but always thought that I was too busy. But my life isn't going to get any less hectic anytime soon, and really 10 hours a month just isn't that big of a deal. I can't think of anything else I could do for only 10 hours and still have such a big impact on someone's life.

Better Late Than Never

Here's some pictures that were suppose to go with the Don't Touch That post, but I didn't have the cord to download the pictures to my computer.

It's Alive!!! Reminds me of Frankenstein movies.

I am so very stylish!

Bats in the belfry

Or in the living room...

Finally, the kids were in bed, the dog had been out and Beth and I were settling down to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, when I noticed something flying around. I was in the middle of telling Beth, "Look a bat is flying.....uhm." when I realized the bat was flying around INSIDE the house. There were a few moments of chaos as we tried to figure out exactly what we were suppose to do about the situation. Me standing in the middle of the living room, ducking everytime the bat swooped in my direction, Beth sitting on the coach looking at me like I really should know how to handle this situation, and a couple of cats deciding they could catch the bat for us. Finally, Beth took Wilson to the bedroom and closed the door. I chased the cats into the basement and put Dedo in the garage. Then we opened all the doors and just kept ducking until the bat found an open one and flew out.

We still don't know how the little bugger got into the house. The only thing we can figure is it followed me into the house when I let the dog out, which creepifyies me. I guess that's better than the alternative, some sort of direct entry into the house for a colony of bats that reside in the attic.