oh, stone!

Wrapping up a pretty cool week here, not gonna lie to you.

After the Austin Celtic Festival last week I kept training like a madman all week. I am obsessed with learning these throws. I lifted three times this week and threw four times, and I am definitely feeling it today. I am debating whether or not I am going to compete at the Salado Gathering of the Clans tomorrow. It certainly couldn't hurt to get more experience in real games, but I also have a ton of work to do in order to be any good at this sport. My weight for distance throws are pretty dismal, and I'm still underweight from powerlifting at 198 lb. Plus, I just decided to start using the spin to throw the open stone, so I have to figure that out before the distance really comes.

I finally took the plunge on getting set up to keg my home brew. Stopped by the best homebrew supply store on the planet and picked up a 5 gal. cornelius keg, a 5 lb. CO2 tank and a regulator. I had them walk me through the entire kegging process there in the store. I told them "explain it to me like an idiot." I said this because I am actually an idiot.

Hopefully I can get my cranberry blonde ale in the keg today. I pulled out a sample of it for a gravity reading and a taste a couple days ago, and overall it's drinkable. The cranberry hasn't come through exactly how I wanted - more of the bitter skin taste and not as much of the tart fruitiness. I a hoping a little acid blend and a touch of corn sugar in the keg will help to even it out. As always, time is usually what settles out any weird flavors, but I really wanted this to be ready for tailgating the UT-Kansas State game on November 19. At the very least I hope it's good to go by Thanksgiving.

The most important thing that happened this week though? My wonderful wife Ashley's birthday! Since I have known her, every time we have seen one of those inflatable bouncy castles she has said something like "It would be so fun to rent one of those! I love them!" So, I obliged:

Someone else had a pretty good time too:

Ashley had a great time and really loved her gifts. The one I was most apprehensive about was the shoe rack I built. She had some terrible, crappy shoe rack for ages that fell apart every time she touched it, so I knew I had to do something. I figured I would try my hand at carpentry, and it actually turned out okay. Because all of her shoes don't quite fit on it, we decided I could get some more practice by building another one; maybe combined with some more shelving. MAYBE IT COULD HAVE A KEG AND TAP HANDLES AND....oh.

Anyway - if you read this, honey: I love you and will build you all the shoe racks your heart desires until death do us part.