Mark's Blog

As I mentioned on twitter earlier today, I had a bit of an adventure at the TSA today.

Short version: Nothing too exciting, but a few things of note. No, I didn't get arrested or detained. No, I wasn't wearing my kilt (I chickened out. Besides, it's in the 30s in Seattle...) I did opt out of the full-body scanner, AND my bag was tagged for additional screening; I don't believe these two are related. And, oh yeah, another girl going through the line was so fed up with the groping she got that she pulled up her shirt above her head and screamed "Can you see everything now?!" (Before you ask, yes she was wearing a bra.)

Long version:
My consideration whether to wear the kilt went as far as getting the kilt out of the closet, but it never made it into my bag; I chickened out that early. It's kinda a hassle anyway, and not warm enough for weather in the 30s. As much as I'd love for it to play a larger part in my story, this is likely all I'll say about it. :-(

My flight was at 8:45, which meant getting up at 5:45am, after getting to bed at about midnight. Even so, I didn't have time to get breakfast or my daily tea before hitting the airport. For some reason, I remember long term parking being in the garage in the middle of the terminals (this is SFO), but apparently, it's way the hell north involving a 15 minute shuttle ride to the International terminal, where Virgin America is. In any case, it took me a lot longer to get to the airport than I expected, so I was rather in a hurry to get through security.

There were two security lines: First Class (lots of pin stripes and expensive shoes), and Chumps (a mix of Uggs, hipsters, and old-lady-jewelry; I wasn't wearing any jewelry, and don't own any Uggs, so by process of elimination, I must have been one of the hipsters.) There were a few pin-stripes queued up most of the time I was in line, and the Uggs were stacked up 4 rows deep in the queue. The First Class row had one of those full-body back scatter X-ray machines, and the Chump line just had a metal detector, so I naturally assumed I would get to avoid the problem all together.

As luck would have it, just as I reached the end of the Chump queue and started taking my shoes off (my laces might be laced with barbed wire; that's why they're called laces!), one of the TSA goons noticed the First Class line was empty and started channeling a few Chumps over there; I was one of these chumps.

I got to the X-Ray and politely told the TSA agent that I Opt-Out. They stopped me, and the whole line behind me, and got on the radio to call for "Male Assistance, Opt Out." They walked me through the Chump line metal detector (which then held up BOTH lines), then had me wait another few minutes while the Male Assistance arrived.

They pulled me aside. I say "They" because there were two TSA agents. One was doing all the work, but occasionally looked back to the other for a prompt, as if he was being trained. (I view this as a good thing.)

The agent asked whether I wanted a private pat down, and I declined. I'm not ashamed of my body (neither was Topless Lady; more on that later), and part of my goal was to let other people see what's involved in this new procedure, so I let it happen in public.

He then proceeded to forcefully touch me on nearly every square inch of my body. Seriously. I don't think my colonoscopy was as thorough and comprehensive as this "pat down." The only part of me he didn't touch was my face and head (which were clearly exposed), and the bottoms of my feet (which were busy supporting the rest of me.) And we're not talking about light touches, we're talking full-on would-have-pushed-me-over-if-he-wasn't-pushing-on-the-other-side groping. I kinda enjoyed the part where he was checking out my upper back; I had to resist the urge to say "Ooo, a little higher.. Yeah, right there." All kidding aside, I'm serious, he was damn sure he felt my whole body and didn't miss anything. He checked my collar, my belt line, my frontal pubes, my lower pubes, and my crevasal cavities... He was comprehensive.

Through out the entire process, he was very clear about what he was going to do. At no point did he touch me without first telling me he was going to touch me there, whether it was a sensitive spot or not. (This is also good.)

When he was done, before I was allowed to start putting all my accouterments back together (belt and shoes on, laptop, CPAP, wallet and phone back into pockets and luggage, etc), the agent did a thorough wipe down of his gloves with the white circular pads of paper and put it in the machine to detect explosives. This struck me as interesting, though in hindsight I'm not sure why. I think I just wasn't expecting it. Part of me puts this in the Good Thing category, but a more cynical part of me lumps it together with all the others in the Security Theatre category. In any case...

Let me back up. About the same time I was pulled over to the side for my gate rape, my luggage was also tagged for a "random" search. So through out my groping, I was asked lots of "Is this yours?" type questions. They took my CPAP and suitcase through the X-Ray machine several times (I'm not sure what they were looking for the second and third times that they didn't see the first time) and gave them a good wipe down with the circular paper pads they use for detecting explosives. They pulled out the pack of baby wipes I now carry with me everywhere and ran THEM through by themselves (WTF?) I'm really not sure what got them in a tizzy about my stuff. They did it all in plain sight so I know they didn't do anything nefarious or inappropriate, just seemingly arbitrary and unnecessary.

They were different agents searching my body and my stuff, but they happened at about the same time. When the Stuff agent was looking for me to inform me it was flagged for further search, he seemed genuinely surprised to see me with the Body agent, so I'm confident they didn't flag my stuff because I opted-out.

Time to put on the tin-foil mind control prevention hat for a second and play a what-if game. I noticed today that the last few times I've flown, my luggage has been flagged for further search. Sometimes I know why (for example, I wasn't aware that crimp tools (or any non-blade tool for that matter) above a certain size weren't allowed), but other times, like today, I didn't have anything they don't allow, and I didn't forget to pull my laptop and CPAP out (like I have in the past.) I did everything right this time, and they still flagged me.

A security researcher name Moxie Marlinspike, and several others like him, have been tagged by DHS in some way that has cursed them to not just have their luggage checked every time they go through security, but to actually get pulled aside, detained, and questioned every damn time they fly. Moxie claims he has no idea why he's on any list.

It's obvious that he's on a list. It is far less obvious for me, but I'm beginning to wonder. Knowing that these lists exist, it's not too far of a stretch to consider that there are varying degrees of "pissed-off-an-agent-in-the-past" and that maybe attempting to carry a crimp tool through security put me on some list somewhere and that I will forever be pulled aside for my bag to be groped and x-rayed several times. I will report on my experience when coming back.

Now the part you've all been waiting for: TOPLESS GIRLS!

It's really not that exciting... While I was being groped, I was facing the lines of people as they were being herded through the machines. A middle aged woman (40s or 50s) was being groped and was obviously upset about it. At one point, she had one of those mental Fuck-It moments, pulled her top up over her head, screamed "NOW! CAN YOU SEE EVERYTHING?!" and flashed the several TSA agents who had all started collecting around the belligerent woman. Several "Oh!"s and "Ma'am!"s and "Uhh..."s came from the agents, and she put her shirt back down, but they continued their search, apparently didn't find anything, and let her on her way. I was still being violated, so I didn't see where she went, or if she made any phone calls or anything. I was, however, thankful that I was not the most annoying traveler there.

I just got finished watching Across The Universe, an interesting movie about a bunch of 20-something kids in 1968, dealing with the draft, the Viet Nam war, love, music, art, protest, revolution... in other words: Life. The movie was a musical using only the music of The Beatles.

Watching this movie has convinced me of a few things:
1) There is _NOT_ enough Beatles music in my collection. This must be corrected. I'm seriously about to drop $181.51 on the whole collection of studio recordings.

2) Our generation hasn't had its revolution yet, and I'm trying to figure out what it's going to be, and why it hasn't happened yet.

I have some very serious concerns about personal privacy, specifically about how it is being eroded today, primarily by my stock and trade: technology. Google, FaceBook, the RIAA, Apple, they're all taking your life-- no, we are GIVING IT TO THEM, and they are selling it to the highest bidder.

In the early 60s the Viet Nam war was slowly building up. There were a few people who were concerned and thought it was a bad idea, but on the whole, the country went along with it. It wasn't until tens of thousands of lives were being given up (for what? I'm not qualified to have that discussion; I'll leave it to those who are, but I think it's safe to say that it was pretty fucked up) and the protests turned violent at home, that the general populace started to take notice and question what was going on.

No one is likely to die because they told their friends on FaceBook that they like Cheese Sandwitches and then started seeing advertisements for Tillamook and Orowheat when searching Google for Ohm's law. But it isn't a zero cost, either.

Right now, everything is a What-If. The things that _ARE_ happening (at least, that we know of) sound, and honestly are, innocuous enough: targeted advertisement for a better CPM.

But "What-If" this data they're collecting starts being used for nefarious causes? "What-If" the government decides that people who wear fedora's are "suspicious characters." (if you think this is over the top, ask anyone trying to wear red or blue in LA during the 70s and 80s.) and has Flickr run some algorithms and provide the police with a list of people with pictures of them wearing a fedora. "What-If" your employer buys your "Social Report" during the interview process, like they can your Credit Report? Do you want them knowing everything you have EVER done on-line? "What-If" the police issue a subpoena (if they even BOTHER with the subpoena) to FourSquare for someone with your name and arrest you when you check-in to the corner Starbucks (no, the OTHER corner Starbucks...) because a SELECT query can't tell the difference?

I admit, there are a lot of What-Ifs, and they all sound pretty far fetched. Do I think the companies as they are today are doing this? Honestly, probably not.

My concern is this: Giving them your information now is a genie that can _NOT_ be put back in the bottle; they will have your information forever. So the question isn't "Do I think they're doing something nefarious with my information now?" The question is "Do I want to bet on them never doing anything with it in the future?"

And, for me, the answer to that is a resounding "Fuck no."

There are two problems (only two?) with this.

1: How can I convince people that this is a real problem that they need to concern themselves with right now?

2: How can I prevent this from happening?

The first one is something I'm not sure is possible. I think it'll take a 1968 (man, what a fucked up year) before people start seeing what's going on and get outraged and be willing to do something about it.

My goal is to address the second one and be ready with a solution when the public is ready for it.

To that end: I propose we take back the Internet and put people's data back into their own hands. I want a common, distributed name space (read: person@service (eg: mark@halibut.com) instead of person-with-implied-service (eg: @SmittyHalibut)) that can be used for everything. I want all applications and data to be hostable by individuals (note: I said hostABLE, not hostED; more on this later.) And I want it all to interoperate. I want an individual to decide how to authenticate themselves to their services. I want it all to be secure by default.

And I want it to be an APPLIANCE so that ANYONE (think: your mother-in-law) can spend $100 on a box, plop it on their DSL or Cable modem at home (where sane search and seizure laws apply), and become the host of their own on-line life.

This is no small task, and is not one I'm going to be able to do by myself. But I have some ideas of how it could be done, and more importantly I have some friends with a similar vision who are more capable than me.

Will it happen? Can I change the world? Realistically, probably not. But someone has to, or we are all going to be fucked and we'll thank the corporations for it. I want to at least talk about it now.

Shout-outs to: Diaspora, Jabber, DNSSec, IPSec, IPv6, OpenID, GPG. DoD.net and @namniart. Daniel Suarez (talk about vision... Boy howdy, this guy had it right.)

Batch 17 was GOOOOOOD. The strange mouth feel of the wintergreen was totally gone, though I do miss the flavor. I'll have to find some way of getting a wintergreen flavor without using wintergreen oil.

It was in the office keggerator and disappeared in about 1.5 weeks. I only had a few glasses of it, but it came out good. Got good responses from folks at work too.

It's been too long; I don't have any specific notes on what to do differently next time. I'll see about making another batch and asking folks to comment on it directly.

Speaking of which, I did a 3 gallon batch of ginger ale for the annual holiday party for the Halibutians which was last night. This morning, I went to bottle the remainder and got about 1.5 22oz bottles out of it. Apparently people liked it.

I used the same recipe I did last time I made ginger ale and it came out about as good. If the speed with which it disappeared is any indication, other folks liked it too.

Again, no specific notes on the making of this batch. Followed the recipe pretty closely (though, probably had closer to 3.5oz of ginger instead of the 2.5oz the recipe calls for).

Batch 16 ended up being better than "Meh" as I originally rated it, but it still had a bitter taste to it. I did end up taking it to work and it disappeared pretty quickly. When I first took it in and hooked everything up, it was _REALLY_ bitter; the sludge had gone back into suspension from the drive and hadn't had a chance to settle out again. But after a few days, it started drinking really well. Still more bitter than I would like, but not as bad as before.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with it from here. There are two things I really want to address:

1. The bitterness. I think I over brewed the last batch, though my instructions say I only brewed for 10 minutes, which doesn't seem like very long. I'm going to try only 5 minutes this time.
2. Something is coating my tongue. I _THINK_ it's the wintergreen extract, which I think is oil based, meaning it doesn't really dissolve in the root beer like I'd like it to. This has been in most if not all of my batches, I just haven't talked about it. I'm considering leaving it out of this batch to see what difference it makes.

Oh! Add on top of that, I'm making a 5 gal batch today in the bigger keg to take to work. So I'm scaling up everything.

So, here's my plan for today (I'll come back and update the post with any variations):

• 5c*5/3 ~= 8.5c 9c honey (4.5c5c buckwheat, 4c mesquite from Trader Joe's)
• 6oz*5/3 ~= 10oz 9.5oz Sassafras
• 1tsp*5/3 ~= 1.5tsp Anise (down from 2tsp in a 3 gal batch)
• 2*5/3 ~= 4 Vanilla beans (The new beans I have are _WAY_ more potent than last batch)
• 0 wintergreen (leaving it out this batch to see if the tongue feel goes away)
• Water to make 5 gal

Steep time will be about 5 minutes, and I'm going to see if I can keep it just below a rolling boil.

UPDATED: 10:32pm
I did the batch about as listed above. Might have been closer to 9c of honey; I wasn't really all that precise. I do know that I only had 9.5oz of Sassafras; that's all that was left in the container, and I didn't want to open the next 2lb bag for just another .5oz. Eh, close enough. I did leave out the wintergreen.

As for procedure... I ended up steeping for about 7 minutes; 5 minutes just felt too short. And, I managed to keep it below a rolling boil, which will hopefully prevent it from pulling out some of the nastier bits.

Otherwise, pretty standard procedure.

As for hardware, my filter bags molded from not being tried out well enough last time I used them, so I sacrificed another clean tea towel to the cause (one that was already stained from use as a root beer filter) and sewed together another filter bag. This time, I just hose clamped it directly to the hose rather than using the wire mesh filter and the canning funnel, which were great when ladling, but kinda useless when siphoning. This way, the hose just empties directly into the filter bag, which is inside the keg. Works well.

This keg is heading to the office keggerator. Now the hard part: Keeping my office mates from drinking it before its ready. :-)

So, it's been a week. I poured a glass of Batch 16 and...

Meh... It's alright, I've brewed worse, but its got that astringency I really don't like. It's very clear, so I don't think it's a problem with filtering like it has been in the past. I suspect I either brewed it too long, _OR_ it's possible that it was just the first glass. I used this glass to empty the beer line of its cleaning solution and get the first spurt of sludge out of the keg. I poured that out into the sink, but I didn't really rinse it out. It's possible that some of that sludge stayed in the glass and tainted my first glass. Another possibility is the increase anise seed content; those can be kinda bitter.

So, initial thoughts for next time: shorter brew time, possibly less anise.

On the plus side, it definitely tastes more like root beer and less like honey or the other flavors. I had kinda lost the sassafras in recent batches; this gets that back. As Cindy likes to put it, the Lick-A-Tree flavor.

The sweetness is good. Not too sweet, but not undersweet. It could stand to be a little bit sweeter, but I kinda like it where it is now.

I think I might take this keg to work so people will stop bugging me to brew for the work keggerator. And, besides, it'll empty sooner so I can brew another batch again. :-D

February 28th? Really? Has it been _THAT_ long? Wow. I'll try to keep this short.

Ginger Ale, Batch 1: Only one word for it: Effing Fantastic. The Ginger mellowed very nicely and became a wonderful crisp drink for a hot dog picnic in the back yard with the family. I'll ask Cindy to post her thoughts on the batch.

One of the two reasons it took me so long to brew another batch of root beer is that the Ginger Ale seemed to last for friggin' ever. We'd just keep pouring and pouring and it wouldn't stop... ...until one day, it did. Ahh, well. Such is life.

The other reason it took me so long is because... ...well, I'm just lazy... It's a lot of work to brew a batch of root beer and I haven't taken the time to make it happen...

...until yesterday! Batch 16 is in the keggerator now! Quick summary of recipe:

- 5c buckwheat honey (just went with normal buckwheat)
- 6oz Sassafras (up from 4oz)
- 2tsp Anise (up from 1tsp)
- 4 vanilla beans (up from 2 or 3; they were kinda old and dry so might have been light on flavor)
- 2tsp wintergreen I, uhh, forgot to add the wintergreen. Zoe woke up from her nap as I was filtering the brew into the keg and it just slipped my mind. See below.
- Water to make 3 gal about 2 gal.

Normal process: Boil water (about 1.5gal worth), dissolve honey stirring constantly so it doesn't burn on the bottom. Add sassafras, anise, and vanilla beans in a colander submerged in the water. Stir for about 10 minutes. Remove colander, and therefore the bulk of the solids. Use a small hand-held colander-on-a-steeeeek to remove any visible floating bits. Siphon brew through the Super Spiffy Filter-O-Matic(tm) into keg. Have daughter wake up and totally throw off your whole game and forget to top off with water to fill keg and add wintergreen. Add ice to cool off, then close up keg and stow in keggerator.

So, yeah. It's only about 2 gallons, but with full increased ingredient load right now, minus the wintergreen. I really wonder want opening up the keg, adding the rest of the water and wintergreen now, 36 hours later, will do. *sigh*

UPDATE: Just a few minutes later.
I went ahead and opened the keg, topped off with water (only took about a quart or two, actually) and added the wintergreen. I don't think it'll be too bad. So, aside from the strange process, this batch is "back to normal."

It's been several months since I first brewed Batch 15, and I still have a few bottles left. What is WRONG with me!? I blame the weather. No, really. It's been raining, so the car is in the garage, between me and the keggerator. Really. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

The Good News(tm) about this is that I still have some to taste while writing up!

Its still good, but not very sassafrassy, still. The wintergreen has nearly completely dissipated. The remaining flavor mix is tasty, but not really root beer. For the next batch, I have plenty of sassafras, so I should be good on that front.

I also went to Farmer's Market in Mtn. View this past weekend. There is a honey vendor there that has several different flavors of honey, including my favorite: buckwheat! I picked up enough for two batches. They also have a dark buckwheat that tasted way too strong on the toothpick at the market, but is absolutely DIVINE on toast at home. I'm interested in trying a batch with 4C of normal buckwheat and 1C of the dark buckwheat. I think that would add a very nice flavor, and darken the final product quite a bit.

So, my next batch of root beer will be:

- 5c buckwheat honey (possibly 4c normal buckwheat, 1c dark buckwheat if I get some by then.)
- 4oz Sassafras (maybe 5 or 6oz? I really want to kick this up some.)
- 2tsp Anise (up from 1tsp; I'm still barely able to notice it)
- 3 vanilla beans
- 2tsp wintergreen
- Water to make 3 gal.

BUT! Before I do that! Cindy wanted me to make a batch of ginger ale from Dave's recipe. So I've just run a batch of Dave's Ginger Ale, pretty darn close to his recipe. Only difference is that I brewed at about 1.5 gal and topped off with water and ice in the keg. Otherwise, the ingredients were the same.

I'll have Cindy provide the write-up for the ginger ale; I'm not a fan of the super gingery ginger ales. Maybe after a week or two, I'll bottle Cindy's ginger ale and brew my root beer.

Two years ago right now, I think I had just crumpled into a useless ball of goo in the corner of the hallway outside the OR. The nurse put her arm around me and said nothing, which is precisely what I needed. Cindy was being prepped for an emergency C-Section 'cuz Zoe's heart rate was dropping with every contraction, all three of them; Doc didn't let that go on very long at all.

In just about 1 hour from now, I will have been a father to a very small, beautiful, floppy, wrinkly girl who has since changed my life in ways I could never have guessed.

The conception sucked (took 2 years). The pregnancy was normal until just before 36 weeks when preeclampsia hit, sending our world into an accelerated whirlwind: a sudden trip to the hospital from which I would not return without a daughter.

Somehow, I think it's appropriate that I be remembering this event having gotten only 4 hours of sleep last night. :-)

The memories aren't all fond, but the outcome is. It's true, what they say, that you tend to forget the bad parts over time. Now I only think about things like last night, Zoe putting her two dolls on my lap and laying a blanket over the three of us, then crawling in, looking up at me and smiling, waiting for me to start reading to her and her dolls. It's been a long road to hoe, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy Birthday, Zoe. I love you more than you'll ever know.

-Papa

It has been pointed out to me that my blog isn't really a blog unless it has pictures. This person brings up a good point; I would like to have pictures of what I do with Root Beer, but given that I'm doing all the cooking and it kinda takes two hands, I can't really take my own pictures.

I would like to point out that when this was explained to the reader in question, they declined to offer to come over and take pictures during my next brewing session. :-P

So, if anyone is interested in coming over and documenting my next batch of root beer, I'm very interested. Get a hold of me somehow, (email, IM, BBS, or however you know how to get a hold of me; if you don't, then post a comment here and it'll get sent to me) and we'll arrange something.

BTW: Thanks for reading. I know this isn't the most exciting blog in the world, but I really enjoy brewing root beer and I'm glad to share my experience with others.

I, uhh, forgot to clean out the beer-line hose and faucet and what-not when the previous keg was done, and it got kinda funky. Rather a lot, really. So I've been waiting to taste this batch until I could replace the hose and clean out the ball valve and faucet...

...which I was able to do today! Hence, the first tasting of Batch 15, about 2 weeks after it was brewed.

First impression: It's good! It's really sweet, so 6 cups of honey is too much. The wintergreen is just right. Anise is there, but just barely; I think it'd be good to bring it up a touch. The NaISCF-O-M][(tm, pat pend) is doing its job; the drink is very clear and not bitter at all. There wasn't even the obligatory first pour of sludge that every other batch has had. I'm _VERY_ pleased with this aspect of this batch. The sassafras flavor is a little weak too, but this is expected given that I didn't have enough sassafras.

The fizz is there, but kinda weak. I don't know if I should just up the pressure. I've shaken the living hell out of the keg, it's nice and cold (though not frozen), so it should be fizzier than it is.

One change: I replaced the beer line with 3/16" hose instead of the 1/4" hose it had before (still 10' of it) which should help prevent it from generating too much head.

I'll be very interested in Cindy's impression. This is nicely wintergreen-ie, which she likes. It's not very lick-a-tree-ie, which she doesn't.

Hmm. More response after folks from our holiday party try some.

Updated: 10 minutes later... Ok, the first glass I tried has left a bit of a taste on my tongue. I'm not sure if its the wintergreen or something else. If feels like wintergreen. It's not entirely unpleasant, but it's not what I would prefer. :-/