Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A belated "Merry Christmas" to all...

...pretty quiet on the old blogging front, mostly because I have been away from the computer screen and enjoying more "lifelike" aspects of family, Christmas, time off, etc. In any case, I'd like to say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone !! We had a quiet and somewhat "usual" Christmas this year; no family nearby but Santa's sleigh lightened its load at our abode so to speak.

James has a special message for those who would give underwear at this  festive time of year. Unfortunately, I had to censor it  :)
Joel is deep into PlayStation Consumption mode, and the once effective yelling of "act your age and not your shoesize" no longer works, largely because he's 13, and his shoes are size 13. (also, he's about 6' 1" so I'm too scared to yell too much, lest he swat me).

The Wifal Unit is also ready to swat me  :)
On another festive note, the Root Beer is almost gone, so a second batch is scheduled to be "put on" prior to the New Year...

Monday, December 15, 2008

HomeMade Root Beer '08

I don't know when I first encountered this Christmas tradition but it was certainly not yesterday...the making of the traditional homemade Root Beer. We didn't make any last year, and the year before that I had a dud bottle of extract, so I ruined a batch. This year is more promising, however. I made the 20 litre batch, but found an interesting recipe that can be used to make just a 2 litre pop bottle full. Click here to have a look at it. If you do try this one, let me know how it turns out. Frankly, it scares me a little in that it calls for 1/4 tsp of yeast in 2 litres. That's almost 10 times what I normally use. The carbonating process can be a bit risky. See this YouTube video if you want proof:

of course I use glass bottles...no danger there ??!!??
James is checking for spiders :)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Winter rims and tires...

An unexpected frozen sprinkler pipe rupture at work got me a free afternoon off today (the brighter side of mixing water and electricity, but I digress). I took advantage of the time to buy winter tires and even got them installed. Cheap black steel rims seem to be running in the 60-70 dollar range, and Canadian Tire in Clayton Park just happened to have in stock, 4 Sacchi "winter alloys" (perhaps they saw me coming) at $99 a piece. I bought their "cheapest" 205-60R-16 winter tire; a Hankook I*Pike RC01. They are listed as "starting at" $41.99, but that must be the wheelbarrow size, since mine were $94.99 each. Anyway, long story longer, Debbie's new ride is now ready to tackle the winter season...the wheels look similar to the stock alloys, and are likely worth the convenience of not having to pay for repeated tire changing etc.
In short: Merry Christmas dear :)


Thursday, December 4, 2008

It's the most wonderful time...

Yes, I'm excited about Christmas...here's a shot from 2003 (I think). The "bound" Christmas Tree pales in comparison to Chevy Chase's, but oh well...


IVECO...

 This beauty has been roaming around Central Newfoundland lately. I just grabbed some photos of it for fun...

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