Bond

So there are these moments that you can specifically remember for the rest of your life and no matter how old you become you will always be able to treasure them. I guess that's where grandparents get all of their story telling from. Profound examples of how the world for one moment stopped and paid attention to you.

I am not actually citing an example of how that happened to me in this. I just feel that through all of my writing over all of the years I think about how at this moment, something so profound, so provocative, without measure, came in and touched your soul. It was so important that I had to write it down. Because it happened to  only you, there is no gainsay from others because it's your very own. Your experiences are only ours. The real privilege is when our experiences are shared with another. From jumping out of a plane together to defying death, when we can relive those experiences with someone our bond is even closer knitted. 

I am reminded of my trip to Prague over the summer. My friend Lauren had emailed me saying that she was doing this summer camp and would I be interested in helping out. I immediately said yes! and went through the whole interview process and such, got the job and had to buy the plane ticket, set everything up with traveling and rendezvous and yadda yadda yadda. The thing was that Lauren and I weren't really that close. We worked together before in summer camps but not so closely and not so well. We sort of had a good distant relationship and that was all. I was afraid that she was going to know everyone and kind of leave me to fend for myself (in a country where I was teaching English to non-speaking children) so I was pretty apprehensive.

Thing was that because of this experience, Lauren and I became insanely close and now is one of my very best friends. The whole two weeks were spent, laughing, talking, joking around (there was some work in there somewhere) and very much talks of how the world works. When you have two weeks together you learn so much about each other and go through so many of the same things that you have no choice but to have a link to each other.

Those moments are so precious and worth remembering and writing about. I just think that with everything going the way it is these days, we want to be able to remember our faith, our love, our compassion towards others. Write about it, preach about it, blog about it, we must have something to always hold on to. We are not so primitive in this day in age when all we think about is taking from another, hurting another, being jealous of what others have. We claim ourselves the most intelligent race and yet we gratify ourselves by beating up another. Rise above this. Be more than this. We can treasure our memories for a lifetime. In the end of your journey on this earth, do we want to recall the memories of long trips cross country over Europe or of hate and bigotry and war? With our last breath, I would hope that we want to say, "I love you" to our family and friends and not, "one day, you too will die!" Think of the message that we need to put out there. Be better than this. It is the only way our country will continue to survive. 

Probation

Well I'm at home today because I was temporarily suspended from work.

WHAT?! You of all people Patrick?!

I know right!

It is absolutely absurd the way my owner has taken control of the situation. Let me explain a little further. I walked into work yesterday with a note in my cubby that said, "Patrick, Move benches, clean sweep floors, clean cubbies!! EVERY NIGHT They Are Disgusting, Gayle." 

Now I am somewhat of a neat freak. Not OCD but pretty close, in my opinion. I like no mess and really at work I'm a little more lax than at home. But I always keep the gym up to par and clean it as best as possibly can. This was a very insulting note to me. Not only that but it was written on a post-it note and shoved in my box. I was angry.

sidenote: I have been putting up with my owner's shit for a while now. I actually date it back to when I asked for a promotion in October. Which she said, we'll talk and never went from there. From that point she has nothing to offer but negativity, snide remarks, and criticism of what I do. Over our last spring break she pulled me aside saying that I'm too sarcastic to the children and she has gotten complaints from parents about it (which is complete bullshit) and Kahla (my other co-worker) would be training our new hire with the overall eye. Everything is wrong when it comes to me. She has also threaten to cut hours, pay and benefits if the work that each gym is doing is not improved. 

So I wrote an extremely watered down note of how I do not appreciate how she regards me in a single post-it note of how everything is my fault here and instead of a team effort it was all on me. I wrote to her and told her if she has a problem with it then she needs to speak to me directly and not through a yellow piece of paper. I expect something a little more from her than this. A face-to-face or even a phone call would be the necessary thing to do not write a note.

My owner then calls me and says that I do not address her like this and that she's taking me off the schedule for the rest of the week to think about things and we'll talk on Monday. Apparently when people stand up to her they are dismissed and punished. Last I checked, freedom of speech was still in our Amendments. And the last I heard, defending yourself wasn't grounds for dismissal. I could be wrong, but I am very angry towards her right now. I think she has completely overacted with everything that has gone on with us and completely forgetting how loyal I have been to her over these last couple of years. I think that she is only thinking of what is happening now without consequence to the future of her company. 

This is the kind of thing that I hate about working there. Nothing is every praised. At least not myself. I might seem like I'm bitching a lot with this post but in all honesty it's a way for me to get out what is going on with me. I have a lot to deal with outside of work and as able as I am to push these outside things from my mind when it comes to work, I still have them going on. Not once has my owner mentioned my soon-to-be baby or even a congratulations. She has not once talked to me or offered any sort of comfort or advice about it. I find this insulting. Had we just started working with each other than I would somewhat understand. But we've had a long history now and it is very cruel of her to just forget about me. I haven't heard a single bit of praise utter out of her mouth in the last 6 months and snippets of them here and there in the last year. Hell, I haven't had a raise in 2 years. I feel that I've pent up a lot of frustration and I guess it kinda exploded in this email but even still, it wasn't rude or even condescending. For her to even try and label this as an attack or insult is way beyond anything that I was trying to accomplish and I'm sick and tired of trying to be polite with her. I want this resolved. Now.

BEER

So I make beer.

Most of you know this by now but for those of you who don't I do. And it's pretty awesome. Making beer has been a hobby of mine for a little over a year now. I got started with the Mr. Beer collection which is a great great device. I recommend it to all you new brewer's out there! It's easy and really makes decent beer. The one draw back is that there is a lot of head! My friend Julia had said once that Mr. Beer really is the champagne of beers because of how much head is produced. But seriously, good beer.

After a couple months with that thing I decided to really go for the real home brewers stuff and buy some serious equipment. SO I got the glass carboy and the ale pail and the cleaners and the kits and now I'm a brewing machine!! It is so fantastic to make and figuring out recipes and stuff like that is a lot of fun. People say that bottle capping your beer is one of the biggest pains, which I completely agree. It's about 30-40 minutes of pouring the stuff into your bottles and then capping them which is boring. There's nothing exciting about doing it. I don't complain about it because it's like anything else that you do in the kitchen. THe end result is yours! YOu just made some really good beer and you're bottling YOUR brew. I think that excitement in itself is worth those 30-40 minutes of bottling.

The reason why I'm writing this is that I just made a really great Smoked Porter and I wanted to share the recipe with everyone that actually reads this, which I doubt is very many. I hope one day I will have a following on here but for right now, those 3 people, you are my biggest fans! This porter had a very rich flavor and a definite taste of something grilled on a woodfire oven! The one thing I definitely recommend is to put NO more than the specific amount of liquid smoke in your brew. It seems like very little but it's a strong pungent smell that will overpower your brew if you use it too much! ENjoy. I'm making a Peach beer (which I'll lie and say it's a Apricot. who can taste the difference?!) and then the Next step for me, is all-grains!

Malt extract: 6lbs Northwestern dark extract

Specialty grain: 1lb 40-L crystal malt

Bittering hops: 2oz Northern Brewer (60 min)

Flavoring hops: 1 oz Fuggles (15 min)

Yeast: Wyeast #1028

Flavor ingredient: 1 ox Wright's liquid smoke

Primary: 6 days at 65 degrees ( I actually did 12 days in one fermentor just because I only have one!)

starting gravity: 1.045

finishing gravity: 1.012

Now just for those newbies out there, your starting and ending can be completely different from mine. ONly go with what you know! But average that gravity out at least 35% from the beginning. if it's not there you probably need to wait!

useless

I am typing on a keyboard where the spacebar squeaks! Haha, quite interesting.

I really didn't have a whole lot to talk about but I figure I would write something to make my blog updated. I think that a lot of people just write and go absolutely nowhere which is why it's so hard to read a lot of crap that is out there. But I figured that this would be one of those entries and if anyone is actually reading this then I would say wait for the next entry!