Broken Bottle Blog

Wow. Rode my bike for about 40 mins today. Just bought a new mountain bike last weekend, with intent to ride it often. I headed out on the Chisolm trail (the bike trail in Plano, not the cattle drive) and it was farther than I thought just to get to it, but kept going, got to it, and kept going more. I wasn’t even really that tired, but was at a slower pace towards the end. It’s great, you notice so much more around you when riding, knick-knacks in peoples yards, ducks, flowers, kinda like your own little adventure. On the way home I ended up stopping by Firehouse Subs, a new sub eatery that just opened, and got some dinner. I’ll be sore in the morning.

I’ve been reading this book called Ghost Wars: The secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll. It’s interesting, here’s an excerpt I found really interesting:

This time officers in the Directorate of Operations’ Near East Division came up with a new idea. Early inMarch 1991, overwhelmed and in retreat, Saddam Hussein’s army abandoned scores of Soviet-made tanks and artillery pieces in Kuwait and southern Iraq. The discarded weaonry offered the potential for a classical covert action play: The CIA would secretly use spoils captured from one of America’s enemies to attack another enemy.

The CIA station in Riyadh, working with Saudi intelligence, assigned a team of covert logistics officers to round up abandoned T-55 and T-72 Iraqi tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and artillery pieces. The CIA team worked with the U.S. military in southern Iraq to loot abandoned Iraqi armories and ammunition stores. They refurbished the captured equipment and rolled it to Kuwaiti ports for shipment to Karachi. From there Pakistani intelligence brought the armour and artillery to the Afghan border. Officers from ISI’s Afghan bureau used the equipment to support massive new conventional attacks on the eastern city of Gardez, in Paktia province, the ISI-supplied stronghold of Jallaladin Haqqanni, Hekmatyar, and the Arab volunteers.

Crazy stuff. One page over.

Milt Bearden, the former Islamabad station chief, found himself talking in passing about the Afghan war with President Bush. The president seemed puzzled that the CIA’s covert pipeline through Pakistan was still active, as Bearden recalled it. Bush seemed suprised, too, that the Afghans were still fighting. “Is that thing still going on?” the president asked.

My sister gave me some beer bread mix for Christmas (It even came in a 16 oz. beer bottle!) and I just got around to making some bread. With my own beer!! You may remember the Steam beer from an earlier post, well that’s what I used. Came out great, although there is not a strong steam beer taste to it, but still good. See for yourself.

I’d like to try this with all my beers, it’s so easy to make. I’d also like to try variations on the recipe, like brushing butter on top right before it’s done. Or using some of the spent grains from the brewing process. We’ll see.

P.S. That’s the Steam beer in the pic.

Energy conservers take a idea from homebrewers for fridge.

I came across the idea of converting a chest freezer into a hyperefficient fridge while trolling the Internet. All you need to do is bypass the freezer’s internal thermostat with one set at a higher temp (around 40 degrees). It’s efficient because cold air is heavier than warm air, and it settles naturally into the freezer cavity. Very little is lost when you open the lid. I bought a secondhand, 8-cu.-ft. Vestfrost freezer for $200 and installed an external thermostat (at left) purchased from a home-brewing supply Web site. Turns out, home brewers have been pulling this trick for years because chest fridges allow them to ferment their goods in kegs at the ideal temp. The upshot? Our Vestfrost fridge draws a mere 1/8 kilowatt-hour per day–a pittance compared to our conventional fridge.

This is from Popular Mechanics magazine, they have a family living off grid that they are following. Here’s the link to the whole story link

I want to get on of these controllers so I can have more control over my homebrewing temp. In my efforts to save energy I turned the house thermostat up a little, still comfortable but if move around alot it gets a little warm. So it’s hard to keep my beer below 70 degrees.

Kegged my Steam beer today, just trying it out. Not too bad, not cold enough yet but drinkable. Very clear, probably the clearest beer I’ve made. I used Irish moss in this one which is supposed to clear up the beer. Steam beer uses lager yeast, but is brewed at ale temperatures, in case you were wondering. Anchor Steam is a good commercial version if you’re curious.