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Thought I'd post the latest beer. I was going for something light, with a little citrus flavor. It turned out pretty well. The only thing I'd change would be to add a little more hop toward the end of the boil.

Grain

I did a mash with 2qt water per lb at 148-150F for an hour. After adding extract, I boiled the wort for 90 minutes.

• 2 lbs wheat malt
• 2 lbs 2-row
• 3 lbs wheat dry extract

Hop Schedule

All additions are Amarillo:

• 0.2 oz at 90 minutes
• 0.2 oz at 60 minutes
• 0.2 oz at 30 minutes
• 0.2 oz at 15 minutes
• 0.2 oz at 5 minutes

Fermentation

I used a Kolsch yeast, and brought the wort down to 60F before pitching. Using a temperature controller and a heat pad, I kept the fermenter around 65F for two days. Then I raised the temp 1F a day until it got to 69F, and left it there until the airlock stopped bubbling. My hydrometer cracked during the boil, so I'm not sure what the starting gravity was, but I'd guess it was about 1.050. Final gravity was 1.013.

I somehow just realized that I forgot to post the rest of the Cozumel stay. Here it is.

The main road on Cozumel essentially makes a loop around the lower half of the island. Starting at San Miguel in the west, it heads east till it hits the ocean, follows the coast all the way south, and then loops back north to San Miguel again along the west coast. For day three, we decided to leave San Miguel to check out the interior and eastern sides of the island. From what we were told, most of the island north of the main road is uninhabited, and inaccessible except by four wheel drive truck or boat.

The simple act of driving was an adventure all its own, since people seem to consider traffic laws more like guidelines. You can (and will) be surrounded on all sides by scooters and motorcycles, whether there's a lane there or not. You can imagine my relief to be out of San Miguel and into the jungle.

In the interior of the island, there are several Mayan ruins. We went to the complex called San Gervasio. It had been dedicated to the goddess Ix Chel. The road in the picture was the pilgrimage route people used to get across the island in the culmination of many weeks of travel to get to the temple.

We also got a subtle reminder from Cozumel that it was a jungle island, and, by the way, here's a SWARM OF MOSQUITOES! A bottle of repellent was our first purchase in the gift shop.

We then continued east to the coast. The eastern shore is dotted with little beach bars. We decided to stop first at Playa Chen Rio. Everybody on Cozumel had a story about the horrible damage caused by hurricane Wilma, which parked itself right over the island. For Playa Chen Rio, apparently, it had a strange upside in that it carved two sheltered lagoons in what was normally the windy and rough waters of the east coast of the island. We spent a few hours baking in the sun on the beach, and I was once again happy I had bought my trusty Panama hat.

We eventually stopped to eat and watch the sun set at Playa Bonita, a bit further south. It was another beautiful beach, though it was a lot more wavy because it wasn't sheltered.

That evening we took a walk around San Miguel, and ran into the "Cultural Caravan". It was an event to show off Mexican and Cozumel culture for the Ironman contestants.

We spent our last day relaxing in the neighborhood of Casita de Maya. Morning with a coffee by the pool, lunch at Diego's, and dinner at a nearby seafood place called La Perlita. Diego had arranged a "good luck" banner for Richard, one of the Ironman contestants who was staying at the hotel. Apparently nobody else had asked about hanging a banner ad at the starting line.

Thanks to advice from Dan (owner of Casita de Maya), we didn't have to repeat the ferry trip back to the mainland. He connected us with Mayair, a smaller airline that flew us directly to the Cancun airport in a fraction of the time. We'd DEFINITELY recommend this route!

The only snag on the way back was upon arrival back in the US. Another plane was going through customs ahead of us, so we were held back. By the time we got through customs ourselves, we only had a couple minutes to get across the airport. We ran the entire length of the place, only to find our gate empty. Thankfully, we hadn't missed our flight, it had just been delayed, which meant that our airport marathon had been completely unnecessary.

Casita de Maya has since gotten on tripadvisor's top 10 list for bargain hotels in the Caribbean and Mexico. We certainly can't wait to go back.

Just posted the pictures from our vacation to Cozumel, Mexico over Thanksgiving. It was a strange time to go on a trip, but, Heidi only has vacation days at certain times. Most of that is in summer (when it's nice to be in Michigan), so our vacation dates are pretty narrowed down.

We stayed in a hotel called Casita de Maya. We hoped that staying in a smaller place would give us a better feel for the culture, and a more personal experience. I think we made a good decision. We certainly met people and went places we never would have otherwise. Dan, the owner, was very friendly, and was full of advice whenever we made plans. He also introduced us to lots of other great people. We highly recommend Casita de Maya, and say hi to Dan for us.

Dan introduced us to Diego's Family Restaurant, which was around the corner. Diego and the rest of the staff made Heidi and I feel at home, and didn't seem to mind that our Spanish was rusty (to say the least). He even re-opened the restaurant our first night there so we could grab some dinner. The food was great, and so were the people.

We spent most of the second day walking around San Miguel, which is the biggest city (of two) on Cozumel. You can still get just about anywhere in town with at most a $3 cab ride. The waterfront is pretty touristy, getting more local (and less expensive) as you head inland.

Later, Diego and Pecas (a fisherman who helps out Diego and Dan when the fish aren't biting) gave us a ride to the Playa Azul beach club. Right as we were leaving a "Norte" (north wind) came in, which brought clouds, high winds, and waves to the usually calm west side of the island. We couldn't do much swimming right then, but we still spent a while there having drinks and appetizers. While we were relaxing with the ocean view, Heidi noticed that the TV we'd been ignoring happened to be showing the Lions. Not until then did we realize that it was Thanksgiving Day.

I'll post more when I get a chance. Hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving.

I recently attended the 2009 edition of Bar Camp, Grand Rapids, which was very interesting as always. Bar Camp is a conference (mostly oriented toward technology) where everybody is encouraged to present on whatever interests them. I had been experimenting with a language called Processing that focuses on visual displays, which I thought would make a good presentation.

Unfortunately, when I went to give my presentation, my laptop and the projector decided that they weren't on speaking terms. That was a bit of a problem, given the talk's focus on graphics. I ended up giving a verbal description of the language, and then we all gathered around my laptop screen to see the visuals. Thankfully, Bar Camp audiences tend to be very good natured, since they're all probably going to be presenting eventually themselves.

You can take a look at the presentation I intended to give. I also put up a page gathering all my Processing stuff in one place. All the examples from the presentation should be available there.

Pictures from Dave and Lyndsay's reception.

Here are some pictures from the Fourth up at the Bolen Cottage.

Just getting around to posting some older pictures. Here's a set from David's birthday:

He died peacefully last night. We buried him in front of his favorite window with his favorite toy: a twisty tie. We'll miss you Fuzz-ball.

Today Heidi and I met Jill and Jason at the Grand Rapids Chalk Flood. Downtown Grand Rapids was filled with people decorating the sidewalks, walls, streets, trees, and just about anything else within reach. It would be hard to imagine having a more beautiful day for it. Here are some pictures.

Afterward, we headed to the Winchester for dinner and drinks with my family. It's a great little bar down on Wealthy, but we never would have found it if they hadn't told us to watch for the motorcycle guy on the sign. They had both good food, and good beer too. No pictures there, unfortunately, so you'll have to take my word for it.

We hope everybody had a good Easter. Ours was a busy one. We went first to the Breen Easter for dinner and the annual egg hunt. Fun was had by all, since the kids decided they would re-hide the eggs for the adults to find.

Afterward, we went to the combined Wever Easter and birthday party for my aunt Lori. We missed dinner, but made it in time for a very impressively decorated cake. It tasted as good as it looked.