A Beer Review of My Own

I may look like a Johnny-Come-Lately on this one, but I swear to you I have intended on doing this blog since I drank this beer (last night.)

Then Cyclonic has to come along and steal my thunder.

Truly, it makes me happy as it proves great minds think alike.... But I digress. Today I'm going to steal a lot of text from the Stone Brewing Company's website. When I do so, you will know because it will be in red text. I'm sure they won't mind as I am giving them free advertising to what I really think is a great idea.

I only patronize two establishments of adult beverages on a regular basis. One of those is Callaghans in Greensburgh, PA. Callaghans is like the neighborhood bar where everyone knows your name. It doesn't have a great selection of beers, but us regulars love it.

The second is Dawg's. Dawg's is a bottle shop that has around 480 different types of beers to purchase singly in bottles (or a mixer six pack!) The staff is knowledgable and friendly, and you could go broke on twenty-dollar bottles of beer. I tend to only have one or two when I go, sticking right around the 5-10 dollar area.

Last night was no exception. I started out with La Fin du Monde by Unibroue, one of my favorite blondes. Then I wanted to try something new. So as I was walking along the display coolers, my eye caught the Stone Brewery rack. I've long enjoyed Ruination, so I figured I'd like to try something else by this wonderful company. This is how I happened upon Stone Vertical Epic 07.07.07...

As with any good epic, herein lies the promise of larger-than-life experiences, heroics and twists & turns as the adventure unfolds. These bottle-conditioned ales are specifically designed to be aged until sometime after December 12th, 2012. Provided you can wait that long. At that time, enjoy them in a "vertical" tasting. Each one unique to it's year of release. Each with its own "twist & turn" in the plotline. Each one released one year, one month and one day from the previous year's edition.

So here's the deal. Stone decided to release ELEVEN different beers, each bearing the Stone Vertical Epic name. The brews released so far are:

Stone Vertical Epic 02.02.02
Stone Vertical Epic 03.03.03
Stone Vertical Epic 04.04.04
Stone Vertical Epic 05.05.05
Stone Vertical Epic 06.06.06
Stone Vertical Epic 07.07.07

These will continue to be released up until 12.12.12 at which point, you are supposed to have a vertical tasting, first to last! That's right, these beers are conditioned to continue to age in the bottle until after the last edition. The flavor will keep changing and the flavors will blend and mellow until being perfect AFTER 12.12.12.

Of course, the one I tried last night was the newest, 07.07.07. Here is it's description:

In this year's edition we took our inspiration from two Belgian styles: Saisons and Golden triples. As such, the Stone 07.07.07 Vertical Epic has a deep, deep golden hue and the flavor is spicy, fruity, complex and refreshing. We used four different malts, and a subtle, yet distinct, blend of Glacier and Crystal hops to get just the right balance. Then, for complexity, we added in some exotic spices --- including ginger, cardamom, grapefruit peel, lemon peel, and orange peel (the latter three acknowledging our Souther California home) --- and a special Belgian yeast strain. All in all this is yet another case of us drawing from classic Belgian influences and cavalierly making it our own...San Diego style!

Deep, Deep Golden is right. It's a pleasure to look at. There it was, sitting in a Delirium Tremens glass, just being stunning. It is a very complex beer. Citrusy at a start, then dryer and more spicy, and finally mellowing to an exotic light hoppiness. The flavor seemed to change distinctly with each passing second.

I bought another 07.07.07 to save, now I just gotta get a bottle of all the other ones to stick in my basement and wait till I turn 35.

So, you're from Pittsburgh, ey?

As some of you know, I have recenly taken a trip to Canada. Canada, in case you have never been there, is America's hat. It is roughly the size of Jupiter, but has the population of Ballsac, Iowa. (That is not a real town at all. (I think.(Though it should be.))) Canadians as a whole are very friendly. This is excluding the ones that speak only French. I don't know if they are friendly or not, as I cannot understand them. This, however, did not stop them from talking to me. I had many conversations in one sided French, and though I picked up the word "crepe" many times, I had the feeling they were swearing at me, as French consists of roughly 82% cuss words. *

I guess Canada is a pretty interesting place, if you can make it out from under the trees. I , however, did not. My hotel was actually a tree fort, and I was repeatedly whacked in the shins by some kid name Mortimer while trying to sleep. Apparently he beleived I was a pirate, come to take over his castle. **

I had the following conversation approximately 3 thousand times during my 3 day stay in Canada. (Apparently they like hockey, who knew?):

Random Canadian (RC): "So, where ya from?"
Mr. Yuk (MY): "Pittsburgh"
RC: "Oh, Pennsylvania, ey?"
MY: "Yup."
RC: "So, you know Sidney Crosby then?"
MY: "Not personally, but I am aware he plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins."
RC: "Oh Yeah, You know he grew up about 4 hours from here."
MY: "I was unaware."
RC: "Oh Yeah, he used to come on down here to Bathurst Rink and we'd all go watch him play, He's amazing..."

Eventually this conversation became this:

RC: "So where ya from?"
MY: "Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, the home of the Pittsburgh Penguins where Sidney Crosby, who grew up 4 hours from here, and used to play at Bathurst Rink, now plays hockey."
RC: "Ah, Um, OK nice meetin ya."

Bathurst really is a nice place, with nice beaches, lots of unspoiled nature and amazing seafood.

While in the hotel, I was watching TV, and managed to catch one of those advertisements for 1-900 adult sex lines. They were all in French which provided me with endless mirth. However, here is a difference from US sex advertisements. In Canada, between the segments for the 900 numbers, it cuts to a bunch of young, hip adults sitting in a circle on love-seats. On closer inspection, these adults are holding, uh, toys. And I'm not talking about the batman/barbie variety. They then proceed to speak about these products in French, and then flash a number and price on the screen where you can order said product for, uh, personal use. The best thing about this is that some words apparently don't translate very well. Their diatribe on whatever they were talking about came out sounding like this:

"Mon singe aime prendre son cockring et sauter autour de la maison tout en criant au dessus de ses poumons."***

While I as there, I managed to plant a box.

My travel time (one way) from Pittsburgh to Bathurst was about 11 hours. Only about 4 and a half of it was flying. For the rest I was stuck in layovers, due largely to the overtaxed Bathurst Airport (Make sure you read the writing.):
Oh, and there's lots of maple syrup.

-Sticky Yuk

* - 90% Fact Free **-100% Fact Free ***-100% Factual

A house for my box.

This will be a short little post about a lonely box.

I have a few plants under my belt now, and while I'm not obsessive about them, I like when I receive find notices and worry when I do not. This worrying has lessened somewhat, I do some maintenance and see 9 finders but only one logged. Oh well, glad people are enjoying them.

But I had this one box that has been sitting out there for a long time, no finders, no reports, nothing. So, I decided to do some maintenance. Fortunately, the box is on the way to one of my favorite summer activity places, so I made a day out of it with the family.

When I got to the hidey-spot, I noticed a bit of a social trail leading past the tree it was hidden behind. I was a bit dismayed at this because it was in a preserve (only about twenty feet off the trail) and I did not want to disrupt any planty things. Turns out, though, it was only a deer trail. It actually wound past the tree my box is hidden behind and deeper into the woods.

So, I followed the fortuitously placed deer trail back to my tree and here is what I see waiting behind it:
See how nice nature is? It made a happy little mayapple pagoda over my little SPOR. The box has no finds and it's sitting snug and dry under it's house.

I know this may have been a boring post, but when I was out there in the woods and I saw that happy little mayapple, I just felt kinda serene.

Mr. Yuk (feeling a little like Bob Ross)

Budget Impass

I am not happy.

You see, I live in PA, a state that prides itself on our State Parks. We have 117 of them. Every Pennsylvanian is within a 15 minute drive from a State Park. These are great areas to explore nature, get some peace and quiet, or go boxing.

Until midnight tonight.

That is when all "non-essential" services in PA will be shut down, due to our current budget impass. Governer Ed Rendell has made the decision that at midnight tonight, 2300 DCNR employees will be placed on furlough. The few who do remain in place will be performing "enforcement and safety shifts only." This boils down to keeping the public off our own land.

Today, you cannot visit a state run museum in PA. You cannot take a drivers license test or get your license renewed. The perpetual construction on our highways has ceased. Even the lights illuminating the Capitol Building are off, as there is no money to run them.

Fortuantely, essential services will remain in place. Among these:

1. The Police
2. Prisons
3. Health Care for the Poor
4. Gambling

Yup, thats right. The Governer in his glorious foresight, has decided that our five slots casinos must remain open, providing an 11th hour exemption from the closing.

So, lets sum this up: The budget impass is so dire that our roads are not being fixed, people cannot remain legal to drive if they happen to be unlucky enough to need these services now. and we can not visit the woods in a state NAMED "Penn's Woods."

We can, however, still be arrested, go to jail, receive health care if we cannot afford it, and gamble.

What an appalling age we live in.

Harmony...

Nope, not referring to anything musical at all.

It seems a long time ago, in Germany there was a guy named George Rapp. George had started an esoterical, Sophist religion called the Harmonists. Because of their difference with Westernized Christianity (one publication from the organization called the standard doctrine so much "Babel") they began to experience much persecution. Because of this, George Rapp and his son (with 700 Harmonists following a bit later) moved to America and purchased three thousand acres in Butler County, PA. It was here that they began the first of three Harmonists settlements, naming it "Harmony."

The Harmonists were communal in nature and practiced celibacy. (A major cause of them dying out as a religion (duh)). However, they are recognized as one of the pre-eminent and most successful of the Utopian Societies. This was largely due to the negotiating skills of George Rapp. At times the per-capita income of the Harmonists was 10 times that of the average American. They lived in Harmony from 1905-1915, and in that time their community included 130 houses, a church, a hotel, a school, a mill, a brewery and distillery, barns, storehouses, factory buildings, and a tannery. By 1814, the Society was farming some 3000 acres of land, with 3000 sheep and 600 cattle.

They were also known for some ingenious inventions and new industrial processes.

One of the curious things about the Harmonists is that when they buried their dead, they did not use a marker of any kind except for a rock placed over the gravesite.

Why am I telling you all of this, you may ask? Well, one of the best things about letterboxing is that you get to learn some great history and see some really neat sites. This happened this weekend. Zelie Zips has seeded Butler County with some great letterboxes. She and her family are pretty much the only active placers in that area and should be commended for the wonderful quality and history of her boxes.

She has a plant at the Harmonist cemetery, and though I had grabbed it by myself prior to this, I wanted to show it to the rest of Team KPI. Also, the first time I grabbed the box it was in the middle of the night and there was a foot of snow on the ground, so I did not get to explore.

What a truly cool place this is. The Harmony historical society has done a good job of putting up some informational signs:

The coolest thing about this place is the door. The entire cemetery is walled in and has 100 gravesites in it. There's only one headstone inside, which I will get to in a minute. The door to the interior is a stone tablet that weighs over a ton, and rotates on an iron rod that is pierced through the center of it and attached to the upper and lower parts of the doorframe. Approximately 200 years after it's construction, my six-year-old is able to open this over 2,000 pound door with a push. (I cannot figure out how to make a picnic table.)
The "one grave marker" I referenced earlier is for a Mr. Johannes Rapp. I will not give any description, I'll let the informational marker do that. I find it darkly humorous.

Well shit. For some reason the link to expand the pics isn't working. I have to figure that out. Anyway, here is what the sign says:

The Harmonists did not mark their graves. This stone memorializes Johannes Rapp, son of Harmony Society founder Johann Georg Rapp, who was injured fatally in an industrial accident; the location of his grave within the cemetery is unknown. Non-Harmonists donated the stone, which the society accepted reluctantly.

We were able to find 8 other boxes, all great. One was next to this really cool waterfall that The Pirate had fun playing around.
A great letterboxing trip and we got to meet and exchange with that wonderful boxer. Weekends like this make work that much harder to come back to...