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A couple weeks ago, I started my first batch of home brew beer. My brother-in-law Scott got me a kit for Christmas and I've been soaking up tips and tricks from the local brew club members and my friend DeWayne. A couple weekends ago, DeWayne invited me over to his place to brew a few batches. I had a marvelous time and even managed to snap a few pictures while trying not to screw anything up. Beer, after all, is very serious business!

Sam has big plans for the future. They all seem to involve robots. I'm cool with that.

While Daleks are not *technically* robots, as they do have a small organic component, that doesn't keep Sam from considering them to be one of the coolest forms of (evil) robots around.

At some point in my day I often find myself talking with friends and coworkers about what's going on in our lives. The topics covered are generally the mundane details of family, work and hobbies. I feel fortunate to have a number of very clever people in my life so these otherwise forgettable conversations are often entertainingly peppered with fun twists of language.

This is "meat-space" conversation is almost always enjoyable, but more and more this type of thing seems to be taking place online. Facebook, twitter, blogs and instant messaging have taken the retelling of our lives to a new level. Certainly the telling and following can be a distraction from the events actually going on around a person. This has led to a backlash against these technologies as being addictive or non-productive.

This perspective ultimately missed the point.

I was walking back to work after a very nice lunch at home (steak fajitas, with veggies from the garden, finished off with a big slice of peach cake) and I was stopped by a kid, perhaps in his late teens or early twenties, standing under a crab apple tree about two blocks from my house. He started off by saying "How's it goin' boss?" to which I replied with the very creative response of "fine."

He then said "Hey, totally random question.... can I buy a cigarette from you?"

After supper tonight, finished reading Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. It was a light, yet interesting read.

The other day, my wife made a statement on facebook that caught my attention. We are all celebrating the arrival of the latest member of the family. Jo's brother and his wife had their first child and Jo was lamenting the fact that "it sucks to be two states away." While this is a true statement, I wanted to help make her feel better. After 11 years of marriage, I've found that in many situations, this often involves conveying some variant of "it could be worse". Saying that is fine and all, but it's even better when you can show mathematically, that it could indeed be worse. So that's what I set out to do....