uncommontary

it’s just one of those nights of reminiscing, looking through old pictures that everyone needs to re-center their world, or at least as what we understand our current version in the present tense.  there’s something refreshing and hopeful clarifying your retrospective vision.  sure we drop most of the pain and drama, but if you’ve taken any risks, i’m sure you’re left with some gems you’ve taken along.

is that all we have?  a few polished memories?  it’s one thing to understand and remember your past, but yet another to think you can live in it again.  it happens with everyone — professional athletes, musicians, actors trying to make a comeback, etc.  some believe it is better to have loved and lost by chance, which i think is true, and does the same rule apply to have lived and lost but by choice?

such great carefree times in college.  i will never become tired of reliving memories, wondering what hasn’t been documented, and wondering “what was i thinking?!” through a quick photo tour on this here screen of mine.  i have to say to students that no matter how much you think you’re appreciating your college experience, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll realize that your appreciation wasn’t enough when you are able to look back even 4 years later.

but am i just reliving the gems?  what happened to seemingly endless and pointless midterms, and somewhat subjective grading (yes, even in science!) in a world where the value of your colleagues was based not on necessarily on merit but on potential.  what about all the still adolescent drama, the over-emphasis on trivial details, and lionizing such immaterial advantages one may have that we truly perceived as noteworthy?

maybe the pictures will do.

but one thing i do miss is the freedom to have your passions run wild.  it didn’t even matter what sort of impact you generated, as long as you believed you were making a difference.  i don’t know what happened whether our responsibilities simply increased decreasing our free time, or “reality kicked in” and we became jaded by optimism and apathetic to ideals, or we just simply moved onto more selfish or greedier finish lines.  i think we all disperse from college with our gems, and try to live life replicating what we decided to remember.  i think that’s the biggest asset gained in a college experience, and not necessarily the paper degree

it is a little disheartening that as you live another day, the proximity of your “heyday” seems further and further away.  it sounds pretty hopeless but then again, maybe the gems talking from my night of reminiscing are launching their propaganda campaigns.  after all, today is tomorrow’s heyday.

so why stop to look back at a river that’s trying to take you somewhere you’re not yet?

i have too many spokes now. work outlook for contacts and calendar, synched ota with my mobile device, sharing a sync point with plaxo, separate contacts through linkedin for business colleagues and partners, facebook for friends, gmail (considering thunderbird to pull both accounts in), and finally the ‘ol stickies/post-it notes in material and digital form. i don’t really use google docs and calendar but friends still seem to prefer them. i’m exploring a great new site goplanit.com for vacations and events, but is it going to end up another spoke in my wheel that is my world?

where does it all connect?

before i considered moving it all to ical on my mac now that i’ve converted, i started to look to plaxo and their premium service now that it offers linkedin as a syncing point. it could pull from gmail, sync with outlook, and now linkedin? add facebook to that (fat chance!) and would my wheel have found a center?

also, what’s the deal with openid? anyone use it? my passwords are just multiplying like horny bunnies. and i’m not talking about hefner-esque activities. that would require a tempurpedic mattress and a hell of a lot of viagra. ok this is going nowhere, i’m stopping.

and with gas prices these days, saving the drive makes the gift a twofer.

graduations are coming up and the national retail federation’s 2008 graduation consumer intentions and actions survey (they take surveys for friggin’ everything nowadays), 35.6% of those gifts will be cash, and 56.8% will be gift cards which are essentially designated cash. are people really that lazy now? contrary to my initial reaction, i don’t think so.

so… cash is replacing tangible gifts which seem to require thoughtfulness, but also require taking on the risk that the recipient will not absolutely love what you gave them. how many times have you said “if you don’t like it just return it and get something you like better” even to the point where you know that cashmere sweater is just becoming a really, really soft… gift card through merchandise credit? if you ultimately just want for the recipient to have what they desire, is it more or less thoughtful than guessing what that desired object is in the first place? i say more.

see the thing is, it’s not the gift giver’s fault. information is so accessible, we have access to just about anything that we want, and definitely access to learning that it’s out there. our options got so exponentially greater that the chances of you giving someone else the perfect gift has gotten that much smaller. we know exactly what we want now, that all we need is access. to grant that access through cash is not only thoughtful and a great gift, but in the most efficient way possible.

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tangent: does efficiency remove the human touch? do we trade human touch for the touch of a keyboard? will text chatting ever really replace in-person conversations or phone calls? i think yes, but it will breed a completely different group of humans to make up future society. a future where my great grandkids will consider a text message and emoticon the equivalent to when in the “good ‘ol days” where a a great big hug reigned supreme.
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it’s the thought that counts, that’s never changed. but maybe the shift over to monetary gifts is not a sign of laziness, but of gift givers adjusting to a world increasingly going digital.

the title reads “grammatical misuses for example, i.e. and others that is, e.g.”

for a while my trick of remembering these two latin abbreviations sufficed because i thought it was correct.  wrong.  my understanding 2.0 is as such:

i.e. = “that is” in latin, easy to remember as in essence.
e.g. = “for example” in latin, easy to remember as an egg.  egg sample.

also, 5 out of 6 grammar references suggest using a comma after the abbreviation.

remember all this with me and add 2 smart points to your brain.

i wish i won the lotto so i can continue to drive my car.

it used to be a lazy afternoon’s trek to the warehouse, sam goody’s or rasputin’s where you could even consider considering new music to listen to.  if you came across an album that looked interesting, you would have to take the chance in purchasing, knowing that once you unwrap the cellophane and rip that sticker off that binds the lids together, you couldn’t return it — you were committed.  having one of those listening stations to preview in the store seemed like a solution, if it even featured the music you wanted, but i never took the risk of catching some ear-herpes or some other god-awful ear to ear disease that was incubating in those muffs.

fast forward 10 years and downloading music is all the rage, and admit it, even with itunes as the #1 music distributor now, the illegal (free) download is still king.  is it that we’re really that cheap?  maybe, but there might be more behind our unwillingness to say no to free music.  the issue may not be whether or not we deserve the royalty, but whether we think a certain artist deserve the royalties.  a quick conversation with my brother this morning got me thinking — is payment the new applause?

the power that the internet user wields is nothing new, marketers, advertisers, content and service providers all know this and are begging for the user’s attention (by the way, the innovative technology surrounding this need to reach the user and the internet advertising industry slotted to double to $80 billion by 2010 regardless of a recession makes it a really exciting time to be in the industry)!  but never did it occur to me how ingrained this acknowledgment of power was to the everyday user, who has so many choices and their fickle loyalty provides on the next big thing with the majority of their screen time.  who hasn’t gone from friendster to myspace to facebook, segmented off to linked in for professional networking, checking doostang or whatever network friends are inviting me to join?  icq to aim/yahoo to trillian to meebo anyone?  ie to firefox to safari?  even yahoo as a one stop shop to espn/cnet/gamespot/boingboing/goldenstateofmind/expedia?  the list goes on and on because everyone wants to be the next big thing to the user, and as long as there are choices, he/she is going to move.

“take that annoying/provocative/ugly ad off!”  say that to your favorite website and trust me they’re bending over backwards internally to do something about it.

“she’s so hot it makes me want to subscribe to the podcast” say that and she’ll get hired.

or, in the case of this morning and music talk with my brother “i’m going to totally buy this guy’s album.  he deserves it.”  there’s a reason time magazine had a mirrored cover as “person of the year” a few years back — the user has all the power (queue up c&c music factory).  instead of pouring out all our cash on music a big organization produced (while undercutting the artist mind you), that a so-called expert has recommended and rated 5 stars, just to have the chance of experiencing and hopefully liking the tunes, now we are the critics and are consumers strictly by choice.  now they stream it for free begging us to give them a dime.  it’s so awesome how the tides have turned.

if you ask me, it’s an exciting time.  big time corporations need to think on their feet and create higher quality content and products, especially those dinosaur publications if they don’t want to become a fossil anytime soon.  great news for us users, but if you work in the industry too, a challenge.

what i thought would be yet another wasted evening kicking back in youthful teenage delusion that all interesting events occur after midnight, and buying our typical chicken sandwich with two tacos at jack-in-the-crack is our significant contribution to the economy, turned out to be a little more colorful to say the least.

turns out that another group of guys that we knew weren’t so laid back that evening and were caught in the midst of teenage drama that somehow led to a solution of tp’ing someone’s house. and somehow since we heard the back story (or whatever qualified as rhyme or reason), this was now our battle too. obviously the original planners of tp’ing were all decked out in black, but me thinking that i was merely in for talking shit and consuming some late night fried goodness, i was enrobed in colors much lighter. oh and i was in sandals.

so we go, do the damn thing, and it was such a carefully executed plan involving electrical tape over the light sensor and everything, i have to say i was very impressed. now here’s where living in the south bay and going to a school that was 70%+ asian comes into play. when the deed was done, some genius among us said “hey wait, i think there’s a law that says you can only be punished for tp’ing a house if you leave the cardboard roll, because that’s littering” [as if toilet paper itself is not!] “yeah i think it’s like $50 per roll.”

some other dude actually chimes in! “no i heard it was $75… and if it’s on the lawn and the water sprinklers come on, it’s harder to get out and it’s another charge they can press against us.”
“ok, avoid the grass.” [so guys start to displace tp that was on the lawn onto the bushes]

at this point i’m wondering dude, should we be getting the eff outta here instead of standing right outside in case someone calls the cops or something? sure enough, a car drives by and we all scatter and freak out. i look for somewhere to hide my 6+ foot frame and last second choose the bed of a pickup truck, that my friend apparently has already occupied. i mean really? the back of someone’s car was like a last option for me because i simply thought it was rude, but now i had a roommate that was there first. he says “get the eff outta here, wait fine just get down! and next time wear some darker clothes, fool”

i must have not scheduled “dark clothing” in my outlook for that evening.

the car turns out to be civilian and everyone congregates back to the driveway, which to me was still perplexing. shouldn’t we… get outta here? the same two kids start talking fake law and throw in some math now (70% asian).

“well, i picked up 3 rolls, but we bought 3 packs of tp. i’m not sure if we bought the regular 12 pack or the jumbo 16.”
“i think jumbo.”
“check the receipt.” [check the receipt?!] “yeah it was the jumbo.”
“alright 3 times 16 is 48 minus my 3, less 8 others we found makes it 37, times $50 per roll is… shoot, $1,850. divided by 13 of us here is… about $140…”
“dang.”
“yeah, let’s try to find at least 11 more rolls so we lessen the risk to $100.”

at this point i was really wondering if this was even a real law. we actually started looking for rolls which i didn’t understand because there was no way i was going to pitch in my fair share of $100-$140 for this. i mean i wasn’t even dressed appropriately, doesn’t that prove my lack of intent?

to wrap it up, we found 8 more rolls and deemed it good enough and eventually left with a feeling of accomplishment. but all night, i didn’t hear the end of my lack of black.

wanted to share the majority of my speech from this past wednesday below for those that care, or are curious about the heavenly liquid.

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I love scotch, scotchy scotch scotch, here it goes down, down into my belly… mm mm mm… famous words from Will Ferrell, but these days, it reflects a new passion of mine: Scotch. I wanted to take a few minutes to educate you in the scotch-making process. There are two categories of scotch ingredients: grains and malted barley. Because I am a fan of the malted barley, I will stick closer to that process.

Malting, Mashing and Fermentation is very similar to beermaking:

Malt whisky consists of water and no grain other than malted barley.

- The barley is malted (steeped in water until reaching germination), which releases specific enzymes to help the starches in the barley turn into sugars.

- The malted barley is then dried using smoke, sometimes by a fire fueled by peat, which contributes to the whisky’s earthiness or “peatiness.”

- The dried malt is then ground into a flour-like substance called “grist” that is then mixed with hot water creating the “mash.” This mashing process allows the mash to steep and let the enzymes created in the malting process to fully convert the starches into sugar.

- The sugary liquid that is produced is then known as the “wort.” The wort is cooled in a vessel and becomes the “wash back” where yeast is added for fermentation and the “wort” becomes a “wash. “ The wash is now about 5-7% alcohol and is very similar to your basic beer.

Distillation

Distillation of the “wash” is done in pot stills (that look like a huge copper Hershey kiss) and go through at least 2 rounds of batch distillation. Distillation occurs when boiling the wash and the “lynne arm” and top of the still collects the vapor, and cools it into liquid.

Does anyone have an idea how we can differentiate the alcohol to the rest of the liquid?
Because alcohol’s boiling point is less than water, so if the temperature is in between the alcohol and water’s boiling points, most vapor collected will be the alcohol.

- The first round produces what’s referred to as the “low wine” is at this point about 20% alcohol.

- The second distillation is then divided into three “cuts.”

- The first cut, known as the “foreshot” is mainly to rid of toxic methanol that is produced, the second, known as the “middle cut” is what will go into casks for maturation, while the third cut, the “feints,” is usually too weak to use to produce whisky.

- At this point, the “middle cut” is also known as the “new make” and is anywhere between 60% - 75% alcohol. The “new make” is also colorless at this point, and its golden/brown color will develop in maturation.

Maturation

Typically, either sherry or bourbon casks are used for scotch maturation, due to widespread availability (bourbon is regulated to be matured in only new oak casks, and there is a big market for used sherry barrels), however other types of used casks are also used.

Since wood is a permeable membrane, each year 0.5 – 2% of the piqued evaporates and is know as the “angel’s share.” Also, since the cask is semi-permeable, the coastal distilleries allow the flavor from the sea breeze to penetrate into the aging scotch, but some distilleries that claim to be coastal actually age their scotch in warehouses far from the coast, so read your label carefully.

When aged to the desired length of time, the distillery can either bottle it as a “cask strength” single malt (special editions), a “single cask” bottling after dilution, but the most common method is to marry/vat various casks, dilute it to 40-46% alcohol, and bottle it as a single malt scotch.

The color may indicate what type of cask was used, with sherry barrels producing dark amber colors, and bourbon barrels yield a more golden color. However, it is technically legal to add some caramel coloring but I personally frown upon that.

There is an optional next step called “chill filtration” where the finished scotch is chilled down to 0 degrees C and passed through a very fine filter. This removes some products from distillation or compounds from the casks, but it also removes some of those flavors as well. For this reason many consider chill filtered scotches inferior. You can tell if a scotch has been chill filtered when you add an ice cube or water – unfiltered will become hazy, while filtered will remain clear.

Different types of Scotch

Single Malt – one distillery, only malted barley
Single Grain – one distillery, grains
Blended Malt – multiple distilleries, only malted barley
Blended Grain – multiple distilleries, grains
Blended Scotch – multiple distilleries, grain and malted barley (Dewar’s, Johnnie Walker, J&B, Chivas Regal)

Blended Scotch was originally made for the British who thought single malt’s flavor was too harsh, but I think it is more rich than harsh. If it’s too harsh, it is suggested to add one ice cube or a splash of water or soda water that is supposed to open up the flavors anyway, so I say choose flavor and purity in the process of single malts, over blends that are indicative of a created branded flavor.

Look out for imposters – true single malt scotch will say “single malt” or “single _region_ malt,” and also “scotch whisky.” If it says “Scottish whisky” or Scotch whiskey with an e, it’s probably not legit.

I encourage all of you to try single malt scotch whisky, and you can start off with a smooth and affordable option such as a Macallan 12 year, Glenlivet 18 year, or the Glenfarclas 17 year which I just recently enjoyed. Next on my list are the Highland Park 18, and the Ardbeg 10.

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update: bought the springbank 10, ardbeg 10, and a buddy got me the glenfarclas 17.

sorry for the hiatus.  if you read my first post you probably assumed that my “can’t finish a started journal” kicked in, and combine that with the heartbreaking warriors, i just couldn’t draw up the inspiration.

no fear, i decided to change directions once again for the blog, this time the direction being that there is a direction.  in my old age, i’m starting to forget stories and details to some of my favorite stories from my life.  what better place to share than here.

so whatever readers i have/had, i’m back and i’m trying to build my arsenal of posts to keep that steady stream.

you can breathe easy.

oh geez that was a great ending. i don’t have to say what’s already been said about the pats being whiners and cheaters, eli not anymore having to live in peyton’s shadow, strahan getting his ring, or anything else about sbxlii, but i have to say, i’m a fan of how it turned out.

tom brady’s crying somewhere.  but on giselle’s shoulder.