overt.org

One of my new year’s resolutions was to practice my guitar more, and thanks to our spreadsheet that tracks resolution-keeping performance, I’ve actually managed to stick with it. So my guitar has been getting much more of a workout than usual, and so developed an annoying buzz when playing certain notes. These notes come up a lot, so I eventually I decided that it had to be fixed one way or another. I dread this, because most places charge quite a bit for fixing up your guitar (I paid a place in Palo Alto $80 to fix the action on it after I bought it).

So I did some research, and found places offering to fix the setup for $120, and I’d just need to leave it there for 2-3 weeks, etc. I found one sketchy looking webpage that advertised repairs in the $20 range, and so decided to give them a call. Thinking the place must have gone out of business and the webpage was some 1996 remnant, I tried calling with little hope, but a friendly voice answered and told me to bring my guitar by. I did, and after they checked to make sure I’d parked somewhere that my car would be safe from ticketing, they pulled out my guitar, diagnosed and fixed the buzz, and handed it back to me in the space of about 2 minutes. When I asked how much I owed them, they waved me off.

The place itself was amazing… I little house on the corner in residential Berkeley, filled with hundreds and hundreds of guitars. While I talked with one guy about my guitar’s merits, another played some amazing licks on an electric in the corner while the third (who I presume was fat dawg himself) scheduled a jam session/“chance to smoke some fat dubes” with someone who called. Classic Berkeley.

When I got home I did some digging and found the home page for the place, Subway Guitars. It seems these guys made some huge scores of overstock guitar parts in the 60’s and have been building guitars out of the parts for dirt cheap ever since. They call them “proletarian” guitars, and I love the concept. Here’s an excerpt from Fat Do(aw)g’s philosophy of custom guitar construction:

You must ask yourself honestly: Will you be satisfied with what is adequate and functional? Or do you prefer to spend a lot more for super-polished and shiny appointments? If yes, there are many builders who will charge you thousands of dollars for it.

Madison Avenue and Hollywood have sold some of us a value system where our self-esteem is coupled to a superficial, shiny product. You must be honest and ask yourself: is this me?

I certainly am not in the market for a guitar at the moment, but if I ever am I think I know where I’m going to go for something adequate and functional. Guitars for the people, man!

Okay, so I’m a bit early. I’ve only waited two weeks where I was supposed two wait four. But damn, it’s actually beer. When I popped off the top, it made that little hiss noise just like it was supposed to. It smelled like hefewiessen. The taste was good… a bit too hoppy, and not as clove-y or fruity as I had hoped, but it was beer! Leslie agreed. It’s thrill for sure that for $25 I can make five gallons of good beer… actual beer. What fun. We’ll see how it tastes when it’s been through it’s full bottle-sitting time.

I’ve settled into my classes for the semester… I’m taking three, which is one more than even I expected. I thought at first I’d stick to one, but Jonathan persuaded me to stick with my theory class by reminding me that it’s actually not necessary to ace every class you take. So I’m planning on a nice B+ and by the end of the semester, I’ll only have one more class to take for the Ph.D.

In other news, three distinct Wii modchips have been announced. Those of you who know of my video gaming proclivities are no doubt aware that all the other consoles in my life (PS2, Xbox, DS) have been mercilessly soldered into submission to deliver me free games, emulators, media centers and whatnot. The potential to do the same to my Wii brings me joy… I can go back and take a look at some of those Gamecube games I never had a chance to buy (the Gamecube avoided my onslaught by such simple physical measures as having mini-DVDs burned backwards), as well as trying out the new Wii gimmicks without throwing down $50/pop. I’ll be sure to document the debasement of my little white beauty.

Last night I moved the beer from the carboy (giant glass bottle where it ferments) into the bottles. The beer at this point was totally flat, and very dry tasting, but my book says that’s the way it’s supposed to be so I’m not too worried. The only thing I’m worried about is that it tasted a bit too hoppy for a hefewiesen (which is what I was trying to make) Now we just wait 2-4 weeks for the extra sugar I added to get turned into bubbles by the yeast, and for all the flavors to develop, then we can drink it!

I meant to get cool pictures of the process of brewing and bottling, but I couldn’t find the camera on either occasion. As a consolation I present you with this picture of the beer all wrapped up:

And for the interested here is my ghetto brewing log:

beer log

batch 1. brew date: 13 jan 2007

“hefewiezen ale kit” 6 lbs. Wheat dry malt extract 1.5 oz Tettnanger hops 4.0 alpha acid .75 oz Tettnanger hops 1 whirlfloc tablet 3/4 cup corn sugar

put duct tape on 6 gal carboy marking 1-5 gallons

began heating 3 gal water 11:30 at 12:00 added bittering hops at 12:30 added irish moss tablet at 12:55 added aromatic hops at 1:00 put in bath tub to cool, added a gallon cold water to wort at 1:35 was at 80 degrees, funneled into 6.5 gallon carboy, added gallon cold water, put on fermentation lock

21 jan - all sign of foam on top is gone

22 jan, 8pm - bottling

dipped the 24 (new) 12oz bottles

siphoned out of the carboy basically until the top of the layer of sediment, although there was a lot more liquid in there… it seemed like the right thing to do. once it was in the bucket, added 3/4 cup corn sugar dissolved in 1 cup boiling water (then cooled) for carbonation. Siphoned it into 24 12oz bottles and 12 22 oz bottles, for a total of 4.3 gallons of beer. Seems shy of my 5 gallon recipe, but it could be that I overfilled the bottles or was too conservative about leaving the sediment in the carboy and lost beer with it.

This was the first week of class in my 6th (!) semester at Berkeley. Here at Berkeley EECS they believe in making grad students take plenty of classes, and I’ve got a few more to get through before I’ll be done. I’m taking one class that’s a full-blown lecture setup, with problem sets, a project, and even a midterm and a final. Yuck… but if I make it through I will have completed my inside minor in “Theory,” and I’ll have just one more class left to take. I’m also in a “reading” class taught by James, which basically consists of reading a paper or two every week and discussing it in a group–much lower work load. If only I could find a theory class that fit that same mold, I’d be a happy camper. I’ve got a paper deadline in April, and also around that time I’ll be giving my quals, which if I pass I will be “ABD” (all but dissertation), very exciting.

Also exciting is the 6-gallon glass jar on the floor in my kitchen that is filled with fermenting beer. Now, lest you think too much of me, brewing beer is not, as far as I can tell, cool to do anymore. No, it’s squarely in that awkward stage between being cool and retro. I know this because whenever I mention that I’m doing it to someone the response is usually “You too?” or “Oh yeah, I used to brew beer a few years ago,” or something along these lines. But ponder this, hipsters: beer for $0.10/bottle in raw materials never goes out of style. My first batch is a wheat beer, which has been fermenting for about a week and is ready to go into bottles. After it’s in there, I’ll have to wait a couple of more weeks before I can try it. I’ll be sure to give a full report, assuming I’m not killed by some super bacteria I’ve bred along with the yeast.

We’ve just returned from Christmas in Texas, which we capped off with a Utah ski adventure. It was a complete vacation. Besides exchanging a few emails, I didn’t do a lick of work the whole time I was gone. I did, however, manage to bowl over a hundred (in real life, second time ever). I think I owe a lot more to Marc’s coaching expertise than any intuition gained in Wii bowling. If someday I can make the ball go where I want consistently, maybe I can put that knowledge to use.

Not only this, but I survived three days of snowboarding in Utah with no serious injuries, which for me is always a success. Again I have Marc to thank for conceiving the trip and making our condo a home, and Matt for tackling the logistics of where, when, and how much. Here we are in the tunnel they’ve drilled through the mountain at Snowbird so you can get to the backside without waiting for the Gondola:

And, as if all of this isn’t enough, I also decided not to try to publish my latest research in SIGGRAPH, but to wait instead for a later conference deadline. Which means that instead being greeted in Berkeley maelstrom of stress, I’ll instead be able to ease back into work as is proper after such an excellent break.