A year in Brussels here.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

More death by DC area tap water

Now we think we can blame the death of some of our house plants on the chlorine in the water. Whats next? Nobody knows.

Remember to let chlorinated tap water sit in an open container at least an hour before drinking to reduce chlorine by products.

Really cool animal photos.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Bread death

Since moving into our new apartment I have had trouble getting a loaf of bread to work. I know, this is huge. How do I survive? Well, I have been eating deflated/unleavened loaves of bread. Yes, that is inhumane. I tried everything to fix this. It wasn't until I tried doubling the recommended gluten that things began to turn in my favour. But this did not solve why my bread stopped coming out the way it had only months before. So I replaced the tap water with bottled water. Voilà! Finally good bread again. It was the tap water all along.

Turns out greater DC area tap water kills bread. Also realized that the temperature of the water out of the cold water tap is 29.8C. Not refreshing. Now to get a sample and bring it into work and see what other nasty things are hiding behind that heat.

Now to find good water without buying wasteful bottled water.....

Thursday, July 12, 2007

From 'Cradle to Cradle', by McDonough and Braungart

In 1870, the Menominee inventoried 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber on their 235,000 acres. Since then, they have harvested nearly twice that amount—2.25 billion board feet. Considering the “clear-cutting” methods of the corporate lumber merchants you hear about, which completely strips land of its trees, you’d expect that the Menominee would have barely a single tree left, not to mention any forest wildlife. In fact, they have 1.7 billion board feet left, more than they had in 1870, and a thriving forest ecosystem.

That’s because the Menominee tend to cut only the weaker trees, leaving behind the strong mother trees and enough of the upper canopy for the arboreal animals to continue to inhabit. They have figured out what the forest can productively offer them instead of considering only what they want to take from it.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Independence Day- George washington's Mill and Distillery

After leaving GW's Estate, we headed up the road to
Georgie's grist mill. GW's mill was state of the art when
built, using U.S. patent #3 [1] [2], which passed his desk
while in office.

The mill and distillery were rebuilt about 7 years ago and
this past spring they ran their first batch of whisky. The
Ladies Assoc. plan to do another batch in the fall, and
maybe regular distilling in the coming years.

Best 4 tourist dollars spent evar.


The mill master/tour guide. It used to take 15
slaves to run the mill before the water wheel
automation was built in. The automation cut the
man power needs down to 5 slaves.

Working videos (~ 1 - 3 mb):


















Video: water wheel (bottom
left), stone mill (a 2ooo lbs.
stone spinning fast on top of
another), the guide
Video: gears
Video: more spinning thingsVideo (sideways): hopper boy - cooled the flour on the top floor, before sending to the 2nd floor for sifting


The water wheel, 4.9 meter diameter.









In the last years of his life, GW was convinced to begin
brewing whiskey. So next door to his mill he built a
distillery
and was able to use the same water source that
was powering his mill.

This land was originally excavated in the 1930s. As this
was prohibition it was re-covered because the
government did not want to remind anyone that the
father of the country was a distiller (the most famous
prohibition moonshiners - the Kennedys, making them
rich in time for JFK to become president during the 60's).

Inside the distillery he had a standard distilling set up.
There were 5 barrels like this making him one of the 3
largest distillers in the US (at the end of the 18th
century).

Rum trade was controlled by the English and was the
drink of choice until the American Revolution period.
Around this time it became increasingly popular to drink
whisky because it could be made in America and rum
became 'unamerican'.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Independence Day - George Washington's Estate

We started the day fairly late at George Washington's estate in Mt. Vernon. His house, gardens, plantation and tool shed have been preserved for our pleasure. There is a Pizza Hut in the visitor centre. Follow the picture story below:


This is GW's House, nice pad.








This is where he sat and drank whiskey and gazed at his beautiful view of the Potomac River.







This is a nice tree on the hill leading down to the Potomac River.








This is a Civil War Reenactment. They would march towards the enemy.










This is Shoot.





March to the enemy.








Shoot again. No wonder they thought they were so civilized.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Fourth of July

Today we had a full day. We went to George Washington's house/estate/farm and to his mill and distillery. Stay tuned for pics.

At the end of the day we watched fireworks from our balcony. This is good because there was a tornado warning in town today and at about 6pm the Mall, the prime fireworks watching location, was evacuated. At 9:05 the shows began. We could see the firework shows from at least a dozen different counties/suburbs all at once. Although some were very distant, we could see about 4 displays very well. And they were all with a 45 degree portion of the horizon. Very cool.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Break out the solar panels

‘‘Today’s policy announcements could translate into scarcity of supplies in the future,’’ Mohamed Al Hamli, president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

I caught a raspberry

Finally recovered from a bad case of poison-ivy end of last week. My eyes were open again and the blisters and rashes had cleared up.

Then riding to work last Friday I took a downhill, wet corner at about 45km/hr. This was when I 'caught a raspberry' - a giant bloody-pussy clump of blood of my elbow. I have matched it with a bruise on my hip as big as my hand.

I will take that corner more slowly from now on.