Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Beer brewing!

So.... I bought a beer making kit last week from Stein Fillers, and we brewed it up this weekend! Mira las fotos!


First we boiled the grains up with about a gallon of water. Then drained and rinsed them and kept the water

Then we added some more water, and got it boiling, and then added the malt extract! BAM!
Careful!
Pro status
Next the boiling hops, Tettnanger, was added and boiled for about 45 minutes.


Cameron continued to sand his hand plane out back. Smooth as butter.
so yea, a few steps were skipped here, but you get the pictures. now it's in the fermenting bucket in the closet for two weeks! then to bottling!









Thursday, September 22, 2011

New alaia

forgot to be taking photos of it along the way, but basically, i bought three 6"wide 8' long 1" thick pine boards and glued and clamped them together, then cut it down to 7' long and 3/4" thick and then cut the shape, contours, and rails into the board. yea, quick description, sorry. here it is though. it's going to be really hard, I think. I've gotten four coats of spar varnish on it, so i think it's ready to take out on Saturday! hopefully the waves are alright for it.

the big guy! psyched to try it out, and will probably be humbled completely
bottom side. with the shine, you can see the contour running down the middle, from the tail up 2/3 of the way to the nose, about 1/4 deep. basically the same as my first 4 footer i did. this helps it from slipping out super easy, since it has no fins



dims

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Cool articles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/31/sunscreen-pill-coral-five-years


pretty cool article on how there's potential to use what goes on in coral to make some sort of prescribed sunblock pill to take, in five years maybe. the end of the article starts to go another direction though and talk about genetically modifying food to be sun-resistant to be able to grow it in the tropics and other places it doesn't naturally.


http://news.discovery.com/animals/dolphins-fish-trick-110831.html


this article is about how dolphins trap fish in big conch shells and then bring them up above the surface of the water to shake them out of the shell and into their mouth! insane! apparently they think that the dolphins are learning this technique from each other and the technique is spreading. even more insane!

This is just cool

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4157182.stm

a 50 foot long viking ship made of popsicle sticks. enough said. oh and he's sailing it (has already sailed it) across the Atlantic.

Lots of photos!

So here's my finished, newest handplane - hanging to let the final hot coat dry. super pumped to take it out and see how the fin feels

shot of the bottom

bottom again

top

we had a homemade pizza night the other night with cameron. Everyone's came out better than you could imagine!

On saturday, i found out about this wooden boat building company doing a demo of their boats in newport beach. this company designs and makes boat building kits for DIYers to buy and build their own boat! seems pretty awesome. So this company just had about 20 to 30 different boats for people to try out, for free, and get pumped on the boats. needless to say, i'm pumped. the photo above was this crazy skinny long round kayak/canoe style boat i took out, it was fast!

here's a standard kayak i took out for a spin


the first boat we took out, mel and i tried this skiff. it was pretty fun just being out rowing around in this bay area

cameron trying out a kayak similar to one that i took out

another of cameron

land ahoe!!!


cutie

this is a shot of the skiff we took out


here's some of their standup paddleboards and a kneeling paddleboard on the end. they were pretty sweet to try out!

rower?


i took out one similar to these guys. they're fast and wobbly and awesome!

a model of a standup paddleboard and the internal framework

this guy brought his own boat down to display. it was insanely awesome looking


this little one looked awesome, and it is collapsible - the front end detaches so you can store it in a smaller space. it was about 8 feet long and only 60 lbs. this is what i wanna make

here's a kayak we took out too. it was awesome! i talked with the guys a ton on how they got into boatbuilding and with this company and just sat there and dreamed of working for a company like this...