Expanding my knowledge of Go.. and reflection of the past 3 and a half years.

My longest blog subject line ever! woohoo!

For the past two months I’ve been playing quite a bit stronger at the game of Go. The Kiseido Go Server (KGS) changed thier player strength algorithm, and I’ve heard the server flushed a bunch of idle users out of the system so most players ratings were increased by a few stones. But I’ve played quite a few games on The Internet Go Server (IGS) to see what I’m rated there and both agree that I’m a solid 4 kyu player. I think the weekly games that I play at work during lunch with my friend Bryant are really helping out. Bryant is a 1 dan, and we play games with me having a 4 stone handicap and the games are usually pretty close. The past three games in a row I’ve made some serious mistakes, but they’ve also been good lessons.

I was looking back at some of the first games I ever played and it is just funny! My first game on KGS (7/20/03) was against “rsl12″ playing as white and he/she won by 221.5 points AND I was taking 9 stones as a handicap! Everyone starts somewhere, and that was it for me. Most games now either end within a margin of 15-20 points or resignation once either player decides they are too far behind to catch up.

It’s a great game, and the past 3 and a half years of games seems like it has blinked right by. I hope to reach the Dan level someday and I intend on studying hard to do it, but I’m not in a hurry anymore. As I’ve read in the past and heard from stronger players, this game gets more interesting as the stronger you become. Couldn’t be more true for me.

Brew #18 : IPA

Brew went really well! I’m gonna dry hop this with centennial and amarillo hops then bottle it into the 22oz bottles I’ve got laying around. I’m all caught up with beer in kegs and plenty bottled.. time for a little break. I think the next brew is going to be mead! mmm!

IPA
—
Brewer: Josh Gum
Style: American IPA
Batch: 5.50 gal, Mashed

Characteristics
—————
Recipe Gravity: 1.085 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 68 IBU
Recipe Color: 14° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.021
Alcohol by Volume: 8.7%
Alcohol by Weight: 6.7%

Ingredients
———–
American two-row 13.00 lb, mashed
American wheat 2.00 lb, mashed
Crystal 40L 1.00 lb, mashed
Crystal 80L 1.00 lb, mashed

Centennial 0.75 oz, whole, 60 minutes
Amarillo 0.75 oz, whole, 60 minutes
Centennial 0.50 oz, whole, 20 minutes
Amarillo 0.50 oz, whole, 20 minutes
Chinook 0.50 oz, whole, 20 minutes
Centennial 0.12 oz, whole, 10 minutes
Amarillo 0.12 oz, whole, 10 minutes
Chinook 0.12 oz, whole, 10 minutes
Ale yeast 1.00 unit, california ale yeast cake from last brew
Irish Moss 1.00 unit, clarifying

Notes
—–
Batch Notes:
11/24 : Racked this onto the yeast cake from brew #17.. OG measured 1.068. Next time I’ll start with 15# of 2 row.

12/3 : FG = 1.012, dry hopped with 1/4oz each of Centenial, Chinook, and Amarillo.. tastes really good already

12/17 : FG = 1.012, bottled with 3/4c corn sugar. Tasty!

1/24 : Tastes like alcoholic grapefruit, bitter, sour, lightly carbonated. I don’t get a whole lot of malty coating in my mouth, finishes ‘wet’ (is that a term?).. I mean to say it does not finish dry at all, the hop bitterness and flavor is right up front and smacks you in the face. After the third drink or so it seems more pleasant, less of the initial bitterness up front and more of this wild grapefruity thing going on.. I dig it. I’m looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

Starting to have second thoughts on space travel…

I just ran across an interesting article regarding space elevators.. When I first heard about this a few years back, I thought it was the craziest thing ever but also very intriguing. Imagine for a moment, a 100,000 km long elevator teathered out into space which drifts along with the rotation of the Earth. Sounds like something straight out of a Sci-fi book, huh? Well, there are a lot of extremely intelligent (brainiacs) working out the details of how to actually accomplish this..

Ok, so the latest article kind of puts a wrinkle in my plans.. The scientists need to figure out how to shield the payload (people, family pets, etc) of the deadly radiation it would be exposed to through the “Van Allen” radiation belts extending between 1000 and 20,000km in altitude from the Earth. Another interesting detail I hadn’t heard before was that the proposed speed of ascent would be around 200km/hr (about 124mi/hr).. that would make the trip to the “end of the line” about 500 hours, or about 21 days, long. Seems awfully slow, better pack and extra book or two for entertainment. ;)

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn10520-space-elevators-first-floor-deadly-radiation.html

 

Brew #17 : Yet Another Beer:30

Another whack at a Beer:30 like pale ale! I’m basically stocking up my reserves, this and the previous brew will be kegged and ready for a little get together I’m planning at the end of this term of school. :) I brewed this after I bottled both the smoked porter and the cherry smoked porter.. it’s been a long beer day, but at least I’ve got a lot of my beer “to do” list done. Next weekend I’ll bottle the winter brew, keg “Another Beer:30″, and transfer this brew into secondary.

Yet Another Beer:30
——————-
Brewer: Josh Gum
Style: American Pale Ale
Batch: 5.50 gal, Mashed

Characteristics
—————
Recipe Gravity: 1.056 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 29 IBU
Recipe Color: 10° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.014
Alcohol by Volume: 5.6%
Alcohol by Weight: 4.4%

Ingredients
———–
American six-row 10.50 lb, mashed
Crystal 20L 0.50 lb, mashed
Crystal 40L 0.50 lb, mashed
Belgian Aromatic 0.25 lb, mashed

Chinook 0.50 oz, whole, 50 minutes
Willamette 0.66 oz, whole, 20 minutes
Saaz 0.66 oz, whole, 20 minutes
Willamette 0.33 oz, whole, 5 minutes
Saaz 0.33 oz, whole, 5 minutes
Chinook 0.33 oz, whole, 1 minutes

Ale yeast 1.00 unit, White Labs WPL001, California Ale
Irish Moss 1.00 unit, clarifying

Notes
—–
Batch Notes:
11/12 : Mashed 3.75ga water at 154F (strike water was at 172), sparge water 4.5ga at 170F. FG measured 1.050.

11/24 : Racked to secondary, FG 1.010.

12/3 : FG 1.010, kegged and carbonating. Tastes good, definitely different than “Another Beer:30″ in that this has a piney tasting bitterness showing up somewhere midway through the taste.. it’s good, I’m looking forward to seeing how it tastes fully carbonated.