Hows my little mourner?

Sad.
Today my Grandpa died, 19 years to the day after his wife, my Grandmother died.

This has been a challenging entry to write because I've wanted to write so many funny/interesting/memorable/sad disjointed things about him. None seem to fit what I want to say.

The last time I saw him I admitted I had a weird question to ask. I asked him if he had any great words of wisdom for me.

"No Tony, just live a good life."

I think I'll do just that. In my eyes he did.

Not his best photo, but one of my favorites.

Thanks for all of the memories GRAND PA.

Hows my little Backdater?

Hello faithful followers! You may have noticed a lack of posts lately. Well it's not because I don't have anything to write about...I do/did. I need to start at the beginning, and due to the necessary but lacking photos I haven't posted. So feel free to jump back into May and June to find out what was exciting in my life. Backdating posts ins't something I'm fond of but shit happens. Sometimes exciting shit!

Hows my little Chili Beer?

Holy Ghost Chili Batman!

Awhile back I got lucky and scored some cheap ghost chili peppers from the Galena Garlic Co. at the Illinois Product Expo on the premise of me sending the guy a few beers I promised I would brew with them.

Handling with caution.

Well the beer is finally brewed and I got the pleasure to see my friend Ryan's new (homemade) homebrew setup in action. The rig goes under the name of 5Thumbs if you're interested in one of your own, and you should be, it's a thing of homebrewed beauty.

I wanted the beer to taste like a nice smoky Chipotle Salsa, with just enough fire to be able to finish a bottle but too much heat to want a second one. I used a honey nut brown recipe, a bit of smoked malt, 5 ghost chilis, and honey added after the boil to get my flavor. I'm thus far very excited about where the brew is headed. This was planned to be a big slightly malty and boozy brew but due to some technical difficulties we ended up with a 6 gallon batch instead of a 5 gallon, which is not a problem, when I racked it the beer tasted perfect. I can only hope it stays that way in the secondary and the bottle!

The one gallon test boil to find out how much heat the pepper would impart.

The scariest sip of water I've ever tried.

5 Ghost Chili peppers going in at the beginning of the boil!

This I'm excited for the brew to be ready! I hope you are too! 

Right now the name for it is awful, 'The Hot 'n Spicy Honey Nut Brown' any better ideas out there?

Hows my little planter?

I swear people use our alley next to our house to avoid stopping at the stop sign 300 feet away. I got sick of people flying through it so I took matters into my own hands, who cares if it looks ridiculous.

So far I'm the only person who has run it over.

I do think it has had an impact and fewer people are driving down the alley since its now a hard right turn instead of using the 30 foot extension that is/was our yard.

A little Miracle Grow and some grass seeded next too it and it won't look quite as absurd in a few weeks!

Check out our drought stricken yard! We haven't mowed for 3 weeks!

Hows my little Shawnee visitor?

Pretty much since we moved down to Illinois we have always wanted to check out the Carbondale area, thanks to one of my old room mates in college. He told me of hills, trees, and places to climb and hike. Since we moved here we learned that both southern Illinois and Indiana are home to a host of different wineries. After plenty of our customers at work have told me about winery hopping on the Shawnee Hills wine trail we decided that it was high time we check out the camping and the wine.

Our first night there we stayed at the Von Jakob (pronounced yakob) Winery/Brewery/B&B it was a nice little spot and it was great to start the day at a winery that made some fantastic wine!

For the rest of the day we got our campsite setup at Giant City State park and hiked all of the short trials in the park. Laura and I were both pretty excited to be wandering along cliffs and hills amongst vast expanses of trees.

We both brought our swimsuits so that we could find a spot in the lake to swim in. We decided against swimming here though.

Illinois for whatever reason thinks prohibition is a good idea and has reinstated it at all of the state parks. Except at this one you can enjoy alcoholic beverages in the summer only...ridiculous? Yes.

Our campsite came with a small leash, using it and wine I was able to keep Laura from scampering off out of my sight.

The next day we decided we should hit as many wineries as possible. We found out from Von Jakob that Big Muddy Brewing was close by so we started off there with a very healthy tasting and tour with the owner. We stopped by a total of eight places, Big Muddy, Kite Hill, Pamona, Hickory Ridge, Owl Creek, Star View, Blue Sky, and Rustle Hill. I loved driving all around the area because we were zipping through, trees, over hills, around fun little cuves and bends. Our favorite stops were Pamona and Blue Sky Vineyards, they were both so relaxing locations which were unique in their own way, oh, and the wine was too. 

Pamona was built on a hill and the backside looked into the woods.

So peaceful!

Cheers!

Our last day we decided to take a hike into the little grand canyon of Illinois. It was a really nice little hike full of cliffs and waterfalls. We even managed to get lost for a little while due to a giant lack of signage.

I took this photo thinking it was a nice dried waterfall picture, not knowing this was also our trail back to the car.

We had a great time in southern Illinois! I would recommend a visit here to anyone who wants a nice weekend getaway, there are tons of B&B's, wineries, and nature to make anyone happy. We are planning on going back again someday to check out a different place to camp and some of the other wineries that we missed. Want to join us?

Hows my little Tough Mudder?

The Tough Mudder, where to begin? How to describe it? What were we thinking?

Team Jolly Roger: Eric, Diana, Me Jon, Brian, Chaz, Jason, Laura, Andrew, Dad, Aaron, Ryan, Missing Brian

The weekend started off great with a rental car and a road trip up to Minnesota with our new friends Eric and Diana. We kicked it off with a tour of Summit and a few cold ones afterwards. I'm still convinced that beer fresh from the brewery is its best. We bought some of the Dunkelweizen down here when we got back and it wasn't the same.

After some good homebrews at Brian's house we had a nearly sleepless night due to nerves.

After we got our big team of 13 Jolly Rogers together we headed to the starting line for one of my favorite parts of the race, we had to scale a 6 foot wall just to get to the starting gate. In the corral we got the most fantastic pump up/pep talk and were then released into the 11.5 mile challenging course.

When I was trying to recruit teammates for the race most people were terrified of the last obstacle "Electroshock Therapy", well that wasn't the worst one, the first was. The Arctic Enema was up there with the most unpleasant. It was a giant dumpster filled with ice and water, not just a little ice either, they used a huge box attached to a forklift full of ice to fill it up. But to make it memorable there was a wall in the middle with barbed wire on top that you had to swim under, and for whatever reason, people weren't in a hurry to get out on the other side. Standing up to my chest in frigid water was a pretty shocking way to get the morning started.

The Electric Eel, Sliding through the mud to avoid the shocking wires dangling.

The next worst part of the race was the hills. For some reason, I didn't really consider the running portion of the Tough Mudder, just the obstacles. So for the race to be on a ridiculously hilly course was extremely unexpected and we all ended up with some sore thighs as a result.

Speaking of challenges, I forgot to mention the weather. We kicked of the day with a nice misty 65 degree morning chill in the air. The wind bit through everyone's wet clothes and skin.

This is me using my body as a ladder for strangers...sure warmed me up!

Jon was the only one who made it up without climbing people.

So it sounds like a great time doesn't it? Absolutely! One of the big mantras of Tough Mudder is teamwork and camaraderie, I had a great time with a fun group of people running all over the hills and helping everyone up, over, and through all of the obstacles.

Strangers were very willing to help Laura down

Although we had a less than desirable finish due to a really long wait at Everest (a 20 foot slippery and muddy quarter pipe) and a frigid temp drop we all made it through. It sounds like most people on our team thought one Tough Mudder is enough, I on the other hand, with a few others will continue on with more. They are way more fun than a half marathon (and marathon obviously),  the length easily trumps the shortness of the warrior dash, and who doesn't like getting down and dirty with a few thousand other muddy and fit individuals.

See you at Tough Mudder Chicago 2013! (if the world doesn't end)