Donauschwaben Oktoberfest 2007

We've been members of the Donauschwaben Verein for about 14 years now, and haven't missed an Oktoberfest since!

The colors of Oktoberfest are Blue and White, and the sky cooperated fully this weekend.

It's the celebration of the coming of fall, complete with Music, Beer, Dancing, Beer, Food, Beer, Friends, Fun, and of course Beer.

The Fire pit!

We end up roasting over 500 chickens and nearly 20 pigs during the three day celebration.

Herr Klein serves up a Dunkle for a thirsty customer.

The pouring of a Festbier, an art form all it's own!

How many men does it take to pour a beer?

Apparently 4, 1 to do the pouring, and 3 to admire the work!

It's a family affair! The Klein's have been good close friends of ours, and are fellow Schwabians! We can always count on them for keeping our thirst in check!

It's been unseasonably hot this year, up in the 90's (F), but the heat hasn't affected the attendance. Lederhosen (leather shorts) are amazingly comfortable, even in this heat.

We'll be back out there again today doing our part to keep the tradition alive!

Ein Prosit Der Gemutlichkeit!

2 years

I just realized it's been two years today since I started blogging. My good friend FC talked me into trying this, and it's really been fun! (I know that he gets a bit disappointed that I don't blog consistently, but hey I do what I can). It's actually been more than just fun, it's been sort of like therapy for me. It's given me the ability to express my thoughts and my view of the world around me, sometimes as an observer and other times as a participant.

I've had the good fortune of traveling to Europe several times for work, and I've enjoyed sharing those experiences with all of you. I know that some of people that I've met during my travels read my posts, even if they don't comment on-line.

It's also given me the pleasure of being able to live vicariously through the posts of all of you other blogger's out there who are willing to share your lives with the rest of us.

I intend to keep going, posting things that seem significant to me at the time and are hopefully at least somewhat entertaining for those of you who read them.

Thanks for stopping by and reading!

Remembering September 2001

On Friday we found out that the traveling September 11th National Memorial and Museum was in town, so we decided to go down town yesterday morning to witness the Dedication Ceremony. We were joined by our friend's son "Young Thomas", who is one of SPC Dude's friends from school.

By the way Lightnin's shirt states: "My Son is Away Protecting Our Freedom and I'm Very Proud of Him". Mine has a photo of a WWII soldier drinking from his mess cup and states: "How About a Nice Cup of Shut The Hell Up and Let Us Do Our Job We're Freeing a Nation".

It was a somber and yet relaxing atmosphere. Several local dignitaries spoke along with several from New York.

One man from Connecticut, Tom Roger, spoke about losing his daughter. She was a standby flight attendant who was flying on American Airlines Flt#11.

The grey background for the speakers was actually two steel beams that will become part of the structure of the Museum. Everyone that was present was asked to sign one of the beams.

We gladly added ours to the several thousand names already inscribed.

We also met a women who's son was lost in one of the Twin Towers that day. She's holding a shadow box that contains the charred remains of his driver's License.

She saw our shirts and came over to us and thanked us for what our son, and those like him, are doing as a result of events of that day. Unfortunately we didn't catch her name.

These three young men raised money to help support the memorial by walking from Rossford, OH to Washington DC, a 65o mile hike.

I'm glad that we went down there to be a part of remembering this tragedy. Getting to meet folks that lost their loved one's in this terrible act of terrorism helped to rationalize why our son is in the desert for his second tour, and our Nephew has also completed two tours. They both signed up as a direct result of that day.

We need to remember this day above all others, even Pearl Harbor. After all this was an attack against innocent civilians, not a military facility. On that day nearly 3,000 people were senselessly murdered, and over 400 rescue workers lost their lives trying to help those in need. If we don't remember then we are likely to let our guard down and allow a similar or worse attack against freedom to occur!

Once we returned home we further honored the day by exercising our right to brew beer! Hey several of our founding father's were avid home brewers, and when we brew beer we truly do honor their memory!

Record Breaking Heat

No photos, just a short bit of information:

As of today we've had 52 days over 90F here in Cincinnati. Yesterday we broke the record that was set back in 1953, and it looks like we'll continue to build on the new record the rest of this week.

I don't feel too bad though because I was able to talk to our son yesterday and it has finally cooled down to just over 100F in Kuwait! It's been up over 120F, actual temperature, most of the summer!

The Dog Days of Summer?

I guess these must be the Kitty days of fall then!

Sorry, I took a couple of weeks off blogging. Work has been extremely busy, and so has our home life. There's been so many nights that I said to Lightnin' that I really need to blog, but the bed called out to me louder than my inner voice.

If you look down to the post just prior to this one you can sort of catch up with the more interesting things that have happened.

Also please wish GGL a speedy recovery! For those of you who don't know GGL stands for: Great Grandpa Lightnin' (Lightnin's Father). He went into the hospital this past Saturday and is getting ready for surgery. We should know more later this week!

24 Years, and We're Still Together!

Hard to believe that 24 years ago, yesterday, Lightnin' and I got hitched! I know there's several of you out there that thought that there was no way this relationship was going to last. Well it not only lasted, it's flourishing! So there! ;-)

So what do you do to celebrate 24 years? Let's see, 25 is silver and 50 is gold, I guess 24 is beer! Yep, we had a few friends over and brewed a double batch (10gal) of an Irish Red Ale. It was the first beer that I ever brewed, and this was the first time I've brewed since my surgery this past fall.

I've got a few pics to share from the brewing, and then I'll try to catch you up on everything that's happened in the past couple of weeks, we've been busy!

Here's the basic procedure:

The grains have already Mashed to convert the starch of the malted barley to sugars. This part of the operation is called the Sparge, where I'm rinsing the sugars off of the spent grain.

For the double batch I decided to go 1/2 grain and 1/2 extract, so here we are adding the dried malt extract.

Followed by the malt extract syrup.

Then come the hops, added in 3 stages: at Boiling (for bitterness), with about 15min remaining in the boil (for flavor), and after the boil (for aroma).

After that you cool the wort down (wort is the term for the sugary liquid).

Pitch the yeast, and in about 2 weeks you've got beer!

Here's what it looks like today, in full fermentation.

Looking back a couple of weeks what all has happened....... let's see........Oh I remember:

My friend Sir Thomas and I fried up 65lbs of chicken for his Daughter's friend's wedding rehearsal. It was hot, rainy, messy, and danged if we didn't forget to bring the camera! Bummer! The chicken came out great though, and we satisfied the hungry crowd.

Then there was Paella Night (pronounced: Pie-A-ah)! Lightnin' out did herself here, and we have photos:

Here's the Risotto (rice) just being added, and you can see the rest of the ingredients in the background (Chicken, Chorizo, scallops, Saffron, Smokey Paprika, Chicken stock, etc.)

Here's the finished product, and it went very well with the "Dancing Bull" Cabernet Sauvignon.

So did the chocolate cake for dessert.

Here's to the next 24 Sweetie!

End of Summer Part 2: One More Road Trip

It's not unusual at all to have groups of motorcycles buzzing by out where we live, especially when the weather is nice, and this past Saturday it was perfect! So I met up with a few friends who were looking for any excuse to get out on the road one last day of summer, much like I was myself. Unfortunately Lightnin was at home with a summertime cold, which she was happy to share with me (I returned to work with it this morning).

Here's the road crew

Here's their transportation of choice, I of course had the little four wheeled two-seater

We headed down south about 45 minutes from here to a little town along the Ohio River named Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. There was a festival going on with misic (live bluegrass of course) and a historic vehicle show.

These guy's were good!

Just follow the steps down the hill to the river and catch the ferry across to Rising Sun, Indiana.

This was an old grist mill, powered by this hit-n-miss engine. You can see the old hollowed out tree that was once used for grain storage.

Just in case you're wondering, this is probably how beer got it's start. Just think about what would have happened to the grain if a bit of rain water got into the bin during this time of year, a bit of a fermentation gone wild!

And this was the character that was selling the corn meal, of course he sold a bag of it to me!

With the road behind us, we stopped to wet our whistles before heading on home.








Summer might be over, but Autumn usually provides some good rag top weather too!

End of Summer Part 1: Back to School

This past week our oldest son Matthew stopped by to visit on his way to the Big Apple. He's been accepted into the Master's program at Christie's (yep the famous auction house) where he'll be studying Modern Art, "Connoisseurship" and the history of the art market. He was one of only 30 some students admitted into the program this year.

He was moving to New York and was just passing through in the U-Haul (which I neglected to get a photo of!). We took him out for dinner where we met up with a few of his friends for a small celebration before he headed out on the road and back to school the following day.

Weather Permitting!

The sky's were threatening, but not producing! Eventhough we didn't get the much needed rain a nice cold front came through and cooled us back down to the mid 80's for the high today. It was a welcomed change from the upper 90's lower 100's that we've been experiencing.

We had some friends over for dinner last night, and we were all hoping for the storm that didn't come. Oh well, the food and company was good anyway!

Last night was Italian night. We started with a traditional Sausage, Kale, and White Bean soup.

This was followed by some Ricotta and Spinach stuffed Shells (It looks sort of like Lasagna and was every bit as good), and garlic bread.

Followed by some homemade Tiramisu (we tried to slice it into reasonable sized servings which lost some of it's photogenic appeal).

Not pictured was a nice antipasto plate of various olives, artichoke hearts, cheeses, and salami. Sort of pictured was the wine, a nice Sangiovese-Merlot blend, which went well with the entire meal.

Back to Work

I started back to work on Monday, so I really don't have much to report since I've been playing catch-up with the the daily grind! After 10 days off it's been hard to get back into the swing of things!

My hops are so dried out that I think I can sell them for straw (they don't even rate a photo, can you believe that!). The rain just keeps passing us up, either going North or East of us. We get to see the thunder-boomers building up, but they move over us before they dump the much needed moisture.

The last set of storms blew North of us and dumped a ton of rain in that part of Ohio. I-75 is currently closed just North of Dayton and they think it's going to be a few more days before the water recedes enough to open it back up!

Well that's all I've got for today. Hopefully we'll have something more blog-worthy to report this coming weekend.

Land Ho! (Paradise Gained)

We did it, we found and secured what will become our final residence! It's taken years to get to this point, but we've finally made it. All of the traveling that we've done has been great, but it's finally time to anchor ourselves to one spot that we can actually call home. Oh sure the road is still going to call to us as we both have been bitten by the traveling bug, but we do finally have our permanent base camp.

Our quest was not only for a place to build our dream home, but to also try to grab enough property that we could leave some of it in it's natural state. We ended up with a 3acre plot of land that will allow us to do both.

As you can see by the photos it has already been cleared, but in this part of the world Nature quickly takes back anything that is left unattended. This means that I'll likely be spending my vacations down here keeping what needs to be cleared clear, and maintaining the nice fence that the previous owners provided.
The topography is typical sub tropical described as a "Hammock" of live oak and mixed various undergrowth including: palmettos, poison ivy, possibly some wild muscadine, etc.



Our intent is to clear only what we really need for the house and a garden, thin only what is needed to allow sunshine where desired, and then leave the rest to do as it was before we arrived. In other words we'll basically put a natural barrier between us and our neighbors, mainly for their protection! ;-)



Both Lightnin and I are so excited that we can barely wipe the smiles from our faces. We're now looking forward to visiting it as often as possible, while working on the design of our home. We'll keep you posted on the progress!

Road Trip - Days 9 and 10 (The long road home)

Day 9

Once again we awake to the sounds of crowing, yes the rooster is still alive and kicking.

We had a little time to kill before meeting with the realtor to sign the papers on our new property, so we spent that at the coffee shop blogging and looking at Cyprus home design. Once the paperwork is completed we are able to hit the road (The "we" I'm referring to now is of course Lightnin and I as I have traded my "Ballast Buddy" for my lifelong copilot for the trip home). We need to make it to Atlanta this evening for a stop over at Lightnin's Sister's house. She and her Husband (a fellow Dave!) are more than just family to us. We've been friends for years and always try to stop to see each other whenever possible.

The drive was uneventful (thankfully) because we were traveling on I-75 North. When we arrived they had prepped a fantastic meal of grilled roasted Lamb and Garlic Mashed Potatoes. The appetizer was Fried Green Tomatoes, with Goat cheese and a Remoulade sauce. They also had a nice selection of wines that went great with the meal. After dinner we talked, laughed, and basically caught up on everything that had happened since we last got together. It had been a long day, and this ended up being a fun long night

Day 10

We awake early once again, having been properly trained by roosters during the past week. ;-)

It's a hot humid day again, so not too bad for traveling (with the top up and the air on of course). We hop back on I-75 for the long trek back home, but as my copilot/navigator takes a short nap I plot a new course, we're going to cut across to US-127 when we get to Chattanooga, TN.

Once awake, and briefed with my idea, the copilot is ready with the camera to show the advantages of the roads less traveled.

This is what lies between us and home, it looks sort of like the start of the road trip to me (I'm hoping Lightnin can handle the turns that I'm pretty sure we're gonna' see).

She held up like a trooper and snapped these photos (look familiar FC?). It was sort of llike a mini-dragon.

OK there's always been the divide between roasted or boiled peanut fans, but this one was news to me! I had to try them, and they are amazingly good! (sorry for the blurry photo, it was taken after we got home from the long day of driving). Just another example of something you wouldn't necessarily find traveling the interstates!

After having put 2,708 miles under my butt, in only ten days, it felt good to be home again. It has been a fun and monumental trip. I was able to shed the feelings of "wanderlust" once again and it's back to work tomorrow. Although I wonder where the next road trip will take me (rumor has it that it might involve a Jeep), but for now I at least know where I'm going to end up, on a little 3 acre slice of heaven!