10 drinkable varieties and counting...

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Katie's rendition of Heather

Booboo and mischief

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Sony retires the cassette Walkman after 30 years - CNN.com

I don't know what is scarier...

The thought that Sony is finally retiring cassette players, only about 10 years after they became obsolete. When was the last time YOU actually listened to a cassette? I haven't in at least 10 years. I replaced all mine with CDs in the mid-90's. Heck, I haven't popped a CD in a player in at least 4 years, they're all converted to MP3 now.

-or-

The thought that enough people still listen to audio cassettes that Sony actually still manufacturers players for them.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/10/25/sony.retires.walkman.mashab...

The kitties

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

The new kittens

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Sometimes it was just meant to be

This morning we got word from the vet that Tigger didn't make it through the night. Today around 4:30 I learn that one of my coworkers' friends has two 9 week old kittens and needs to find them a home. So tonight we find ourselves with 2 9 week old grey & white kittens. Pictures to follow when I can get some.

RIP Tigger

We took our 8 month old cat in to be neutered and de-clawed yesterday. He died in the middle of the night... This isn't how I wanted to start my day.

ScientificAmerican.com: Can You Hear Me Now? The Truth about Cell Phones and Cancer

Hmm... makes me think there is something to this.

By Michael Shermer
Physics shows that cell phones cannot cause cancer

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-you-hear-me-now

Grumble...

Sunday I broke my hydrometer. Ok, no big deal. Tonight I went to make my pear wine and remembered I broke the hydrometer. Now I need to get another one and fast because I have 36lb of pears that will go bad in a relatively short period if I don't get the wine going real soon. It'll take till Friday to get a replacement and the nearest store is well over an hours drive away. I hppe I can get it before things go bad. Worst case scenario is I start the wine and guess on the sugar (guess on the light side) and when I get it in, adjust the mash accordingly. Ugh!

My next project

I need to make a fruit press to get the last bits of the good stuff our of my fruit after fermenting it. :)

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/homemade-cider-press-146517/

I love my work...

Tonight I bottled 5 of my wines, and I have to say that they all came out quite nicely.

Pumpkin: While the flavor is subtle, it is there. I'm not sure if the flavor is because of the buckwheat honey I used or not, but it's a keeper. I think I'll make another gallon or two for next year.

Bananas with cocoa: This one came out excellent! I plan to convert 4 gallons of the second banana batch I made into this and see if I can duplicate this on a larger scale.

Plum: This came out a bit on the tart side, but rather than sweeten it up, I decided to try it with some chocolate. Wow, is this stuff good with chocolate! We have another winner. :)

Honeysuckle: What can I say? Come spring, I will be hunting down every flowering honeysuckle in a day or 2 within driving distance and hope I can find enough flowering vines to make a 6 gallon batch of the stuff. :)

Pineapple & orange: This is more of a Pineapple, but it is still quite tasty. The pineapple overpowered the orange, but you can taste the influence of the orange in it.

Perfect night

What could be more perfect than watching cartoons and eating popcorn with the kids?
Crackberry... The only way to fly.

I like this!

Homemade space craft hits 100,000 feet (19 miles)

This is well worth watching!

http://www.brooklynspaceprogram.org/BSP/Space_Balloon.html

A different take on Christianity...

Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. Makes perfect sense.

Hamilton Twp. legalizes target shooting, cross-dressing

Article attached. Thanks for the article, Louise. :)

Where we had dinner last night.

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Meeting the boss

Here's the scenario... It's a Heather day, denim shorts, black tights, black cami, black ruffled top, ballet flats. I'm working from home as I normally do on a Thursday (this morning), and which allows me the freedom for my Heather days in the first place. I get a call from one of the companies that I do work for that one of their main servers is down. Now, it's a 100 mile drive to this office and I don't want to be doing hardware support, but after some begging and pleading on their part I agree to make the drive. I have at most 5 hours before I have to be back home and it's at least a 3 hour drive round trip, which gives me 2 hours to find and fix the problem. There is no time for me to change before I leave, so I grab my purse and out the door I go.

Now, a few of the employees know about Heather, have seen pictures, etc. but the rest don't, including the boss. So I make the 100 mile drive and get to the office. I was actually nervous going into the building, even though I've been out at least 1000 times by now as Heather in all sorts of situations and places. So I walk in and poke my head into the office manager's office. She looks at me and says "I had to look a second time, I almost didn't recognize you. You're looking good Joe, or should I say 'Heather'." She met Heather a few years ago when I was going out with some girls in Boston after a conference we attended so it was no surprise to her.

As I was walking out of her office, the boss walked in. He stopped, looked at me and got a big smile as he said "wow, this is different. You've changed a bit." as he chuckled and kind of shook his head as he walked by, smiling the whole time. So he was OK with it, not that I expected any different from him since he's a pretty easy going guy. It's been about 5 months since they've seen me last, and always as Joe.

Right before I left, another worker came in (who knew of Heather). She looked me over and said "Nice... " I know she would have been bummed if she missed the opportunity to meet Heather, so I was glad she showed up before I left.

All said, it went well. No adverse reactions, and it was business as usual. I made it home with about 20 minutes to spare.

Gizmo

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Tigger sleeping

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

apple & brown sugar sparkling wine???

Ok, so I cracked one of the bottles of apple & brown sugar and there was a noticeable pop. If I hadn't been using a big corkscrew, the cork would have ended up on the other end of the room i'm sure. I definitely made sparkling wine, the real question is how??? The wine sat with no signs of bubbles for about 2 months before I bottled this stuff, yet it clearly re-started fermentation once I bottled it. About 2 weeks ago I blew a cork in one of the smaller bottles of the wine, so I know this bottle is not a one-off.

I love my new boots

I just had a rather interesting occurrence. I was dressed pretty typical for me. Jeans, maroon top with a big heart on it, my long brunette wig pulled back in a hair clip, a pink aeropostale hoody sweat jacket and my new boots. Oh, and I wore my glasses today for a change. Now, these boots are great. Knee high, 5 metal rings down the side, 5" block heel and a 2" platform. They are definitely attention getters and that is exactly what I got today.

I ran some errands earlier with no incident, but I had to run back out to Walmart for a few things. On my way out of Walmart, I spotted a Grand Cherokee on a 3" lift and over sized tires. OK, so I love 4x4 vehicles, especially Jeeps. I looked over as I approached it to check it out. Its owner (male) was sitting in the drivers seat. He saw me look over and said "Hey" and gave me a nod. I just gave him my normal big smile and kept on going to my Jeep to head to the grocery store on the other end of the parking lot.

After I got to the grocery store and parked, as I crossed the road in front I see this Jeep again stopped there to let me cross. He said "Darlin' you are looking mighty fine!" I just smiled at him again and kept going to get my cart and head into the store. After I had passed I heard him let out a big howl as he drove by.

As I was walking in the front door of the store, this older guy (and not unattractive at all) says rather loudly, "I thought so!" Of course I stopped and looked over to see what the commotion was all about. He looked at me and said "I was right. You are as good looking up close as you are from a distance." I said "Thank you" and smiled and went on my way. A little bit later, I ran into him again at the other end of the store. He said "Ok, I have to ask you. Aren't you tall enough without those heels?" I told him that I just liked the boots and they were fun to wear. "ok, fair enough" was his reply and he wandered off.

I guess my new Colortration makeup does a good job of covering the beard shadow. :) That's twice I got hit on with less than 2 minutes between.

And people wonder why I like to cross dress so much...