The Bible and Beer

You can tell that I am very dedicated to "blogging" by looking at my last blog date: October 2009. OK, so maybe I'm not the most consistent blogger. Compared to my wife, who blogs almost daily, I really don't blog. Nevertheless, this is my blog and here goes blog post #2.

Since we last met, or since I last blogged ( That sounds weird) many things have happened. My beautiful daughter is eating homemade baby food and I am making home brewed beer. While I love the whole process of making baby food and watching her eat it and cover herself with it, my wife has extensively covered every nook and cranny of the process. Therefore, if you wish to learn more about that, visit my wife's blog. However, if you wish to hear of my experience brewing my first batch of beer, stay tuned here.

As a believer who enjoys alcohol in moderation with a clear conscience, I have begun to brew my own beer.

I've not always thought this way. I was raised with mindset that alcohol was 'bad' and that nothing good comes from it. I actually thought that it was a sin to drink. My parents decided to raise us six boys with that mentality, and who can blame them? However, there was not a time when I was taught that drinking was permissible. Upon going to college I had the opportunity to go to on a trip to Europe with my mother, my brother and his fiance, and some of my friends from high school. Up until that point, my biggest reason for not trying any alcohol was because it was illegal. As good a reason as any, I suppose. But in Europe, I was no longer on United States soil, and therefore I was not bound by US laws; since the drinking age was 16 in most of the countries that we visited, I felt freed to taste test.

My first beer was a 'wietbier' from Germany, and it tasted nothing at all like I expected. I now know that this was most likely from the fact that here in the good ol' US of A, most people drink cheap beer like Budweiser or Miller. This wietbier tasted more like a light cider that was carbonated but not as much as typical soda. I tried various kinds of beer while I was on my trip and, in moderation, enjoyed almost all of them.

When I came back home I observed the law and waited until I was of age to drink and then I tried a couple. I  found out that having my first beer in Germany, where beer was practically invented, may not have been the best choice, as everything else was sub-par.

So, I was perusing the series of tubes connecting everyone, some call it the internet, and my interest in the beer making process led me to find home brewing kits. These kits can range in price, depending on what you want with the cheapest one costing around sixty dollars. I figured it would be fun and interesting to make my very own beer. While there is the initial cost of the kit, I could make around fifty-five bottles of beer for thirty dollars. And this is good quality beer. If I bought this much beer it would cost over one-hundred dollars at the very least. So in time, this would turn out to be the cheapest route too.

Well, I started out this post wanting to write about my first beer brewing experience, but it is already rather long winded so I will say adieu and call it quits for now. My next post, whenever that may be, will be on brewing my first batch of beer.


Grace and peace.

Burning Alive by Shannon Butcher

I am a big fan of Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series, the first book being The Furies of Caulderon. As I was perusing his website the other day looking for the release date of his sixth and final book in the series, I stumbled across his wife's work who is also an author. Mrs. Butcher had an excerpt of her book online titled Burning Alive and so I did as any faithful butcher fan would do. I read it. It was quite a long excerpt and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After the long excerpt was finished, the hook was set, and I had to have more. I found out that the kindle has an iphone/IPT app (IPT is tech junkie jargon for ipod touch) and so I downloaded it. I bought the book on the ipod touch, which was only a couple of bucks due to a sale, and proceeded to read it on my ipod touch. Well, it is definitely no like reading a good old fashioned paperback.

The book was good in the post apocalyptic sense. It had a great beginning and Mrs. Butcher is a great writer. My only gripe was the over-explicit sex scenes. There were only two but that was quite enough for me. I've read a lot of fiction including Dune, Sword of Truth series, Wheel of time, and pretty much any other good series out there and I'm not opposed to the "love scenes" provided they aren't too explicit.

In any event, the book was good and it left me wanting to read the next one in the series. However, as I read another excerpt of the second book, it appears that the next book will not be featuring the two main characters in the first book, but rather it will focus on another very minor character that was briefly introduced in the first book. Bah!

I probably won't read the second one due to the simple fact that I don't want to start over with some other characters in the same story.

Anyway, I'm looking for any good scifi/fantasy book series that I have not delved into yet. Any suggestions?

The Christening!

chris⋅ten⋅ing

[kris-uh-ning, kris-ning]

Use christening in a Sentence

–noun

1. the ceremony of baptism, esp. as accompanied by the giving of a name to a child.

2. a public ceremony in which a new ship is formally named and launched.

3. an act or instance of naming or dedicating something new.

As this is the first post of my first blog (…woohoo…) I thoght it appropriate to start it off with a bit of definitiveness. Yes, definitiveness is a word and yes, to answer your second question, all the definitions of christening apply to this blog…Okay so maybe I was just going for the third one considering this is not my child nor have I any knowledge of the ceremonies surrounding the lauching of a ship/boat. I’ll stick with the third definition. “Reflection” because we live in a country in which slow is unproductive and smelling the flower is keeping the next person in line waiting which is unacceptable. “Reflections” because too much time is being spent doing and too little time contemplating. “Reflections” because this is not a blog for you, but for me. A little niche where I can put into words a few of the thoughts running through my mind. “Reflections” because maybe the title itself will remind me to slow down, take a breath, and focus on lasting things.