Home Brewing

Brewing beer is easy!

Joy of Home Brewing, by Charlie Papazian, is the 'bible' in beer brewery world. You should be able to borrow one from your local library. I checked our mine from our local library. What you really need is the first part--"how to" for the beginner.

To brew beer you need three things: 1. a bucket (keg), 2. malt extract, and 3. yeast. The process is simple: boiling the malt extract, wait for the temperature to cool down, add yeast, pour into the keg, then wait.

The secret to be successful is the sanitization process. Basically, you want to get rid of other bacterias except beer yeast. You don't need special sanitizer, home plain bleach is good enough. You have to water thoroughly to remove the bleach odor. Sanitize everything you will touch--the can opener, spoon, keg, pot... If you fail, most likely you did not sanitize well. Yet, don't worry, the failed beer is still drinkable and won't get you sick. (for the alcohol in the beer will kill bacterias) The taste is not pleasant, though.

Temperature is important, too, and autumn is a perfect season to brew ale.

There are a lot of information online, too. Check out http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/

To start you first batch, you would like to use malt extract rather than to malt barley yourself. The malt extract is just "麦芽糖"+hops (for the bitterness in the beer). You can buy malt extract from local brewery store or on-line. Normally, the can comes with a bag of yeast.

I got my initial brewing accessories (keg ..etc), as well as malt extract cans, from Mr. Beer I chose it simply for the shape of the keg. There are many on-line suppliers. You can choose the one you like. You don't need bottles. Soda bottles will do. Recently, I found that there is no need for bottles at all. It is perfectly fine and tasteful to drink fresh ale from the keg directly. So, I omitted bottling lately.

唐德剛譯注的胡適口述自傳

搬家後，一箱箱的書都沒有好好整理，書架上的書也被文蕾擺得看似整齊，實則雜亂--小姐她是把書按大小高矮來放的。你若要找本書，要是不曉得她長得啥樣--高矮胖瘦--你就別想在那整齊的書架上覓得伊人芳蹤。

這不是嗎？我就在一本畫冊，及一本卜卦算命中間找到了唐德剛譯注的胡適口述自傳。

懂得看這本書的人，大多不是沖著適之先生的大名，而是想在唐德剛的注釋中找尋趣味。這算是本奇書了--注釋寫得比本文還多還好。這書記載著上下兩代留學生的思想，境遇，及其中千絲萬縷的關系。我站在書架前一翻，就又定住了。

這書現在大概也沒有幾人有興趣了--我兒子大概永遠也看不懂了。

信能格

建中三年中，我最难忘的老师有两位--高一的工艺老师信能格，及高二，高三的生物老师杨义贤。他们都是好老师，特立独行，都有自己的个性与脾气。建中是学生好，老师烂，他们是例外。

把信老师的工艺课比作高中生涯的震撼教育并不为过--那时大家刚考上建中，心中那股兴奋都在信老师的第一堂课后荡然无存。大块头，东北大嗓门，长得很像军中士官长，一进教室，无语，先左右扫视一遍，我心中已经不寒而慄；一开口，我简直开始后悔考上建中，他说，说得很慢，说的很响亮： “我，叫信能格，相信我，你就能及格！” 果不其然，高一课程中，最在同学们心中形成压迫感，最让人感到绝望，最让人花心思花精力，还不见得有回报，就是信老师的工艺课。在制图课中，我们画了无数的图，画好就“面呈”批阅，最常见的就是他哗啦一下，把图纸撕成两半，回去重画，回座时，还得忍受他的冷嘲热讽。问题是我的图那里不对了，我都不知道。我瞪着图纸，自己检讨，自己找可能的理由，再重画，再去信爷那试试运气。这过程很像我后来编程，完全是跟自己较劲。不同的是电脑仁慈多了，不会给你来个见缝插针，伤口上洒盐。

慢慢地，自己也摸索出规律，信爷也越来越少把我的图纸给“哗啦”了。一学期下来，我多年不治的粗心大意，居然就这样给治好了。有些同学进步不大，信老师都真的心狠手辣地给当了，而且当率颇高，血流成河，很多功课好的同学，全栽在工艺这科。这下子大家吓坏了，原来真的遇到了土匪头了，言而有信，动真格的，白刀进红刀出。一学期就这样过了。

到了下半学年，大家已经知道信爷不是吃素的，全都不敢不把工艺不当回事。每个人发了块长条木板，信老板发了话：“从这扁平木板给我搞出个三维立体的东西，什麽都可以。不及格的，补考时，一样给木板，一天内从木板给我兜出个圆球，可以直线滚十几公尺的，及格。” 这太可怕了。从此大家一到工艺课就又画设计图，又锯又切，又拼又凑，忙得很，潜力也激发出来了。期末时，大家的作品是花样百出，琳琅满目。我比较保守，做了把斧头，因为不用太多曲线。印象比较深刻的是有人做了把金庸小说碧血剑中金蛇郎君的金蛇剑，剑身如同书中所述，就如是一条蛇盘曲而成。我到今天都怀疑是捉刀作品，因为这把剑是期末时突然冒出来的。不过，剑主人好像是及格了。

当然有人不及格，补考时好像真的是兜圆球，但我实在不记得有没有人补考过关。按常理，我实在难想像有谁有本事补考能过居然会落得要补考。这不合逻辑。


生物杨老师的事另文再述。

My octagonal taboret

With many weekends' labors and sweats, my octagonal taboret is almost done, and Mother is extremely pleased by my work. Next steps would be adjusting, sanding and finishing. This taboret is purely done with hand tools. For that reason, some adjustments are required.

This was a good learning experience to me, particularly on the mortises and tenons cutting techniques. I use a mallet and a chisel for mortising. After experimenting few different ways, my mortise cutting technique, now, fixes on the Japanese woodworking tradition--start from the middle line of a mortise, and gradually work towards the edges of the mortises by cutting a thin slice each time. This technique produces a beautiful mortise that can't be made with other means.

My next project would be a float-top coffee table. It would be an art-and-crafts furniture, yet, I will finish it in different hues to achieve a modern atmosphere. The shape of the table looks like the following one.


from Thos. Moser

Lost Horizon

Lately, I ran into different utopias. Now, I am going to talk about Lost Horizon, by James Hilton.

The famous term, "Shangri-La" first appeared in the book "Lost Horizon." In the book, an airplane was hijacked, and four passengers were abducted to Shangri-La. Those four passengers , Conway, Barnard, Mallison and Miss Brinklow, represent four different characters: Conway represents widsom and logic; Mallison ethics and emotions; MissBrinklow, a missonery, religional zeal; and Barnard, a realistic aloofness and irresponsible attitude towards the society.

While Mallison tried to escape out from Shangri-La, and Barnard enjoyed hidding there, and Miss Brinklow zealously seeked to expand Christrian terrotory there, Conway, carrying a slacking attitude, actually found Shangri-La his true destination.

From the begining of the book, we learned that Conway eventually left Shangri-La and lost his memory, and he set out a journey to return to it after regaining his memory. The rest of the book is a back-tracking of what happenend in between. I am now at the two-third of the book and eager to find out how he left the Shangri-La and how he lost his memory.

Similar to Plato's Republic, Shangri-La is governed by a Philosopher King, albeit his title is High Lama. Like More's Utopia, Lost Horizon has many acute observations about our current society. Kind of cynical and kind of austere. The existence of Shagri-La is based on a pessimistic fore-vision on our society.