Scary Stuff

Last night we visited some neighbours for a neighbourhood Halloween party. Here's Devil Girl Margo and Scary Ghost Sarah. Sorry for the camera blur. I was Doctor Who. (Bow ties are cool.)

Tonight there's more trick or treating in our neighbourhood. Sarah went out after dinner, but here she is at dinner ...

... and here's Margo's outfit.

And dinner, pasta with eyeballs of meat (ground beef, Italian sausage, bread crumbs soaked in wine, Asiago cheese) with olive pupils. Mmmmm.

Endless Complaints about Jupiter

Aaaarrrrgh! Jupiter, the new kitten has been driving me nuts! When he first started living in my room he was very sweet and cuddly. Now he's on a peeing run and causing us trouble. Also, once he first started to explore the house when we put him back in my room al he did was whine (meow) and complain until he got to explore again. Now he likes to play with Emma who sometimes disagrees with him (ok, really it seems she hates him). Today I also started to play with Emma. I was dragging one of the toys Mom and me got for Jupiter. The toy is just a mouse connected to a string connected to a stick. So, anyway I was dragging th mouse along the floor so Jupiter would jump out from under Mom's shelf and chase the mouse. My plan was I'd try to catch him when he leapt out and grab him. Instead, not only he, but Emma too pounced at the mouse and I was very surprised as I have never played with Emma before. Oh right, back to Jupiter. Well all I can say now is an evil spirit is living inside him. Oh, and Happy Halloween!

Brewing Again

After a five year hiatus, Mike's Nanobrewery is back in action. Yesterday I reacquired supplies from Dan's Homebrewing Supplies and today I brewed.

I got this photo of the supplies, all new and shiny, plus ingredients. (I forgot to add the hops when I took it though.)

I brewed an IPA because I've never done one before, and since moving to Vancouver three years ago, it's become a favourite style, so it seemed to be a good one to start with. (I haven't named it yet.) I'll definitely be doing darker styles soon; in fact Margo's requested one for the holidays.

I'd brought my Charlie Papazian Joy of Home Brewing for its IPA recipes, but the guys at Dan's quickly tipped me to the fact that the US measurements are smaller than their Canadian counterparts (23 vs 17 litres I believe) so I needed to up the malt and grain measurements a bit. When it came to picking hops I mentioned I'd be happy to end up with something like Central City's Red Racer IPA, and they happened to have a recipe with the same hop profile, so I ended up getting Cascades and Zeus hops. They smelled like the brewery does, my favourite in BC.

Here's me after taking the original gravity reading.

I'm quite happy to be doing something creative again, and I look forward to sharing bottles with friends in a few weeks.

Margo Crunches

This morning Margo wanted to hike the Coquitlam Crunch, so I went with her. She's been working out regularly and her trainer recommended she get some cardio this weekend. We had a foggy morning but the sun burned through pretty well.

Here she is at the top of the trail.

Bad Kitty

Jupiter is making powerful enemies. Yesterday he weed on my bed, then later, Margo's. This morning after our backs were turned Margo caught him with his head in the bowl of panake batter.

Garage

Margo worked on rearranging the shelving, boxes, and leftover hardware bits in our garage, with a bit of assistance from us. At the end of the afternoon, we parked our car in our garage. For the first time.

Cats Update

Emma is getting a lot more comfortable. She's pretty much the cat we remember now. She's still a bit jumpy, and scurries away from us when we're walking, but as long as we're sitting, she'll come right up.

Jupiter is still rambunctious but it seems he's stopped weeing on fluffy surfaces when we're not looking.

They're mostly getting along. Jupiter often follows Emma around, though he does test her patience, and occasionally gets a hiss and/or swat.

At one point today I came into my bedroom to see this.

Awwwwww.

Exploring by Bike

Today I took two bike trips exploring some of the nearby Tri-Cities area. It was a fine, sunny fall day, a great day to get out.

My morning trip was a bit of an expedition to find a possible bike commute route to the nearest SkyTrain station. I knew of a nearby bike route from Moray Street that went uphill where I could connect to a north-south street to take me close to the station.

After climbing uphill for some ways I noticed a commemorative sign saying that this was where Rick Hansen pushed his wheelchair on the last day of his famous Man In Motion tour. It said the Thermal Drive ascent was one of the steepest he'd encountered in his tour around the world. That's great, I thought, wherever this Thermal Drive is. It turns out I was less than halfway to the top, and Moral becomes Thermal. So, definitely not a feasible bike commute route.

While I was up there I toured Como Lake. More a pond, really, but it's impressive to see a watershed that high up.

I made my way back using a different route, taking in more of the Port Moody waterfront.

In the afternoon Sarah wanted to go on a bike ride with me, so we looked at a map and picked a route taking us to nearby parkland. It turns out that parkland hides the Coquitlam River. We found a pedestrian bridge.

On the way back we also took in Lafarge Lake, another small pond, man-made I'd guess, but a nice view.