Last night I went to a taping / filming of this Music City Roots show.  My primary draw was a chance to see a band I really enjoy from back in my Austin days that I am fortunate enough to see in Nashville a few times a year – The Greencards.

They got the evening started with a great set.  At the other bookend of the show was Darrell Scott.  While I’ve heard a number of his songs, I’ve never seen him live.  He opened with a cover of American Tune that gave me chills.  Highly recommend taking a minute to listen.

There are some more videos of him here at NPR’s Folk Alley.  Oddly enough, I just discovered that site yesterday as well when The Greencards session was posted.

Hope you enjoy and hope there’s more to post soon.

The other item I’m checking off a longtime list is getting into the homebrew arena.  Applied microbiology and biochemistry at its finest.  I gave up beer for Lent this year (of course, with the stipulation that I could still enjoy green, dark, and amber beer on Saint Patrick’s Day, which I did).  About a week in, I was already contemplating what the first beer I was going to drink on Easter was.  At this point, the Shiner Commemorator was in the lead, but in a flash of inspiration, I realized that if I started making my own beer now, it would be ready by Easter and I could celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with copious amounts of my own brew!

I consulted a buddy who used to brew pretty regularly – he dug up recipes for a Scottish Ale, an amber, and a dopplebock.  We decided on the Bock – which is appropriate.  Unbeknownst to us at the time, Bock was traditionally brewed for special occasions, often religious festivals such as Christmas, Easter or Lent. Bocks have a long history of being brewed and consumed by Roman Catholic monks in Germany. During Lenten fasts, high-gravity Bock beers provided sustenance period.   Apparently, doppelbock synonyms include Fastenbier (“Lenten beer”) and Starkbier (“strong beer”).  Pretty Excited. If you are interested in reading more about the style of beer, here you go.

Lots of malt going on.  We used three varieties (chocolate malt, German Munich Malt, and Caraveinne).  Not too hoppy, just a tough of Hallertauer and Williamette.

On a related note, Shiner just  started their own independent music label.  Interesting.

Looking forward to testing it out.  I’ll let y’all know when it’s done.  Any suggestions for naming it?  Have five gallons fermenting away.  We’re going to put most of it in a keg, but I’m going to bottle some as well.  Hell, if you’re bored, send me ideas for a bottle label and I’ll use it.  Here are a few pics of the process.

New Year’s Eve. Had the pleasure of watching the Vanderbilt football team in their first bowl appearance since losing to the Air Force in 1982.  Prior bowl history includes a 6-6 tie against Texas Tech in 1974 and you’ve got to go all the way back to ’55 for the last victory (25-13 over Auburn in the Gator Bowl).  These guys had things down in the tailgating department.  I’m already ready for next football season.

On Wine:  My roommate, Andrea, found this great wine class at a local restaurant (Sunset Grill). For $12, you can explore five examples of the weekly  varietal.  Craig Clifft, the GM / co-owner of Cabana, teaches the class and it’s a very enjoyable, non-pretentious way to expand your wine palate and vocabulary.  There are few classes left, check it out. On the wine note, our favorite wine tasting swilling event was Bistro215′s First Friday tasting, but now that the place closed down, we took matters into our own hands and had a replacement of our own.  First one was a lot of fun last month and we’ve got another one on deck tonight.  Looking forward to it.  Suppose this also falls under the wine category: I gave up beer for lent, so this has definitely upped the wine / whiskey consumption. 

Shows: There have been a decent selections of shows lately… So far this year I’ve caught Jason Boland, Randy Rodgers, and Charlie Robsion last night (bumped into his brother Bruce at the Sunset Grill bar as well).  Made it out to 12th & Porter for the first time since they re-opened.  Like what they’ve done with the place.  Heard some good acts, to include Ms. Shea Fowler.  My only complaint about the music scene of late is that I completely missed seeing Reckless Kelly last week.  I was at another show, but if I knew RK was playing, I would have been there instead. Oh well…

Relationships: I was debating on whether or not to include this, but what the hell.  February marked a six month anniversary in my latest romantic endeavour.  Celebrated with a picnic out at Arringtong Vineyards.  This was shortly followed by a classy Valentine’s day meal complete with a couple bottles of champagne at her favorite restaurant, Prince’s Hot Chicken. (Watch this video.)  Thought things were going well, but I got the pink slip a couple days later in dramatic fashion. Complicated, as always, but boils down to she’s older, not having kids, etc. Oh well, whadaya gonna do?

Nerd Stuff: You’re on the home stretch… Lab is going well.  I’ve started an exciting new collaboration with a vascular surgeon where I’m actually doing some molecular physiology in addition to biophysics.  This picture is probably as nerded out as I’ve been with personal protective gear in quite some time.  Glasses, lab coat, the works. Good ole’ radiation safety – working with “hot” ATP. Also notable in the nerdy highlight reel, as of 14FEB09, I’m on twitter @JaredGodar.  Now I’ll leave you with today’s XKCD, which cracked me the hell up. 

Drive out there was fairly uneventful. Texted a grad school buddy from Paducah, KY that I was heading up that way. He immediately replied with instructions to pull over and buy beer at my earliest opportunity as I would be unable to do so once I reached Murray. Glad he was focused on the important things.

The first evening we went to a party at a friend’s fairly uneventful, save the fact that it was wholly depressing that it was a themed “90’s Party.” Really? Saturday morning rolls around – boat day, what I’ve been waiting for. With an additional tag along (the host of the party the night before), our number exceeded the capacity of the boat. Not to worry, we had an alternate boat backup planned. The day is dragging on as we’re waiting on the captain of the second boat to sell a truck so we can hit the water. As we’re getting ready to roll out, she decided that it’s late enough that she no longer wants to go. Without going into too many details, she ended up blowing the plans for both of the boats. I’m a little peeved at this point, since that’s the reason I drove up that way. To at least salvage part of the day and get wet and sunny, we head out to the pool of the Murray Country Club. Within minutes of arriving, I get a call from friends in Nashville letting me know they had rented a boat and wanted to know if I wanted to join them on the lake. You can imagine that I’m fuming at this point.

One positive thing about the pool was that it had a decent diving board. It wasn’t quite the gold standard Duafirm, but it looked pretty legit. You can’t tell to look at me now, but I actually dove 1M and 3M springboard competitively in college. Since it looked like I real board, I decided to do some real dives. Things were going fairly smoothly and I’m going down one of my easier lists and get to the ole’ inward pike. All in well on my approach, a few bounces in I’m going for my press. At the bottom, my toes slipped off the board and it recoiled right into my shins. The right leg got off pretty easy, but I’m pretty sure I took the corner of the board on the left. It was pretty deep with little patch of gristle (aka subcutaneous fat) hanging out of it.

Fast forward to Monday, I swing by student health to let them have a peak (and request some broad spectrum antibiotics since I did make it on the boat with the Nashville crew and couldn’t resist jumping into the lake). Based upon my dressing of the wound and my description of it, the doc seeing me pauses as she’s removing the dressing and muses about how I’ve either had formal training in this area or hurt myself quite a bit. I chuckled and informed her that it was a little bit of both. Got some dressings and some antibiotics and was on my way. Definitely took several days for the bruising to set in. It’s nice and pretty now, but filling in and moving steadily in the right direction.

It’s definitely putting a damper in my attempts at increasing my basal activity level this summer, but in a week or so I should be back running and on the bike – a little longer until I can make a return to the pool.

This place was…interesting. Great coffee, served beer and wine, and had a cigar shop. I was about to describe the crowd as eclectic, but that wouldn’t be accurate. It was fairly homogenously hippie-infested. Yeah, every independent coffee shop has some degree of ‘hipster’ element. I’m not talking about some guy with dreads and tie dye in the corner, or a beatnik with a beret reading Kerouac. No, my friends, we’re talking shirtless, shoeless hippies with their shirtless, shoeless hippie kids beating on bongos until the wee hours of the morning. Here’s a sampling of the weekly classes offered in addition to the music and poetry slam: Tai Chi; Qi Gong (whatever that is); yoga; a hypnosis workshop; and, my favorite, ‘medical terminology, Latin tutorial & English word power.’

I wasn’t really aware of how my time in Austin expanded my horizons what was, if not ‘normal’ to see at least not bizarre enough for me to give a second thought. Hell, we had a cross-dressing homeless guy, when not on 6^th street sporting a leopard thong, runs for Mayor every election. I was in attendance as Leslie debated the other mayoral candidates at Saint Edward’s. Good times. One evening I took a friend from my original undergraduate institution, Southwestern University, to Ruta Maya. Southwestern is in the tiny town of Georgetown, Texas also known for the Sun City retirement community. Williamson County was rumored to have more people employed by law enforcement agencies per capita than anywhere else in Texas. My fact checker is taking the week off. Whether this stat is true or not, the frequency with which it is referenced alone tells you a little about the kind of place I’m talking about. Don’t think Leslie would be pulling 2,755 votes there. So, we walk in and there is some kind of drum circle going on with people writing to the beat. As I’m strolling to the bar, there is this firm grip on my forearm. I turn to see my friend, eyes wide, proclaiming that we needed to get out of there. Guess it isn’t for everyone. Guess I didn’t realize how the years there inured me to sites like this. Apparently, I wasn’t there long enough, because I still wasn’t quite ready for Berkeley when I went on grad school interviews there.

The coffee is still great and I’ll have to see if I can’t get my boss to settle on this one. Nice bit of nostalgia, if you can be nostalgic about a place you left two years ago. I never noticed the mellow, earthy undertones that didn’t have the potency to fight through the wafting patchouli.

From xkcd.com Click to Enlarge