Funny… microBlogs like Twitter and faceBook have taken up the time that I would have spent posting things here. And why not, they are so much better, I mean in the sense that Everyone else’s posts are right there too.
So, headed to PDX in a few days to compete in the USBC. Just need to find a few hours more to pull it all together. In prep for the NWRBC, Billy Wilson came up and cracked the whip on me for a few days, this go around he’s in the competition, that and working full time plus, I’m sure, at his new shop BARISTA, in Portland, OR; his hands are full!
so… It’s Terry Z. and I this weekend taking one last look at my work and off to PDX… I look forward to seeing you all there.
…and if I’m not here… faceBook or Twitter is where I’ll be (for it seems I rarely have more than one line to say).
Coming right along… having some troubles with the steam boiler over filling, one of the steam valves not obeying my Restoration Commands, and a leaky connection on the brew boiler… but, the good news… ESPRESSO!
Yes. Sam and I pulled some pretty amazing shots of the Big Truck on the 2 Group Paddle Machine today.
So exciting to have it up and running, with most of the bugs worked out… still a few weeks off yet to Coffee Fest Seattle, plenty of time to finish polishing up the chrome and get it all together (still waiting on the glass side panels to show up from the glass people).
This weekend, I’m headed to SF hoping to be working at the Slow Food Nation event.
At first I did not think about it much… in fact other folks too were just walking down the side walk without a care… but then I thought to take a closer look at the floating debris… and it turned out to bee ants. Lots and lots of ants. Thousands and thousands of them, in a cloud of mating joy.
Yes it has been quite some time since I have posted to the insects and Coffee… and a lot of things have happened in both of these worlds…
First the Big News:
As of two and a half weeks now I no longer work for Batdorf and Bronson… I have moved across town and I now work with the folks at Espresso Parts and with Olympia Coffee Roasters.
It has been a great change for me… work is good >>> most of the past two weeks I have been working with Terry Z. and Dave Ringwood (the two leads on this project) restoring a Marzocco GS2 Paddle Machine and a Single Group GS Semi-Auto. Things are coming together quite nice with both of these Machines (we’ll have them both at the Espresso Parts Booth at Coffee Fest North West… the 2 Group will be fired up and ready to go!)
Been working the Cafe at Olympia Coffee as well, two days a week now. getting the feel for the Big Truck Espresso Blend and all that. Top Pick right now in the Cafe >>> Olympia’s Ethiopia Sidamo as SOE. Awesome! Heavy body, sweet, sweet, sweet, touch of fruit, and Coco finish… did I say Heavy? Yes!
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Finished up with the Mazzer/ROBUR MOD… (at least until tonights tweak idea…). Dave White has cut some out of a sheet of plastic with Espresso Parts <Laser Ingraver>, so clean and crisp. Actually looks like something real.
Did I say I love my new work? Well I do, great crew here at Espresso Parts.
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Other news >>>
The Carpenter Ant that I have in Captivity (that does not sound nice), rather I have homed in a NASA Space-Gel Ant Farm has 6 Eggs, 5 Larva, and 3 pupating young in Cocoons. Very exciting! I had just about given up on her laying viable eggs.
June 5th from 8pm to 10pm the Dancing Goats Espresso Bar will be hosting some sort of a Throwdown that Sasha King is putting together before she up and leaves us all here in the NW to head off to NY to work with the Folks at Grumpy’s Cafe.
Sam at Olympia Coffee Roasters was kind enough to give me small sample of a sample roast he was roasting up when I stopped by to get an espresso… Best of Panama 2008; nO. 1 (coffee: La Carleida // producer: Cafe Granja La Esperanza // varietal: Geisha // score: 93.16).
Cupping Notes:
grape, lemon (tangerine), sweet cashew nuts, milk brownies, cherry, hints of green apple, juicy, bright, sweet, medium body, milky. A very good coffee.
Sam roasted this up yesterday afternoon, or was that the day before. Dig it!
Nicely done Sam.
:)
Sweet! I have just enough beans for one more 6 ounce cup!
Friday a week ago (05-16-2008), I noticed that the Carpenter Ants were swarming. New Queens were out flying looking to start new Colonies.
I have been looking to start a “Ant Farm” from a queen for years, and now here they were, and I was here walking from one work meeting to the next with out any thing to capture and store one until I got her home to the Gel Box I had waiting for just one of these ants.
Alas, to keep it short… once again at work (05-22-2008), I hear a shriek from the LAB, followed by “elvin will know what to do.” Yes! It was in fact a wing-less Queen crawling about. I shook her from the LAB tamping Scale, and put her in a Transportation tube with NASA Ant Gel.
Here she is with her first egg >>>
The “Ant Farm” that I have her in is quite small… I will have to (like to) build a larger one. One which Carpenter Ants will be more at home in, one with wood and such things to dig about in.
Updates:
05-28-2008: She now has eight eggs that she is brooding. If in fact it was a parasitic mite that was on her, it now seems to be gone.
05-31-2008: As of today she has ten eggs. Not seeing much change in the first eggs laid… maybe a little darker, no… it is clearing on the ends, definite clear liquid in the tips of the older eggs).
06-10-2008: Two new eggs today; total of twelve. (possibly thirteen: There is one eggs in the rubble pile that she discarded a week ago, making it nine eggs for a day and then back to ten that she was brooding… bottom line— twelve that she is brooding as of today).
06-12-2008: Fourteen eggs total now.
06-27-2008: Seems she is down to eleven eggs now… not sure why she would eat them, I have heard that they will eat there eggs. Maybe they were not developing like she wanted? Any thoughts out there from the Entomologists or any other Ant Nerds?
This is dave White’s Blue Cap Cider, I believe he told me it was a Jonah Gold Blend (or was that Single Origin Jonah Gold). Update: Turns out this batch of cider is a blend of Jonathon and Golden.
Once again nicely done Dave! Very clear, almost zero sediment in the bottle.
Notes: Opened and Consumed on 05/12/2008
Aroma: A little yeasty (not unpleasant, just more so than the Red Cap Blend), and that of crisp light apples; delicate.
Flavor: Yeasty, lime, apple crisp, dry with an underlying sweetsness (not so much sweet as the idea of sweet), crisp and clean.
Overall Thoughts: I need more than 12 oz. Refreshing. Nothing bad, the Yeasty flavors not unpleasent, and may pass with little more age in the bottle. Better than most commercial “hard” ciders. The predominant flavor I remember back on is the Lime! Simple, or rather not complex. dig it!
