UPDATES

Thanks

Alex — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:57:06 +0000

Seriously?

CONVERGENCE - BFA Solo Exhibition

Alex — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:47:16 +0000

Come to my Senior Thesis Show.
Exhibition is open from 3/2/09 - 3/6/09
Closing Reception is on 3/6/09 from 7-9 pm

Location:
gallery 114
Kresge Art Center
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48823

Food, Wine, Live DJ, and of course Art. Hope to see you there!

Brave New Wreck

Alex — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 07:15:43 +0000

Rock the Block/Homebrewing

Alex — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:23:07 +0000

Here’s a design I did for EMU Hillel. Click for large.

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I’ve talked a bit on here about my housemates and their homebrewing predilections. They’ve settled on a name for their company: Schruible Brewing Co. The word Schruible is pronounced Shry Bull. It’s a mash up of their two last names.

Up until now all beer has been fermented solely in large glass jugs called carboys, and then bottle carbonated. Here is the (intensely) basic process beer goes through in a homebrew setup:

brewing
The homebrewing process can be broken down into the following steps:

� Making Wort

If you have fresh wort materials (barley, adjunct grains and finally hops) thats awesome. Most homebrewers get dried barely and grain from a brew shop like the terrific Red Salamander in Grand Ledge, MI. You boil it up.

� Fermentation

Add yeast. Leave it to ferment in a carboy for a couple weeks.

� Conditioning

Called “racking” the beer, you basically tranfer it from one carboy to another, which gets rid of a lot of the settement the collect on the bottom. The more times you do this, the clearer your beer gets, which can be good or bad depending on what your trying to make.

� Packaging

In bottles, kegs or casks. Leave it there for another two weeks if your letting natural carbonation happen. If you have a CO2 set up and want to force carbonate your beer you wont have to wait as long, but there’s controversy over whether or not the flavor is affected. We’re going to let the carbonation happen naturally and then use our CO2 tank to push the beer out. Also it will give us more control over total carbonation.

[loosely sourced from wikipedia, plus my own additions]
[homebrewing wiki] [brewboard� great brewing forum ]

So thats what we do every other week or so. There’s a lot more to it then just this, and contamination is a constant worry. I just felt like putting up a list of things.

Our Sierra Nevada clone will be done this weekend. This is the first batch we’ve racked into our dual corney kegs (5 gallons) instead of bottles. This is because of the awesome fridge I bought, which is in the process of being converted into a two tapped Kegerator. ~~Photos in the next post.~~ [edit: post after next post. -a]

newsflash

Alex — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:49:06 +0000

~~Hannah, my sister is totally crappy.~~

[edit] Actually my sister is pretty cool.

Lame

Alex — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 21:07:45 +0000

Miasmic New Pages

Alex — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 21:54:49 +0000

Website update GO

The Drawing and Paintings pages are up. I’ve set up a new navigator in art because the old one was virtually illegible.

There’s some older work on these pages right now, but I’ll be posting more shortly (famous last word).

Design is also up, but it’s in a limbo state right now. Actually I think I’ll work on that right now.

Wind Sculpture - Theo Jansen

Alex — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 21:27:16 +0000

This guy’s work is fantastic.

class=left
And here’s a breakdown of his mechanics.

Drawing dump, new plans

Alex — Thu, 24 May 2007 21:32:47 +0000

New drawings from a recent vacation in canada in sketchbook. Here’s one of ‘em: Frankenstein’s Monster.

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Some of my friends have gotten into home-brewing. It’s pretty awesome. This batch is divided into two beers, was bottled last weekend and will be ready for tasting this coming Saturday. They are titled “The Country Gentleman” and “S.O.G. (Super Original Great)”. Here are the labels I made for them.

#1�� #2

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So I’ve decided to go ahead and become a notary public. I feel this is the kind of responsibility I was born to shoulder. It’s pretty simple. In Michigan the only eligibility requirements are age (must be over 18) and language proficiency (The King’s Language of English). There is one caveat that I haven’t been able to get my head around though. You have to have a Surety Bond for $10,000 which, for 6 years, will run me about 60 bucks. Ad the two processing fees of 10 each and the notary seal stamp I’m going to have made this is close to a hundred bucks.

I also really want two KEY-BAKs, one fitted with a pen and the other with my stamp. I’ll be so action ready it will make passerby fall over.

In short I don’t have enough money to do this right now. At all. Rent and food are higher priority. This can be a long term goal.

[notary public application � PDF] [notary � wikipediea]

quick sketches

Alex — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 06:31:43 +0000

Two new sketches in Art.

Still trying to set up this sticky Recent Additions thing. Sculpture post by the end of the week.