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All My Junk — In One Place

Homemade….the recipe is in the title.  Figure it out yourself.  It was awesome.  All Holly’s idea.

~Ben

(Shakey) Fast motion video of my 14 mile bike ride to Ruston’s Mitcham Peach Orchard.

Music is 1,000,000 by Nine Inch Nails and McFearless by Kings of Leon.

Blog post on how to make your own bike camera mount at:

http://benwoodall.com/2009/06/diy-bike-camera-mount/

~Ben

So with all the bike riding I do, I thought it only made sense to try to show you all the places I go.  Enter the DIY Bike Camera Mount.  I’m way to cheap (and intelligent) to spend $50 on a store bought camera mount, so I figure I might as well just make my own.  So here’s how it’s done:

What You Need

• reflector mount (I went to our local bike shop, Turbo Goat, and got one for free.)(BTW, Turbo Goat, if ya’ll need a web designer, look me up.  Not saying ya’lls website sucks, but it sucks…)
• 2″ x 1/4″ 20 thread screw
• a nut for the screw
• 1/4″ wing nut
• 1/4″ metal washer
• Two 1/4″ rubber washers

Push the screw through the hole in the reflector mount.  After that, put on a rubber washer and the metal washer.  Tighten it down with the nut.

Throw on the wing nut, upside-down, and then throw another rubber washer on top.

That’s it! Screw your camera down onto it and then position it’s height and horizontal with the wing nut.  Voila!

Here’s the first video I’ve made.  It’s of my 14 mile Peach Orchard trek :

http://benwoodall.com/2009/06/14-mile-peach-orchard-bike-pov-cam/

~Ben

6 months later…here we are. This has been the toughest batch yet.  To start, strawberry seeds aren’t exactly easy to filter out of mash.  And second, sometime last week, my carboy decided to crack and leak about 1/2 a gallon of wine.  Lucky for me, I keep my carboy in the the primary barrel.

So here’s what I’ve learned this time around.

• Clarifying agents are awesome.
• Adding an extra tsp of wine tannin to this batch really brought out it’s color.
• I’m using white wine bottles to bottle this batch.  I recycle used wine bottles, and it seems that for some reason unknown to me, it’s much easier to peel wine labels from white wine bottles than red wine bottles.
• BUY AN AUTO-SYPHONER.
• While the auto-syphoner works well when racking, I still have to manually syphon to bottle.  This means contamination from the mouth.  I’ve found the best way to battle bacteria and such is to drink and gargle vodka before you make the syphon.
• Putting corks in hot water makes it easier to cork the bottles.
• Grow your thumbnails long. This helps to scrape labels off of recycled bottles.  Also, buy lots of steel wool.
• Did I mention drink vodka?  Wait, what was I talking about?

So here it is in all it’s glory.  Count them. 29. 29 BOTTLES OF WINE MWA HA HA HA!   Did I mention vodka? Oh wait…I mean wine.  Strawberry at that.

The only thing I’ve been slacking on is a label.  I’m up for suggestions.  Submit them if you want.  I’ll give you credit.  My photoshop Paintbrush skills are lacking.  If you send me the winning label, I’ll credit you on it and send you a bottle, if the ATTB don’t catch me.

To submit your label ideas, send them to benwoody@gmail.com

Also, I think i’m going to be a big shot and submit this to Diggnation and Wine Library TV….just ’cause I can.

Here’s to you.

Cheers….

~Ben

So this comes from my boss, Kurt, with just a few added ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tuna steak
• Paprika
• Lemon
• Lime
• 4 Garlic cloves
• Soy Sauce
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Wasabi
• Soy-Vay Wasabiyaki
• Talent

For the marinade

Finely chop up the garlic (or just use garlic powder if you’re lazy) and grate some zest from the lemons and lime (again, see above about being lazy).  Squirt like 2 inches of wasabi paste into it and sprinkle in some paprika.  Add, I don’t know, like half a cup of soy sauce and 2 tsp of EEE-VEEE-OH-OH to the mix and leave the tuna steaks in there for a good 20 minutes or so in a zip lock bag.  Be sure to mush it around and shake it like an idiot to coat both steaks thoroughly.

To the Grill

Personally, I like my tuna raw, with slight grill marks on both sides.  Get the grill to around ~250 F and hit both sides for about 3-4 minutes each. Bikity bam son, you’re done.

I can’t stress enough how AWESOME Wasabiyaki is.  Made for a great dipping sauce.  Also, with the left over tuna I had, it made for a nice dressing on my Grilled Tuna Salad the next day.

Have fun.

~Ben

It was bound to happen sooner or later.  A bit surprised they did before my sister did.  Anyways, their antics are now to be found at:

http://debnpaul.blogspot.com/

Happy internet’n Mom and Paul