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I have always enjoyed beer, especially drinking it! Who doesn’t, right? As I got older I started to develop a curiosity for brewing and thought that I could possibly brew my own beer but wasn’t quite sure where to start. Well, after seeing a deal on Woot for a Mr. Beer Premium Beer Kit for $19.99 I decided that I had to at least try it for that price. In fact, I bought three because I figured I could give them as gifts or sell them to some of my buddies.

According to the Mr. Beer website, the Premium Edition beer kit comes with everything you need to brew/bottle 1 batch of great tasting beer. Doing a quick search and you get reviews from people on both sides of the fence. On one side you have your beer snobs and on the other you have your newbies (like me). The simple fact is that since I purchased the kit about a month ago I have learned more about beer than I could have imagined. Also, many people (beer snobs included) have stated that this very introductory beer kit is capable of making some pretty good beer with some minor tweaks.

After waiting for a couple weeks for my kit to come in the mail, I finally made my first batch of beer. Included with the Premium Edition kit is the West Coast Pale Ale ingredients and instructions. I have followed the instructions and now have my first batch of beer fermenting. Of course it states that you can have beer in as little as fourteen days, but after reviewing a couple forums the basic process involves 2-2-2. This equates to two weeks in the fermentor, two weeks carbonating and two weeks conditioning. Of course, the more ingredients in your beer, the longer you should allow for fermentation and conditioning.

Surprisingly, there are plenty of websites out there for all your beer questions you may have regarding Mr. Beer or home brewing in general. Here are a couple that I found helpful:

• Mr. Beer Community
• Mr. Beer Fans
• Mr. Beer Yahoo Group
• Beeradvocate

I have actually decided to buy a second fermentor and several refill kits to include the Whispering Wheat Weizenbier, Sticky Wicket Oatmeal Stout, and Wicked Monk. It looks like I will have a new batch brewing for the next six months and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. Hopefully, after learning enough about the brewing process I can get a more advanced home brewing kit to step my game up.

Stay tuned for an update on my first batch made with Mr. Beer, West Coast Pale Ale.

The weather calmed down long enough for us to take Connor out to really enjoy all that fresh powder. Here are some pictures from his snow day.

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Every year since I picked up a camera and started taking pictures in 2008 I have done a “best of” post recapping some of my favorite shots of the year. This year has been extremely busy with school and watching my son, Connor grow up.

Needless to say, I have not had the opportunity to take pictures as much as I would have liked. After reviewing my flickr account I noticed that many of my photos that were voted “most interesting” were from 08′ & 09′. Hopefully this is not a sign that my photography is going stagnant. I think this year will be a chance for me to really explore new techniques and really grow as a photographer. Because its difficult for me to choose my top ten images from this year, I decided that I would make a collection, with the help of Scout of my seventy-two most interesting photos since starting in 2008 as well as handful from this year that I really enjoy.

Because most of my photos were taken of our son Connor, I thought I would share a couple of those along with my most interesting from flickr.com.

If you want to see the original images, here are the links:

1. Another view of Cape Zanpa Lighthouse, 2. Real Fan2, 3. Roman statue, 4. Dolphin hug, 5. Stuck in traffic, 6. 31 Weeks, 7. Naha Tug of War, 8. Tokyo Stylin, 9. The lonely shell, 10. Bird Bath, 11. Waiting for the game, 12. Royal Procession beauty, 13. Royal Procession, 14. Just Hanging Around, 15. Oki Hut, 16. Araha Hands, 17. Mihama Soccer – Feb 2009, 18. Sunabe Marilyn Monroe, 19. In the dark, 20. It takes two, 21. Sunset beach, 22. We got a floater, 23. My first Strobist shot, 24. Futenma Shrine, 25. Enjoy the little things, 26. Zakimi Castle, 27. Ikei father and son, 28. You play ball like a girl, 29. Batter Up, 30. Dont play with fire, 31. Cape Maeda at Night, 32. Cambridge – April 2010-7, 33. Got Ya!, 34. Oxford-31, 35. Katsuren Castle, 36. Salisbury Cathedral Water, 37. Kannon temple, 38. Nago Sakura, 39. Beautiful Brill Windmill, 40. Salisbury Cathedral Ceiling, 41. Maeda Tourist, 42. Taking a Break, 43. Angry face, 44. Oxford – August 2010-14, 45. USS Missouri, 46. Brugge – September 2010, 47. Wannabe Rockstar, 48. Futenma ShiSha, 49. Sunny Days, 50. Instant Classic, 51. Let me hear you honk it, 52. 31 Weeks, 53. Beef Stew Bokeh, 54. fcuk, 55. Brill Windmill 2010-2, 56. Tuna Auction, 57. The Big Tuna, 58. This is how we roll, 59. Field of Dreams, 60. Shuri Castle entrance, 61. Shi Shi dog, 62. Tokyo night, 63. Cambridge – June 2010, 64. Niagara Whirpool, 65. Connor-45, 66. Boarstall Tower-5, 67. Tuna on Ice, 68. Hide and Seek, 69. She loves the wine, 70. Looking up at papa, 71. Shibuya Alley, 72. ikei man

Here are a couple of my personal favorites from 2010

Another year has come and gone and its that time again to celebrate Christmas and spend time with family and friends. This year Brittany and I decided to do something that we have been meaning to do for the last couple of years and buy an ugly sweater. We got ours from uglysweaterstore.com. To be honest, I was surprised how fast they were able to get the sweater shipped out to us.

To top things off we decided that we would start one of those traditions involving taking a picture in hideous sweaters. I think this is the beginning of a ridiculously awesome tradition that Connor is going to hate in a couple years. Man its great being a parent! Anyways, here are some of our pictures.

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Its getting close to Christmas so I thought I would post a great gift idea for all those camera lovers out there. DISCLAIMER: All you Canon fanboys can get your Canon mugs at the same website, so don’t worry!

There are a couple versions of Nikkor coffee mug but I decided to pick up the NIKON NIKKOR AF-S 24-70mm Lens 1:1 Coffee Cup Mug from 100milligrams.com.

The mug came in an authentic looking Nikon box wrapped in a Nikon bag. I was quite surprised with the amount of detail and thought that for $20 it was a pretty good deal. You can also find it here for a little less than $20.

I haven’t used mine yet, but it can be used for both hot and cold beverages. Here are some pictures:

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Pretty cool video

This is going to be Connors first Halloween so we decided to pick up three pumpkins and have stage a little pumpkin carving competition at the house. Connor was so holding on to the sharp knife so we let him paint his pumpkin…haha. I think Connor didn’t quite get the purpose of the paint at first so he decided that he would just eat it instead. Eventually he figured things out and went crazy on his pumpkin for about ten minutes straight. As you might have guessed, he was covered in paint by the end of the experience.

I had plans to combine a couple of designs on one pumpkin but I got tired and decided to have a glass of scotch instead. Now if I could only get my hands on some good pumpkin ale.

Enough about beer, here are some of the pictures from our fun night.

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Here are some pictures of the monkey man at 9 months.

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