Away we go

Okay, I've done it. All of you people who have been on LiveJournal for half a decade and who live your lives there and who always looked at me funny and said, "you aren't on LJ?" -- now I am. Dragged, kicking and screaming, to be sure, but here I am.

Being the person I am, I spent most of an hour tweaking what settings I have access to... I think the only major peeve I have is the lack of a background image. Everything else I've seen so far is reasonable, in terms of controls and level of customization. The color picker seems not to understand what "red: 0" means, but that's what hex is for...

I'll still update my website from time to time, though I'll need to give some thought about how I want to handle The Barefoot Gardener; my first impulse is to leave it where it is and simply link to it, and that may be the best solution. The Mono, however, will be archived and a link supplied to here.

Sigh. Weird, to be sure, and I'm still a little uneasy about joining the trendy mass-produced blogosphere that eats people, but I expect I'll settle into it.

(Still: cadhla, firestrike, and knaveofhearts, this is all your fault.)

Brrrrrrrrrrrr

This doesn't feel like California. It's too cold.

The root beer has been sitting in a corner of what is normally one of the warmest rooms in the house... it's been sitting at room temp for three days without carbonating any more at all. Normally after three days, total, it's about ready to bite your head off... this stuff is at eight days and counting, has weak carbonation, and is cold enough at room temp to stop the yeast. Which is good, I suppose -- except that I want a tad more fizz than we have at the moment. Maybe it's time to play with heat mats...

That's the last time I use old yeast for a batch. I'm not sure it'll ever populate quite enough.

It's not just the beer, either... I've been freezing for days. We've had highs in the high 50's, lows around 40, and with a drafty uninsulated house with the heat turned off during the day... well. I like heat better than cold anyway, so I tend to be more comfortable in the summer than winter. But this is insane. It's not the biting cold of the north, but up there they have double-glazing and insulation and heat. 55 in your living quarters is always uncomfortable, whatever the temperature is outside.

So I'm wearing a sweatshirt, sweatpants, jeans, and gloves, which makes it tolerable; I should probably go upstairs and fetch my thick wool socks. Nick would call me lizard and cold-blooded, and I'm not currently in a position to argue.

I'm sure I'll feel my toes again eventually.