Author: Lowell

Bottles, Bottles, and More Bottles

Saturday was bottling day. After making a quick run to the store to buy some bottles and corks and rent a corker and filter, it was time to take the wine out of the carboy and put it into bottles for long term storage.

After rinsing about 30 bottles with a sanitizer, we were ready to begin.

We ran into a bit of a snag right away because I couldn’t seem to get the pump on the electric filter primed. After working at it for a bit, I decided that the wine would be fine without being filtered and so we moved it from the carboy into the pail, leaving most of the sludge behind in the carboy. Everyone wanted to have a look as the siphoning was going on. Hopefully no hair found its way into the wine.

Then it was time to put it into bottles and cork them. Everyone got a turn loading the corks and pulling on the handle.

There was a little sampling involved in the process—not by any of the junior winemakers, of course. The jury is still out on the finished product. It will be interesting to see how the taste profile of the wine changes as time goes on.

Winemaking 101

As some of you know, Pam gave me some winemaking equipment for Christmas. About a week ago, I disinfected the equipment, filtered about 20 litres of water with our Brita, and added it, along with about 8 litres of juice concentrate, some yeast, some oak chips, and other goodies to my “primary fermenter” (i.e., a large 7-gallon food-grade plastic pail). Since the “must” (i.e., the juice mixture) needs to be at a comfortable temperature in order for the yeast to do its work, I set the pail in L and K’s bedroom—they have a heater in their room so it doesn’t get as cold at night. It wasn’t long before the entire upper floor of our house smelled like a winery. The must starts out heavier than water and ultimately, when the yeast has stopped converting sugar to alcohol, ends up lighter than water. Yesterday I tested the wine with my hydrometer and its specific gravity was in the appropriate range to be “racked” into my “secondary fermenter” (i.e., the large clear-plastic jug). So that’s what we did.

L was fascinated by the siphoning process and I had to explain to him how the liquid could continue to flow through the hose even though nothing was pumping it. It’s too early to tell if the end result will be drinkable, but we’re hoping. Does anybody have some empty wine bottles lying around? I’m eventually going to need about 30 of them, and although I’ve already taken some from our neighbours’ recycling bins, I’m a little reticent to be seen poking through my neighbours’ garbage.

How Do You Like My Chances?

I received the following email today

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in the Tulane Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Positions in the Humanities. We have received over 500 applications for our 2-3 postdoctoral fellowship positions.

The Mellon Committee will review the applications and will determine a short list by the end of January 2012. We expect to have a final list by the middle of Feburary. We will contact you if we have questions.

Sincerely,

***** ******

The List

Knowing that some of you may be curious, here’s the list of places I’ve submitted job applications to. (I’ll add to it as I send more packets away.) Sorry, not many of the places are close by.
  • Western New England University (Springfield, Massachusetts—yes, the place where Pam worked while we were living there)
  • University of Missouri–Saint Louis
  • Cane College (New Hampshire)
  • Augustana College (Sioux Falls, South Dakota)
  • Winona State University (Minnesota)
  • York University (Toronto, Ontario)
  • Yonsei University (Seoul, South Korea)
  • Virginia Military Institute
  • University of Denver
  • University of St. Thomas (Minnesota)
  • Florida Gulf Coast University
  • Union College (New York)
  • University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario)
  • Howard University (Washington, D.C.)
  • Trinity College (Connecticut)
  • Auburn University (Auburn, Alabama)
  • Illinois State University
  • Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, Massachusetts)
  • Duke University (Durham, North Carolina)
  • University of Memphis
  • Tennessee Tech University
  • The College of William and Mary (Virginia)
  • College of Charleston (South Carolina)
  • California State University, San Bernardino
  • University of Antwerp (Belgium)
  • Neumann University (Pennsylvania)
  • University of New England (Maine)
  • Lingnan University (Hong Kong)
  • Pacific University (Oregon)
  • Kansas State University
  • State University of New York, Potsdam
  • University of Tennessee, Knoxville
  • Marquette University (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
  • Emory & Henry College (Virginia)
  • University of Connecticut
  • West Virginia University
  • Saint Anselm College (New Hampshire)
  • Manchester College (Indiana)
  • University of Tennessee, Martin
  • University of Hawaii at Hilo
  • University of Mississippi
  • University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
  • Loyola University (Chicago, Illinois)
  • Tulane University (New Orleans, Louisiana)
  • Arkansas State University
  • Borough of Manhattan Community College (New York)
  • Anna Maria College (Massachusetts)
  • Elmhurst College (Chicago, Illinois)
  • Southern Connecticut State University
  • Delta College (Michigan)
  • University of Michigan-Dearborn
  • Sacred Heart University (Connecticut)
  • Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Indiana)

Fire at L’s School

I just got off the phone with L’s Kindergarten teacher. She called to inform us that there had been a fire at L’s school this afternoon and that there would be no school tomorrow and, perhaps, also not on Friday. This was news to us! L has been battling a cold and he had a particularly restless night, so he didn’t go to school today. And apparently, we don’t keep on top of the news very much—the story is here—or else we would have heard about it in that way. I guess we live in a bit of a bubble.

Pam and I commented on how many fire drills we had been a part of in the years we were in school and never (thankfully) had to do it for real. L has been in school a mere month—he probably doesn’t even know what a fire drill is—and, had be been in school, he would have been fleeing a real fire.

Tinkertown

On Friday, we went to spend some time (and money!) at Tinkertown together with cousins L, C, and T. L looked a little worried when we arrived. The rides all looked “too fast” for him. He quickly found out that the small cars were just his thing. K went along without a fuss, but it took her a while to become confident that nothing bad was going to happen to her.

The adults had to hold on to the small people on the merry-go-round. We’re not sure who got more dizzy on the ride, the adults or the kids. K wasn’t really a fan. She wanted to go down.

I suggested to L, not thinking that he would be up for it, that we should check out the roller coaster. To my great surprise, he was enthusiastic. I guess he had had enough time to get comfortable with the place. I expected him to change his mind when we had our first go-round, but I think the roller coaster turned out to be his favourite ride.
We ended the evening by going on the ferris wheel together. I think the experience may have changed K forever. She was definitely not a fan. Every time we came over the top, she cringed and cried. Then later, between 4 and 6 AM, she had nightmares. We’re hoping the emotional scars aren’t very big ones.

Chicken Pox

This is what L looked like after his bath yesterday, and K woke up this morning not feeling very well.


When we first noticed the spots appearing, Pam and I thought they were mosquito bites–we had just come back from a weekend of camping. But then we noticed that the spots were appearing in L’s armpits and on his upper thighs, not places where you typically get mosquito bites. Then we started putting two and two together. “Cousin” M came over for a visit a while back shortly after he was exposed to Chicken Pox. Does L have CP? It sure looks like it.

But he can’t have CP. He was immunized against it. One of the things about being born in Massachusetts is that you are required to be immunized for certain things, one of which is Chicken Pox. Pam and I thought it was unnecessary, but we didn’t really have a choice; certain things were required by law and some things just came with the particular vaccine that is given to children there. Anyway, L and K were supposedly immunized for CP. He hasn’t complained at all about not feeling well, so maybe he has enough immunity to avoid feeling ill, but not enough to prevent all symptoms.