Idiomatic Expression

Over the past three weeks I have been working with Virginia Commerce Bank to refinance our house. We were able to take advantage of the new conforming loan rate and the increase in value of our house to get into a 30 year fixed-rate primary loan and a small 15 year fixed-rate secondary loan.

This is the second time that I have used Virginia Commerce Bank, at Mike’s recommendation, both times the process has been relatively painless I worked with the same person both times and surprisingly he remembered me when I called him earlier in the month. I didn’t think a lot about this until I started talking to some of my friends and everyone else had complaints about their mortgage application process including their mortgage brokers forgetting their names (in the midst of the financing process), forgetting what paper work had been submitted, losing paper work, and screwing them with undisclosed closing costs. At both of my closings, conservative estimates were made, and we ended up walking out having paid slightly less than estimated in closing costs.

If you are buying or refinancing a home, I would definitely suggest giving Virginia Commerce Bank a call.

We used Synergy Title & Escrow this time, and the person assisting us wasn’t very professional or knowledgeable, but they did successfully transmit the funds to the appropriate places.

Lets all take a moment to remember Margaret Elizabeth Taylor who died on November ninth of 2005, leaving her entire estate to pay off the National Debt! Maybe it will start a trend for those that are ashamed of the mess they are leaving for future generations of Americans.

Do you have a bottle in need of capping? Just let me know and I will be right over to cap it for you. Of course I don’t have any new bottle caps, so you will need to provide your own. I picked this up from ebay for ten bucks plus shipping. This is my first piece of equipment for my home brew set up. Now if someone would only buy me something like this, I would be all set. Although I might be hard pressed to keep up with the capping on that one, perhaps this would be more my speed. And don’t be a spoil sport, I know that I don’t need such complicated equipment to make good beer, I can dream can’t I?

On the home front, the Hefeweizen that Katherine made is fizzy and ready to drink. The IPA that I made is fizzy, but could do with another week or so in the bottle for the beer to absorb the CO2 and for the hops to mellow out a bit. I am still amazed that we turned water, grains, yeast, and some flowers into beer.

It is the second week of the 2006, so time to get around to publicly making some New Year’s resolutions.

• Make more timely blog entries. The fact that this entry is eleven days late is probably a bad sign there.
• Be better at keeping in contact with friends and family. This is one that I make every year, and every year I fail miserably. If you don’t hear from me very often, hopefully it will make you feel slightly better that no one hears from me very often.
• Find a hobby; I need something to concentrate on outside of work and home improvement projects. The front runner is home brewing, but like many of the hobbies that have failed to hold my interest in the past, brewing has a relatively steep entry price.
• Live healthier; Less cookies, less chips, less fried food, more whole grains, more exercise, and an attempt at remembering to take my vitamins. Hopefully the previously mentioned resolution to find a hobby won’t impact this one too much.
• Write more; both on this blog, and starting on other writing projects.
• Waste less time; If I am going to do all of this crap, the time has to come from somewhere.

Way back on NYE (aka December 31st), Chris, James, Katherine, and I went back up to the Flying Barrel to bottle our newly created beer. Bottling is a relatively simple proces which involves transfering the beer from the fermenting bucket to the bottling bucket with a racking cane. Then the final specific gravity is measured, and a simple formula is used to compute the alcohol content of each beer.

Alcohol percentage by weight equals 76.08 times Original Gravity minus Final Gravity divided by 1.775 minus Original Gravity. It is easier to scribble this down: ABW = 76.08(OG-FG)/(1.775-OG).

The results are:
James’ Guiness-like Stout 4%
Chris’ Mocha Stout 6.1%
Katherine’s Hefeweizen 5.3%
Randy’s Extra Hoppy Pale Ale 7.3%

Once the once you know how many of each beers you need to get your buzz on, you add a bit of corn sugar to the bottling bucket, fill each bottle and cap them. Then the last step is to wait, then wait a bit more, and then wait even more. One week after bottling we still have more waiting until the beer is fully carbonated and ready to drink.

Katherine and I bought some 3/4 inch round sticker to label each of our beers, hers have paw prints, mine have flowers (for the hops!). Now once they hit the fridge we will know which beer we are about to drink.

I got tired of waiting and sampled one of Katherine’s beer. It is good, but will be better in another two weeks.

Does anyone out there have a decent picture of Katherine and Me? I don’t seem to have anything more recent than the wedding without at least one of our eyes closed.