Sorry Bill. I'm still around, but haven't had much time to log onto the WCG site recently. I served up the lager I talked about last time during a sailing trip in August from a mini-keg and it was enjoyed. Most of the rest of the batch is now in a regular 5 gal. keg ready to go once I finish the last two glasses in another keg in the fridge!
Just like our team ranking I see my overall rank has been slowly slipping as people pass me by. These new long run time projects seem to drop my point output quite a bit. I might be getting another system at home before the end of the year to use either as a Media Center or Home Server. Maybe that will help.

Dave

An absolute waste; ohhh ... the horror. I hope their PC gets a hangover.

Not much happening re brewing on this end. I'm anxiously awaiting the release of the beta version of the redesigned BeerToolsPro software; I'm on the 'Alpha' testing team, so I'll get to play with it before it's released.

Two days ago I found a vial of yeast for California Common that I bought about 5 or 6 months ago, and decided I'd better do SOMETHING with it before it gets too old, since I'm not ready to brew right now. I prepared a fairly low gravity solution with some yeast nutrient added, and have been trying to step it up into a starter. I use the 'shake a bottle' method, but there has been very little gassing of CO2 for the past two days -- expecially the first day when there was NONE. At least I'm getting a LITTLE bit now, which is a sign that either some of the yeast survived, or I have an intruder. I'll keep playing with it for a few days or a week, and hopefully I can revive it.

I did notice that our team has slipped another notch -- now down to #80. The good news is that we are going to pass 97 years tonight.

If any of our members post occasionally in any brewing forums, I hope you are adding to your signature (if you are not already using it for another link) a link to either our team page (thanks to Fred) or to my webpage for our team. Whenever I post in brewing forums, this is my signature block:

Bill Velek - PERSONAL sites = www.velek.com & www.2plus2is4.com
700+ homebrewer group just for Equipment: www.tinyurl.com/axuol
330+ just for Growing Hops/Herbs/Grains: www.tinyurl.com/3au2uv
NEW group just for Homebrewing Supplies: www.tinyurl.com/2wnang
Join 'Homebrewers' to Help Cure Disease: www.tinyurl.com/yjlnyv

I know it's big, but there is some great stuff there for homebrewers and also to promote grid computing and our team.

Nice to hear from folks again. What's happened to Fred?

Cheers.

Bill Velek

Hi, Johnny Cool. Thanks for dropping by for a visit. I see your team has made it all the way to #52; congratulations. Homebrewers seem to be more interested in brewing these days; our performance has really dropped off and we've dropped from #66 down to #81.

That's right, team; we've dropped another place again.

Nevertheless, keep up the good work and maybe we'll manage to stay in the top-half percent until our 2-year birthday in November. Unfortunately, there are a number of teams gaining on us fast enough that that's unlikely. We need help; please post in brewing forums about our group. I'm going to run a post in the three usenet brewing groups as soon as I finish this post. You all can help by also visiting those groups and adding your two-cents to endorse the safety and worthiness of this program. Thanks.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

Just though I'd add my annual post. :0)

Hi, Cooldaddy and 7Cures. I had just about given up on anything else being posted in our team thread. I mean, it has absolutely died. I don't know what happened to our Captain Fred; I don't think he has surfaced in quite a while.

Regarding crunching, our team has slipped a bit lately, despite my recent effort to recruit; I think my posts in about 20 different brewing forums netted one new member (maybe it was two?). Anyway, I don't know what to do next. The good news is that _tonight_ we will complete our first CENTURY of crunching. Our 2nd anniversary is in about 6 weeks, but not enough activity to set any real goals; I'd just like for us to be able to remain in the top half percent (which we should easily do) ... and continue to hold that until the end of the year (that will be closer).

Regarding brewing, this is a great time of year to do it, but I'm all out of grain right now until I have a chance to pick some up in Little Rock some time in the next week. But I just bottled 10 gallons a couple of days ago.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers.

Bill Velek