So it looks like this will be the first post of 2009. I'll try not to let you down.

Where have I been? What have I been up to?
Things are flying by at a pace that's just unbelievable. It's already near the end of February. What have I been doing? Well. Let's see.

Work
Work is good, I'm employed and these days that's by far the most important thing. Regarding work I spent most of January working on another AS3 site. Good stuff, refined a few things from previous projects and am continuing to love being Flash only.

I'm going to have to get some of my work from here up into the portfolio section. I'll put that on my list.

WOW
Sticking with the "W" theme, so have I been playing much? Well lets just say that because of the fact that we seem to get a new CC every other week because some company can't guard their data. I didn't realize that my account wasn't active for a good part of January. So no not playing much WOW these days and you'll see why in a few...

Back to the Gym...
Keeping with the tradition of new years resolutions, we're back to the gym. This is nothing new for us, we're usually very motivated the first few months of the year, right up until we start hitting the weekly BBQs. It's going well so far. Actually I should say that we're sticking with it pretty well, not sure how much of an effect it's having. It will pay off eventually...I hope.

Guitars
In the basement getting dusty.

Music
Started listening to a cool band Kataklysm. Picked up "In the Arms of Devastation", "Prevail" and "Shadows and Dust" from iTunes. Good stuff. Otherwise I'm just letting my iPod play on shuffle. Also have a strange fascination with the song from Devildriver - "I Dream I Died" not sure why, just a great track.

Other
Picked up pauluscreative.com, just because, not sure how it's going to fit in with the current domains or if I really needed it. I guess it's the curse of cheap domains from goDaddy.com.

iPod Touch
Did I mention I picked up an iPod Touch? Oh well no one reads this anyway. Seriously wish I would have just ditched Sprint and went for the iPhone. This thing is amazing, a great replacement for my 3rd gen iPod that had to be hard reset every week. A few nit-picky little things but overall well worth the investment. Plus it opens up a whole new line of technology that I need to dabble with.

My favorite apps:
TapDefense - Seriously addicting Tower Defense game ( I just can't seem to beat medium )
Lose It - Going with the gym theme really great way to keep track of calories
iFitness - Decent workout app, updated really frequently, not too heavy of a download and pretty flexible and worth the $2
MySpace and Facebook - I actually check these now
Hero of Sparta - amazing game, should really play it more.

gotta run, see you in a few months...

I'm looking at this site, cause I'm bored. I'm realizing that it's old, outdated but it's working, easy (enough) to update (it's a blog).

Do I design and build a new site?
Sure I should. It's a pretty low priority since I've got a dozen other projects I should be dealing with, but it still needs to be done.

Cracking the code I see that, with the help of Moveable type, the HTML is fairly well organized and table-less. It should help to restyle the site.

I think many of the categories are still valid. I may drop a few or add a few but in general they seem relevant.

Do I go flash?
Since I'm so focused on Flash development these days, do I go flash? I'm thinking not. Then again who knows. I guess technology will come out of what I come up with for a design.

Do I give in and go with the latest modern site designs ideas?
This site was designed when everything had rounded corners, gradients, gel buttons and reflections. Strange, that's pretty much what's still in style. Hmm...Oh well. again I'll have to see what comes out of that blank Photoshop file when I get started.

Anyway, babbling a bit today, nothing is really kicking off until next week and I'm not feeling particularly motivated today.

So it took all of about 5 minutes to increase the width of this site. Sure some of the graphics are actually repeating instead of being a nice full width but in general I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. It only took 4+ months for me to do.

It's that time again. Christmas is right around the corner and tradition states that it's time to brew. This year I've once again stayed with Beer-Wine.com (Beer & Wine Hobby) recipes:

• Celtic Red Ale
• German Wheat

I brewed Saturday, November 29, 2008. I had a beautiful day for November. I had the first batch (Celtic Red) boiling by 9a.m and was finished and had both batches pitched by 4p.m.

I think both batches seemed to go off without too much of an issue. I think that I've really got my process down. One thing I need to concentrate on though is cleaning and sanitizing. I've been pretty successful with both up to this point but as I'm listening to the Basic Brewing Podcast I'm finding that there's places I can fix a few things. One episode that I listened to talked about the proper amount of BTF sanitizer to use. I'm so glad I listened and can't wait to apply what I heard.

One thing I want to look into is that the recipes for both of these batches had different processes than what I've done in the past. Neither used the standard "steep grains for 30 min, add extracts, bring to a boil and start hop additions" that I'm used to. The red had me steeping the grains along with the first hop addition, removing the grains, boiling, then adding the extracts during the last 15 minutes of the boil. The wheat actually had me boil the wheat grains for the first X amount of time. This one I'm most concerned about, this just seems very strange. Anyway I'll see what happens.

Happy brewing...