I intend to update this page quarterly with what I’m studying, practicing, and working on currently. The idea of a now page comes from Derek Sivers.

Family

We lost our loyal and loving Georgia to pancreatitis. She was a rescue and had many difficulties before she came to us—it’s comforting to know we improved her life to some degree. She certainly made life sweeter for us for the past eight years. A black dog with amber eyes and a red collar stands alert on a leaf-covered ground, ears perked and tail raised, amid a park scene with golden autumn foliage and a residential street in the background.

Both kids are driving now, so we actually have some free time. We’ve been using for more exercise (but balancing that out with more tv-watching).

Hobbies

Beer & Brewing

I’m on hiatus at the moment due to a cooling system failure, but repairing it is a high priority, and I’ll likely be brewing more lagers within a few weeks.

My specific interests:

  • Traditional German beer (lagers, Weißbier, Kölsch)
  • Traditional English beer (bitter, mild, porter)
  • Low-oxygen brewing
  • Clarity and foam
  • Decoction & step mashing

I enjoy competing, but my main focus is replicating commercial styles that when tasted transport me back to a place I’ve visited and had that beer.

See my posts on beer.

See my posts on brewing.

Backpacking

I’m part of a large group planning a trip to the Beartooth Mountains in Montana later this summer. As I told a friend, I can think of two things wrong with the name of those mountains.

Me in my hammock

See my posts on backpacking.

Travel

Travel is very important to me and is woven throughout this site so much I don’t have a category for it. Most posts involve travel of one form or another.

Music

After many years of getting rusty, I’ve purchased a Nord Stage 4 Compact and am getting back into keyboard playing. The bulk of my experience is with the piano, but the organ and synth capabilities of this wonderful device have really captured my interest.

Programming

Programming, both at work and in my spare time, takes me to a place where the outside world fades away and I lose track of time. Most of my projects are little tools and web apps written in Python or Javascript, nothing big. Right now I’m working on:

  • This web site, which is made up of static files generated from Markdown by Hugo
  • tiltboard, a very simple web interface for visualizing Tilt app data

See my GitHub site.

Work

I’m working for a medium-sized threat intelligence company doing information security and compliance, topics which I cover more on my other site, pericule.