1. http://www.beeratjoes.com/index.php/beer-dinners/spent-grain-beer-bread/
2. http://www.realbeer.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=11228
3. http://www.instructables.com/id/Etched-Copper-Board-Valentines-Day-art-wLEDs/#step0
4. http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=152
5. http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=pe_77460_18793460_pe_09/?ie=UTF8&rh=n:1055398,n:!13900811,n:!1063496,n:331401011,n:284507,p_6:ATVPDKIKX0DER,n:13162311,n:13217501,n:13217701&page=1&bbn=331401011
6. http://www.jagjaguwar.com/home.php
7. http://chicago2011.drupal.org/tickets-and-registration
8. http://bamfestpdx.com/schedule.html
9. http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=C6900
10. http://www.workbenchdesign.net/walkaround/walkaround.html
11. http://www.workbenchdesign.net/
12. http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/toolstoolkits.aspx
13. http://www.closegrain.com/2010/08/portable-workbench.html
14. http://www.instructables.com/id/Stop-using-Ferric-Chloride-etchant!–A-better-etc/?ALLSTEPS
15. http://www.redwallprints.com/Services.php

Trading days for nights and sleep for sounds, dreams become truths and breath becomes wind that moves my skin to a new understanding of what it means to be alive. So I lay, in bed, alone, and daydream until daybreak brings a physical dream-state.

Rays of daylight pound rooftop snowpiles into veins whose courses cascade down the panes of my windows. The light casts the shadows of water across my body, flushing, cleansing, without touching, far from my skin.

Mostly, it’s because I have learned, experienced, and accomplished more things recently than during any other time since childhood. In fact, it often reminds me of that period of my life: constant discovery, invention, failure, and recovery. Never, though, has my learning been in such a different area of knowledge: mostly farm related. I have also learned a lot more about food, programming, and design (three things I love, but already knew a lot about).

To give you a taste of my current life, here’s what I did over the past 2 days:

1. Tweaked the Barn Dance poster
2. Cooked a big pot of really delicious soup
3. Weeded a 300-foot bed of carrots, three rows deep
4. Integrated a client website with several social media plugins, including a language switching feature (between English and Arabic)
5. Read a book, the subject of which I am not allowed to disclose
6. Helped dig a 11′x12′ hole for the foundation of a wood-fired brick oven that we’re building over the next several weeks, pictures to come (the plans for which I modified to make a 3′x4′ cooking area)
7. Wrote an article for the farm newsletter, entitled “Who’s the Sauce?” (hint: not Tony Danza)
8. Learned a new song on guitar (Home, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes)

Since moving here, I’ve also:

1. Driven a tractor
2. Produced maple syrup, from tapping trees to cooking down
3. Learned to drive stick shift
4. Built websites for several clients, with more lining up
5. Learned Drupal enough to build high-end, custom website templates and integrate modules
6. Become proficient with jQuery
7. Cooked for 50 people (with a little help from my friends)
8. Learned an incredible amount about organic and sustainable farming
9. Learned to run quickly through the woods
10. perfected my bread recipe
11. handled bees
12. pulled ticks off a dog
13. chased pigs and cows back to their pastures
14. picked raspberries
15. cooked meals with freshly picked produce
16. learned to become part of someone else’s family
17. helped with wine-making
18. harvested wild ramps from the woods
19. loaded hay into the barn
20. learned how to fingerpick on guitar
21. made nearly 2 gallons of raspberry jam
22. greatly improved my ping pong and pool skills
23. learned more about state and local politics than I ever expected to
24. hung out with a toddler, witnessed him seamlessly attach an initial fricative to the rest of a word which he previously pronounced in a toddler-variety of English.
25. butchered chickens

I’m sure there’s more that I’ve forgotten, and even more to come.

Well, it’s about Tyme.

As I write this, I’m laying in bed with my girlfriend. Naturally, I am building a database and naturally and she is watching Private Practice. It’s her guilty pleasure – a stress relieving wind-down before bed. All of the sudden I hear a familiar voice – the voice of Mark Sloan. Yes, Mark Sloan of Grey’s Anatomy fame. Now, I know what you must be thinking. You recognize his voice? What a doofus.

But, yes. Yes I do recognize his voice. You know why? Because. Because there have been many nights that while I was working, she was watching Grey’s anatomy – enough so that I’ve loosely become familiar with the shows.

So fuck me in the ear: what the fuck is Sloan (McSteamy that is, not his daughter – whose first name is Sloan but last name is Riley) doing on Private Practice? I shit a brick. A huge brick. I turn and ask, “Why is McSteamy on Private Practice? That is his nickname, right? And the other one is McDreamy?” She tells me I’m right, after which I pull open the elastic of the oversized women’s basketball sweatpants I’m wearing and vomit into my underwear.

Fake doctor shows have cross-over episodes. Holy fuck. What is the world coming to? I’d rather vomit on my balls than deal with this nightmare.

So, I write this, and relocate to the dining room table.