Thanksgiving in Arizona

The Corcoran family is in Arizona for Thanksgiving. Its been awhile since I've been here and its been a lot of fun. We rolled in to the valley at about 8:30 Sunday night and have spent the last few days hanging around the house with family. We've headed out a few times to go shopping for lucky folks at home, and last night was a nice get together. I got to see some of the guys that I haven't seen in 9 years! Hard to believe that its been that long, but everyone is happy and healthy.

Noah is having so much fun with his cousin Dylan. They are playing so much that I hardly even see him!


Its Thanksgiving morning and the kitchen is already bustling with activity so I have to keep this short or I'll get pulled into helping.

Fall Updates

The Corcoran families will be traveling to Arizona for Thanksgiving. Not too excited about the 2 day car trip, but can't wait to see family that I haven't seen in a few years, not to mention visit a few of the great breweries down there.

Over the summer, the family went camping. It was a lot of fun, but on the second to last day I slipped and fell into the river off of a big rock that I had climbed up to take photos. Of course, I had the BRAND NEW camera in my hand as I slid into the cold river. As soon as I popped up I turned off the camera but it was already too late...

Flash forward about 4 weeks. I had taken the camera and opened it up as much as I could to let it dry out, hoping against hope that it would still work, well it didn't. A few days later I was about to toss it out, but decided against all odds to try turning it on one more time. I tossed in some fresh batteries, turned on the camera and TOOK A PICTURE!! w00t it WORKS! Bet you can't tell how excited I was that my brand new camera had survived a fall into the river.

School starts, someone turns 30, and the beer is good.

School started for the kids and you know what that means. Back to school shopping, homework, enforced bedtimes, all sorts of fun! Kay-la has opted into the G.E.D. program and is already ready to test on 4 of 6 subjects. Noah is starting to really take off with his reading skills. He's found that he can read books all on his own if he just pays close attention to what the words REALLY are.

My 30th bday just passed and it was a BLAST! We had a number of folks over to help me celebrate and the party went into the wee morning hours. Thankfully we warned the neighbors and let them know that if we were too loud we would like them to let us know....not that we where loud, but we did go pretty late!

Late Summer Camping Trip

The Corcoran Family and friends went camping last weekend and here is a shot of the waterfalls that were just down the way from our camp site. This was one of the best trips we've made. Though smoky for the first few days, the last two cleared up nicely. Starry skies at night, crystal clear water during the day, it was almost paradise.

Its very strange, when camping, Ted is very energetic and excited about everything. All day he wants to explore, river walk, run around, go swimming...he never stops. Noah on the other hand was content to do what ever Dad was doing. We swam a lot in the river, explored the little fern gullies, slide down the rock slide, or just hung around the camp fire. The girls were mainly content just sitting in the river and relaxing.

A few guests showed up over the four day camping trip. Matty showed up both Saturday and Sunday. Chris and Tiff came out Saturday night for a few hours, and Bryan and Scandal came out Saturday and stayed through Sunday.

This spot is a great location. Just over the CA border its usually pretty quite. This time though there were people all over the place. This didn't really ruin any of our fun, we just had to be a bit more respectful of others. What really upset me though was all the trash these temporary neighbors left behind. I'm not talking about one or two beer bottles, I'm talking 4 or 5 days worth of trash, bottles, bags, broken items...most of it not even bagged up!

4th of July weekend White Water Rafting Picutes

We went white water rafting on the Rouge River through Noah's Rafting Adventures and WOW it was fun. We went on the Hay's Fall/Powerhouse Dam stretch. The dam was in the process of being removed and would have been completely gone the following week so we were some of the last rafters to go over the dam. Anyways, there are a few pic of us going over Hay's falls.

Whoops! Forgot the bday gift post...

Birthday wish list:

Video games:

Spore
Rockband 3

Books:

Radical Brewing
Classic Style series (any)
Brew Chem 101
Principles of Brewing Science

Beer equipment

Faucet locks (2)
Bonnet Angler
Tap handles
Aeration system
Kegs
Counter Pressure bottle filler
Eirlimier Flask 1000mL
Beer glasses and misc merchandise (shirts)

Gift Certificates and Misc

Itunes, MoreBeer.com, Amazon.com, American Homebrew Assoc. Membership, Barnes and Noble, Beer of the month club,

Several Updates rolled into one!

We bought a new camera so expect to see quite a few more photos soon!

T.e.d.'s 30th bday is coming up soon and we'll be holding a Hancock and balls party. Basically its a go watch Hancock (new Will Smith superhero movie) and then finish out the night bowling at lava lanes.

My 30th is coming up in a few months, still not sure what to do to celebrate that, but it'll be themed Beer:30.

Front yard finally got all the weeds pull, now its time to lay down new top soil and build up. The somewhat final concept is "xeriscaping" or "no grass and hearty plants". Really looking forward to that.

Shannon is planning on moving to Portland in Sept., Kay-la is headed to Job Corp in (Likely) late summer, noah isn't back until 4 weeks, I head off to the O.B.F. in 3.5 weeks

Jenn is still wondering where her Kitchen Aide is and she is going to have to keep wondering for awhile, since there isn't another good gift giving holiday until Halloween.... "Trick or Treat"....(kerplunk)..."Gee thanks!"

Lastly, the weather is kinda tough today. Lots of dry lightening over the week has spark over a thousand wild fires in N. CA and all the smoke is drifting north in to the valley here. So, its very hazy today.

I'm a monkey

Corcoran Family Summer schedule

With summer almost here its time to start planning our summer vacations. Noah will be gone between June 21st and late July. Kay-la is heading off to Job Corps soon up in Seattle. So, that means that we have some time this summer to go camping, or day tripping. If you are coming into town this summer, or taking a vacation let me know so that we might be able to meet up.


Jenn is working in a new positon and won't be able to take vacation until this fall so that rules out anything longer then a weekend for her, but I plan to attend the Oregon Beer Fest in late July in Portland. We are also working on a weekend coast trip.

Taking MCSA classes at RCC

Today is day 3 of a 5 day course for my first MCSA class. Deploying and Managing Windows XP....umm, thats what I do at work..... Needless to say, I find that the course material is pretty easy. I work 8 to 5 doing this stuff day in and day out. I've picked up a few new things but not much. I guess that'll make the first test pretty easy.

Job Corps

We attended an orientation meeting with Kay-la yesterday for Job Corp. Everything has gone pretty well so far. She seems excited about it, which means that she will likely stick to the plan and do well. What struck me as odd is that she was very much like all the other students there, as far as academic and social circles goes. Guess that means that this is a good idea for her. We've been pushing her to go for awhile now and I'm glad that she finally decided that this is the next step for her to take.

Stay outta my beer!

Had a birthday party for a friend over the weekend and it was a smashing success. Only one little issue....I bought a ton of beer and put it all in the kegerator out back. I showed all the beer drinkers where the beer was, and what was available. I even put all the beer out there that the guests brought. Now a few hours pass and someone walks up to me and says "Wow this is good, but there is no label...what it is?" This guy didn't understand why I started to freak out, but he had just gone though my kitchen fridge and raided the beer in the back that I had put away to save (thankfully he hadn't opened one of the barley wine style ales). Specifically he had just popped open a cherry stout that a home brew friend had given me. I know this isn't that big of a deal....but I am still a little pissed that I didn't get to taste it....

I love my Sci/Fi

From Wired.com:

Wired.com has a post about a slew of new Sci/Fi coming to Fox's fall line up. I love me some Sci/Fi!

Virtuality: Penned by Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D. Moore, this show revolves around the plight of a crew aboard a 10-year mission to a distant solar system. The ship is equipped with virtual-reality equipment that lets them "travel" to other destinations -- which is fine until a mysterious bug infects the system. Moore has reportedly written the two-hour pilot; production is set to begin in July.

Fringe: Lost creator J.J. Abrams was reportedly given $10 million dollars to shoot a two-hour pilot episode for Fringe, a drama about an investigative unit specializing in otherworldly mysteries. Long-time Lost scribe Jeff Pinker recently signed on to run the show, which Abrams has described as a cross between The X-Files, Altered States and The Twilight Zone.

Dollhouse: Joss Whedon's dystopian drama about killer assassins living in a futuristic lab will star Eliza Dushku (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tru Calling). Whedon has described the show as "The Bourne Identity meets Stepford Wives meets boarding school meets Los Angeles neo-noir meets the Whedonverse." Shooting is slated to begin on the first of seven episodes at the end of April.

Boldly Going Nowhere: From the creators of the under-repped comedy team behind It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, this show follows the misadventures of a space crew -- sort of a campy take on Star Trek. Shooting for the pilot is set to begin in October.

Update to the update

I completely forgot to mention that Jen got her position with the university full time now. Previously, she was hired on as a temp, but when the position was opened up as a full time, classified (union), opening, she applied for it. She faced some serious competition for the opening, but came though the interviews well and was offered the job! Sadly, this means no vacation this summer :(

Spring Term update

Man it been awhile since I posted on here! Well, I am just about to start classes for my MCSA and am going to test for my A+ certification so I've been busy studying. Other then that I have been fighting my Media Center PC. Its been randomly rebooting. Thought it might be an update issue, but wasn't. So, I tore it apart, cleaned it up, reinstalled a lot of stuff, uninstalled all the unneeded apps and what not, and it was still rebooting. Finally, I just wiped the hard drive and upgraded to Vista....still not sure if that was a good idea or not 'cause now I have a whole different set of problems :)

On the kid front, Noah is back in soccer now. I'm not sure how much he is enjoying himself. I suspect he would rather stay home and play video games or go out and play with friends. Kay-la is back home with us now. Seems to be that her time away from home was somewhat beneficial. Its been a week now and she willingly cleans up when asked, and often with out being asked at all.

I've been brewing a lot of beer for the last year or so and have been brewing "all grain" since the start of the year. All grain brewing is when you start with just malted wheat and barley, not using the syrupy malt extract. Takes a lot more time, but gives you a lot more control over the final project. About Oct of last year, I joined a newly formed brew club which has been a lot of fun. I've met a lot of fun people.

Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up on posting here. I've also decided to start a new beer related blog, Everyday Drinking, though so far haven't been able to post much, lol. My hope is that each weekend I can post there what I have been drinking (along with photos, description, availiblity, etc.), and write about the local beer scene and any beer related events coming up.

At this time I am planning on going to the Oregon Brewer's Festival, and Hop Madness, and my 30th birthday is just bout 6 months away. Expect to hear more details soon about the party to beat all parties!

Snow Day

Ashland got 10 inches of snow over the last 24 hours! Needless to say, everywhere is closed including work. We are going to spend the day curled up in front of the new big screen tv and playing video games.