Postcards from Kauai, Hawaii

Mom, Dad, Uncle Bobby and Aunt Terry are all in Kauai, Hawaii this week. They've been sending me photos and videos all week, which is remarkable. Usually, on a week long trip, I will get three photos total from my father, and they're all crappy.

But he's really trying hard this time, and getting some nice photos! I may make a blogger out of him yet!

Mostly, they've been shopping (the ladies) and golfing (the men). It seems there are some vicious wild chickens that fly in and steal their lunch each day, but from what I can see, those chickens are highly encouraged. My mother is incapable of following rules when it comes to chicken-feeding. (We had similar experiences with raccoons on Angel Island.)

So far, nobody has gotten drunk and tattooed. At least not yet. It sounds like they're having a lot of fun. Wish we could be there!

Billy Mays in a Drive Through

Billy Mays was pretty hilarious. I miss him already.

Welcome Home, Eddie!!

Eddie is back from camp! Hooray! We all missed him SO much! (Even Luke, though he won't admit it!)

It seems Eddie had a good time at camp, though mixed with periods of homesickness, no doubt. He kayaked, swam, went tubing, and even got to drive a motorboat!

When he got home, he and all his stuff were covered in filth! We immediately put him in the shower and scrubbed him from head to toe!

We joked all week that since Eoin and Eddie were sharing tents, it would be physically impossible for them to get their clothes mixed up. This is because Eoin is about twice as big as Eddie. But sure enough, wouldn't you know, when they got back, Eoin was wearing one of Eddie's shirts? He was squeezed into that thing like a Hooters girl in hot pants.


And now that Eddie is home and feeling much better, do you know what he wants? Sushi!

Touring around Cincinnati

After the conference today, I decided to get out of the hotel and go see some of the city. Luckily, Cincinnati and Covington have a really nice hybrid-electric public bus service. For $1.50 each way, you can pretty much go from one end of town to the other. The bus takes you from Covington, over the Ohio River, through Cincinnati proper, and then back down into Kentucky into Newport. That's a pretty good bargain.

So I hopped the bus, and saw the city.

And as luck would have it, the bus just happened to drop me off at the Hofbräuhaus! Wie viel Glück! The Hofbräuhaus in Newport is only one of three officially licensed restaurants from the Hofbräuhaus in München, producing the exact recipes of beer that match the production in Germany, including the reinheitsgebot rules of beer purity.

So, finding myself at the Hofbräuhaus, I felt compelled to order a full liter of dunkel Bier, Kassler Rippchen, red cabbage, and Brotchen. I mean, when in München...

At the TTB Expo in Kentucky

"Flight Attendant, please prepare the cabin for landing," the captain barked politely on the intercom. And then the two familiar bings, signaling our final approach. The short flight to Kentucky was nearly over.

As I was flying into Covington airport, I was struck by the beauty of the Kentucky countryside directly below me. All around were green patchwork farms, separated by lush deciduous forests. Each farm had its little farm house, barns, outbuilding, and fields. And yet, often, I would see a smaller outbuilding or shed, separated far from the main farm by a long thin dirt road and sheltered in a grove of trees. I wondered, how many of those tiny buildings below have an old pot still in them? How many of those farmers down there are still cooking up small batches of corn liquor? Probably more than you might guess. I smiled at the thought.

This week, I am in Kentucky, in the city of Covington, just south of the massive Ohio River, across the water from downtown Cincinnati. What brings me here this week is the TTB Expo. The TTB is the Tax and Trade Bureau, a post 9-11 split from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Frankly, I liked the old name better. It was always cool to think that you'd be getting a visit from an ATF agent. TTB just sounds too... soft, I guess. So, TTB handles trade and commerce, and ATF still gets to handle the criminals and automatic weapons.

The TTB put on this expo as a free, federally funded, forum to introduce the general public to all the details of licensing, paying taxes, marketing, paying taxes, exporting, paying taxes, laboratory analysis, and (did I mention?) paying taxes. All joking aside, the schedule is jam-packed with really useful sessions on the intricate details of getting licensed and running a clean business. There are sessions on "How to qualify for 'organic' on your label", "Laboratory techniques for the small distiller", and "Pitfalls of artisan distillers".

The expo covers each of the broad areas of the TTB's mandate: wine, beer, importing, beverage distilled spirits, industrial distilled spirits, ethanol fuel, firearms, and tobacco. The TTB have separate tracks set up for each of these disciplines with detailed presentations in each. Despite this fact, the overwhelming majority of attendees are small, craft distillers. In every distilled beverage presentation I sat in, when a show of hands was done, the vast multitude of attendees identified themselves small distillers.

Unlike other commercially run expos, there are no booths for vendors hawking their wares. Just the facts, ma'am. The TTB has really brought a large staff to this conference, over 30% of their entire TTB staff, in fact! They really try to get across the notion that they are here to collaborate, not flex their bureaucratic muscle. Every single government person I spoke with was friendly and had a "How can we help you succeed?" attitude. Each one encouraged phone calls to their direct number and gave out their personal email address. I have never seen federal government employees so responsive, and I've worked in government contracting for a long time!

Just like the microbrewery explosion in the 1990's, it feels like we're on the cusp of something big here today--a boom in new distilleries. Maybe the ghost of prohibition will finally be laid to rest.

Applications for DSP permits were up a remarkable 60% last year at the TTB. The expo is swarming with new distillery owners and wannabes like myself. And from what I can see at this expo, 2009 should be a very big year at the TTB.

Goodbye Eddie! Have Fun at Camp!

This morning, we said goodbye to Eddie as he is headed off to summer camp. This is Eddie's first summer camp, and his first week away from home without us. I think he was a little nervous about going, but it helps that he'll be sharing a tent with Eoin, who he's known since they were both babies. They're like cousins, the two of them. Plus there are lots of other parents going that know Eddie, so he'll be fine. The troop have all kinds of activities planned--water skiing, kayaking, fishing, swimming, hiking. It's going to be a blast!! But Eddie was a little nervous, and we're missing him already. (Well, maybe Luke isn't missing him just yet.)

We did take advantage of the opportunity, though, being without Mr. Sensitive, to go see the new Star Trek movie. What a movie! Best movie in a decade!

Have fun at camp, Eddie! And come home safe and sound (and hopefully, with all the stuff you took with you).

Science Olympiad

If you recall, a few weeks ago, I was trying desperately to return home from Tampa, Florida. I had to be home by eight o'clock in the morning to get to the boys' school for the Science Olympiad. Becky and I had volunteered to spend the day teaching kids about electricity. Honestly, I was really looking forward to it, and it would have broken my heart to miss it.

That is why, when my plane bound for Dulles set down in Raleigh at 11pm due to storms, I had to rent a car and drive all night to get to Purcellville in time for the science fair. I pulled into the school in my rental car at exactly 7:45 am (after sleeping for three hours in South Hill, Virginia). I was exhausted, but I had made it! And the energy of the kids would keep me awake until evening.

Becky and I had chosen three experiments to show the kids various properties of electricity and radiation. The first experiment was to use six lemons and make a battery out of them by placing copper and zinc into them, connected with wires. The lemons should provide enough "juice" to power a small flashlight bulb.

Our second experiment was to place an iron nail and a bunch of pennies in a vinegar and salt solution. In this experiment, you basically galvanize the iron nail in copper, bringing shiny copper atoms off the pennies and onto the nail.

Finally, our piece de resistance was the cosmic ray detector. I was somewhat dubious about this one, but it was worth the try. Essentially, you get a bottle filled with alcohol vapor, and then you chill the bottom side of it in dry ice, and warm the top of it with your hand. The alcohol is supposed to set up a cloud-like vapor in which you can see tiny streaks like jet trails--those streaks are caused by cosmic rays, which cause the alcohol to condense. You can even deflect the rays with a strong magnet.

So, that was our line-up. We had four one-hour sessions, twelve kids each. Our intention was to have the kids participate in these experiments themselves with some real hands-on learning.

But things didn't go exactly to plan. Our lemons were... well, lemons. They didn't light the battery at all. So Becky did a little soft-shoe and said it was because they didn't have enough acid in them, and showed the kids how the light bulb lit up with a regular battery. Oooh. Ahhh. This must have been impressive, because several of the kids now remember it as the lemons lighting up the bulb.

The copper nail trick worked the first two sessions, but after that, it didn't seem to take anymore. I suppose it was because the bowl was dirty after a while, or something. But regardless, I used a little slight of hand with the older coppery nails from session one and two, and all the kids thought the experiment worked great.

The cosmic ray detector was an unmitigated failure the first three sessions, and it was only on the last session, after Becky ran home to get a heating pad and we added more alcohol, that we actually produced not a cloud of alcohol, but at least a fine alcoholic snow. So I quickly yelled, "There it is! Do you see that kids?!"

To which, several kids replied, "I see it! I see it!"

Good enough for me.

We had to improvise too, because as we got better at the experiments, we got quicker, consuming our experiments in only fifteen minutes of the allotted hour.

Having lots of time on our hands, and some duds for experiments, we decided to play with Eddie's electronics kit, and of course, the dry ice chips.

First of all, I would stick a big chunk of the dry ice in a cup of water, and it would bubble away madly, producing that wonderfully satisfying mad scientist smoke. The kids loved it.

Then, I would take a piece of dry ice and put it on a spoon. The warm spoon was enough to rupture the ice microscopically on its surface, causing it to vibrate and dance around on the spoon. Again, very satisfying.

Then, Becky showed the kids how if you took a penny and pressed it hard against the ice, it would scream at you. This was from all the microscopic escaping carbon dioxide under pressure. The kids were thrilled by this.

So, in the end, our electricity station was a dud, but the dry ice station was a big hit. I guess that shows you, sometimes in science, you have to be flexible with your methods.

The two teachers, Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Applin, sent us some nice thank you letters from the kids. They really drive home what the kids enjoyed about the day. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

Dear Presenters:

Thank you for your participation in this year's science Olympiad. Your expertise captivated our students' imagination and excitement.

...

Sincerely,
Jim Jenkins, John Applin

and

Dear Mr. Scott Harris, Ms. Becky Harris...

Thank you so much for coming to my school and teaching us science and what you guys do. I had so much fun at every center but most of all I hope you had fun. Each center was like ten minutes because time flies by fast when you're having fun because we were at each center for fifty nifty minutes.

...

The next center I went [to was] electricity is radiating that was also fun. We put pennies on dry ice and it sounded like a scream and that is how it got its name the screaming penny. Also I learned dry ice doesn't melt it turns into gas that is what I was very interested in. Then we put the dry ice in a cup full of water and first it bubbled then it had smoke coming from the glass but it was gas but it looked like a mad scientist lab it was so much fun at that center.

Sincerely,
Venus M.

and

Dear Mr. Harris

I loved how we did all of those cool experiments. My favorite one was when the dry ice made snow in that jar. When the dry ice sizzled when you put it on the spoon. All of that stuff was awsome. My friends said it was boring, but I think that was because the experiment with the snow didn't work.

From Jack

I guess I didn't fool him after all. And this one:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Harris,

Your station was awesome! I like the part about the screaming penny. Also the automatic night light was cool. The dry ice on the spoon was also really cool. Thanks for the stuff you did with us!

Sincerely, Adam

They really did like that ice. Good thing we had some. And more:

My favorite station was the electricity is radiating station. I loved this experiment because their were so many things at the one center. In the experiment our group made lemon batteries, turn iron nails into copper nails and made rain. Another reason why I enjoyed this center was because you could never expect what was going to happen.

I learned a lot of cool stuff at the science center. I was surprised to learn that citric acid could let electricity pass through. I learned this in the lemon battery experiment. But the experiment that really surprised me was the copper nail. We put 20 pennies in a glass bowl with an iron nail and the nail turned to copper.

My favorite experiment was the one with the dry ice. I have never seen dry ice up close before. Dry ice is so amazing and I found it really cool because of what it did. It made water boil and it gave off a white mist. Thank you for the great experience with science.

P.S. Electricity is Radical!

We really hit a chord with that kid! Isn't that cool?! Finally:

Thank you for letting us help with some of the experiments. My favorite experiment was when we put wires in a lemon and it lit up a light bulb.

Sean O.

Yes, that's how I choose to remember it too, Sean. Worked perfectly.

Eddie's 5th Grade Promotion

Eddie "graduated" from 5th grade tonight. He, with most of his classmates, was one of the first kids at Mountain View. They called his class the "First Crew Through" because these kids were the kindergarteners when the school opened.

Eddie had a great time tonight. He was all smiles.


Mary C. from down the street--and one of Eddie's friends--won the Daughters of the American Revolution Citizenship Award. This award is given out to only one child in every school. And it could not have been given to a nicer girl!




The fifth grade teachers of Mountain View: From left, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Applin, Ms. Khosla, Ms. Simmers, Ms. Nesselrodt, Ms. Virts, Mr. Rahn, and the principal, Mr. Martin.


A good shot of the very photo-shy Ms. Virts.

Good job, Eddie!

The Adventures of Link in EFF

Here is another nice little book written by Luke. "The Best Book of the Summer!" according to his friend, Nick.

Big News! Introducing Catoctin Creek...

I guess we finally have to let the cat out of the bag. Becky and I have decided to start a part-time microdistillery. Yes, an actual distillery making liquor, liqueur, hooch, the good stuff!

See, we found out about this small business contest with Sage Software, and the contest requires us to produce a short promotional video. Becky did most of the script, and I pieced together the music and images.

Now that it's on YouTube, all of you fine people get to vote for us. If we win, we get some funding to help us start our business! So please, go vote! You can even vote every day for our video! Bookmark this page and please add us to your morning routine:

http://contest.mybizcounts.com/vote

Here's more about what we're up to:

Catoctin Creek Distilling Company is the first family-owned microdistillery in Loudoun County Virginia since before prohibition. Producing high quality organic spirits and liqueurs: Brandy from Virginia wines, vodka from locally farmed potatoes, rye, and wheat. At Catoctin Creek, high quality and organic spirits and liqueurs are our passion.

This adventure will be a part-time job for us--definitely not quitting the day job! There's no money in the liquor business until at least ten years down the road. But we're taking the long view on this, and doing something we love.

Stay tuned, as there's much more to come!

Manners, Please!

The other day, the boys had a teacher work-day, so Becky brought them in to meet me for lunch. The boys always enjoy coming down to Fairfax for lunch, and were thrilled to go to the all-you-can-eat Indian buffet. Eddie, despite his loss of appetite, found a way to eat several scoops of butter chicken, while Luke pounded down the naan.

After lunch, we were heading out the door, when Eddie walked by one of those dishes of mints that sits near the exit. Unable to resist, he immediately reached in with his grubby little fingers for the mints.

"Eddie!" I barked at him, "Use the spoon!" (For there was this white plastic spoon placed there, just for this purpose.)

So, obediently, Eddie dropped the mints in his hand back into the bowl, picked up the spoon, carefully scooped up a neat little spoonful of mints, and placed the spoon in his mouth.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

But what could I do? He did exactly as I had told him to. And he even put the spoon back when he was done.

Prop Gun

Here's a fun little spoof of Top Gun made by the guys I visited out at Whidbey Island last week.

One Last Gasp of the Weekend

We got home from camping at 2:30, and I immediately had to mow my yard. This was because at 4:00, we were expected to be at the Cub Scout Advancement Picnic. So, I rushed through the yard in record time, while Becky and the boys put all the camping gear away. I slapped on a clean shirt, grabbed Luke, and we headed over to recognize the boys moving from Bears to Webelos. But Luke and I were so pooped, that we couldn't stay to eat. We came back home and collapsed.

It's been a very busy weekend! We were supposed to also have a choir picnic tonight, but luckily, one of the hosts got swine flu (or something like it), so they canceled it. Thank God for that!

Camping Weekend

This has been one hell of a busy weekend. First, I got home from Whidbey Island, and no sooner than I got unpacked, we headed off to hear Eddie perform at his piano recital. Then, we had to beat cheeks to get up to Gifford Pinchot State Park north of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, because we were camping this weekend.

We sure do keep a busy schedule!

Honestly, we schedule these things way in advance, but when the weekend comes, it seems everything has collided together.

Nevertheless, we got up to the park by ten PM and were able to get the tent set up with the help of Phil, Desi, and a propane lantern. We pretty much went straight to bed after that.

The next morning, we had breakfast and then set out to see the Gettysburg National Park, site of the infamous Battle of Gettysburg, the turning point for the North during the Civil War. This was the only battle of the Civil War that was fought on northern soil. General Lee had gotten bold, and pressed his attack onto northern soil, sneaking up through the Appalachian Mountains. However, the Union soldiers had the high ground, and mowed down the Confederate soldiers with cannon-fire as they crossed an open field. The war would go on for two more years, but this one event did more to boost northern morale, and crush southern morale, than any other event that followed. It also cemented Abraham Lincoln's second term in the presidency.

The camping was fun, and as usual, the weather was pretty nice. We camped with our usual crowd--Sharon and Desi, and Pam and Phil. Leslie and Scott were otherwise committed, and couldn't join us.

The kids played in the woods and in the lake all weekend. They even managed to catch a fish! What is truly amazing is that they caught the fish (a respectably sized crappie) using only the plastic container from a package of grapes! I've no idea how they did it, but that fish was eatin' size!