Christmas Grind

Really dug myself into a hole here with supernova, but considering I didn't reach 50k vpps until late October and didn't play in November, it shouldn't have been easy ;).

I still plan on getting it, but my mom has been in and out of the hospital getting tests done and I've had to drive her for this stuff the last few days.

Between that and christmas shopping, I've hardly had a chance to play.

Our 4th stout and first all grain beer turned out worse than we expected. The ABV is only like 3%, our grain bill was pretty off. It's still carbonating, but I think I'm going to throw this batch out. If my brother (16) drank like I did when I was his age, I'd just give it to him and his friends, but it's probably a good thing that he doesn't.

So we made a new stout last night, it should hit over 6% abv and it should be pretty hoppy. If anybody drinks Dogfish Head beers out there, we used a similar hop process as they do for a lot of their beers. It's called continuous hopping. Stouts aren't known for their hoppy character, but I personally have enjoyed the few hoppy stouts that I've had. I'm really looking forward to this beer.

Finishing up the beer front, our IPA (similar to Dogfish Head 60 minute) is almost ready to keg. It should be ready for christmas eve and I'll probably bring some over to the party on my dad's side. I was hoping the stout would turn out for that, as most of my family drinks darker beers.

Our "special" barleywine is still second fermenting. Will probably bottle this one in a week or so and age it until early February before we try it. This one might actually finish over 10% abv, the IPA should be around 7-8%.

Back to poker, I plan on playing as much as I can tonight and tomorrow after I drive my mom to the doctor's. The night of the 26th I'll probably make a decision as to whether or not it is possible for me to get supernova or not. Regardless, I need to get the games in (xmas is expensive) so I'll be playing hard until then.

My girlfriend's birthday is the 23rd, so it's made my holiday a little busier than I should expect. More on her gifts in a few days.

Oh, and after my post the other day reviewing all of those games, I finished the day up about 25 bucks over 17 games, so I went something like 6-2 on the day. I was pretty drained from playing 17 games and reviewing and posting and talking about 9 of them, but I felt it's something I'll be making a habit of in the near future.

I think playing 15-20 550s a day and reviewing every HH would be a nice, profitable and satisfying "job" in the near future. I bought a few books to educate me on some other business ventures I plan on getting involved with in the next few years. More on that in the upcoming weeks/months.