Moving day and the couch of sin

The wife and I moved into a new house last week and are once again in the "rent-a-house" game. Oh, what fun. Actually it is nice to be in a house with a fenced in backyard that the dear "fur kid" can run rampant about before collapsing of heat exhaustion.

Before I get too involved in this post, here's a thought of mine I had about the whole moving experience: I have always moved during the summer.

Is this true for everyone else? I mean, why not move during more tolerable temperatures such as in spring or autumn? For some reason I have always moved in summer which has meant that I've dealt with over 100 percent humidity and 90 to 100 degree heat (degrees F) while I was back home in the U.S. Now I know that over 100 percent humidity should mean that the air is water, but this unique condition can happen and the air still remain air . . . barely. Such weather means you don't so much walk about and co-exist with the air as you wear it like some means of penanace for sins. Since moving to Australia (I moved during the American summer, go figure) I have now moved two or three times and each time in the heat of summer . . . summer here meaning 40 plus degree heat (degrees C), little humidity but a sun that will make you catch fire within 15 minutes. What can you say about a country that lives with a massive hole in the ozone later directly over it?

Anyway . . . when you move you begin to realise just how quickly a person's life can attract crap. It might not seem like crap while you're still living in the particular residence but it becomes crap. While you pack you question why you ever obtained these little odds-and-ends of crap. It's sort of like a person is a star and they attract detritus and debris because of their gravity well . . . Thankfully our own sun cannot shed our planet like we shed our orbiting crap when we move.

When you move you also come across those items of furniture that either
(a) appear light but are VERY deceiving (like a feather but in intensely heavy gravity)
(b) appear heavy and are only telling a quarter of the truth (like a largish person trying to fit into oh-so tight clothes)

I was lucky enough to encounter two such items of furniture.

My item (a) is what I'd like to call the couch of sin. Now, this name is not meant to carry any adult over tones about the persons who have used the couch or activities done on said couch. Instead, it's more like this:
imagine a couch . . . make it blue . . . make it a sleeper-sofa couch . . . imagine all of the sin in the world as weight . . . imagine this couch weighing as much as all of the sin in the world . . . make this couch a size near impossible to get through doors. What fun. Some how, some way, the blue sleeper-sofa couch of sin made it out of one house and into a new house. This, of course, required the item to be manuevered in every conceivable direction possible in the three-dimensions we know as our universe.

My item (b) is what I'd like to call the Narnia-reject wardrobe. Let's play the imagine game again with this one:
imagine a two door wardrobe . . . make it white . . . make it old and splotched with stains that cannot fit into scientific description . . . imagine that it looks very heavy to move . . . imagine that it looks rather happy staying where it is . . . imagine your wife insists the wardrobe move house.
Now, I've moved heavy furniture in my life. I have never moved anything this heavy. Even the sleeper-sofa couch of sin is light in contrast to this thing. It was like trying to move a galaxy, but not a neat, little one in a necklace like in the movie "M.I.B."

Thankfully both items were moved, along with all of our other prized and not-so prized belongings. We are now deep in the process of un-packing . . . this means discovering things long since thought lost and not finding other things you just knew you had a day ago.

Such is life.

Heat wave beer time

Well, it's been some time since I've made a post . . . nearly a month by my calculations. So, a happy (belated) New Year to everyone and a merry (very belated) Christmas. With that out of the way, time to get to the post.

So, it's summer here in Australia and Adelaide is one of (if not the) hottest major city in the entire country as of the last weather report. Good ol' Adelaide has even out-scorched Alice Springs by about two or three degrees celsius. I believe that today's high was around 41 to 45 degrees . . . mmm, toasty. That meant that it was, oh, about a million inside the house (which we just moved in, see next post for details). We luckily have air-conditioning . . . in one room . . . nick-named the "cool room" as compared to the Dante's Inferno remainder of the house.

Well, on this hottest of the hot days I got an idea in my head to start a desparately procrastinated (perhaps not the correct adjectival clause?) project. Why not?! 40 plus degree heat? Who cares!

Thus begins my adventure into home brewing. I called on the support of my friend (who is also an American) to ensure quality and the like. Well, to those of you who are adept at home brewing you'll know that aside from clean equipment and good yeast, temperature control is one of the most important factors to consider. Most of the manuals will de-cry the foul of letting the wort and yeast get too cold. Hmph, not a problem today. I have not seen much mention about the brew getting too hot.

Ah, but desperation has been the mother of inventiveness. So, for most of today, I've been rather busy watching over my 21 litre "baby" and trying damn hard to keep the temperature at or below 30 degrees celsius. Yes, yes, I know . . . home brew experts and purists will decry this but I'd like to see them make a brew during a heat wave. Let's not even examine the logic and sense of attempting such a project in such weather.

Anyway . . . I'll keep you, dear reader, posted on the progress of the brewing. The hot weather is predicted to last for another few days. Well, at least I won't have to worry about a brew that gets too cold!