… I expect to not only get OUT during my vacation, but to write as well. And not just measly little blog posts, but real, substantive stuff. Some of which will likely be posted, some probably not, but all in all I expect to see a sharp upswing in posts here either during my week off, or within the week after my return depending on access, etc.

Last night Jean and I met up with Kerri at one of our new favourite downtown finds: Veritable Quandary. We had an outstanding dinner, as expected, and found ourselves engaged in deep conversation for the majority of the evening. It turned into a very relaxing and enjoyable three hour dinner and drinks. During this time we covered a gamut of topics, one of which speaks to my plan for next week….  writing.

I know I have at least one story to tell, but I need time and energy to focus. Time and energy I never have during the work week, and the weekends I’d rather be recovering than ‘working’ on a book/short/story/blog/whatever. I expect next week to find that energy and time and dig in deep with as much as I can to put down as many words to (virtual) paper as possible. What comes of it, is again, anyone’s guess. Which story comes out is also a bit up in the air, though I more distinct ideas about that. In any case, expect me to be fairly silent and then inundate you with posts.

As for my trip…. well, I may even enable Facebook places for the week. Who knows, stranger things have happened

At my day job, I am a knowledge manager for IBM Rational Support. In this position I am helping to drive a concept known as “KCS”, or Knowledge Centered Support.  I like KCS, because it allows me to do what I have been doing all my life when it comes to information: reuse.

I’ve always found my patience tried when pushed to repeat myself, so I would fall back into a pattern of reusing information I previously provided. Oddly enough, however, it took me YEARS before I began actually reusing content for one of the questions I am most commonly asked: “What whiskies do you recommend?”

So, two years ago, I answered that question in the form of a blog post on my whiskies tasting group site: www.3DrunkenCelts.com

Since it was around the Christmas holiday, I framed the original post in the context of gifting whiskies to someone else, but the concepts and recommendations are still solid if you are just buying for yourself.

This year, I am going to fall back on the best practices I’ve learned over the years and simply reuse my old content, as it still holds up today:

• 3DC: Need help buying a whisky lover a Christmas gift?

So, jump on over to my tasting group’s site at the link above and read through my post on buying whiskies as gifts… and maybe even take a look at Raz’ recommendations for non-whiskey whiskey gifts too. Who knows, you may just find that perfect something for the perfect someone, or just for yourself

A sad day hit the household this weekend; our drip coffee maker developed a leak.

While this was not entirely catastrophic, it did give us the excuse to finally replace our little Mr. Coffee with a proper drip machine that would bring our Stumptown roasts to full flavour. After some solid refreshers on my previous research (I spent a full year researching my purchase of the Rancilio Sivlia and Rocky combination for my espresso setup), I had narrowed our choices down to 2 within hours: a Capresso MT-500 or a Technivorm Moccamaster .

Further discussion and a final trip to a local kitchen store, Kitchen Kaboodle, resulted in us coming home with a Technivorm Moccamaster Thermal carafe drip machine:

Such a beautifully simple drip machine. It has only one switch with two settings: on and off. No timer, no clock, no bells and whistles. The brilliance of the machine is the power it wields, as it is one of the only machines on the market which will actually heat the water to the perfect extraction temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit. It is also one of the very few machines (possibly still the only home drip machine) which can boast an SCAA certification/approval for meeting its standards.

Now, with the old coffee maker in the garage, I have disassembled it in preparations and attempts to see if I can rebuild/mod it into a steampunk style Mr. Coffee at the suggestion of a good friend. If I am successful, you can expect a full process write up on this blog.

Of course, while we were at Kitchen Kaboodle, we also ended up replacing our 13 year old Hamilton Beech 7-cup food processor with a new, larger Cuisinart Custom 14 cup food processor:

I think that should pretty much settle any future kitchen appliance purchases for another 10+ years. If we had kids, these two appliances would be handed down to them when we pass; they are built that well!

With that, I’ll go have another cup of Stumptown, perfectly brewed at 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Ah coffee, how I love you!