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Brewed by Brooklyn Brewery
5.0% ABV

Picking up a pumpkin brew from my local liquor store the other day, I impulsively grabbed one off the shelf and since I needed one to match it up against, I decided to grab another. The nearest one being the Post Road Pumpkin Ale. 

While the other beer went on about "all-malt" and four different spices, this beer in its modest label just uttered (in small letters)

Ale brewed with pumpkin and spices

Not very inspiring, but perhaps the brew masters of this beer wanted the beer to speak for itself. I had to see if it worked out this way.

Brewed by Michelob
12oz @ 5.5% ABV

In my quest to brew an excellent Pumpkin Ale, I figured I would sample the landscape first. Strolling through one of my local liquor stores, I spied a pumpkin ale sitting on a shelf near me. A pretty orange and brown label proclaimed "Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale" with the picture of a pumpkin-headed scarecrow-like fellow. The label further proclaimed that it was an "all-malt" brew with pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and clove.

Sounded good to me, so I grabbed a six-pack off the shelf and another pumpkin ale sitting nearby and strolled up to the cash register. As the man at the register rang me up, he said, "Huh. I didn't know Michelob brewed a pumpkin beer!" As I looked again at the label, sure enough, Jack's was a creation of those folks at Michelob. Knowing that many of these large breweries actually have talent, I wondered if they could compete with the microbreweries known for their specialty brews.

Sometimes life's journeys take place right in your own home. In my case, I spent today journeying through boxes of stuff that I do not want anymore. But the good news is that most of this stuff is still useful. Take a gander a what I have found. If you want any of it (and I know who you are), let me know. I will bring it to the next Meet n Greet.

If you want any of this stuff, leave a "dibs" comment on what you want and/or email me. 

Many of you have pointed out that I have 4 camera angles in my original BM 2007 time-lapse film. So what about the rest of the footage that ended up on the proverbial "cutting room floor"? Well, I dug some of it back up and made a shorter 5-minute film showing the "long view" (or wide angle) from the Burning Truck from Wednesday until we pack up on Monday morning.

Some of you attended the 2nd ever "OpenBrew" at my place a few weeks ago. (The 1st one was held at Blurry's place in July of 2007, as I recall...) Well, I decided it would be informative to post a few pics of the beers in action, especially for those of you who missed the OpenBrew session. The beers are already racked and kegged, so these pictures are from a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

Turns out I actually have a bunch of Burning Man videos from years past already online on YouTube. Most of them are tours of the art or our camp, but a few of them are spontaneous videos that just happened. Here are a bunch of my favorites...

Here's a short walkthru of our camp, Automatic Subconscious. Shown in the video is the front of the camp and the private shade structure which leads to the kitchen and out the back to our shower/camping area.

Many of you have seen the "Time lapse view of Burning Man 2007" posted on YouTube and asked if you could have a higher quality version. Ask and you shall receive:

• 480 x 360
• MPEG-4 ASP (1.15 Mbps)
  
• 160kbps AAC audio
• 150MB (approx.) 
  

BitTorrent: BurningManTimeLapse2007-480x360-FINAL-w-AUDIO.mp4
Please help seed by keeping your BitTorrent client open after you have finished downloading. (I think all seeds have disconnected now...)

If you don't do BitTorrent, you can try this other link, but it's probably pretty slow compared to BitTorrent: BurningMantTimeLapse2007-480x360-FINAL-w-AUDIO.mp4 

Note: This video works on more than just iPod Video devices. It also works on any computer with QuickTime, Nero Showtime, or VLC installed. Click here to get VLC Player.

If you do not have BitTorrent on your computer, I highly recommend downloading and installing the Azureus 2.5 BitTorrent client from SourceForge. It will allow you to download this video.

Here's both parts of the Burning Man 2007 time-lapse video played back-to-back.

This video is the first part of the time-lapse view of my Burning Man camp, Automatic Subconscious. It features 4 different camera angles and includes the "early" burning of the Man, a gorgeous sky/cloud sequence, a few dust storms, and the rainbow that appeared on Friday as well as the trip back to Boston on the "Burning Truck". Music by DJ Markitos (under CC license from Magnatune.com)