you know, despite the things running through my head, i have no inclination to write them down. i have this feeling that somethings are meant to be written down and expanded on, but other things are just there to flit around in your head, distract it for a bit, and then go back to from whence it came.

but at the same time, writing them down will leave them here, for me to find at a later point in time. since i don’t remember it mostly, this would be an ideal place to put everything down so i can review it later and make wise, well thought out implications from said thoughts. i heard about people who wear cameras around their necks and create a lifeblog, where every part of your day is recorded and cataloged. it sounds useful, but i don’t think i could handle it. being able to forget is really a key component to being human.

what is going on these days now though? nothing! and that’s pretty much the way it is for now. that first few weeks after the holidays where it’s time to relax after seeing everyone and being on point and all that other stress. not to mention the amount of money spent. it’s kinda a wacky paradigm where you spend lots of money on other people, and end up getting roughly the same value of money back from things given to you through other people. so getting gifts for others means getting gifts yourself, and all the other foibles of the hunt, the wrap, and finding a way to get it to them. i still got two sixers sitting in my bedroom that need to be distributed to others. but this winter stout i gave out to everyone was the finest beer i’ve crafted yet, and i kinda want to keep them to myself. at the same time, i can always make more, which i will. i got a pale ale that’s ready to be racked for a bit and then subsequently bottled, and i have a feeling it’s going to be good. of course, i’ve had that feeling with everything i’ve brewed for awhile now, but hey, i haven’t been wrong so far.

brewing is awesome. i got my transcript heading down from western so i can apply for brewmaster’s college for the next year starting jan 23rd. that’s only a year away and it’s kinda sobering. 6 months of hard engineering and science, and my brain a little atrophied from under use, but it’s time to get crackin’. this has been a fun little pop stand for a bit, but it’s time to blow on out of here. it’s exciting to say the least.

on a more tangential note, on my run this morning i somehow ended up back on zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (probably because i finally found a copy to buy) and the idea of quality. for some reason instead of subjective vs. objective, the idea of time vs. investment came in. what i hammered out in the 20 seconds i thought about it was that for something to inherently have quality, there has to be time spent on it, and a certain amount of investment (care, ability, materials) to create that quality. if you look at time as the independent variable, and investment as the dependent, then i think that makes some kind of sense. but at the same time you can’t just pump in more investment or more time and expect to get a product of higher quality. i have no idea about these kinds of maths but i figure that it’s not exponential or any graph like that but something sinusoidal where by finding certain harmonies between the two, you find something of higher quality. at least it’s some form of quantification.

granted this is very loose and fast, and more of a technical approach, but i think something’s there and by writing it down i can check back in at some point and see that this was some turning point where i started to see the light, or feel foolish at the way i thought back in the good ol’ days, where i had nowhere near enough wisdom or experience to really complain about anything (but did anyways). i guess at least it’s down. i can hardly remember what happened a couple of weeks ago.

god bless the internets!