A Weekend in Maui

As part of my 30th birthday present, Scott and Courtney gave me and Amanda some buddy passes for a couple's trip to Maui.

This wasn't only cool because, "Hello, it's Maui!" but also because Scott and I have long dreamed of this scenario. We spent well more than a decade of youth talking about the kinds of activities we'd do when we were older and had some money. One of those was going on great vacations. We went on a few bachelor vacations in our teens and twenties but still had to figure out how to bring women into the equation. Now we finally have hot wives and can take them to hot places! This is the American dream.

Amanda and I went to Lahaina, Maui, last year with family (sounds very Northwest cliche, I know) and Courtney joined us for part of that trip -- oh the perks of an airline employee. This time we went to Kihei and scored a great hotel off the beach called Aston Maui Hills. We got a gigantic (literally bigger than our house) 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo for a killer price.

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So what did we do? Everything you'd imagine. Unless you're Scott.

We hung out at the pool, snorkeled, swam in the ocean, body-boarded, stand-up paddleboarded (Scott surfed, or attempted to), ate and drank a lot, watched Arrested Development whenever we were back at the hotel... It was all wonderful. Scott whined because we didn't rent mopeds and didn't snorkel enough. We also didn't find time to drive up to the volcano or zipline, but there's only so much activity to do during a 4-day vacation.

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And we have to leave things to do for next trip back.

Sasquatch! Festival 2013 Review

Since it started in 2005, I have wanted to go to Sasquatch! Festival at The Gorge, but time and time again I found excuses or alternate plans, or picked to spend my hundreds of dollars at Coachella.

This year I was on the same track as years before -- I liked the line-up but wasn't sure it was the best time to throw down for tickets in light of some later vacation plans and coming back from Maui the weekend before. Did I mention, I went to Maui?

This year worked out because I got the ticket hook-up for the first half of the weekend from a co-worker, yes! I learned I got the tickets on Thursday morning, which was plenty of time for me to notify Amanda and get us packed up to head east to George, WA on Friday afternoon for that evening's line-up, headlined by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

The drive out on Friday was fairly typical for a long weekend, jammed at Snoqualmie Pass and otherwise OK. We rolled up to our grassy camping spot between neighbors that were 5-10 years younger, not entirely surprising. What was surprising was all the steel piping that came out of the Jeep Wrangler next to us.

"What are you building there, a canopy?" I asked the ringleader.

"No, man," he replied enthusiastically. "We brought a full-size trampoline."

No joke, 20 minutes later the group was jumping on the trampoline just feet away from my Jeep, which caused me to pull it forward a few feet. My mother is an insurance agent, after all.

We left the party and headed into the concert grounds to see Father John Misty, which Sergio has been raving about. We waited amongst the throngs of youths and it rained a bit. We overheard a conversation behind us between a 20-something Canadian and younger 20-somethings. They were guessing each other's ages and talking about college and the sorts of conversations people have at that age. Amanda and I entertained ourselves people watching and talking about our house and chickens and the sorts of conversations people have at our age.

We enjoyed the Father John Misty show -- a Jim Morrison reincarnation -- and made our way over to grab some festival food before the Arctic Monkeys show. We picked a teriyaki bowl (decently healthy) and an elephant ear (queue the coronary) for a reasonable $15. This was just the main course around the many snacks Amanda packed and rationed for the day. Drinks were absurd and Safeco Field-priced at $8-$13 a beer. We decided to stick to sobriety and snacks, which we enjoyed with a view.

The Arctic Monkeys show was great and reminiscent of when I saw them at Coachella in 2007. The band plays incredibly clean but there's just not enough soul in the lead singer's voice to get me invested. The drummer kicks ass. Kicks total ass.

The main event on Friday night was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and their show was equal parts Northwest celebration and Macklemore celebration. The theatrics of the show were excellent. Macklemore rose up from the stage on an elevated podium. They had back-up dancers and confetti and giant balloons. I was moved by the "My Oh My" performance. Macklemore commanded the crowd on the floor to jump during "Can't Hold Us," and the earth shook from the bouncing.

Macklemore spent a little too long celebrating his achievements and adoration. It was kind of like a homecoming but with too much attention on the homecoming king. My primary criticism, however, was the set list. This may seem like a minor detail but they played the exact same set as a show last fall at WaMu Theater.

Tangent: half of the Sasquatch attendees are Canadian. When Macklemore shouted out asking where people came from, Vancouver won out by far. Seattle and Portland didn't even come close.

We departed back to camp and got tucked into our tent. That's when I heard Macklemore again... blaring from the neighbor's Jeep Wrangler. The ear plugs we brought muffled the treble but only emphasized the bass coming from the aftermarket sound system.

I sat there in the tent contemplating how to handle the situation. I looked over at Amanda who was clearly annoyed with eyes wide open. I didn't want to be the lame 30-year-old guy who wanted to sleep at 2 a.m. I wanted to go with the flow.

But I also wanted to sleep. And I didn't want to hear the same recorded music, perfect and familiar, that I just heard live, imperfect and emotive.

So I got out of the tent and headed toward the party epicenter at the trampoline.

"Dude, you got to turn that music down," I told the ringleader.

"This is Sasquatch!" he replied.

"Right, and you're kinda being the jerky neighbor at Sasquatch," I said. "I mean, we're in parking overflow. This isn't even camp. It's 2 a.m. and you're playing Macklemore on the Macklemore night. If you're playing some chill music it'd be OK, but the club music isn't kosher."

"Ok, man," he said. "I don't want to turn it off, but we'll turn it down."

"Cool," I closed.

Of course, the music was still a little too loud and the bass was still thumping at a lower volume, but I figured I won some ground. The music turned off about an hour later.

I was so tempted to blast some Macklemore at 7 a.m. when we woke ahead of the rest of the camp, but I couldn't bring myself to be that cruel.

We lounged around and watched the sluggish bodies rise from tents and wander around corners trying to find the Honey Buckets. I walked to the general store at The Gorge and bought some terrible coffee for $5.

My cousin-by-marriage Ra Scion opened the schedule on Saturday and we got back into the festival grounds early to watch. He pulled in a good crowd for the hour. Amanda and I nodded (that's what you do at hip-hop shows; you nod to the beat) through his catalog from Common Market to Victor Shade.

We weren't too enthused about the following acts, at least in the afternoon, and skipped over to Cave B Winery for some wine tasting. It was a refuge for the old crowd who can't hang in the filth of the concert grounds and campgrounds all day. It was wonderful. We had about 10 tastings and liberal pours and swayed our way back to my cousin's campground to hang out, where we wore off our buzz and planned to hit the road assuming Saturday headliner Sigur Ros would put us to sleep out there on the lawn. Sarah McLaughlin got me like that a few years ago. We also wanted to get a jump on getting back home to see our dog, cat and chickens. They're very exciting, you know.

While we had a great time at the concert, I think we were subject to a consumer psychology where we didn't put as much energy into maximizing the experience potential because we didn't pay for the tickets. Everything was optional, so we acted that way, casually passing on acts that we did know, didn't know and decided we didn't have time to get to know.

It was all very casual and lazy, which is a great way to spend Memorial Day weekend.

My First Homebrew: The Inaugural IPA

I am writing to you while sipping on a bottle of homemade beer, which I endearingly call the Commencement Bay Brewing Co. Inaugural IPA. It's hoppy and crisp. I'm so happy... and getting a little tipsy. There's a correlation.

Amanda, Mom and Steve went in on the homebrew kit for my (cough) 30th (cough) birthday after I had some success with the paint-by-number Mr. Beer kit Scott bought me this past Christmas. Encouraged by that success, I really wanted to try to make beer the "real" way and had been eyeing beer gear at Mash, a new homebrew supply store near our house.

A few days after receiving the birthday present, I went into Mash to meet with the owner, Jason, to get a recipe and learn how to use all of my new toys. They all just look like parts of a science experiment project to the Average Paolo.

Jason was generous with his time in walking me through the process and writing up a recipe modeled after the Ninkasi Total Domination IPA, a favorite of mine. I thought I followed most of his direction as we talked through it, but I knew that I just had to jump in and get my hands dirty. (That's really the wrong phrase. Everything about brewing is about being OCD sanitary.)

Amanda was, of course, my partner in crime when we attempted the homebrew a couple nights later.

The first step was steeping the grain, similar to putting a teabag in hot water except on a larger scale. We struggled a bit with keeping the temperature consistent when we needed to -- a challenge with an electric stove -- and I had my first panic attack about steeping the grain too hot. I recovered and we added the malt extract, which is a bit of a cheat but recommended for a first go-around.

After that, we timed adding hops over the course of an hour. That was probably the easiest part, though Jason warned us to really watch the clock.

Did I mention that you drink beer while making beer? It's an unofficial rule.

After the hops were added, we had to cool the wort (what beer makers call the puke-looking result of all that grain and hop cooking) as fast as possible.

I watched many YouTube videos walking through the home brewing process. As they all warned, chilling the wort proved to be most difficult and time consuming without a fancy wort cooler that runs cold water through copper tubing. (I should also mention I read a lot on HomeBrewTalk.com throughout the process. That's a great forum.). To keep costs low, we opted for the less-fancy method of putting the pot of wort into a large container of ice with salt. After the ice melted, we scrambled and grabbed booze out of the freezer to try and keep things chilled.

We made a couple of mistakes at this time. First, we pitched the yeast too hot and killed it. This didn't prove to be such a big deal (though it was the catalyst for my second freak out) and Jason told us just to pitch more yeast the next day, which worked out. Second, we didn't take the gravity reading of the cooled wort to help a later equation that identifies the alcohol content of the finished product.

The cooled wort sat in a dark closet for a couple weeks fermenting. After week one, we filtered the brew (that was gross) into a glass carboy or "secondary" for another week of fermenting.

After the second week I took a gravity reading per the recipe and it lined up to what Jason prescribed.

I tasted the uncarbonated, warm beer and it wasn't bad for being uncarbondated and warm! We were ready to bottle!

We boiled up some sugar in water, added it to the wort and stirred that up. From there we just filled and capped the bottles. Then we had to wait another couple of weeks for the yeast to eat of the sugar and carbonate the beer in the bottles.

All of this takes a very long time, but I used some of it to come up with some fancy labels for my first beer!

FINALLY, we were ready to drink a cold, carbonated homebrew and it tasted SOOOOOOO good.

Next up, I have a full grain lesson with Jason (thanks to Nina and Jeff for the gift) to learn more about the science of homebrewing. I think I'll try a Pale Ale next.

Thanks, Amanda, for all of your help! Now you can help me drink these couple cases of Inaugural IPA.

Sergio Graduates

A little more than four years ago, Sergio was 18 years old and fresh off a decision to drop out of college to start a photography business.

At the same time, I had just bought a little house in Tacoma and offered Sergio to move into the finished attic for cheap rent (that sounds like I put him in a Harry Potter closet, which is somewhat true). Sergio was so motivated he moved in weeks ahead of me and my then-girlfriend Amanda and crashed on the floor until we all acquired some furniture. Sergio was instrumental in getting the house into shape -- painting walls, moving boxes and providing opinions. Lots of opinions.

None of us thought about it at the time, but he had really just enrolled into my University of Hard Knocks. I threw a lot at him: a girlfriend-turned-fiancee-turned wife, a cat, a dog, chickens, home construction projects, one rent increase, job changes, etc. The only certainty was a lot of change.

Sergio threw a lot at me, too. He taught -- no -- reminded me about how much college-aged kids like to party... on weekdays... usually Mondays... late... sometimes on the roof. He and Amanda bonded instantaneously and grew a strong sibling relationship but also challenged me to balance their interests when they had conflict and I had to play brother, boyfriend/fiancé/husband and landlord. I also didn't realize that my home would become "Sergio Mottola Photography Shipping & Receiving" as his business picked up.

Looking back, I can say this: Sergio was a great roommate and an OK tenant. It's a rare opportunity to enjoy so much time with an adult sibling, and it was a treat to watch him carve his path in the world. His path is also one void of deep cleaning and requiring frequent rent reminders -- common for his demographic. If I ever take another roommate here, she will be over the age of 40.

Sergio took a next step on his path last week, moving into a friend's house in the neighborhood. It's not logistically necessary, but he's outgrown the attic. He'll get to adapt to a new environment, mix-up his lifestyle and get exposure to everything else that goes along with self-inflicted change (the best kind) and mature because of it. What's so impressive about Sergio is that as much as he has accomplished for his age, there's a long way to go and that speaks to his extraordinary potential. I'm getting too old, predictable and set in my ways to push him further along.

So, congratulations on your commencement and work these past four years, Sergio. You graduated from this phase of your life with honors.

Urban Farming in Tacoma: Building the Chicken Coop

I can't believe my first blog post about our chickens, Bianca and Nera, is coming so late! That's not because the experience has been uneventful.

We really didn't know what we were getting into. Chickens are just different animals and practically dinosaurs. We often resorted to BackyardChickens.com with our questions about what to feed them, what plants to remove from our yard, how to keep their egg shells firm, if they needed heat on the coldest winter days (they don't) and why Nera started losing all of her feathers (brooding).

We thought we had it easy buying grown chickens with a coop, but the coop was ghetto and architecturally questionable. The roofing ran rain water into the chicken run -- not good -- so I spent most of the November and December weekends building a new chicken coop from scratch. Here are some photos from building process and the finished product.

We literally worked day and night!

But it was worth it!

The finished product.

The external nesting box allows us to stay on our patio to check for eggs.

One of the walls drops with a kickstand so that we can easily clean the coop and get to the chickens.

Although the coop is doing the job (keeping the chickens safe), I am planning on rebuilding part of the run so that there's a door for us to more easily access it.

Now that we're into spring, we're getting up to a dozen eggs a week from the birds. It's been a fun experience!