We were in Tucson from November 1st , 2010 to March 21st, 2011. Not a bad little winter if I do say so myself.  The weather was in the 50s, 60s & 70s. And yes, we were there when Representative Giffords was shot. An actually that Safeway was only 10 minutes from our apartment, as we were living the the Foothills.  The Foothills are about 30 minutes from Downtown Tucson. I liked Tucson, it has a lot of culture, great food and really nice people.

Back in March, Jen’s dad came for a visit. When we have visitors, we like to plan to do all of the toursity stuff in the area with them. I had wanted to visit Biosphere2, but we just hadn’t gotten around to it. With Jen’s dad it town, it was the perfect time for me to take off work and head on up.  The Biosphere2 is about an hour away from the Foothills, in the desert.

As far as the Biosphere2 goes, I remember hearing about it a lot in the 90s, but basically it was a gigantic failure as an experiment. Currently maintained by the University of Arizona, the Biosphere2 still conducts environmental experiments. They locked a team in for two years and had them live off the produce grown and milk from goats. The team went in for 2 years and really did not have a lot of food because they killed their livestock early on in the experiment. They were all allowed only a small portion of goat milk per day and a diet of basically veggies and grains.  To me, it just seemed like poor planning.  Why not try to do an experiment for a month?  Then six months?  Gauge things that way.  Anyway, just my thoughts.  So here’s some pictures.

Here’s a view of the Biosphere2.

Yours truly in front of the Biosphere2.

This is where the team in the experiment had grown their crops.

This is the Desert Room.  There were different rooms, representing different climate types, ex. rainforest, etc.

The Foxes with the Fox Tail Agave Plant.

This is the saltwater pool. As you can see, there is a reef, but the team kept raising the salt level, thus, killing the reef.

It’s been a while, but I’ve been meaning to update lately. I have so many things and experiences through our travels that I don’t even know where to start. So here is a simple post on signage that I’ve seen along our travels and have snapped pictures of. Mind you some of the photography isn’t the best because I’d be in the car and wouldn’t have much time to snap a picture.  These pictures are from all over, so I’ll try my best to remember where they are from.  Enjoy.

This is from the tour of Alcatraz, you can see the FREE in the emblem. That is from when a Native American group took over Alcatraz.

The Fox Theatre sign in downtown Salinas, CA.

Trail signage at Yosemite National Park.

Signage in Tucson. Fancy neon.

The Fox Theatre in Tucson, funny it’s the same as the Salinas one. Someone must have had the Fox Theatre Sign market cornered.

Missile Silo signage in Tucson, AZ.

The Irish Heather in Vancouver, BC. Good beer too!

Jubilee Signage in Vancouver, BC.

This little gem was also in Vancouver, BC.

The Army & Navy Sign in Vancouver, BC.  Great store with lots of camping goodies.

Probably my favorite sign out of this entire set. SAVE-ON MEATS! Also in Vancouver, BC. Bummed it was under construction.

South Lung Tunnel!  This sign was at the Biosphere 2 in Tucson, AZ.  The Lung is how the air expands and contracts with the heat from the outside.  Basically it’s like a giant tube that is contained in a building.

While staying with our friend Megan in Salem, OR, we were able to sample some beer bread. She used Deschutes Black Butte Porter The bread was amazing and we even ended up using some for French Toast the next morning. So with that tip from her, I decided to try my own hand at some beer bread. Basically all it is, is some self-rising flour and a bottle of your favorite beer. I had no self-rising flour, so I just found a conversion recipe online and made that. Also, because I was planning on using my own homebrewed Raspberry Ale, I wanted to make it more of a breakfast style bread. I added dried cranberries to the mix as you can see in the picture below.

Here is the bottle of my homebrewed Raspberry Ale.

Here is the bread all ready to go in. I added a little sugar, sprinkled over the bread.

And here is the finished beer bread. It really turned out well. Toasted with a little peanut butter! Amazing!

On our way up from Tucson to Tacoma, we made it a point to stop at the Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico, CA. I’ve been wanting to go there for a long time because they are very green and have pretty much mastered brewery as it is. All of these photos are untouched, but I just wanted to post them and write this up, because it was such an amazing advernture.

Here are the sheep in the organic hops fields. They trim it down

They reused 5 gallon kegs as bike lockups.

There’s beer in there.

The only bummer was that they don’t do tastings after the tour. But we did get to taste some fresh wort.

Those garbage cans are full to the brim of hops.

Both of those boilers are 200 barrel boilers.

The hops freezer.

Close up of the hops.

So after the tour we decided to head next door to the bistro to enjoy a sampler and a pizza. The sampler was great because we were able to taste a lot of the smaller batch beers that really don’t get distributed to the East. We really enjoyed the Old Chico and the Beer Camp beer.

Someone is excited. A lot of beer in that sampler.

The pizza was amazing and was shamelessly served with extra parm. We weren’t angry about that.

And a little sample for myself.

All in all it was a great tour. Really great to see how they work and produce so much. We did see all of the bottling and kegging, but that’s not as fun as all of the beer making. I’d definitely recommend a visit.

Was searching the Android Marketplace for some new apps and I saw this:

I guess nothing says “Let’s get down to business” like a ringtone from a guy who beats his girlfriend.

I wasn’t able to make my friend Lisa’s wedding in Frankenmuth, MI. But I did see one of her friend’s pictures of a car, pimped out like it was Batman’s G-Ride. Who knew the Dark Knight was into rims and tinted windows. Peep these splendid pictures.

Isn’t she a beaut? I wonder what Robin’s G-Ride looks like.

Ok, I’ve won the award. Worst blog writer ever. Yay. Fantastic as that may be, I’ve been busy. It’s true. So first I’ll write a quick recap of our time in Monterey, CA. We had a blast living there, and were there just until Halloween 2010. Then headed out to Tucson. So here’s some quick picture recaps, the above picture is of Bixby Canyon Bridge in Big Sur, which is located just south of Monterey.

Jen, Erica & I went ziplining through the Redwoods, just North of Santa Cruz. It was pretty cool, but I wish it had been longer.

Jen and I also ventured over to Yosemite for a weekend. Here’s a picture of us on our Vernal Falls hike.

And here’s a sunset shot of Half Dome in Yosemite.

Did a little trip to San Francisco. Enjoyed the Alcatraz tour.

Rode a Cable Car.

Saw the World Champion San Francisco Giants play at AT&T Park.

Took a trip down to Morro Bay. We got this picture by taking a hike up “Black Hill.” (I think)

Took a tour of Heart Castle. Amazing the art that he was able to purchase back in 1920s.

That’s right. You read the title of this blog post correctly. This is the Most Amazing Sweater in the Entire World.

I woke up this morning and turned on the tv. Of the two channels that we have, The Cosby Show was on. And what was Bill wearing? Oh yea…this gem.


Hope you enjoyed this fashion statement as much as I have.