Brewing an all-grain guiness stout clone

Decided to brew a Guinness clone using an all-grain method!  This is our second attempt at an all-grain brew, and we bought a larger pot for the mash, and I rigged up some insulation and thermal mass to help keep the temperature stable during the mash.

link to recipe

link to pdf of above in case that link breaks

Bought all ingredients from Northern Brewer:

5 lbs. Briess Full Pint Brewers Malt

1 lb. Briess Black (Patent) Malt

Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast

2.4 oz. East Kent Goldings (EKG) Hop Pellets

2.5 lbs. Flaked Barley

Pictures of a chickadee that I thought was a woodpecker because it was pecking at the wood siding on the house

This small woodpecker has been pecking directly on our house.  Initially I thought it was the same as this other one that we see near the house, but after looking at the pictures they are quite different.

Pictures of a nuthatch?

This small bird has been hanging out near our house.

Might be a nuthatch, or a northern downy woodpecker.

Thinking about carbon detonation in white dwarf stars (Type IA supernova)

I was reading about white dwarf stars because I've been very interested in neutron stars and I was wondering about something slightly less dense but really still incredibly dense.  While I was reading about that I learned about "Carbon Detonation" in which enough matter falls into a white dwarf star that it causes a runaway fusion reaction and explosion, which we've observed / classified astronomically as type IA supernova.  Here's some thoughts I've had about carbon detonation.

homebrewing hard cider

I'm attempting to home brew a hard cider, starting with the simplest possible recipe. 
Ingredients:

Installing a sparkling* drain near our house

I installed a sparkling drain* near our house, here is a time-lapse video, description below the fold:

* you may be more familiar with the name French drain, however, that is only correct if it is made in France

Installing pavers at the end of the driveway

I always wanted to do a project with paving stones - I've always been inspired by ancient stonework, especially reading about ancient roman roads - so I decided to put a band of pavers down along the end of our driveway.