First Fire

Attempting to force myself to believe that the heat of fire will cleanse my soul.

I seem to be having a rough (read: shitty) week that seems to compound itself. Yesterday was probably the worst when it became difficult to contain my mood. Today was better since I was able to conceal my thoughts better from those around me.

In an attempt to soothe my soul, I headed over to Bud's house for an evening of raging fires and a big cigar. Here in Baltimore, autumn is looming on the horizon with the leaves slowly turning ochre and the weather teasingly crispy in the evening. It's not cold per se, but it's pretending.

The nice thing about the colder weather are the raging fires at Bud's house while smoking cigars. It's not the dead of winter when it's too cold to do anything outside but it is crispy enough to build fires. Happily, Bud is well equipped for raging fires with piles upon piles of dried firewood. Big fire, tasty cigar and good conversation amongst friends is a recipe for a good evening.

Too bad the evenings' niceties wasn't enough to quell my anxiety.

Spro Swag

A VWR branded PolyScience immersion circulator, Mahlkonig VTA6S, Bunn tower, Tru Bru and a bunch of other gadgets.

One of the best things about opening a new place is the massing of equipment that precedes the opening. Suddenly, there's a need and resources (supposed financing) to buy aplenty. From benign under mounted stainless steel sinks to big, honking grinders, it's fun and exciting - even though it may threaten the company's bottom line.

Meanwhile, the garage is full of equipment waiting to move to project hampden and The Spro of Towson is slowly filling up with equipment that has nowhere else to go.

Here are some of the equipment highlights for project hampden:

Mahlkonig VTA6S
Compak K10 WBC
Compak R80
Bunn G1
PolyScience Immersion Circulators
Brew Towers
Randell FX Refrigeration
Tru Bru
Chemex
Aeropress
Clever
Eva Solo
La Marzocco (duh, of course!)
Liquid Nitrogen Dewars
PacoJet
C-Vap
Multivac C200
Sodir SEM60
Hines
Stumptown
Intelligentsia
Ecco Caffe
Barefoot
Counter Culture