Beer — Short’s Brewing

Based on my last post, you might suspect that I’m an investor in Short’s Brewery. This is not the case. I visited the brewery in 2008 and was only mildly engaged by the brews (I really disliked the Rich’s RIPA). Having said that, I am definitely a big fan of their Huma Lupa Licious and Bellaire Brown.

Huma Lupa Licious is a hop lover’s delight. Even bottled, the hop flavor shines through like a frickin’ laser beam. I’m a total hop nut-case and there were days when the hops in this beer overwhelmed me. There is no confusion about the hops in this beer. It jumps in your face and beats you about the head and neck. It does not, however, attempt to compensate by overwhelming you with sweet maltiness. It just says “screw that” and slaps you about the extremities with full hoppy goodness.

Bellaire Brown is a different animal. In this case, the hops are only there to offset the maltiness of the brown. For the most part, they accomplish their goal. This is not a sweet beer. You get the full impact of the malt but there is no sweetness to it. To me, this indicates a success of balance. That dry malty taste is predominate. You don’t take a sip and wonder what you’re drinking. You are immediately clear that this is a brown beer. You can enjoy that toasted malt without someone beating you with that off-setting sweetness. If you are not a fan of hops, but enjoy a quality brew, this is worth a taste.

Beer — Whole Hog Six-Hop IPA

I had high hopes for this bad boy until I cracked the top and discovered it was a twist-off. Unlike the amazing Huma Lupa Licious, which I should review soon, this beer is remarkably “un-hoppy.” It claims to have six hops. It isn’t clear to me if this is the number of varieties or if it is merely the number of hops in a keg.

I wanted to love this but I must say that it’s a surprisingly malty IPA. Don’t get me wrong, I tire of the mega-IPA’s that feel/taste like you’re drinking sugar water. This ain’t that kind of beer. In that sense, it is refreshingly dry. To me, the problem is that the “maltiness” overwhelms the hoppiness. Compare that to the Huma Lupa Licious from Shorts Brewing and you will discern a major difference in hop intensity. This beer is disturbingly middle ground. It doesn’t have the hops it claims but the malt levels can’t touch the Shorts Brewing Bellaire Brown, in terms of flavor. (OK, I’m on kind of a Short’s Brewing rant here but I’m not a total fanboy…their Pandemonium Pale Ale bores the crap out of me). Bottom line, if someone hands you this or a typical USA brew, feel totally justified in accepting this beer. However, if you’re looking into investing $9.00 in an exciting new mega-hopped 4-pack, this brew will leave you cold.

Beer — Twofer Again

It had been a rough day and I was getting desperate. I was in Port Huron, MI and the beer quest was going very badly. A Kroger’s and three liquor stores and the wildest things I could find were a couple different six packs of Bell’s and the Sam Adams collection. I was so desperate that I ALMOST tried another Bud attempt at a microbrew. But there was one last place off to my right. It looked small and my hopes were hanging by a thread.

Then I walked in and found an oasis of beerness goodness. It may not be the best beer store I’ve ever been in but, based on my experience,  it’s got to be one of the tops around Port Huron. The young man behind the counter was clearly a beer fan and knew what he was talking about. He informed me that they would be having a beer tasting at the end of March and that they would have tastings of Short’s beer. He gave me the good news that Short’s will be releasing Huma Lupa Licious in a bottle (we’ll see if that’s a good thing or not).

Check them out: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14379/?view=beerfly

It was hard to choose because there were a fair number of beers I hadn’t seen before. I opted for two.

Sierra Nevada used to be one of my go-to beers when I found myself in a bar or restaurant that had a crap selection. For some reason, they would generally have the Pale Ale in a bottle or on draft. So, when I saw this, I had to try it. It was tough because there were several other beers that looked more interesting. This won because it promised hops. Lots of hops. I wanted to see what Sierra Nevada would do with it.

Be warned, to see these beers, I had to pour them into a hotel plastic cup. Not ideal but I wanted to see them.

Torpedo had a nice head. It quickly filled half the glass with fine bubbles. The color was lighter than I expected. It’s like a lager with a hint of red. The hops hits right away. Strong hops aroma, and it isn’t an overload of the citrus cascade scent. Cascade is not my favorite hops. It can be overwhelming to me and I don’t like the way the citrus overpowers the flowery/herbal nature of hops. They curbed that citrus a bit, in the smell and the taste. It’s still there on the tongue but the hops taste shines through. This is no Huma Lupa Licious but you don’t always need hops overkill (although it doesn’t hurt…).

It’s light in body for what I would expect from an “Extra IPA” but I liked it. A good drinking beer. Worth a try.

The Dogfish selection at Ryan’s had me drooling (except for that shitty raisin thing). I could have walked out with a number of Dogfish products. It was hard to choose because they offered so many interesting options and all I see where I live is the 60 Minute IPA, the 90 Minute IPA, and the raisin crap. It was hard to pass up the Golden Era (which I’ve just learned was once called Golden Shower — nice move on the name change) but I had to because I decided that I needed to step away from the holy hops for a few.

This bad boy is dark. Really dark. Black. But if you hold it up to the light you can see these beautiful flashes of red. It filled to about 1/3 head and 2/3 beer; a tan head that dissolves in short order. No hops in the bouquet of this one. You get an alcohol whiff like you would from a Double or Imperial IPA, or a Belgian Dubble or Tripple. You also get a hint of the vanilla that the wood brings to the mix. It has a medium body. The first taste is a mixture of the alcohol and the vanilla. Very different. Then the smoke begins to hit and you’re sure this is a brown ale. It isn’t a wimpy brown; I’m not as beer smart as I should be but I’m thinking I haven’t seen too many 12% brown ales. After all the wimpy browns I’ve had, I’m glad to have tried this one. The weird thing is, once you’ve processed that smokey brown ale flavor, you get that sweetness on the tongue like you’ve just had a Belgian Dubble or Tripple (so don’t overdo it). Another beer worth trying. Not a 60 Minute IPA but there are so many bland brown ales out there that this one kept my interest.

Beer — Twofer

I can’t claim to be a Budweiser fan. Even as a teenager, before there was such a thing as microbrew, I hated Budweiser.  But I would like to enjoy Budweiser. Hell, they’re Belgian now and Belgians know how to make good beer. Anyway, with much trepidation and a bit of hope, I decided to try the American Ale. The name seemed suitably pretentious for a beer from a company that thinks rice is a main beer ingredient and hops is not.

Sure, sounds like the rants of your typical beer snob. Guilty. While typing this, I’m enjoying a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. When they aren’t throwing nasty things like raisins into a beer, the Dogfish folks make a mean beer. Anyway, I bought one of the large bottles because I am weak in faith and didn’t want to buy a six pack. Decided to try it with some spicy Chinese food. It wasn’t as bad as Budweiser. It had a hint of that same skanky Budweiser pseudo-malt but to a lesser extent. It might have had a tad bit more body and it certainly had hints of hops. Hints. Don’t go getting all excited, I said hints. There is just no avoiding that Budweiser taste, though. So, if my only three options were Budweiser, Bud Light, and “American Ale,” I might actually choose the American Ale. If there are other choices, this would beer would never make the list.

Founders is a strange brewery for me. In most cases, I prefer the draft product to bottled if a brewery provides both. With Founders, the beers I’ve had onsite have been ok, but not fantastic. However, some of their bottled beers have been great. I like the Dirty Bastard, the Centennial IPA, the Dry Hopped Pale Ale, the Breakfast Stout and the Double Dancer.

Double Trouble is a very nice double IPA. It has all of the hops and all of the body but it doesn’t go overboard trying to balance things. So, it isn’t as sweet as some of the double and triple IPA’s get. You get the hops but it is drier (less sweet) than many of the competitors. Unfortunately, I was not in a position to put the beer into a glass, so I can’t comment on the color or head. I can say that it was (to me) a medium bodied beer with a nice hop finish and a strong alcohol warmth to it.

Oh, and the Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA is phenomenal. Probably better than either of these beers.

OBE — Lucid Dreamer

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted. It doesn’t seem like it could have been that long. Trying to stay employed is becoming more time consuming these days!

To be fair, my OBE experiences of late have been incredibly disappointing. Perhaps it points back to the stress of the current working environment. That certainly can’t help but have an impact. However, I think that some of it points back to good habits that were unlearned as quickly as they were learned. Add to that a journal system that should have been more comprehensive, in terms of techniques, and I find myself bewildered that the successes get fewer and more far between.

By contrast, I have a friend whose results have gone in the opposite direction. While my results have declined, his have been on the upswing. He has even beaten me by having a verifiable experience; an experience in which he saw something that he was later able to confirm. To what does he attribute success? Interestingly, two things. He believes that a very important piece is his intent as he is falling asleep. In this way, he is very much a supporter of what Buhlman has to say. Also, he believes that his disturbed sleep pattern contributes. This supports the contention put forth by Nicholas Newport at http://www.saltcube.com. As I’ve mentioned before, Nicholas’s DVD is a worthy purchase.

But enough about them, what about me? Last night/this morning, I had the most positive experience I’ve ever had using the Lucid Dreamer pills offered by http://www.dreamamins.com. As mentioned before, I had zero results with the pills until I started taking them in the wee hours of the morning, as opposed to when I go to bed (as suggested on the bottle). Also, my experience has continued to support the contention of Thomas Yuschak:

Advanced Lucid Dreaming: The Power of Supplements

As Mr. Yuschak suggests, my body seems to get habituated to the pill and the results diminish rapidly if I try to take the pills too often. By keeping myself to a schedule of taking the pills every 2-4 weeks, I am getting better results.

So, last night I took them again for the first time in 2-3 weeks. The prior time, I had taken the pills around 5:00 AM and never gone back to sleep. As far as I can tell, going back to sleep is as big a key as taking the pills at the right time. Around 3:48 AM (give or take), I woke up and decided to evacuate my bladder. Then, thinking it was a good time to try the pills again, I went downstairs, checked e-mail to wake up a bit, then took two of the pills and went back to bed. Once in bed, I began to do deep relaxation exercises.

When I drifted off to sleep, I began to experience the tell-tale signs that the pills were working for me: intense flying dreams. This time, I was smart enough/alert enough to realize just that. This changed the experience because I was then able to think about what I wanted to do. I began trying to visit specific people (to no avail) and to try to go to different places (with only slightly more avail…). However, with this level of awareness, the experience was very visceral. Anytime I wanted to go somewhere else, I would “jump down.” I would immediately launch into an intense flight, like I would imagine jet fighter pilots experience. The intensity was overwhelming but exhilerating. I visited amazing landscapes in the clouds, in forests, in jungles… The colors were so vivid that it was amazing. Skies of bright blue, or pink/purple. Trees of the deepest greens. Oceans of the brightest blue. At one point, I found myself in a room. I decided to keep flying “lower.” As I got lower, I got smaller.  I soon found myself flying above the top of a PC motherboard. Each chip/component was the size of a computer bag. I could recognize the components but was afraid to touch them.

Probably, some will argue that this was a series of lucid dreams and not OBE’s. For me, this one seemed more OBE than LD. The self-awareness and the vividness were far more accute than in the other experiences I’ve had with lucid dreams. To me, there IS a difference.

Good luck with your own efforts.

OBE — A Thought

In his book Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook:

Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook: A Manual for the Art of Retrieval and Afterlife Exploration (Exploring the Afterlife)

Bruce Moen discusses his process for visiting the various realms of the afterlife. It’s an interesting book and an interesting process. In his view, there is no OBE as a part of this process. It’s a mental shift to one of the Focus levels defined by Robert Monroe. It’s fascinating that these environments remain consistent for people. Further, Moen has used joint trips with others to verify his experiences. After an experience, they send each other their notes. In comparing the notes, they have found a high degree of correspondence between the experiences.

The method is discussed here:

http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/contact.html

http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/oobe.html

The thing is…the method is too simple for me. I’ve tried it once and had an interesting experience. However, given the nature of the experience, I can hardly conclude rationally whether the experience was “real” or not. It was interesting and it didn’t seem like I was making it up as I went along but it wasn’t a vivid experience, like an OBE is. It was much more like a daydream.

If you’re comfortable with getting yourself to Focus XX and then shifting your attention there, Mr. Moen’s process will probably work for you just fine. For me, I’m not confident about hitting specific Focus levels. Even my efforts with the Gateway CD’s have not been sufficient to get me to where I can recognize the various Focus levels.

So, this all got me thinking. (Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to try this out yet but I started thinking about Win Wenger’s Image Streaming process.) Win maintains that you are constantly receiving streamed information from your mind in the form of images (and other senses also). However, you learn early on in life to disregard these images. Win describes a process where you get yourself deeply relaxed. You then begin paying attention to the images you see in your mind’s eye (they may be colorful 3D images or they may be fleeting, faint glimpses–it depends on your own visualization skills). A key piece is that you then begin to describe aloud what you are seeing. This follows the principle that you get more of what you reinforce. Win suggests that you either describe what you are seeing to another person, or you do it into a tape recorder. He says that without the intent to describe what you are seeing to someone else, the reinforcement isn’t strong enough and your experience will be much less than it could/should/would be.

http://www.winwenger.com/imstream.htm

Finally to my point…What if we used Image Streaming as the gateway to these Focus levels? Win discusses the importance of surprise to get past your own internal censor. In his “Over the Wall” method, he teaches you to get new ideas or insights by jumping over a wall (or going through a door) at an unexpected point in the image stream. For this to be effective, it’s best to have someone help you or to have a recording that suggests you jump the wall at a certain point (you’re unlikely to know exactly when that is if you’re caught up in your image stream).

So, how about a protocol like this:

1. Relax deeply through whatever method works for you.

2. Begin image streaming. Either use a person or a tape recorder, or record into your PC.

3. If using a person, have them, at some point, suggest that you see a wall or a door. When you see it, they should suggest that this wall or door is the gateway to Focus XX and will provide you the opportunity to meet a loved one, do a retrieval, explore that level…whatever. If you are using a recording, give yourself 10-15 minutes of image streaming before the recording mentions the wall or door.

4. When prompted, go over that wall or through that door with the full intention of arriving in Focus XX. Keep describing what you see, people you meet, discussions you have.

5. Review the results later. Did you encounter anything verifiable? For instance, did you meet someone who you can confirm existed or did you find information from a loved one that is true but you would have had no way of knowing?

Good luck.

Beer — Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest

My expectations for this one were high. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is usually my goto beer if I find myself in a bar or restaurant that doesn’t have local beers available. It’s a nice hoppy little ale.

My expectation was to find a special beer with an intriguing hop profile. Unfortunately, this is not what I found. The body is a bit thin, there is no noticeable hop flavor at all and very little hop aroma. The hop bitterness is certainly there but that’s as far as it goes. Certainly nothing to suggest it is a fresh hop ale. It was not a pleasure to drink and I forced myself to finish it because it was nearly $6 for the bottle.

Mac — SSH on OS X Leopard

I’m trying to compile my notes on getting SSH working with Leopard. Most of the stuff I found online were for versions of OS X that pre-dated Leopard. It took some doing to get it working properly with Leopard. Of course, there were many helpful bloggers out there who got me through it. There was no brilliance on my part.

OBE — On the Horizon

Other books I’ll talk about:

Between the Gates: Lucid Dreaming, Astral Projection, and the Body of Light in Western Esotericism

The Art and Practice of Astral Projection

Astral Projection and Psychic Empowerment : Techniques for Mastering the Out-Of-Body Experience

Soul Flight: Astral Projection and the Magical Universe

The Mentalist’s Handbook: An Explorer’s Guide to Astral, Spirit, and Psychic Worlds

Ancient Teachings for Beginners

Not sure how quickly, but these are all on the pile. In addition, I’ve read the books by Fox, Muldoon, Carrington, Yram, Crookall. These were many years ago and each had its intrigue but all failed on the practical level. The more modern books provide much more useful information.

OBE — Buhlman

William Buhlman provides value in many ways. His first book is a gem. You can find useful audio of him on Youtube. He has a Yahoo Group that is very interesting.

Adventures Beyond the Body: How to Experience Out-of-Body Travel

This is a very intriguing book. If you were to put William Buhlman and Robert Bruce on a spectrum, they would not be close to each other. It wouldn’t be fair to say they are on opposite ends of the spectrum but they aren’t neighbors. Bruce is very focused on energy and how to use that energy for healing and for astral travel. He’s the mystic but he doesn’t fall into the trap of spouting endless new-age-speak. For all his mystical tendencies, he’s still very grounded (makes sense from an energy perspective…) and accessible.

William Buhlman is very different. There is no hint of the mystic about him. He’s just a regular Joe that stumbled upon an unexpected ability. In this regard, he is much closer to Robert Peterson. However, Mr. Buhlman just seems more focused and methodical to me than Peterson is. His examples tend to be more relevant to what he’s trying to say and he usually has a point. He never really strays into the realm of new age, never goes nearly psychedelic like Moen or the later Monroe, and yet he provides some very interesting theories (just as interesting as those of Mr. Bruce but from a different perspective). He provides a wealth of techniques and insights.

For people looking for success, it’s my opinion that the Buhlman and Bruce books are your best tools to get there. Next up is the Yuschak book with some Dreamamins. Also check out Mr. Buhlman’s Yahoo Group.