Progress.

Diego is getting much closer to taking his first steps. Today we are home with him because he is sick and despite having both a viral and bacterial infection, the little dude is determined to play and have a good time!

I snapped this video with my iphone (Apple says I can't have video...but the industrious iphone hackers say I can haz videos! so take that, Jobs!)

Random moments...

Just some pics from the last couple of weeks. Diego is now 11 months old. He's mostly sleeping through the night and is drinking cow's milk like a pro and we are in the process of weaning him. Hard to believe that a year has come and gone so quickly! We will be in Columbus starting this Saturday, June 27 through July 5th. Hope to see you if you are around.

Let the babyproofing begin!

Diego learned alot from watching Eva toddle around here the last week, mostly that he really wants to be mobile like all the other kid he knows. He is experiencing really bad teething right now, has 7 with an eigth on the way. He is also starting to express his personality more, man what a temper this kid has! Must get that from Daddy! :) He has also started to poke around in places he previously had no interest in and he is picking up stuff he shouldn't. We learned from Eva that there is a lot of babyproofing that needs to occur before D is up and walking on his own, and Diego is reinforcing that notion this weekend. This is especially true now that D has his new toy, a baby walker! He isn't so steady on his own yet, but he can walk-around it pretty well.

I finally get to meet my cousins!!!!!!

Last week, Tio Rene, Tia Renee and Eva and Cruz came and spent the week with us. We had some much fun! We went to the zoo, the aquarium and barbequed. AJ and Rene finally finished the kegerator (as you can see from the post below) and they managed to polish off one 5 gallon keg of beer and probably made a pretty good dent in the other two. Much Rock-Banding ensued. The kids had a wonderful time playing together and getting to know each other. Hopefully, we will be able to make a trip up the NY sometime in the near future so we can do it all again!

DIY - My new kegerator!

Last night I finally converted a small 4.4 cubic foot refrigerator into a two faucet kegerator with a tower. I used the Frigidaire model widely available at Lowe's. I picked the stainless steel look. The process was fairly easy and Rene and I had a few homebrews while doing this little project.



When converting compact refrigerators you have to be aware of where the coolant lines for the evaporator run so that you don't inadvertently drill a hole through one and instantly kill your refrigerator and project. Unfortunately our digi camera was charging so these are all iPhone pics...they seem to capture the process well enough.

Here's a pic of the inside and you can see that on the inside of the fridge there is a lip on the top, that's where the evaporator and coolant lines run so if you drill in the front you don't have to worry about hitting any lines. You'll also notice that I had to unscrew and reposition the thermostat controller. This fridge will fit exactly two 5 gallon soda kegs (Cornelius variety) and one 5 lb CO2 tank on the back shelf.




So the first order of business was to measure and mark the "safe" zone's to drill on this fridge. The third piece of tape represents the furthest back I could safely drill without potentially hitting any coolant lines.



The view from above (view is at 90 degrees). The four "x's" represent where the securing screws will go to hold the tower in place. You can see that two are near the 'do not drill' area, but still safe.




Now right before drilling I lined up the gasket to make sure everything was ok...



Ok, decided to drill one test hole. My brother had the idea to subsequently bend a wire coat hanger about 2" and stick it in there to feel around for any coolant lines before drilling the big hole. We didn't find any evidence of coolant lines.



View from inside the fridge. You can see the small hole poke through just on the left side of the spotlight. Note the condensation on the coolant area.




Hole drilled through!! Yay, no coolant lines damaged! I decided to just line the hole with some duct tape before proceeding to the next step.



View from inside the fridge...




Now the four mounting holes were drilled for the tower and the surrounding tape was removed before mounting the tower.



Ok...now we're almost there!! The tower is installed...but still the fridge is empty.



Oh yes...those are Perlick faucets! :)



All the good stuff in the fridge with a pint of homebrew poured from the tap!




On draft:

* Left faucet, an American style Pale Ale 5.4% abv, 41 IBUs (bittered with Magnum and Perle, flavored with Cascade)
* Right faucet, an American style Pale Ale 4.6% abv, 41 IBUs (bittered with Magnum and Perle, flavored with Cascade)