Scotch so smoky you'll think there's a fireplace in your glass

My developing scotch collection with some glasses

and other memorabilia from Scotland.

My recent explorations of scotch whisky brought me in contact with the smoky flavors that greatly surprised me. Before studying in Scotland, most of the whiskies I tried were sometimes rich and sometimes fruity, and I had never heard of a smoky scotch. Most of the malts I see in the US tend to be the fruitier and lighter ones like Glenfiddich and Glenlivet. Yet while I was touring the Whisky Experience in Edinburgh, the guide told us that everyone had to taste Ardberg at least once. Few people actually like the smoky flavor, but those who like it tend to love it. In all honesty, the smoky flavors are still not my favorite. Still, I brought back home a bottle of Ardberg as an example of the different flavors scotch can have.

On the single malt flavor map, Ardberg is one of the smokiest and lightest of the scotch whiskies. The distillery is on the Island of Islay, where they often take peat dredged from the seashore and put it into a furnace so that the smoke will soak into the barley before processing it. The earliest distillery on this site dates back to the 1790s, but the earliest licensed and commercial distillery began in 1815. By 1900 a small village had sprung up around the distillery with 40 workers and a school with 100 pupils, but production declined by the 1920s. At this point Ardberg single malt was only available to a small number of customers who had a credit with the family company. By 1959 the family sold the company to various investors, and eventually the Canadian Hiram Walker & Sons company mothballed the operation in 1976 and laid off the remaining 18 employees. The village died. In 1996 Glenmorangie bought the distillery and spent £1.4 million on restoration because the buildings were so dilapidated. The next year they began producing scotch again.

The malt is now one of the more famous peaty whiskies from Islay. The full-bodied taste has a medicinal, salty, and dry start with a bit of sweetness (that makes it light) followed with a blast of smoke. A similar scotch is Laphroaig 10 Year. When I ordered a glass of this last time I was in Scotland, my friend sitting next to me could hardly stand the smoky smell. Another scotch that is incredibly smoky yet rich, as opposed to Ardberg's lightness, is Lagavulin 16 Year, but I'll save that scotch for another blog post.

Medicus: a free book that wasn't half bad

Numerous books on Amazon are free for the Kindle, including most books published before the 1930s and certain select works that Amazon is trying to publicize. Many of the more recent works that are free are disappointing, which I guess shouldn't be much of a surprise. For instance, Tahn by L.A. Kelly was just plain pathetic; the Christian fiction was an embarrassment to the religion with its shallow characters and constant, insincere appeals that the reader accept Jesus; I could only finish a third of it. However, one free novel captivated me: Medicus by Ruth Downie.

The novel takes place in Britain just after Rome conquered the area. A military doctor moves here in order to get away from his ex-wife, and he then has several adventures and mishaps. Though some of the historical details about daily life in Roman Britain seem unlikely, the book seemed decently accurate. I actually enjoyed how the author showed daily life amongst the soldiers and their subjects instead of talking about the rulers and other elites. There were several times when the author showed the protagonists' frustrations that people today still have. For example, his boss, the hospital administrator was a bureaucratic douche, and his roommate was a complete slob. Meanwhile, there is a story about the protagonist and his slave that is distinctly Roman. This book is the first in a series of novels about the Roman Empire, and I look forward to reading some of these other novels. I suppose that giving me this first book for free worked out well for Amazon.

anCnoc: a bizarre beginner's scotch

A nip of Grant's Sherry Cask Reserve

While I was visiting a scotch whisky store in Edinburgh last November, a lady was offering samples of different whiskies her company offered. Of course, I took advantage of the opportunity. My first sample was of Pulteney 21 Year, a heavy and meaty malt. I took this sample mostly because I knew it was an expensive drink, and I probably wouldn't get another opportunity to taste it for free. The other whisky was anCnoc 12 Year.

The name is bizarre, especially the capital 'c' in the middle of the word. Properly pronounced "a-nock," the word is the Gaelic word for a hill next to the distillery in Aberdeenshire. From the name to the shape of the bottle, the company has branded itself as a modern whisky that is distinctly different from other whiskies around Scotland. I bought a bottle of this scotch for multiple reasons. First, it was cheaper than some of the older, richer whiskies I tasted in the store. Second, I wanted to find a scotch to contrast with the smokier scotches so that I could show friends the huge differences between different types of scotch. Third, it is a bizarre and rare scotch that I didn't expect to find back home.

The 12 Year version is very light and smooth but still complex. The nose is soft with hints of honey and lemon in the foreground. The taste starts sweet with lots of fruitiness and smooth finish. If tasted along with a medium or richer scotch, the flavor will be even more obvious. I would think that people who normally didn't like whisky might like this one because it is so light and fruity. Hence, I consider it a 'beginner' scotch. However, I know some who like the smokier and richer scotch flavors even though they detest whisky in general.

Exiting the world of zombies and entering the world of vampires: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

While driving back to DC from Mississippi, I listened to Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith, who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. My uncle suggested I listen to this audio book on the long drive since I had mentioned zombies on the blog. I've never read anything about vampires before now even though the Twilight series has captivated some of my friends. In fact, I've only read a couple horror books about zombies. Nevertheless, this audio book was a good choice for the drive because it wasn't very complicated and easy to follow while I kept my eyes on the road. The last audio book I listened to while on a long drive, Oliver Twist, was a horrible story to listen to because the narrator was pathetic. In this new book, the narrator does a very good job of imitating voices and making the story sound interesting but not too corny. Of course, anyone who reads or listens to this book can't take it too seriously. Still, the story does follow a lot of historical facts about Lincoln while mixing it up with a vampire plot. There were several times that certain events happened that made me wonder if some of these things actually happened, such as the story about Lincoln's first love. I've never studied Lincoln much except for what I had to study in high school, so I downloaded a free biography about him onto my Kindle. Overall, I liked the story more than I liked Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because this plot was much more interesting; the spoof of the Jane Austen classic followed the original work too much so that it was rather boring. I guess I shouldn't read Austen's actual books, then. However, I don't have any other vampire or zombie or Austen books in my queue to read for a while.

Learning how to shovel snow

Last winter the area in between Baltimore and DC where I've been staying was hit with over 60 inches of snow. It was a record amount. The snow almost completely covered the fence in the backyard. However, this winter there has been very little snow, only a light dusting every now and again that hasn't cause much trouble. Even though parts of the northeast such as New York and Philadelphia have had records amount of snow recently, this area has been either too warm or too dry. After I drove back up to the DC metro area, a snowstorm came through town. Here are photos I took of my car during the storm:

Before sunset I took this photo because I thought

a lot of snow had fallen on my car.

The next morning I was surprised to see all of

this snow that fell overnight.

The plow had come through early in the morning

to push more snow towards my car.

Never had I ever shoveled snow. In Scotland I didn't have to worry about shoveling the sidewalks or a car, but this storm gave me a chance to learn. There was only about 3 or 4 inches, but it was enough to cause a lot of disruptions in the area, especially since a rain had washed the salt/grit off the road just before the snow began. More problems happened because the storm started while most everyone was still at work and wasn't prepared to drive back home on snow- and ice-covered roads. I heard about some people who had to take more than 3 hours to drive home when the commute would normally take 15 or 30 minutes. Thankfully, the snow stopped and didn't accumulate over several days.

Review of 'The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions'

Last summer when I ordered a political science book on Amazon for my dissertation research, I went ahead and ordered another book so that I could get the free shipping. Upon my sister's suggestion, I bought The Meaning of Jesus by Marcus Borg and NT Wright. She read this book for a class while attending seminary and said that it was one of the best ones she read. Borg, the leading liberal scholar, and Wright, the leading conservative scholar, debate back and forth about several topics concerning the historical Jesus, including the gospel's reliability, Jesus' message, the crucifixion, the resurrection, His divinity, the birth stories, and the second coming. I had read NT Wright when a church I attended in college gave me his book Simply Christian as a graduation gift (this book is the best introduction to Christianity I've read and summarizes my own beliefs rather closely). However, I haven't read much legit liberal theology, so I was eager to read this book to see how the arguments developed.

Overall, Borg followed the idea that there was a pre-Easter Jesus and a post-Easter Jesus. The first century Christian community changed the historical Jesus into a 'history remembered' image or metaphor after His death. Therefore, Borg goes back through scripture to see what Jesus actually did and what the gospels merely claimed He did. I've heard similar arguments from atheists and Christian critics as reasons to reject Christianity, but Borg insists that even if the events did not occur in the manner as the gospels claim, Jesus is still Lord and so forth; it is still better to follow Christ. Though I found his logic and arguments interesting, I thought NT Wright's positions made more sense. For instance, Borg argued that Jesus' followers turned Him into a 'messiah' after the crucifixion and that Jesus didn't think of Himself in such terms and never talked about it. Wright responded that we cannot know definitively what Jesus actually thought, but because they were under Roman occupation the first century Jewish community in which He grew up had a lot of debates and discussions about who the 'messiah' would be and what he would do. There are lots of Jewish texts from this era to attest to this debate, even if most of the would-be messiahs attempted to use military force to overthrow Rome. Considering how Jesus behaved, people would have wondered about His position on the messiah debate. It seems very unlikely that He would have grown up in this environment, been asked for His opinion during this popular discussion, and not make up His mind one way or the other, as Borg argues. In this case, I find Wright's argument more reasonable.

On another note, I tend to dislike Borg's theory about a pre- and post-Easter Jesus for one main reason: the traditions that he argues developed after Easter happened rather suddenly and depart greatly from traditional Judaism's or any other religion's theology. I'm used to the idea that what people remember about history and what actually happened can be very different. Last year I studied about how people remembered wars and traumatic experiences differently from what happened. However, even in the Second World War in which the Russians and Americans remember the war very differently, there is general agreement about most events that have happened because people are still alive to verify certain theories and confront misconceptions. I'm not sure how long it would take for a society to develop a huge distortion of interpretation that Borg alleges happened to the early Christian church within only a couple years, but from looking at how societies have distorted what wars have meant or why they happened, I suppose it would take multiple generations. The gospels were not written 200 years after Jesus' crucifixion, so I doubt Borg's assertion.

Another point that Borg makes confuses me when I consider what else he says. In his last chapter he argues that Christians should focus on the historical Jesus, who was a huge proponent of social justice. Borg writes, "Jesus knew that the desperation of life flowed from systematic injustice" (pp. 244-245). I have no problem with the idea that Jesus had a problem with social injustice and that the church should confront these injustices. However, Borg's methodology confuses me. How does he, on the one hand, say that Jesus did not think of Himself as divine or as the messiah because the early church created those beliefs and corrupted the gospels but then, on the other hand say that Jesus did think that social injustice was a problem? If we can't trust the our sources because the early church created them, then how can we determine Jesus' opinion on the economic status quo? After all, Jesus probably didn't take Economics 101 so that he could understand how the Roman Empire worked economically and how best to undermine this system (though He probably did learn about Jewish beliefs and debates like the messiah issue at the synagogue). If the early church created the divine side of Jesus and put it into its early texts, then surely they could have created the social gospel side and put it into the same texts. How can we exclude one and not exclude the other? I'm sure Borg has elaborated on this point in other works but perhaps did not have space in the book I read. For me, I exclude neither because I believe the gospels give a fairly good representation of what happened.

After reading this book, I've learned that I am in fact a conservative Christian. I've actually wondered a bit about this point because I do believe that women should be allowed to be ministers and leaders within the church if they should so choose, which in Mississippi makes me a raging liberal according to conventional wisdom there.

Finally, I end this post on an except from this book. Over the past year I've thought a bit about suffering and how it relates to the Christian life. So often I've heard from the pulpit of different churches that if Christians follow Jesus, they'll have a better life; they'll have a good spouse, marriage, descent children, and so forth if they follow Jesus. It almost sounds like a variation of the 'health and wealth' gospel. When I read the Bible, I find the opposite is true. Jesus warns His followers that following Him will make life more difficult ('foxes have holes but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head' and so forth). Even in the Old Testament I see that those who followed God did not necessarily have a better life, at least not in terms of this life. Look at Hosea. He had a pathetic wife precisely because he followed God. Yet there is a purpose in suffering. Wright hits on this point in his last chapter:

Paul writes in several of his letters about his own suffering and that of other Christians, being used in the economy of God to bring about life and healing for others. 2 Corinthians as a whole reflects this belief: there, Paul's suffering as an apostle (directly caused by his challenging the principalities and powers with the news that the crucified Jesus is the Lord of the world) is seen as itself part of the healing process whereby the Corinthian church is built up in faith, renewed in Christ. [...] I have increasingly seen as central and climatic the Pauline and indeed New Testament theology as a whole is Romans 8:18-27. There, within the context of the hope for the renewal (healing?) of the whole creation, Paul sketches a picture of the church's task. The church is not called to stand on the sidelines watching the world from a distance as it groans in travail, longing for redemption. The church finds itself caught up in the same groaning, suffering at the heart of a world in pain. But within the church's groaning Paul detects the groaning of the Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of the living God. God does not stand aloof from the pain of the church and hence from the pain of the world. Rather, God is present in the church, calling forth prayer, even inarticulate prayer, precisely at the place of the world's pain. Thus, the church is called to be for the world what Jesus was for Israel: not just a moral lecturer, nor even a moral example, but the people who, in obedience to God's strange vocation, learn to suffer and pray at the place where the world is in pain, so that the world may be healed. (pp. 223-224)

In this and other works, Wright emphasizes that the church should build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth in order to prepare for Jesus' return. In order to build this Kingdom, Christians will suffer and sacrifice. Personally, I believe that this message of selfless service and sacrifice is not emphasized enough, at least not in many of the churches I've attended.

Tardy Review of Little Bottles of Scotch

A collection of the small bottles I tried while

in Scotland last December.

While in Scotland last November and December for graduation, I tried as many different scotch whiskies as I could since there is such a large selection over there. I'm still trying to become a scotch aficionado of sorts so that I actually know what I'm ordering and drinking. After all, scotch is my favorite drink. Several of the scotch stores along the Royal Mile had walls full of small sample bottles along with the regular sized bottles so that customers can try several of the more obscure brands they wouldn't be able to find elsewhere. Compared to what I would pay in the pub, the prices were very reasonable, especially since each bottle had a double serving. However, I never got around to writing a review of the different scotches I tried. In this post I'll list my top five scotches that my scotch-loving friends should try.

5) Jura 10 Year. Located on a remote island in western Scotland next to the Isle of Islay, the Jura distillery makes a highland-style malt instead of the smokier, peatier malts which the nearby island makes. A distillery has been here since around 1810, but it didn't start making a single malt until 1974. There are only four stills, but they are taller compared to others in Scotland in order to produce a lighter flavor. According to the single malt whisky flavor map, Jura is a well balanced scotch that is slightly lighter than others and is similar to Isle of Aaron 12 Year and Oban 14 Year. The flavor is oily, earthy-piney with lemon notes. Its medium-bodied taste has some maltiness and is sweetish to start before turning dry with a little bit of salt flavor in the end. It also comes in one of the coolest bottles I've seen. Finally, in the 1940s George Orwell lived on the Isle of Jura while writing 1984.

4) Glendronach 15 Year. Built in 1825 by a group of local farmers in Aberdeenshire, this distillery is supposed to be one of the most charming and old-fashioned distillery in Scotland. A fire destroyed most of the original buildings in the 1837, and the current buildings date to the reconstruction in the 1850s. The ownership mothballed the facilities in 1996 and didn't start making whisky again until 2002. The full to medium bodied flavor is rich, sweet, and creamy with a sherry style and traces of vanilla and coconut. The founder of the distillery, James Allardice, once dined at Gordon Castle with the Duke and Duchess, and he drank a bit too much of the hard stuff and complimented the Duchess a bit too fondly about her piano playing. The next morning the Duke told Allardice that his compliments were over the line. The distillery owner replied that it was "the trash of Glenlivet" the Duke had served after dinner that messed him up so much. If it had been his Glendronach, he would have not been so ornery. The Duke then ordered a case.

3) Dufftown Singleton 12 Year. Last September I went to Dufftown in order to visit the Glenfiddich distillery just outside the small Speyside village, but there are several other distilleries in the town. In fact, James Duff, Earl of Fife, created this village in 1817 in order to build distilleries that would employ men returning home from the Napoleonic Wars. The Singleton of Dufftown was the sixth distillery to be built in this town in 1896, and the workers at the town's first distillery, Mortlach, tried to divert Dufftown's water supply on multiple occasions but failed. The malt's nose is sweet, fruity, and cereal-like with bruised apples and pears. The medium-bodied taste is mostly sweet with light toffee. Since this malt is very common in a lot of pubs, I began to order this on a regular basis.

2) Arran 10 Year. I suggest this scotch because it is a new and rare variety from the island not too far from Ayrshire, where I have stayed with family multiple times. In order to raise funds for the facilities in 1998, the owner created a unique bond system in which participants could buy a bond for £450 each. Each bond holder received five cases of Aaron Founder's Reserve in 2001 in addition to part ownership in the distillery. When the operation started, many people speculated what type of malt the distillery would make. It could have a peatier, smokier flavor like other island distilleries, but the owner had a lot of experience in Speyside. In the end, the distillery developed its own flavor and style that is unlike the four other Scottish styles. The light-bodied flavor is sweet and fruity with pear drops, citric fruits, and green apples.

1) Dalwhinnie 15 Year. Out of all the different malts I tried, this one was so good that it surprised me. The flavor is similar to another one of my favorites, Glenfiddich, but this new one is a little bit lighter. The distillery is located in a remote spot in the Highlands, is the highest distillery in Scotland at 1,073 feet above sea level, and is the coldest distillery with an annual average of 6º C. It is very common for the facilities to be snowbound for weeks, and some have compared the location to a long forgotten outpost in the far north wilderness. The full-bodied flavor is sweet with heather honey notes. It is a viscous malt with a big-mouth feel with a sweet start that dries out with a whiff of peat smoke.

A season that didn't live up to fantasy

Tennessee Titans defensive end Marques Douglas

chases down Peyton Manning in the first quarter

of the Week 17 game on January 2.

AP Photo/Darron Cummings.

It's hard for me to say what exactly went wrong with my fantasy football season this year. After back-to-back championship years, my team went 5-8 in the regular season and ended at 8th place out of 10 before the playoffs. At the beginning of the season I had thought I had a good team after a good draft. But as soon as the season began I realized I had made several mistakes in the draft. Though I had picked Maurice Jones Drew in the first round and Peyton Manning in the second, which were good choices since they provided a stable source of points, my other running backs and wide receivers were weak or inconsistent. I scrambled to find replacements for Brandon Marshall, Donald Driver, and Kevin Walter. Some of my later picks in the draft did fairly well, including Darren McFadden and Hakeem Nicks. For some stupid reason I chose the 49ers defense because it was ranked higher than others. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What was I thinking? By the end of the year I made several changes. I dropped most of my running backs and wide receivers, but the new ones still didn't do very well. Week after week many of my players would only get a few points. Anquan Boldin had one good game when he caught three touchdowns, but he had 10 games in which he gave me 6 points or less. I did make some good additions, especially when I picked up the Jacksonville tight end, Mercedes Lewis. However, my biggest mistakes during the season came from when I made trusted my gut and moved players onto the bench just before they had a huge breakout game. Anquan Boldin scored 32 points in week 3, but I had him on the bench. I would have won that game if I had left my roster alone. Then the Patriots defense scored 33 points in week 4, but I dropped them from my team hours before the games started that Sunday morning. Again, I would have won that game. If not for those two moves, I would have had a 7-6 record. That would have put me on the cusp of the playoffs. A little bit of luck could have also helped. There were multiple games that I lost by only a couple points after some running back or wide receiver I never heard of and will never hear from again had a spectacular one-hit-wonder game.

After I got my act together and made the right adjustments at the end of the season, I throttled my opponents in the consolation games. In these last 4 weeks I moved from 8th place to 5th place, which was the best I could have done once the playoffs started. If I had been in the playoffs, I would have given those teams a run for their money. Oh, well.

So at the end of this fantasy football season, I've decided to take some lessons away so that I might have a bit more success next year:

1) Before the draft do more research about which running backs and wide receivers are overrated and underrated. This past year I didn't have the chance to do this research since I was working on my dissertation in Scotland. Next year I could choose to draft those players who are on teams who made it to the playoffs or should have made it to the playoffs.

2) Concentrate more on running backs than wide receivers. There are so many other wide receivers on a team. It's hard to guess which player will catch the TD pass. However, there are fewer running backs who could steal TD runs. RBs provide more points consistently than WRs, who tend to be boom or bust. Therefore, I should have 3 RBs and 2 WRs each week instead of 2 RBs and 3 WRs.

3) Participate in at least 2 fantasy football leagues. If I make smart decisions in the draft, then at least one of the teams will do well. Success in fantasy football needs luck, and it makes sense that one of my teams won't be lucky. If I had one lucky team in one league, then that would make the fantasy football season more fun.

4) Stay away from the NFC West. Drafting a player from this wasteland of NFL football is kinda like doing tequila shots on your birthday. At first it might sound exciting and fun, but just don't do it. It's a bad idea.

Next fall I'll get to see if these lessons were good ideas or not.

Ringing in the New Year by interpreting Swedish assembly instructions

Since her old desk and shelves weren't big enough to handle all of her computer and camera equipment for her growing photography business, my sister wanted to buy a new desk and cabinets for her office. Thus, we all went to Ikea in Houston on New Year's Eve. I've never been to an Ikea, and there was a bunch of cool furniture I could buy when I finally get a job and a place of my own. Then again, all the assembly required after buying Ikea furniture may cause me to be happy with whatever furniture I already have once I get settled into one place. Since she asked nicely, I built the desk, cabinets, and tv stand once we got back from Ikea. It reminded me of Legos. I loved Legos when I was a kid, and my future kids will learn to love Legos, whether they like it or not. Maybe I can convince Elizabeth to play Legos with me when she gets old enough. However, I didn't quite understand the Ikea instructions as I built the tv stand. I accidently switched the front and rear pieces and didn't realize this until I was almost finished building it. I had to undo several pieces and rebuild the stand again. Once I made this mistake, I figured out how to read the Ikea instructions so that the desk and cabinets were a bit easier.

Different parts of the desk before I

put them all together.

The underbelly of the desk after I screwed

everything into place and before we

flipped it over and slid it into place.

My sister's new office after I built the cabinets.

In order to hang them, my brother-in-law's dad

came over and helped screw planks of wood inside

the cabinets so that we could screw them into the studs.

While in Houston with my sister and brother-in-law, I noticed that my niece was starting to say people's names. For instance, she has begun to say 'grandma,' or something similar, for my mom. One of my sister's friends has taught Elizabeth to call her 'favorite,' which is kinda cool. However, my niece still doesn't call me 'Mark.' I decided to teach her this word so that she might call me this before I left. She was able to say it after I said it, but she wouldn't say it unless I said it first. Maybe in a few months she'll be able to say more than she does now.

Elizabeth playing with a fire truck.

Is this enough toys?

Phoebe waiting outside.

Yours truly trying to teach Elizabeth to say 'Mark.'