Fruddled Gruntbugglies

Blog

  • Miscellany

    Just a bunch of random notes here, as I haven’t written anything in about a month (other than coffee notes).

    The dizziness issues I wrote about in February, mostly abated around the beginning of March. I didn’t have a single issue at all during a 6-day trip to Tampa in mid-March, but noticed a little bit of spacy-headedness the morning after returning home. I also had a day or two of Eustachian tube dysfunction in my right ear, that was likely due to the flight. The two could have been related. It could also point to an environmental/allergy cause for the overall dizziness issue. It will be interesting to track it going forward and see if it occurs at predictable times of the year.

    The weather has been pretty wild early this spring, with 80s one day, 60s the next, rinse, repeat. Seems like we had a similar weather pattern last year, so maybe this is the new normal. Running has been going well the past month or so, although it has been tough to stay on a regular schedule due to other commitments, etc. For the most part, though, I have managed to get out 3 days a week. Lately, I have taken to tracking my water consumption in Apple Health, and as a result, I think I’m getting into a better habit of staying hydrated. Right now I am shooting for 100-120oz of water per day, and I have noticed that my energy has been consistently better during most of my recent runs. Most of my 6-8 mile runs have averaged 10:00/mi to 10:45/mi, which is faster than the same time last year. It will be interesting to see how much I need to tweak my water intake once it starts getting more humid out.

    This morning, I went out back and made my first attempt at sealing around our shallow-end pool light conduit, which I suspect leaks during the winter. We uncovered the pool in late January and put it back on in mid-March, and today, I pulled it back just enough to provide access to the light. The water level had crept up a couple of inches since we put the cover on, which is consistent with what has happened for the past few years: it loses water during the cold months, then stops losing water as it starts to warm up. After some research, I bought a roll of Anderson Leakmaster butyl tape, cut a 12″ length, wrapped it around the light cord and conduit, and pressed it into and around the conduit opening. The tape has kind of a putty-like consistency, molds pretty easily, and seemed to seal things up pretty well. Hopefully, it’ll stay in place, but I may not know if it worked until this coming winter. Next up is the deep end light fixture, and I’m not sure if I want to do that now (while the water level is low) or after we open the pool. I also think it’s worth checking the drain this season, to make sure the hydrostatic relief plug is still sealed up properly.

  • Sun Bear Single Origin Coffees

    Sun Bear Single Origin Coffees

    • Roaster: Sun Bear Specialty Coffee Roasters (St. Petersburg, FL)
    • Purchase date (both bags): 3/22/2026 from Sun Bear café inside Sans Market, St Petersburg, FL
    • Both bags 12oz/340g
    • Bag 1:
      • Origin: Ethiopia (Guji, Oromia); Farm: Mr. Girum Girma
      • Roast level: Light
      • Roast date: 3/16/2026
      • Process: Natural; Varietals: Heirloom, Ethiopian Varieties; Altitude: 1500-2000 MASL
      • First cup: 3/22 or 3/23/2026; last cup:
      • Tasting notes: Pecan, jasmine, apricot
    • Bag 2:
      • Origin: Peru (Cajamarca); Farm: Women Lima Coffee
      • Roast level: Light
      • Roast date: 3/17/2026
      • Process: Washed; Varietals: Catimor, Caturra, Bourbon, Typica; Altitude: 1600-1900 MASL
      • First cup: 3/23 or 3/24/2026; last cup:
      • Tasting notes: Jasmine, nutmeg, lemon zest
    • Pour-over with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 5
      • Water at 100°C
      • Size 2 V60
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses. Finishes around 03:30-03:45

    I always try to buy some locally-roasted coffee when I’m out of town. There are a bunch of roasters in the greater Tampa/St Petersburg area, but most of the local, non-chain roasters didn’t have retail hours on weekends. Fortunately, I was able to find Sun Bear, which was only 20 minutes from my hotel in light traffic, and had a café inside a small zero-waste grocery store that was open Sundays. They specialize in single-origin light roasts.

    Brewing these has been educational. The beans are roasted more lightly than anything else I’ve brewed in recent memory, and are quite dense. I opened the Ethiopia bag first. I like to grind most Ethiopian beans on the finer side (usually with good results), so I started these at Ode setting 2. The grounds took longer than 4 minutes to draw down, and the end result was not very good. There was a little bit of muted fruitiness, but it was dulled by a kind of wooden roasty flavor. I guess now I know what over-extracted light roast coffee tastes like. Yesterday, I backed the grind off to setting 5, which sped the draw-down up by around 30 seconds. It was kind of like taking a veil off: the cup was much brighter and flavor-forward.

    Things went similarly with the Peru beans, except I started them at setting 3. The draw-down was a tiny bit faster (it finished at about 4 minutes on the nose), but the result was similar. Actually, initially, I would have been hard-pressed to tell which of these was which. Backing the grind off to setting 5 once again made a big difference, and really brought out the lemon zest flavor.

    I may adjust the grind a little bit coarser still with one or both of these, because ideally, I think I’d like them to finish brewing by 03:30. But whatever the case, this has gotten me thinking more about how I approach brewing light roasts. That being said, most beans I’ve bought in the past that are sold as “light roasts”, have been roasted darker than these. Everything is subjective, I guess.

  • Zeke’s BirdSong

    Zeke’s BirdSong

    • Beans: BirdSong (blend), 16oz
      • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
      • Origin: Americas
      • Roast level: Medium/dark (6/8)
      • Roast date: 3/2/2026
      • Purchase date: 3/15/2026 from Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
        Freeze date (partial bag): 3/15/2026
        First cup: 3/16/2026; Last cup:
      • Process: n/a (blend)
      • Tasting notes: none listed on bag
    • V60 with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 4
      • Water at 95°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes 02:30-02:40
    • AeroPress with JX grinder:
    • Switch with Ode grinder:
      • 22g coffee / 330g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 5
      • Water at 95°C
      • Close drain / pour to 66g and agitate / bloom until 0:45 / top up to 330g and swirl several times / steep until 03:15 / open drain; finishes at around 04:00

    I froze about 12oz of this immediately after buying it, and am currently working on brewing up the beans I didn’t freeze. The first V60 cup I brewed (Ode grind 4, 95°C water, 1:15) was good, but the subsequent cups left a lot to be desired. I’ve brewed one cup with the AeroPress thus far (this afternoon) and it was leaps and bounds better than the V60 cups, though 1:14 was a little on the strong side. As with a lot of Zeke’s beans, the water drains through the V60 very quickly, even at rather fine grinds, which seems to lead to under-extracted cups. I think this is partially due to the method Zeke’s uses to roast their beans, which removes a lot of the chaff and fine bits that tend to hold the water in the cone longer. The upshot of that is that immersion brewing tends to produce better-extracted cups than percolation. It might make sense to skip the V60 altogether and start off my next bag of Zeke’s with the Switch or AeroPress instead.

    This is my second bag of the BirdSong blend, but I had not had it in about 2 years. It looks like I brewed that entire bag with the AeroPress, but I used a coarser grind, a much stronger ratio (I seemed to brew everything at 1:12 to 1:13 back then), and cooler water. I’m not sure why I felt like I had to make it so strong, as now, it seems plenty strong and roasty at 1:14. I may actually back most of my subsequent AP cups off to 1:15.

    3/26: The Switch recipe above tasted pretty similar to yesterday’s AeroPress cup, so I think I’ll use it going forward for any more cups that I brew at home. That’s the last of the beans that I didn’t initially freeze.

  • Brewing Good Into the Light

    Brewing Good Into the Light

    • Beans: Into the Light (blend)
      • Roaster: Brewing Good Coffee Company (Savage, MD)
      • Origins: Varies seasonally
      • Roast level: Light
      • Roast date: 2/3/2026
      • Purchase date: 2/19/2026 from BGCC in Savage Mill
      • First cup: Around 3/3/2026; last cup: 3/22/2026
      • Tasting notes: Ripe strawberry, brown sugar
    • Switch with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 6
      • Water at 100°C
      • Rinse filter; close drain; pour to 60g, agitate, and steep until 0:45; top up to 300g and swirl; steep until 03:30; open drain
    • AeroPress with Prismo and JX grinder:
      • 1 heaping AeroPress scoop of beans (about 17g)
      • JX: 20
      • Hotel room tap water heated 3 minutes in small microwave (pretty hot, but not quite at boil)
      • Metal and paper filters
      • Travel AeroPress Recipe

    This is one of BGCC’s year-round house blends, so the specific beans used will vary seasonally. While this particular batch doesn’t knock my socks off, it’s a perfectly good cup of coffee, with light body and just a hint of acidity. I first tried it with the V60 and Ode grind setting 2 (rather fine), but did not care for how it turned out — it just seemed a little flat. The Switch recipe above brought out more body and flavor, and that’s how I’m going to continue brewing this at home. I suspect it would also make good French press coffee, and there’s a good chance I’ll be trying a few cups in the AeroPress as well.

    3/17 (happy St. Patrick’s Day): The Switch has definitely been a winner with this blend. I’ve brewed several cups with it, and all have been nicely balanced with just the right amount of acidity. A few of the cups were 300g/20g, and a few were 360g/24g.

    3/22: I have brewed 4 cups with the AeroPress so far. The first two, at JX grind setting 16, were on the bitter side, but setting 20 has turned out pretty good. I’ll brew one more cup tomorrow to finish up the bag.

  • Brewing Good Indonesia

    Brewing Good Indonesia

    • Beans: Indonesia (West Java)
      • Roaster: Brewing Good Coffee Company (Savage, MD)
      • Origin: Rawabogo, West Java, Indonesia
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Roast date: 2/3/2026
      • Process: Washed; Varietals: Catimor, Tim Tim, Typica; Altitude: 1350m
      • Purchase date: 2/19/2026 from BGCC in Savage Mill
      • First cup: 2/28/2026; last cup: 3/15/2026
      • Tasting notes: Full-bodied and vibrant, medium sweetness with mellow acidity, notes of chocolate, black grape, papaya, and toffee
    • Pour-over with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 4 → 3+2 → 4+1 → 5
      • Water at 99°C
      • Size 2 V60
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses. Finishes around 02:55

    From the bag: “This lot originates from a collection of 52 small farms in Rawabogo, a village in West Java known for its high-altitude coffee production and freshwater springs. Wet-hulling is the usual processing method in Indonesia, but this coffee is fully washed. The ripe cherries are pulped within 6 hours of harvest, dry-fermented for around 16 hours, thoroughly washed, then patio dried for 10-12 days, until the optimum moisture content is reached.”

    This will likely be my morning cup for the next week or two. I brewed my first 3 or 4 cups at grind setting 4, and nudged it a tiny bit finer this morning. It’s definitely a full-bodied brew, with the chocolate/toffee notes outweighing any acidity/fruitiness. Most Indonesia coffees I’ve brewed seem to like a coarser grind than this one, and I’m wondering if it’s because of the washed vs wet-hulled processing. It will be interesting to see if I end up making any further adjustments as I work my way through the bag.

    3/13: I’m finding myself nudging the grind coarser as the beans age. I probably should have paid more attention to my own notes (here, here, and here), and started these at grind 5 right out of the gate. One of these days, I’ll learn, but who knows how many more bags of Indonesian beans it will take to sink in. 🤣

  • LAN Wiring 101

    I am getting a remedial course in network wiring this week. I’ve been lucky in the past, as all of my CAT 5/6 wiring has “just worked”. Sadly, my luck ran out the other day, when I tried to rewire the uplink for a 5-port switch in my basement office. I have two uplink wires running to my basement patch panel, and oddly, the switch’s jack worked when patched through to one of them, but not the other. Both uplinks worked when I plugged my laptop into them directly, so I was rather baffled. At that point, I decided it was finally time to invest in a network cable tester. I picked up a Klein LAN Scout Jr 2 from Lowe’s, and it immediately identified the problem: The switch’s jack’s wiring was bad (pins 1&2 open), uplink 1 was wired straight, and uplink 2 was wired crossover. The good news was that of the 7 jacks I tested, only 2 turned up bad, and they’re both short runs that wouldn’t be too hard to replace if I choose. Interestingly, both of the older jacks that I rerouted to the patch panel were wired crossover. It was 10 or 15 years ago that I installed the jacks, and I thought I remembered wiring everything with T568B, but apparently, I was wrong. I probably won’t bother re-punching them, as I don’t use either jack much (one of them I had actually never wired up) and they both still work thanks to Auto-MDIX. I do know now to check the wiring at the other end before punching a wire in to the patch panel (you’d think that would be obvious, but this is me we are talking about). As for the bad jacks, I’m not sure if the issue is with the cables or the punches (or both), but either way, it’s good to have a way to test the wiring. As a case in point, I crimped an RJ45 plug this evening, and accidentally swapped pins 1 and 2. Without the cable tester, I likely wouldn’t have known about it until something didn’t work right, and then I would have been pulling my hair out. I’d say the tester paid for itself right there.

    Update 2/28: Mystery solved- both bad jacks turned out to be wires that weren’t punched all the way down in the patch panel. After fixing that, they both test good. The basement patch panel is now fully wired, with 4 free jacks available for future use. Next up is the library closet. As an aside, so far, every jack I wired “back in the day” has turned out to be T568A.

  • Winter Projects

    Winter Projects

    I’m no longer quite the home improvement addict I used to be “back in the day”, but in the wintertime, I like to have at least one project to keep me busy around the house. Otherwise, I end up wasting too much time on the computer when I’m home. As I wrote earlier, I’m currently working on some home LAN upgrades. I’ve had something of an epiphany in the 3 days since that post. After waffling over where I should mount my switches and run my new wires, I did some reading and learned more about structured wiring, and now, rather than terminating my wiring at switch ports, I’m installing CAT-6 patch panels. That will give me permanent termination points for all of my existing wiring, which I can then patch into switches as needed. Right now, I’m in the process of wiring the first panel up in the basement boiler room, which will handle all of the cabling that runs through the west half of the basement. There are two existing CAT-5e cables that run from this area up to the switch in the library closet. My original plan was to run a single CAT-6 uplink and pull the two CAT-5e cables out, but now I’m going to leave the latter in place as well, and terminate them at the patch panel I intend to install in the library closet. That will let me move things around between the basement and upstairs switches as needed, just by moving patch cables around. The more I think about it, the more I understand why large enterprise LANs are wired this way. It might be overkill for most houses, but for this house with all of its wiring challenges, I think it makes a lot of sense. After I finish the basement, I’ll move on to the library closet. After that, I want to put something on the east side of the house, but I haven’t made up my mind exactly where yet.

    My next project arose out of necessity. Our pool is losing water at a rather alarming rate in the winter. This year, it is down over 2 feet since we closed it. Before the big 2026 SnowCrete Apocapalypse, we took the cover off, as the water level was too low to support a snow load on the cover. That gave me an opportunity to observe the water level every day. It continued to drop for a while, and now it seems to finally have stabilized at around where the light fixture conduit enters the pool in the shallow end (the deep end conduit is a couple inches lower). This is a common place for in-ground concrete pools to start leaking, as the sealant starts to fail over time. I suspect that what sealant is still there is hardening and shrinking in the winter, causing the pool to lose water in cold weather (it doesn’t seem to lose water nearly as fast in the summer).

    Today, with the pool water mostly un-frozen, I put my hip waders on, got in the pool, and pulled the shallow-end light fixture out. Then, I looked over and saw that the deep-end fixture had fallen out of its niche on its own. Not sure how or when that happened, but I’m guessing it might have been from freeze-thaw, with the water level being so low. I took a couple of photos of the shallow end niche, but after some recent rain, the conduit opening was still underwater, and it was a little hard to see how much (if any) sealant was there. Before the water leaks back down, I think I’m going to try to do a dye test to confirm that it’s leaking there. Regardless, I think it’s about time for new light fixtures. The existing fixtures still work, but they’re very old 500-watt monsters made by Paragon, a company that is no longer around.1 A company called Spa Electrics makes a nice-looking retrofit 12-volt LED fixture that I think I could use. Two lights plus a required transformer will set me back $1700 or so (nothing is cheap in the world of pools) but with the pool already partially drained, and needing to fix the leak either way, it seems like a good time to take the plunge (no pun intended).

    1. Looks like Paragon is now owned by Pentair, and they previously sold a very similar-looking LED retrofit called the SlimLite. However, it appears that it has been discontinued. ↩︎
  • Gracefully Mighty Forces

    Gracefully Mighty Forces

    • Beans: Mighty Forces (blend)
      • Roaster: Gracefully Coffee Roasters (Baltimore, MD)
      • Origin: Sumatra, Colombia, Mexico
      • Roast level: Medium/Dark
      • Roast date: 2/4/2026
      • Purchase date: 2/10/2026 from Gracefully curbside café
      • First cup: 2/14 or 2/15/2026; last cup: 3/13/2026
      • Tasting notes: Cocoa, honey, cinnamon apple
    • V60 with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 3
      • Water at 95°C
      • Size 2 cone
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses. Finishes around 03:00
    • AeroPress with JX Grinder:
    • Switch with Ode grinder:
      • 21.2g coffee / 315g water
      • Ode: 4
      • Water at 99°C
      • Close drain / pour 60g and agitate / bloom until 0:45 / pour to 315g and stir several times / steep until 3:00 / open drain

    This is another blend where the specific beans used seem to vary depending on what is available at different times of year. The bag pictured on the web site, the web site description, and the actual bag in my possession, all show slightly different bean blends, although they all have Sumatra and Colombia in common. The coffee itself is just as advertised: bold and roasty. The AeroPress, in particular, produced a really nice, smooth, strong cup. This will probably be my office coffee for the next 2 or 3 weeks.

    3/1: My favorite cups to date have come from the AeroPress. Today, I tried it in the Switch, and got a fairly close approximation. It was actually my second try with the Switch: the first time around, I used 95C water, and the coffee cooled too fast. It worked out better with 99C water, but I think next time I will also preheat the Switch. I have enough beans left to brew one more cup like this, and 4 more at the office in the AeroPress, which will take me right up to Spring Break.

    3/13: AeroPress is definitely the winner with this blend. I preferred the AP cups to both V60 and Switch. My initial notes listed a water temperature of 95, but I have brewed most of my recent cups at 99, so I adjusted the above recipe accordingly.

  • Random stuff

    I’m battling off-and-on dizziness again, similar to what I had back around the end of last year. Still unsure what causes it. As with last time, it’s not room-spinning vertigo, just more of a spacey, lightheaded feeling. Various things I’ve considered as possible causes:

    • Allergies/Environmental
    • TMJ issue (chewing/clenching/jaw tension)
    • Low blood pressure/low heart rate
    • Low electrolytes
    • Dehydration
    • Migraine
    • Eyestrain/squinting or possibly vision issue (do I possibly need glasses?)
    • Positional vertigo/motion sensitivity
    • Something I’m eating

    I’ve noticed that I rarely wake up dizzy. I often first notice it while eating breakfast, meaning that chewing/clenching (TMJ) or possibly diet could be factors. I suspect that the only way I’ll ever get to the bottom of it is to try to be scientific, keep notes on diet/environment/etc., and try to find some kind of correlation.

    I ran on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (today) this week. Monday was 6.5 miles. I felt stiff for most of it, hit the wall at around mile 5, and cut the run short by a half mile. For mile 6, I could only manage a pace of 13.5(!) minutes/mile. Tuesday’s run was 7 miles, and the best of the three. I paced myself well and finished strong. Today was also 7 miles, and better than Monday, but the finish was not as good as Tuesday’s. It was, however, my fastest average pace of the week, at 10:50/mile, which is still about 20 seconds/minute slower than what I consider my average pace under ideal conditions. The dizziness does affect my running to an extent, but I don’t think it’s directly responsible for “hitting the wall”. My working theory is that the latter is related to electrolyte/hydration imbalance, and something else is causing the dizziness.

    This winter’s house project is upgrading our home LAN. I am running low on ports (particularly PoE ports) so I’m adding an additional 8-port switch in a different part of the house, which will give me more capacity, and allow me to shorten a few wire runs. I’m also going to start upgrading some of the wiring from Cat-5e to Cat-6, starting with the “backbone” that runs from the FiOS ONT to the router and from the router to the switches. I’ve also replaced our old AP-AC-Pro wireless access points with new U7 Lites, which support WiFi 7. Once the new switch is in place, I’m going to move one of the old APs into the garage, to provide better coverage for outdoor cameras, and eventually support a smart garage door opener. Lastly, I may put an AP in the basement family room, and I want to clean up the wiring in the closet around our existing switch. We will see how much of this actually gets done. 😄

  • Gracefully Colombia Nariño

    Gracefully Colombia Nariño

    • Beans: Colombia Nariño
      • Roaster: Gracefully Coffee Roasters (Baltimore, MD)
      • Origin: Colombia (Cooperativa de Cafés Especiales de Nariño, Alvaro Gomez)
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Roast date: 2/4/2026
      • Process: Washed
      • Purchase date: 2/10/2026 from Gracefully curbside café
      • First cup: 2/12/2026; last cup: 2/27/2026
      • Tasting notes: Peach, pear, sugar cane
    • Pour-over with Ode grinder:
      • 19g or 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15.8 – 1:15)
      • Ode: 2 → 3
      • Water at 99°C → 100°C
      • Size 2 V60
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses. Finishes around 03:00

    I lucked out with the timing, and was able to pick up a bag of this microlot coffee last week. I’ve now brewed 4 or 5 cups of it. It is definitely very fruit/acid forward, and I’m finding that, at least for the moment, I like it best at 1:16. At 1:15, it was kind of like a little too much of a good thing. Someone posted on Facebook that it turned out really good with immersion (using a Clever Dripper) so I may try brewing it in the Switch to see how that compares.

    2/25: After my initial entry, I ended up going back to 1:15 for most of my cups. Eventually, it started tasting a little bit over-extracted at grind setting 2, so today, I backed off to 3. With a little over 90g of beans left, I brewed a larger cup (345g/23g) and it was very nicely balanced. I’ll brew 3 more like today’s, and that will use the beans up.