Fruddled Gruntbugglies

Author: lpaulriddle

  • Rafiki Foundation Tanzania Peaberry

    Rafiki Foundation Tanzania Peaberry

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Tanzania Peaberry (single origin)
      • Roaster: Rafiki Exchange (Mount Dora, FL)
      • Origin: Arusha, Tanzania
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Roast date: Unknown
      • Purchase date: Unknown (received as gift)
      • First cup: 1/2/2026
      • Tasting notes: Dates, cinnamon, molasses
    • V60 with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 2
      • Water at 99°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes around 03:00

    This is the first single-origin Tanzanian Peaberry that I’ve brewed. I’ve previously only had it as part of a blend (specifically, Zeke’s Snow Day Blend). I couldn’t find much info about this particular roast, either online or on the bag: just origin, roast level, and tasting notes. I’m not sure if it’s roasted on-site at the exchange in Mount Dora, or elsewhere, and there’s no roast date (or even a “best by” date) on the bag. None of that particularly matters, though, because the coffee is really good. It has a very pleasant balance of body and sweetness with low acidity. Like a lot of African coffee, it seems to work best with a fine grind. I tried settings 4 and 3 on the Ode before settling on 2.

  • Sophomore Decaf Huila

    Sophomore Decaf Huila

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Decaf Huila (single origin)
      • Roaster: Sophomore Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
      • Origin: Huila, Colombia
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Roast date: 11/20/2025 (bag #1); 12/11/2025 (bag #2)
      • Purchase date: Late November 2025 (bag #1); late December 2025 (bag #2) at Atwater’s Café (Catonsville, MD)
        First cup: Early December 2025 (bag #1); 1/1/26 or 1/2/26 (bag #2)
        Last cup: Late December 2025 (bag #1)
      • Process: Ethyl Acetate (EA) decaf
      • Tasting notes: Dates, cinnamon, molasses
    • V60 with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 6
      • Water at 95°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes 04:00-04:15

    I didn’t have any full cups of bag #1, but I have had 1 cup (and counting) of bag #2. This has one of the slowest draw-down times of any coffee I’ve brewed in the V60 with my single-cup recipe. It takes over 2 minutes, even with a rather coarse grind. Flavor-wise, it is fine, but there’s something slightly “off” about it that I don’t like. I suppose it could be getting over-extracted while it sits there forever draining. I am wondering if this would work best with the French press, so I may try that the next time I brew it.

  • Favorite Geocaches of 2025

    Favorite Geocaches of 2025

    Written on

    in

    2025 was not a particularly memorable year in terms of specific cache finds. I had no really epic high-terrain finds, super challenging puzzle solves, or anything like that. This year actually was more noteworthy for hiding caches: I hid 16 of them, which is more than any previous year by a large margin. I did, however, find a number of caches that I really enjoyed, and I’ve chosen 10 of them for this list. This time around, I’ve listed the caches chronologically by placed date.

    • miocene milieu (GCDC9) – 2/17/2025
      This cache was hidden on June 24, 2001, and is located in Flag Pond Nature Park in Calvert County, MD. It’s not the oldest surviving cache in Calvert County, but I believe it may be the oldest cache in Maryland that still has its original log book. The park itself is well worth a visit, as well, although the hours are somewhat limited, so advance planning is recommended.
    • Douglas #20 Castle Rock (GCKGXM) – 12/8/2025
      This is a fun letterbox-style hide near Castle Rock, CO. It features really nice views of the town, as well as some history and vintage photos of the area. It was neat finding a cache at the same outcropping shown in one of the photos from the 19th century. The cache was hard to find, but worth the 45-minute search. 😀
    • Play Minstrel Play (GCZ5GH) – 6/26/2025
      This was a bit of a bug-fest, but when you’re only at the Delaware shore in the summer, you do what needs to be done. I turned this into a paddle cache, putting in at the Kent St kayak launch in south Bethany Beach, and paddling along the canal to Sassafras Landing, where I coated up with DEET and permathrin and took the short hike to find the cache in a small patch of woods. This was memorable mainly for the fun adventure to find an old-school cache at the shore.
    • C&D for the ManBear (GC571KV) – 3/23/2025
      It’s hard not to include this iconic Carroll County, MD cache on the list, in spite of it being somewhat less of an adventure than the owner intended when he hid it. I missed out on wading to it “back in the day”, but it was still nice finding it, as I suspect its days may be numbered. It was also really nice to be back at Liberty Reservoir, which, as I alluded in my log, kind of felt like coming home to my caching roots.
    • Chania (GC8E470) – 4/15/2025
      I’ve always enjoyed “walking tour” multicaches when visiting other cities, but they’re becoming a dying breed as adventure labs proliferate. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a well-crafted AL, but I’ll always be partial to this type of multi. This one is in Chania (Crete), Greece, which was one of my favorite stops on our Mediterranean cruise in April. It was nice to see all of the sites and get off the beaten path for the final cache find.
    • The First ABCDEFGHIJKMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (GC8H4Z7) – 12/21/2025
      This was a fun puzzle and a nicely-themed hide that I found at a very appropriate time of year. It was my first visit to Loch Raven of the 2025-2026 winter hiking season. 2025 was a very lean year for me for puzzle solving, so I had to include at least one “classic” puzzle cache, even though I solved this several years ago.
    • Βόλτα στην Πειραϊκή / Walk in Piraiki (GC97Z5Q) – 4/19/2025
      Another Greece find here, this one in Piraeus, which is the closest major port to Athens (and hence where all of the cruise ships dock). This was a really fun letterbox hybrid that had us walking along a rocky shoreline and looking for old gun emplacements.
    • Pumpkin Head is Missing an EYE (GC9QQ68) – 7/18/2025
      While not really a “true” 5/5 geocache, this was a fun hunt in a really cool gorge that involved some perilous rock scrambling. I tackled it with a group of old friends who I typically only see once or twice a year, usually for occasions like this. Both stages of this cache were challenging to find, and all in all, it was a fun time outdoors in southern Pennsylvania.
    • Rainy Day Caching (GCB1E1V) – 3/20/2025
      I was familiar with the first stage of this multi from a cache I found back in 2014. I knew of the second stage location’s existence, but I had never been there before. Without giving too much away, it is one of the last surviving vestiges of the surrounding area’s rural past, and is teeming with local history. Well worth a visit, if you dare!
    • DPL Series: The Da Vinci Codex
 (GCB3D39) – 12/10/2025
      Last but not least, we have this cache that replaces an earlier hide at the Central Branch of the Denver Public Library. The original cache made my “best of” list of 2014, and this one gets the honors 11 years later. It is a really fun scavenger hunt that takes people to several locations inside and outside the library, followed by a final find in the stacks, which is everybody’s favorite type of library cache (or if not, it should be).
  • Happy New Year 2026

    Happy New Year 2026

    Written on

    in

    , ,

    I can’t believe it’s already 2026. Time flies. In a way, I’m a little happy to turn the page from 2025. My father passed away just after Thanksgiving, which was not unexpected, and (in a way) almost a blessing after a prolonged battle with Parkinson’s. However, I don’t think the loss has really hit me yet. It seems like I had a much harder time around the end of 2024 when I lost my cousin and one of our cats. I suspect that this time around, it’s going to be more of a delayed thing than 2024, which seemed like a gut punch. Time will tell, I guess.

    I have started 2026 with runs on two consecutive mornings. I’m currently on pace to run 3403.6 miles this year, but I suspect I’ll fall somewhat short of that. 😀 I often have issues with keeping hydrated in the winter, which might seem ironic. The problem is that this time of year, I tend to forget to drink after (and during) exercise, because I’m not all hot and thirsty. However, running generates a considerable amount of body heat, and I do sweat when I run in the winter, even when it’s below freezing. Lately, I’ve taken to weighing myself right before and right after my runs. Yesterday’s run was 7.3 miles, and today’s was 11.3, and both days, I lost almost exactly 2 pounds of water weight during the run, which is more than I would have expected. When I searched online for post-exercise rehydration recommendations, most sources said to drink between 16 and 24 ounces of fluids (water + electrolytes) for each pound lost. That means I should be drinking 32 to 48 ounces after a typical wintertime run. Obviously, I can’t chug that amount down in 15 minutes, so I’ll need to start disciplining myself to drink it slowly over a couple of hours, which could be a challenge. I think that is going to be my new year’s resolution. It will be really interesting to do the pre- and post-run weigh-ins during the summer, when I sweat a lot more.

    I have been dealing with dizziness for the past week or so. It is not full-on, room-spinning vertigo, but more just a kind of foggy, swimmy-head, slightly queasy feeling that comes and goes. This is something that seems to affect me once a year or so, and I’ve never been able to figure out what causes it. Eventually, it always seems to go away, just as mysteriously as it started. I’m going to try to take notes here when it occurs, to see if I can figure out a common thread to it. This time around:

    • It started last Saturday after an 11-mile run. It did not start right away, but rather after I had been lying down for an hour or so post-run. When I got up, I felt dizzy.
    • Anecdotally, it seems to happen a lot in the winter and spring.
    • It seems to bother me more when I am home than when I am out.
    • I have been taking Amlodipine for years for blood pressure, with little to no side effects. Just before this latest episode started, I switched from 2×2.5mg Amlodipine per day to 1x5mg/day. Same dosage, but a single pill instead of 2 pills. Thus far, there has been no significant change in my daily morning BP readings, but I’ll check again next week.
    • Similarly, I have not noticed any reduction in tolerance for exercise or anything like that. It’s a huge annoyance, but doesn’t significantly affect my ability to go about my day-to-day routine.

    More later…

  • Zeke’s Holiday Roast MMXXV

    Zeke’s Holiday Roast MMXXV

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Holiday Roast MMXXV
      • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
      • Origin: Mexico, Honduras
      • Roast level: Says medium (4/8) but beans look dark roasted
      • Roast date: 12/15/2025
      • Purchase date: 12/20/2025 from Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
        First cup: 12/30/2025; Last cup:
      • Process: n/a (blend)
      • Tasting notes: Chocolate, almond, lemon
    • V60 with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 6
      • Water at 95°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes 02:30-02:40

    This one is a little confusing. The web site shows two versions of this blend: “Naughty” with roast level 4/8, and “Nice” with roast level 3/8. The bag I bought is labeled “Nice”, but shows roast level 4/8. The beans themselves are dark roasted and oily. I’m almost wondering if the bag is mislabeled (it was the last bag on the shelf at the grocery store, not that that really means anything). It brews like a dark roast (coarse grind, fast draw-down, lots of fine bubbles) and tastes like a dark roast (perfectly fine; could maybe stand a tiny bit more tweaking).

  • Huckleberry Entre Rios

    Huckleberry Entre Rios

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Entre Rios (12 ounces)
      • Roaster: Huckleberry Roasters (Denver, CO)
      • Origin: Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua
      • Roast level: Light to medium
      • Roast date: 12/2/2025
      • Purchase date: 12/9/2025 at Huckleberry Roasters (Laramer St location) in Denver, CO
        First cup: 12/21/2025; Last cup: 12/30/2025
      • Process: washed; Producer: Alberto Ramos, Finca Entre Rios
      • Tasting notes: Pear, macadamia, cocoa, black cherry
    • Switch with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 4
      • Water at 100°C
      • Close drain / pour 60g and agitate / bloom until 0:45 / top up to 300g and swirl / steep until 02:30 / open drain
    • French press (2 cups):
      • 40g coffee / 600g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 9
      • Water at 100°C
      • Preheat French press / add coffee / pour 120g and stir / bloom until 0:45 / top up to 600g and stir / steep until around 05:00 / press and pour

    I initially tried this with V60 pourover and grind settings ranging from 2 to 3, but it was a little subpar. Immersion worked out better, and the Switch and French press (details above) both produced similar cups. I may try brewing a cup with the AeroPress at some point as well.

    12/30: After settling on grind 4 and immersion using the Switch, I brewed all of my subsequent cups like that and they were all pretty good. I’d call it medium body and medium acidity (I often find stated tasting notes to be a bit of a stretch, but I think I did notice some pear). I never got around to trying it in the AeroPress.

  • Back to Bach

    Back to Bach

    Written on

    in

    I’ve been getting back into playing some piano lately. I have an off-again, on-again relationship with the piano: I took lessons for years as a kid, mostly ignored it through my high school years, and then picked it back up during college (the catalyst for that was a music appreciation class I took around 1990). I played through most of my 20s, and even took adult lessons for a few years in my late 20s and early 30s. I stopped the lessons in 2002 when we had Michael, but kept playing for most of my 30s, before quitting for the majority of my 40s and early 50s. I have always had a pretty good ear, but have never been good at sight reading or improvising. Given enough time, I can memorize and play very difficult pieces, but if you put some unfamiliar music in front of me and ask me to play it, I’ll be like a deer in the headlights. My son, Michael, can put me to shame in that department, and it’s one of the reasons I kind of stopped: memorizing lots of pieces takes lots of time; I had much less time to play in my 30s and 40s than I did in my 20s; and without time to memorize new pieces or the ability to (adequately) sight read, my repertoire shrunk, and playing the same 1 or 2 pieces over and over seemed boring and pointless. All of that said, I still kind of missed playing: it is a great way to de-stress and meditate, and after a while, you can get into kind of a relaxing, zen-like state of mind (not unlike riding a mountain bike on a smooth, flowy trail in the woods). All of that led to my decision to start playing again earlier this year. This time around, rather than trying to memorize Beethoven sonatas or Chopin ballades, I am working through Bach’s Two-Part Inventions, which I am hoping will help improve my sight reading as well as left-hand technique. My appreciation for Bach has really grown over the years, and I had figured for a while that I’d likely focus on Bach when I eventually started playing again. I am enjoying it thus far, so we will see where it leads.

  • Huckleberry Gundikhan Natural

    Huckleberry Gundikhan Natural

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Gundikhan Natural (12 ounces)
      • Roaster: Huckleberry Roasters (Denver, CO)
      • Origin: Karnataka State, India
      • Roast level: Light
      • Roast date: 11/25/2025
      • Purchase date: 12/9/2025 at Huckleberry Roasters (Laramie St location) in Denver, CO
        First cup: 12/13/2025; Last cup: 12/21/2025
      • Process: natural; Producer: Saif Ulla, Gundikhan Estate
      • Tasting notes: Chocolate-dipped strawberry/pastry/mulled wine
    • V60 with Ode grinder:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 3
      • Water at 100°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes 02:50-03:00
    • AeroPress with JX grinder:

    This is the first of 2 bags that I bought from Huckleberry Roasters in Denver. It’s also the first time I’ve tried coffee from India. This was pretty good at grind setting 4, and maybe a tiny bit better at 3. It is fairly acidic, but has enough body to balance out the acidity. I suspect I could go a little bit finer still with the grind, but I may just keep it at 3 unless I start getting cups that aren’t quite as good. It had been going on a couple of months since I last had a light roast, so this is hitting the spot.

    12/18 and 12/19: I brewed two AeroPress cups per above, and they were quite good. While the V60 cups have been very acid/fruit forward, the AP cups seemed better balanced, with the acidity toned down a bit and a little more body/roastiness. It kind of makes me wonder if there’s a way I can vary my pour-over technique somehow to produce similar results. I may read up on this when I have a few minutes.

    12/21: The acidity seems to vary proportionally to the fine-ness of the grind. I brewed several cups at 2+2 and 2+1 last week, and they seemed even fruitier than 3. I brewed my last couple at 3+1, and they were well balanced. I have a feeling I could have stuck with my initial setting of 4 all along. All in all, though, I definitely enjoyed this.

  • Back home from Denver

    Back home from Denver

    Written on

    in

    ,

    I spent most of the past week in Denver, which is the city I tend to visit most often on my business travels. By my count, this was my 7th trip to Denver since 2014. I suspect that Chicago Midway is the airport I’ve flown to (or through) the most times, but DIA is a close second. The big difference this time around was that I flew United Airlines instead of Southwest. I’m trying to choose a go-to airline for future international travel, and United has a big hub at Washington/Dulles with lots of direct flights overseas. They are also part of Star Alliance, so we can use/earn miles with a number of different carriers. I have to say that I had a pretty good experience on both legs of my flight, so things are looking up for United.

    Today was my 4th consecutive day running. In Denver, I had planned to run on Tuesday and Thursday, and then run at home today, which would keep me on my regular 3-day-a-week schedule. It turned out that I was too tired to run Tuesday, so I ran Wednesday instead. Thursday, I had planned to take a long walk in the morning, but decided to run instead, because the extensor tendonitis (or whatever it is) in my left foot tolerates running better than walking. Then, I reasoned that I might be too fried to run on Saturday (today) because I’d be getting home late on Friday night, so I took a short run Friday as well. I indeed was fried this morning as predicted, but the weather forecast is calling for snow tonight into tomorrow morning, and I figured I wouldn’t want to run right after it snowed. So, I sucked it up and ran today.

    Running in Denver went as well as can be expected. My runs all started in the pre-dawn darkness. I mostly ran on the network of trails along Cherry Creek and the Platte River, as well as Colfax St. and the 16th Street Mall (which is mostly devoid of people before sunrise). Wednesday’s run was 7.2 miles, and Thursday’s and Friday’s were around 4.75 miles each. Each run featured 2 or 3 stops to find geocaches (two activities I often combine when traveling, but rarely at home). Temperatures each day ranged from the upper 30s to mid 40s, which was warmer than back home. Wednesday’s was the best run of the 3, probably because I didn’t get the best nights’ sleep the following two nights. As would be expected, I was a little shorter of breath than usual, due to the elevation. By Friday, I was starting to adjust, but by then, it was time to go home.

    Today, I was really slow to get moving in the morning, and had a headache. I thought about skipping running, but with the weather (and plans for later in the day) likely to keep me from running Sunday, I figured I had better get out there, if only for the sake of my mood and well-being for the rest of the weekend. So, I had some coffee, played a little Bach on the piano, and hit the pavement at around 3:30pm. The run went much better than I had been expecting. I seemed to have tons of energy, and I ran 10K at a pace of 10:00/mi, which is my fastest pace in at least a year. I’m not sure where my energy came from. Maybe it was the different time of day, or the coffee (a great roast from India that I picked up in Denver — post forthcoming), or the high-elevation conditioning from the past week. Whatever it was, I’d love to bottle it up somehow. It will be interesting to see how my next few runs go. The only thing I can say for sure is that I won’t be extending my streak to 5 days. 😄

  • Run Notes

    Run Notes

    Written on

    in

    A quick search reveals that this is about my 25th post with the title “Run Notes” or some close variation. I guess I need to start coming up with more creative titles, but if the shoe fits…

    Today was my 4th time running a half-marathon since September. My last was 3 weeks ago. Today’s average pace was 10:53/mile, and average cadence 175spm, both of which are right around normal for me for this distance this time of year. As with last time, I wasn’t sure I was going to run 13.1 miles when I left the house, but today was a good opportunity for it: I had no time constraints (other than my stomach), the weather was good (mid 30s, sunny, light winds) and my lower back, which has been acting up lately, is slowly improving. Overall, the run felt pretty good, in spite of my getting a late start and being a little light on sleep (long story). After stopping a couple of weeks ago, I ran with Tuli heel cups again, because I was starting to develop a hot spot on my left heel 4-5 miles or so into my most recent runs. I suspect I tried to go “cold turkey” too quickly. Today, I had no heel issues at all, either during or after the run, so it seems like my feet had adapted to running with the heel cups. I still think it’s a good idea to run without them occasionally to try to reduce my dependency on them, but I’m going to need to start slowly, e.g. only on shorter runs.

    Today, I was able to run through Troy Park. I frequently run there on weekday mornings, but I usually avoid it on weekends, as it can get super busy with youth sports (typically soccer and lacrosse). Being a holiday weekend, though, today was an exception. I like running through Troy, because it gives me more options to get miles in without having to repeat sections of my route. The park also has a few bottle fillers for refreshing my water, which for some reason, I never thought to do before this year. It’s quite convenient, because the park typically falls at around the halfway point of my runs, so I can refill there and not have to carry as much water with me. They do shut the fountains off for the winter, though.

    Today’s run sets me up nicely for potentially taking a longer run around the holiday break (I’m thinking 15 miles or so). Just need the weather and my health to hold up. I’ll probably try to get a couple of 10-milers in in the meantime, although I do have a business trip coming up, which will likely cut into my mileage somewhat in December.