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I decided to try making ice cider this year. Ice cider is a sweet apple wine made from concentrated apple cider that allows more alcohol production than normal cider, along with residual sweetness after fermentation. Normal cider is about 10% sugar, and this has to be concentrated to at least 30% sugar to make ice cider. The defining feature of ice cider is that it is concentrated by partial freezing, causing ice crystals to form, and the sugars are forced into the remaining unfrozen portion.

I visited Lisbon, Portugal last week for the W3C annual meeting, and scheduled a couple days after the meeting to look around. Marc and Erin arranged to come down from Glasgow to meet me, though Erin was unable to in the end so it was me and Marc having a good catch-up and sending Erin cruel messages about the fun we were having. The work week had been intense with a couple really late nights, so I was really ready to hit the town.

I returned to my home state of Colorado for my cousin Emily's wedding. I decided to take a couple days before the wedding in Denver to visit old haunts and indulge in a bit of nostalgia. I didn't attempt to see anybody I used to know as it would have been complicated to arrange, and apologize to anybody reading this who would have liked to visit.

Last week I was in San DIego for the annual CSUN Technology and Persons with Disabilities conference. Usually when I go to this conference I take a side trip to Tucson to visit my mother and her partner, but after several years of that, I suggested they meet me in San Diego this time. We found a few interesting touristy things to do.

I just returned from my apparently usual February trip to the UK to catch up with friends since business travel has taken me their way less. I visited Erin and Marc in Glasgow and we traveled to Islay and Oban, then went to London to visit Colin and Anthony. These trips get packed in with adventures to report, which I’ll do by categor rather than chronologically.

I've been making homemade vanilla extract for a few years now. I like being able to choose the type of vanilla beans and control the production profile. There is some hope that homemade is better than commercial, and in general one expects it to be cheaper. But when adding up the cost of mail ordering bulk vanilla beans (still a lot cheaper than buying one at a time at the store) and buying the alcohol, it doesn't come out cheaper than a quality commercial extract.

2015 was mostly more of the same with no big news, but brought minor improvements to my focus and energy. The weight I lost last year came back, and I haven't wanted to deny myself baking in order to lose it again. I did a little cross country skiing in the winter, and kept the running up once the snows cleared, resuming weekly trail running and building long runs back up to 18 km distance. The hot summer knocked me back though, so for the rest of the year I tried to maintain a minimal base. I still go to the gym with an expensive personal trainer, so my overall health has been good.

I'm finally building a gingerbread house this year. It's partly constructed, and I will post photos in a few days when it's complete.

I just bottled the wine that I started making last September. There were dregs from decanting the clear wine, that I didn't want to throw out, so I filtered them and put them aside to make vinegar. I added a starter culture of some cider vinegar I had made a few months ago. This batch of wine vinegar has only been going for about a week but already the mother has formed on top. It was fascinating, rather than being the usual smooth gelatinous mass, this has formed a complex wrinkled surface.

It's been 4 years since I posted a holiday letter. Wow. I'll update on events over those four years with focus on more recent events.