So I gave in to peer pressure yesterday afternoon, and joined Twitter. Wow, there's a lot of people on there, and even some fairly famous ones.

I've never been a "social networking" kind of person. As far as I can see, MySpace is just a wasteland, and was from the very start. Ditto for facebook and all those other online popularity contests. So far, twitter seems a bit different.

So, how does one separate personal from professional life with all the new tools? Once again, the line between "life" and "work" gets fuzzier. If a work contact wants to follow my twitter feed, do I let them? I can see a definite need to keep these things separate.

So, readers, both of you (ha), How do you keep the professional part of life separate from the personal and vice versa. Do you? Is it even expected anymore?

I've seen a lot of people (well, a few anyhow) and been told by others that iodophor is an inferior sanitizer, because it can leave off flavors. I don't think so. I think the reason Iodophor has got a bad reputation over the years is because people use way, way, too much of it.

Iodophor's been around for a long time. Growing up on a farm (of sorts), I used it daily for dairy goats. A strong solution for teat dip, and a mild solution for milk buckets and pans. So, once I started brewing and got away from bleach to sanitize, iodophor was the natural choice.

Here's the secret to using iodophor as a brewing sanitizer. 3 ml per gallon. That's the magic number. Any more, and you waste it. A lot more, and you can taste it. I've heard of people measuring it by the capful, but I don't think that's accurate enough.

On brewdays, I mix up a gallon of iodophor in the fermenter. A syringe graduated in ml is the perfect instrument to measure accurately. I swish it around in the fermenter, then dump it out into a bucket and cover the neck of the carboy with Saran Wrap. Some of the solution from the bucket goes into a spray bottle, and the rest remains in the bucket. Everything that goes into postboil wort gets sprayed or dunked in the iodophor. Fast, cheap, effective. That's the mantra for the KISS brewer, and Iodophor fits the bill.

Plus, it doesn't etch your countertops at full strength, although it will stain your clothes.

I'm glad this presedential election is over. It's been a long time coming, and I'm glad to see the campaign ads off the TV.

For years now, I've said that John McCain was the type of person I wanted to see in the White House.

I voted for Barack Obama. It wasn't an easy choice. In fact, I waffled until the week before the election. There were a lot of things about Obama that I liked, and disliked. Same thing for McCain.

In the end, it came down to VP candidates, and who I thought would appoint a better cabinet. Sarah Palin? I think she's a walking joke. I think the Republican party has to do better than assume somebody "folksy" will appeal to middle America. I thought it was a cynical choice, to pick an idiot for a running mate. Sure, the R's have elected doofuses before (see Dan Quayle and W for examples), but there's something about Sarah Palin that just rubs me wrong. I think she's putting on an act.

So, where to now? I'm worried that we now have one party with both control of the executive branch, and the legislature. We need to keep an eye on our legislators, people, and keep them from doing stupid stuff because they can. We need to watch Pelosi and her cronies carefully.

I really believe in having one party control the executive branch while another has the majority in the legislature. That's why I voted for a lot of Republican legislative candidates. Hopefully, we, the people can keep the new majority in congress from taking the bit between their teeth and running off like fools.

The old adage still applies: Love your country, fear your government.