The things in my head go 'round and 'round

I have never been rich, and though I do like to dream about it I somewhat doubt that I ever will be.  Monetarily, that is.  ‘Cause if you measure wealth in the people you know and associate with, Bill Gates got nothing on me.

I am typing this on a lap top that was recommended to me by the friend of a friend.  I got it at a steal.  The friend and his friend are technological wizards.  Veritable genius’s of the highest sort when it comes to computers and such.  Both are highly trained and when I need something, if one can’t do it the other can.

I have a friend who is a genius when it comes to cars.  Anything that moves, to be honest.   The reason that I am able to drive a 15 year old vehicle is because he keeps it running for me.  And without screwing me over on the price.  He tells me what the truck needs, and then takes care of it.  Sometimes he has worked for a case of my homebrew.  This guy is the one I am going to set up in his own garage when I hit the lotto.  He will be my personal mechanic in his own business.

I have a friend who can work on stereo’s, and home entertainment systems.  He is also the one who has introduced me to the world of cigars.  Much to MLW’s displeasure.

I have a friend who works on my lawnmower when it needs TLC.  Or to be honest, when I muck it up so badly I need to have someone who knows what they are doing fix it.  He, again, tells me what it needs, fixes it and doesn’t charge me an arm and a leg.

I have a friend who brews beer like I do.  He and I share recipes, and talk about what went right and trouble shoot what went wrong.

I have a friend, who I met through MLW, who was a professional musician.  The Princess’ biological Father  used to beat up Brett Michaels when he was known as Bret Sychak.

I am rich beyond belief when it comes to the people I can call friend.  And I need to remind myself of this on those days when I am bitching and moaning about not having enough money.  Because money ain’t all it is cracked up to be.

L8R

Have the day off today.  And the weather is pretty beautiful right now.  Indian Summer hot, but dry so that I don’t wilt when I go out.  And I have only gone out a couple of times today, because I have the day off.  Didn’t I mention that?

Went and refilled my Sertralin this morning.  Amazing how taking your meds on a regular basis takes care of a large part of the angst in your life.  I am finding it harder to write now that I am taking it also.  Guess to be an artist you have to struggle with your demons just a bit more than what I am doing now.

Any hooo….  making leftovers for dinner, and a couple of beers afterwards.  Life is pretty good right now.

namaste.

I have heard this term for years, and never really thought much about it. We have friends who have “Family Rooms”, and we have friends who have “Sports Rooms”, but I don’t know if any of our friends have a “Man Cave”.

So I started looking around. Of course. And came across The Official Man Cave Site. And the wonders of having a place to do what you want as a guy unfold around you as you look at the pictures and read the articles. And of course I don’t have that kind of space to do what all you see when you look at the pics. I have the space of a small closet. Surrounded by mountains of stuff left over from moving here, there and everywhere before we moved into this house.

But it has gotten me thinking once again about a kegorator. You know, a refrigerator that has been converted into a keg dispenser. And I am stoked. Going to be on the look out for a cheap refrig that I can convert, because the conversion is the easy part. Find the frig, and the money to buy it are always where the plans go south.

Don’t you know.

L9R

As I have directed a bunch of people over here to read this.

Like “this” is an actual place and not a graphic representation of a bunch of electric impulses. Sheesh.

Whatever….

Last week Saturday MLW and I along with some friends, and some of their friends all went to a brew pub in Harrisburg called Appalachian Brewing Company. Our friends, not to be mistaken for THEIR friends, (who MLW and I know and like quite a bit….) had made reservations for our large party of 10.

Did I mention that there were 10 of us? Hungry, thirsty guys and gals. Just keep that in mind.

So we get to the Brewery, which also has a restaurant, only to find that they had messed up our reservations. Pretty much forgot about them. So they put us at a couple of different tables seperated by a wall. One that you could talk over. You know what I mean.

So there we sat. Us, and our friends. Waiting for the remaining 6 to join us. Waited. Thirsty. 4 of said friends came in and sat at the table that was seperated from us by the talking overable wall. And we did talk. And my table watched as a waitress came to their table and took their drink orders.

Have I mentioned that we haven’t seen a waitress yet? Very thirsty. And this is a Brew Pub.

Then their waitress took their appetizer order. And my table is getting thirstier.

When their appetizers came, I had had enough. I went up to the Manager and introduced myself. Reminded him that our reservations had been screwed up, and that he had us seated in an area where there is no waitress. Asked him if he wanted our busines, or should we go up the street. Said Manager assured me that he wanted our business, and got a waitress to come to our table.

A surly waitress. You know the kind. You wonder if they are spitting into your drinks before they bring said drinks. Which we hadn’t gotten to yet.

Moving on. Said waitress took our drink orders. FINALLY!! And we were momentarily happy. MLW and the her wife counter part had ordered water, and wc ordered root beer, while MLW ordered ginger beer. Both brewed on the premises with the beer. My husband counterpart and I ordered a sampler of the house beers. 8 different beers. Keep that in mind, as it will come into play here in a few sentences.

The wives drinks arrived. Well, 3/4′s of them. The water was their, and so was the root beer for WC. But no ginger beer for MLW. Not good. MLW inquired where her ginger beer was and surly waitress says, “we are out of it. And you probably wouldn’t have liked it to begin with.”

Not a good move. MLW does not like it when people presume to know what she does, and doesn’t want. Especially when she doesn’t even know the person. And she informed the surly wench of such, and ordered a root beer.

Surly wench drug her knuckles back to her lair of despair.

She came back with MLW’s root beer, and our sampler of beer. Or should I say 3/4′s of our sampler. Yes, you guessed it. 6 out of 8 beers. When asked where the other two glasses were, she said that “they have run out of glasses.”

I asked how could a pub run out of glasses, and got a shrug for my trouble.

At which time I told her that maybe she could go to the front of the restuarant and get 2 glasses out of the case where they are selling the glasses to the public, wash them, and get my the rest of my fricking beer!! It was bad enough to have screwed up out reservations, seated us in a waitress-less section, and then give us a knuckle dragger as a stand in, mess up MLW’s drink order, and finally mess up a beer order.

Have I mentioned that this is a Brew Pub? Inside a working brewery?

With all of that said and done. The food was excellent. Top notch.

The beer, not so much. I was not thrilled but by one called a zoileg lager. It was really good.

And that was the story of our Big Saturday Night Out. We went to see Steve Earle which is another story.

Namaste.

I had beer that needed to be bottled. A nice red ale. It had been in the fermentor for a couple of weeks. It was time to bottle it.

But first the bottles had to be cleaned. No biggie, put them in a 5% bleach solution over night and they will be ready. Which they were, but the kitchen had to be cleaned up before I could rinse the bottles.

And then after I rinsed the bottles, and sanitized the bottling bucket, I had to boil water and sugar for priming the wort. And so while the priming solution was cooling, I went out and delivered a case of beer to a friend who had given me a few cases of bottles. And then on the the Post Office where I dropped off a couple of things for MLW.

Then off to the liquor store for my BIL’s annual bottle of Crown Royal. The next stop was at Lowe’s for a tool for my FIL, and since Lowe’s didn’t have it, I went to Home Deport where I was informed that the tool in question wasn’t really that good. Got talked into another tool and headed home.

Where I promptly was caught in mid-afternoon traffic. Got home. Bottled the beer, cleaned up the kitchen a second time. Took the beer down to the cellar, had to clean up the section that I use for storage. Ended up taking 4 bags of junk out to the trash.

Went back upstairs, decided to make some fudge and magic bar cookies. And then cleaned up the kitchen for a freaking THIRD time.

Decided that tonight is a good night for pizza.

And it started out so freaking simply. I just needed to bottle some beer.

Namaste.

The official start of the Dodd Brewing Company brewing season began today. With an extra added twist…we brewed outside.

This last summer we purchased new kitchen appliances. I was informed by MLW that there would be no more brewing on the stove in the kitchen. That resulted in having to brew outside. No concerns, though. It was actually pretty nice. The weather was cool, and cloudy.

I brewed an altbier today. An ale that I had not brewed before, I usually brew a red ale and doctor it up from there. Todays brew is in the fermentor and doing its magic. Two weeks will go by pretty quick, and this brew will be in the bottles just after Thanksgiving, ready for parties during the Christmas season.

I love making beer.

Namaste.

If any of you are going to be in Pennsylvania, you have to check out this site so that you don’t end up buying crappy beer.

Friends don’t let friends drink crappy, yellow, fizzy stuff. Friends make sure that they read The Pennsylvania Beer and Brewing Guide.

Namaste.

Hey, Michiganders! What the Hell? Michigan Proposal 4 to lift a ban on Sunday sales of beer and wine in Ottawa county? What?? Is this the dark ages? I thought that Pennsylvania was the only state with screwed up ideas concerning alcohol.

Get a clue folks, prohibition does not one bit of good for anyone. Those who are going to drink, are going to drink. Those who aren’t, aren’t. The only ones that are hurt by “blue laws” are the retailers. And the owners of business’ that sell alcohol can make their own decisions as to whether they want to be open that day.

Proposal 4 seems a no brainer. Vote yes, Michigan and get out of the dark ages.

Namaste.

What the heck do I mean with trucks being marketed down?

I mean I have been watching football this afternoon, and have seen an advertisement for the new Dodge Ram until I feel like I am going to run screaming from my home if I see it again.

The premise of the commercial is a race between teams of guys driving the Ram pickup on a series of obstacle courses. There is lots of loud music, and dust, and trucks in the air. Everything that a redneck loves. And the only voice other than the announcer is a couple of guys with heavy texas accents and cowboy hats.

Marketing at its finest.

Of course he next most frequent commercial is for Bud Light. And I think we all know what I feel about commercially produced yellow, fizzy water.

Namaste.

Ok, so I suck at live blogging. I admit it. I got to wrapped up in yelling at the television.

MLW had to tell me to quiet down more than once. It could have been the influence of the Bell’s Brewing Kalamazoo Stout that I was drinking at the time. That is some good beer.

Anyway, I was not too impressed with how McCain came out on the offensive. I think that he just showed himself to be a bitter old man who knows that he is losing.

19 days until the election. Find out where your voting precinct is, and make sure that all of your friends know where theirs are. Start planning your election watch party. Get the drinks on ice, and order the cake.

Namaste.