2008 Favorites
Another year, another list of favorite stuff that happened in the past 12 months. Looking back on the previous year's worth of blog entries, it's hard to believe that all this stuff happened in the last 365 days.
I read 38 books, and my favorite would have to be The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. Five stars were few and far between this year, going only to A Fire Upon The Deep, Child 44 (my favorite book that was published this year), Brasyl, Physics of the Impossible, and The Gunslinger Born.
I drank 23 beers, with the highlights being Allagash Grand Cru, Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale, Magic Hat's Jinx and Roxy Rolles, and the new record holder: Bell's Two Hearted Ale.
Other highlights this year would have to include Obama, the Giants beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl, winning the second event at the Dykes Bonspiel, joining a CSA, starting to ride my bike to work, my spontaneous birthday road trip to Chicago, doing the Zipcar Low Car Diet and doing the Zipcar date night, visiting KC, visiting Yankee Stadium for the last time. And who could forget Shane buying a heifer and giving up red meat? But my personal favorite moment was getting my picture in the paper!
We also managed to achieve almost all of our financial goals this year: mostly stayed out of any additional debt (except for some slight slipping due in part to our Ireland trip planning, but that's on a 0% card for the next year), adjusted my paycheck withholdings, increased 401(k) contributions, kept contributing to emergency funds and savings accounts, and set up and started contributing to Evan's 529 plan. I also reevaluated our car and home insurance policies and saved us a bunch of cash. The biggie we're missing is the life insurance, so hopefully we can get that done soon.
Celebrating the End of Prohibition, All Weekend
Traveling to Hershey and Strasburg, PA to do "kids' things" like visiting Chocolate World and doing the Day Out with Thomas, I didn't have much hope for any "End of Prohibition Anniversary" drinking. And yet, I somehow managed to drink 18 different beers this weekend.
On Friday night, I had the lone beer I had left in the fridge, the New Holland Cabin Fever Brown Ale.
On Saturday, we drove up to Hershey and had lunch with Santa at the Tudor Grill just outside of Hershey Park. Ellie and Evan were thrilled, and loved the juggling elves too. We also rode the trolley which had a fun trick where Santa boarded the trolley and read off everyone's name (which we gave the people as we bought our tickets) and gave them a special ornament. By the time we finished, it had started snowing, and Ellie thought this was just a perfect day.
We had decided to drive from Hershey to Harrisburg to go to the Lancaster Brewing Company restaurant there. Naturally, traffic for the 15 minute drive was absolutely jammed with slippery driving and accidents (and poor directions on my part) and it took us over an hour to get there. But the drive was worth it. I had their beer sampler (9 beers - usually 10 but they don't give their tripel as part of the sampler - for $8) and the artisan sausage with horseradish mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. The Milk Stout was probably my favorite, though I also liked the strawberry wheat and the pilsner. Surprisingly, the kids really liked the mac and cheese, which was appropriately cheesy, with actual cheese and not powder.
On Sunday, we got up super early to drive down to Strasburg to ride Thomas and do other fun train-related stuff. Evan was in heaven. Thomas left every half-hour, peeping his whistle, and the look on the boy's face was priceless. We had to stop what we were doing and run him over to watch Thomas puff away. Unfortunately, the weather was just awful, windy and freezing, so we weren't able to hang around outside doing many activities, and instead had to browse around shopping inside. Still, we had a good time, and the kids really enjoyed it.
After leaving the railroad behind, we smartly stopped at a Panera to freeload their Wifi and get directions to Iron Hill Brewery, as well as directions back home. We didn't get lost this time, and made it to Iron Hill with no trouble. They had two samplers: one with their house beers and two seasonals, or one with eight of their ten seasonals. I chose the latter (also for $8). The cask rye IPA was tasty and interesting (on cask, AND rye? cool). The bourbon English barleywine was intense, and I felt like I should be doing shots of it, not drinking a 4 ounce glass of it. But my favorite was the very interesting coffee porter (served on nitro!). I thought it tasted like coffee ice cream floating in a roasty porter. Very good. And again, the food was a hit as well. I had a good sloppy burger (which was actually cooked medium-rare like I ordered), Lisa had a good fried chicken, and Ellie and Evan enjoyed the chicken pot pie and grilled shrimp. We were pleasantly surprised by the food choices at these places. Brewpubs have come a long way from pub grub and bar food.
So there you have it: 18 beers in 3 days. A fine way to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.
Tröegs Dead Reckoning Porter
Very dark beer, with a small head, but plenty of sticky lacing.
The roasted malt is prominent on the nose, chocolatey though too.
The cocoa flavor comes through first, a tad bitter like a dark chocolate, but I know it's from the hops, which makes it fun, swirling the flavors together on the tongue. Really interesting beer that manages to be a little creamy in texture, but maintains a bite afterward.
Overall rating: 4.1
Bell’s Christmas Ale
Cloudy orange color, nice head and lacing.
A good bit of malt on the nose.
The flavor doesn't follow that lead though. The hoppiness bites the tongue first but is quickly smoothed by a malt sweetness. The sweetness then dominated until being replaced by the bitterness at the back of the mouth again. Finished nice and clean.
Perhaps not what I expected but I liked it well enough.
Overall rating: 3.55
Zoe’s Tale
Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
My review
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Apparently, Zoe's Tale is a parallel story to The Last Colony, which I didn't realize because I hadn't read The Last Colony. I'm not sure if you'd like it more or less having read it, but it manages to stand pretty well on its own.
Scalzi returns to the Old Man's War universe once again, this time telling a story through the eyes of Zoe Boutin-Perry. He manages to pull off the teenage girl voice pretty well, complete with eye-rolling and angst in spades. The story moves briskly along, though much of the action remains on Roanoke, until the last 50 pages or so.
The book might not be as effective as other "alternate view" stories (the Ender/Shadow series, for example), but it manages to flesh out a little more of the Old Man's War backstory in an interesting and unique way.
Not sure what is up next on my reading list. I have a couple of other books sitting on my shelf, but they are sitting there because I don't much feel like tackling them at the moment. So this may take a while.
Need More Four Day Weekends
It's been a while since I actually took the Friday after Thanksgiving off. My company doesn't give it to us as a holiday, so I usually just work and save the vacation time. This year I let myself take a four-day weekend, and it was very nice. And very busy. I spent most of the time working on drywalling and mudding the stairs to the basement. It actually looks pretty decent, except for those accursed corners. I also cleaned out the gutters and started putting up Christmas lights. I thought I had planned everything out and tested the lights before bringing them up to the roof, but no, half the lights decided to go out once I got them up there. So annoying.
There were other highlights to the weekend: another fine Thanksgiving dinner with the Cajuns (and Golden Carolus Noël beer I brought); Rickrolling the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; Saturday night at Church Street Pizza; Giants beat the Redskins handily again.
It was too short, even at four days, but it was great to get to spend four whole days with the family.
Books
My Goodreads ListAmazon Wishlist
GSI Outdoors JavaGrindLifestream
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Brian is back from the last day at the pool, having barely gotten wet.
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Brian is pretty sure the first day of school wake up call will be filled with grumpy.
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Brian Bitches Brew, Live Free or Die, Old Chub.
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Brian is coming to the realization that I am not a size XL. Or even a L. Time to donate some ill-fitting clothes.
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Shared The Thousand .
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Nordstrom's also has a free personal stylist, might trust them more than Banana Republic. (Can you tell I'm bored with my clothes lately?) [BrianDau]
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Who knew that Banana Republic had complimentary "personal styling appointments"? You know, if you go for that kind of style. [BrianDau]
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