Monthly Archives: June 2015

Juneteenth

Note: Starting tomorrow, our nephew is visiting for the next 10 days, so this blog will be silent for his visit.

Today is Juneteenth. The celebration of the end of America’s era of slavery, as on 19 June 1865, slaves in Texas, the last remaining enslaved people, were publicly declared legally free. This year is the 150th anniversary of this momentous and fabulous event.

If you grew up in a way or place where the existence of this holiday is news to you, as I did, please go read about it. The Wikipedia article linked above is interesting and informational, and the holiday is important. Especially in light of what has and has not changed in 150 years.

Black lives matter.… Continue reading →

Travel.

I just found a CF card from almost a year ago. A lot of the photos on it are from a Hop Farm tour I took in early August last year. It was so much fun, but I never did manage to write a post about it. Now I’m in southwest Washington State and vaguely contemplating the post again. Why? Because far away in Washington state there’s a hop museum. I live in Chicago, so even a drive of two or more hours feels practically next door. Of course, one just opened recently in Wisconsin, so you’d think I could just go there. But, really, I don’t see why I can’t do BOTH1. Then write you guys a post. In late July.

It’s 85F here today.… Continue reading →

Things That Are Wrong with The Beer Wench’s and The Northdown’s Posts

I got so goddamn frustrated reading both 6 Dirty Lies Men Tell About Women and Beer, by Ashley Routson (The Beer Wench) and 5 Reasons The Beer Wench is Bad for Beer by Kate Gallagher (owner of The Northdown) that, honestly, the first draft of this piece may have involved me saying they’d both made themselves look… bad. Yes. Bad. That’s what I wrote in that first draft.

I was deeply dismayed. Both women have good points. Needle-sharp points. If only they both hadn’t proceeded to throw those points in dairy lagoons. Because, frankly, I hate looking for a good point in a pond of shit.

For a variety of reasons, I ended up swimming in these manure lagoons, so I decided to share the joy by giving you the needles without the manure.… Continue reading →

Five Years. Holy Cow, Five Years.

I have been blogging for five years now. It’s kinda overwhelming to consider, honestly. I’ve published (as of this post) 508 posts, so theoretically a rate of 100 posts/year. Not too shabby.

Of course, there’ve been ups and downs. I basically took 2011 off, which wasn’t hot. But Steve from Drinking and Writing Theater once called my blog “the best beer blog in Chicago.” He was talking to someone else, even! He was sober at the time! So that gave me some serious ups.

I love this online space, and I plan to inhabit it a long time. That said, I also want to stretch my wings, so two things will be changing, a little. I’m going to start looking for more places to guest post at and I am launching a new blog, Getting Ready to Go.… Continue reading →