Beermaster's Tour

This weekend was very low key. Friday night, nothing. Saturday again, nothing but watch movies all day. Didn't have anywhere to be, things to do or people to see. I guess it was kind of nice to be a bum all day.

Sunday, however, was a little more exciting. At around 2:00, James+Nick, Carrie and I left for the Beermaster's Tour at A-B. It's a $25/person tour but you get to see some really cool things close up. It's basically the VIP tour they have been given for a while, but it's now opened up to the public. They charge for it to help keep the number of people wanting to go on it down. Anyway, it stopped at the usual places - the aging cellars where you get to keep pieces of beechwood used to help facilitate natural carbonation. Then on to the brewhouse where you get to go down on the floor (behind the glass) and walk around the kettles and back into the "hop room." You also get to go into the control center for the brewery's operations.

Then it was off to the basement of the Bevo Packaging Plant to see the production line up close and personal. My favorite part was when a bottle exploded. It was kinda funny the way our tour guide handled that.

We ended up at the stables, then went around the back side on our way to our next destination. There was a clydesdale pen along the way where, as our guild put it, "they keep the bad horses." It was even funnier because Carrie was petting this horse at the time. Hehe.

The best part of the tour was when we went into the 32 degree finishing cellar. We got to drink fresh Bud Light straight from the tank. It was the best beer I have ever tasted. Yum.

Following that we went back to the tour center and had flights of beer. Sampling anything they had on tap, or in bottles. I tried Michelob Golden Light, Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale, Budweiser American Ale and ShockTop.

Following the tour, we went to McGurks for dinner. (Liz, I know you're jealous!) We then we back to my house and watched The Mosquito Coast...but not before making fun of Nick a little bit. It's a tradition.

(thanks Carrie for the photos...even though I didn't ask first.)

Crazy weekend

I seem to be forgetting to blog as much as I used to. I need to get back into that habit. But it seems so much of what is going on right now is just more of the same old shit. So why take the time?

That being said, this weekend was pretty busy. I got an email from mom on Friday morning saying she and dad would be bringing Madeline with them this weekend.

The three of them arrived around 6pm on Friday. Madeline is sooo much fun right now. Every time I walk into a room, she points at me and yells, "Hi Uncle Ryan" or "Hi Uncle Rhyno!" When you give her something, she always says "thank you" and always says "please" when asking for something. Especially grapes...the girl LOVES grapes. It was entertaining watching her eat them without using her hands, and when she finished, she would proclaim, "look, I ate it all!"

Mom took her to Grants Farm on Saturday and then to the Zoo on Sunday. She came back and was all excited because she got to see the tigers, bears and zebras. Strange kid. Heh.

Dad and I spent most of the time working in the basement. We rented a jackhammer-ish piece of equipment to help chip up some of the concrete in the basement. We're removing a big sloped piece of concrete around the support beam in the middle of the room. The floor needs to be flat so we can lay carpet down. We also sealed up a crack on the front porch that was allowing water to stream into the basement every time we had a heavy rain.

On Saturday, my buddy Andy Briscoe stopped by. He was in town making the various friend circuit, seeing people, making appearances, etc. He and I chatted for a bit while dad continued to break all kinds of noise ordinance violations, I'm sure, in the basement with the jackhammer. Damn that thing is loud!

They left around 3:30 on Sunday, when Mom and Madeline returned from the Zoo.

Will & Grace
On another note, I've started Net-flixing Will & Grace. Starting from the beginning... Tivo was recording episodes for me, but I decided that since the DVDs are all out, I should start over and watch them all in order. That's one thing I hate about the cable networks, they seem to play them randomly. Pisses me off! Okay, it really doesn't but it sounded good.

Hotter than SHIT!

It is hotter the hell in St. Louis lately. So hot, I'm not going to use these tickets to the Cardinal's game tonight.

Okay, enough about that. On to more important topics. Either my ears have gotten smaller, or Apple made the iPhone ear phones a little larger. I can only stand to wear them for about an hour before my ears hurt. My regular iPod earphones can be worn for hours and hours...especially while crammed into a cabin on a train barreling through the Swiss Alps with your parents.

Everything else seems to be going well here. Still no word on if I get to remain employed by A-B. It's still pretty slow around here. However, for the past couple days I have been working on a manual for B.A.S.I.S (the boys state database system). I've gotten 21 articles written with about a billion left to go. Adobe makes a great little program to building help/knowledge bast systems so that's a plus.

This past weekend was rather low key. I went to a movie on Friday night with Rick Oleshak (a brand manger here at A-B) and some of his buddies. We saw Stepbrothers. Mildly entertaining, but I shouldn't have wasted $8 on it.

After the movie, I went home for a bit, then to Jimmy's parent's house (they were out of town). We hung out for a while and talked before James+Nick and Carrie arrived. James+Nick and Carrie arrived a while later. We sat around and chatted for a while, poked fun at each other, while Nick fell asleep on the floor. Looser. Heh.

The rest of the weekend was full of weird food cravings, movie watching, and basically just being a bum. I can't wait to do it again this weekend!

The ole switch-a-roo

As much as I like the white iPhone, I've decided to switch to a black one. I know, such a sucker, right? Anyway, I went into the AT&T store today to place an order for a black 16GB model. The phones are sold out nationwide and AT&T is doing direct fulfillment. (When I bought mine, James was about 10 people behind me in line and had to go this route). Anyway, I was able to buy the new black one for the same price as the white one...with tax, $328. I asked the sales woman what my options were for the old one. She said I could return it for a 10% restocking fee, or just sell it on EBay. (They are going for $800 or so on there).

Carrie is intersted in one of the phones, but she's not eligable for an upgrade and would have to pay full price. I'm thinking I'll sell her my white one when the black one comes in. Hey, they didn't charge me extra for it. Why the hell not?

BTW, did I mention I love this phone? Heheh.

Puerto Girardeau

Carrie, James, Nick T., Andy and I had our first annual (maybe?) Escape to Cape this past weekend. We all headed into the sticks on Friday around 6:30 p.m. for a weekend of relaxation. My parents were out of town camping with my niece so we decided to take over their house. We stopped in Festus for dinner at Fizzoli's and then White Castle so James could get his first hit of ice cream for the weekend...a very large milkshake.

It was a VERY busy time. Heh. Everyone woke up when they felt like it as there was no set schedule. We went swimming in my parent's pool, lounged in the sun soaking up lots of Vitamin D and basically just hanging out all day Saturday.

Saturday evening we drove even further into the "bush" to Lamberts Cafe in Sikeston for some down home cookin' and an overdose of artery clogging greese. I, however, failed to read the memo on wearing a green shirt, but ce'est la vie. We, of course, ate until we were stupid. Nick must have ate half is weight in food, or at least attempted. It was quite funny! James made the comment after dinner that he felt pregnant and Andy looked as if he was going to hurl! Don't do it Andy!

We then drove back to Cape all the while letting our food settle then went swimming again until 2 a.m.! When we left for dinner, I bumped the pool heater up to a nice bath-waterish 100 degrees. It was awesome. We all swore we wouldn't eat ever again.

On Sunday Andy and I went over a couple points on the will he's drawing up for me while most everyone was still asleep. We then headed to my brother's house to drop off the remaining beer and pick up his trailer. I had yard work to do...see next posting.

It was a wonderful weekend and I got to hang out with some of my awesome friends. Thank you all for an awesome time!

Cardinals and Friends

Yesterday was a long day at work. It started off with an exceedingly boring meeting at work. One of those "employee communications" meetings where they tell us how the company is doing, where we are headed, etc. Then they show some commercial. It was a requirement to attend, and I was trying my damnedness to stay awake. I mean, I already knew all of this stuff AND I made the DVD of commercials we were watching. Sigh.

The bright part of the day was Carrie was coming in from Columbia for a few days and I took her, Nick F. and Jimmy to the Cardinal's game. The seats were pretty good...about 20 rows behind home plate. It was a good game, and we had a good time...especially picking on Carrie. Those ushers should never have given Jimmy and I those All Star game ballots. Nothing good came from that, and I'm sure Carrie hasn't checked her car yet. LOL!

After the game, we all went back to my house and hung out briefly before Nick and Jimmy left. Carrie and I crashed on the couch and watched Boston Legal...we she watched it...I kept falling asleep as she was playing with my hair.