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.)

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!

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.