200 days left!

As of today, I have 200 days left on my lease. Awesome. Sooo, what have I done with my life in the past 165 days? I didn't think I had done a lot, that is, until I started listing it out. So here goes.

1. I moved to rural Illinois into a strange duplex/house/thing. My neighbor lady is approximately 67 years old and has been known to water my flowers and leave corn on the cob tied to my door knob. It's a nice place to live, it has a big yard and covered parking. I have my own washer/dryer, dishwasher, etc, etc. And it's rural Illinois, so it's fairly cheap. The only thing that could make it better? If I could have a dog. (Not a puppy, mind you. I know I have no patience for an animal that would chew up my mash tun or get into my grains or pee on my stuff.)
2. I've taken plenty of trips. In fact, since the first weekend I've been here back in June, I've only stayed in town for 3 weekends. And to be honest, two of those weekends were pretty epic. (More on that later.) I've been to Rolla, St. Louis, Alton, Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Lawernce and Kansas City in the other weekends. All of which were pretty great. I'm sure I could tell stories for hours about them, but here's an attempt at a summary: Rolla = 3 float trips over the summer, family time with Grandbaby, party hat parties and convincing friends that "everclear buckets" are a good idea (which normally works). St. Louis = Growler's (which is now closed, sad face), beer festivals, good times with Leah and family time. Alton = blackout town in the downtown/Reagle Beagel, Coley's lake, Grafton wineries. Denver/Boulder/Fort Collins = my first attempt at a brewery trip. Rachel and I shoved it all into one day and needless to say, I passed out in downtown Fort Collins. Fail. But, I made friends at Avery, so all's good. Lawerence/KC = where Shahd gave me the nickname "Darth Zebra", we died via lunchbox shots and tore up KC Live! with one of her work friend's vomit. I only wish there was a video of our shenanigans in the parking garage that night. :) On the way back though, I crashed my dad's F-150 into a semi.



Driving from Denver to Boulder. I became OBSESSED with the mountains. 


3. Which brings me to this point. I crashed my dad's truck into a semi during a rain/hail storm. Word to the wise: wear your damn seatbelt. (Or helmet, if you're going the motorcycle route. Because without both them, I sure would not be sitting here farting around and writing this.) Anyway, my dad let me borrow his truck because my old one blew up (long story made short, obvi). And I totalled his truck into a semi. Not fun. So I had to ride my yellow motorcycle, Charles, everyday, rain or shine, hot or cold, for a month straight. It was awesome for the first few weeks, but by the end of it, it wasn't too great. I spent quite a while looking/shopping for a car I could deal with spending $20k on, because, hey, if I'm going to spend that type of money and I want blue, I'm getting blue. So long story short, I totalled my dad's truck, rode my bike for a while, bought my new car and then sold the bike because I never rode it anymore. Here's the progression:

2004 SV650S - Charles - Sold :(

1999 F-150 - Destroyed



2010 Tuscon - aka Phillip

1. WELLST, I'm not sure how to make Blogger make this #4... so #1 is the new #4 apparently.
2. Since my numbering is totally screwed, here's something else I did under a new number. I became the proud owner of the world's ugliest couch. I really need to take a picture of this thing and post it up here. It's from 1996, kind of a faded green/purple/mauve and kind of scratchy... BUT it has TWO recliners and two cupholders. So it's a winner. I eat my dinner there most every night, because, well, eating at a kitchen table alone is strange.
3. I became obsessed with beer. For a little perspective, I brewed 2 batches from February to June, but 10 from June until now. Yikes. I've also amassed a chest freezer, 8 carboys, 4 kegs (well, 5 if you count the AB one), 120-150 full bottles of beer, 10 more cases (24 bottles to a case, btw) of empty beer bottles, countless hoses, attachments, additives and accessories, and way to much other crap. And as usual, I have expansion plans.
4. Found 3 people who don't suck in this town. Of the two good weekends I've stayed here, I've ended up at KJB's downtown each time. The first time was with my cousin Casey, where we were in the midst of a bar crawl and we bonded with these older (read: 35-40) people about how Jville is dumb and cliquey. We FB friended each other and went on our merry way. Wellst, last weekend, my friends and I ran into them again at KJB's yet again. Turns out one of them is the bartender... he was so nice that our entire bar tab (read: Rumplemintz, Vegas Bombs, rum and cokes, vodka diets, etc, etc) was $25. It was easily a $150 tab, so I tipped him well and gave him a hug. It's nice to know that there are people around this town that aren't total asshats like everyone else. Plus, we had an amazing night even after we got home from the bar. I think only half of us could walk and one of us couldn't make it to the bathroom by herself. Hahahaha.
5. I made a name for myself on the town "Drunk Bus". The drunk bus, for those of you not lucky enough to ride it, is essentially a retirement community's bus that runs into the wee hours of the morning and transforms into what is technically known as "Safe Ride". For $2, you can be picked up anywhere in the town and dropped off anywhere else. So needless to say, there's no reason to stay even remotely sober in this town. I'm pretty sure that I've made an ass of myself every time I've been on there. So much so, in fact, that the second time I rode it, the ladies said, "We know where you live." YIKES.
6. I went to the county fair. $3 Keystone Light and crazy farm children is all you need to know about that one.
7. I got tickets for traffic violations like it was my job. Seriously. This month, I've gotten a 79 in a 55, a photo enforced red light violation and $200 worth of parking fines (strangely unrelated to traffic voilations).
8. I've also been "secretly" planning Kim's bachelorette party with Coley. Kim's my best friend and I think she deserves a little more than the standard "one-night-out-in-St. Louis-with-some-drunk-people-on-a-party-bus" routine. So epic plans are obviously in store. BOOM. Plus, I love planning things, so double-boom.
9. I've finally gotten to a comfortable place here. At first I was home-sick, and then I was friend-sick, and then I hated my job. And while sometimes I'm still a little bit of these things, I still have a good (read: paying) job and I'm generally happy. Hopefully I'll save up enough money while I'm here to put a down payment on a house when I get back. (Hey, I can dream, right?)

All in all, I like to bitch about living here and my boring job, but it's really not that bad. Yeah, I spend too much time by myself, but I sure do live it up with my friends and family on the weekends.

200 days until my lease is up!

Upcoming brews.

After my dad's party, I'm about 5 gallons of beer lighter. I brought the Pumpkin Beer. It went over really well! Everyone had good things to say about it. Not bad for messing up in just about every process of the brew/ferment. Guess that's why I take good notes.

Anyway, here's a line up of my next three "brews".
1) Left Hand Milk Stout Clone
2) Fall Cider - inspired by Woodchuck's Fall Cider
3) Vanilla Toffee Cream Ale - I simply could not resist trying to make this one. Sounds too good!

Upcoming things = Excitement!

If you know me at all, you'd know that I get excited about a lot of things. Especially if those things are combined with sugar. (And I've had too many Starburst chews already today.)



I'm pretty convinced that this is a Magic Eye in disguise.



Things I get excited about:

 - Friends

 - Family

 - Beer

 - Combinations of those 3

Things I don't get excited about:

 - Designing ditches

 - Flow rates in said ditches

 - Contour maps regarding said ditches


Anyway, three of my best friends are coming to visit me this weekend! I couldn't be more happy about it. I used to live with them last semester in the DOL house and we all became surprisingly close in such a small amount of time. I love them all to death, so it's only normal for me to start becoming hyper on Monday for the weekend's activities. I had to find an outlet for my energy last night, so I cleaned most of my living room, bought shelves for some of my brewing equipment and even hung up pictures. Yeah, I know. I've been here for over 4 months and didn't hang up pictures. Fail. But my apartment is starting to look like I live there, so that's a plus!

This picture sums up why I'm really excited about this weekend.

I'm not really sure how this happened, or why we ended up on Courtney's floor, but what I do know is that we left voice mails on quite a lot of people's phones that night. Some were singing "Pants on the ground", some were just giggling and some were telling people to "shut the front back door", whatever that is. In any case, if this weekend is half of what that night was, I think we're in for a good time. I mean, we're celebrating not one, but two, engagements... so things could get out of hand.

208 days until my lease is up.



One Perk

I'm pretty convinced right now that this, right here, is the one perk about living alone (well, this and not having to wear pants all the time).

The current state of my fridge.

That's right, I moved all my food up top and the keg took over. I clearly would not be able to do this if I had a roommate. Well, a roommate that was a normal person. Anyway, I do what I want! :)

Yayayayayay! Stone Brewing is coming!

Hooray! Stone Brewing is going to start distributing in Missouri in 2011. BOOOOOM!

StL Today News Story

Thanks to some faithful craft-brew lovers in St. Louis, Greg Koch is finally going to be shipping his beer to us. I've been reading about, listening to podcasts about and learning about Stone Brewing for months now. But I could never get their beer. It was a sad time. I was literally planning a trip to San Diego just so I could visit the brewery... but soon I will just be able to run to Dierberg's and pick up a sixer. Life is good. :)

Today. Is. AWESOME.

Without going into the details, today is awesome. Let's just say that a certain ex-boyfriend is now FINALLY out of my life for good. He. Was. Awful. I really can't stress that enough. I lost one too many friends/my sanity for a bit because I dated this shithead, but now I'm free! It only took 10 months after I broke up with him and moved out of his house (and a $200 "illegal parking" fine), but as of today, I'm done. Forever! Weeeeee!

St Pat's 2010. I miss this shenanigans.

And back to one of my previous posts, my friends are awesome. Coley spent a good part of the morning distracting/helping me not worry about today. And Kimbo spent my lunch hour doing the same. This morning SUCKED, but once I got an email that all I had to do was pay a $200 fine? BEST DAY EVER. I'm free of my past. This is great. I've had a few celebratory beers "with" Kimbo. (I say "with" because I'm actually alone and she spent a good hour and a half celebrating/drinking beers with me on the phone.) Again, I love my friends. I owe them a lot.

So I think I'm going to have a few more beers and head to bed. Today was a long/joyous 10 hour work day. Still, best day ever. :)

150 DAZE until St. Pats and 216 days until my lease is up.

I'm an awful spender.

I think I have some of the weirdest spending patterns. I used to go through phases where I would either save everything or spend like my money was never going to run out. Now I'm in this weird phase where I won't buy the simplest things (like a cutting board, a lamp or lawn furniture) so I can save the money. But then I'll go out and spend some retarded about of money on something stupid (like beer, home brewing equipment or beer supplies). I mean, I finally bought what Kimbo calls "a big girl phone", but I dropped it in Wal-Mart nearly a month ago and I broke the digitizer on it. Since it still works and it's only kind of a pain in the ass to use, I can't bring myself to buy a new screen and case for it. It's literally $30 to buy a new screen. But when I was grocery shopping today I bought the Sam Adams Harvest Collection. I just bought 12 more beers when I clearly have enough. WTF. What is wrong with me?

221 more days until my lease is up.

The great joys in life.

For me, the joys in life are simple. A sunny day, a beer in my hand, good music going  in the background. Ah, life. :) But over the past year, I've realized that one of my favorite things in life is being able to see just how much people care about each other. I love, love, love being able to see and experience this.

A quality photograph from the float trip.

I like to visit my friends (and sometimes surprise them) because of this. They all obviously mean a lot to me (or I wouldn't be driving nearly 4 hours to see them!).  But I also get to see just how much I mean to them. How? Well, after a float trip with the girls a month or so ago, shit got kind of out of hand pretty quickly. Long story made short, Coley was getting railed in the back of the head by a huge bitch while she was on the ground. We're talking like "she's going to go to the hospital" type beating over the head. I would easily go to the hospital to help this girl out. She's amazing. But what I found out was that I was the only one in the group of friends that was willing to do that for her. After the two of us recovered and figured out what the hell just happened, it was pretty clear who our friends really were. That's one of those times where you find out how much someone means to you. Another example is from a couple of nights ago with the same friend. :) Phi Kaps semi-formal: pitcher die with Coley, Chelsea and John Dough. (And in case you're wondering, pitcher die is a terrible idea.) Well, I stupidly made the statement that if Chelsea or John made it in my cup of Large Farva, I'd gladly chug it. And of course, John Dough made it on the next throw. I power stanced in a dress, and Coley held my dress down so no one would get a free show of my vagina (because hey, we're classy). I made it through almost all of the drink until I made it to the cheap vodka layer. I nearly vomited on Coley, but she just stood there and held my dress, waiting to get puked on. Now I don't know about you, but that's a fucking friend!

Holz, my dad and myself... and our evil cat.

But I also have the unique experience of planning my dad's surprise 50th birthday party (and now we're getting to the real reason for the post). A year ago, I didn't think I would have ever been planning this, being that my dad was battling very aggressive cancer. Now, 5 months of clean scans later, I am able to see the enormous outpouring of support that my parents have. For a little back story, my dad used to work at a telecommunications company downtown. When his doctor couldn't say that he would be back to work within 6 months, he was fired. So needless to say, money is a little tight around their house. My mom has been working her ass off to keep the house. (Not that I'm trying to tell a sad story, this is just how it is.) So, back to my original point... upon inviting all of his friends, I wasn't expecting what I got. Almost everyone who was invited has offered not only wonderful words of encouragement and excitement that his health is much better now, but they've offered to help in any way they can. People are offering to bring food to help out. One woman is designing a gourmet layered cake incorporating his favorite hobbies, flying fishing and hunting. And another woman is putting together (without my help) a fundraiser for my parents. I obviously can't tell anyone in my family about this, and it's making me want to burst. I just want to tell my mom that her friends are freaking amazing whenever I talk to her, but I'll have to keep my mouth shut for another week and a half. I know that this gathering of friends is going to mean so much to both of them, I can't wait to see both of their reactions.