Aardvark to Zymurgy

What the hell happened to Jewel? I just saw her on Kimmel and she looks like she's had more plastic surgery than Joan Rivers. Strange cattle.

Here are some links:

Grown in CA
warkittens
website-101
arubajustice
arubawaves
skulldesac

When I was a younger man I once wrote an epic poem called "oral surgery." It was more or less just adolescent whining about being given the "let's just be friends" speech from a nurse I thought I was dating. As painful and angst-ridden as that time was, I would much rather go through that again than what I have in store for me this afternoon.

As soon as I post this message I'm leaving to go get my lower wisdom teeth extracted. I guess I should just be happy that I didn't name that poem something like, "anal probe." I'm just sayin'.

We took the keg of homebrew, mentioned below (from the Sudsology Facebook Group), to Palm Springs for my birthday celebration, along with a new jockey box I built. I hooked everything up as soon as we got to the rental house, and filled the cooler with ice. I tried to draw a cold one, but it was mostly foam. I made several more attempts, using a pitcher, but got the same results. My thinking was that the beer had been jostled too much from the trip, or that I didn't have enough tubing (30 ft.), and the beer wasn't cooling off enough. I decided we would let the homebrew settle for the night and we would go with plan B; store-bought beer. Plan B worked out well enough, and a good time was had by all.

The next morning I went to check on my brew to see if it was pouring better. As I approached the rig I noticed that the tube running from the keg to the jockey box was clear. This was odd, as it should be full of amber nectar. I felt a lump in my throat as my heart sank. I had a bad feeling. I grabbed hold of the keg and lifted, expecting it to weigh about forty pounds. It did not. The keg felt as if it were completely empty, which it was. "Oh shit!" I thought. I opened the lid to the cooler, and much to my horror saw approximately five gallons of 10-year old homebrew. My jockey box had sprung a leak somewhere and as a result the beer was lost.

The flag flew at half-mast for the rest of the weekend, as we drowned our sorrows with store-bought beer, ribs and cake. I guess it could have been worse. We could have drank the beer and been blinded.

"Sudsology: Because Beer is Good"

This past weekend I celebrated my third Quinceañera, with a few of my best friends. We had a house in Palm Dessert, where we:

Relaxed in the Pool:


Ate Ribs:


And drank beer:


Pretty much a perfect weekend. Thanks everybody!

OK, at the risk of this blog being type-cast as an insurance blog, I feel compelled to talk about my car insurance quote experience today. I've been thinking lately that our car insurance is way too high. Before I got married I only had one car to insure, and it wasn't a fancy, new one, with a Hemi, like I have now. So, my car insurance was never a huge expense. But, now my wife and I have two new cars, and our insurance is more than double what I was paying before. So, today I did what any Net Savvy person would do. I went online looking for car insurance quotes. I found a site called, "AmericanCarQuotes."

On the website, AmericanCarQuotes, I was able to enter in some basic information about my wife and myself, our vehicles and driving records. I hit submit, then figured I'd get an e-mail in a day or two with a quote. While I waited I figured I'd dig into the website a little more, and see what they had to teach me. Well, I read a little bit about safety, then a little bit about Poor Driving Records, and then my phone rang. It was a call verifying the phone number I had used when I submitted my quote request. I hung up, then the phone rang again. This time it was from an insurance agent. Keep in mind, this was about five minutes after hitting "submit." I was unprepared for someone to be calling me so quickly, so I had to apologize and ask that they call me back later. I thought, "well, that was quick." So, I went to my e-mail in-box, and there were about half a dozen quotes from different insurance agencies. The good news is that our insurance is not extremely higher than the going rate. The bad news is.... well, the same as the good news.

OK, I swear my next blog entry will not be about insurance of any kind.... unless I buy a boat or something.

Cheers!

Now that I'm married and thinking about starting a family it's probably time I also start to think about other grown up things, like life insurance. The world offers a lot of mysteries to me. There are more things I don't know about than there are things I do know about. Life insurance is one of those things I don't know. Phrases like "whole life," and "term life" made little sense to me yesterday. But, today I have a much better understanding. Recently someone pointed me at a website with some good information: Advantage Term Life

The website has an online quote function that is available on all pages. There is a page that explains Term Life and a page that explains Whole Life. So, now I have a much better understanding of the difference.

If online quotes aren't your thing you can call them, as the toll-free phone number is visible on every page. All-in-all, the website is laid out very well, and offers good information.

The new Sudsology slogan has been decided.

"Sudsology: Because Beer is Good"

OK, there was no clear winner and a few of the suggestions were really great. So, we're having a runoff. I took the top vote getters and added three of the suggested slogans. Please cast your vote and the winner will be our new slogan. In case of a tie the group Admins and I will cast the deciding vote. The poll will be open until midnight this Friday, May 22.

Cast your vote below:



Cheers!

Link of the day: War Kittens

Hi folks;

I'm looking for a slogan for my Facebook group, Sudsology. So, I've created a poll and am posting it here. Please make your voice heard. The poll will close at 12:01 AM, May 20, 2009.



Cheers!

Link of the day: GrowninCA.com

It’s Easter Sunday and I’m staying in Sacramento at the beautiful Hampton Inn. Actually, it is quite an excellent hotel. Jani and I are here in support of her Uncle Terry, who was being baptized and confirmed into the Catholic Church. What’s this got to do with shuffle play, you ask? Well, hold on. I’m getting to that. Jeez! Anyway, we went to Easter Vigil mass Saturday night, to see Terry get baptized and confirmed. After a seven hour mass, or as I like to call it, Church calisthenics (stand, sit, kneel, stand, sit, kneel), Terry had become one of the newest members of the Catholic Church. Hooray for Terry. I’m still up in the air when it comes to the subject of religion, but my hat is off to anyone who makes a commitment to follow their beliefs; especially, when one does so later in life.


The next day, today, Easter Sunday, Terry and his family were hosting a brunch. As Jani and I were driving to his house, I had my iPod on shuffle play. As we exited the freeway a new song came on. The song has about a thirty second instrumental introduction, before the lyrics begin. I recognized the song right away and started to chuckle. Jani said to me, “what’s so funny.” I told Jani, “just listen to the lyrics.” A few seconds later, an angry man named Rotten began to screech in a British accent, “I am an Anti-Christ! I am an Anarchist….” The group was the Sex Pistols and the song, “Anarchy in the UK.” I looked at Jani and said, “effing shuffle play…. all knowing shuffle play.” Later on that day I had to drive Jani to the airport, as she was flying to LA for business. As we neared the airport Ray Charles came on singing “Hit the Road Jack.” I thought to myself, “now you’re just being mean, shuffle play.”

Link of the Day: www.arubajustice.com