In 2009 I hope to:

1. Travel more with Chris
2. Be more comfortable in my own skin
3. Continue to work towards improving my body and my health
4. Have a fantastic, outstanding, stage-walking year for my Mary Kay Business
5. Get our puppy (finally)

I’m sure there are a lot more “things” I hope to accomplish this year, however instead of trying to wrack my brain to come up with them all in one day, I’m going to choose to make them up as I go along and see where life takes me this year.

Hope you all have a wonderful new year and can always manage to find the beauty in each day, each hour, each moment that you spend alive.

ESFP - The Performers

Fast forward to tonight, when I found out that because I don’t share (however still respect) the majority of my friends’ opinion on who should be our next president I am now apparently: stupid, retarded, inept, shitty, incompetent, a whack-job, nut case and many other expletives I choose not to repeat in my blog. Oh and the big one that irks the living DAYLIGHTS out of me and is beyond offensive. We’ll leave it at that.  Even in jest, frustration or whatever that kind of crap is uncalled for. And don’t get me started on how NEGATIVE this entire campaign season has been across the boards from the national elections all the way down to the local elections. All the mudslinging from both sides disgusts me and makes me less enamored with any candidate no matter their record.

Fact of the matter is I don’t have to agree with the “majority” within my circle of friends (but perhaps I should reevaluate who I associate with, hmmm?) on 100% of the issues all the time any more than I have to agree with a candidates specific stance on all the issues or any of them agree with my point of view 24/7. However, I’d like to think I do share a level of respect for all of those people whose beliefs differ from my own and would like to assume I could share that same amount of respect back at me. But I’m finding that’s not the case.

I don’t go waving my banner proclaiming which party I align with, choosing a “don’t ask, don’t tell” type of policy when it comes to politics for the most part, perhaps letting my guard down a bit when I know I’m surrounded by like-minded people, or even those that have proven to have a level head while having a difference of opinion. I hate the frothing at the mouth, rabid and acerbic “debates” that people get into and how easily the attacks becomes personal  instead of focusing on issues and policies the closer it gets to a major election. Especially one as monumental as this.

I’m not looking for anyone to change my mind about my political stance any more than I’m looking to change that of someone else. It’s a personal decision and each person comes at the issues with a different and diverse point of view. But I’d love to have an honest to God discussion with people of different viewpoints without it dissolving to a knock down, drag out cage match filled with name calling and finger pointing.

I’d just like to not get called out on the carpet or labeled with nasty words and names. Can’t we all just get along?

So yeah, that cat just cracks me up. Hey Higgs, it’s your tail!

But hey, we want to take advantage of all the Darkness out there on tap before we have to start breaking into our bottles at home. So tonight was the “Official” release party of Surly’s Darkness over on the U of MN campus at Stub & Herbs.

We got there a little late (ok, an hour late) because I had a Mary Kay appointment that night and got caught up in all that jazz. At least Chris was nice enough to wait for me to go and didn’t leave me behind. When we finally got over there, after I got all disoriented because I hadn’t been on campus in over 10 years really, we managed to snag a parking place right in back of the bar. That in itself should have been a miracle, because the place was PACKED. The entire patio was filled, the bar was hot, cramped and full of people wearing Surly gear and the back room while cooler was also quite filled.

We managed as we passed the bar to grab our first beers of the night, a Darkness for me and a Coffee Bender for Chris. We grabbed a table in that back room and ordered some food since neither of us had eaten much all day. While we were back there a table full of people and a guy in a blue Surly brewer’s shirt were passing around a 7-week old baby. As I was talking to the baby’s mom I found out that she was Omar’s wife. Who’s Omar you ask? Well he’s one of the founders/owners of Surly Brewing Co. and one of the nicest, most down to earth guys I could have imagined meeting. For some reason I had built him up a bit in my head to have some kind of “celebrity” status, thankfully I couldn’t have been more wrong. Chris managed to snap some pictures of the baby who was adorable in his little pumpkin snuggler/onesie.

We ended up getting another beer a piece, a Surly Cynic for me and a Tyranena’s Rocky’s Revenge for Chris. While I thoroughly enjoyed my second beer, Chris not so much. Since he was driving, I convinced him (not that he needed much help) to not drink the rest.  When we were ready to go, we headed for the door but I stopped at Omar’s table to thank him for the great beer he’s creating which lead to a good 10 or 15 minute converstation with him as he let us in on upcoming events involving Surly beers and said he hoped to run into us again soon.

All in all a pretty good night, even if the food was greasy and salty and made me get up in the middle of the night thinking I was dying in the desert of thirst.

OMFG. Darkness = Beergasm.

No kidding. I TOTALLY see what all the hype is about now. Damn. Unbelieveably good beer. And GT’s Juicy Lucy’s + fries were pretty damn kick ass too.

Why didn’t we move to St. Paul when we moved here again?

Basically a local brewery releases their “Darkness” beer once a year, just prior to Halloween at the brewery. Chris and I had been a little apprehensive about getting up early to go over and stand in line for a beer we had never tried since we were a little less than impressed with their other beers in cans. I am however thrilled that we actually went. We were 48 people away from not being guaranteed our 6 bottles of the beer, we had cut it THAT close. People had apparently camped outside the brewery since about 6:30p LAST night for this stuff. We literally almost walked RIGHT by the wristbands that would get us our Darkness as I thought they were closer to the gates, luckily our hero Joe the volunteer stopped us and gave us our pumpkin-decorated orange band with a specific number on it (this becomes important later.)

We wandered the brewery grounds, checked out people and hung for a bit with the people that we had bonded with over the previous hour and a half in line as we bought beer tokens and tried their beers on tap for the first time. We were definitely more impressed with their offerings from the tap vs. cans. Beers I had sworn I’d never drink again I was actually enjoying (and no I wasn’t too drunk to care) I did get to taste Surly Smoke 2008 which was a really awesome and smooth beer. We got some merch from the brewery and from the Darkness release (stickers, glasses, poster, t-shirt and a surly brewers coat for me!) and then grabbed a bite to eat before reconnecting with some of our line-mates and got another beer on them for free! WOO!

After that we decided since we have another concert to get to tonight, we’d go grab our bottles of Darkness and make our way back to the car. We stopped by the merch table first to grab a limited edition poster (#30/500!) and talked to a few of the merch volunteers. They said something to guy walking by who was wearing a brewer’s coat and then mentioned to us that he WON it because of the number on his Darkness wristband. Chris and I were excited and feeling lucky and even MORE excited when the mention of potential bottles of Darkness 2007 were being given away. So we made our way over to the table to get our bottles and I was wearing my shirt from the show last night and one of the guys was like “TFK! Awesome!” so it was like an omen. The guy cut my band off and asked how many bottles I wanted, I told him “6 and I’d like to win the coat or a bottle of 2007 Darkness too please!” All with a smile of course. He told us that only the first 4 people in line got the ‘07 bottles and then he looked at his sheet and said blah-blah-52, if you had been 53 you’d be a winner. And I laughed and pulled Chris over and showed him his band, which of course was #XXX53! Chris won a cool Surly Brewing hat for the winter!

So we were amped as we walked away with our case of beer (these are GIANT 750ml bottles btw) and all our gear, half of it we had previously dumped back at the car before lunch as to not have to carry it all day.

The day was STUNNING out, sunny, cloudless and about 63 with a bit of a breeze. Couldn’t have asked for better really. It’s only gonna get better tonight at the Building 429 show that I’ll have to write about later.