Sweetwater Brewing, the local irreverent brewers who have brought us beers with such naughty names as Summer Hummer, Dubbel D’s, Happy Ending, and 420 Pale Ale, finally released a limited amount of a new barleywine they call Donkey Punch.  For those of you not aware of the unspeakable act that references, I’ll let you search on wikipedia on your own to see why this is a rather saucy name.

Make fun of me all you want, but when you become a parent it becomes imperative you try not to swear in front of them.  That doesn’t mean I’m not going to let loose a stream of epithets when they’re not around if the situation calls for it, but I find myself saying a lot of kid-friendly phrases not only in place of bad words but also simply expressions of wonder.  Instead of “Holy shit!” I might find myself exclaiming “Holy Mackerel!”.  “Jesus H Christ on a corn dog stick!” might now sound like “Geewhillikers!” or “Criminy!” or “Jiminy Cricket!” coming out of my mouth now.

Continuing my obsession with All Things Bitterly Cold, I found a new show the other month that allows me to live vicariously through others without all those pesky details such as lack of sleep and extremely cold temperatures and potential frostbite and the always annoying Chance Of Death.  OK, so I do currently experience Lack of Sleep since we have a two-month-old in the house, but other than that I’d say my job is relatively tame assuming you don’t factor in the Potential Death On The Interstate variable.

Now that this blog is expanding beyond my inner circle of friends and is even three and four times removed in some instances, I feel the need to clarify things a bit.  If you read a majority of my ramblings, you’d naturally come to the conclusion that I’m a miserable mope.  Nothing could be further from the truth, at least not nowadays.  Having a wonderful wife and two healthy daughters has really given me the proverbial new outlook on life yet it hasn’t entirely rounded out my rough edges that were sharpened as a youngster in Detroit during that city’s darkest two decades of it’s existence.

Two unrelated thoughts today:

The past few weeks have really made me appreciate how great the newest generation of cell phones are.  Let me list a few super handy reasons that come to mind.

• It’s a great tool for avoiding eye contact in the elevator.  < ...

<begin beer geek moment>

It’s not like I hide my snobbery when it comes to the alchemy of water, malt, barley, hops and yeast.  Lately I’ve been more prone to use the term Beer Geek as it’s less pretentious than Beer Snob.  In the interest of full disclosu ...

Since I am prone to bring in my lunch to work most days (for cost and calorie control), I usually include a yogurt with my daily selection.  Obviously these industrial packets are vacuum sealed but for some reason there is one design flaw in almost all yogurt containers.  Unless you’re holding your hand over where you open the top, the semi-pressurized contents will splatter on your hands and clothes, making it look like you’re a President-pleasing intern with an aversion to swallowing.