Seibel Institute of Technology: Week 1

During the last two weeks, I completed the first of six modules at the oldest beer brewing school in the United States. When we sat at our desks for the first time, a three inch thick binder was waiting for us. By the end of the day plowing through the material it was evident that all the students and the teacher were not used to being in a classroom for that long. Our teacher ended our first day of class, after seven hours of learning about the malting process with, "So...beer." We then proceeded up to our Bier Stube were we helped ourselves to beverages of our choice of two draught beers and a selection of Yuengling bottles that were graciously donated to the school.

During the second straight day of learning and talking about beer we were interrupted several times for the city of Chicago to do their inspections of the new facility of the school. In the meantime we took a tour of the Goose Island brewbup and had some Q and A with the head brewer. After class the vice president of the school led us to Goose Island for their weekly release, then a local bar to feast on $3 burger and $2.50 beer night. Unfortunately, the time spent socializing with my fellow classmates but a halt to the amount of studying I was able to do and set me back for the rest of the week.

In the first five hours of the day we finished up our malting education for the program. Scheduled for our afternoon session was a 'sensory analysis' training period where we were to teach our tongues the art of finding defects in beer. Unfortunately the teacher for the session was called away and we were allowed to leave early. For most of the students that just meant more time at the Bier Stube, but I ran over to the local homebrew shop and bought enough supplies to double the batch I had planned for the weekend so I could bring one of the kegs in for the class to share at the Stube.

The last two days of the week gave us our first teacher swap as our focus turned to hops (probably the subject that I know the least about) and brewing water. Changing teachers also brought around a chance of pace. The classes were moving through the material much quicker, but the class was getting nervous with our first test approaching on Friday.

The test ended up being fairly simple with true or false, short answer, and multiple choice questions. I wizzed through it in about half an hour. Then as my classmates arose from the test and ascended to the Bier Stube, they all started to have some beers, at 9:30 in the morning! Now I am far from a prude but I don't know how those guys were able to stay away during the next six hours of learning about specialty hop products and brewing water composition and adjustments. My daily lunch beers were enough to make my eyes sag during a slow part of a lecture. But at the end of the day we were able to make up our 'sensory analysis' period. The session was drinking a bunch of Budweiser with all but one sample spiked with 'defect' materials.

We sipped through the session with our baseline beer revealing flaws in the spiked samples. As we lounged around the Stube after class we discussed what to do for many people's first weekend night in Chicago. After a dinner at Goose Island with Brian and Ian, we headed up to the local beer bar, the Hopleaf. Despite the gently rain and the fact that I gave almost everyone directions, we had a pretty good crowd. I was especially happy to see our Brazilian friends who made it to the bar. Everyone had a really good time as to be expected when a bunch of beer nerds go to a beer bar. After a long wait for the bus in the rain to get back towards the city, we all hopped on and were those people that annoyed everyone else on the bus. I jumped off the bus before everyone else because I wanted to get to bed ... I had a beer picnic to go to the next day!

The picnic was on, rain or rain. In what turned out to be the rainiest day in Chicago history my beer club braved the elements in the name of good brew and good food. I even bought a poncho for good measure. We ended up staying for longer than I had anticipated. In the emails sent after the event someone commented, 'what a strange and dedicated group of people we are.' At the next bar (not so astonishingly another venue for one of the beer club's annual events) the bartender asked us where we had come from. After we told him we were at a picnic all day, I'm sure he thought that we were all liars. Apparently we were not the only ones that hold events at that particular venue, as a group of scientologists were also holding a meeting. When my friend Jay and I walked over to see what was going on with Guinness in hand. We were quickly approached by a young woman who promptly told us that we were going to have to leave. They gave us a introduction DVD and guided us away. That was the happy moment when I realized that I was not good enough for scientology.

Sunday was dedicated to detoxification and football. I do not need to say more.

Last Day of Summer

Unless you are a teacher, a student, or just a plain old unemployed person, the joys of summer vacation forever allude us. Fortunately, I was able to get one more summer break this year after losing my job and deciding not to jump right into another one I didn't like. So what have I been doing for the last four months? A lot actually, but very little of it was actually useful. As you can see I spent a lot of time outdoors in sandal.

Officially, I considered myself a transient as I was bus-setting my way across the Midwest (thanks to the cheap fare aboard Megabus). All in all I took 20 trips between St. Louis and Chicago this summer. I broke up the time on the bus between reading, watching movies, and sleeping. I also took and excursion to Memphis to watch a Redbirds game and eat ribs, drink beer, and eat more BBQ. I also took a trip to New York to visit my college roommate and to see my girlfriend's family.

During my less than stressful bus-setting life style I made some time for fun and games. I did things that I love to do and found some other things that I now love to do. I went to four beer festivals this summer and saw 'The Dark Knight' four times (on opening night and then three more times in IMAX). Pictured are my ticket stubs and sampling glasses. I also worked on mastering the art of 'Guitar Hero,' beating 138 of 168 levels. It sure filled in the extra time when I didn't have anything else to do.

But the summer wasn't all fun and games, just mostly. I did spend some time thinking about my future and decide to throw caution into the wind and start pursuing my dream of brewing professionally. So I spent a good amount of time reading advanced brewing textbooks, building and collecting new brewing equipment, and improving my unique brewing recipes. This work was in preparation of enrolling in the Seibel Institute of Technology, the oldest brewing program in the United States. The program starts on Monday and runs for 12 weeks with the last 5 taking place in Germany and other European countries. There will be plenty more to tell about my program as I am anticipating it could be the time of my life.

An Odd Day

Today several very strange things happened. First, while moving some items from my parents garage to the basement, I must have left the door open long enough for a bird to fly in. After stealthily chasing the bird around the house with a laundry basket, I managed to corner it in the kitchen and guide it back to the outside. Then later on I heard about my uncle and his dog. His dog was taken to the pet hospital overnight for some sort of pancease problem. Then my uncle had to go to the people hospital for a swollen testicle due to some sort of allergic reaction. The word going around was that it blew up to the size of a softball. Very strange goings on, indeed.

Three Years Later

Today marks the third anniversary of my employment at my first "real" job out of college. In some sort of poetic justice, this anniversary also marks my last check that I will ever get from my former company. Since I have decided the take the summer off of real working, it will be my last "real" paycheck for a while. Thinking about not having a steady stream of income has made me uncomfortable several times after thinking about it, but I think removing yourself from the working world for a bit is something that everyone should do. Taking some time to work on your craft, whatever that may be, helps put you in a place where you can really make a better decision on where you want your life to go. When stuck in the day to day tasks you never really get a chance to look at the big picture and think about if what you are doing is what you are suppose to be doing. Hopefully I am not being too optimistic and this summer will provide me that opportunity.

A Bad Move

To preface this story I will start to what happened hours before. During the evening I remember double fisting a pitcher of Goose Island 312 and a growler of 312 that I had a bartender fill up after they ran out of pitchers. The last drink I had before I left the bar was a bottle of Tequila being poured in my mouth / eyes before leaving. After a half hour of crying I decided that it would be a good idea to load up my U-Haul that night. First I decided to make the very bad decision of driving my U-Haul down the alley or about a block. As far as I remember I didn’t hit anyone or anything so that is good I guess. So I started to load it up at 12:30 am. All I truly remember was losing my balance on the stairs and grabbing on to a handrail that was supported by only a single nail. I proceeded to pull the handrail out from its nail and smash it though the very window that it was protecting. Instead of taking blame for my act I decided to take the cinder block that we used to prop the door open and smash the window from the outside so I could blame some unnamed assailant on our building and wouldn’t have to pay for the window. (But later I decided that I could not do that and claimed blame for the accident.) I ended up going to bed around 2 in the morning with little more recollection other than smashing my back on the stairs during an untimely spill.

The next morning I woke at 7:30 to finish moving my bed and a few other select items into the truck. When I opened the back, it appeared that I had taken each item individually, lifted it up over my head and hurled it into the back. Stuff was piled in the both the driver and passenger seat so much so hopping into the truck would be impossible. By 9 o’clock, I had finished organizing my mess from the night before and moving the rest of my stuff. I left so early since my U-Haul statement said I need to return the truck by 3:11, and I had five hours to drive. Predictably the ride was miserable as I forged ahead to get the truck back on time. Fortunately I pulled into the U-Haul parking lot at 3:10 only to discover the drop point was closed on Sundays and all my rushing was for not.

Stuff

The only time you truly realize how much 'stuff' you actually have is when you are moving. I don't think I am a pack rat in any sense of the term, but the more I pack, the more packing I still have left. I have been trying to be good about getting rid of 'stuff' I don't really need, but I always have a side of me that says, 'you may need that if...' Plus I feel bad about throwing perfectly good things away. Yet I have no near term need for Christmas wrapping paper, for example. So far I have managed to get rid of some items I no longer want but are still good. Between my neighbors and my local thrift store, their 'stuff' pile has grown.

On a deeper note, why do we really need all this 'stuff?' All it seems to do is further tie us to where we are. We like to be with our 'stuff.' For some people this is more true than others. One person can be perfectly happy with a backpack and nothing else, while others seem to like having mounds of 'stuff' surrounding them. As I look at all my 'stuff' I realize how little of it I actually need and how it really doesn't make me any happier. If anything 'stuff' is just another reason a person can get stuck where they are. After I essentially decided to take this summer off to reflect on where I want to go and how to get there, I am trying to minimize my interaction with my 'stuff.' I am hoping to closer connect with family and friends and spend a little time away from not only my 'stuff,' but also all the other 'stuff' people deal with in what is often considered a normal life.

EARTHQUAKE!!!

Last night as I dozed, my slumber was disrupted by such a clatter. It seemed if someone was shaking my bed back and forth and my desk was rattling. In my sleep deprived state the first thing I thought of was there was a cougar in my room, as one had been cornered and killed minutes from my house a couple days before. After this initial ridiculous thought fled my mind, I went on to thinking that somehow I was causing the shaking without realizing it. As I sat there confused as all hell, the shaking stopped and I was once again passed out. I had almost forgot about the incident, probably chalking it up to being a dream until my neighbor asked if I felt the earthquake last night. And I was luck enough to live through it and tell the tale.