These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feeeeeeeel soooooo bad.  I watched this movie a lot growing up; it was my mom's favorite.

Favorite Movie: Garden State

Favorite Band/Musician: Sooo hard to choose just one.  I go through phases and I usually enjoy different music depending on the season.

Favorite Color: Green (they say geniuses pick green.  I am proof that is bullshit, lol)

Favorite TV Show: currently it’s a toss-up between How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, New Girl, and Whitney.  All-time, it would have to be The X-Files (I’m a huge nerd.  Deal.)

Favorite Season: Autumn.  I love to watch the leaves change color, and I have the strangest desire to rake them into giant piles to jump in J.

Favorite Hair Color: For myself, my natural color (it suits me).  And for a girl, what can only be described as chocolate brown.

Favorite Smell: Suave Dry Shampoo and Volumizer (don’t ask), fresh garlic (yummmm), and old books

Favorite Book:  This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I read it in high school, I LOVE the main character, and there is a lot of poetry incorporated in the book.

Favorite Candy: Trolli Bright Crawlers and Sour Patch Kids

Favorite Food: Pepperoni Pizza.  Steak is a close second.

Favorite Animal: Doggies!

Favorite Sport: Hockey.  I played when I was a little kid and loved every second of it.  I also used to watch hockey games with my dad in his room.

Favorite City: Philly

Favorite Quote: “The sound must seem an echo to the sense.” –Alexander Pope

Favorite Poet: Robert Frost.  I own several first editions of his works.

Favorite Poem: Hard to say.  For now we’ll go with My Lost Youth by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Favorite Beer: Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat.  Very excited to try their Summer Shandy

Favorite Subject in School (back in the day…): English (shocker)

Favorite Holiday: Halloween.  Candy and costumes, how could you go wrong?

Favorite Memory:  I forget

Favorite Fast Food Restaurant: Pizza Hut.  My mom used to take us after school for personal pan pizzas.  It’s a wonder I wasn’t a chubby little kid.

On Tap: Going Rogue

Hello fellow beer lovers, welcome to another edition of On Tap.  Though this post is a day late, I promise the wait was worth it.  Monday allowed me the time to go out and add several new beers to my repertoire, in addition to the ones I sampled throughout last week.  Let’s not waste any time, shall we.

We’ll start with this week’s “winners”.  Yesterday was trivia night at the Market Cross Pub in Carlisle and in addition to schooling some of the locals (I’m really bad at it), yours truly enjoyed some tasty new brews.  First, I perused the draught list and sampled Rogue’s Chocolate Stout.  I was very excited because I had been wanting to try a chocolate stout for awhile now and I finally got my chance.  I must say, it wasn’t quite as good as I was hoping but was still a very good beer.  Overall, the stout was smooth, creamy and had a slight coffee aftertaste.  The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it was fairly bitter at first blush, but that quickly melted away so I am willing to overlook that fact.

The second winner of the week is another from the Rogue family, Rogue Dead Guy Ale.  After my first success with the Chocolate Stout, I figured, “Why stop there?”  If you like that natural, smooth beer flavor without all the hoppiness, then this beer is for you.  This beer was, in a word: delicious.  I did however, seem to be able to taste the alcohol content more and more as I got closer to the bottom of the bottle; not sure what that’s about.  Regardless, Monday was a good night.

Now, on to the losers.  Last week I paired a couple of my favorite shows with the last of my second Wegman’s create-your-own six-pack.  Well, all I can say is thank God for How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory.  The two beers in question were Yuengling Bock Beer and Leinenkugel’s Red Lager.  The Bock was very bitter and metallic tasting and was in general, a huge let down.  It was my first bock and I think the fact that it was Yuengling may have had something to do with my bad experience.  The Red Lager actually wasn’t too bad, but it was far below the high standards of some of the other Leinenkugel beers I’ve had; it doesn’t hold a candle to Sunset Wheat.

Well, that’s all for this week’s edition of On Tap.  Join me next week when I hope to discuss some of the following beers:

Fuller’s London Porter

Blue Moon Spring Blonde Wheat

Magic Hat Vinyl

Lost Coast Indica

Out to the Movies

I know that Monday’s are usually when I do my On Tap segment, regaling you with tales of the previous weeks adventures in beer, but truth be told, I didn’t drink that much beer last week.  I’m hoping to change that tonight, though.  I thought I’d switch it up a bit (don’t worry, On Tap will be back tomorrow) and, in light of the Oscars being last night, do a movie-themed post.

First things first, the following is a list of actors who I could watch in just about anything:

Ryan Gosling

Zach Braff

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Jason Segel

 I love movies, but like with music, I can be a bit of a picky snob when it comes to what I watch.  I just don’t want to spend an hour and a half of my life in a movie theater or on my couch unless I think it’s going to be worth it.  When I do find something I like though, I could watch it over and over again and never get bored; there’s always stuff you miss the first time around.  Anyway, here is a list of just some of my all-time favorite movies (in no particular order):

Casablanca (classic!)

Garden State

The Royal Tenenbaums 

Little Miss Sunshine

Juno

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Sunshine Cleaning

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Broken Flowers

The Door in the Floor

The United States of Leland

Blue Valentine

Lars and the Real Girl

Spring Forward

Thumbsucker

Stranger than Fiction

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

American Beauty

Things I Want...

…but could never pull off.  Often I’ll be watching a TV show or a movie and I’ll see something that I absolutely fall in love with, but that I’m sure I could never wear/have.  This is a brief list of the things I wish I could pull off.

Ryan Gosling is the man and when I saw him wearing this jacket in the movie Drive, I just thought, “God, that is totally bad ass!”  I would probably look like a total loser in it, but I don’t care.  I wish I had it.

 Back before Christmas I was playing around on the internet looking for new sneakers and came across these.  I saved the image to my computer because I liked them so much.  My shoes are usually pretty plain, but a part of me has always wanted a funky pair of kicks.  The best part, they’re green, which is my FAVORITE color J.

 I wish I had Chris D’elia’s hair…like, for serious.  I tried to grow my hair out freshman year of college, but eventually got impatient and got it cut because I felt like I was starting to look like the 5^th member of The Beatles.

Well, those are just a few of the things I’ve coveted recently.  Sometimes I wish I weren’t so afraid to be myself and just go ahead and buy/do some of this stuff.  One day, maybe.

Getting Personal

Sometimes I hate who I am.  I know that’s a terrible thing to say, but that’s just how I feel sometimes.  I hate what I’m capable of.   I hate that I’m not as dedicated as some people.   I hate that I’m lazy.   I hate that I have a tendency to start things and then never finish them.  I hate that I’m quiet and shy.  I hate that I find it hard to be myself around people.  I hate being a social chameleon, changing who I am to make other people happy.

I know all of this is probably a bit of an over-share, but I don’t care; it is what it is.  And I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing.  I don’t know about you, but I always love when an author gets personal, it makes them easier to identify with and relate to.  It reminds me that they’re just like me, human, and that they have flaws too.  And that yeah, sometimes they hate themselves.  Besides, if you’re reading this blog (then you’re one of three, max) you’re probably one of the few people who might actually be interested in what I have to say.

I figured I’d spend today’s post getting personal, talking about my life long before the blog.  Sometimes I feel like it’s good to reflect on your life, like maybe it helps give you perspective.  Anyway, so if you don’t already know, I have a fairly unusual (and I’ve been told sad) family history.  Growing up, my dad worked two jobs to make ends meet; he’s been a janitor his entire life.  Now some people would think less of him for what he does for a living, but I’m not one of them.  To me, he was doing everything he could to try to give my family everything we needed, even if it meant that he wasn’t home a lot or that when he was, he was usually tired and stressed out.  One of my best memories I have as a kid is going to work with him at the local YMCA.  Sometimes situations at home would dictate that he had to take my sisters and I with him while he worked the night shift.  He would open up the Y and let us run around and explore while he did his thing.  I have some great memories of playing with the toys in the daycare facility, chasing my sisters around the track in the upstairs gymnasium, and exploring the empty building for signs of life.

Now even though my dad worked two jobs, we barely made ends meet.  You see my mom couldn’t work; she was diagnosed with lupus when she was younger and suffered from a host of other ailments.  Her social security check was a help, but it still was just enough to help keep our heads above water.  As a result, I didn’t have the things other kids had growing up.  I got use to wearing the same clothes for years, to the point where they were practically falling apart and I looked like I belonged in a bad 80s movie.  We never had a computer growing up; in fact, I didn’t get my first computer until sophomore year of college.  I spent countless hours freshman year in the computer labs.  It wasn’t until my buddy Joe gifted me an old clunker from IITS that I finally had a computer of my own.  I’m still reminded of my humble upbringing, every day in fact.  You see, another thing that my family couldn’t afford was to buy me new shoes every year.  I was always wearing shoes that were too small for me and as a result my toes have this funky curl to them; a constant reminder of where I came from.

Well, that’s all I feel like sharing at the moment.  Perhaps I’ll share more sometime, hoping that maybe by reading it you (or I) might gain some perspective.  Enjoy the beautiful weather outside.

Besties

I was thinking last night about the important role music plays in my life.  You may not know this about me, but I tend to relate how I’m feeling or whatever’s going on in my life to the songs in my vast collection of music.  Whenever I’m in a funk or feeling down, I just throw on my iTunes and let the music do its thing.

I tend to go for music with good lyrics; there aren’t many songs I can just listen to because I enjoy how they sound (I’m a bit of a snob).  That’s not to say that I never listen to silly music.  In high school there was a time when I listened almost exclusively to pop punk bands like Blink 182, Sum 41, and New Found Glory.  I still have a bunch of them in my music collection and will put them on from time to time, but for the most part I tend to enjoy songs that go a little bit deeper than rebelling against “the man.” 

One of the things I like most about music is where it can take you.  The best songs evoke something, stir something deep inside of you and fill your head with beautiful, funny, sexy, and sometimes sad, images.  For example, when I hear Ghost by Neutral Milk Hotel, I envision a motorcycle stuntman preparing for the jump of his life, realizing as he prepares that he will likely not survive.  Great songs also stir the passion inside us.  For example, whenever I hear Say Anything’s Alive with the Glory of Love I think of a guy showing up to a girls house, with that song blasting, walking up to her and the two of them just ravaging each other, National Geographic style.  I’m weird, I know.

The list below is of my all-time favorite songs.  It was originally only suppose to be 10 songs long, but I quickly realized that I would be leaving out some gems so I expanded the list to the top 20 in my collection.  Some of these songs I’ve had for a long time and others have only recently come into my life.  This list will most definitely change over time, but as of right now, these are my favorites (gush!), in no particular order.

Elliott Smith – The Biggest Lie

Say Anything – Alive with the Glory of Love

Iron & Wine – The Trapeze Swinger

Cursive – From the Hips

Josh Ritter – Come and Find Me

Neutral Milk Hotel – Ghost

Nick Drake – Parasite

Nirvana – All Apologies

The Shins – New Slang

Sufjan Stevens – Casimir Pulaski Day

The Weakerthans – Left and Leaving

The Shins – The Past and Pending

Coldplay – Don’t Panic

Bright Eyes – At the Bottom of Everything

Bon Iver – Skinny Love

The Beatles – Across the Universe

Beirut – Nantes

The Morning Benders – Excuses

The Postal Service – Such Great Heights

Vampire Weekend – Giving Up the Gun

Friends

I’ve been thinking a lot about the people in my life lately and I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I don’t have many friends.  By friends I mean the people who really care about you, who think about you when you’re not around, who would do anything for you.  By friends I mean your brothers from other mothers, your sisters from other misters, your “family.”  Don’t get me wrong, I know a good number of people, but I’m not sure I would categorize many of them as my friends. 

There are very few people in my life that I see on a fairly consistent basis.  I don’t talk to many of my high school friends anymore and none of them live in the area.  The same can pretty much be said for my college friends although I do manage to keep in contact with a few of them.  But I don’t get to see many of them very often and I generally get the impression that they have little interest in seeing me.  Sometimes it feels like I’m reaching out for something that isn’t there anymore and that I’m just kind of this annoying headache to them that they don’t want to entertain for a day.

It just sucks ‘cause I think I’m a pretty laid back guy.  I consider myself to be fairly entertaining, I have a sense of humor that’s all my own, and I’m the kind of person who just wants to make people happy.  I’ve been trying to think of ways to remedy my situation and I keep coming up empty.  Most of the people I work with are either way older than me or they’re not exactly the type of people I would typically be friends with.  Besides work, I’m hard pressed to think of a way to make new friends. 

The whole situation just has me in a bit of a funk at the moment and I’m just hoping that something will come along to get me out of it.  Music usually helps…

Lua by Bright Eyes

On Tap: A Dream Within A Dream

Well, it’s Monday again and you know what that means.  It’s time for another segment of On Tap.  As far as beer goes, this past week was filled with several interesting new brews, both good and bad.  However, before we get into that, I wanted to share something I came across several weeks ago when I was first beginning my foray into the world of beer.  Below is a link to another blog I came across when trying to learn about the different kinds of beer.  The post breaks down the differences between the two types of beer (lager and ale) and the most common subcategories (IPA, porter, stout, etc.).  I hope you find it as helpful as I did

Lager vs. Ale

Now, onto my beer escapades, or beerscapades as I like to call them.  Last Monday night I tried Troegs Dreamweaver Wheat for the first time and I must say, despite my previous run-in with Troegs (HopBack wasn’t for me), I very much enjoyed this one.  It had a smooth, almost bready flavor that I found very refreshing, and just the right amount of carbonation. 

After the Troegs I was feeling nostalgic for a beer that I had never had before: Lionshead.  Now this may seem funny seeing as I went to college in Wilkes-Barre, PA , just minutes from the Lionshead Brewery, but back then I just wasn’t into beer.  Anyway, after solving countless numbers of their cap puzzles I thought it time to try my first one.  I was very wary at first, I mean Lionshead is a fairly cheap beer AND it’s a pilsner which I thought, after reading the blog post above, I wouldn’t like to begin with.  Well it just goes to show you that you can’t always judge a book by its cover.  I actually thought the Lionshead wasn’t half bad; it had a good beer flavor and the bite wasn’t as bad as anticipated. 

Well, those were the winners for the week, now onto the losers.  Last week was a somber one, it marked the first time I tried a Leinenkugel beer that I didn’t like.  The beer I’m referring to is Leinenkugel’s Berry Weiss.  It was just too much; it was sickeningly sweet and tasted like fruit punch, not beer.  I guess if you don’t really like the taste of beer you might enjoy this one, but it definitely wasn’t for me.   Last week also marked my first experience with a porter.  The brew was Otter Creek Stovepipe Porter and I must say, they hit the nail on the head with the name.  The beer was fairly thick with little carbonation, which I expected, but the taste is what really turned me off.  It had a bitter, smoky flavor that was not appealing at all; I couldn’t even finish the whole thing.

That concludes this week’s edition of On Tap.  Join me next week when I hope to discuss, among others, the following beers:

Yuengling Bock Beer

Victory Moonglow Weizenbock

Sharing is Caring

Work is going particularly slow today, that and I have a lot on my mind, so here we go with blog post number 3 of the day.  This has got to be some kind of record.  Who blogs this much?  No one is that interesting, least of all me.  And yet, here we are.

So I was sitting at my desk just kind of vegging and I had some interesting ideas for recurring Twitter post topics.  That’s right ladies and gents, yours truly is a Twittererer…..  Anyway, while I enjoy posting random things to Twitter, I thought it would be kind of cool to have themed posts.  The two ideas I came up with are called #LyricizeYourLife and #Post-itThoughts. 

Regarding the former, anyone who knows me knows I LOVE music, particularly songs with good lyrics.  I thought it would be kind of cool to share the lyrics I enjoy the most, really focusing on the beautiful poetry contained in some of my favorite songs.

#Post-itThoughts are more general, spur-of-the-moment type things that pop into my head from time to time.  Now I’m not talking about just posting the boring, commonplace thoughts that pop into my head like, “Remember to pick up milk after work.”  No, these posts would be more of the “epiphany-type” thoughts, the thoughts that have probably been marinating in my head for awhile.

If you think it sounds like fun, give it a try!  It would be really cool if either of these were trending topics on Twitter one day; doubtful, but a girl can dream.

Happiness (part 4 of 4)

As promised, here is the second blog post of the day.  To cap off my list of what makes me happiest I decided to save the best for last.  These last 25 all revolve around a certain someone.  See if you can guess who.  And without further ado, here are numbers 76 thru 100:

76.   Your beautiful face

77.   Your sense of humor

78.   Your kind and giving nature

79.   The way your hair falls on my face when we cuddle

80.   The way you say, “Whatevs, yo”

81.   Your inner chef

82.   Watching our favorite TV shows under a blanket

83.   Your slight OCD

84.   Tickle fights

85.   Going to sleep with your scent in my lungs

86.   Dancing with you (both goofy and serious)

87.   Kissing you

88.   Holding your hand

89.   Telling you about my day

90.   Making you laugh

91.   Date nights

92.   Oxytocin

93.   Beating you at anything (which is rare)

94.   Trivia

95.   Your soccer legs

96.   Your smile

97.   Singing to you

98.   Your intelligence

99.   Being the one you bitch to

100. Your faith

Happiness (part 3 of 4)

Time to continue my countdown of what makes me happiest.  Today will actually be a two post day.  I feel like I need to make up for the recent lack of material.  Here are numbers 51 thru 75 (again, in no particular order):

51.   Daydreaming

52.   Discovering new music (I’m an audiophile)

53.   Focus Features

54.   Shady bars

55.   Going to the movies

56.   Pay day

57.   Back massages

58.   Nicknames

59.   Dexter

60.   Social media

61.   Chinese buffets

62.   Graphic Tees

63.   Snap decisions

64.   Random road trips

65.   A warm bed

66.   Hot showers

67.   Staying up late

68.   Leinenkugel

69.   The smell of freshly cut grass

70.   Antiques

71.   Tag (flashlight, laser, you-name-it)

72.   Clean clothes

73.   The sound of the ocean

74.   Starbucks Frappuccinos

75.   Winning (I’m competitive, what can I say)

Skype

My little sister, who I love, introduced me to the wonders of Skype.  If you don't have it already, you should get it.  Like, yesterday.  It is an excellent way to keep in touch with friends or family who you might not see on a regular basis because they don't live close to you.  I had a blast video chatting with my sister on and off throughout the day and I'm really going to encourage some of my other friends to download it as well.  It is super easy to use and is totally free (bonus!).

Sorry for the short post today, but that's all I feel like sharing at the moment.  I'll try to do better tomorrow.

Scary Moments

That’s right folks, two blog posts in one day.  I hadn’t planned on writing this one, but a lot went on today and it has gotten me in the mood to spill my guts.  So after lunch I got back to my office and not soon after my phone rang; on the other end was my little sister with some big news.  The first bit of knowledge she dropped on me was with regards to my uncle Dave. 

A little background, my uncle is a veteran and receives health insurance through his veteran’s benefits.  In order to see a doctor he has to travel all the way up to Wilkes-Barre, PA to receive treatment.  Well, apparently a couple years ago he went to the doctor for some blood work and the doctor came back with some scary news: he had cancer. The problem was the doctor didn’t know where in his body it was.  They ran some tests, but were unable to determine where the cancer originated from, so the doctors sent him home.

 

It’s been two years since that initial visit (of which the rest of the family is only learning of now) and the news isn’t good.  According to the doctors, my uncle has in inoperable tumor in his abdomen.  To make matters worse, my uncle told my little sister that if it comes down to it, he doesn’t want chemo.  He has seen what it does to the human body and just doesn’t want to go through all that if it only has a slight chance of working.  That said, we still don’t have all the test results so we will have to wait and see how big the tumor is before freaking out.

After dropping that bomb on me, my little sister had some other news regarding my big sister.  Again, some background, my big sister has suffered from a seizure disorder since she was a teenager and it has certainly made her life difficult.  Well about a week ago she had a seizure while standing at the top of the stairs at her boyfriend’s house.  She fell down the stairs and broke her leg, but that’s not the bad part.  The bad part happened at the hospital.  Apparently, after receiving a routine cat scan to check for any head injuries, the doctors found a brain aneurysm.  Now I don’t particularly get along well with my big sister, but when I heard this I almost cried right then and there in my office.  If you don’t know anything about aneurysms (which I didn’t), the survival rate (even if you get them treated) isn’t good.   To make matters worse, my sister is unemployed and without health insurance, so she has no way to get the treatment she needs.  She’s applied for Medicaid because of her seizure disorder, but who knows if she’ll get it or how long it will take.  The doctors weren’t much help either; they told her that they won’t provide “preemptive emergency care”, i.e. she can’t get treatment without insurance until the aneurysm ruptures.  And in case you couldn’t guess, a ruptured aneurysm isn’t good.

All this news has me pretty shaken.  I couldn’t eat my leftover cookies from lunch and I’m pretty sure I want to go get a physical as soon as possible.  I’ve always been really healthy, except for my rather frequent headaches.  I spent the afternoon at my desk thinking about my family’s medical history and it isn’t pretty:

Grandma on my Mom’s side: died of Cancer

Mom: suffered from Lupus; died from heart attack caused by heart aneurysm

Big Sister: seizure disorder; brain aneurysm

Little Sister: recently diagnosed with precancerous cells on her cervix

Half Sister: suffers from neurofibromatosis (seizures, etc.)

Uncle Dave: diagnosed with Cancer

All of this has got me thinking a lot about dying (my #1 fear) and how life is too short. I just hope I have the strength to live the life I want while I’ve got the chance.  I don’t want to look back and wonder what if.

Poem: Buried Treasure

I know it's Valentine's Day and I should be posting some sappy love poem, but I don't feel like being trite.  Anyway, I wrote this after a stint on the bleachers during a King's College football team practice.

Buried Treasure

Two high speed jets at separate times

Go tearing through the great blue yonder.

We watch their steady opposing climbs

Meet and pass in a thunder clap.

Their exhausted trails bleed white across

The vast expanse of cloudless sky

And I wonder if ever one did eye the other.

Mel exclaims, “There’s an X in the sky”

And I jokingly reply, “Perhaps that’s where

The treasure lies.”

On Tap

So I thought I’d take a break from my happiness countdown to begin a new Monday segment I like to call, On Tap.  Each Monday I will regale you, my droves of rabid blog readers, with tales of the previous week’s experiments in all things beer.  I thought it would be a fun way to kick off the week and also, give me something to look forward to as the week progresses.

Now I don’t know about you, but as a recent convert to the Church of Beer I have tons of questions and am still learning a lot about the different kinds of beer and what I like.  Some questions I had initially were, “How do I find beers I like?” and “Is there a way to tell whether I’ll like a beer before I even try it?”  Well, the short answer to the second question is, no.  There is no way to know for sure whether you’ll like a beer without taking a sip.  There is, however, a way you can get a better understanding of what a beer will taste like, and that is by looking at how it rates in terms of International Bitterness Units or IBUs.

The International Bitterness Scale provides a measurement of the bitterness of a beer, which is caused by the addition of hops during brewing.  The more hops a beer has the more bitter it will be, in general.  One caveat to this are beers with a high quantity of malt, such as stouts and porters.  These types of beers have higher IBU ratings because more hops are needed to balance out the flavor of the malt.  Therefore, an Imperial Stout may have an IBU of 50, but will taste less bitter than a lager with an IBU of say 22.

Ok, now that we’ve got the technical stuff out of the way, let’s talk beer.  Last week I tried a number of new brews, but we’ll stick with the highs and lows.  One of the definite highs was Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss, which was part of my create-your-own six-pack from Wegman’s.  It was smooth, had almost no bite, and had a slightly sweet aftertaste.  Another beer from my Wegman’s six-pack that I enjoyed was Appalachian Brewing Company’s Water Gap Wheat.  I drank this last weekend while preparing my dad’s taxes and it almost made the process enjoyable… almost.  

Now onto the busts of the week, the first of which was Sea Dog Blueberry Wheat.  I had high hopes for this beer, seeing as I had already tried Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat (which has a slight blueberry aftertaste) and loved it.  The Sea Dog, however, could only be described as sickeningly blueberry.  When I finished I half felt like I was about to swell up like that girl from Willy Wonka.  Another let down was Blue Point’s Toasted Lager.  I had heard good things about toasted lagers and was excited to try this one.  I’m not sure if this is common among toasted lagers, but this one had a slight metallic taste to it that I did not care for.

Well, that about does it for this edition of On Tap.  Next week I hope to have some delicious new brews to tell you about.  Here is a list of some of the beers I hope to try this week:

Troegs Dreamweaver

Winter Beard Double Chocolate Cranberry Stout

Appalachian Brewing Company Vanilla Porter

Poem: Adult Swim

Summer can't get here soon enough.  This poem's not really about summer, but it has a lot of summer imagery.  Enjoy!

Adult Swim

The sun beat relentlessly down through phantom clouds

And inside everything boiled until a dull hum came clear

Across the fields on the wings of the bees

And the arms of the girls.

I watched the gentle breeze brush back and forth

The freshly-trimmed blades,

Content to play with various styles

As though it were nervously preparing for a formal occasion.

Buoy-like, I traversed the surface of the pool,

Arms limpid, marking with soundless gongs

The point at which the shallow waters ended.

Reluctantly, the children lined the concrete shore,

The droves of unspent cannonballs suddenly around me

Like a beaded necklace I had never worn before.

And I felt as the sand on the beach must feel,

Pulled by the tides into deeper water

To mix forever with the ocean currents

All the while becoming more a part of the ocean,

All the while diffusing.

Happiness (part 2 of 4)

Yesterday I started a list of the things that make me happy.  And while I’m on the subject, I’d briefly like to talk about happiness as it relates to my job.  Now growing up I never really dreamed of becoming a bean counter (does anyone?).  No, I decided to become an accountant because I was good at it and I figured it would provide me with the means to live the life I really wanted.  For me, my job is merely a means to an end.  Anyway, continuing the list, here are 26 thru 50 (again, in no particular order):

26.   Candy

27.   Snow

28.   This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

29.   Poetry

30.   Autumn

31.   Haircuts

32.   Going to Flyers’ games

33.   Strange little restaurants

34.   Fast food

35.   Rollercoasters

36.   Swimming pools

37.   Trying new beers

38.   Game nights

39.   Psych

40.   Christmas movies

41.   Fireworks

42.   Learning to play guitar

43.   Breakfast for dinner (aka Brinner aka Brupper aka Dreakfast)

44.   Cheesecake

45.   Laying in the grass

46.   My iPod

47.   Fishing (I use to do this a lot with my Dad)

48.   Surfing the internet (in all it’s glory)

49.   Bad jokes

50.   Playing pranks

Next up, 51 thru 75

Happiness (part 1 of 4)

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about happiness and what exactly makes me happy, after all, that’s what life is all about right, the pursuit of happiness?   Anyway, a couple years ago when I was taking a psychology course over the summer at my local community college, the professor had us make a list of the 100 things that make us happiest.  At first it seemed kind of easy, but after the first few I actually had to give it some thought.   Now it’s been awhile and I don’t have the old list I wrote for the class, so I’ve decided to make a new list.  Here are the first 25 (in no particular order):

1.       Writing

2.       Reading

3.       How I Met Your Mother

4.       Sleeping in

5.       Bleeker (my dog)

6.       Bowling

7.       Mini Golf

8.       The Beach

9.       Hanging with my little sister

10.   Acting weird

11.   Talking with friends

12.   The Big Bang Theory

13.   Scrubs

14.   Bloggin

15.   Pepperoni pizza

16.   Steak

17.   Ping pong in my basement

18.   Beautiful photography

19.   The Shins

20.   Elliott Smith

21.   Singing alone in my car

22.   Long car rides (as long as I’m not driving)

23.   Vacations

24.   Girl scout cookies (specifically Samoas)

25.   5:01 pm, Monday thru Friday

Next up, 26 thru 50.

The Glass Labyrinth

So a few nights ago I had the weirdest dream.  But the dream wasn't the important part.  The important part is what happened when I woke up.  I got this really good idea for a new poem and have been trying to expand on it for awhile now.  The central image of the poem is this glass labyrinth, at the center of which are all my hopes and desires.  Basically, the poem is suppose to be a metaphor for what it feels like to want something so bad and not be able to have it.  You're trapped in this impossible maze and you can see straight to the center, you can see your deepest and darkest desire.  You are so close, but every turn you make is another wrong move, another dead end.

Anyway, here is the beginning of it.  I know I said before that I'm not in the habit of sharing unfinished poetry, but what the heck, I'm in a giving mood.

The Glass Labyrinth

Endless time trials run to the center of a glass labyrinth 

Where the rhythm of your heart beats to a motive         

Calling out to the animal in me.  

About Last Night

Let me start by saying that my Friday did NOT get off to a good start.  When I got up this morning I went downstairs to unplug my iPod from its charger and the stupid thing froze up on me.  I tried everything I could think of to get it unfrozen; I tried plugging it back into the power source, holding the power button down, holding the home button down, messing with the volume, yelling at it.  But nothing worked, so I decided to starve it of power and just wait for it to turn off.  Now I'm just hoping that the darn thing isn't dead.  I have a lot of information on that puppy that I would prefer not to lose.

Anyway, on to some other recent happenings.  Went out on several occasions this past week and added some beers to my repertoire.  Monday was trivia at the Market Cross Pub in Carlisle, which is always fun in its own right, but it's even better now that I've gotten into drinking beer.  If you like beer, the Market Cross Pub is for you.  They have over 150 different kinds of beer!  This week I tried two new beers, Victory Golden Monkey and Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat.  Golden Monkey has a very high alcohol content and a decent bite to it, so it wasn't one of my favorites.  The Sunset Wheat on the other hand, was delicious.  It is smooth with a slight blueberry aftertaste; it's definitely one of my favorite beers so far.

Last night Nikki and I went to the Brewhouse Grill for dinner and while the food wasn't all that great, the beer I had was pretty good.  With my Tri Tip Sandwich I had a Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout.  This was my first experience with a stout so I was a little unsure going into it, but it turned out to be right up my alley.  It kind of tasted like what you would get if you mixed Coca-Cola and beer, very smooth and slightly creamy with a very  minor bite.

After dinner, we stopped at Wegman's and I did a create-your-own-six-pack, which I didn't even know was possible because I had no idea Wegman's could sell alcohol in PA.  Anyway, I am very excited to try some of the newbies.  I am also thinking of making trips to Wegman's a weekly or semi-weekly occurrence.  I fear I may be becoming an alcoholic :-).

Poem: City Trees

I wrote this after a trip to New York City.  Enjoy!

City Trees

Pour slabs of concrete at my feet.

Make me bald and smooth.

Fashion roads to everywhere.

Dye the roots of the season’s hair

Till all her color changes moods.

Plant us all in sturdy lines

With wood-chipped pine and gravel.

Set us down with ruler spines

So that we know just how to grow

To make ourselves a model.

Such fashions are for city trees,

But not for wild oak or beech

Who do not keep to painting leaves;

‘Twould hide the beauty underneath

Like make-up on my true love’s face.

Inspiration

Last night I decided to sit down and try to do some writing, little did I know what would come pouring out.  I began by attempting to work on a poem I had started a few weeks earlier, but with no luck.  In frustration, I began surfing Facebook and Twitter, just hoping to find a distraction.  What I found instead was inspiration in the form of a friend's photography.

I've always enjoyed photography myself, though I've never really owned a camera.  There have been countless opportunities to change that, but I've never taken the time to learn enough to make an informed choice as to which camera would suit me best.  It's a shame too because there have been quite a few instances were I found myself wishing I had a camera.  I sometimes think it would be fun to go out and explore my neighborhood in search of a beautiful photo; I am always impressed by anyone who can capture the essence of a thought, feeling, place, etc. in a picture.

Anyway, so I was flipping through some pictures when suddenly, I was bitten square on the butt by the inspiration bug.  Now I'm not the type to share unfinished work (sorry), but what I have so far is very promising and I fully expect that when it's finished it will be one of my favorite pieces.  I have been brainstorming all day at work in hopes that when I go home tonight I will be able to get some more lines on paper.  Wish me luck!