Luckily for me, Lobby lost.

Lobby’s cow friend didn’t even have the chance to argue his case….Eckerlin’s (or their supplier) took care of that one for me…

And that is how you treat yourself to a once-in-a-blue-moon surf & turf dinner.

As always, the camera comes with so I can snap along the way. Nothing like hauling ass up a hill with a good photo op as a reward.

As for Fermentable Friday (or Friday? BEER!) you can rest assured that I enjoyed a tasty brew after a ride like this.

Bockfest

Hops littered the ground after the parade!

All for this...Geneseeeeeee!

I might have to ride this in next years parade

St. Patty’s Day

The Square was jammed!

Good times had by all. If only we had that St. Patty’s (parade) Day weather all year!

I liked last years 1 night, crazy venue, tons of great-beer-I-had-never-heard-of event. This year just felt a little more corporate; big box space in Duke Energy, still plenty of awesome beer, but c’mon Bell’s no Hopslam?!?!

Still had a blast though, and went both nights to see the difference. Friday was way more relaxed, Saturday had lines snaking all through the convention center.

Good times, good people, life is good.

Plenty of selection, that’s for sure:

Like I said, more good times:

Oh yeah, and some friends had us over for homemade late night sushi afterwords….

Still well worth the price of admission!

Anywho, here are weeks 6-9. Of course, you can catch all the zany photo action with the Flicker Group.

Week 6 Fragile: Broken Beverages

Week 7 Texture: Washington Park Dirt

Week 8 Unusual Perspective: Weird Beer at the Bells Tasting

Week 9 Get Out and Shoot: Trojan Goat*

*Plenty more Bockfest photos to come, I promise

The kicker for me was looking at last year’s post and seeing this picture:

A shot of Arnolds from inside the front door, it captures three of my favorite bartenders in one of the best establishments in town. My caption from last year read “What I imagine (or at least hope) Laura, Pam, and the other Bartender who’s name I don’t know were thinking.”

The best part is now “the other Bartender who’s name I don’t know” is actually my girlfriend….what a difference a year makes. At least now I should be able to get a drink a little faster….

Check out last year’s post for more pictures of Monks and Drunks.

And to the-bartender-who’s-name-I-now-know: thanks for being so awesome. While this won’t technically be our first Bockfest in each other’s presence, it should be even better than the last!

Thus, I figured I better post some beer related content today….Beer Blog Fridays…. [Update: It's now Fermentable Friday aka Friday? BEER!]

The quintessential Cincy blogger said it best. It was good, but Hopslam and good company were the real reasons you were there.

On top of that, my girlfriend, who was tired of hearing me bitch about my now 4 year old (and semi broken) camera, sprung a belated birthday/valentines day gift on me in the form of a 14.1 MP Sony DSC-W330.

So I figured I would post a few pix from the new cam, and what better locales than in and around the new office space.

It all started with lunch at Enzo's and some macro shots

The walk back up to the new office

The Office

My Space

Oh, and the camera has smile detection, which gets hilarious pix

I’ve been sick with something nasty, but managed to push enough dayquil in my system to get off the couch when I saw a sunny Sunday afternoon sky and only half a day before I had to submit this weeks shot. I already had the idea picked out in my head–something involving the colored Queen Anne windows over at Parvis and the Color building. Glad the films cheap enough, I took a ton of copies of every shot trying to get the focus etc where I wanted it. I can only imagine what would happen if I had a real camera…I’d probably still be over there.

My choice for week 4

Here are some of my other favorites from that little shoot.

*It probably isn’t Jay Bruce’s Horizon Yacht. But it could be! I mean, if he has all those cars….

While I like the ring of shadows around the cupcakes, and I used it since I was able to upload it on my birthday, the better shadow pic is one I took of some weird little ice things in my freezer. They produce their own little shadows in the foreground, while the background is one big shadow. It is a little blurry though, and like the rest of the pix, didn’t speak to me/trump the birthday photo. Plus those cupcakes were so good…

To think that two towels, two couch cushions, and my favorite chair could keep Juju occupied for hours, much less days, is almost unfathomable. Indeed, we have created the perfect Purrtress of Cattitude.

I’ll keep you informed as the situation develops.

This week I also contributed an outtake photo, as permitted by the group. During the week I took some generic macro shots of a guitar, just in case I wasn’t able to get my Music Hall shot. While I got plenty of the strings, body, etc, one stood out. The camera didn’t focus at all on the guitar, instead it caught my girlfriend peaking her head above the fat end. I thought it was funny, and it served as a reminder of a good night in general.

The Winner

The Outtake

Tom was kind enough to invite me to participate, even though at this stage I’m still using a point+shoot cam (and very well could be all year). Nonetheless it’s a fun way to get out of my normal picture taking rut, and it will be pretty cool to see how everyone interprets the prompts.

For week one the prompt was simply “Beginnings.” This whole week I have been in the car driving new construction residential subdivisions for work. The perfect place for beginnings as there are still houses being built, albeit not at the volume they were 5 or 6 years ago.

Thus this week’s picture is of a vacant lot that is staked out and ready for construction. In the foreground however, is the builders “available” sign, a nod to the days of yore when the “build it and they will come” mentality reigned supreme.

Crime Pays

www.youtube.com/watch?v=794gZqDg1qA

Old Post: MOTR, Bear Hands, What A Drag

As anyone who still reads this site knows, I’m working on a house, nay, a building, that will someday house me, and possibly some retail/studio/other commercial use. Anyway, it’s consumed my life since April 9th of last year, and by the time Santa came by, his gifts (as well as those of many friends and family members) were presented in small plastic forms with varying monetary amounts to the world’s greatest big box….The Home Depot.

I knew exactly what I was going to get. I’ve had my eye on the four piece Dewalt tool set (Hammer Drill, Impact Driver, Sawzall, Flashlight, 2 batteries, and a charger) which rings in at a nice $399. Every time I stare at it in aisle 13 I think “Can’t do it, gotta by (insert necessary household item [like electric] here). But alas, the season of giving provided me with blessings of others good fortune….aka some serious dough….and I thought it would be fitting to kick the New Year off with some new tools.

Per usual I went up to The Depot with everything on my mind, electric on the forefront. I picked up some of the remaining things on my list–outlets, switches, more wire–a clean $200 in supplies we take for granted in our abodes. I then made a quick stop by power tool central, pretending to analyze the different combo packs and manufacturers, even though I knew exactly which box I was going for.

A few minutes later and I was at the self checkout line, it being the only one open, and with about 20 minutes to spare before they closed shop, workers were sparse. One guy was in charge of four lanes, and New Year’s shoppers were eagerly filing through to get there purchases checked out. I rung up all of the electrical stuff first, leaving the behemoth of a tool kit for last. The gentleman working the lanes came over, scan gun in hand, to ring up my new black and yellow pride and joy. I watched as my self checkout screen went into admin mode, I listened as the beep of his handheld scanner rang out, increasing my bill by 200%.

The screen flicked back to user mode, and the sales associate went back to helping other customers. I looked at the total: $208.80. “Uhhhhhh, that’s a little light,” I thought to myself, realizing he scanned the wrong UPC or something. But he was off assisting other people, all I had to do was swipe my gift cards and walk out, and the Dewalt tools were mine, gratis.

A million thoughts raced through my head.

-Could I be caught? If so, could I play dumb?

-Did I want to start off the New Year as a thief?

-Do I really believe in Karma?

-Was this some sort of test?

I looked at my girlfriend, who stood next to me. I started scanning in my gift cards. The thoughts continued.

-I deserve this right?. Think about how many hours I’ve spent working on that house, not being paid. This was a form of compensation.

-I’ve spent so much fucking money at Home Depot, they practically owe it to me.

I thought about the website of the company I work for. We have three core values listed, the first of which reads: Integrity–always aiming to do the right thing.

I finished paying for the electrical supplies. At this point all I had to do was walk out. Justifications continued.

-This could be the right thing. I could take that money and put it towards another part of the house, thus fixing it up in even better shape, and doing good things for the neighborhood.

All that fluff and justification BS was just that, a load of shit. The reality of the situation was that this guy was working four lanes, and not paying attention he miss-scanned the box. Yes I could have just walked out with the tools. But I would have probably cut my hand off with the sawzall or someone would have broken into my house and stolen them from me (for the record I do bring them home every night so don’t even think about it).

But the real driving factor was just doing the right thing. I’ve tried be as upstanding of a guy as I can for the last 25 years. I’m not perfect, but I’m not a crook either. At the end of the day I didn’t want to start off 2011 on the wrong side of the drill.

I walked over to the central register and looked at the guy, “Umm, this didn’t go through.” He looked back at me, almost dumbfounded that I didn’t just leave. “Oh man, thanks,” he said, thankful I’m sure that he wasn’t going to catch hell for that later.

*                    *                    *

How did you ring in your New Year? I don’t mean with champagne and a hang over, I mean what did your first actions of 2011 say about this year? We all make resolutions (get your ass to the gym) but what about the day to day decisions? Are your everyday choices leading to the life you want?

Here I am patting myself on the back for something I–and anyone else in those shoes–should have done, but would they? Would you?

The last month has seen a decrease in published content here on the blog. My efforts have been focused elsewhere, and a lot of what I have written I haven’t been comfortable with publishing. I joke with people that this is kind of a therapy blog, as I have always found solace in writing. That said, much of what I write doesn’t need to be shared with the interwebs, at least not in the brain dump fashion it spews out of me.

I’m going to take a different approach to the site next year. I’d like to do a better job (like I used to) of capturing pictures around town to share when I don’t have something specific to say. However I’m not going to fret over it (it’s just a blog) and until things settle down I’ll focus on creating one worthwhile post per week. There’s a chance that for a while this will just become a Race St blog with bits of ice skating mixed in (ok there will be more than that, but if not, you’ve been warned…).

By the time summer rolls around I’m settled in my new digs I hope to get back to more running, biking, good beer (that’s actually not going anywhere) and so on. At that point I hope to have a host of new things to share as well.

Thanks for sticking around thus far, the last year and half of theboilover.com has been a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see what the next 18 months bring!