Reflection and Sierra Nevada Tumbler

Happy Easter everyone; we made it.

The Penguins did too. Get better Sid.

I'm not super proud of the some of those mid-week posts, but I am proud of fulfilling the overall commitment. Here is the spreadsheet I used to plan out the month; I changed each day to gray (or orange for  motorcycle mondays) after posting. As you can see, there are still topics I didn't get to. mostly because they'd demand more thought and research than I felt I could spare. Maybe you'll see those topics sometime soon. As of tonight, 30 minutes before the Walking Dead season finale, these are the 5 most popular post I made in the last month:

1. Schott 585 and Brooklyn Local #1
2. Ruck March and Flat Tire
3. Slippers and Blind Ambition
4. Reenlistment and Unibroue Éphémère
5. Jurassic Park and Monk's Cafe

Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale

This was a great American-style brown ale. The head lingered more than traditional brown ales, and it had a slightly higher hops profile, but I found those to be welcome improvements. It's a autumnal brew from Sierra Nevada, so unfortunately it may be quite a while before I can get it again. 

Questions, Google+, & Sierra Nevada Kellerweis

In the past few days I've been asking folks via email what questions they have about me/Iraq/the army/the deployment.  I still have to be doubly careful what I publish since it's a public site.  Everything published here is out there for all to see which includes "bad guys," but also members of my platoon and folks up the chain of command.  Still, it can't hurt to ask questions if you're curious about something.  Let me know in a comment or email and I'll fill you in as best I can while fulfilling my Army obligations.  Some of the questions I've already received will be turned into updates here in the next few days.

I've been on Google+ for a while now and while refreshing, I'm not too impressed.  It reminds me of the earlier days of facebook, before the latter became cluttered with ads and games and twitter updates.  The best improvements for me are a) the circles system which lets me sort people and follow semi-famous folks without a digital handshake and b) embedded gchat.  Gchat now works better in google+ than it does in gmail.  That's strange for me; leaving a gmail window open for chat had been a fixture of my browsing experience for several years.

Sierra Nevada Kellerweis
This is a well-wrought hefeweizen that comes off with a hint of Belgian sophistication.  The main flavor I got out of it is banana and it was bewildering for me at first.  It's not a harsh banana, though, and there are clove and malted wheat flavors to remind you it's still a beer.  I'm glad I got the 6-pack; trying a single bottle would not have been enough let my palate adjust and appreciate the flavors.  I haven't seen it since, but I would probably get this again especially for Sarah to try.

Photo from 365beers.wordpress.com

Smallpox, waiting, and Glissade

Today I earned my paycheck from Uncle Sam by waiting in line from 0630-1630.  I don't have enough stripes or deployments to really complain, but suffice to say I overheard more than a few veterans remark that the medical processing didn't take this long for their prior deployments.  Within this time I spent about 15 minutes (between different lines) receiving a smallpox vaccination and getting my already-completed clinical evaluation electronically notarized.  I am especially glad that I brought a) a ziploc bag of trail mix because there was no opportunity for reprieve standing/sitting in the lines and b) my Kindle, because I was the only one from my squad processing today.  I finished one nonfiction book and the H. P. Lovecraft novella The Shunned House.

Tonight I'm sampling Sierra Nevada's Glissade golden bock.  It's light in the mouth with some easygoing bright flavors, but still a bit hoppy for me.  I'm not choking it down, but I don't get excited about each swallow either.  The internet tells me its IBU is 42, which is higher than anything I've liked previously.  Not bad, but not my style.