Bachelor(ette) Party

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

This past weekend was my Bachelor Party… well, sort of. Originally it was going to be a gaggle of us (male & female) just having a wonderful weekend in Santa Cruz… but unfortunately one guy hurt his back, others had work & other real life stuff happen… so essentially it was just a wonderful weekend with my future wife, her best friend Flea, and her cousin Amy briefly. TEAR IT UP!!! We had dinner at Lazy Dog in Cupertino Friday night, then spent the Saturday checking out breweries in the area & the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.

 

First stop was the taproom for Santa Cruz Aleworks where we had some pickled eggs, chips & salsa, and some of their beers on tap including an Oatmeal Stout, Kolsch & their season “Rye Like An Eagle” IPA. Good stuff, check them out…

 

  

Second stop was Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing about two miles away. Their taproom had a REALLY cool copper tree growing behind the bar… and their drink selection was pretty impressive as well. I personally loved their People’s Porter. Here are some pictures…

 

Then we stopped at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk to have some lunch, play some arcade games & take great pictures…

 

The third brewery of the day was Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola about ten minutes from the Boardwalk. He had visited this location a while back and… frankly weren’t that impressed with the selection. However, our beer buddies informed us that apparently we must have hit them on a bad weekend where they were doing a bunch of festivals or something because they have DOZENS of distinct beers available typically… so we tried them again. This time, there was definitely more selection with about a dozen different brews that were essentially a variety of IPAs, saisons & porters… and yeah, they’re pretty damn good. Check them out if you’re in the area. I wouldn’t make it a destination brewery just yet… but definitely worth a stop along the way…

 

The fourth & final brewery of the day was New Bohemia Brewing and… frankly this was our favorite of the entire day!!! This is the first time that I’ve heard of them, but the taproom is on point… their beer selection was low in variety but great in quality. They had a beer called Queen Bee which was an “Imperial Honey Lager” which is a style-bender kind of beer… but it was very malt forward, very potent with nearly 10% ABV, and extremely delicious. Check THAT out! The others were really good too, including a Dunkelweizen. They even let us bring in some badass burritos from down the street to the bar. Best of all though… they had LIVE bluegrass playing BEHIND THE BAR!!! Check out Wail Aways online!!! Definitely check them out if you’re in Santa Cruz… heck, I saw check their schedule for live performances & coordinate a trip to go see them. Great place… here are the pictures…

 

  

So yeah, not your typical Bachelor Party… and honestly it was just a wonderful weekend hanging with my fiancée & her best bud… but yeah, absolutely fantastic weekend! Can’t wait to do it again!

 

Also, we brewed a Honey Amber...

 

...and we tested our Cheese Fountain for the wedding... spoiler alert, it works lovely.

 

Since then, I’ve been… experiencing some unpleasantness. My work has been accusing me of completely ridiculous things… I assume to get a rise out of me (or keep me in the company as long as possible for as little pay, which is a poor method of retaining exceptional talent). My former roommates are trying to extort money from me too. Basically when I moved out, upon their request, I left them a couch and gave my stereo to a roommate. Well… six weeks since the last time anybody has contacted me concerning… anything, they send an email requesting that I pay half of a trash pickup bill for those items (and stuff from another roommate who wasn’t officially on the lease so good luck proving that SHE even lived there… dizzy cunt). For many reasons, this is ridiculous. If they didn’t want the stuff, gladly would’ve taken it or disposed of it back when I did the rest. Also, there’s a free service with the apartment that takes care of all of that. ALSO, send me a text & I can take precious time and effort out of my day to remove my items for you. Nope. Just send an email saying that I owe them hundreds of dollars because… they decided that they didn’t want the free stuff six weeks later. Yup, I told them that it was completely ridiculous & wished them the best of luck with their new living arrangements. Drop mic.

 

The “Event Horizon” episode is up at eilfm.podbean.com on the Everything I Learned From Movies Podcast, but coming up in a few days… the next episode will feature a fairly similar movie, 1998’s “Sphere” starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone & Laurence Fish… NOPE, SAMUEL L. JACKSON!!! You may want to listen to the podcast to find out why I specifically had to point that out. Beers were involved… as is always the case on EILFM. Until next time, have a great weekend everybody!!!

Ping Pong Playa!!!

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Sorry, it’s been a while. Wow! That wedding thing is coming up quick… over the weekend we basically got things squared away with the house, got invitations ready to send out, and all kinds of stuff like that… and then I got a little sick. Super exciting stuff, right? Yeah, the rest of the time was working and other super boring stuff… but there was some notes of levity…

Thursday night, my coworkers threw together a wonderful mid-year celebration / wedding shower for me & another coworker with our respective spouses… and it was held at a new trendy Ping Pong place called Spin that… I believe is owned by Susan Sarandon and they’re popping up in big cities all over the U.S. Basically, it’s a cool hip place where people can drink… and play ping pong between beers. Not bad, right? There are people walking around with little nets that pick up the stray balls so that you are safe & free to have fun. The food was great too! We had a grand olde tyme for two hours or so… and then we got a great wedding gift! Izzy got a Keurig and I got a Pizza Stone!!! Pictures coming soon...

The past few weeks on the Everything I Learned From Movies Podcast (eilfm.podbean.com), we went a little patriotic for 4^th of July weekend. Did you know that Al Pacino starred in a movie about the American Revolutionary War? Me neither!!! That sounds hella bad ass, right? Does he play George Washington? No. Oooh, perhaps the fiery Thomas Jefferson? Nope, not tall enough. Benjamin Franklin? Ridiculous. Alexander Hamilton and/or Aaron Burr? That would be epic… but no. He doesn’t play a major historic figure… nor do I think anybody that really existed. It’s a story of the American Revolution… as told by a British (Redcoat) writer & director… and it was made in 1985. The movie is called “Revolution: Revisited” which is actually the 2009 recut of the movie that allegedly made it better. You know… like the Highlander 2: Renegade Cut” was supposed to make it almost watchable. My suggestion to you: Listen to our episode on the podcast (eilfm.podbean.com) instead of watching this two-hour movie. We didn’t care for it… but we do some great Pacino impressions & have fun with it.

Then we watched the currently streaming “Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves” starring Rick Moranis in the penultimate entry of Disney’s “Honey, I F**ked Up” trilogy. This is not to be confused with the Jessica Alba dancing “Honey” movie series (future entry?). This movie involves Rick Moranis as Wayne Szalinski, a nutty professor who invents a Shrinking Machine… and hilarity ensues… several times. Also, in this 3^rd movie, there’s a special appearance from a teenage starlet that might catch you off guard. I know it certainly caught me off-guard. Check it out on Netflix & let us know what you think!

THEN!!! Yes, it’s been THAT LONG that there has been a THIRD podcast since my last update… but it’s well worth the wait… as the latest movie reviewed is one of the all-time classics, “Devil’s Advocate”!!! Prime Keanu & Prime Pacino with a  dash of Charlize Theron nudity… what a movie!!! Definitely check that one out if you haven’t already… and hit us up on the websites. Coming up next week… bachelor party pictures. Until then, have a great weekend everybody!!!

Stevetoberfest 2015

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

We’re well into my birthweek… which is like a birthday… but I’m greedy. I’m just going to say that it started Friday when my coworkers decorated my office in dinosaur attire… well, a few balloons, dinosaurs & Reese’s peanut butter cups…

 

Saturday was the 2^nd annual Steve-toberfest celebration!!! We invited friends and family to come hang out for a few hours, eat some delicious food, drink some delicious beer & just have a good time in the Presidio on a beautiful Saturday. We had about ten people actually show… and the food was quite eclectic. In the German theme, we had pretzels with beer cheese dipping sauce, kartoffelsalat (potato salad), but we also had Taco Bell tacos, brownies, Scotch eggs, chocolate covered strawberries, hummus, goat cheese, baby carrots, and other leftover baked goods from the previous week. Here are some pictures…

 

 

As far as beer on tap… we had our Strawberry Hefeweizen, Milk Stout, our Torpedo Clone, our Hoppy Red Ale, and of course… the incredibly dangerous… Steve’s Birthday Cake!!! That is our barrel aged imperial stout… and boy, it’s amazing. Big Ben also brought some Anchor Steam clone & single malt-single hop Golden Ale with hops from his backyard (he’s been growing them for a decade) and all was right with the world.

 

So the real question… “How many boots of beer did you have, $teve?” The answer is four… plus a few others… but yeah, I was pretty sleep shortly after everybody left. Great party!

 

Sunday was my actual birthday… and let me just tell you that my girlfriend Izzy is absolutely amazing. She started off the day by giving me this wonderful drawing for a gift…

 

She also fried me up a leftover hangover breakfast and then we headed to her house… and she’s growing our hops… hopefully they will have useable hops this year… but I’m told they still take a few years… and our Chinook hops are a year old but the Galena just started…

For lunch, we then headed over to Fieldwork Brewing in Berkeley, which Big Ben & his wife had been RAVING about for the past month or so… and oddly enough, they were having a beer & donut pairing special on my birthday. Fatidic? Perhaps. The brewery takes a more… I don’t know… homegrown, agricultural look at how beer is made & keeps it very simple. The atmosphere of the brewery… is basically just like the inside of a wood & tin field storage area where you might park your trailer or something… but instead there are a few 10-20 barrel systems in the back… and their décor is a lot of standard shelves with bottled samples of hops & grains, simple logos, etc. just more of a beer focus it seems. Now as for the beer, it’s also pretty good & simple. They had farmhouse ales, breakfast stouts, just good all day drinking kind of beer… except Eliza, their chicory imperial stout… that was pretty strong. The Biere de garde was no joke either… but yeah, I highly recommend going to check it out. Oh… and the donuts from Doughnut Dolly were ok… but yeah, I still prefer All Star Donuts.

 

Anyway, that was my magnificent weekend… and more news on the way… with EPIC movie reviews & fun times with others… have a great week everybody!!! Happy birthday to MEEEEEE!!!