Der Feuervogel aufersteht.

I follow slowberlin, and they had an article today about microbreweries in Berlin. So of course I had to read it, because beer.

The next time I'm in Berlin, I absolutely have to go here. In addition to beer, they make their own brandy and apple juice, and now there's also apple wine, and they've got a whisky distillery, too. Their menu also includes coffees, sodas, and wine, so there's a little something for everybody.

As promised, my notes from this year. I didn't take very detailed notes, because I, in a fit of talent and rushing out the door, forgot both my pen and my carefully-planned list of booths I wanted to hit. I managed to recreate it on my phone, at least. A bit of a pain in the ass, but what can you do?
(  many, many beers )

Number of beers sampled: 18 (plus refills on two of them, one of them twice...)
Top three samples: Timmerman's Bourgogne des Flanders; Legend's quad; Anderson Valley's Winter Solstice.

1. Saturday, a few friends and I went on the Big Boss Brewery's tour for my birthday. It was extremely popular, but the weather was nice - 70 degrees or so - so after it was over, there was a big open-air festival almost in their parking lot. There were two food trucks (OnlyBurger (the veggie burger was pretty good, but the fries were meh) and KoKyuBBQ (Ben enjoyed the duck bratwurst sandwich and tater tots fried in duck fat)).

I tried their new Dunkelweizen, D'Icer, and it was pretty good. It wasn't Weihenstephaner or anything, but it was drinkable. (Speaking of Dunkelweizen, I tried New Belgium's in their Lips of Faith series; it was black as Coke and about half as sweet.)

After digesting the beers and food, Ben and I went out to Sage for dinner, where I boringly got the fesen joon. The jokey waiter must have cut his hair since New Year's, because I didn't recognize him until he started talking.

2. I haven't gotten anything productive done on my writing in a while. I fixed the plot issue I think; I still need to propagate some of the changes, but I can do that while I'm doing the hardest part of the revision process: getting into the characters' heads and adding descriptions. What do they see/hear/smell/feel/etc? What can I say other than "he narrowed his eyes" (eg)?

3. SCHEISST EUCH IN DIE HOSEN, WIR STEHEN GANZ AM OBEN, UND WIR STEIGEN WIEDER AUF. HIER KOMMT HERTHA! Yesterday's match pitted the best offense (us) against the best defense (Fürth), and we got a 2:0 win out of it, extending our lead over our next competitor to 4 points. Unless we lose the rest of our matches (which is, of course, technically possible, but not terribly likely), we'll get promoted back to the first league. HA HO HE!

4. I got the results from my bloodwork last week. I'm currently overmedicated for my thyroid, so I get to take half the Cytomel for a while and see what happens. (My TSH was undetectable, and my T3 was above normal limits, but T4 was fine.) Hopefully this won't lead to a return of The Nausea. Inability to concentrate is one of the symptoms of hyperthyroidism, so that helps explain #2.

5. Reading one of the free books I got, Darkship Thieves. I'm not very far into it yet, but so far, our heroine has ripped her nightshirt in half to stop the men attempting to abduct her in their tracks and commented on how she knows the man whose spaceship she ends up in is a "real man" (I paraphrase) because he responds to the sight of her breasts. Said real man (who's got cat's eyes, which is actually kind of nifty tech) is from an anarcho-individualist culture (barf), and on p 87, there's this bit about "those wacky 21st century folks, thinking there aren't really gender differences in brains" which made me want to hurl the book across the room.

Frustratingly, Persecution of the Other (and the people the cat-guy is descended from are basically bioengineered to be smarter/faster/stronger/fit better in X situation and were, of course, persecuted and wiped out on Earth, except those who fled) is very frequently a liberal/progressive motif, where The Other stands in for queers or racial/ethnic minorities or other real-life disprivileged groups. I don't get the impression Ms Hoyt has any truck with that librul pansy nonsense.

At least I didn't pay money for it. (I did buy Mark Van Name's omnibus Jump Gate Twist, and I feel OK about that, because Mark admits to being Baen's token liberal. Also, it features a beefcake/emo shot of Jon on the cover.)

6. Still taking tai chi. I'm taking a break from weapons to go back to Dr Jay's 9th Street Dance Chen class for the current session. I can't take both, because they meet at the same time. I may go back to weapons over summer, because it doesn't look like he's teaching Chen over summer. (I could be wrong; it happens on occasion.) I'm also taking Nina's Tuesday evening class, which may ALSO be going on hiatus over summer.

So I'm going to have to self-motivate if I want to get my yellow sash this year. I'm awful at that.

7. Cats are evil.

So, since the terrifying experiences of Levaquin, I've gotten better. I took my last dose of azithromycin yesterday. I still feel congested a bit, but I'm taking sudafed and drinking fluids (and coughing up a ridiculous amount of crap). I'm going to keep taking Prilosec at bedtime until all my congestion is cleared.

I guess if I don't notice improvement in congestion in a few more days (Monday?) I'll call my doctor and see if we need to try another course of antibiotics. If these germs have really been loitering in my sinuses since mid-May, they could be nasty buggers.

I feel less tired, though, so that's a good thing. I went to weapons class last night, though I rested about half the time. (Master Jou's third principle: don't overdo it.) I wanted to go to Pilates today, but my legs were a bit tired when I got up this morning. So I'll see how I feel tomorrow (and the Friday class is at 10:30, so I have a bit more time to wake up).

Bought tickets for Saturday's Carolina Railhawks match. My friend K from high school, who moved out here last year, said she'd be up for it, and I confirmed, so it'll be the 3 of us. I have no idea about this team or their opponents (the Portland Timbers), or how they play. (NASL standings without the complication of divisions by conference. Apparently American sports fans can't handle a league without them, even when there are all of 12 teams.) And can I just say "eew" to the orange and blue color scheme? It makes Stuttgart's brown uniforms look nice.

Anyway. This Saturday is also the Big Boss brewery tour (2nd Saturday!), so we might go to that. It's at 2, though, so we'd have a lot of down time between then and when the gates open for the match (6 pm). Neither Ben nor I should really drink that much, since I'm still sick, and he just developed con crud. The alternative would be to swing over to the tap room after the match for a pint, though that would be around 9 pm, and see above re: sick people. Gmaps tells me it's about 20 minutes to get from Big Boss to WakeMed Soccer Park (which is also right by Toyo Shokuhin).

I might take a nap.

I got another reward certificate in yesterday's mail. I still had one from a month or two ago on the kitchen table, so I decided to bring them upstairs, since I remembered having another one up here. I was wrong; I actually had 2. So I had $100 of free Amazon money, which I decided I should spend. (I also had $6 left over from my last reward certificate purchase. I'm honestly terrified to ask how many of these we get in a year, at one certificate for $2500 of credit card use. I'll guess about 9. All our discretionary spending goes on the card.)

( So I went through my wish list and cleared a bunch of things off it. )

And in a few hours, Mo & Nolan are coming over with take-out from Tandoor and a weird beer (hopefully the Dogfish Head Sah'tea?) and we're gonna try weird beers. I have a bottle of New Holland's Dragon's Milk Ale (aged in oak barrels!) in the fridge.