Minneapolis

Schlubbin: Tails (LOL!) from the (somewhat) willfully unemployed.

Work wisely and infrequently. Sip coffee and pet kitties.

Soon

Tombstone Blues

“Mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.” -Isaac Asimov in 1964, speculating what 2014 will be like.

Movin' on up

The Southern Hills are fuckin' cold right now, man. Boring too, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT:

I'm Not Dead!

Hey everyone! I'm not dead (yet), just really busy! I do currently have pneumonia, so the jury's still out I guess.

Here is some stuff I've done in the last 4 months, not necessarily in this order:

Became a super responsible 30 year old adult
Shotgunned a Coors on the 4th of July in the street in front of a car full of kids stuck in traffic and shouted "That's how you do it, children!" Freedom isn't free, guys.
Brewed awesome beer
Served awesome beer to awesome people
Served awesome beer to awful, awful scumbags
Lifted tons of heavy stuff
Played a million songs on the jukebox at the VFW
Climbed to the highest point in the state of South Dakota
Survived my first ever bout with food poisoning. Easily the worst day of my life.
Saw a dozen or so awesome hail storms
Was in a parade in my Hot Dog costume and made it into the local paper
Beat Donkey Kong Country
Went to a weird Eastern European/Jamaican party
Rode my chubby ass up some steep hills on my bicycle
Had some time to think
Developed pneumonia and didn't die?
Liberated myself financially for a little bit (Get fucked, Corporate America! ...until i need another "real job" at least)

The Rally was some super stupid bullshit. Every day from 7am-whenever, all you could hear were motorcycles. My room was filled with bike exhaust for 10 days. Every biker dude that came in looked exactly the same. Grey goatee, Harley bandanna, Harley jacket, sun glasses and terrible attitude. It was impossible to tell who was who while I was waiting tables! It was like working the Mess Hall on Kamino.

They all came in asking "Ya'llgahbuhhliiii?" (mashing "Ya'll got bud light?" into one weird, barely discernible word) or wondered if we had any "regular beer?" What the fuck is Regular Beer? And they all wanted slices of lemon in their water! One old biker dude told me to put "more lemon in his water than I thought was reasonable." I lined his whole glass with lemon slices then he called me Captain Kangaroo as I was walking away. Fair enough, Biker Dude. Fair enough..

I'm leaving Custer at the end of October. I'll be staying in Minneapolis until the New Year. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I will then take the scenic route from Minneapolis back to my Parent's house in Aberdeen.

Here's some other junk:

The view from the top of Crazy Horse National Monument

Jazz Chair is my favorite place ever. No socks allowed.

This was in the middle of July. That's hail about 8 hours after the storm. The City had to bring out the snow plows.

Found this while exploring in Rapid City one day. Pretty morbid. Nice thunderstorm brewing in the distance.

My new best bud.

Pickle Face is surprised to see you here.

Sockrates in front of Devils Tower.

My favorite part of the bike trail. Also pictured: My finger

I got to do the sign on the first day of summer.

Super Famous

Set yer guts ablaze

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F6tJkLOhGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F6tJkLOhGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F6tJkLOhGg

Your (something) 30 year old waiter,
Mike

Good Grief

Apparently, this city has gone through great lengths to install speakers in the light posts downtown. The tourists have arrived, so the music started today. I live downtown and there's a speaker right outside my open window. I get to have contemporary country music courtesy of "old job" blasting into my room for the next 20 or so weeks. I can't seem to escape, no matter how remote I relocate.

Some palate cleansers:

Some Things

Stout Mash

The first 20 minutes are rough, but it's a lovely trail.

A wonderful sign at the top of Lover's Leap.

On Holding Back

So I finally dumped all my stock in "old job." I haven't thought about that place much since I left, but for some reason dumping the stock really made me realize how much pent-up anger I still have towards them. I wrote up a huge post that, upon reflection, probably isn't the best idea to make public. 

I will save you the trouble of reading all that nonsense and just tell you that I wasted several important years of my life in that well-decorated cubicle.

Joe Strummer once said:

"The voices in your head are calling: stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming. Only a fool would think someone could save you. The men at the factory are old an cunning. You don't owe nothin', boy get running. It's the best years of your life they want to steal."

Joe: ∞

Mike: 0 

In lieu of my unpublished diatribe, here are some fun links and pictures: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNAX5MrIIa4 

Guajillo Chilles going into the boil. We're making a guajillo-orange saison that I'm very excited about.

Drove through Custer State Park for the first time last weekend. We saw a lot of buffalo.Here's a little guy with its mum.  A foreign tourist scoffed at us because we waited for the little one to cross the street in front of us. Apparently we ruined his photo op.

That's a lot of buffalo.

The burro will stick their face in your window.  No fucks given.

970 pounds of malt that I hauled inside. The folks at the warehouse left me a salted nut roll surprise, which coincidentally enough, was my nickname in college.

Cust' Punx

Hell Friends,

Things are going well in the hills of Western South Dakota. I'm working long days and lifting heavy shit and being on my feet and getting mysterious cuts on my hands and making things I can be proud of without having some shithead, corporate stooge breathing down my neck. 

Cleaning kegs is an art form. I gotta check the Cleaning Pyramid  to make sure that my boss' are OK with the "coolness" and "originality" of  how I clean them, though.. They're real sticklers about that stuff. 

This is going to end up in an ad somewhere. I'd also like to point out that I found this awesome walking stick behind the door of my apartment. I scored big time.

BE Lounge. VIP only, cant you see the rope?

I heard you like hops.... Seriously, though, this smells fantastic. 

In summary, if I may quote the great philosopher Brett Netson: "Kill Corpo Pigs."

Newd pix

Im sitting in a walk-in cooler filling kegs, so ive got a little downtime. Here are some pixxx. If you follow me on instagram these might not be newd to you

Custin' Loose

Hi everyone! Today marks the first time ever in my adult life that I've been up before 8:30 AM on both a Saturday and Sunday morning. Yesterday we had our first brewday since I've arrived. We started bright and early. I'm pooped. The thin mountain air and Mountain Time are contributing factors as well. Having a great time so far though. Here are some of those saucy brewpixxx you've all been asking for:

Straight up drizzlin' all over dat malt

Droppin' hop bags in the boil like it ain't no thang.

We take all our spent grains to this farm a mile outside of town. Here's my new donkey friend enjoying some.

A couple days ago me and The Bossman took off a few hours early to hike Sunday Gulch. We got about 1/4 mile into the trail before it turned into a giant ice hill, so we had to turn around. It's still super cold and snowing off and on out here. The low last night was somwhere in the mid-20s. 

Here are some pictures from the attempted hike:

Sylvan Lake

Six inches of snow with a stream running underneath it. Not the safest thing in the world.

The YMCA across the street is having their yearly rummage sale. Check out all the cool shit I got for $10

Sacagawea waterbottle.  Jealous?