Beerfest -- again

Most of the magic circle seemed to be heading for the Friday night run of the 13th annual Summer Beer Festival. Never one to be left out, I snatched up Stacey's extra ticket and then procured a couple more for my dad and brother.

I usually can come up with a little something to write about the beers I taste, but I'm working from a deficit this year. In case you weren't in the area to experience it up close and personal, it stormed like mad for a good part of the evening. Things started out well enough. We had a table under a tree. Everyone assembled and we commenced to taste -- and I took notes. Then the clouds started churning and we headed for cover under the nearest beer tent where we stayed while the clouds spilled and lit up with lightening. While there was some shelter, beer, and good company, there was not enough dryness to take notes. So I just drank. Then I wobbled home. Then I wondered how I'd managed to get so drunk...

Anyway, here's all I have to report on this year:

The sour trend seems to be under control (finally). There were plenty, if that is your thing, but they were no longer hogging the show. Similarly, the fruit beer thing also seemed reasonable.

A new trend, and one that I enjoyed, was the dark IPA. Most lacked the depth of a traditional American-hopped IPA that I love -- the stink, the beginning, the shift in the middle, and then the left turn at the end -- but the maltiness they brought to hops was not unpleasant. I liked Arcadia's B. Craft Double Dark IPA the best, as it was the only one that had an IPA smell.

Ginger beers made a good show. I'd liked Original Gravity's in the past but it was weak this year. The winner in this category came from the Hideout Brewery in Grand Rapids: Ginger Lee Ginger Pilsner -- very fresh ginger juice taste to it.

The competition for silly, clever, and saucy names was fierce again this year. Right Brain always does well in this category (Distill My Heart Bourbon Stout). Arbor Brewing had Uskratch Mai Bock. You get the idea.

My best beer conversation came with the Short's folks (that's two years running!). I'd had much beer by the time I closed out the festival with them, but the Hangin' Frank was good -- lovely, stinky IPA -- and the people who pour that beer know how it is made and are enthusiastic about it! I need to get up that way for a visit at some point.

And now, what you have all been waiting for, the worst beer of the evening? That would be Bell's Brewery's The Wild One. I went for a Rye Stout (they were out) and the guy tried to sell me on this. I resisted and had the Batch 9000 but they did talk my dad into it. It was evil sour -- not beer sour, but "something is wrong with this" sour. It was so bad that I begged a pretzel off a pretzel-necklace-wearin' dude in a desperate attempt to get rid of the taste. If you think it isn't fair for me to pick a beer as the worst of the night when it is a style I don't like, then I'll have to go with the 9000 -- I poured it out and had a laugh when the random guy next to me did the same. Whichever beer "wins" this category, Bell's was the loser on Friday!

Morten-in-Marsh (and yes, they say the whole name every time!)

The Bell Inn, Morten-in-Marsh. I finally found a place to stay for the night and managed to not break the bank. And it is in a pub. With wireless. It was a long search up and down the high street with some kindly mis-guidance from very friendly locals but I now have a roof over my head, a slice of lasagna in my belly, and a pint in my hand. Now I can relax.

Here is the beer garden of my current abode, as viewed from the window of my room. Nice, eh?

Hop Wobble

A high-point of summer in Ypsi is Beer Fest. Michigan has an abundance of amazing craft brewers and tasting a good number of their offerings in the park by the river on a summer evening is just lovely.

So here is the run down from this year...

The drinkers: me, Biscodo, brother, sister-in-law, Stacey, Brooke, Shawn, Julie, KK, the injector, and a few others who I ran into and clinked plastic cups with along the way.

The overall beer scene: seemed pretty balanced this year. The fruit beer and sour beer trends seemed to have been reined in this year (yay! that silliness was going too far). People brought summer wheats and ales, but folks also brought porters and stouts (good). Since we went on Friday night, only a few beers had run out, so most of what we wanted to try was there for us.

The beer: I'm grouping into three categories. Beers in the top category did exactly what they were supposed to do -- solid beers in all ways, no mistakes in nose, taste, texture. The middling sort includes both novelty beers (interesting but not something I would ever buy in a bottle or even drink a full glass of) and more traditional beers that did well, but didn't stand out from the crowd. The last category is for bad beers -- experiments that went wrong (or were never right to begin with) or beers that could not do half of what their name called for. My notes from the night are in quotation marks after the brewery.

Top Beers:

Crooked Tree IPA, Dark Horse ("hey, big boy..." "excellent")
Smells Like Weed IPA, Dark Horse
Hoprocket Imperial IPA, Arcadia
Hopmouth Double IPA, Arcadia ("lovely")
Golden Rule Organic IPA, Shorts ("crisp, good, dry English hopped)
Honey Ginger IPA, Original Gravity ("fun, sweet near the front")


The Middling Sort

Boffo Brown, Dark Horse ("fine")
Wheat and Rye ESB, Liberty St ("weird combo")
Kolsch, Round Barn
Full Garde, Copper Canyon
RyePA Double IPA, Copper Canyon ("good, sweet end")
Simcoe Silly, Kuhnhenn ("nice")
Confusion Double IPA, Kuhnhenn
Screw the Hop Crisis IPA, Rochester Mills ("sweet")
Hopopotomus, HopCat
Sage Against the Machine Pale Ale, Hopcat ("smell only")
Wood Butcher's Ale, Lily's Seafood ("nice")
Barnacle Bob's Boatyard Ale, Lily's Seafood ("fine")
Little Italy Honey Basil, Right Brain ("Pale, novelty, good smell")


The Bad

Michigan Malted Red Ale, Kuhnhenn ("blech")
Organic Wit, Rochester Mills ("not very witty")
Solar Eclipse Imperial Stout ("ridiculous")
Oops-a-Hefe Imperial Hefeweizen, Big Rock Chop ("strange")
World Wheat, Black Lotus ("cloudy, watery, forgettable")
Ancho Chile Dutch Double Chocolate Porter, Right Brain
Rye Hatter, New Holland, ("liquor smell and taste, bitter and then nothing')


A few other awards: best "what this beer is" conversation came with the brewer at Shorts in reference to the Soft Parade and the Golden Rule IPA. (He even talked me into trying a fruit beer -- but it was a fruit RYE beer...). Best 'novelty' beer (and there were plenty to choose from in this category) was OG's honey ginger IPA. Best unknown brewery in Michigan is Lily's, which offers pretty straight forward beer, well-crafted, no hype. The most over-hyped brewery title (a title Jolly Pumpkin has claimed ALL other years) goes to Right Brain -- all novelty without having gotten down the basics of basic beers.

And what you've all been waiting for... the worst beer of the evening? I'm going with Kuhnhenn's Malted Red -- part of that may be that the description was sooooo lovely and the beer just couldn't come close to the promises made.

So... that was a whole lot of beer I tasted, eh? Yes, yes it was. But, once I settled in, I enjoyed it enormously. Okay, I maybe could have done with one or two fewer beers, but a lazy Saturday turned out to be just fine.

Bye-Bye Summer

Here it is. The last evening of summer.

This was not the bloggiest of seasons for me. Like many of the friendly blogs in my world, YesterdayLooksGood got very little attention. Her sister blog, Breaking the Code, got even less.

I meant to record more of my happenings -- they are fun to look back at, a way to solidify memories, etc. -- but many posts were never started and of those that were, I abandoned more posts than I actually published.

Using my calendar and a scroll through the drafts-never-published here are the highlights of Summer 2008:

In May, we went to Traditional Arts Weekend at Wheatland. Just like always, and nicely so.

In June I went to Minneapolis/St. Paul for a conference and research (probably the highlight of my summer in terms of work).

In June, E finished 4th grade (which she loved) and O finished Kindergarten (which he tolerated). They understood that they were supposed to be happy about summer, but they didn't quite know what to do with themselves with day after day of unstructured time. Apparently, they didn't feel the chores I assigned them was the kind of structure they were looking for, however. They did a week of low-quality day camp that convinced us they were better off rattling around the house bored and beating on each other than in that environment.

In late June/early July, we went to my folks' cottage. This is a trip I have done for years, but this particular trip came with some twists. I went without my dog, for one. It was her favorite place in the world. She was dune colored and loved to romp there. [sniff]

In July, I became a stay-at-home mom. I struggled with this for awhile. I finally had to accept that my sabbatical was over and stop trying to parent and write at the same time. Things got much easier after that. I scheduled playdates so I could launch a new article and get ready for classes, but I also took other people's kids on adventures with us, rode bikes with my pups, went blueberry picking, hit the pool and the waterpark, danced to the bands at Crossroads, became a regular at the Tuesday farmers' market, and visited many area parks. The kids and I even rode our bikes in the Heritage Festival parade (which I think we all found pretty boring).

In July, E went off for a week at sleep-away camp. I loved camp as a kid and went for multiple weeks (regular, horseback riding, competitive swimming, and, my favorite, sailing) so I was rather excited for her. She did great there but was incredibly tired when I retrieved her. The promised "vegetarian option at every meal" also turned out to be salad and peanut butter sandwiches, so she was mighty happy to have a plate of pasta plopped down in front of her. I had hoped that a week apart would get the kids out of the negative patterns of taunting they had developed. It didn't. Almost as soon as I had fetched her I heard from the backseat, "mom, he's looking at meeeeeeee!"

July also meant beerfest and I had a lovely time with my dad, brother, and many buddies. I didn't pick a "best beer" this year, but I enjoyed several ryes... and I really enjoyed that there were several ryes to enjoy. Worst beer: Jolly Pumpkin's Perseguido. It almost doesn't seem fair, since I don't like their beers/sour beers in general, but EVERYONE in my universe that day agreed that this one particularly sucked.

In August, we went to Dunegrass, the music festival in Empire, MI. Year #2 for us and it held up well, which is not surprising because the kids are now old enough to be fairly sturdy on such outings, we took the camper and therefore had cushy digs, and there is a beautiful beach with great dunes just down the way. moe. wins for best band, I think. Particle was the same as always, only I was too tired to get into the groove this year.

Also in August, S finally got me to play water polo. Okay, yes, it is fun. Water polo easily slid into the hole left by us quitting clogging (E lost her interest and I wasn't going to force it). The kids could swim in the shallows while mommy dunked the college boys... then we would all go home mellow and tired. E wormed her way into one game and played well. I'll coach a tweener team next year if the pool folks will let me! Most of my other exercise came from the bike. I think my fitness level peaked somewhere in late August. If I had to pick a day, I'd say it was when I rode (read: held on for) the local shop ride: 32 miles in about an hour and half. Otherwise I rode with Bike Ypsi many Sundays and took to early morning roll outs so that I could do 20-30 miles and be back in time for W to leave for work. (Tom's right: it's a great time because there is no wind!) My favorite ride became the Saline-Milan route (40 miles), though it was hard to squeeze in on weekday mornings.

The last bit of August contained my birthday weekend. I celebrated Bike Ypsi's first birthday, helped break in Andre and Stephanie's new house at their first party there, closed the pool for the season, and celebrated my many revolutions around the sun with my extended family.

September saw me not only enter my forties but also take on my first big administrative job: department chair. The kids went back to school. We celebrated surviving that momentous week with a bonfire at the party barn, including a birthday king and queen, and chocolate cake with a milk fountain built in.

But the signs of fall have started to arrive. E started soccer, the rain pushed the last Crossroads act (Black Jake and the Carnies) inside, and it was time to make pesto. I rode 50 miles last Saturday to help make 35 pounds of pesto at Jeff's house out in Chelsea. It poured for much of the ride, but it was warm and I loved it except for my fogging glasses. On Sunday, I rolled out in the ran again to ride Tom's Taco Tour. Five taco stops over 19 miles and we ended -- very wet -- at the Corner.

What this summary, focused on specific events and dominant trends, glosses over is the emotional terrain of my summer. It is hard to characterize, but I think I have spent much of the last three months trying to get my head in the game -- whatever the game may be. I've been sad, I've been unfocused, I've raised indecision to a near art form, and somehow I became a procrastinator. I've decided I'm angrier (in general, or maybe it is that I am easier to anger) than I realized. This is not to say that I was not happy this summer. I was, at times, but these other things had me pulled off in too many directions to focus on the things that made me happy. So this is the problem I am tackling this fall: how to be in the right place... or at least how to be in the place I am. How old-school hippie-ish, eh? Yeah, well, I seem to need to go back to that school. To frame it positively (and find a way out of this post!), my goal for the fall is to be good with where I am and what I am doing in that moment and not overthink where else I might be. I'll be in that other place soon enough.

Say It Ain't So...

Yes, that is indeed what she said.

"No beer."

"Is that no beer for a while? A week? A month? Or no beer ever again?"

She just kept saying "no beer," and then finally relented and said, "well, at least less beer."

But I can still have my red wine. And coffee. Hmmm....


Okay, here is the story: I've had some stomach pain of late. Some of it has been rather debilitating and caused my hubby to rush home and care for me (thanks, babe!). So I toddled off to see my GP today to see if we can't figure out what is going on. We reviewed my "lifestyle," which includes coffee, red wine, and luscious, luscious BEER (but hey, I don't drink liquor and I don't smoke!). And, oh yeah, I took huge, huge doses of ibuprofen for the 8 months or so leading up to my December hip surgery. The doc put me on prilosec 2x a day for the next month (or maybe six weeks... she was a bit vague on that) and ordered some blood tests. I guess we are going to rule out some rare-in-Caucasians H-virus and pancreatic issues (and I noticed she slipped a liver test in there... she must think I'm a real lush!) and then assume that it is some sort of gastroenteritis/ulcerish type thing that just needs to heal... something that can happen with time, the prilosec, and [sniff] no beer.

But wait, again, "The wine is okay? The coffee is okay?"

"Yes."

"But no beer?"

"Wine has good properties"

"Trust me, beer has good properties, too"

"What is even in beer?"

Hmmmm.... I'm suspicious. Did she really just ask me what is in beer? She is obviously not a beer drinker (she seems to think all beer drinkers are bingers). And she has told me that lots of "old wisdom" on stomach issues has been debunked recently and there is no need to go on a bland diet unless something in particular causes me pain, in which case I only need to cut out that one thing. She also admitted that if I smoked, that would be the lifestyle change she would lobby for... Wait, am I losing beer because I don't have any worse habits? Is it possible that beer is no worse for this than tomatoes?

Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves. For the short term -- at least until she calls me on Monday with the test results and my tummy has a few days of prilosec to calm it down -- I will not drink. Then we shall see. I think a little more research and maybe some conversations with beer-enthusiast physicians will be in order.

Anyone need a designated driver?

The Geography of Midnight -- Blow Out II

I toddled on down to Hamtramck this past weekend for two nights of the 11th annual Blow Out. As was the case last year, no bands blew me away, but I find the idea and the logistics of the event pretty damn cool. 200 bands, 20 venues, crappy Michigan March weather, and hit-or-miss (er, mostly miss) beer selections. There is a certain sport to the event – finding a good band in a decent venue with acceptable beer – that appeals to me. This point seems lost on my Blow Out buddy of the last two years, however. So if you are intrigued, I might be looking for a new companion for next year!

Since there are sooooo many bands, it makes sense to split the task of choosing where to be when. I took the Thursday night shift:

Manna & Quail: young, keyboard fronted, pop. They were billed as tight, but they had a stand-in bass player who’d had all of 45 minutes to learn the tunes (for a 45 minute set). They didn’t entirely suck, but we were late, I was unsettled, the beer was yellow, and, consequently, I had little love to give them. They would have had to work waaaaay harder to hook me.

Scarlet Oaks: best of the evening and the only full set we caught. A lovely pint of Arrogant Bastard helped loosen me up for this Wilco-ish band. The guitarist/singer was eager and had Gerry-like moves (though the songs were nowhere near as intricate as Gerry’s), the drummer was all enthusiasm, the bass player competent, and the other guitar player took a turn on the pedal steel… some sort of sonic padding, such as pedal steel, was a great idea for this band, but he needs to get bigger and more comfortable on the instrument. They struck me as a band with some potential.

Freer: this poor band, anchored by two brothers, had the unfortunate curse of media attention. The Free Press had given them some build up but then they had technical issues (it seems… no one ever told us) and started waaay late. Bell’s Brown Ale held us at the quintessentially Hamtramck neighborhood Atlas bar until they got two songs in. But they had started with a loose “blow out” jam that was just too sloppy to come back from… at least after starting late on a night when several other bands were playing in same time slot. We wandered off to catch Georgio “the dove” Valentino at the Painted Lady, but he had finished early. Simplicity was still playing at the New Dodge, around the corner, but the “alti-ness” of their tunes evident on the web didn’t come through live… and this was another bar with only yellow beer… so homeward we fled, knowing there was another full night of music to be had.



I think my strategy next year will be to limit the choices of bands a bit by sticking to the better venues -- the ones that have both decent sound and decent beer. The tiny neighborhood bars that only serve yellow beer are mighty cute, but I'm not there for cute. Next year: Small's, Whiskey in a Jar, the Belmont, and the Painted Lady will be at the top of my list.

Wouldn't Kick It Out of Bed for Eating Crackers...

So... Winter Beerfest '08, Grand Rapids... Well, it did not reach the heights of frivolity of last year's fest, but it was fun nonetheless.

On the down side: The venue shift from a parking lot in old town Lansing to a baseball stadium in Grand Rapids was a disappointment. The tents this year were tucked into odd spaces that took lots of thought and maneuvering to reach and some of them (oh those poor pourers for New Holland!) were rather exposed to the wind. Walkways were narrow and not very well cleared of snow and ice. We all did a bit of slipping and sliding on the ramps and stairs and worried over those trying to get around on crutches or with other types of mobility limitations. Anyone in a wheelchair would have been pretty well shut out of this fest. There was no central hangout/meeting up area, so I did much less socializing than last year. The poor musicians were left to try and work frozen fingers over cold strings in odd spaces where it was difficult for the audience to stop and listen. Also, no veggie food. I certainly wasn't expecting much in the way of food, but is one warm, non-flesh option that hard to do? Finally, several of the fun people from last year were absent and much missed on this go-around.

On the up side: I had a lovely drinking crew consisting of Pete, Daye, Wendy's Matt, and Andy. There were some good beers and (thankfully!) some new things to try. Also, we did get to use the flush toilets of the ballpark and they even had heaters in there! I was feeling the need of some time away from the old homestead and beering/strolling/lolling/eating in GR fit the bill nicely.

Because of the set-up of the beerfest, I found it hard to take decent notes. Also, the coldness made it difficult to get a good read on the porters and stouts, in my opinion. They all came across as a bit sharper and less round/thick than they "should" have been, so I'm thinking temp had a lot to do with that and was fairly forgiving as a result. Considering all this, I'm not going to rank but rather will categorize:


The Good:
Copper Canyon, Rye-PA: Nice, bit of a bite, lovely floral smell

Founders, Porter: Nice enough

Founders, Black IPA: Excellent, crisp, IPA but not hard/bitter

Founders, Breakfast Stout: yum

Rochester Mills Beer Co, Coffee 'N Cream Stout: good, smelly! (nice coffee nose)

New Holland, Cabin Fever Brown: very nice coffee brown

Kuhnhenn, Aldebaran Double Red: Nice!

Michigan Brewing Co, Winter Warmer: rye/IPA that had some sweet/maltiness without being syrupy, too little smell though

Arbor Brewing, HXL Double IPA: lovely, lovely smell, right on the edge of sweet and thick, but it didn't fall over the edge... reminded me how lucky we are to have ABC/Corner right here in our neck of the woods!

Arcadia Brewing Co, Hop Rocket Imperial IPA: probably the crispest of the big IPAs, lovely with a light smell and hop, perhaps too clear

The Hideout Brewing Co, Smuggles Hazelnut Stout: yum... seemed more chocolate than hazelnut, but extremely tasty and unsubtle

Black Lotus, Hip Hops American Pale Ale: good smell and as good as it was at summer beerfest -- nice to see that kind of consistency from a newish place



The Bad... (or at least seriously middling)

Sherwood Brewing, Alaskan Sister Wit: lots of banana (too much!) and coriander

Shorts, Cup A Joe: yet another coffee stout but it was okay

Shorts, Huma Lupa Licious: not much taste but nice freshly mowed lawn smell

Dark Horse, Double Crooked Tree IPA: fine

Arbor Brewing, Super Snapper Imperial ESB: last beer of the day... but fine

Mountain Town Station, Iron Horse IPA: fine, really not all that fine except that is was way better than the other beer from here that I'd had right before it

The Hideout Brewing, Midnight Oatmeal Stout: no huge mistakes, but no unique character

The Hideout Brewing Chicago Typewriter Double Red: pretty hoppy!

Black Lotus, Generation X Porter: Solid, but not anything in particular to distinguish it from the other porters of the day.



And the Ugly (several of these were bad enough to be poured out):

North Peak Brewing, Whitley's Wheat: yellow beer with spice - forgettable

New Holland, Pilgrim's Dole Wheat Wine: icky sweet -- mostly a style issue, me no likely wheat wines!

Michigan Brewing Co., Imperial IPA: waaaaaay too thick and sweet

Mountain Town Station, Winter Warmer: this was a spiced wheat that was so bad I got a "do over" on this and the guy poured me a IPA instead

Schmohz, Kiss My Scottish Arse Scotch Ale and Mad Tom's Porter: all the beers here had been "Jolly Pumpkin-ized," meaning they were way too similar

Darkhorse, Whisky Richard Belgian Ale: way too sweet with a liquor-like finish

Walldorff Brewpub, Hopnoxxxious IPA, Bee Sting Honey Rye, and Old Woody Imperial Stout: afraid they were all stinkers and all got dumped. I think that might be some kind of record for suckiness.


Looking back over this list, I'm thinking beerfest was actually pretty successful despite its inadequate venue. Along the way I also got to see a little more of Grand Rapids. It has a solid downtown that had an impressive amount of foot traffic, some nice brick streets and "office block" height buildings (def. looks like a downtown, but is not particularly tall), good signage (shows some love and $$ has recently gone into the town), and some happening spots. The new location for Founders turned out to be pretty impressive. Long and narrow, it had high ceilings and a good sound mix for both bands (the Werks and Back Forty). The streetside wall consists of windowed garage doors that can be opened in the summer which should rock in July and owners have thoughtfully decreed the bar non-smoking but provided a separate enclosed smoking porch for those so inclined. They also now have proper food, something very much lacking at the old location. The place is huge compared to the old digs, so I was worried that they might be getting a bit too big, but the beers remained solid (although the Red's Rye I had there was wicked bitter, but I'm thinking that after a long day of drinking, a nap, and sinus issues, my taster may have been off). And now they have their good beer and their good music space a bit closer to downtown. I approve.

Sickness, a party, bikes, and bars...

I had a couple of intense days of parenting lately with a short school week last week and a boy who sprouted an unexplained but lingering fever. After pulling full-time duty on Friday and Saturday, I was mighty happy to head out to the Burns' Night festivities -- even if I did show up a bit late. Andre once again hosted a lovely party with a fine mix of academic friends, music friends, neighborhood friends, and friends of friends (and yes, some people fit into multiple categories). The kitchen reeked of Scotch by the time I got there, but considering the occasion and the host, that seemed fitting. I somehow ended up staying until 3:00am!

I don't sleep-in well and had been out way late the night before and that made getting my butt in gear for the Worst Day of the Year ride on Sunday a tad difficul. It was a realtively balmy 32 degrees and the roads were wet but plowed -- though the promised sunshine never appeared. I had a stupidly hard time choosing which bike to ride, but finally committed to the road bike (which has commuter tires and an insufficient back fender on it at the moment) and headed out to grab Andy on the way to the start at Kerrytown. We rolled up just in time to grab some coffee cake and jump onto the back of the 12-mile group. People bunched up and strung out quite a bit, so we opted to push up toward the front, but eventually ended up riding mostly with only each other. We would pick up another rider or a pair here or there, but there wasn't much "group" on this "group ride" -- and where were the ride leaders? I only saw one and he had this sort of annoying habit of riding way out into the lane in order to look back at the group and yell at us. I didn't mind losing him. Anyhoo, after a bit of creative route taking and a bit of cursing (on my part) of route planners that had us climb that stupid Broadway hill (I know North Campus is nice to ride through, but I'm still suffering a "decline in fitness" post surgery) we rolled up to Arbor Brewing for a beer and munchies at the after party. It was interesting to take in the crowd and find almost no bikey people we knew. Definitely an older crowd, but lots of pretty committed pedalers, which was very cool.

On Monday, the boy was still sick, so I accomplished little work but did make it out to the Bike Ypsi meeting. Put May4 on your calendars, people -- it'll be our big spring event with morning rides, some food, and afternoon exhibits/polo/other fun bikey stuff to be determined.

After the meeting there was a movement afoot to grab a beer at the Corner. Most folks bailed, however, which is a shame because it turned into a much later night than I was expecting, full of frivolity, flirting, new acquaintances, odd conversations, and general silliness when we ran into Bethany and her buddies. We were in a bar and we were drinking, so I'm thinking that the stories from the table should not be blogged about, but I'm gonna encourage ya'll to come out to SheBang when they have live music and meet Bethany (who does the organizing and sound). She's a hoot and I've enjoyed both bands I've seen there so far.