beers, a love story

"11 - beer festival" by Dave Morris
“11 – beer festival” by Dave Morris

I drink beer because I’m a librarian. Or, more accurately, I started drinking beers with my library school classmates in grad school. Mainly because bars in Lexington (Kentucky) didn’t carry wine coolers or Zima. Yeah. It was that bad.

I remember my first NASIG conference in 2002. We were staying in dorm rooms and meeting in classrooms at the College of William & Mary. Back then, NASIG had a tradition of having an evening social with snack food and buckets of iced beer (and probably wine, too, but I definitely wasn’t drinking that then). One of my sharpest memories from the conference is of fishing out a Corona Light because it was all that was left by the last night of the conference. And discovering Purple Haze with Bonnie at the Green Leafe Cafe.

The next year we were in Portland, Oregon. I was introduced to many craft beers, and my journey towards becoming a beer snob was set.

Three years in Washington state taught me to appreciate well-balanced hoppy beer, which was hard to find my first year back on the East Coast. But I soon discovered Mekong, and began my now four-year romance with Belgian beers.

Most recently, I’ve discovered that I do like sour beers, and I suspect that is part of the reason why I’m incorporating more wine into my beverage consumption. That, and maybe the semi-regular meetups with a friend (also a librarian) at Virginia wineries.

Librarians. Who knew they were such lushes?

i want my country back!

I just read Howard Dean’s new book….

Some friends generously gave me a gift certificate to Powell’s Books for my birthday this year, and this weekend I had the opportunity to visit that giant independent bookstore in Portland. I used their gift to purchase a copy of Howard Dean’s new book, You Have the Power, which I just finished reading tonight. It is both educational and inspiring, with the right mix between his reflections on his presidential race and his vision for the revitalization of the Democratic Party. On assuming that Democrats have the African-American vote, Dean writes,

“The truth is

McMenamins

McMenamins on the Savvy Traveler.

I just caught the last bit of story on The Savvy Traveler about Oregon as a travel destination. They mentioned the fabulous brewery/brewpubs of McMenamins. I was in Portland this past summer for the NASIG meeting and that was when I was introduced to the best fruit ale I have ever tasted. It’s called Ruby. It’s a raspberry ale that looks like a glass of iced Lipton tea and goes down very smooth. Unfortunately, the only place where one can buy bottles is at the brewpubs themselves, and they’re only located in Oregon.

moving

I finally moved down to Richmond. I like my new apartment – it is much nicer than the one I had before, and I’m only three blocks from work. This move has taken up most of my free time as well as my energy, thus the reason why it has been over two weeks since … Continue reading “moving”

I finally moved down to Richmond. I like my new apartment – it is much nicer than the one I had before, and I’m only three blocks from work. This move has taken up most of my free time as well as my energy, thus the reason why it has been over two weeks since my last post.

Here are a couple of fun things that have come across my email recently:

  • Are you a librarian? Don’t you wish that your OPAC could have more interesting error messages? The Warrior Librarian has a few suggestions.
  • Shhhh! No – scream! It’s BloodHag, the library band. There has already been some discussion on the NASIG listserv about making a road trip up to Seattle to see this band at some point during next summer’s meeting in Portland.
  • It’s too late to add your name to the list of signatures to this letter from Librarians for Peace, but I was very impressed with the number of folks who did. BTW, I’m #742. I wish I had known about this site earlier.

I saw that Karyn has almost paid off her credit card debt and is now offering to help someone else by directing her visitors to their website. I’m not sure if my site is up to her standards, but I’m thinking about submitting it. What do you think I should do?

Continue reading “moving”

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