Trading

I made one of the tougher beer-related decisions this week, and traded my second bottle of Darkness from some choice picks, leaving me five bottles to drink over the next decade or so. The first bottle went to a former college classmate of mine, with whom I reconnected via Facebook and realized we both loved great beer. After about 3 months of talking about doing a trade for a hard-to-get bottle of Westvleteren 12 for some Surly, I finally got off my arse and sent the bottle off.

The second was for a Stone Imperial Russian Stout, a Founder's Kentucky Breakfast Stout and an Abyss from Deschutes:

It's going to be a good winter.

Change happened

This has been a much different election cycle for me. It was the first presidential election I didn't give at least the last month to a campaign, and I've never doorknocked less leading up to the final days of an election. Dylan started kindergarten this year, Adrian started out-of-home care for the first time and Flo is student teaching this fall, all making it hard to get out and phone or knock on doors.

But I poured my heart into it the last 5 days, and probably knocked on more doors on election day than I ever have before. And not only that, but it was the first time I've not spent most of the day in St. Paul: my time was spent in Hugo, White Bear Lake and Maplewood. It certainly didn't have the meaningfulness (is that a word?) of getting out the vote in St. Paul; most folks I talked to had already voted.

Still, I like to think it clearly paid off. Obama won handily, and what a feeling it is.

Oh, I drank a Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale while watching the results come in. Perfect in so many ways.