Beer Extravaganza (Part Two)

Hello everyone.

First, my apologies for the lack of blog posts lately. As mentioned, I spent the past week or so housesitting in the boonies, with dial-up and generator-powered electricity. I tried getting online, even just to check my email and Facebook messages, but the connection was so ridiculously slow (45k!) that I gave up. I did make a trek into town to get online at a restaurant that had wi-fi, but I couldn't connect for some technical reason.  And wouldn't you know it, by the time I realized I had already ordered food.

The good thing is I got lots of work done on my book.  I had come to the conclusion that I needed to start over, and so that's what I did.  I certainly wasn't an easy decision to make, as I had spent over a year on it and had written over 35,000 words, but it's the right thing to do.  I'm not really changing the story, but just changing how it's told.  I think my decision kinda freaked Cathy out, but then when I got back home and she read what I had so far, she said she thought it was much better and she agreed with my decision.  Now, I've basically said in 10,000 words what used to take 35,000 words to say, which means the story moves a lot faster, and I've ditched a lot of the pointless bullshit.  And more importantly, I feel better about the whole thing. 

But now I'm ready to do some blogging!

Rob (Beer) Happenings

As mentioned, Cathy and I made a trek up to Schweitzer mountain over Labor Day weekend for their Fall Fest celebration. It wasn't officially fall when we were there, and weather-wise it still felt like the middle of summer, despite the fact that the main village sits in the mountains at around 4,700 feet. It was nice, sunny, and surprisingly warm up there, and there was a pretty good turnout for the festivities. Initially, we brought Tucker with us, but when we walked past the stage, there was a band playing. The amplified freaked him out, and he managed to somehow squirm out of his collar and run away. Fortunately, he didn't go very far, and we got him and brought him back down to the car and let him chill out in the shade in the parking lot where things were relatively quiet.

Then we went back to the festival puppy-free and tried again. The first thing I did, naturally, was stand in line to get a glass and some beer sample tickets. Unlike the Brews Fest at Silver Mountain, where you had to pay for admission that included beer samples, admission at Schweitzer's Fall Fest was free, and if you wanted beer samples you had to buy them. I thought this was a better way to go. Also, Schweitzer had lots of different options for how many samples and even the type of drinking vessel. I chose the "pint," mainly because glass because you get to keep it and this would one more to add to my collection, but also because glass is always better than plastic, which is what the mug at Silver Mountain was made of. There was a plastic mug option, which I appreciate, because for those planning on drinking a lot of beer, it's good to have a non-breakable option.

Once I got my glass, I headed to the beer tent. One thing I liked better about Silver Mountain's Brew Fest was that you could get 1/4 mug tasters, whereas at Schweitzer, my glass came with three full-glass tokens. That was enough beer for me, but I would've preferred the ability to try more of a variety than just three beers.

Deschutes "Hop in the Dark"

In the tent, I found the Deschutes table right away, and they had Hop in the Dark on tap. That's all I needed to hear to know that's what I wanted to start with. Hop in the Dark is a Cascadian Dark Ale. There's a bit of a controversy over the name for this style of beer. Lots of people call it "Black IPA," because it's dark in color but has the hoppiness of an IPA. But here's the issue with that: IPA stands for India Pale Ale, and it's rather stupid to call something both "Black" and "Pale," no? I've also seen it referred to as "India Black Ale" or "India Dark Ale." Aside from the fact that "IBA" and "IDA" sound too much like "IPA," which would be confusing when people are trying to order a beer in a noisy pub, this style wasn't invented in India. In fact, India has nothing to with the beer, aside from a similarity in hoppiness to the IPAs that do trace their roots to British colonization (and exploitation) of India. This style was born and bred in the good old US of A.

That's why I am going with "Cascadian Dark Ale," and why I appreciate the fact that Deschutes does the same. The "Cascadian" part of the name comes from the notion of Cascadia being a name for the Northwest. And although this style was supposedly invented in Vermont, it's definitely been popularized and embraced by the Northwest, and it tends to be brewed with a generous helping of Northwest hops. I also am a fan of the Cascadia independence movement, so long as North Idaho is included if and when it happens. I don't want to move again.

Anyway, Hop in the Dark was predictably fantastic, and it's definitely one of the better examples of this style out there. It's got a nice, smooth, thick malty flavor that's balanced by a generous helping of floral, citrusy Northwest hops. Good stuff.

Rogue "Dead Guy Ale"

Speaking of the Northwest, the next beer I had was Rogue Dead Guy. It's hard to categorize Dead Guy. Rogue calls it a maibock, which is a strong German lager brewed with extra hops. But Dead Guy uses ale yeast, which is fermented at room temperature, instead of lager yeast, which is fermented at lower temperatures and is what maibocks use. To confuse things even more, Rogue calls it "Dead Guy Ale."

Whatever it is, it's good. The problem with Rogue is that it's way too expensive. Their beer is good, but I don't know why they insist on charging way more than everyone else. Even in Oregon, where Rogue is located, it still costs way more than Deschutes, Ninkasi, Bridgeport, Full Sail, and other similarly-sized Oregon breweries. I don't get it. It's probably one of those things where they figure if they charge more, people will assume it's because it's much better. But it's not. I mean, don't get me wrong--their beer is good to excellent. But so is the beer from those other breweries, which are 2/3 the price.

Anyway, since all the beer essentially cost the same here, I went with the Dead Guy. I'm still always surprised when I see it in a glass instead of a bottle of how light in color it is, because it tastes like a much darker beer. I don't expect it to be black or even brown, but maybe a dark amber in color.  Nope.  It's pretty light.  Fortunately, it doesn't taste that way.

Northern Lights "Chocolate Dunkel"

I was down to my last beer at this point, and Cathy had mentioned that she noticed Northern Lights had their Chocolate Dunkel on tap, which is something she'd enjoyed up at Silver Mountain.  Being the great husband I am, I spent my last beer token on this beer, just so I could share it with her.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I like the beer, too.

Normally, I don't go for sweet, dessert-ish beers like this one, but this one worked, particularly after the lingering hop bitterness in my mouth from the other two.  It also made a nice "dessert" to our food, which we'd just finished, but was nothing special, and so I won't be blogging about it.  To be honest, it's been over two weeks since the festival, and while I took notes about the beer, I didn't take any food notes, and I really don't remember what we ate.

Moving on.

Through all of this, there was a band playing Latin music.  They were pretty decent, though the music wasn't my style.  At one point in between songs, the singer said how glad they were to be "up here on Silver Mountain," which drew a few boos from the crowd until he realized what he'd said and apologized.  That was amusing to watch.  It was also amusing to watch the older yuppie couple make fools of themselves by salsa dancing in front of the stage while everyone was watching, though in truth I was probably a bit jealous that they were willing to make asses of themselves and not care what other people thought.  Either that, or they were just oblivious of how ridiculous they looked, but then how could you not know how ridiculous two people look when they're salsa dancing?

Overlooking Lake Pend Oreille

After the dunkel, it was time to go.  And we couldn't make the trip back down from the mountain without stopping and taking some photos of the unbeatable view.  The view is even better from the top of the mountain, and we almost took a chairlift to the top to take some more shots, but we had a Tucker puppy waiting for us.  Next time.

It's funny.  I've already gone to more beer festivals up here in the less than a year I've been here than the whole ten years I was in Oregon, the land of good beers galore.  And we're planning on going to another one: this time an Oktoberfest celebration in a couple of weeks.  I guess when you live in Oregon, every day is a beer festival.  Not so much up here.  Still, it's nice to make an event out of drinking good beer.  It makes it seem so much more special.

In Closing

I've got still more beer news to blog about, including tasting some new beers and trying a new brewery.  I also made my "world famous"* chili yesterday and plan on posting the recipe and some photos in the near future.  Plus, I feel it's time to talk politics again, since I haven't in a while, and since there's a lot to talk about.  And I might even have something to say about all the crazy college sports (football) conference realignments.  So stay tuned.

Now here it is, your moment of Tucker:

Rob

* Note: "world famous" only applies to Rob Dow's World, not the actual world itself

More Book Stuff, The Abyss

Hello everyone.

First things first: Here's an amazing book report of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, written by a high school student a few days after 9/11. Click on the link and read it, now. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Now that you're back, let's get to it:

Rob Happenings

The past several days have been all about spending time with friends. We had a couple of friends from Oregon visit and stay the night with us a week ago. Then we reconnected with some old friends who live up here in Idaho last weekend. Then a couple of other Oregon friends stopped by last night. So the past week or so has been tons of fun and a great way to break up some of the monotonous solitude that's typical with rural living. Plus it was just great to see everyone.

The two friends who were here last night were among the ones I'd sent copies of the first 50 51 pages of my book to.  It turned out one friend only read the first few pages (which means she's either really busy or my book is really awful), but the other managed to make it through all 50 51 pages. After some beer, a little prodding on my part, and a lot of "please don't take this the wrong way" prefacing on his part, he gave me some solid criticism. Here's what I took from the conversation:

1. My writing often reads like college composition, not fiction. This is definitely true. After all, I was a college student for five years until quite recently, and that's where I honed my writing chops, so to speak. I also tutored students in college writing composition for three and a half years, so I'm finding it tough to break the habit. But that's stuff that can be fixed when I go back and edit. On the other hand:

2. My main character (a Christ-like character) is alternately brilliant and stupid, and I need to pick one. Either he knows everything or he doesn't. If he knows everything, he doesn't grow or change throughout the book, so what's the point?  If he's an idiot, he's just not believable.  I tried to get around this with a cheap plot device, but I just don't think it's working. Which means I'm going to have to reconsider my main character and his motivation. That's a much tougher one to get around.

3. There are a couple scenes and secondary characters that I might need to eliminate. I envisioned them coming back later near the end of the book to tie things together, but I'm not so sure now. I'll have to think about this one.

I don't enjoy criticism (not that I know anyone who does), so it stung at first, but I needed to hear it, and I'm glad I did. This particular friend is one of the most intelligent people I know, and he's not one to blow smoke, particularly about something like this.

All this is a reminder to me that writing is hard work, and I shouldn't expect to be a pro at it right from the get-go. For a brief moment earlier today, I considered scrapping the book and doing something else. But it's too late for that, so I'll just have to fix it. What would Kurt Vonnegut do?

Beer Happenings

As mentioned above, beer was consumed last night, including a special treat, a 2007 vintage The Abyss from Deschutes Brewery out of beautiful Bend, Oregon. Like a dumbass, I forgot to take photos of the beer as we sipped it, so here's a shot I took today of the empty bottle:

The Abyss is an imperial stout brewed with licorice and molasses, with 33% aged in oak and oak bourbon barrels.  I usually hate licorice, but I love beer, and this one has got to be near the top of my list of all-time favorites, if not right up there at the top.  My cousin bought me a case back when it first came out in early 2008.  When we were kids he must have done something horrible to me that I've since blocked from my memory, and now he's trying to atone.  No one could be that cool just because.  This bottle is number eleven out of the case of twelve, and if you're not a math pro, that means I'm down to one bottle of 2007 left.  I might not ever drink it.

I've been keeping my Abyss stash aging in dark, cool closets or basements of various placed we've lived over the last almost-four years, and like a fine wine (except better because it's beer) The Abyss only gets better with age.  Last night, I scraped away the wax coating Deschutes puts over the cap to ensure the seal and opened the bottle.  After it breathed for a minute or so, the initial alcohol burn (it's 11%!) evaporated away, and in its place was thick, chocolatey, coffee-ish, sweet-but-not-too-sweet goodness.  I couldn't really taste the oak or licorice flavors in this one as I had in some of the ones I'd tried that hadn't aged as long, but I didn't miss those flavors at all.  It was perfect.  It was like an orgasm in my mouth.  Except my own orgasm.  In someone else's mouth. 

Anyway, if you love beer, particularly big, dark beers, you owe it to yourself to try The Abyss if you can get your hands on it.

In Closing

Here it is, your moment of Tucker, taken last March at the Oregon Coast:

Rob

Book Steps and Scary Rick Perry

Hello everyone

Well, I had been doing a good job at blogging every two days or so, but now it looks like it's been five days since my last post. Still, it's better than over two year long hiatus I took up until recently, so there.

Rob Happenings

There's not much to report on the Rob Happenings front.  I guess the biggest news is that I edited the first 50 51 pages of my book and sent it out to a few friends to look over, and maybe tell me what they think.  This may not seem like a big deal, but to me it is.  Only Cathy has seen what I've written up until now, so to have someone else, even friends, look over what I've been working on for over a year now is leaving me quite anxious.  I haven't yet heard anything back from any of them, which means they either think it's pretty awful and aren't saying anything, or they just haven't gotten around to looking at it yet.  I'm obviously hoping for the latter, and since it's only been a few days since I sent it out, that's probably the case.  Plus, Cathy said she thinks it's great, but then again she's my wife, and she's supposed to be supportive and all that.  So yeah, nerves.

I guess I should get used to it, though.  If all goes to plan, lots of people will end up reading what I wrote, and some will no doubt hate it, and that's how it goes.  As long as they pay full price for the book, I guess I won't care what they think.  That's not true, of course.  Any negative criticism will no doubt drive me up the wall, because that's how I am.  Oh well.

I'm considering posting the first few pages of the book here, on Rob Dow's World, but it's not yet ready for public consumption at this point.  A few friends, including ones with English degrees, reading it?  Sure.  The general public?  Not quite yet.  But it will probably happen soon, so stay tuned.

Politics

Unsurprisingly, Texas Governor Rick Perry has decided to run for president.  A while back, I had an online conversation/debate with someone over Sarah Palin, and the guy claimed that I was "scared" of Sarah Palin.  I had a hard time comprehending how that was supposed to be a compliment to Sarah Palin, but then I realized the other guy had a sports team mentality about politics.  His team was the Republicans, and he wrongly assumed I had the same mentality, and that my team was the Democrats.  To him, it was like a sports team drafting a good player, and the rival team being afraid of losing.  I've never understood that kind of thinking.  I don't give a shit which party wins--I just care about the policies they enact, and how they affect me.  If anything, my team is me and my family and friends and neighbors.  But I suppose in a way he was right, because the idea of a President Sarah Palin does scare the hell out of me.

I feel the same way about Rick Perry.  The more I learn about this guy, the more afraid I am of the idea of him being president.  I'm not sure what's worse--that 30,000 people attended his public prayer session, or that they were oblivious about being used by Perry to position himself in the media spotlight ahead of his presidential campaign announcement.  Meanwhile, 100,000 people showed up in a different part of town for free school supplies for their kids (the organizers expected 25,000), because the schools weren't able to provide them thanks in part to Mr. so-called Christian's policies of cutting funding to schools and programs designed to help poor people.

I'm also disturbed about how Perry embraces the anti-science movement.  Although I'm not a fan of the way this mom coached her son into asking questions, the real story here is how Perry responded, calling evolution "a theory that’s out there," despite the fact that evolution is not really a controversial subject within the scientific community, and we've even seen evolution take place in our lifetime. And yes, evolution is "just a theory," but so is gravity. In science, "theory" means "a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena," as opposed to everyday usage of the word, meaning "a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation."  It bothers me that I have to even explain this distinction.  It should be something most people know, but that assumes we have a decent educational system, which of course we don't.  See my earlier comment about cutting education funding.

Speaking of education, Perry also has pushed abstinence-only sex education on Texas school kids, despite plenty of evidence it doesn't prevent teens from having sex and doesn't cut down on teen pregnancies.  When confronted with this evidence and the fact that Texas has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country, Perry refused to admit reality and insisted that it worked, to the point that people in the audience were actually laughing at him.

Perry is portrayed as some sort of fiscal genius for "creating jobs" in Texas during a recession, but if you look at the fine print, you realize that jobs he supposedly created were almost all part-time minimum wage jobs (which Texas leads the nation in) with no health benefits, and that the while the job rate is growing, the population rate is growing even faster.

And do you like never-ending war?  Expect plenty of it with Rick Perry, not that the current president is much better in that regard.

Oh, and apparently he's got a complete messiah complex going on.

I could go on and on, and I just might in another post.  But for now, you get the idea.

And Now, a Musical Interlude

I'm usually not into music this poppy, but I can't get this Kings of Leon song out of my head, and so now you will have it stuck in yours.



Although, am I the only one who thinks the video is a kinda country-ized ripoff of this one? Probably.

In Closing

According to blogger, I've had over 1,000 page views this past month.  Of course, many of those are probably the same people, including myself, visiting this blog more than once.  Although I do appreciate the comments that people have left so far, I'd love to see more.  In fact, since I started blogging again, I've gotten more spam comments than real comments, and that's even including my own responses to other comments.  So don't be afraid.  Leave a comment.  It's just not fair if I have to do all the work, no?

Rob

Home Again

Hello everyone!

I'm back from the Willamette Writers Conference, and I'm glad I went. I learned lots of good stuff about the craft of writing fiction. I had been writing pretty much on instinct, and that was going fine, but there's nothing like being able to step back and look at writing from a pragmatic perspective in terms of writing strong sentences, keeping the story moving while creating a setting, focusing on consistency in point-of-view, and avoiding lazy writing. A classic example of lazy writing is, "He walked angrily across the room," as opposed to, "He stomped across the room." I have lots of "walked angrily" in my manuscript, so I'll definitely be going back and making my writing tighter and more descriptive (and better) when I'm revising. I also learned that exclamation points are lazy, and that I should show exclamation with my word choices, not punctuation. My story is loaded with exclamation points, so that's another thing I'll need to work on.

I'm tempted to pepper this blog with tons of exclamation points just to get it out of my system, because blogs aren't bound by the same rules as fiction. But I think it's good to get in the habit of avoiding them in all my writing, so if you love exclamation points, this may no longer be the blog for you. And, no, that doesn't give license for smartass readers to point out in the comments every time I forget and use one, okay?

Personal

Important stuff I very recently learned: Sometimes you have teeter right on the edge of losing something to realize how important it is to you.

The above statement is as cheesy as I ever hope to get here, so if you're into that kind of crap, enjoy it while you can.

Moving on.

Politics

I shut myself off from the political world during my stay in Portland, so I can't comment on anything specific. But it's safe to say violence is happening somewhere, people are dying for no good reason, politicians are making truly outrageous and/or stupid claims, and the ultrawealthy are getting ultrawealthier. And most people feel powerless to do anything about it. Am I right?

Food

If you ever find yourself in Portland, do yourself a favor and head on down to the D Street Noshery on Division and 32nd and pick up some Bulgogi Tacos from KOI Fusion's food RV. Then sit down under the tent and wash your food down with a pint or three from Captured by Porches Brewing Company's beer bus. You'll be glad you did. I was.

I also highly recommend stopping by Genies Cafe on Division and 11th for breakfast. The chorizo scramble is all kinds of amazing.

In Closing

I'm going to wrap things up somewhat early because I'm motivated to get back to writing my book. Until we meet again!

Rob

My 15 Minutes Part Deux (30 Minutes?)

Hello everyone!

I realize it might appear as if I haven't been doing much writing lately considering the dearth of blog postings on Rob Dow's World lately, but in reality I've been writing like crazy. My latest attempt at writing a novel has been going much better than my last attempt, and I've been thoroughly immersed in the world of character developments, voice, setting, plot development, and so on. I've also been having fun with symbolism and metaphor. In a blog setting, I can just say what I want to say without any trouble. But in a novel, I have to make my characters say what I want to say while giving each character his or her own voice. After all, who wants to read a story with a bunch of characters that sound the same? Also, sometimes the point I want to make isn't particularly interesting to read, so I have to find a way to get my point across while (I hope) making the story fun and interesting to read. Anyway, this is my world these days.

In addition, I've also been enjoying reading comics. I'm not talking about comic books--what do you think I am, some kind of nerd?--but rather the newspaper funny pages kind. One of my favorites is The Doozies. The comics themselves are pretty funny, but the author also has a series of "instructional" YouTube videos in which he shows his viewers how to draw just like a big, rich, hot shot comic artist such as himself. Both the comics and the videos are worth a peek if you're interested in a chuckle.

Last Thursday's strip was fairly amusing. It used an example of the radio repair business to lament how the downfall of aging technologies in this modern era could make a man's life feel obsolete. It brilliantly discussed... well, here, see for yourself:

Clever, eh?

But what struck me as most amusing was a comment someone posted on the Gocomics site:

BonzoGal says:

I’m a little worried about Dean- his shirt seems to have been sewn shut in the front. Did he have to pawn his shirt buttons to get his radio repaired? Talk about an O. Henry story!

Suddenly, I had to take a second look at the comic. While I could see what BonzoGal was saying, I thought it didn't look so much like a sewed shirt, but rather a sewed abdomen. I started to notice other details that I hadn't previously noticed, so I made my own comment:

subtlefuge says:

He’s not wearing a shirt. That’s a scar from his appendectomy, which apparently had some complications. He also has a literal chip on his shoulder, as you can see in the second panel. And he combs his hair in the shape of a “W”.

Before too long, The Doozies author/artist himself, Tom Gammill, posted his own comment to clear up the confusion:

tgaml says:

People, people, that’s a zipper on his jacket, not a scar. And “Al’s Radio Repair” is down the street from me. Really. I don’t know how much longer it’ll be around.

I felt amused by this little exchange. The fact that a celebrity like Mr. Gammill took the time to respond to my comment, as silly as it was, made me think that he's either a pretty cool guy or someone with no life. Maybe both, who knows?

So you can imagine how I felt when I saw today's comic:

Unreal.

Rob

An Update and An Unfortunate Choice of Words

Hello everyone!

I apologize for not posting anything in a while, but lately I've been giving writing a novel another shot. This one is entirely different than the last attempt, though I haven't given up entirely on my first plot idea. Anyway, my hope is that I someday "get paid for this," especially since hardly anybody is hiring right now. Or at the very least, I'll simply finish something I start. And if it ever gets published, then the four or five people who read this blog can waste even more time reading the book. Or not.

But fret not, my dear readers! I'll still be posting here on a semi-regular basis, so check back often! And I'm really great at starting projects but terrible at finishing them, so who knows where this will go. But I hope I can use my blog as a way to update my progress (while not giving anything away) in order to keep myself motivated. I also might ask y'all for suggestions whenever I get stuck.

In the meantime, here's something Greg sent me a few weeks ago not long after the Super Bowl:

Of course, Roethlisberger went to Pittsburgh with the next pick and the rest, as they say, is history. As a Bills fan looking back on the 13th and 22nd picks being spent on Lee Evans and J.P. Losman, respectively, I still can't stop biting the pillow that they didn't package whatever it took to move up three spots and grab Big Ben.

Hmm.

For the moment, let's ignore the usual football-related innuendos such as these:

• "He got good penetration on that one"
• Wide receiver
• Splitting the middle
• "He's looking for the hole!"
• Lining up the slot
• Tight end
• "He nailed his man from behind!"

Okay, maybe we won't "ignore" them. But this still begs the question: why is this guy "biting the pillow"? Does he know what "pillow biting" means?

Let's consult the Urban Dictionary, shall we?

1. pillow-biter

An exceptionally vigorous butt-pounding between men in the dorsal-ventral position, generally noteworthy for its combination of depth, force and velocity, such that the poundee is transported to an otherworldly, orally-fixated state of extreme "hurt-so-good" pleasure as to unconsciously bite down on a pillow, duvet, forearm, Jack Russel terrier, or anything else that happens to come with close proximity of his mouth.

Now, I know absolutely nothing about this Nick Bakay, but I do not think what he wrote means what he thinks it means. And while, in theory, there's nothing wrong with being a pillow-biter if that's what floats your boat, there is something noteworthy about a sports writer proclaiming to the whole world that he became one in response to the results of a football draft.

Maybe there's something more to all the innuendos and ass patting than meets the eye. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Rob