One of the more interesting things that MaineGirl and I did the other night was this game she does with her friends. After we'd talked for a couple of hours, we each wrote down twenty questions for the other. We answered each question on a separate piece of paper, then traded answers. We had to try to match our questions with their answers.

Of course, it was all just a way to keep the conversation stimulated. I don't see how it could work if the people playing actually knew each other and ever planned to see them again. The questions asked of me were way too personal.

Anyway, here are my answers, changed slightly to protect privacy. Don't bother asking what the questions were:

1. Short answer: Yes. Long answer: It's like that [transitory period] when you wish you didn't but you do anyway. I know it's stupid, but for now I just have to accept it.

2. Absolutely, right away. And want is the operative word there. It used to be need and that terrified me.

3. No, though I came close once. I showed great willpower. It's just not my place to ask that.

4. I'm actually counting on that. If that's not the case then I've got a whole new set of problems.

5. You know, I really don't. I have to force myself to even picture that situation, and the picture I come up with is not a good one. Sometimes I wish that was what I wanted, because then at least all of this would make sense.

6. I suppose I'd get used to it like I've gotten used to everything else. No choice really.

7. Oh, I wouldn't say that it wouldn't affect me. It would affect the hell out of me. But even that would be better than the alternatives.

8. How about hate? How about pity? How about mockery? How about fear? How about nothingness? I'd say that any of those would be much worse.

9. I think I pretty much forfeited those privileges a long time ago. I don't know for sure but I figure better safe than sorry.

10. If that's the case then I owe yet another apology. I hope it's not the case.

11. Well of course it would. I'm not a robot. Not completely anyway. Not anymore. But not just good. More like bittersweet.

12. I wouldn't be surprised at all. I think I would be if the situation were reversed.

13. Maybe. I guess anything's possible, but that would really surprise me. I've never seen any potential for those kinds of feelings.

14. I think that would crush me.

15. I think because that would be proof of nothingness.

16. Nope. I was going to, when it first started, but I ran out of time.

17. Because then it was the right thing to do, but now I don't think it would solve any problems. Probably just make more.

18. I used to. Now, I'm not so sure.

19. Easy. Exactly where it started. Nothing more, nothing less.

20. I don't, but I can hope, right?

This has been out for a couple of weeks now, and I've had a pint almost every day, so I guess I can go ahead a put up an official review:

NABC Noble Smoker

(draft) A very worthy successor to Cone Smoker. Less bite to the smoke, and much more consistent from glass to glass. Easily one of my all-time favorites.

Of course, it will be going away soon, and with the NABC brewer position up in the air I don't even know if I can count on it coming back. That's why I haven't been drinking anything else at Rich O's lately.

Okay, I'm back from my Portland trip.

It was, as I'd expected, a very nice diversion, and a welcome respite from the suprisaphobia I've been experiencing back home. Not once, over the entire weekend, did I find myself jerking my head up to see who had just entered whatever room I occupied.

The first thing I noticed about Portland was all the snow on the ground. I know they had a pretty substantial storm a couple of weeks ago, but I guess I wasn't expecting there to be between one and two feet covering all of the grassy areas. The photo above is of a snowdrift next to the ramp leading to the rental car desks.

The weather was beautiful - not a cloud in the sky - for the entire time I was there. It was a little chilly - in the high 40s - during the day but there was not much wind so it was quite nice. Above is my first view of the Atlantic Ocean in several years. I was standing in about a foot of snow when I took this picture. Weird.

Also weird was that all of the dry rocks near the water were just covered with buzzing flies. It was like something out of The Amityville Horror.

There's just something about the ocean that's always fascinated me. I imagine how the biggest swimming pool, pond, or lake, that I've ever seen would be completely swallowed up by this expanse of water. I imagine how the waves crashing against the rocks could have started halfway around the world. It's just neat. The relative proximity to the ocean is one of the reasons I chose Seattle over Colorado Springs back in 1992 when I was deciding where to move.

All of these waterfront pictures were taken at a park called Fort Williams or some such. There were a dozen or so of these old structures scattered about. I actually took a lot more pictures but my camera's batteries had given out so they're all dark. I spend about four hours on Friday just exploring the old buildings at this park.

On Friday night I went to The Great Lost Bear, the bar I've heard the most praise about in Portland. I guess I liked it okay. The beer selection was very good, and the layout was something I could see working with a place like Rich O's. I guess my only complaints about the place would be (a) the lack of parking, (b) the crowd, and (c) the food. The latter was greasy and cold - not at all what I was expecting when I ordered seafood in Portland Maine. I guess I should have gone to a real restaurant instead of a bar for dinner.

Anyway, the picture above is of about half of the beer taps at the place. There is another row around that corner to the left.

They had a board up which listed, in order, the best-selling drafts for the previous month. I thought that was a pretty cool idea.

My first beer of the night was a Harpoon Winter Warmer. More on that later. Next I had a sampler tray consisting of five 5oz beers. I took notes on each one:

Sunday River Alt

A decent, but not great, alt beer. Balance favored the hoppy side, especially in the aftertaste. Looked and smelled great, but the taste was a little disappointing.

Allagash Double Ale

Yes, Virginia, there is indeed such a thing as too much malt. This beer just needed something to balance it out. I don't know what it needed. It had nothing but malt. Seven different kinds according to the web page.

Atlantic Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale

I had high hopes for this one. Blueberry flavor in a beer would definitely be something new and unusual for me. This actually ended up being my least favorite beer of the weekend. It tasted to me like an IPA. If there was any berry component to the flavor it was too subtle for me to detect it behind all the damn hops.

Harpoon Smokey Porter

I told the drunk next to me (he had asked) that I predicted that this would be my favorite beer of the night. I was wrong. The smoke was reminiscent of bacon, or perhaps beef jerky. Probably the only smoked beer that I've ever had that I didn't like.

Gritty's Scottish Ale

Creamy and malty. Very good, and I ended up having a second one. The best lacing I've seen in a long time.

My last beer of the night was another Harpoon Winter Warmer. More on that later. Took a cab back to the hotel but I probably didn't need to.

On Saturday, after getting completely lost about a dozen times trying to get to the "Old Port" tourist area of Portland, I gave up and headed West instead. My plan was to drive through New Hampshire and into Vermont. The thing I found out is that even though these states are pretty close geographically to Portland, you just can't get anywhere very quickly. I ended up turning around after about five hours, only having made it into New Hampshire. Vermont will have to wait until another day.

Once back in Portland, having spent a fruitless hour or so trying to find another bar for Saturday night, I just gave up. The streets in Portland are, I believe, nothing more than paved cow paths from the 1500s. They wind around, merging and splitting, changing direction often. It was difficult to go more than a few blocks without getting lost.

So I ended up back at The Great Lost Bear for Saturday night.

I had another sampler tray, this time with only three beers:

Smuttynose Robust Porter

With a name like Smuttynose, it has to be good, right? Right. A very strong chocolate aroma and flavor. Like the NABC Haggisdaddy Stout it reminded me of, this would probably be good poured over ice cream

Sheepscot Valley Bold Coast Pemaquid Ale

Thick but fairly mild. Not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. I got a little coffee flavor and a little butterscotch. No aftertaste at all.

Geary's Hampshire Special Ale

Smelled and tasted like an Alt, even though it's supposed to be an English Stong Ale. The only non-Altish characteristic was that the aftertaste was quite bitter - too bitter for my tastes.

So that was the end of my experimenting. I went back to the one truly great beer that I'd encountered. The beer that I found myself calling CoffeeDude about. The beer that actually made the trip worthwhile.

Harpoon Winter Warmer

The web page says cinnamon and nutmeg. I got none of that. What I got was ambrosia. The most unusual beer I've ever had, and it took me a while to pin down what I was experiencing. Copper colored, good lacing, and an actual flower aroma. The flavor was incredibly indescribable, but I'll try anyway. Take a beautiful woman, have her bathe in lilacs and Mr. Bubble. Now perform oral sex on her. That's how good this beer was.

If my work schedule and my vacation pool would have allowed it, I would have extended my stay in Portland just to keep drinking this beer. Hell, I'm already trying to figure out when I can go back next year, when it will be available again. It's brewed in Boston so maybe that city will be my Easter trip next year. I called CoffeeDude Saturday night and asked him to have Harpoon Winter Warmer written on the board at Rich O's for Roger to see.

Anyway, Saturday night there was this girl sitting by herself at the other end of the bar. I heard HotBartender ask her what was wrong, saying she seemed to be in a bad mood. The girl, who I will call MaineGirl, told HotBartender that she was just fine, and that she didn't know why everyone always thinks she's a grouch.

So this girl is apparently my female counterpart in Maine. I ended up talking with her for several hours while we compared tales about how everyone thinks we're so anti-social. MaineGirl, and of course DrunkGuy from Friday night, were the only people I had any actual conversations with all weekend. MaineGirl reminded me of TrainGirl (who is from Maine so I guess that kind of makes sense) and, like TrainGirl, she had no problem at all having a long conversation with someone she'd just met in a bar.

I went back to the hotel at around midnight, slept fairly well, and arrived back home (pouring down rain in Louisville - surprise - not) at about 3:00. VigilanteGirl was in one of her moods, so that made it official. I was back.

The guess the main question (or the Maine question, ha ha) I had before going on this trip was: Would I be able to enjoy my own company without constantly thinking about missing my friends and my established routines? I'd have to say that I did enjoy myself immensely. I think that anytime you return from a trip and wish that you'd had more time that's a pretty good indicator that you enjoyed yourself. I could have spent several more days in Portland.

I will go back again someday.

Leaving for Maine now.

Not taking my laptop, so there will be no updates until I return.

Bye.

Spent tonight balancing my checking account in preparation for my Maine trip.

I really need to do it more often. The last time I even bothered was in December, so I had three bank statements and three months of debit card receipts to go through.

Back in my poorer days, I'd live payday to payday, and keeping track of my account was an absolute necessity. These days I know I'm not going to bounce anything so I get lazy.

NotGeorge called me tonight to tell me how exciting it was at Rich O's. I had a hard time caring. I've had a hard time caring about a lot of stuff lately.

I am fairly excited about my trip though. This weekend will not just be a break from my normal life here in Indiana, it will also be a test. A test to see if I can enjoy my own company again.

I have my doubts, but I've been wrong before.

Oh, yeah. I fucking slept for a whopping 2 hours last night.

One of my neighbors mowed his fucking lawn today.

Well, not really his lawn I guess, more like his pasture, but it's still too damn early to be doing that shit.

This is one of the few things about Spring that I dread. Mowing my lawn and the requisite weedeating that follows.

When I get rich again, I'll pay somebody to do this for me.

I guess I've been using the wrong word to describe my state.

The word I was using was paranoia. It just doesn't fit. I don't think people are conspiring against me.

Some alternatives I considered were nervousness and anxiousness. Those words don't quite fit either. They, to me at least, imply that there is something specific to be nervous or anxious about. An actor, for example, may get nervous before a performance.

Another contender was jumpy, but that seems to imply a vulnerability to a very broad range of occurrences, mostly resulting in a negative reaction.

I began to suspect that the word to describe me doesn't exist. Tonight I asked a friend of mine from Rich O's, who is a mental health professional, if he could think of anything that would properly label me. Besides asshole. Ha ha.

He couldn't think of a good diagnosis on the phone, but he promised to look into it further and let me know.

For now, lacking a better term, I'm going to go with surprisaphobia.

A bartender asked me today if I'd been in Monday night. I answered "No" but I was thinking "Why? What did I miss? What happened? Why are you asking? Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Tonight, NotGeorge calls me out of the blue to see if I'm going to Rich O's. I never go to Rich O's when I have to work the next day, but I'm thinking "He's never called me before. What's going on that he's trying to get me to come down there for? What would I find there if I went? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Surprisaphobic definitely describes my mood as I drove to the bar. I just wanted to get whatever it was over with. I didn't want to have to wait another night to find out what it was.

It was nothing.

There was nothing unusual about the night at all.

So now I feel silly, but at least I've got a new term to describe myself.

Surprisaphobia: The fear of being surprised.

So I've had to completely rebuild my 'blog database.

Unfortuately all of the entry IDs got renumbered.

This means that none of the favorites, and none of the links from one entry to another, will work correctly until I get it all sorted out.

Sucks to be me.

(Update: Problem fixed. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. Search sites that have the old entry IDs cached will get caught up eventually I guess.)

Last Friday this guy at work, who meant no harm at all, stood behind me hacking and coughing while I worked.

He ended up taking the last part of Friday off. I ended up taking all of today off.

I'd say that makes me the winner.

Spent the entire day sleeping on the couch, with all three cats holding a death vigil around me. My dreams were fever-borne and interesting.

The best one involved a classic science fiction theme - time travel. In this particular dream, I was transported back to 1972 where I found myself inhabiting my own 7 year old body.

What I found myself trying to do, without being thrown into the looney bin, was convince my dad of what had happened. Convince him that the pure and innocent son he'd known up until that day had been replaced by a soul much older and more experienced than he was at the time. Shit, Dad was only 31 in 1972.

I didn't have much luck. I repeatedly asked my dad for ideas on how I could prove myself to him. He was an avid reader, so he was at least a little open to the idea, but all he could think of was having me tell him about something that would happen in the future.

I just couldn't think of anything that would be happening soon enough to keep me out of a straight jacket. I knew that Nixon would resign in a couple more years, and I knew that the Reds would win back-to-back World Series championships in '75 and '76, but I needed something sooner.

In 1972 I was a little kid, and even today I can't remember much about what was happening in the world in those days. At least with any kind of detail.

Eventually, because I'd failed to convince him, my dad had no choice but to take me to the looney bin. It was in this old school building in the woods behind my house, and I remember thinking it was pretty odd that I'd never noticed it there before.

(Now is where the dream got strange)

I overheard my shrink talking about my case with some girl. The girl was assuring the doctor that I'd be much better off under her care than I'd be with all the crazies. The girl said fuck a lot - like every other word. The doctor agreed with the girl and told her that she could have custody of me.

She was just the cutest little thing. Maybe five or six, with brown hair and glasses. I suddenly realized (in my dream) that this was the girl that had started my preference for those attributes back when I was a little kid. Never mind that this made no sense because I'd certainly not been institutionalized and ran into this girl the first time I was in 1972.

This girl started walking towards me, smiling. I was just so happy to be getting out of the nuthouse. I was even happier to be leaving with the girl. I knew that all of my life's questions would be answered by this girl whose eyes sparkled even behind her glasses.

She got to me and told me her name.

I knew this girl! Never mind that she wasn't even alive, let alone five or six years old, in 1972. It was her!

She told me that bringing me to 1972 was the only way I could really start over. The only way we could start over.

I told her that was all I wanted. I leaned in to give her a hug for rescuing me. From the looney bin, and from everything else.

You can feel emotions in dreams, and this was a big dramatic moment. The kind of thing they make epic movies about.

My arms closed on emptiness, and I woke up.

I just added a new category for my 'blog entries.

The pictures category can be accessed via the 'blog search form, or if you're lazy you can just click here.

I've also had to make some changes to the underlying software to handle multiple category assignments. I think it's all working correctly, but bugs do have a way of appearing. If you notice anything broken just let me know.

My next (related) task is to go back through all of my old entries and assign multiple categories where needed.

I think I'll also add some more categories. Here are some that come to mind:

• daily
• ramblings
• sanity
• memories

There will probably be more that reveal themselves as I peruse my old entries.