As I’ve mentioned far too much in the past month or so, I have moved to Lafayette from Monticello. One of the great advantages of this move is access to liquor stores with a better beer selection. In Monticello, it was difficult to get anything much more exotic than Guinness. But, you give me an inch, and I want a foot. So now, rather than an adequate beer selection, I’m looking for the liquor store with the widest beer selection in the Lafayette area. Any suggestions?

This evening I went to the Village Bottle Shoppe on Northwestern & Lindberg Road in West Lafayette. It wasn’t bad, but really what I have in mind is something like the Big Red Liquors on Walnut Avenue in Bloomington. Back when I was in law school at IU, they had several long rows of six-packs stored warm and about half of that in the refrigerators. (According to Indianabeer.com, I should’ve gone to the Village Bottle Shoppe on Sagamore Parkway. Guess I’ll try that next.)

In case anybody was wondering, this evening I picked up a 6-pack of Robert the Bruce Scottish Ale from Three Floyds Brewing out of Munster, Indiana which was very tasty. I also picked up a 6-pack of Belle Gunness Stout from the Backroad Brewery out of LaPorte, Indiana. I haven’t had a chance to taste it yet.

The posting has been slow lately and will likely be very slow for the next week or two as we move to a new house. Just in case anyone was wondering.

I’ve been a pretty active critic of the frequently spouted notion that government can’t do anything right. That criticism may diminish a bit after my latest trip to the post office.

So, it’s Saturday night, and Amy mentions that she needs 50 post card stamps to notify folks of our impending move and is thinking about heading to the post office to see if the stamp vending machines sell them. I tell her I’m in need of some beer anyway and that I’ll swing by the post office
on the way. I head out, get a 6-pack of Guinness, and head into the post office. We’re in luck, they sell the post card stamps out of the machine. $2.40 per 10-pack of stamps, and I have $18 in my wallet. I throw a $10 bill in the machine. The stupid thing doesn’t let you choose multiple packs. So I shrug, type in “D-1,” and it spits out my 10-pack of 24 cent stamps along with ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, 7 of those dollar coins nobody ever uses.

No big deal, I’m just going to feed them back into the machine to get more stamps. But, as it turns out, the &$*#(&% machine doesn’t take dollar coins. The United States Post Office machine gives you change in a currency it will not accept itself. Just one of those little nuisances designed to raise your blood pressure a little bit. I’m just glad I was on a beer run at the time. 

Just wanted to point out that I think my daughter is very cute, and she’s rapidly moving from baby to toddler status.

I’ve been outed by my wife.

I posted this over at our family blog, but it amused me so much, I thought I’d go ahead and cross-post. Cole is my 2.5 year old son:

We had a beautiful evening – nice breeze, sun starting to set, 70 degrees. Cole and I were kicking back, winding down after a long day. He was in his toy car. I was next to him, sitting under a tree staring out over the cornfield to the south of my yard.

He looked curiously at the bottle of Negra Modelo I was holding. “That’s beer,” I told him.

“That’s beer,” he repeated, testing out the new word. He paused for a bit, thinking. “Looks delicious!” he decides.

Yes, son. Yes it is. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him use the word “delicious” before. I had to explain that it’s a “Daddy” drink.

I’m currently on vacation visiting my folks for the Easter weekend. So, if my posting is a little light, that’s why. I didn’t even make it to a computer yesterday — road weary after 12 hours of traveling with small children. My plan had been to drive through the night, but my 2 year old woke up and then started crying for a couple of hours, leading in turn to tears from my 8 month old, then my wife. In short, I had a mutiny on my hands. At first, my inclination was to go all Captain Bly with the situation. But, eventually, I relented and we got a hotel room at 4 a.m. This was the first time my 2 year old had slept in a bed. So, he was wired from the road and he kept leaning over on top of me saying stuff like “that’s a mirror Dad. A mirror Dad. A mirror. Look a mirror” until I acknowledged his observation. It didn’t help that I kept busting out laughing at the situation which made him laugh and encouraged him. But eventually we got some sleep and then made it the final two hours to our destination. But, I digress.

Amy took this picture of Cole the other day. Just a little reminder that I probably don’t *need* to do that last thing at the office after 5:00 rolls around. Soon enough the boy probably won’t be all that interested in me. I ought to enjoy it while I can.