In early 2013, I signed up for Untappd and rated my first beer in the app: Fat Tire. Since then, I’ve rode the wave of the growing craft beer scene and continued to sample new beers whenever I have the chance. Recently, I tried my 1000th different beer, so I thought I’d share some thoughts and stats from my tour de beer.
Other than the first year when I was just getting into this, I average about one new beer every three days. 2019 was more like 2 every three days as I got closer and closer to the 1000 mark.
December is the month when I try the most new beers which makes sense because I have family members who enjoy craft beer too so we regularly bring new beer to family gatherings.
Dad jumped on the app early on and then Luke joined too. Logan joined later but he’s off to a good start. (Many other friends and family members have joined as well but this chart just shows the top users that I know.)
Ben (blue), Luke (purple), Dad (red), Logan (green)
Untappd has added more and more stops along their scoring slider but I stick to the whole numbers. I devote three values to fairly good beers and only two to the beers I don’t like as much.
5. Excellent beer. Search this out! 4. Great beer. Pick this anytime without regret. 3. Good beer. I would pay money to drink this. 2. Meh. If you hand me this, I’ll drink it but I won’t pay money for it. 1. If you had me this beer, I’ll decline. 0. Gross. I’ll pour this out.
Only a few beers have ever gotten a 0. One is Bud Light Lime and another is some disgusting jalapeno beer that I had at the beer festival. I couldn’t even get through my taster of it.
Overall my ratings follow a pretty normal distribution, skewed slightly toward the higher end which makes sense because I generally drink beers that I think I’ll like.
I started off enjoying mostly ambers and ESBs, but I’ve developed a strong taste for IPAs. Those dominate my fridge these days with New England style IPAs being my absolute favorite. Here is a breakdown of the different styles of beer (where I’ve had at least 10 of them) and the average rating for each one. Inside each category, I generally find both a 1 and a 5. It’s possible to make any style terrible or great.
Style
Count
Average Rating
IPA
546
3.46
Extra Special
12
3.42
Blonde Ale
17
3.29
Pale Ale
105
3.27
Pale Wheat Ale
14
2.98
Pilsner
32
2.91
Red Ale
48
2.78
Lager
57
2.19
Stout
13
2.15
My average ratings have increased slightly over the years as I hone in more on the types that I enjoy.
Some people seem a bit skeptical when I rate a beer but countless times I’ve rated a beer and then looked it up to find that I’ve already had the beer… and I gave it the same rating years earlier. The first 100 ratings might be a little wonky as I figured it out, but since then I think I’ve been very consistent.
Finally, let’s look at my favorite and least favorite breweries. For this list I filtered to places where I’ve tried at least 5 different beers. Kevin has the well-deserved top spot!
Brewery
Average Rating
Count
GBC – The Good Brewing Company
4.34
37
Full Sail Brewing Company
3.88
8
Sumerian Brewing Co.
3.75
8
Firestone Walker Brewing Company
3.71
13
Hop Valley Brewing Company
3.64
11
Georgetown Brewing Company
3.57
7
10 Barrel Brewing Company
3.50
19
Lagunitas Brewing Company
3.50
10
Founders Brewing Co.
3.50
8
Fish Brewing Company
3.50
6
And here are the breweries that consistently make beer that I don’t like:
Brewery
Average Rating
Count
Pyramid Breweries
2.42
12
Elysian Brewing
2.18
11
BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse
2.14
7
Blue Moon Brewing Company
2.08
6
Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams)
2.05
25
This has been an unexpectedly fun hobby. I keep saying that once I get to X different beers, I’m going to stop and just start ordering the ones I love. Maybe I’ll slow down a bit but I really enjoy trying new beers. Cheers!
Thanks to everyone who pitched in for my Christmas present this year: a Mavic Mini! Some of you may remember that I built my own quadcopter back in 2015 and while it worked well, I didn’t use it a ton and ended up selling it.
Fast forward to 202 and a few things have changed. Technology has improved dramatically and now you can fly 4k cameras around with high quality image stabilization with GPS signals feeding a bunch of automated flight algorithms. Also, I’ve given up on “quadcopter”. Fine. “Drone”. Whatever.
DJI makes a lot of very high end drones and the Mavic Mini is one of their entry level models. It was getting enough good reviews that I jumped in and went for it without doing a ton of research into the competing brands. Also, since this drone is only 249 grams, it’s on gram under the point where lots of additional FAA laws apply so you can skip some things like registering the drone.
I bought the “Fly More” kit which comes with some extra batteries, a carrying case, extra propellers and a few other things. I highly recommend it because while the batteries give you ~25-30 minutes of flight time, it’s pretty easy to burn through one before I’m ready to be done flying.
I saw a bunch of review videos online before I got mine, but actually witnessing it in person was still surprising. The video while it’s flying is rock solid. It’s like a tripod in the sky whether you’re hovering at 2 feet or 400 feet. (The drone will go up to 1600 ft by the FAA limits you to 400.)
There’s a remote that communicates with the drone but then my phone plugs in to give me a live view from the camera and adjust settings. Flying it is pretty simple as there are a lot of computers on board helping to hold you in the same spot when you let off the sticks and the gimble on the camera does a great job of removing vibrations or even large changes in direction.
I’m exited about the small size of the drone. I can easily fit the drone, batteries and remote into my hiking backpack so as long as I’m not violating any laws, I look forward to taking this on hikes. I should also be able to travel with it pretty easily so I can take it to Indiana and fly around home, fulfilling some childhood dreams of seeing my house from the sky.
The video from the camera is 2.7k at 40Mbps so the image is beautiful. It’s not a full 4k but it’s better than any monitor I own can display.
I put together a quick video from my first time flying it down at the school by our house. Prepare for gratuitous use of the drone in upcoming videos.
My recent trip to Israel was not my first time off of the continent but it was my first time on a continent other than North America. (I’ve been to Hawaii which is not on any continent. Also, continents are weird and somewhere ambiguous.) I’ve sort of been out of the country if you count driving into Canada or stepping off a cruise ship in the Caribbean, but I felt like this was my first legit trip to another country and it’s one of the reasons I signed up for it.
I now have a much better appreciation for people who make long trips like this. It’s a 10 hour difference and I’ve never experienced jet lag like that before. I work with so many people from other countries and it’s amazing that they do this frequently. I’d say that coming back home (west) was easier than going there but both ways had a pretty big impact.
Sunset at the beach in Herzliya
The most common question I get about the trip is whether or not I felt safe. That’s always a hot area of the world, and while this is a relatively peaceful period in its history, President Trump’s peace plan was still shaking things up a bit. Since I knew very little about what it was actually going to be like, I took advantage of a variety of tools. My company has a team devoted to keeping employees safe abroad so I had an app on my phone that gave me alerts from them. I also signed up for alerts from the US State Department. And finally I installed an Israeli app which gives you a notification if there’s a missile launch. We were staying all the way on the west side of the country in Herzliya so that warning would give me about 90 seconds to get to a safe zone. Upon arrival, the only recommendations were to stay out of the West Bank. Towards the end of our trip, they also recommended that we stay out of Jerusalem, but thankfully we had done that tour at the beginning of our trip instead of the end.
Speaking of getting to a safe zone, the office buildings had a steel column in running up the middle and that space was generally used for conference rooms, but it doubled as an area that should be able to withstand a missile attack. In the back of the room there was a ladder that went all the way down to the ground floor. It’s sad that it’s necessary but it was comforting to know it was there.
All that being said, I felt safer walking around in Israel than I do in Seattle. Maybe it was naivety, but people were generally friendly or at least ambivalent. Granted we were staying in a high tech, wealthier area of the country, but even walking around Jerusalem felt pretty safe. Walking around Seattle, I’m always on the lookout for someone who’s a little too desperate for their next drug hit or in need of medication to keep them stable, but there was none of that in Israel. I was all ready to come back and say that I never saw a homeless person in Israel but on the very last morning I spotted one guy sleeping on the street.
Security in the other airports felt much more useful and effective than in the US. Tel Aviv was very impressive. When we flew in from Paris, they made an announcement that within X miles of the airport, nobody was allowed to get out of their seat and the window shades needed to be up. Somebody did try to get up and boy did that get stopped quickly.
Flying out of Tel Aviv was even more impressive. Driving into the airport, everyone stops at a security checkpoint where they take a look inside your car and decide if you need additional inspection. Then before you can even get to the security area, they check your passport and boarding pass. And it’s not just a cursory glance. I had more of a beard than I do in my passport photo and he looked back and forth between my passport and me at least five times. He also took both of our passports and disappeared for a few minutes. I still don’t know what that was about. Then you get to the actual security screening. You don’t just put your bags on the conveyer belt and pull the toothpaste out of your bag. You set your bag on a table and unzip everything. They probably spent 2 minutes per person going through everything and touching everything in the bags with the residue detector. Then there’s the conveyer belt and metal detector plus another check with the residue detector on your shoes. But that’s not all. When you are boarding the plane, they check your bags all over again and scan your passport again. Upon takeoff, the same rules about staying seated applied. Again, it’s sad that it’s necessary, but they do it right. It felt like everyone in security there was doing it because they believed that they were protecting their home and their country as well as the people on the plane. Walking through JFK felt like people were counting the minutes until they were done with their shift and maybe trying to avoid getting a slap on the wrist if they missed something.
Sabich
Another common question is about the food. We ate breakfast in the hotel every morning and boy do the Israelis take breakfast seriously! I’ve never seen a spread like that or as many different kinds of foods available. We had some good lunches and dinners too. Some of my favorites were Greco and Zozobra, but my favorite was a local place that a couple guys from work took us too called הסביח של עובד. I never would have successfully ordered without their help but my traditional Israeli sabich was great.
As for beer, I tried most of the common brands and even did a sampler at a brewery, but it was… not good. I don’t know if our tastes are that different or if they just don’t have good beer, but of the 10 or so different kinds that I tried, there weren’t any that I wanted to have again.
So all in all, it was a good trip. I’m very thankful for the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and experience another culture, even if only for a week.
I spend a lot of my time at work collaborating with a team located in Israel. So when the opportunity arose to have the company send me over there for a week, I did the opposite of what I normally do for travel opportunities: I said yes.
There’s a 10 hour difference between home and Israel, so when we finally got to the hotel on Friday evening (local time) about 25 hours after leaving home, I didn’t really want to do much more than lay around for a day and recover. My co-worker convinced me that we should get outside to help get adjusted to the new timezone so we signed up for a tour of Jerusalem. There are a lot of things to see in Israel, but as a Christian, seeing Jerusalem and the surrounding area is pretty high on my list.
We’re staying at a nice hotel so we basically just asked the concierge what she recommended and asked her to sign us up for it. A bus picked us up from our hotel in Herzliya around 7am and after stopping at a couple other hotels and meeting up with some other groups, our group of around 40 people was on a bus headed from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That’s about a one hour drive and we stopped along the way at a rest area for coffee and a bathroom break. (The rest area was Elvis themed. This is not a joke.)
We had a great tour guide, and along the way, he filled us in on a lot of useful local customs information (you generally pay to use bathrooms, always tip 10% or risk being chased into the street, etc). We learned about local agriculture (olives and grapes), why Israeli wine is better than Italian wine (drink too much Italian wine you get drunk, too much Israeli wine and you’re holy), and generally enjoyed seeing the terrain. I’m probably showing my ignorance here, but it was so much greener than I expected. The guide said that Israeli’s plant a tree every time a baby is born and that they are the only country who entered this century with more trees than the start of the previous one. that seems hard to prove but it’s hard to deny that they’re basically terraforming their country.
Our first stop was at a vantage point near Hebrew University northeast of the city [map]. I was immediately struck by the scale of the area. For example, when I read about Jesus walking from the city to the Mount of Olives, I think of that as a decent sized hike. Nope. It’s down through a valley (the Kidron Valley) and up the other side. If you told me you could run it in a minute I might not bet against you. Or how about the distance from Jerusalem to the Jordan River? It’s less than 20 miles! Most of the Biblical area of Israel would fit between West Seattle and Snoqualmie Pass, Puyallup and Bellingham. It raised some new questions for me such as when Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days and was tempted, why weren’t there other people around him? You could probably have sat on a hill and watched him for most of it. Anyway, from this great vantage point, we could Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho and the tip of the Dead Sea.
View of the city from a hill near Hewbrew UniversityLooking out towards Jericho and the Jordan River
From there we hopped back into the bus and drove to a spot near the bottom of the Kidron Valley looking up at the eastern wall of the city. To the east of us was the Garden of Gethsemane. We spent some time there looking at the ancient olive trees and visiting the Church of All Nations. Olive trees can live well over 1000 years and it’s not impossible (but realistically unlikely) that some of the trees were around when Jesus was there. The church was built most recently in the early 1900s after previous versions had been destroyed but there were still some well-protected sections of the mosaic floor that date back to around 300 AD. There is a rock in the front near the altar that is supposed to be the rock where Jesus prayed before he was betrayed.
From the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley up to the eastern wall of the cityGarden of Gethsemane
At the next stop, we got off the bus and started the walking part of our tour. We entered the city from the west side of the via the Jaffa Gate. My first impression of the city was “Hmm… it’s weird that I’ve never thought about what this place looks like in real life.” Up until that point, the images in my head of Jerusalem were whatever was in various Bible story books. So many civilizations have destroyed and rebuilt the city over the years that it’s hard to know how much of today’s city matches what it looked like in Jesus’s time, but it’s probably not that far off. (The last time the walls were built was in the 1500s by the Ottomans.) The whole city has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times that it’s much higher than before but supposedly many of the holy sites are still in the same spot. The city is currently divided into four quarters for the Christians, Armenians, Muslims and Jews. You can generally flow pretty freely between the quarters.
City wall near Jaffa GateNarrow streets
From Jaffa gate, we wound our way through the narrow streets with limestone buildings rising up on each side. The first major stopping point was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This church is now inside the city walls but during Jesus’s time, it was outside the city and it’s where he was crucified, his body was anointed and where he was buried. There are a lot of things in this church that were supposedly touched by Jesus many people wait in long lines to touch them, make their items holy relics, etc.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Next stop: lunch! Doing that on my own would have felt intimidating but our guide had it all planned out. We ate lunch on the roof of a cafe with a great view of the city and my falafel pita sandwich was good too.
View from our lunch spot
After lunch, we continued our walk down the Via Dolarosa which is the path that Jesus took to his crucifixion. There are 14 stations along the way and we covered the final ones at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Going backwards is not the common way to travel it but it means you get to walk downhill and you also don’t have to follow the crowds of people walking the “proper” way up the path. This was the busiest and most crowded area of our whole tour. We took brief stops at some of the stations but mostly tried to keep moving and keep the group together.
Via Dolorosa
Around station 5 where Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus carry his cross, we broke off the Via Dolarosa and headed into the temple mount area. This is where the temple was and today this is where you find the famous “western wall”. I had been under the impression that this was the last remaining part of Solomon’s temple, but that’s not quite right. The wall we see now was finished around the time of Herod (~4 BCE). It was a retaining wall built around the area where the temple had been and we can only see the top half of the wall. The reason why Jews go to pray here is that the Holy of Holies from the original temple was on the other side of that wall. So this is the closest that we can get to the most holy place of Solomon’s temple. The most famous part of the western wall is in the Jewish quarter but it extends a long way into the Muslim quarter as well. I don’t have a great photo because this was one area where they really didn’t want you using technology on the Sabbath.
Western Wall
From the western wall, we walked along the top of the city wall and exited the city through Zion gate. Our next stop was Mt. Zion where we saw the room where Jesus had the Last Supper with his disciples and David’s tomb. Our guide noted that neither of these locations can be proven by archaeology, but they are likely very close to the correct area of the city.
Last Supper and David’s Tomb
The final part of our tour took us along the outside of the wall and back to our bus near the Jaffa gate. The bus ride back to Tel Aviv took about an hour and then our guide had taxis lined up to take us back to our various hotels.
Exterior wall on the walk back to the bus
Someone in our group said that we covered about 5 miles on foot and I believe it. It was a lot of walking and a long day, but it flew by in a blur. I took a ton of pictures along the way, not necessarily with the intent of capturing great photos (the internet is full of those), but to remember where we had been.
Overall I give this tour two thumbs up. Specifically, this was the “Jerusalem Old and New” full day tour by Ben Harim tours and our guide was Itamar. He did a great job of explaining all the locations while keeping our group together and answering questions along the way. He also stuck to the facts about the realities of having so many faiths together in one location rather than getting into the politics.
Many of the churches and holy sites kind of blended together for me because the appearance of those locations has changed so much since Jesus was there. Plus, it’s hard to know how much of the relics and artifacts are legit and even if they are, they don’t make a difference to my faith. I’m going to heaven because Jesus died for my sins, not because I touched a rock that he touched too. However, seeing the architecture and landscape while understanding the distances and relative locations of sites filled my head with a lot of visuals that I’ll draw on for the rest of my life. I’m so thankful for this opportunity!
Back in 2016, I switched to Chrome. It was so far superior to Internet Explorer or Edge that I couldn’t resist anymore. But for the last few months, I’ve switched completely to the new Edge browser on desktop and mobile.
If you haven’t heard, the Edge browser has been completely rewritten on top of the same rendering engine that the Chrome browser uses. So if it’s Chrome underneath, why switch? Two reasons: 1) Since Microsoft already owns me, I’m more comfortable with them having access to my browsing information than Google. 2) SPEEEED. Chrome is no slouch but it has gotten a bit bloated and the new Edge browser is sleek and fast. I especially notice it in pages that run lots of Javascript.
Switching was relatively painless, but the one thing that still annoys me is that Edge can’t sync my extensions across various installations of the browser. So when I add a new extension, I have to add it to all of my machines individually. The feature is coming, but it does annoy me regularly.
So if you’re interested in trying a different browser, I give the new Edge browser two thumbs up. You can download it for free here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge
It felt like the Seahawks played a pretty solid game in Philadelphia and they were almost certainly helped out by in-game injuries to key Eagles players. Next week they’ll have an even tougher opponent in Lambeau, but according to the projections, neither of those teams have a great shot at beating the 49ers. Over in the AFC it’s looking like the Ravens will be Super Bowl bound, but it’s the NFL and anything can happen… unless it really is all rigged in which case only the scripted story can happen.
I looked through the stats from this year and found it interesting that Tim dominated the league while only making about a half does changes to his team! I made a lot more transactions (2nd most behind Logan) and got the most points in the league from my signings after the daft:
Tim had 2027.1 points from his draft team
Ben got 856.51 from post draft acquisitions
After dominating the league last year, Mahomes was solid again this year with 339.04 points but Lamar Jackson crushed everyone with 487.68 which is a whopping 74.48 more than second place! However, that second place scorer is Christian McCaffrey and it’s rare that we get anything other than a QB in our top spots. To find the next non-QB, you have to go down to Michael Thomas in 15th with 300.10 points. You can find the full list here.
Here is wall of glory for our league. Congratulations to Tim for not only taking his first victory, but making his first appearance in the top 3 since 2014 when he finished 3rd. And honorable mention goes to Tyler who has been in the championship game both years in the league!
1st Place
2nd Place
3rd Place
2019
Beer-me
Krazy Kanuck
Goat Ropers
2018
RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!
Krazy Kanuck
Goat Ropers
2017
Goat Ropers
Kool Aid Kid
Helmetheads
2016
Goat Ropers
cmdLime
RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!
2015
cmdLime
Goat Ropers
Kool Aid Kid
2014
cmdLime
TheMountains
Beer-me
2013
Goat Ropers
RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!
EndOverEnd
2012
Kool Aid Kid
Goat Ropers
RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!
2011
RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!
We Like Sportz
Kool Aid Kid
2010
Helmetheads
The Shockers
Kool Aid Kid
2009
Helmetheads
End Over End
iSetty
2008
Kool Aid Kid
Timoteo
The Mountains
2007
The Mountains
Kool Aid Kid
Helmetheads
And finally, I pulled the full finishing order for every year and calculated some stats for each manager. It’s a little goofy with some people who joined the league for a year or two and left but I’ll leave them in there.
Seasons
Win %
Avg Rank
Worst Rank
Best Rank
Playoff %
Micah
1
0.86
2.00
2
2
1.00
Logan
10
0.61
3.30
7
1
0.70
Tyler
2
0.61
2.00
2
2
1.00
Ben
13
0.59
3.46
8
1
0.85
Ryan
1
0.57
8.00
8
8
0.00
Austin
6
0.54
3.83
8
1
0.67
Tim
13
0.51
4.62
8
1
0.54
Andy
12
0.49
4.33
7
1
0.42
Luke
13
0.49
4.77
9
1
0.46
Dad
13
0.45
5.54
8
2
0.38
Jim
11
0.41
4.91
8
1
0.36
Nick
2
0.39
5.00
5
5
0.00
Ed
3
0.34
6.67
8
5
0.33
Kyle
4
0.32
6.75
10
3
0.25
I hope to see you all back next year! But if you want out, please let me know as soon as you can because I’ll want to find a replacement.
This year we made the trek back to my parents house in Indiana for Christmas. While we didn’t get to enjoy sledding and playing the snow, we did enjoy easier travel with unusually warm weather.
We had a nice time playing lots of games, doing a puzzle, taking walks through the woods, hunting for golf balls on the golf course, lunch at the Studebaker brewery, buying treats at the South Bend Chocolate company, canoeing and taking a tour of the Oliver mansion with my grade school teacher.
As always, my parents deserve a huge thank you for putting up with six extra people in their house. They always make us feel welcome … and full. Yum!
I feel like I start these off every year by talking about how fast the year went. I still think back to those days in my early 20s when I lived alone and would actually get bored sometimes on the weekends. I can’t remember the last time I was bored. There’s a never ending list to keep me going.
However, since I realize that going full speed all the time isn’t great, I have made a conscious effort to spend more time sitting at the piano every day. Not only is it learning a skill but it’s very relaxing and enjoyable. I’m so thankful that back in 2007, I bought a digital piano (Korg C303) instead of an acoustic one. While it’s not a perfect replacement, there’s no way I could have played so much this year without the ability to plug in headphones. My biggest accomplishment on the piano was learning how to play the first movement of Bach’s Italian Concerto. It was far from concert perfection, but given how far out of my reach it was, I was happy to get it polished to the point that I did.
Elijah started taking lessons too. A piano teacher comes to his school and pull kids out of class for 30 minutes each week for a private lesson. It’s extremely convenient and Elijah is really taking to it well. As with most kids, it’s still difficult to get him to practice every day, but I think he’s having more fun now that he sees the results and can play a few Christmas songs. For his first recital he played Away in the Manger and it went great. I’ll play it with him as a duet in church on Sunday as well.
If you had asked me a year and a half ago where Elijah was going to first grade, I would have said Woodmoor. It’s less than a half mile walk for the two schools that Elijah would use through 7th grade. The proximity to the schools was one of the factors in us buying this house. It’s incredibly convenient and most of our neighbors go there. But… last fall on the marriage retreat, a Pastor suggested that we check out the Missouri synod school up in Lake Stevens. I didn’t even realize there was one and that’s probably because it’s a solid 30-40 minute drive from our house. Elijah repeatedly told us “I want to go to a school where they teach me about Jesus.” After visiting the school and praying a lot about it, we decided to give it a try, and we sure are glad we did! The drive has been even harder than we thought it would be but Tyla is doing a wonderful job with that. She’s also able to volunteer at the school with things like art class, field trips and class parties. So even though we’re probably the family who lives the farthest away, we are feeling like we’re getting connected with their community.
This was the first year that Elijah really started playing organized sports. I thought I’d sign him up for tee ball and was surprised to find out that I had missed that by two years! He went straight into the machine-pitch baseball league. As one of the youngest players on the team, it was a struggle for him to figure out hitting and stay focused, but he loved seeing his teammates regularly and forming a bond with them. He decided he wanted to try it again this year so we’ll see how season #2 goes. This fall he has been in a basketball league too. It’s a fantastic program that is run like a basketball camp that meets once a week in the evenings for 1.5 hours. So the time commitment is much lower than baseball, but he’s constantly learning instead of sitting around during a game wondering if he’ll get the ball or get off the bench. I wish we could find a program like that for every sport that he likes!
Work has been busy for me but also rewarding. There are two patent applications sitting at the patent office right now with my name on them. I met with a lawyer and drew up a patent this spring and then in the fall I was added to the list of names on a patent for a project that I worked on a couple years ago. It will be fun to see if either of those get accepted in a few years.
Tyla and I both lost a grandparent this year. Tyla’s grandma on her mom’s side and my grandma on my dad’s side both passed away. We were thankful that both had a strong faith in Jesus as their Savior so we know we’ll see them in heaven, and we were also thankful that we were able to travel (alone) for the funerals. We were each able to catch up with our respective families.
We took a long summer vacation this year that started all the way out in Maine with a return to Camp Ticawa! We are so thankful to the Abendroths for letting us invade their family time and making us feel so welcome. Elijah fit right in with all the kids and we had a wonderful time. After spending about a week there, we flew to Indiana for a week with my family. So we went from spending lots of time in the lake to spending lots of time in the pool! This trip was extra special as we flew Don out to spend a few days with us as a retirement present for him.
I feel like I haven’t done as many woodworking projects this year, but it’s still a good-sized list: custom thermostat plate, Washington ornaments, mobile strawberry tower, Ticawa sign, loft for Elijah’s bed, Modern Rogue sign, name puzzle, and spaceship. I purchased a CNC machine right around the end of last year and I got a lot more comfortable with it over the year. I have a never-ending list of ideas that i want to try on that machine! Right now I’m working on my hardest project yet which is a dresser out of walnut and cherry. The plans come from Marc Spanguolo in the Wood Whisperer Guild. The plans come with hours of detailed videos showing every step so I’m just plodding along and learning a lot of new woodworking skills. It feels kind of similar to learning that Bach piece on the piano in that this is way over my head but I think if I just keep at it, I’ll be proud of it in the end.
After being the trustee (property maintenance) at church for 7 of the previous 8 years, this year I switched to being an elder. My responsibilities are assisting Pastor with his duties and ensuring that he stays true to the teachings of God’s Word. In addition to the regular monthly council meetings, Pastor has been meeting with the elders twice a month to study through the Grace Abounds book by Daniel Deutschlander. If you already share my faith or if you’re curious to learn more about it, you’d be hard pressed to find a more thorough and pleasant to read explanation than this book.
The final thing I’ll mention from this year is that you may have noticed a decreased presence from me on this site and on social media. I’m getting more and more “itchy” when I think about all the information that our family puts out in the internet. So I made quite a few changes:
I unfollowed literally everyone on Facebook (unfollowed, not unfriended.) I no longer feel the urge to check Facebook 5 times a day to see if there is anything new there. When I want to see what someone is up to, I type in their name and go look at their page.
I deleted almost all of my comments, likes, photos and posts from Facebook. It would probably have been easier to delete my account but I still find it useful for messaging and events.
I’ve been archiving many of my old Instagram posts. That’s a slow process because it’s very manual. The Facebook change was faster because there are some plugins for Chrome that help automate it.
I flipped my Instagram account to private and dropped the random followers that I don’t know. My woodworking account is still public though.
I post a lot less to Instagram too. I use the Stories feature for random stuff because it disappears in 24 hours and I try to think of the photos that I post as more of a portfolio of pictures or events that I think are extra special.
I set almost every pre-2014 post on this site to private. They still exist so if you’re looking for something specific, I can quickly find it and flip it back to public. I’ll probably keep doing that and decreasing the amount of archive that I leave public.
In the past I’ve felt like it was fun to have such a detailed digital record of my life, but now it feels dirty to know how many companies are collecting all that info and using it for their own gain. I’m still a digital packrat at home, but I’m starting to circle the wagons a bit in public.
So now we’re on the verge of 2020… the year I turn the big four oh. I’m thankful for everything that God has provided in 2019 and look forward to seeing how he blesses and challenges us in 2020!
It was a rough week for Seahawks fans. Injuries to both Carson and Procise feel like they have ended the season. We’ll see what Lynch can do coming in to a very important game off of his couch. It’s a hail mary for the season. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll be happy we had a good season and that we made the playoffs.
In our league, congratulations are in order for Tim! After scoring he most points in our league but only barely making he playoffs, he secured first place with a dominating victory. He finished dead last last year and whipped us all this year.
The final standings are:
1. Tim
2. Tyler
3. Logan
4. Luke
5. Nick
6. Ben
7. Andy
8. Dad
On to the weekly awards…
This Week
This Season
All Time
Highest Team Score
Tim had 173.53
Luke had 202.63 (Week 5)
Luke had 202.63 (2019)
Lowest Team Score
Ben had 90.40
Tyler had 61.23 (Week 13)
Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout
Tim beat Tyler by 69.24
Ben beat Tyler by 87.13 (Week 13)
Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win
Andy beat Dad by 1.81
Logan beat Tim by 0.41 (Week 11)
Tyler beat Nick by 0.01 (2018)
Longest Active Winning Streak
Nick has a 4 game winning streak
Luke has a 5 game winning streak (Week 5)
Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had 8 game winning streaks
1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.
4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
1000 Beers
In early 2013, I signed up for Untappd and rated my first beer in the app: Fat Tire. Since then, I’ve rode the wave of the growing craft beer scene and continued to sample new beers whenever I have the chance. Recently, I tried my 1000th different beer, so I thought I’d share some thoughts and stats from my tour de beer.
Other than the first year when I was just getting into this, I average about one new beer every three days. 2019 was more like 2 every three days as I got closer and closer to the 1000 mark.
December is the month when I try the most new beers which makes sense because I have family members who enjoy craft beer too so we regularly bring new beer to family gatherings.
Dad jumped on the app early on and then Luke joined too. Logan joined later but he’s off to a good start. (Many other friends and family members have joined as well but this chart just shows the top users that I know.)
Untappd has added more and more stops along their scoring slider but I stick to the whole numbers. I devote three values to fairly good beers and only two to the beers I don’t like as much.
5. Excellent beer. Search this out!
4. Great beer. Pick this anytime without regret.
3. Good beer. I would pay money to drink this.
2. Meh. If you hand me this, I’ll drink it but I won’t pay money for it.
1. If you had me this beer, I’ll decline.
0. Gross. I’ll pour this out.
Only a few beers have ever gotten a 0. One is Bud Light Lime and another is some disgusting jalapeno beer that I had at the beer festival. I couldn’t even get through my taster of it.
Overall my ratings follow a pretty normal distribution, skewed slightly toward the higher end which makes sense because I generally drink beers that I think I’ll like.
I started off enjoying mostly ambers and ESBs, but I’ve developed a strong taste for IPAs. Those dominate my fridge these days with New England style IPAs being my absolute favorite. Here is a breakdown of the different styles of beer (where I’ve had at least 10 of them) and the average rating for each one. Inside each category, I generally find both a 1 and a 5. It’s possible to make any style terrible or great.
My average ratings have increased slightly over the years as I hone in more on the types that I enjoy.
Some people seem a bit skeptical when I rate a beer but countless times I’ve rated a beer and then looked it up to find that I’ve already had the beer… and I gave it the same rating years earlier. The first 100 ratings might be a little wonky as I figured it out, but since then I think I’ve been very consistent.
Finally, let’s look at my favorite and least favorite breweries. For this list I filtered to places where I’ve tried at least 5 different beers. Kevin has the well-deserved top spot!
And here are the breweries that consistently make beer that I don’t like:
This has been an unexpectedly fun hobby. I keep saying that once I get to X different beers, I’m going to stop and just start ordering the ones I love. Maybe I’ll slow down a bit but I really enjoy trying new beers. Cheers!