it's five o'clock somewhere

in case you didnt know, i am a beer drinker now. well, actually, i have never NOT been a beer drinker, i have always just migrated towards the drinks with a bit more... color i guess. wow. i just realized i like drinks because of their color. wow. i'm shallow.

anyway, this all happened because last summer i went to the fargo jazz festival with my dad. (yes, fargo is big enough to have a very good jazz festival.) we went to sit with his friends and who do we see? mr. ahonen! my elementary school gym teacher! he went to college with my dad, so when we moved from minot to fargo back in the late 80s, we were suprised to find my dad's old college friend was my gym teacher. having your dad's friend as a gym teacher can be good ("erdmann! come do your physical fitness pull-ups test!" [blank stare because i have NEVER been able to do a pull up.] "ok. next person!") or it can be bad ("no more boys? erdmann! go play on the boys team!") having my dad's friend as a gym teacher is the actual reason why i had never ice skated, despite growing up in north dakota, until i was in my 20s. i can't remember why, if it was the stinky ice skates or i was afraid of falling, but i NEVER skated in gym class. i got to wear my sneakers and push the kids around (not in THAT way - like push them from behind when they were on skates and i would get them to go really fast. not so that they fell down). mr. a made everyone else skate, but not me.

anyway, seeing mr. a was great - he was really cool and understanding about me abruptly quitting my job and moving to europe. and then when he found out that i was moving to germany, he got really excited because he had recently started brewing his own beer. and he made me promise him that i would drink a lot of beer and learn as much as i could while i am over here. i have kept up one side: drinking a lot of beer. i haven't so much learned a lot because there aren't a lot of 'beer houses' in berlin (at least that i can find) to have tastings and whatnot. but when i'm out with people i try to order beer. and i bought beer to drink at home - i got a six pack of .5 L bottles for 1.99 euros at the store. the first one i tried i LOVED and then for some reason after that i was like, "ooooo, now i know why its only three dollars for all of this."

so to show my commitment to beer drinking, i have downloaded a whole bunch of podcasts on my ipod and have decided that i am going to go to munich the first weekend of november to kick off my month of travel. technically, i decided to go because it's "on the way" to paris and i haven't been there before and won't be incredibly expensive, but then the beer aspect cemented my decision.

i just looked on wiki and did you know that beer is the OLDEST and most widely consumed alcoholic beverage??

and to further show the importance of beer, here is one of those forwards you've probably gotten, and i wanted to keep:

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today. But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer and then turned in the aluminum cans for a recycling refund, you will have received $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg. A recent study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found that Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means that, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon!