Rant...

Well here it is more time has slipped away from me. Sadly, dear Reader I left you in the middle of Canada Beer Month, as my work schedule overtook my play schedule, among other things and I have not been able to touch virtual pencil to virtual paper in quite sometime. As well, on a more personal note I have been thinking long and hard about the future of this blog. I rapidly approach my 5th year writing my bar stool pontifications and it makes me wonder how much further should I take this blog. Should I be devoting more time to it? How much of my life can I let it consume? Should I be looking to move  toward a more full time approach? What about furthering my education in the Barley Arts? Should I get my Prud'homme Certificate, and or my Cicerone? (I have never made bones about my experience with beer... I am, in real life, a Chef, and I have many years experience in beer and beer sales at various restaurants and hotels. I have an above average palate and a passion for good beer... I am not an expert). So I have been stuck in a loop... sitting down to stare at my blog, and letting the beers pile up in the Fridge of Fame (until my Loving partner in Crime, The Queen of Pint Jockey Headquarters has basically intimated that either I start blogging again or she puts the beers AND me out for recycling...)

Where do we go from here? I'm not sure. I started the blog as a necessary creative outlet, as much as an excuse to drink more beer and keep track of it. Some days I don't feel I can do the blog justice... It's hard in my little corner of the world to come across a lot of variety of beers. My hands are tied by the ordering managers at the LCBO and the Beer Store. Thankfully Sawdust City Brewery is just a quick walk away and they do bring in guest beers, but some days I feel too reliant on their products for material. There is the odd time we head down to Toronto, and the inevitable mad dash into one of the many LCBOs there, where I come out... often 30 minutes later, clutching bags of beers and nursing 50 to 60 dollar hole in my pocket. I also nipped into Stack Brewery this weekend because we were in Sudbury, 33 dollars later... I came out with 6 beers (stay tuned!) I enjoy the festivals, when work allows me the time, I made it to OCB week last year and this year to Session Muskoka, which I will talk about in another post (better late than never! there were some excellent beers there!). I would like to go more and report more on the festivals, but somehow time never allows.

Which brings me to the last part of my rant. How I lost over 2 weeks trying, and failing to upgrade to Windows 10. My wonderful hand built computer Dzunukwa, who has given me 2 years of reliable service (except for that time that Perry (the cat) knocked my laptop off of the back of the computer and snapped off the connectors to my video card necessitating a new card), was due for an upgrade and when Win 10's free rollout came, I jumped on it... a little too soon I would guess. It trashed my computer It erased my old copy of Windows 7, it booted only to a black screen. None of my files were accessible. I spent hours online reading up on how to fix it. I was not alone this was happening to a lot of people, especially people with custom machines. So finally I gave up to the point where I needed to do a clean install and start again. The computer wiped my hard drive and then got stuck in an endless install loop: load a bit, shut down, reboot. I was so pissed I installed Unbuntu the open source software... yeah... that didn't go so well either. Despite what I have been told that Unbuntu is supposed to be easy and virtually bullet proof, it was anything but. Nothing would install, no antivirus, could not update my video card drivers, my web browser crashed repeatedly. So today I pulled the hard drive out of my laptop and installed that. So I have a semi-functional computer again, patched together with duct tape and promises of glory... So very frustrated.

Thank you for letting me vent... I needed that. I hope you are all still with me. I have lots of beer to do. If you have thoughts or words of wisdom for me please leave them in the comments below. I would like to know how you feel about this blog and what you would like to see in the future.

Well I need a beer... How about you?

Cheers
CJT