Day Zero Project #83: Attend a Beer Festival

We are beer snobs. I don't like it, but somewhere along the line we taught our taste buds that the only place for Coors Light is in a cup that you throw a ping-pong ball in to. If you are going to have a beer at the end of a long work week, it should be a good one.

Arriving early = more time to sample = good times

And for that reason, we really enjoyed the World Beer Festival in St. Pete last weekend. Where else but a beer fest can you pay a cover charge and then proceed to try about as many different beers as your tolerance allows. Sure, by the 20th beer I couldn't tell you the difference between a lager and a stout, but I enjoyed the the tasting experience of the first six or so samples and then I proceeded to enjoy the buzzed good times of the rest.

And what beers do I recommend to you? I have no idea. You try and sample two dozen beers and remember which ones you liked. I was fortunate enough to remember how to get home at the end of the night and, in a neighborhood where a wrong turn is sure to get you mugged, that's good enough for me.

Which beer was good? I took a picture of these, so they must be the ones.

Day Zero Project #15: Have a Board Game Night

You know what I say, why play one board game, when you can play all of them? With that in mind, we set about Day Zero Project #15, "Have a Board Game Night."

The idea was that we would play every game we have in the house and the winner would get... We didn't really think it through that far. Mostly, we just wanted an excuse to stay inside and not do anything for a little while. In hindsight, I wish we'd have bet something because I ended up winning (just barely), 10 games to 8.

The Games I Won

The Games She Won

The final results:

Dustin (10) - Ladder Golf, Jenga, Zigity, Scattergories, Yahtzee Texas Hold 'Em, Othello, Farkle, Boggle, Zombies!!! 4, Zombies!!!

Katie (8)- Life, Mancala, Cribbage, Phase 10, Sorry Revenge, Monopoly Deal, Yahtzee, Chez Geek

Day Zero Project #13: Send 10 Postcards via Postcrossing.com

I had no idea what Postcrossing.com was, so I had to look that up before I could even begin to start this one. Basically, it is a site where you register and send postcards all over the world and for every one one that you send, you get a postcard back from somewhere in the world.

It's fun to go to your mailbox and get a postcard from Latvia or Russia or something; certainly better than the mix of bills and junk mail that I am used to seeing.

There's only so much you can do with a postcard and most that you would get fall into one of four categories.

 1) Cartoons

from Finland

from Yokkaichi, Japan

2) Animals

from Engelskirden, Germany

from Ripa, Latvia

3) Scenic Stuff

from Czech Republic

from the Netherlands

from Krakow, Poland

from Pomerania, Russia

4) My personal favorite, postcards that people make out of local food boxes.

from Vienna, Austria (some sort of ice cream bar)

from the Netherlands (some very healthy looking cereal)

Day Zero Project #36: Get My Handwriting Created As A Font

Day Zero Project #18: Read Game of Thrones

I really didn't want to like this book. There's a book snob residing inside of me that really dislikes the idea of enjoying something that everyone else keeps telling me is great. Plus, the book is like 800 pages long. Who needs that many pages to tell a story?

Apparently George R. R. Martin because, much to my dismay, this book was good. Great, even. I managed to read the whole thing in about three sittings because I didn't want to put the book down without knowing what was going to happen next.

Even though I thought the book was great, I caution you against starting to read the book for a few reasons.

One, there are seven books in the series. Each one having more than 700 pages, some more than 1,000. I won't get to read a non-GoT's related book until sometime in 2023.

Two, and this is the worst part, now I have to find time to watch the show on HBO so I can sit there for hours on end complaining about how the book was so much better.

Day Zero Project #32: Get a Full Body Massage

Get a full body massage? Easy! I've had one of those before. As a matter of fact I've probably had 100s. I'm one of the lucky chosen few who has had a wife go through massage school. Her homework was to give massages and I was always there as a willing test subject.

Sure I had to sit through some weird, hippie stuff. I mostly just rolled my eyes as I became a test subject for energy work, healing crystals and sound therapy. And sure, there were times when she was learning deep tissue massage that she made me cry and I cursed whomever put it into her head to go into massage, but for the most part it was an experience that made me the most relaxed guy of all time.

So if you are wondering why I never seem to get angry, it's because I am still in a perpetual state of relaxedness that will continue until sometime in my 50s.

But last weekend, I cheated on my regular massage therapist and went to a spa. I don't think my wife minds because if there's one thing that a massage therapist doesn't want to do, it's to give free massages after working. Keep that in mind if you have a friend who's a massage therapist. No, they don't want to rub your sore shoulders. Maybe if you give them $65, but they don't ask you to do your job for free, so you shouldn't ask them.

Anyways, back on task. This new massage therapist was the strongest lady in the world. I'm talking gold medal winning strength that makes those super-big Eastern European body builders you see on the Olympics seem like little babies. I almost cried when she was working on my shoulders.

Which brings me to why I try to be nice to my wife 100% of the time. Massage therapists can kill you. Seriously, if you google that, it might be true. Thankfully they use their strength for the greater good of humanity.

For now...

Day Zero Project #20: Learn Basic Car Maintenance

Do you want to know what I learned today?

I learned that the best time to learn basic car maintenance is when your car tires rips to shreds on the way to work in the morning.

There's just something about learning how to change a tire while cars zoom past you going 80mph on a busy highway at the peak of morning traffic. I don't know if it was the extra embarassement caused by the fact that hundreds of cars drove by, every single one of them laughing at my misfortune (probably not true, but that's how I imagine it.), but I managed to get what was left of a tire off my car, and the donut on it, in record time.

I wasn't even sure I could do it at all, but I'm glad I didn't call a tow truck to do it because now I have super-manly blood blisters on my hands.

And now I'm proud to say that after two hours, $400, and at least a dozen near-death experiences, I can check #20: Learn Basic Car Maintenance off of my list.