DUDE REPORT: Beer List

In a previous blog post I discussed how lucky we feel about the neighbors we have. Ross, who lives directly behind us, and I enjoy chatting over a beer whenever possible. They have three kids who are close in age to our girls. All five of the kids get along very well. The two main questions that we typically have to sort out when we are both outside are: 1) Are the kids going to play in our yard or your? 2) What beer are we drinking? (Assuming it is past noon and neither of us have work, a public appearance, etc. later that day.)

These two questions are usually answered quickly. The kids get along so well they don’t care where they play together and Ross and I like beer so much that we don’t care what we drink.
Ross and I both look for new beers to try. It is fun to discuss what we have each tried and debate our likes and dislikes. Ross has even ventured into brewing his own beer. He has created a couple good batches recently and I have been fortunate enough to sample a few.

Earlier this month we can across the American Homebrewers Association 2011 Best Beers in America poll. Over the course of future neighborhood grill outs, poker nights, and afternoon play dates we are hoping to try as many of these beers as possible.

The picture is of Ross and I are trying #2: Bell’s Two Hearted Ale and #20: Left Hand Milk Stout. (Sorry for the blurry picture. Camera lady(Libby) was drinking some wine that night too!?!?!?)

Although we have previously had some of the other beers listed, officially the two pictured beers brings us to 2 of 50 tried. In otherwords, we are early in our mission to try all 50.

The ale was good and was something we would both consider drinking more of in the future. The stout is more of a winter beer, so an 80-plus degree summer evening wasn’t quite a fit.

The full list is linked above. I would love to hear if you have tried/enjoyed/liked/disliked any of the listed beers. We will keep you posted on our progress through the list and we welcome additional participants anytime!

Review: Baby Driver

I don't drive a Subaru and I don't watch the Emmy's, but I did blog about a Subaru commercial last November that was recently nominated for an Emmy. I don't want to hurt my arm patting myself on the back, but it can't be ruled out that Tales from the Homefront played a role in the Subaru Baby Driver commercial nomination...maybe.

The commercial shows a dad seeing his daughter as a little girl although in reality she is 16 and taking the car out for the first time. Having to young girls, the commercial really stuck with me. It was easy to imagine me being that guy in 13 short years.

A friend posted a link on Facebook today saying Subaru's Baby Driver commercial has received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Commercial of 2011. This nomination makes me think, maybe, just maybe the committee has been keeping tabs on the Homefront blog, saw my November post, and agreed that it is a good commercial. More likely (much, much more likely) the commercial was nominated because it resonated with thousands of other parents like it did with me.

From my perspective, Baby Driver has some stiff competition in the category. (Look at me type like I know what I am typing about.) All the nominees can be viewed here. Sorry about the aggressive right hand column in the embedded link. I say baby driver has stiff competition because I remember laughing about the Conan commercial and laughing even harder about the Old Spice commercial.

Another nominee is a McDonald's commercial. In this commercial a dad who is driving his baby to sleep orders, pays for, and picks up McDonald's drive-through food without stopping his car. I have thought about trying this a couple times when I was hungry and driving Paige to sleep.

If you drive a Subaru, watch the Emmy's, have any tips for dealing with your 16 year old backing out of the driveway or have a vote for which commercial was the best of 2011 I would love to hear from you.

Answered Questions

There are a lot unknowns in our lives (including, but certainly not limited too, how to rotate a video posted to YouTube.)

I wanted to take a moment to step back and recognize what we do know.



Transcripts of what we do know:

"What's the largest pencil in the world?"
"Pennsylvania!"

"What's the best kind of work?"
"Teamwork!"

"Who's the boss?"
"Your the boss, Apple Sauce!"