With the end of the year upon us and the impending delight, surprise, drama, or doom of the New Year, I felt like this was a great time to drop a little wisdom on the ol’ family blog.  It’s been months since I’ve spun any tales here.  Mostly, this is due to timing, specifically a lack of it.  I’ve had the inspiration, tons of beginnings, but no endings on topics.  Well the end of the year is just that, an end to a ‘topic.’

My travel schedule is the complicating factor.  This got me thinking.  Travel is a pain and I have to do it a lot.  So when I do, I try to keep it simple, travel light, and just focus on essential things.  When traveling, I only require three things and if I don’t have these three things, the travel sucks balls.  The three things are:

1.  Internet – so I can communicate with the free world, more specifically my family

2.  Soft pillow – sleeping doesn’t come easy on travel so a soft place to drop your head is integral

3.  Cold beer – Comfort food.  When in a foreign country, you want comfort food.  For me that is beer

On New Year’s Eve, a discussion of beer seems incredibly appropriate and useful for my audience.  I’ve been reading this book. It was a gift for my birthday last month and it’s called “The Book of Beer Awesomeness.”  If you haven’t read this fine literary masterpiece, I highly recommend it.  I’m’ not going to get into a deep thoughtful review here.  I just want to dig into a concept it proposes.  That’s the concept of proper beer drinking etiquette.  The book suggests that there are 15 Rules to Proper Beer Drinking Etiquette.

With the rules below and my interpretation, you should now be able to consume a healthy libations and not be mistaken as a crude and uncivilized heathen.

1.  Always perform toast when drinking the first beer of the day.

A toast is essential.  I read somewhere that the sound of glasses clanging during a toast was thought to ward off evil spirits and bring prosperity.  Tempting fate? Is that something you really want to do?  Toast to your health, family, friends, or whatever it is you appreciate.  The toast will be therapeutic to externalize the importance of appreciation.

2.  Never complain about free beer.

We all know ungrateful bastards like this.  If the sweet nectar of the Gods is being offered to you at no cost, why would you complain about it?  These are the type of people who ask for a favor and then critique how the favor is being delivered.  Basically, nothing is good enough.  Free beer is better than no beer at all.  Remember that and always be considerate.

3.  Always have at least one six pack in your fridge at all times.

If the Boy Scouts of America could drink, then this would be their rule.  Always be prepared.  It’s really pretty obvious.  Came home from a sick time riding your bike?  You need a beer.  Replacing some fence in the back yard? You need a beer.  Unplug a toilet from a family member’s granite-like fecal deposit?  You need a beer.

4.  Have a bottle opening apparatus on you at all times.

I have an infinite number of occasions where I was asked if I had an opener.  In my house, they are everywhere.  A bottle opener on the fridge in the house, a bottle opener on the beer fridge in the garage, a bottle opener on the wall hanging above the work bench in my shop, a bottle opener in the car (it’s only illegal if you’re drinking), even several drawers in the kitchen have them.  And now I have a credit card sized tool that I carry in my wallet for beer opening.

5.  At house parties, mark your beer so you know it’s yours.

There are scoundrels out there who will jack your beer at a house party.  Brand your beer so you know it’s yours to ward off the infiltrators who know no couth and will take your beer because they didn’t bring their own.  Yes, your beer should be left behind after the party has concluded and it will have your name affixed on it.  The host will then see this remaining inventory and knon two things: 1. You brought your beer to a his or her party and are not a free loader.  You in fact have enough respect for them and your beer to assert yourself and your beer in the community.   And 2. You understand Rule 8 below.  Beer gets left behind after parties as a token of appreciation and gratitude to the host.

6.  Never pooh-pooh another drinker’s preference, everyone has their own poison.

There are nearly 100,000 types of beers on this orbiting rock of a planet of ours.  Don’t be so arrogant to say that you’ve drank a sample of all of them and that you’ve been indoctrinated as the supreme ambassador envoy to the stewardship of beer excellence and proficiency.  Seriously dude, everyone has their taste.  Some like hoppy, some like stouts, and some like beer-flavored water.  If you haven’t noticed, beer is the one thing that all cultures and civilizations have in common.  Why not stop judging and start embracing the differences and similarities?  Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder.

7.  At keg parties, only fill up two keg cups at a time per person.  Any more than that, get back in line.

Filling keg cups at a party is kind of like merging onto the freeway.  Everyone just wants to get going and not have their momentum impeded.  Equally, you don’t want to have someone stand in your way to sweet sweet libations, so why would you do this to another patron?  It’s kind of like the golden rule of beer distribution.  ‘Keep the line moving, keep the beer flowing, and keep the peeps drinking,’ I always say.

8.  If you bring beer to a party, you may drink it, but you’re not allowed to take any extra beer home.

This is one that truly annoys me about people.  They are the same ones who complain about free beer.  For once, they bring their own beer, use your fridge and conveniences, eat your snacks, disparage your preferences, and then take the beer home.  Your beer is a token of goodwill, an offering of prosperity, a gesture of thanks, not a yo-yo of libations.

9.  If someone buys you a beer, you must finish it.

This is a simple matter of respect.  If someone extends his or her courtesy to you in the form of a beer, you should drink it and thank them for such an action.  Now it’s not and hard fast rule for females.  If a dude buys a chick a drink and the chick choose to not drink it, whether that be because she dumps it on him or that she was using her girlish wiles to procure said drink for her friend is irrelevant, she is her accord to not drink it should she choose.  But if you decide to not drink it for some caloric or dietary reasoning, then you’re just a quitter and you suck.

10.  If someone buys you a beer, you must buy them the next round.

Much like Rule 9, this is a return showing of respect to another who has previously celebrated you buy purchasing you a beer.  Return the favor.  At times, pub logistics may not allow for neutral round purchases.  When this happens, keep a mental ledger of your unbalance beer book.  Make sure you pay it back in some way, shape or form.  Be a good beer drinker.

11.  If someone buys a round for the group, the group should toast to the buyer’s health.

This is the combination of Rule 1 and Rule 10.  Toasting is a sign of respect and appreciation, especially the buyer who bought a round for the group.  Celebrate this person’s supreme awesomeness.

12.  If you spill someone else’s beer, you owe them a new one.

This is what we call a ‘Party Foul.’  They happen.  Most of the time, they are accidents.  Their frequency increases proportionally with the amount of beer consumed.  So you can’t avoid them.  What you can avoid is being a D-bag and not acknowledging the incident and not rectifying the situation.  If you disrupt someone’s consumption of beer by way of spillage, be a Good Samaritan and apologize and fix the situation.  There’s nothing more sad that a spilled beer with no home.

13.  If someone leaves their seat to get a new beer, you must honor their claim on the space for five minutes.

Seating at pubs can be a high-value item.  Sometimes you’re the seat predator, and sometimes you’re the seat prey.  We’ve all done it, watched for someone to get up and buy another beer or hit the restroom, then swoop in and rest our tired ass on their seat.  But you must honor the effort of their claimed space as you don’t know the effort to which it was originally procured.  Honor thy time limit unless of course the person doesn’t claim the space then it’s yours.

14.  Never bring beer into the bathroom.  It’s just weird.

There are exceptions to this rule.  Bringing a beer into a public bathroom at a pub or restaurant?  That’s just stupid.  Bringing a beer into the men’s restroom at CenturyLink field during a Seahawk game? Absolutely acceptable.  That’s why there are folding beer trays above the urinals.  At home, this rule doesn’t apply.  There’s nothing more perfect than a beer in the shower.  Trust me.  I’m the theorist of the three greatest inventions of mankind: 1. Beer, 2. Running water, and 3. Toothpaste.

15.  Clean up after yourself.  You weren’t’ raised in a barn.

I mean, even if you were raised in a barn, you must know that you need to clean up your stall.  Seriously, don’t leave your bottles and cans strewn about your home or a host’s house.  At the very least, ask “Do you recycle?”  Most likely the host will tell you, “Let me take care of that for you.”  And just like that you’ve used the Jedi Mind trick to pick up after yourself.  Worst case is that the host tells you where to place the empties.  And then you’ve helped them clean up their abode and will look like a patron saint of drinking who will now be invited back due to your appreciation of personal space.  Yay you for continuing your beer prosperity.

In conclusion, rules are made to be broken but only in the most extreme or extenuating circumstances.  As I mentioned above, civilization after civilization and culture after culture, we have all shared in the commonality of beer and celebrated its unique taste and satisfaction.  Through its and our diversity, we’ve found harmony.  So listed above are the 15 Rules for Proper Beer Drinking Etiquette.  While I can’t take credit for this hypothesis, I can take credit for my biased interpretation of the rules listed below each.

While I may not be an expert on this, or anything for that matter, I do know I love beer.  Being that it is one of the greatest inventions of all time, one of the things I require for my travel comfort, and embodies the true definition of awesomeness, it seems incredibly appropriate to pen down some text about beer on New Year’s Eve.

Tonight, enjoy your beers, appreciate your hosts, toast you friends and family, and kick out 2014 for great start to 2015.

I haven’t written much here in a long time.  Why? A lack of balance with professional and personal life.  Not between those two adversaries, but between my heart and those two unexpected partners in my demise.

These days, I think a lot and don’t post it here.  It’s too dark.  It’s too revealing.  It’s too damning.  Being in a place like this is disturbingly painful, uniquely humbling, and incredibly inspiring.  Enough about that.

This foray into this overdone, over-assimilated network of socially anti-social connection is not about my demise but about my reconnection with 14 years ago with Hybrid Theory.

This is New Music Monday; in a dark format.  The newest Linkin Park record, “The Hunting Party” is everything I needed to hear for validation of my feelings that everyone else has dismissed due to some irrationality in their own warped perspective.  One could argue that I shouldn’t be listening to this considering where I’m at in terms of mental mindspace.  But music finds me when I need it when everyone else bailed.

“The Hunting Party” is not pretty, happy, or polished.  This is the hammer smashed on your hand, it’s the needles piercing your most delicate skin; it’s the drill boring between your bloodshot eyeballs.  It’s the best Linkin Park record to date, in my opinion.  It’s what my lost generation gets; dark and lost no matter the fake successes posted to Facebook or superficial beauty of postage stamp neighborhoods, luxury cars and kitten videos on YouTube.

This album ratchets up the level of thrash to just below that of ‘I think I broke my neck from head banging and my ears won’t stop hemorrhaging.’  “The Hunting Party,” is not only the hardest and heaviest thing they’ve ever released but it’s also their first album to pack a drum and guitar firepower assault that would actually appeal to a head banger and give them a headache. The record is an amazing concoction of punk, thrash, and hard rock.

Lyrically, the group rails against everything from the man, to the government, and to failed relationships.  Sometimes it’s just railing to be railing.  Why all the anger?  Well, Mike Shinoda was clear that he wasn’t hearing anything in music that was scratching his itch for darkness and how he was feeling.  This record is self-produced, reinvigorated and ready for a fight.  My perspective on this album does not necessarily align with what music pundits might pontificate about this release.  Check out Revolver, they will like its depth and darkness.  While Rolling Stone says it needs more electronica and synthesizers for rock radio.  This ain’t a rock radio album.  Period.

“Guilty All the Same” is the first release from the album.  It’s a hard rocker with the legendary hip hop artist, Rakim, making a cameo.  It’s a great barometer of the hammering nature of the album.  The second release is “Until It’s Gone” which is sonically like previous tunes like “Numb” with the orchestration and synth work.  These succinctly summarize a great record.  But the meat is represented in tracks like “Rebellion,” “Final Masquerade,” and “A Line in the Sand.”

These are the epic songs on the album which at your heart and rip your ears.  While “Final Masquerade” is very mellow in comparison to its counterparts, it's the song which awkwardly orbits some strangely familiar feelings.

What I do believe is that the heaviness represents so many people just like me.  We don’t need to be martyrs like we used to be.  But we feel something is not ‘right’ in our lives.  Our relationships are crumbling before our very eyes, our children are growing up and away, our jobs grind us into pulp and dump us in the corporate landfill, we kill each other over whose God is more heavenly, and our government cheats us and destroys our fragile world under the guise of technology.  It feels over to us.  And we are over it.  The masquerade is over and Linkin Park sonically described it in an incredible adept and poignant categorization of life and emotion.

If you like pop country and the likes of family friendly pop nonsense radio music, I wouldn't recommend this album to you.  If you want something that will push further into the darkness only to make you feel less isolated and hopeless while making your ears hurt and your skull implode, this is it.

Watch the "Guilty All the Same" video here

Watch the "Until It's Gone" video here 

We just witnessed a little bit of history (OK it was a few weeks ago but I just got back from business travel).  Now in the context of memorable historic events and culturally defining moments, some could argue that I’m misguided, delusional, or high on my own supply.  After all, this IS Washington State.  The Seattle Seahawks claimed the honor of best football squad in the world by winning Super Bowl XLVIII.  We were fortunate enough to have had some of our closest friends and family over to enjoy that surreal moment.  We held our annual Super Bowl party but this one was a little more special than any other.

I’ve had a great amount of introspective thoughts this season.  The Seahawks are a part of me AND a part of all of us.  This entry is about a connection to the team that made us feel so good about the game, the city, and the possibility of “Why not us?”

It goes back over 30 years for me.  I owe every drop of thanks to my parents for fostering the passion and devotion to the Seahawks at a very young age in me.  They were in at the ground floor of the organization as season ticket holders for a span of three coaching regimes and over a dozen years; Jack Patera, Chuck Knox, and Tom Flores.  Those were some amazing and exciting years for me and mark the infancy of the passion for the Hawks.

Just a team; just a game; but so many fond memories.  Games back then were a special thing for me and my little brother.  We didn’t go to a lot.  Maybe a few games a season if we were lucky.  The tickets were for my mom and dad to get away from us.  My brother and I were dumped at our grandparents’ house; which wasn’t torture by any means.  We ate a lot of frozen pizzas and built Lego creations.  But those days at our grandparents’ house was nothing like the energy of the Kingdome when the Seahawks were playing another AFC West foe.  When we joined them at games, I remember it feeling like it was the longest drive in the world to get there, when in reality it was only 30 miles away.  But as a little kid, that pregame anxiety and excitement manifested itself into impatience.

Back then, we parked south of the Kingdome in a bumper to bumper parking lot and walked in with the masses only stopping to pick up a bag of peanuts and pepperoni sticks outside on Occidental Ave.  My dad was pretty stingy with his cash.  He said the Dome was a rip off and we’d get a better deal outside.  But inside, I was afforded a treat I’ve never forgotten.  Frozen chocolate malt.  Man, these were the absolute best.  Football and frozen malt was like peanut butter and jelly for me.  I was fortunate enough to have a birthday which fell on a day during football season which game time for me.  Usually it was the damn Raiders.  Those years there were the names Largent, Zorn, Krieg, and Doornink.  But there were guys like Raible, Easley, and Warner too.  All of these personalities were characters in a multiyear theater production of my childhood years. 

But in my teen age years things started to slow down a bit.  We attended Largent’s retirement party and it started to feel like the curtain was closing.  Discussing the NFL playoff bracket with my mom became a thing of the past.  Ken Behring bought the team and the energy dissipated, the emotional investment dried up, the organizational culture changed, and fans departed.  I graduated high school and my parents let the tickets go due to lack of interest in order to follow college football.

Years went by and the NBA consumed more of my time. Basketball was just more accessible.  But the love for the Seahawks never went away just stepped into the shadows.  That was until my wife and I moved in together in Long Beach.  Bars in the area and local SoCal television never showed the Hawks, only the damn Raiders.

We moved back to Washington and celebrated our first wedding anniversary.  The traditional gift for that anniversary was paper.  Being creative, I thought wouldn’t it be badass to buy Seahawks season tickets for an anniversary gift?  It was.  Nine football seasons later, we are devoted legacy ticket holders.  Every year, we try to share a game with our kids like my parents did. Things for us have seemingly come full circle. We now attend Sunday football.  Our children spend time with their grandparents just as I did when I was young.  Their passion is evident too.  Each wore their Nike jerseys every Blue Friday of the season and often several times a week. Maybe in an attempt to add the authenticity of stank to each jersey.

I said it earlier; this was a very special season for us and the entire Pacific Northwest.  Over the years, my wife and I endured some losing seasons and were thrilled by some epic victories.  Through all of the ups and downs, we always felt connected.  I think that’s what really makes this season so much more special.  It wasn’t about the competitiveness of the product on the field but rather the character and involvement of the team in the community.  Because of that, fans and casual members of the community began to embrace the humility of the team and their honesty immediately connected with the region.  We love these guys for who they are.

For us, we’ve found an extended family.  Those who own tickets around us in CenturyLink have become part of us.  We ride that emotional rollercoaster together.  I can’t imagine experiencing any given Sunday with anyone else but my wife and our family around us.  It was a huge motivating factor in launching an epic Super Bowl party this year.  During the season, I declared that if the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl I’d recreate our section of seats in my living room.  And I did just that.  But the party wasn’t about my trip to Home Depot Sunday morning for lumber and nails; it was about bringing our friends and family together for the making of something truly emotionally connective.  We wanted to recreate the energy and emotion of the game with them.  To feed off of each other as fans who are so passionate about their sports heroes.  Heroes who have lifted a region to the point of explosion of hope and belief.  Belief that hard work, devotion, transparency, preparation, and BELIEVING in yourself can make a difference.

I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better afternoon.  And while there was enough food and drink to feed the team, every party goer brought something more important than sustenance.  Each brought faith and friendship.  We wanted to be together to celebrate what was coming.  History to a well-deserved group of young men who believe and the connectivity of a community with a singular focus on one Sunday afternoon.  We danced, we celebrated, we hugged, and we cried together.  This victory was ours as much as theirs.

The next week with some special friends, we dared to travel to Seattle to enjoy the victory parade and the special celebration in the CLink only offered to season ticketholders.  The crowds and temperature had me contemplating turning around and heading home.  But this was one last time to share the electricity of the season and the connection to the team with our fan collective one last time.  We made it to the stadium on a train which should’ve never been on the rails given its payload.  People everywhere; we coordinated a meeting with our friends who brilliantly managed to avoid the morning travel debacle by posting up in a mobile mansion the night before.

Despite our efforts to procure an ample set of entry tickets, we were two short of a full load.  But the charm of my wife on the entry folks allowed both our families to enter and share in the excitement.  The stadium was frigid but the electricity was magical.  We sat for hours waiting for the celebration in the stadium to begin.  And when it did, our cold fingers, snot filled noses, and memories of the painstaking commute disappeared as fast as the 747-8 in Seahawks livery flew overhead.  One last time to cheer the organization and its players.  One last time to share a collective sigh of success and tears of joy over an absolutely satisfying and electrifying season.

There have been losing seasons (think Mariners 100 losses), shocking upsets (think Denver Nuggets vs. Sonics), and there have been disenchanted breakups (think Howard Schultz).  These are all just sports; just games.  And now, distant memories.  These Seahawks elevated a region by winning, but more importantly, believing in themselves.  That captured our hearts and made us love them that much deeper.  This was historic for the team and for us as fans.

I have so many memories from all of the games I’ve attended at my ripe age of 40.  But this season connected everything.  The Super Bowl win made me get introspective in that last quarter of play.  I really felt that “We Are 12” was more than noise at a stadium.  It’s me.  It’s you.  It’s our kids pretending to catch the winning touchdown from Russell or run a kickoff return back like Percy.  It’s the janitor in my office building wearing a Wilson jersey.  It’s $.12 coffees from local supporting business.  It’s the pride you have when you rise up knowing you can’t be stopped.  And most importantly, it’s a force inside knowing that all you need to do is believe in yourself.

As I’m crying my eyes out to complete this essay, I’m god damn thankful for my Mom and Dad, who introduced me to Seahawks football, my friends that share the passion for the game and believing and for the Seahawks for becoming the fabric of the community linking us to each other.  Our focus wasn’t aligned on just a team or just a game.  Hardly, it was a connection that gave us a chance to share yells, tears, broken records, and gave us a reason to not give a shit government shutdowns or budget crises. We never furloughed our intensity or devotion or belief, and neither did the Seahawks. We’re on top now and we did it together.  And why not?  Why not us?