Tilton Westword's Wild West Variety Show

  Merry Christmas and Happy New Beer! Most people that travel in the 'craft-beer' circles know by now the fate of Anchor Brewing Co. This isn't the first time the brewery has run into hard times and recovered with new ownership so it may or may not be the end. I first encountered Anchor beer in the mid-1990's while the company was in full swing and the craft-brew craze was spreading across the country. There were few craft-beer choices available in local markets, including high end grocery stores that catered to specialty ales during the era of enlightenment. I should mention that in the early to mid-1990's everyone I knew, including myself, called craft-beer micro-brew but in keeping with current times, I'll stick to the modern nomenclature. But, I digress. Nearly every beer that Anchor Brewing has produced from the 90's onward has been through my liver except Old Foghorn Barley Wine Style Ale. The latter is lamentable as barley wine ales are among my favor...

The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall One of the best thrift-store finds of 2023 for me was a 303 page book about a man Hell bound for glory and his eventual mental health breakdown near the end of a race around the world in a small trimaran known as the Teignmouth Electron. The race officially began in late 1968 and ended tragically in July of 1969 about eight months after Donald Crowhurst began his journey. The biography makes no attempt from the very beginning to hide the fact that he died on during the voyage most likely from suicide. Then ensuing investigative story attempts to piece together as much of the truth as possible from the beginning to the end. From the time the idea was conceived to the time he set sail it was fairly easy for the authors to deduce the land based events by using documents, photography, film and interviews. Once Crowhurst left the pier all bets were off as to what happened during the entire voyage. Using radio m...

Tioga Library Building - UW Tacoma - July 2023 Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved

I n the beginning there was nothing.   Then someone said you should write a blog. So now there's a blog ... Eight years later.... I started building a blog on WordPress about eight years ago when I got laid off from a bicycle company that shall remain nameless. I didn't get very far because we packed up and moved to another state then worst thing imaginable happened; I found a job. Fast forward and two jobs later I've found myself unemployed from the bicycle industry again. The best part is that it has taken me about the same amount of time to decide to take up blogging again (For real this time). This entire blog is going to be experimental and will likely live up to its motto 'The Maw of Chaos. The idea is to explore different areas of interest until one emerges as the dominant them. Then all the others can fade away like most of the bicycle companies I've worked for in the last 30 years. Hopefully something good emerges from all of this and many of life's que...