news

All posts tagged news

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries, delivering to the president on Tuesday a political victory and an endorsement of his power to control immigration at a time of political upheaval about the treatment of migrants at the Mexican border.

The Florida state senate has dealt a damaging blow to the craft brewers of Florida. Today, The Senate voted 30-10 to restrict the amount of packaged beer breweries can sell directly to customers. Obviously, craft breweries opposed this law. Currently, there is no limit on how much beer a brewery can directly sell to customers in the state.

The bill (SB 1714) prohibits brewers who produce more than 2,000 kegs of beer a year to sell directly to customers. It requires them to sell to a distributor which raises the cost of the final product. The loss of direct sales would come at a loss to some craft breweries in the neighborhood of $300,000 to $500,000 dollars or more. 

Cigar City Brewing’s Joey Redner has been outspoken against the bill, stating that the bill would stifle brewery growth, and even put some small craft breweries under.

Who is behind the bill? Big money donors, lobbyists with Anheuser-Busch InBev who want to protect the 3-tier system. Mitch Rubin, a lobbyist for A-B has stated publicly that he is for draft beer and growler sales at breweries, but is against bottle, can, and keg sales.

via Big Blow Dealt to Craft Breweries in Florida | Beer Street Journal.

partly cloudy

My contacts have started to bother me more and more lately. They seem to swim around on my eye and I can feel the edges of the lenses or at least I think I can. Any rubbing at all and my right lens goes up and under my eye lid. The use of my reading glasses also seems to make the situation worse.

decatur beerfest logo-2013Bought tix to the Decatur Beerfest in October, the 19th I think it is. I’ll be heading over there with the Brother, and I know that Charlie and Alicia from T-Mac will be there as well. I almost thought I screwed up since I forgot about getting the tickets during lunch and didn’t get online until almost 12:15 and they went on sale @ noon. Figured I missed out. I finally did get the tickets but only after trying several times with my debt card and then switching to my credit card, I think I had some info wrong but couldn’t figure it out.

GalAprilI’ve been cyber stalking this chick from Denmark, an interestingly cool, dreaded, photogenic, pretty girl with hair under her arms. ( Ann April, Galapril )

On the way home there was a car off the side of the road on old Alabama about where the big house near the golf course is, looked like it was only the single car, that or the other car was already gone, they were putting down cones

Navy veteran identified as shooter in Washington attack that left 13 dead
Crappy stuff, insane people

This is what I learned as I began to watch the news at the shroom when having a beer and waiting for my pizza. Seems the dudes name is Aaron, bad karma man. He was a Buddhist and had lived abroad for some time in Thailand. Open fired in a buildings cafeteria with an AR-15, used a stolen ID.

Came home and watched some TV with Brian, Dexter and then Ray Donavan. Half way through we went out to the liquor store and picked up some beers, I got two Hoppin Frogs, one an IPA the other a… Home and finished the shows.

In 1978, homebrewing was federally legalized in the United States. However, it was left in the hands of each individual state to choose whether to adopt the legislation. Recently, the last two hold out states – Alabama and Mississippi passed legislation allowing brewing at home.

With the last bit of legislation going into effect today, homebrewing is now officially legal in all 50 states since the first time since Prohibition. What’s left? Some states still maintain statues that would prevent home-brews to events, club meetings and more.

The American Homebrewers Association boasts more than 38,000 members. For a complete list of federal and state homebrewing laws, please visit the AHA website.

Congratulations America! As of Today, Homebrewing is Legal in All 50 | Beer Street Journal.

hazyRainRainy and wet this morning, up at the first snooze. Foggy most of the am as well.

The pope resigned today, well at least he said he will at the end of the month.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise announcement on Monday that he will resign on Feb. 28 sets the stage for a succession battle that is likely to determine the future course of a church troubled by scandal and declining faith in its traditional strongholds around the world.

Nicki asked if I would keep her insurance when she got married, I told her no I felt that if she was getting married she should be supporting herself completely. I refuse to enable her and Jorael so they can rush into a marraige. I reacted badly and brought up how I didn’t feel that Jorael was much of a man if he would marry her before they could support themselves. I think I did say too much but I was angry and she wasn’t listening anymore and just wanted her way.

She mentioned I make her feel inadequate, I know I am disappointed most of the time, her priorities are nowhere near mine, she is just looking for the easy way. Feeling sorry for herself and her medical issues, asking for handouts and believes she should not be responsible for herself.

From the Beer Journal:

My good friend Kraig Torres founded Hop City a few years ago in Atlanta, Georgia. The store sells 1,800+ beers, wine, and homebrewing supplies. Not to mention a 60+ growler station. Hop City is ranked among the best beer stores on planet earth on RateBeer.com Building upon his great success, Kraig decided to open a second location in Birmingham, Alabama. Recent law changes make Birmingham a great place for a second Hop City.

Kraig has received all the necessary permits to open except for one – the liquor license from the Alabama Beverage Commission. Kraig applied for this license, and with it, provided a floor plan. In the floor plan, he included an area for home brewing supplies. Home brewing is illegal in Alabama, but selling the ingredients is not. Kraig and his lawyer have done extensive diligence on the matter.

Yesterday (Thursday), ABC agents raided Hop City Birmingham GUNS DRAWN, and confiscated books on home brewing, grain, wort chillers, and more. The agents threatened to arrest his store manager because he harbored materials used to make beer. The ABC Agents loaded up a van with $7,000 of Kraig’s inventory, stating they would be back the next day for the rest. Every single grain, hop, and carboy has to be out of the Hop City Birmingham location before a license will be granted.

Alabama Agents Confiscate Home Brewing Supplies At Gun Point | Beer Street Journal.

Around 4am I got the camera inside, it only finished 999 photos, need to figure out the interval photo and I could get more photos.

It was overcast all day except a few times when the sun peeked out a few times here and there.

Went over to the train tracks and put down a couple o f pennies and then went back but couldn’t find any that had been run over by the train.

Russell and Laura left about 2pm and I walked downtown and took some photos of the older buildings.

Great food in the evening, steak, potatoes, and fresh corn fried up in a skillet.

It was also the last day of the Olympics, the US was on top with gold medals and the over medal count, 48-??-??-?? total ???

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. –
Police in Gwinnett County say one man is in custody after he allegedly beat a woman, threatened police, and claimed to have explosives in a car.

Gwinnett County police say the incident occurred at the Shell station located on Highway 20 and Russell Road in Lawrenceville on Wednesday.

Police say the man allegedly beat a woman in a car at the gas station, and then let her go after police arrived. They say he then threatened officers at the scene with a gun, and claimed explosives were in the car.

At some point a SWAT team took the suspect into custody without incident.

The intersection of Russell Road and Highway 20 is blocked while police investigate, and check the car for explosives.

Police: Man threatens officers, makes bomb threat – Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5.

Overcast this morning, I had to put the top up when I got into the office. At McDonalds, I felt a few drops and therefore I had gotten the top cover put in the trunk in preparation for the possibility that the sky would open up at any moment during the ride in to work. It did rain a bit around 11 in the morning, and then dried up.

Work was a bit frustrating, I did learn a bit about the API and all but the bug still is in there somewhere and it seems to be in the actual marshaling code. We also got an SAP “IMPORTANT” notice about doing a “training” for security that must be done. It took an hour to go through the “class” and then you took a test at the end. I got 11 out of 14, just one above the minimum.

Wildflowers

The drive over to the Mac in Johns Creek was a bit hot, had the top up the whole way. John was there as always, also the two mikes as well. Ray was there since the morning and then Meg and Brittany took up the bar after 5. Had a few and a a wedge then took off back home for a bit of a rest.

Nicki and Jorael were at the house, I just made up some guacamole and went upstairs and messed with the computer. Nicki told me some stuff about the car, that it sounded like the transmission was falling out, so dramatic, I was going to looks at it later but she left when I asked something more. I then watched a few episodes of tBBT and then went out to Taco Mac.

Arrived and got a shitty chair by the bottled beer, soon after I started my Brooklyn Black Stout, 2011 a few chairs opened up at the apex of the bar, I scooted over there. JiJi and Cara were taking care of the bar and then a crew of gals came in, including Lindsey from Parma and sat at a table in the bar area. Nicholas was hanging around and he was going off with JiJi and as it happens also the gals including Lindsey and they all were heading over to the Pink Pony, after they had a few beers here. Almost right after that, about 10pm Autumn and her friend, that plays for the other team, Terri joined me and then another friend Ashley (a cute JAP). They all chatted a bunch and I got a few words in edgewise. Talked about what we slept in, shaving practices and Terri made a comment about my ring, on my right hand, thinking it a wedding ring, WTF. I guess guys are not suppose to wear jewelry.

Getting out of there and going home Autumn gave me several kisses, how cute. I’m not sure where I fit into her “plans” just think she is a girl out to have some fun.

Some FUCKED up asshole shot up a bunch of people at a movie theater during the premier of Batman, he dressed up as the Joker and got up in front of the theater and unloaded a bunch of guns, a Shotgun, AR-15 & Glock? had multiple clips and got it all in by setting them by the emergency exit and then opening it from the inside and bringing it in. Maybe it wasn’t the emergency exit, possibly the exit that most theaters have that is to the side or rear of the building to funnel people out to an area so they cannot easily get into another movie for free.

SpaceX Dragon

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft successfully berthed with the International Space Station this morning after a long overnight approach including several unplanned maneuvers. The crew at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, concluded a long night of flight demonstrations and troubleshooting by watching astronaut Don Pettit control the station’s robotic arm and grapple the Dragon at 6:56 a.m. PDT.

ISS Welcomes SpaceX Dragon — First Private Spacecraft at Station | Autopia | Wired.com.

Tragedy struck Redhook Brewery this AM.  A brewery worker was killed when a beer keg exploded.

The worker, who has not yet been identified, was a man in his 20s or early 30s, said Assistant Fire Chief Steve Achilles. According to the assistant fire chief, the employee had been pressurizing kegs with air as part of a cleaning process to remove residual beer from them.

“The keg failed and exploded and he was injured by parts of the keg,” Achilles said.

via Tragedy: Exploding Keg Kills Redhook Worker | Beer Street Journal.

Green darner taken earlier this spring, many of the dragonflies I capture are not as easy to identify, this one was unmistakable. I noticed while taking some photos and looking over a few of the macros (mainly the one I put up yesterday of the droplet on a blade of grass) that I had a lot of crap on the sensor. Cleaned the senso this morning. Went out on the trail about 9am and picked up two of the cicada husks from the days before. I also got shots of a few spiders and chatted with a few people on the path. Seems there was a copperhead sighting.


Common Green Darner

Drove over to the Natural Foods Warehouse store across the street by work. Picked up a few items (frozen lunches) some of them some flatbreads from evolFoods. Realized it is love spelled backwards, their logo even has the e turned backwards. You can get a free t-shirt when you collect box upc points, only 16 flatbreads and I can get one. So for about 3 weeks of lunches and I’m almost there. 🙂 They even give you a free sticker that I put on my cubicle wall at work just over my desk.

Yesterday, Steve Jobs has resigned from Apple Inc. It would have to end sometime and now everyone is worried about IF Apple will just crash and burn. The stock market did some flips too from what Fernando, a buddy from work was saying he could understand a little that Apple stock would fall a bit but even very un-related stocks were falling. Also in world news one of the Russian space rockets crashed yesterday as well, it was unmanned but there are plans for manned missions soon. The rocket was carrying supplies for the Space station.

Out to the Suwanee T-Mac for BOTM, got the last and different Harpoon IPA glass having the Oktoberfest and then I had the Stone Smoked Porter after. It was a flirt-fest between me and Lori? It seems there may be 2 Loris there, Blonde with the “actress” daughter and another who has a boyfriend and whom I am a bit more attracted to, darker dirty-blonde to brown hair, freckles etc. Talked to Joy (short hair, taller gal there) but repeated some of the questions I had asked her later, duh! She was giving me shit about my goatee and put me on he defensive so I wasn’t feeling all that chatty. Seems Lori-1 (blonde) will be having a “camping” party at her house over labor day weekend. It’s BYOB, BYOF(food), and BYOT (tent), but she did say she had a few beds. Also, it seems her daughter is really into DragonCon, I should go myself, I’ve never been but wouldn’t be able to dress up worth a crap. She has three outfits, one for each day, one from pokemon, one vampire/goth and ?????? the last one was left out conversation interrupted. Oh, and Lori-2 was showing a bunch of skin in a spaghetti strapped top, showing off her tan-lines and freckles, I let her know I loved them.

On my way to the Mellow Mushroom this morning I passed by a bunch of cop cars on the side of the road, near Oak Village Ave. just after Collins Hill Rd. Looked up what it could be and found this from the AJC:

—edit:: This gal looks a bit like a woman I’ve seen @ taco mac, KimThomas erie. She worked for an Insurance company though and only had one daughter I think…

“A community search for a missing Lawrenceville-area woman turned tragic Saturday after her body was found by one of her co-workers.

Family photo Nique Leili, 44, had been missing since July 8, 2011. Her body was found Saturday, July 16, in the Oak Village subdivision where she lived.

A co-worker involved in the search found Leili’s body under a pile of leaves.

“I just saw a huge big pile and it looked abnormal, you know,” Allison Rockwell told Channel 2 Action News reporter  Sophia Choi. ” It just looked like it was covering up something. So I just started kicking away at it and just saw her body and her hair –  her bloated body and her hair.”

Family and friends at the scene were waiting for police to positively identify the body. Authorities had roped off the area, and police were also at Leili’s home a short distance away.

Amy Elk of Loganville told the AJC that her sister worked in finance and payroll as a controller. She said Nique and Matt Leili had been married for at least 15 years and had lived in the Gwinnett subdivision for at least a dozen years.

Elk said Leili’s husband, who she said had filed for divorce, did not report her missing immediately. Leili was described as being 5 feet 3 inches tall, 110 pounds with reddish blonde hair and green eyes. A flyer said she was last seen on the night of July 8.

“He waited two days to report her missing,” Elk told Channel 2 Action News. “And he filed for divorce and she’d been gone for four days. She didn’t take her car or her cellphone or anything, and he told me that they’d had a huge fight and she wasn’t well,” the sister said. “I saw her two weeks ago and she was fine. She was fine.”

The woman’s husband left the area minutes after the body was found, people at the scene said.

The couple has three daughters ages 19, 12 and 9 years old. The 19-year-old from a previous marriage, Alex Page, was at the scene helping to search for her mother Saturday when the body was found.

“She was wonderful, very kind and funny,” Elk said of her sister, who was also one of three daughters. “We joked all the time. She was a wonderful mom. She worked very, very hard to do what’s best for her children.”

Gwinnett County police were not involved in the search at the time and had considered it a missing persons case with no foul play suspected. Authorities, however, were on the scene Saturday after the body was found.”

via Searchers find Lawrenceville-area mother dead  | ajc.com.


Northern Sky

Got up this morning and didn’t do much, things are winding down this trip. I’ve been thinking about possibly getting a checked bag and getting all the stuff home now. Not sure but I may do it.

We went out to Bonefish Willies for lunch, really HOT gal working there with some very interesting tattoos, several skulls, one day of the dead type. Nice brown hair, not very happy though. I had the oyster poboy and it didn’t sit well with me. After getting home I laid down and didn’t get up until about 6pm when we were suppose to head over to the Silver T’s and watch a baseball game, I bailed and instead just hung out at the house, sleeping and feeling like throwing up. Finally about 9:30pm Mom and Dad got home and I felt better.

Found out they already had a verdict in the Casey Anthony case, they acquitted her. Someone said that even OJ Simpson thought the verdict was full of shit. I guess I see why they did it, but I feel that she did more wrong than just lie to police.

Yesterday around 4-4:30 a buddy of mine at work, Fernando, thwarted a would be attacker in our rear parking lot.  He saw a guy covering his face force someone into the backseat of a Lexus SUV in the parking space I just vacated about 35-40 minutes before.  He called the police who chased the car to the far parking lot and into the woods where the assailant fled on foot into the woods.

Police Search For Kidnapper

POSTED: 6:12 am EDT August 30, 2006

Alpharetta police are looking for a man who kidnapped a woman from the parking lot of an office building as she was leaving work.

Police say the suspect apparently waited in the parking lot yesterday and abducted the woman at gunpoint.

A witness called police who chased the woman’s vehicle to another parking lot. The man bailed out of the car, with the woman remaining inside. She was slightly injured.

Police say the man ran into woods, which police searched for hours with dogs and a helicopter. They have been unable to find the man.

See the story here

Suspect sought in kidnapping
Victim attacked while leaving Alpharetta workplace


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/30/06

Alpharetta police Wednesday were looking for a man who kidnapped a woman Tuesday afternoon as she left her Mansell Road office.

The victim, whose name has not been released, was leaving her job at a wholesale jeweler about 5 p.m. when she was attacked, Alpharetta police Det. John Robison said.

“As she was approaching her vehicle, our suspect jumped out of a white Lexus which was parked next to her vehicle,” Robison said.

“He had a mask and hat on, and he pointed a gun at her and told her to get into his vehicle,” Robison said.

The suspect taped up the woman’s hands and feet, covered her eyes with duct tape and threw her onto the back floorboard of the Lexus, Robison said.

“He then began to question her, trying to get information about the office where she works; he was trying to get information from her about making entry into the office,” Robison said.

Robison said a witness called 911, and when the suspect heard arriving officers, “he takes off, and we had a little bit of a police chase.”

The suspect pulled into the parking lot of a another nearby office complex, “and bailed out of the vehicle with her still in the back,” Robison said.

The Lexus, which had been stolen August 10 from a fitness center in Cobb County, rolled over a curve and came to a stop in a ravine. The suspect fled on foot.

The victim, who was pregnant, was not seriously injured, and Robison said she and her unborn baby “are okay.”

He said she described her assailant as a white male, about 6 feet tall, with a slim build and “some type of accent – she described it as a bad Russian accent, she thought he was faking it.”

Investigators Wednesday were processing DNA evidence taken from the Lexus.

“He left his hat and mask, as well as some other items,” Robison said.


The AJC Story here.

ok, now i’m worried

The whole thing with the president allowing an Arab company to “run” major ports in the US is basicaly INSANE. I do not understand why and I haven’t researched the whole thing but it sounds insane to me. Is the president on crack?