Blinding You With Science

It's finals time, which means I'm doing just about everything but study.  I get pretty good at doing productive-ish things that aren't exactly what I need to be doing.  For instance, I've got to eat dinner right?  So why wouldn't I make an elaborate meal that takes two hours of prep time?  I'm not procrastinating, I'm making dinner!  I've got to work out right?  So why not spend an extra hour doing the most non-intensive yoga possible?  I can't neglect my health just because it's finals time!  And in this vein of doing things I "need" to be doing, you're getting two posts, two days in a row, something last seen I think in 2007.

In the past, say, two years or so, I've been growing increasingly angry at myself for not getting an undergrad degree in science.  Nevermind that I'm terrible at science, that I withdrew from THREE separate intro-to-different-sciences courses in college, and that I'm 80% sure that I have the fine motor skills of a toddler, making lab work pretty impossible for me.  If I had a science degree, the world would be my oyster.  It's literally the best thing you can have in the legal world.  You can do all the law nonsense that us liberal arts majors can do, PLUS EVERYTHING ELSE.  Oh yeah, you know who's still hiring in these dire times?  Patent/bio law firms because like three people on earth can do that stuff, the three people who had the foresight to major in some science before going to law school.  You know what else you can do with a science degree?  EVERYTHING ELSE ON EARTH.

Why this rant right now and what does it have to do with beer?  Well I was watching the excellent show Brew Masters last night, which chronicles the comings and goings of the Dogfish Head Brewery, and I noticed that everything everyone was doing on that show was science related.  Their yeast expert?  I looked her up.  She's younger than me and she has one of the dopest jobs on earth.  How'd she get it?  Well, she majored in a science in undergrad, applied for the job and got it!!!!  All of Dogfish Head's brewers?  Science majors.  So my ultimate plan in life is to work a crappy legal job that pays the bills and then quit to do something awesome like start a brewery.*  You know what would make both the getting a job and starting a brewery parts infinitely easier?  A science degree.

Both of my parents are engineers, which is another major that is science-y and super practical.  Like all good modern parents, they instilled in me a belief that I could be anything I want to be/do anything I set my mind to.**  I didn't have to be an engineer.  I want to go into liberal arts?  Go for it!  There are plenty of useful things I can do with a poly sci/philosophy degree!  Well hopefully when I have kids, I can instill in them the same attitude.  You don't have to be a student till you're 27!  You don't have to get two worthless undergrad degrees and a somehow more worthless grad degree!  You can study things that will make you a contributing member of society!  But of course macrobrew will still be strictly verboten.  Another thing I wonder about in Brew Masters is this: Sam Calagione's kids have to be trying some of that beer, right?  Unfortunately the Discovery Channel can't show/broach one of the more interesting subjects about the life of a brewer: the brewer's attitude regarding his product and his kids.  I'm sure he's not getting his kids wasted, but there's got to be some kind of healthy balance between "Don't touch this stuff till you turn 21" and "Go nuts, kids!"  I'd imagine an artisan cheese maker's kids would know a whole ton about cheese.  Why wouldn't a brewer's kids know a ton about beer?  I don't care about erecting a retired Burning Man fort on your brewery's grounds!  Answer these questions, Brew Masters!

And so we get to the beers I drank last night.  It actually was a fair amount, because 1) the studying during the day went well, 2) Sunday is a one-or-none beer evening and 3) I could!  I had an Erdinger Weizen, whose bottle notes that it is "Crystal Clear."  I was hoping it would be like Crystal Pepsi and actually be clear, but unfortunately it was just a piss-yellow beer flavored beer.  Followed that up with a Stone Pale Ale, an Otter Creek Stovepipe Porter, and 2 Fuller's Extra Special ESBs.  So there's that!  In the grand scheme of producticrastinating (which is my new term for doing things like this), I'm sure you'll be hearing from me tomorrow!

Total Beers: 977
Count Down: 23 (I realize putting this number here is pretty stupid, but being but a liberal arts major, I don't have any real conception of what does and doesn't constitute a good idea)


*Note to potential employers, I'm not talking about quitting your job, which is surely great.  I'm talking about quitting that other one, you know, the one that sucks, which again, is not your job, which I'm super jazzed about.
**Like drink 1000 beers in a year and end a sentence with a preposition!  Thanks folks!