How to Host an Oktoberfest Party

How to Host an Oktoberfest Party – Betty Crocker.

Since I’ll be going back to work soon, I’ll be missing Octoberfest this year. It actually started in Munich yesterday.

It’s already over here in Houston. I might have gone if I knew about it earlier. Really, I just had too much to do at home to check out fun things to do. 🙁

It’s always like that when I first come home from being offshore for a month or more. With this new job I recently started it looks like I’ll be missing ALL of the things I’d like to do for the next few months at least. 🙁

Here are some fun suggestions for those of you who DO get a chance to enjoy some interesting events on your time off. 🙂

Those pretzels look especially interesting. And beer is always good, I even have some Saint Arnold Octoberfest brew in my fridge right now, I’ll just have to settle for a few of those before I leave for work. 🙂

I'm Beer!

This is an entry for the Word A Week Photograph Challenge: Window from Sue at A Word In Your Ear blog.

I took this one while I was on a trip to Korea a couple of months ago. I like the colors and neat graphics of this shot.

AND, I like beer! 🙂

Let’s Cook With Beer!

Let’s Cook With Beer!.

Now THIS is some cooking I could get into! 😉

I never used to like beer. I grew up on the beach in FL and I used to be a wino. 😉

My father always drank wine. Maybe it was because his mother was Italian and always had wine with meals. We always had wine around the house (and so it was very easy for me to have some whenever I wanted).

When I moved to Texas (to go to school) I was in for a major culture shock. First of all, most of the area where I moved to was ‘dry’- no alcohol! WTF??!!

Moving from a little fishing town in FL with 15 bars/restaurants within a few blocks (along with everything else we would need to live) to Texas where my school was 5 miles away in one direction one of my jobs was 10 miles away in the other direction and the other job another 5 miles away in yet another direction.

WOW! I really had no idea how big Texas was when I moved here. 🙂

So of course there was nothing within walking distance, or even within a reasonable bike ride away. There was not a bar I could find that had anything but beer. For some reason beer was almost always available even when nothing else was. Blue laws???

So, I switched to beer out of necessity. 😉

I never really thought about cooking with beer, I just drank it. Sometimes I made neat things out of the empty cans. I remember a beer can Christmas tree one year. 😉

I’m not sure why I never thought about cooking with beer before. I did cook with wine growing up. I remember a bunch of my dads fishermen pals stopping by to help me cook a pot of beef stew.

It went like this… throw some onions and the beef in the pot and some (red) wine. Pass around the wine.

Check on the stew, throw in some potatoes and celery and some more wine. Pass around the bottle.

Check on the stew, throw in some carrots and mushrooms and some more wine. Pass around (another) bottle.

I think you get the picture. 😉

We all enjoyed the stew!! 🙂

I think this ‘Peppered Beef Soup’ could be done in the same style. I’ll have to invite some friends over and try it out one of these days. 🙂

That ‘Beer Cheese Spread” does look really good to me, and not too hard to make either. I’ll definitely be trying that recipe soon!

I’m not too sure about the rest of the recipes (just not really my kind of thing), tho they do sound like a good way to use up your beer (if for some reason you don’t drink it all).

This Guy’s Stomach Made Its Own Beer

This Guy’s Stomach Made Its Own Beer | Smart News.

This is pretty interesting. I wonder how the law on DWIs is going to treat this. If you did NOT drink anything, but your BAC is over the legal limit, do you get charged and have your life destroyed for not hurting anyone? Just like the people who are in the exact same condition who have had a drink??

I’ve been arguing this for years, that the laws against DWI are just wrong, totally unjust and so should NOT BE laws! If I can drive down the highway, talking on my cell phone (or eating a burger, or falling asleep, or yelling at the kids, etc), get in an accident and kill 15 people and not get charged. Then, I could go home and have a beer to take my nerves off, get pulled over for having a tail light out, and have my entire life destroyed for being “drunk”. How in the HELL does that scenario make sense??? Simple answer, it doesn’t!

Our ‘justice’ system is totally screwed up. This situation with alcohol is just one example.

I wonder how many college kids are going to try and fill their bellies up with these bacteria? Cheap date?? Oh hell yes, I bet this becomes a new fad. 😉

Beer vs. Oil: Beer Wins | Mother Jones

Beer vs. Oil: Beer Wins | Mother Jones.

I’m glad to hear the beer people won. I still wonder where the oil people will go next. They need to be able to go SOMEWHERE. This mess will probably NEVER be totally cleaned up. I don’t know for sure, but even if it DOES get totally cleaned up, it will take years, probably a LOT of years. I work in the oil industry and happy to, but I also realize that no matter what they say, ALL accidents are NOT preventable! As long as we use oil for practically everything in modern society, we WILL have to put up with risks of this kind of thing. I would like to see more work on alternative energy. I see they are coming up with more and better systems. Maybe one day soon they will come up with something comparable in price and efficiency with oil based energy. I sure do hope so. I am looking into getting solar panels for my house and they are SO expensive and not very efficient. It will cost me a fortune to put them up and take years to pay for themselves. I would put up a windmill too but “not allowed”. Why do we still have so many restrictions on being allowed to USE alternative energy sources????