Like beer through the taplines, so are the days of our lives...

First order of bid'ness... Hoppy Brew Year!

I can't believe it's already been a month since I last posted.  That's ridiculous on a number of levels, not the least of which is the rhetorical question:  where the *$&@ did that month go?!?  I mean seriously.  Really? I coulda sworn I was just waking up from the New Year's hangover. Oh wait, nix that... I was asleep before the bell even rang.  Made up for it over the last few weeks though. ;)

If the first 2+ weeks of 2010 are any indication... Beer Tap TV is gonna have a kick ass year!  Last weekend both Erik and I were out and about on BTTV business. He was darting around the mid-west and I was out in Northern California.

While in the San Francisco Bay Area with my wife Fran (she of the soon to be revitalized For the Love of Fran's Food blog), I got a chance to very briefly (we were in a rush to get party supplies for my mother-in-law's birthday) visit Russian River Brewing Company and had literal mad dashes by Gordon Biersch and 21st Amendment.

After barnstorming through NorCal for a few days we were able to slow down a bit and spend the better part of Sunday at one of our favorite spots along the California coast - Half Moon Bay.  It's here that we got to sit back and smell the roses, or in this case the beer, at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company. Unlike the other beer sojourns I did in fact remember to bring my phone, but that's only because we spent the night in HMB (Inn at the Mavericks) because we were flying out the next morning. Anywho... HMBBC is a spectacular brewpub with an ambiance that simply can't be beat. Outdoor patios with raging fire pits, great brew, food and music.

So why did it take me so long to post about this when it was over a week ago? Glad you asked. By way of a long and convoluted intro, here's the crux of this post...

Back when I started writing this blog in 2007 many of today's high-tech gadgets and websites either weren't around yet or they were just being born. I think the iPhone literally launched the day before my very first post. Here it is two and a half years later and the exponential advance in technology has been staggering. We now carry around smart phones that make Star Trek communicators look primitive. Social networking was something we did in person, not something accomplished through a host of incredibly advanced websites. Facebook was still in it's infancy, Twitter was something a bird did, and Ning was a grammatical term indicating that a verb was in the progressive form.

Blogging has come a long way since Jack Dorsey created Blogger. Did you know he also created Twitter? One could argue that Jack single-handedly helped bring about the demise of brick and mortar newspapers. How? Ever hear of the term "citizen journalism"? Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace... all of them gave voice to the people. Combine that with the ability to take high quality pictures and video anywhere at anytime and you have millions who can conduct instantaneous, on the spot reporting 24/7/365.

Back then - all two and a half years - we had to go to different sites to do a myriad of different things.  Not anymore.  Like everyone I too have a Facebook page and a Twitter account that are not only all linked, but have are far easier to use on the fly then sitting down and typing out a lengthy blog entry. Who thought so much could be communicated in 140 spaces?  Dorsey apparently.

But I digressed (imagine that)...

A few days after our trip I posted pics (like the one to the right) and video to my Facebook page. I popped out a few Tweets while at HMBBC drinking a flight of great brews, watching the Cardinals and Packers set NFL defenses back 100 years, and listening to the Latin rhythms of Manicato. It took me almost two weeks to sit down and type out this ramble.

So my point?  To stay caught up with my beertastic doings - and there's going to be plenty, not the least of which is our trip to Oktoberfest in Germany in September - make sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter!  The digital age is here and it ain't goin' away people, so get on board. If you need incentive... my 81 year old mother-in-law Emails daily, has a Facebook page, and knows how to surf the Internet like a pro surfer hanging ten at Mavericks!  So get to it!