Dec 13 2025 2025-12-13 2025-12-13 by Ross

First Batch…

Posted in Beer

First Pour: Brewing (and Drinking) My First Pinter Beer

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I ordered a Pinter a few weeks ago because, like many people of weak will and strong curiosity, I am a sucker for Instagram ads.

The deal was the classic kind of “free.” Free Pinter… so long as I commit to what feels like tens of thousands of dollars in beer kits. In reality it’s more like six kits over the next year, which seems reasonable when you phrase it like that and stop thinking too hard about it.

Winter calls me to drink dark beer, so I started with the Dark Matter kit. It’s described as a classic stout: “A dark, sweet, full-bodied and slightly roasty ale. Roasted barley and malt aromas, and a hint of chocolate.” I was in.

Brewing: Shockingly Easy

The process could not have been simpler.
Put water in the Pinter.
Dump the kit contents.
Wait.

For this beer, it was five days of brewing, then another seven days in the fridge to condition. That’s it. No boiling. No sanitizing every object in the house. No panic that I’ve ruined everything by looking at it wrong.

Today was tap day.

First Pour (and Second… and Third)

The first glass was 100% foam. A proud, towering monument to carbonation. It took a few pours to get mostly beer, and I quickly learned not to open the tap all the way like I’m pouring a Guinness in a pub. Reddit tells me it improves after a day or two, so we’ll see.

Once the foam settled down, the beer itself was… fine. Solid. Definitely stout-like. A little sweet, a little roasty. Not bad at all. The main issue right now is that it’s heavily carbonated, which feels slightly at odds with what I want from a stout. Again, I’m hopeful that it improves with time.

The “Too Much Beer” Problem

I wish my block had garage beers, because this would be a great way to share it and clear it out. Unfortunately, bottling isn’t really recommended, and I’m not bringing a keg to work. Otherwise, I’d happily fill a growler and pass it around to neighbors.

I like it. I’ll drink it. I just don’t need this much beer this often.

I think it makes about 16 pints, at 5% ABV. I could have more than one, and damn if a tapped keg in my fridge doesn’t make that easier, but I don’t really need it. That said, an 8-ounce glass with dinner feels just about perfect.

Where this thing will really shine is hosting: a BBQ, a party, maybe even hauling the Pinter to someone’s house on New Year’s. That feels like its natural habitat.

Verdict (So Far)

My next batch arrived today—three kits waiting in the wings. Bonus: the shipment came with two free glasses, which immediately made the whole thing feel more legitimate.

So far, the Pinter is easy and fun. Is it the greatest beer in the world? No. But it’s mine, I made it with almost no effort, and it came out drinkable on the first try. That counts for something.

Next up: a 9% ABV Imperial Stout, which happens to be my favorite style (though Evil Twin’s Imperial Biscotti Break still reigns supreme).

It’s great to be alive… even if the carbonation seems a bit high. 🍺


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Dec 12 2025 2025-12-12 2025-12-12 by Ross

Something Good Every Day: This Evening…

Posted in Something Good

If I’m being honest, today’s “something good” is not a big thing or an impressive thing. It’s this evening. Just… this.

My wife built a proper fire in the living room fireplace — the kind that crackles reassuringly and makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something just by sitting near it. She’s practicing the piano, and since she’s actually excellent, it’s pleasant rather than the “learning phase” where you wonder if your homeowners’ insurance covers emotional damage.

I’m having a martini. Pizza is on the way. Late,r we’ll watch the Blackhawks game and/or the new season of a Norwegian Christmas show that dropped today, because nothing says holiday cheer like Scandinavians and existential winter lighting.

The pets are nearby, which is their way of confirming that we are still their primary source of heat and food. The kids are all out in the world, on their own, and doing well — which is the parental equivalent of checking the weather radar and seeing no storms headed your way.

This will be the last Friday night like this for a little while, but that’s a good thing. Because next week, at this time, the two kids living in Boston will be home for a month. I’ll be off work for two weeks, as will the younger one. We’ll head to central Ohio for Christmas, play family games, watch movies, and sit around doing nothing in particular — which, at this stage of life, is a wildly underrated activity.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a close family that actually enjoyed spending time together. I didn’t realize how rare that was until later. In law school, I dated a woman who had a similarly close family and a small Chicago house. I remember loving how cozy it felt — crowded, warm, loud, and safe all at once.

Tonight, I feel that in my own house. And next week, it’ll be even better, when the cozy house gets louder and messier and filled with everyone again.

I’ve made peace with a lot of things this week. Some old worries have quieted down. Some long-running mental arguments have finally adjourned without issuing an opinion. I’m doing well.

I don’t take this for granted — not for a second. I’m a lucky and blessed man. I’m also at peace* (finally living up to the blog’s title)

It’s great to be alive.

 

*which I 100% just jinxed.


Dec 12 2025 2025-12-12 2025-12-12 by Ross

Risking Everything….

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

I continue to be amazed at what some people are willing to risk.

Take the recently fired University of Michigan coach who lost his job over an inappropriate relationship with a staffer in his department. I don’t know him, I don’t know his marriage, and I don’t know what kind of pressure cooker his life was at the time.

Let me be clear up front: I’m not excusing the affair. I think it’s awful. Full stop. But affairs do happen. People make selfish, destructive decisions every day. What truly astonishes me isn’t just that he cheated—it’s that he was willing to risk his marriage, his job, his reputation, and everything he’d built on an affair, and then compound that risk by doing it with someone who worked for him.

This wasn’t a momentary lapse or a drunken bad decision on a work trip. This was reportedly a two-year relationship with someone who was an underling. In his department. At his employer. The same employer that paid him something like $5 million a year and entrusted him with one of the most prestigious jobs in college sports.

That’s not just risking your marriage. That’s risking everything.

If he’d had an affair with a stranger—a Hooter’s waitress, someone he met at a bar, someone entirely outside his workplace—this likely would have remained a personal disaster rather than a professional one. The school might have issued a stiff statement and moved on. Messy? Yes. Fireable? Probably not.

But once you cross into a relationship with an underling, the institution has no real choice. Power imbalance. Workplace liability. Sexual harassment concerns. HR alarms blaring like air-raid sirens. At that point, the university doesn’t merely want to fire you—it has to.

And then there’s the detail that really makes you shake your head: after the relationship ended, she reportedly received a significant raise. Maybe there’s an innocent explanation. Maybe she earned it. Maybe the timing is just unfortunate.

But optics matter. And this looks terrible. It looks like hush money. It looks like an attempt to buy silence. And in situations like this, appearances alone can be career-ending.

So let’s tally it up:

  • A seven-figure salary
  • A top-tier coaching job
  • Years of reputation-building
  • A career that may not recover for a long time, if ever

All gambled away for something that didn’t even need to involve the workplace.

That’s the part I can’t get past. Not the affair itself, but the breathtaking willingness to light a match next to everything you’ve built. It’s not just poor judgment—it’s professional self-immolation.

I don’t feel smug about it. I don’t feel superior. Mostly, I feel baffled. How does someone smart enough to reach that level of success fail to see the most obvious red line imaginable?

Some risks are bad bets.
Some risks are reckless.
And some risks make you wonder if the person ever stopped to ask, “What happens if this blows up?”

Because this one did. Completely.

And for what?

Shaking my head.


Dec 11 2025 2025-12-11 2025-12-11 by Ross

Life Is Better When You Don’t Read the Comments…

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

I need to tattoo this somewhere on my body. Maybe across my forearm like a reminder from a dystopian YA novel: DON’T READ THE COMMENTS.

Because every time—every time—I read something online and think, “Wow, that was thoughtful,” I make the fatal mistake of scrolling down. And without fail, I find myself staring into the digital equivalent of a septic tank left open during a heatwave.

There’s one legal blog I genuinely enjoy. Smart writing. Interesting cases. Actual insight. And yet, like a raccoon pawing through a dumpster, I inevitably wander into the comment section hoping—truly hoping—to witness intelligent discussion.

Instead, the very first comment is always some version of:
“Well, what do you expect from an idiot like OP?”

Fantastic. The opening serve is ad hominem at 110 mph. No analysis, no engagement, just immediate character assassination. Not even creative character assassination. Just the drive-thru value menu variety.

Then come the whatabouters, scurrying in right on schedule.

“Sure, this case is about municipal regulations, BUT WHAT ABOUT THAT THING THAT HAPPENED IN 1992 IN ALBUQUERQUE???”

Followed by the Trump Injectors, who have a magical ability to connect absolutely anything to the former president. The post could be about contract interpretation, or medieval property law, or a recipe for lemon bars, and someone will still show up like:

“Well, in the age of Trump…”

No. No, sir. We are not discussing the age of anything. We are discussing—checks notes—lemon bars.

And it’s not just legal blogs. Oh no. Wander into any comment section, anywhere, on any topic, and the pattern is identical. You could be reading a harmless nostalgia piece about the 80s sitcom ALF. Just people reminiscing about a wisecracking alien puppet who wanted to eat cats.

And still someone finds a way to post:

“Sure, ALF was a good show, but in the age of Trump you’d be arrested for making it now.”

What? How? Who is arresting whom, for what? Why is Trump lurking behind every pop-culture corner like a jump-scare in a haunted house?

Comment sections are almost always cesspools. And the worst part is: even the good ones rot. Every decent corner of the internet eventually becomes a swamp. It starts out fine—maybe a few polite disagreements, a reference or two to actual facts—and then one day you look down and realize you’re knee-deep in toxicity with a stranger named “ConstitutionalPatriot99” screaming at “WokeSnowflake420” about something entirely unrelated to the original post.

And I always tell myself: Don’t scroll down. Don’t do it. Just enjoy the article and walk away like a normal human being.

But do I listen?

Of course not.
I scroll.
I read.
I regret.
Then I vow never to do it again.

Until the very next day, when I once again convince myself that this time the comment section will be different. This time it will be full of reasoned arguments and thoughtful replies and maybe even a citation to an actual case.

But no. It’s the same hellscape, just wearing a different avatar.

One day I’ll learn.
Or maybe I’ll just get that tattoo.

Life is better when you don’t read the comments.


Dec 10 2025 2025-12-10 2025-12-10 by Ross

How Hard Is It? (A Teacher’s Rant Driving Him to Retirement)

Posted in Work

Every once in a while I look around my workplace — a public school in Chicago — and ask myself a question that has become almost a mantra:

How hard is it?

Not in the philosophical sense.
Not in the “teens are complicated” sense.
I mean… literally… how hard is it to do the absolute simplest things?

Because lately, the gap between “this should be easy” and “apparently this is impossible” feels wider than the Grand Canyon.

1. The Master Calendar That Does Not Exist

Let’s start with the calendar — or rather, the lack of one.

My school does not have a shared, school-wide master calendar. That means I often have no idea when field trips are happening, when testing is scheduled, or when some random event is going to hijack half my class.

Imagine trying to run a class with structure and planning while operating in an administrative environment that seems allergic to… well… structure and planning.

And here’s the part that drives me nuts:

A shared calendar takes ten minutes to set up.
Google Calendar → Create → Share with staff → Done.

How hard is it?

Apparently very.

2. “What Can I Do to Raise My Grade?” (Asked With One Week Left)

Another classic:
Students approaching me a week before the end of the semester, asking what they can do to raise their grade.

Not in week two.
Not in week five.
Not even in week ten.

Week seventeen.

And the answer — the simple, painfully obvious answer — is always the same:

Do the work during the semester.

It’s astonishing how foreign that concept feels to many of them. We’ve created a school culture where deadlines are flexible, missing work can be made up months later, and every consequence can be negotiated.

So kids have learned that nothing actually counts until it’s too late.

But still… how hard is it to keep up with assignments as they come?

Harder than I thought, apparently.

3. Being Where You’re Supposed to Be

You’d think this one would be simple:

Be in your class, not your girlfriend’s class.
Be in Civics during Civics, not wandering into the gym.
Go where you’re scheduled to go.

And yet, every day I have students drifting in from hallways, from other rooms, from places they absolutely shouldn’t be — usually with an expression that says, What? Why is this a problem?

It’s not that the rule is complicated.
It’s that enforcement is inconsistent, consequences are rare, and many kids have learned that rules are more like suggestions.

So again:
How hard is it?

Too hard, it seems.

4. Why This Feels Like a One-Way Ticket to Retirement

The truth is, none of this would bother me if it were the result of complicated, unsolvable problems.

But these aren’t complicated.
These are the easy problems.
The low-hanging fruit.
The quick fixes.
The “we could have solved this in 2009” issues.

What wears me down — and what makes retirement look more attractive every day — is living in a system where:

  • the simple things don’t get done
  • the obvious things aren’t enforced
  • the preventable problems repeat endlessly
  • and the people who notice sound like the unreasonable ones

I’m not asking for perfection.
I’m not asking for reinventing the wheel.

I just want a calendar.
Students who do their work.
Kids who go to the class they’re assigned to.

How hard is it?

Hard enough, apparently, that I’m starting to think the answer might be:
Too hard for me to keep doing this forever.

 


Dec 07 2025 2025-12-07 2026-01-04 by Ross

This Week in Training – Week 11: Back on Track (Mostly)…

Posted in Cycling, Running, Swimming, Triathlon

IMWI 2026: The Long Crawl to the Base Phase
(Recovering from turkey, travel, and general chaos — one workout at a time.)

Solid week, even if I missed two workouts. The important thing is I got back to it after the Thanksgiving dip. I’m starting to feel that rhythm again — the familiar soreness, the satisfaction of checking sessions off, and the creeping sense that I might actually be getting fitter.

Swim 🏊

  • Workouts: 1
  • Total Distance: 2,000 yards
  • Total Time: 41 minutes
  • Notes: Only one swim this week, where I missed a workout. Felt fine, though I was rusty and bored. The pool is my quiet place, but sometimes it feels like Groundhog Day with goggles.

Bike 🚴

  • Workouts: 1
  • Total Distance: 17.84 miles
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Notes: A one-hour Power Zone Peloton ride. It was a challenge, but I made it through. I’m sure my zones have slipped over the past year, but I stubbornly used the old ones anyway. Didn’t hit every minute perfectly, but I didn’t bail either. Win.

Run 🏃

  • Workouts: 2
  • Total Distance: 10.05 miles
  • Total Time: 1 hour 39 minutes
  • Notes: Both runs outside — cold air, steady pace, good energy. I love running in winter. There’s something about the quiet and the crunch of snow that makes it easier to keep going.

Strength/Other 💪

  • Workouts: None
  • Notes: Still nothing formal, though I probably should start mixing in some core and strength work before “base” sneaks up on me.

Relative Effort 📈

  • Total Weekly Effort: 541 (up from 411 over Thanksgiving, down from 552 before that)
  • Notes: Overall trajectory is trending upward again, which is what matters.

Reflections ✍️

Not perfect, but a solid rebound. I felt good this week and kept moving forward. The Power Zone ride reminded me what real effort feels like, and the runs helped shake off the post-holiday rust.

Next week will probably look similar, but I’m hoping to hit every planned workout. After that, things should ease up — no more after-school class twice a week, which means more flexibility and fewer excuses.

Goals for Next Week 🎯

  • Hit every scheduled workout.
  • Stay consistent with running — maybe stretch one a little longer.
  • Add a second swim (and try not to complain about it).
  • Keep building toward that elusive “base phase.”

Dec 05 2025 2025-12-05 2025-12-05 by Ross

Something Good Every Day — Memories…

Posted in Something Good

Today’s good came from memories—specifically the silly or unexpectedly fond ones that pop up and tug you back to another version of yourself.

The first hit while I was watching a movie at work. Someone slammed down a phone to end a call, and I felt an immediate wave of nostalgia. I was never the “angry hang-up” type, but there was something satisfying about physically slamming a receiver onto a cradle. It had weight. It had oomph. People today will never know the catharsis of hanging up with authority. Now it’s just… tapping a red circle. Very civilized. Very boring.

The second memory arrived courtesy of an algorithm. YouTube recommended a tutorial series for a video game I barely played—but it transported me straight back to the COVID shutdown, when I spent two months skiing in Utah.

The first month I lived in this great little apartment that overlooked a mountain. End of the block, trailhead right there. On days I didn’t ski, I hiked or biked the trails. I had a nook where I could sit, read, and stare out at the ridgeline. I downloaded that video game and messed with it a little—not much, but enough that it’s braided into the memory of that view, that quiet. I also remembered the Thursday “live” online trivia nights with Bob and Sheila. Something small, but I miss that.

The second month I stayed somewhere less charming—no mountain view—, but it was attached to a coffee shop, which was its own kind of cozy. I’d teach in the mornings, then drive twenty minutes to Snowbasin, where by 12:30 I’d be clipping into my skis. Weekday skiing meant no lift lines. I’d ride down the mountain and ski straight onto the next chair. That kind of solitude-in-motion stays with you.

These were good memories, and I hope I make more like them—not all as goofy as landline-phone theatrics, but still. I’m at the point in life where I look back and think things were better when I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s. The 90s and early 2000s weren’t bad either.  To be fair to myself, I’ve been able to appreciate and enjoy every stage of my life, though the 50-59 age group has been a lot more challenging.  Still, I’m sure when I’m 70 (if I can hold out), I’ll look back fondly on now, too.

Today, the good was remembered. And being grateful, I’ve had moments worth remembering.

It’s great to be alive.


Dec 05 2025 2025-12-05 2025-12-05 by Ross

Perfect Friday Winter Night

Posted in Martini Recap

Martini…catalogues…dark/cold.


Dec 03 2025 2025-12-03 2025-12-03 by Ross

Something Good Every Day — Coming Home…

Posted in Something Good

The last two days, going to work has felt like a chore. I’m over it. Walking into that building has taken more effort than I like to admit, and finding something “good” during the school day hasn’t come naturally. Some days the well feels dry.

But the good for today wasn’t at work.
It was coming home.

Home is peaceful right now. My wife, the pets, the familiar calm of the evening settling in. I’d say the kids, but they’re out of the house these days—though two will be back for a month over Christmas, and that will bring its own kind of good chaos.

Tonight we have ASL lessons early, but after that? We’ll have time. Time to read by the fire, or watch a Christmas rom-com, or play a game. Nothing flashy, nothing huge—just the kind of quiet, comfortable evenings I live for.

After-work nights are where the day finally exhales.
That’s the good for today.

It’s great to be alive.


Dec 01 2025 2025-12-01 2025-12-01 by Ross

Something Good Every Day — Dinner

Posted in Music, Something Good

Tonight’s “good” was dinner.

Not some gourmet masterpiece—Blue Apron did most of the heavy lifting—but still, I cooked it.

My wife had a long, chaotic workday, and the rest of her week is going to be just as bananas. Normally, cooking is something I do because… well, I do 95% of the cooking around here. It’s habit. Routine. A task to be crossed off before I collapse on the couch.

But tonight I put my mind in a different place. Instead of treating it like a chore, I treated it like a kindness. A small act to make her day a little softer around the edges.

I put on a fantastic playlist, let the music carry me, and cooked without rushing or resenting or watching the clock. Just chopped, stirred, plated, and felt good while doing it. When she walked in the door to a warm meal after a punishing day, it felt like I’d done something meaningful—even if it was simple.

Not every act of love has to be grand. Sometimes it’s dinner. Sometimes it’s mood. Sometimes it’s just deciding to do the same thing differently.

(And let’s be clear: this new mindset does not extend to picking up the clothes on my side of the bed. That’s a bridge too far.)

Good playlist, good food, good deed.

It’s great to be alive.