Wednesday, July 20, 2011

In the beginning...

At the advice of a wise cousin I have decided to create this blog to track the up coming months and years as I transition into a new phase of my career. For the past ten years I have been teaching in Alternative Education, high school for at-risk youth. I had always thought that teaching would be it for me, fun with kids, summers off, and occasionally being verbally berated by my malcontented teens. Teaching always just fit. I love the routine: up early, teaching history, having fun with the kids, time in the staff lounge. Everything about it was intense and that was one of the things that I enjoyed about it. Sure there are ups and downs in teaching, and especially in Alternative Ed, but I always saw it as the highs being higher and the lows being lower. The good always out weighed the bad.

Then seemingly out of nowhere, an opportunity presented itself to turn my hobby of homebrewing into a profession. It was the chance to live the homebrewer's dream: get paid to craft beer. Just as enticing, the pending brewery is close to home, a half mile away to be exact. It makes me twitch to think about the 135 miles round trip I did in order to get to school. So with the support of my wonderful wife I have taken a sabbatical from teaching and taken the plunge.

Leaving teaching was terribly difficult. I am sure to post in the future about that experience. As a parting gift my coworkers had a t-shirt made for me. It read, "Those who can, teach. Those who can't teach, brew." In trying to figure out this blogs title, my wife suggested running with the slogan that my coworkers coined, and it seemed appropriate.

I will be discussing a wide range of things in during the course of this blog: the trials and tribulations of a green horn professional brewer, beer philosophy, recipe formulation, progress on the brewpub, accounts of my teaching withdrawals, and I am sure some family stuff as well.

In the meantime, drink good beer with good people.

Salute!

3 comments:

  1. Nice post and yet another creepy way to follow you

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  2. As a web development professional who personally knows people who like beer. Please fix your color scheme to something that does not involve royal blue links on a slate grey background. The web will thank you.

    Oh and it is kind of exciting to hear that you will be General Brew-Master Mills. Where do you live now? I will have to stop by and sample your wares once you are under way.

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  3. Thanks Vanscoyoc and Dan! I was playing around with the templates and was called away to baby duty before returning to a more traditional look for the blog. I appreciate the heads up. I am still in Big Rapids. I will for sure keep you in the loop!

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