Summer Reading List

What's on the Kindle JT? I'm going through Conquests And Cultures: An International History and Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles now. I think the queue is looking like:

• Racing Through Paradise: A Pacific Passage
• Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery
• The Housing Boom and Bust

Bathroom Etiquette

Last year a company moved in to an office in our building that shares a common area containing the bathrooms.  As time has gone on everyone in my office has started noticing some unsettling behavior from the new people.  First, let me give you the lay of the land in the men's bathroom.  There are three urinals and three stalls.  There are also two sinks and a paper towel dispenser that is regularly stocked.  Here is a primitive (not to scale) diagram to give you an idea.

Problems:

1. There are a couple of people we've noticed that regularly do not wash their hands after using the facilities.
2. They do not respect the straight space at the urinals or in the stalls.
3. An extension of #2 really, but there are several of these guys that will always choose urinal 2 (U-2 in the diagram) when they are the first man in which essentially makes all of the urinals off limits.

General rules I think everyone should play by in this bathroom configuration:

• Always choose U-1, U-3 (or if the situation demands go with T-1 or T-3) if you are the first man in.
• If you are the second person in make sure you leave at least one urinal/stall between you and the first man.
• What about if U-1 and U-3 are taken?  Feel free to bump over to T-1 or T-3 (you don't have to sit down).
• Only use U-2 or T-2 if there is no other choice.

Nunnrey (as our resident bathroom specialist), can you provide any additional insights/rules or corrections?

Isn't there a flash game out there about this?  I wonder how that entire office missed it.

3rd Annual Backtoms Football Tailgate Planning

It's getting that time of year again and we need to pick the weekend for our 3rd annual tailgate.  Here are the Saturday home games:

Sat, Sep 04 Memphis
Sat, Sep 25 Georgia
Sat, Oct 02 Alcorn State
Sat, Oct 23 UAB (HC)
Sat, Oct 30 Kentucky
Sat, Nov 20 Arkansas

Deebo already chimed in and is picking Georgia since we don't have an opportunity to see them at home as often.  My wife is wanting October so it will be cooler.  I don't necessarily have a preference, but I want to float it out there and see if we can get some consensus.  Put your comments on here or if you can't figure it out...email me.

Also, if you are planning on making it out to the game in Houston on October 9th let me know.  My crew will be heading down to tailgate.  Hopefully, this year John can refrain from breaking his leg.

5.11 Days Door Prize

GT Distributors had 5.11 Days (20% off all 5.11 gear) at their Austin location last week.  The promo featured extended hours, door prizes, and discounts on many items in the store.  John and I decided to go Friday morning before work since they opened at 7:30 AM.  We got 10% coupons as part of the "early bird" special.  And we also signed up for their hourly door prize drawings which included a hunting/fishing trip, a couple of Glock 22s and various other goodies.

Friday evening I received a call letting me know I won a door prize.  It was already closing time so they said I could swing by on Saturday or this week to come pick it up.  I was really hoping for a Glock, but I was happy to win anything.  Here is what I ended up with.

Contents of the 5.11 door prize bag (all 5.11 branded):

• BBQ sauce
• Dry rub
• Coffee mug
• Multi-tool
• Carabiner
• Cap
• T-shirt
• $25 gift card to GT Distributors

The gift card was genius.  I had already spent ~$100 on Friday, but now I had an additional $25 burning a hole in my pocket that I felt obliged to spend (which I did).

Vortex Bottles

I tried out the newest gimmick from Miller Lite over the weekend. That's right, I drank from the vortex bottle. Not sure I could detect it bringing out that triple hop brewing.

Drinking Made Easy

The Austin crew has been watching Three Sheets since its inception. We decided to check out Zane's Drinking Made Easy tour stop here last night.


It was entertaining, but I think I prefer to sit on the couch and just watch Three Sheets on TV. They do drink quite a bit during the show, so that's a plus. I would have preferred more of Zane's stories over Marc Ryan's comedy (he's ok, but not what I went for).