One Small Step For Dan, A Giant Leap For Dankind

Thursday November 20, roughly 5:30pm. On the 26th day without drinking, I reached into my fridge and pulled out a beer. It was nothing great, just a Lager, lite actually. There was no way I was going to attempt anything out of my own beer cellar. I might not be here typing this if I did. I was going to TND and I was not going in cold in case something crazy happened. If you wish to remember your teenage years, just do what I did and not drink for a month. The first swallow I took I swear I could hear the alcohol molecules saying "Look it's virgin territory!" They weren't far from the truth. Even though I raped and pillaged that territory for 30 plus years, apparently a lot of scrub brush has grown back. After half a glass I was done. I already had a small buzz and besides, how much corn can a man drink? So we got into the car and started our trek down. Of course it would turn out to be more like a marathon. As soon as we hit Oaks, things came to a standstill. Traffic was just starting to move in the westbound lanes after an accident. So what was the hubbub on this side? Well, something happened on the so called expressway and that backed up traffic on every single road in the area. If we don't have more than 2 days to evacuate this area in case of an emergency, we are all doomed. After well over an hour, we finally found a parking spot in town and walked up in the snow to TND. All the usual celebrities were there for this fine event and it was damn good to see them. Andy and gang at TND always puts together some real nice menu choices to go with a beer event. It just wasn't going to happen with me unfortunately. I attempted a glass of Fox Oatmeal Stout from the hand pump and drank maybe half of it. When the heat from the kitchen started putting a whammy on me, Uncle Jack was quite correct in saying that I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. A tad over a hour later it was time to go home in a blinding snow shower. I guess this isn't going to be easy?

Doctor, Doctor Give Me The News

I got a bad case of ?????? Well, according to my latest round of blood work, the answer would be nothing. Zip, zero, nada and zilch. Somewhat shocked, I asked if anything was normal high or low. I was right the down the middle and even my cholesterol was right smart. My weight is down around 20 pounds but I have developed a case of white coat fever as my pulse and BP shoots up whenever I show up at various offices. Next up is a visit to my friendly cardiologist to dot the i's and cross the t's. Or as the Doctor says, maybe it will give me some real peace of mind. Not knowing what kicked this off has officially driven me crazy. Lucky for all you fine folks out there that I scratched a couple of blog posts that may have you calling the guys in the white coats once you read them to take me away. To say I was out of it for a couple of weeks would be a understatement. It literally sucked the life force right out of me. I had little desire to watch TV, listen to the radio or even read stuff on the Internet. Food in the morning was an option, an option which I didn't want. Lunch was a little better and by dinner I was starting to feel more like myself each night. Now I am a lot closer to that crazy guy that you all love to bust. My morning coffee has been replaced with decaf and my longest streak of going without any alcohol has reached a mind numbing 25 days. It is time I tried to right this ship. Hopefully Thursday I will attempt a trip to the lovely TND for some TNSC action. It will be short I am quite sure of that, but it must be done. A nation depends on it.

There's Something Not Right With Me

"How was I supposed to know?" Well, I sure found out the hard way during my trip to to Rehoboth Beach the other weekend. The extra long weekend started Thursday night with some Phillies action at Mr. Steve's fine place with the usual cast of the T.N.S.C. and then jumped to some Hellen Keller Pils (A beer so good even she can see that!) at the Fox on Friday night, where I picked up 3 cases of cans for the hard working folks at Fins Fish House. Saturday morning brought Parkerford Brewing, Pookie De Hand and Steve and his lovely extortioner wife Joy to The Station Bistro for a very fine breakfast. With everybody full, we were off to the land of Dogfish and my other good friends at Fins. The ride down was a breeze and it was partly cloudy and surprisingly warm once we got there. We took a nice stroll down to the ocean to check out the wave action and we then began our quest for what bar to hit first. The Iguana Grill won as a quick moving shower forced us to the bar. Okay, forced may not be entirely true, but for us, it hits pretty close to the truth. After the rain let up and our glasses dry, we took a walk to our next stop, Fins. This has become my second home down here next to Dogfish. Great people and food and damn good beer. Me and Mr. Chris (one of the owners) took a walk across the street to get the cases and he filled me in on some of the fun stuff coming up. One of the most surprising things was the Lager tap will soon be replaced by Troegs and in the near future even the BMC taps will be gone and replaced with more craft beer. The website will also get a new look. Damn, I need to move back here I said to myself. This sure isn't the Rehoboth of my younger days. (T-Rex, Fred Flintstone) The boys and girls were bellied up at the bar and eating and drinking away. After a couple of hours, we drugged ourselves away to go to the evil empire for dinner. With impeccable timing a couple of seats opened up at the bar front and center. First on the thirst parade was the much talked about Piston Honda. Made with fresh Japanese hops and coming in at 4.5% and 25 IBU'S, it was as good as a beer I had this year. Is Sam going session on us? Well the Palo quickly answered that. At 11% it will put an hurting for certain on ya. I had a few Honda's and oldie but the original goody Shelter Pale Ale. We hung out and watched the rest of the Penn State game and then I went up to the room to watch the rest of the World Series. My eyelids told me different however and I went to sleep after Joe Blanton smacked a home run. The best part of this trip is just about over.

Sunday morning started off just fine as we went and had a late breakfast and I ended up going back to the room to take care of some "business". Afterwards I sat on the bed and had some juice and water when a strange feeling started coming over me. My whole body was tingling from my toes to my ears and my heart sounded like me and Scarface just did a kilo of blow. I figured I was just low on fluids, but it wasn't helping and neither was my slow breathing attempts. After about 20 minutes of this craziness, I called 911 and the real fun began. The Emt's came and said my BP was 200 over 100 and my pulse was around 120. I may not be a doctor, but even I know that ain't good. Since neither one seem to be coming down, we all decided to make that trip to the ER. Folks, there is nothing better than spending your Sunday afternoon in the ER. It was the quickest 5 plus hours I ever spent, I kid you not. I got x-rays, urine samples and they sucked more blood out of me than on the show True Blood. I was hooked up to an EKG and God knows what else. They put some beta blockers in me to help calm my heart rate down and by 6pm my BP was a more stable 136 over 95 and my heart rate was down to under 90. Their findings, I was healthy as could be except for this episode which they classified as tachycardia. What caused this outbreak? Alcohol and caffeine. What caused the tachycardia? We will find out soon enough.