I know it was a membership drive, and I hope it was successful. But, I will never be confused a social person, and I just naturally wouldn’t think of doing the stuff John B. did. My thanx also.

I guess I am social enuf to have had a good time. It is always good seeing our club friends.

* I thought it important that we had one dry representative for unforseen reasons. I was also there to represent the FSB, not to get a buzz.
* I had a day of non-stop meetings with important folks on Wed. Being hung over in any fashion would not only have been inconvenient, but an extremely poor reflection on me to those in the meetings.
* I closely watch driving after drinking, particularly when the source is a restaurant or bar.
* My night vision isn’t so great, and trying to navigate around downtown wilmington (especially the riverfront) is hellish.
* I wanted to be able to go home, spend some quality time with the wife, maybe have enough energy to do a yeast starter

There are a few others. All put together, drinking at the event was just not part of my intentions.

The main source of my being uptight evening came from the fact that when we showed up we had no table, and despite the fact that it was supposedly a “Homebrew” event, the homebrew clubs were treated like an afterthought. IT was all about the commercial breweries and the AHA getting new (*cough*INCOME*cough*)members, NOT about the homebrew or the clubs. The picture that the organizer presented in her e-mails was VASTLY different than the reality when we showed up, and it ticked me off. I took time to make up flyers, to get them printed, and gave them to the AHA representative – And he stuck them on the back of the table in the furthest corner where no one could even get to them. What kind of message does that send??

Fortunately John Biggins salvaged the event for us by getting the table in the middle of the action – Up to that point all our other members seemed content just to sit off to the side. I was seconds from walking out the door when he grabbed me and showed me he had done something about it (I was annoyed enough to just leave by then). Kudos to John… he deserves them.

It was all about expectations, Scott, and mine were obviously set too high. Fortunately some good did come out of the event despite my complaints and bad attitude, and our club will benefit from it.

It certainly didn’t look like it would from the first 30 minutes.

Peace. I’ll stop now since I’m sure no one cares.