Alive Alive'O!  Alive ALive'O!  Sing Cockles and Muscles Alive Alive OH!  She wheeled her wheel barrel, through streets wide and narrow...

This is my city!  Pittsburgh!  I've lived her 11 years and have really grown to love this town.  Its a big town or a little city and the people here are great.  The weather can be cold and bitter and miserable at times but its all worth it for the love this city has for its citizens.  The weather was PERFECT.  Blue Skies!  And green shirts were every where.  My father in law and I got dropped off down town at walked over to meet my buddies at the famous Oyster House.  The story is long and I could go on for hours but I'll say this about the day; we have been going down for 11 years.  We always start at the Oyster House and in those 11 years there are some people we know like BEST FRIENDS and only see once a year.  Its pretty incredible.  The bar is small and friend and the drinks pour cold.  The boys were there before us and already started.  We jumped head first in and got the day going proper.  It was great.  It actually was a fun time.  Met some great new people that I may never see again.  Actually, this years stories were a little light since I was only out for a few hours and ended up losing the crew by 2pm.  I haven't really caught up with them yet to know their stories... but some of the Facebook picks and texts that I've seen assures me they were in good hands and had a great trip.

I was drink Iron City Ambers this day.  I don't know if it was the atmosphere, the taps were clean, the temperature was ICE COLD or the weather was perfect but this beer was REALLY good.  Not good like fine cuisine but good thirst quenching and session-able.  I definitely know we payed to much as these types events often go.  In general, they went down easy and nice.  We held real estate at the bar at Oyster House all day and really just had a great time.  I'm not going to give this beer a HUGE number but in general I was quite happy with it.  Another St Patrick's Day in the books, and great fun was had by all.  Everyone was safe and no one got arrested.  In general that is a huge success!  Thanks again guys for continuing the tradition.  Thank you Iron City for your Pittsburgh Beer.

Happy Fat Tuesday's (Mardi Gras to you all)!  Hopefully you are all out celebrating and having a great time!  This is the day before Lent; the last hurrah if you will.  Ash Wednesday begins the season of lent tomorrow.  I'm not extremely educated on the Catholic way.  Though I'm learning more and more as time goes by.  I'm even considering the fact that some day soon I will convert.  I am not actually baptized at this point.  OH, I've always felt a "religious" connection.  I was raised in a family where my grandparents were extremely religious (maybe a bit to much for my own parent's).  They were not Catholic though - and honestly, I get the religions confused when it comes down to it.  Not sure if they are Methodist or Lutheran.  I sometimes feel stupid about that.  My wife is catholic; we are raising our children catholic; and of course, with all that the questions are already starting to roll in by my 6 year old.  The hard part is taking my ADULT brain and wrapping it around the "ENTIRE" religion of Catholicism.   I know, that is probably bad of me to "choose" something like this major for my children with out choosing for me... But sue me!  haha... I'm still working on this internally.

Anyway, so since it is Fat Tuesday - I decided to pick a Louisiana beer Abita Beer.  This was a very nice amber beer.  It poured aggressive with a lot of nice foamy white head on top.  The taste was a nice mellow malty goodness.  This is the absolute session beer!  I wish I was sitting down south now with a hand full of beads drinking more and more of this.  Who am I kidding, I just wish I had one or two more of these in my fridge to drink.  The flavor is nice smooth caramel goodness.  Fresh and yummy.  I would definitely drink more of these (if I had more downstairs ;) ).

PS.  On a side, I got some INCREDIBLY good news today about my oldest daughter.  I am not ready to go into specifics now.  But let me just say that with the information I received today, it explains so much - BUT opens so many more doors of questions and information gathering.  Since I'm early on in the process I really don't want to speak to much on the subject until my wife and I both have a better understanding of everything.  Suffice to say - I've had an EXTREMELY happy day and I raise my beer to you in a toast!  Here is to you and yours.

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