I am currently sitting on an Amtrak train headed north. This is the start of my annual sojourn to catch up with old friends and drink good beer.
You see, Ron and I and the rest of the “Hop Talk Advisory Panel” (aka Max and Don) live pretty far away from each other. The idea of “popping ’round” to have a beer and converse is nothing more than that: an idea.
Oh, sure, modern technology lets us stay in touch better than we ever would have thought possible when we were kids, but it’s just not the same as sitting in a room together, clinking glasses and talking about anything and everything.
Ron is hosting us this year, and I look forward to hanging out in his “Barley Room”. It’s our tradition to each bring four different, interesting, beers to share, and we look forward to seeing what everybody brought. And sampling, of course. But, really, it’s not about the beer; it’s about reconnecting with each other. Life, in other words.
The beer is a nice perk, though.
That’s cool that you have regular get-togethers. I wish I didn’t live so far away from some of my old buddies. I have some regular online gatherings with brewing pals via Facebook Video Chat Rounds (http://www.rnds.me/bc if you don’t know it) but raising a pint to your computer screen just isn’t really the same. It gets close though!
We’ve been using Google Hangouts quite a bit, and it works well, but, yeah, I don’t want to clink my screen.