A Passionate Cat

photo by -Tripp-	via PhotoRee

I recently had the opportunity to head over to one of my favorite South Florida watering holes, the Original Fat Cat's.  I like the place not only for the beer collection -- which is stellar, by the way -- but even more so for a quality that's rare to find these days, and which exists in spades in Don, the gentleman who oversees the bar: passion.

The older I get, the more I seem to understand life.  And one lesson I've learned repeatedly over the years is that there are few things in life that make time pass more quickly than truly loving what you do.  And by "what you do," I mean not only professionally, but personally, as well.  There is no better thing in life than to be passionate about what you do.

And Don happens to be passionate about beer.  Not any beer, but rather craft beer.  No Molson guy he, Don is an evangelist for the hundreds of small breweries popping up across our nation, spreading the gospel of craft beer to anyone who is smart enough to listen to him.

Maybe that's why we get along so well.  I don't know Don incredibly well, but each time I see him I can just about see the craft beer coursing through his veins.  We spent about an hour the other night talking about Don's recent beer tasting and brewery tour trip to the State of Colorado, home to Avery, Oskar Blues,  Great Divide and Wynkoop Brewing, among others.   Full of knowledge, Don overflowed with pure joy as he described to me the events of his week in Nirvana, and made me think more deeply about how much he loves his subject.  After all, here's a guy who works around beer all week, and what does he do on his vacation?  Goes on a beer tasting tour.  Now that's passion.

Shut Your Mouth

photo by notsogoodphotography	via PhotoRee

Did I mention that I'm cold?  Oh, yeah -- that was yesterday....  Still, I find myself in the heartland of this country -- college football country, to be exact --  and it's freezing here.  Not weather fit for football of the English or American variety, and certainly not weather fit for living.  But maybe weather fit for beer drinking (what weather isn't?), so even though this is not a game review article I'm dropping a beer review in at the end of today's blog.

Shut Up:  Cristiano Ronaldo called out the one-month wonder that is Mario Balotelli in an interview earlier this week.  After the Man City striker hit the trifecta by comparing his side's offensive output favorably to Barca and Real, denigrating Wayne Rooney's status as a Manchester-based striker, and elevating Roberto Mancini above Jose Mourinho in the pantheon of coaching greats, @Cristiano injected a bit of realism into the debate.  Now, I fully admit that I don't have the greatest control over the Portuguese language, but even I can translate what Ronaldo was telling Super Mario when he said to "talk less and play more."  'Nuff said.