It happened. I knew it was coming, eventually – that was the deal I made on that fateful day, 5 years ago, when I decided to take this writing thing seriously and pay for some hosting. 5 years of hosting. People outside of this little bubble don’t understand, this is just how it works in Godaddyland, and you deal with it eventually. Because humans are forgetful creatures, and someone at GoDaddy figured out how to make a lot of money from that simple fact. I dealt with dozens of calls on this very issue when I worked there years ago, and I can see why a sudden hit of $600 might piss someone off…
It is the price I pay for hosting my own blog, which is a vanity project that might be mildly entertaining to the few people who read any of it, but mostly just a dumb excuse to go out to the taprooms and talk to people (or whatever. I have excellent interactions with dogs on the patio). At $10 a month it really isn’t that bad, half the cost of my bi-weekly coffee expenses, and way cheaper than my cannabis habit when I average that over the course of the same 5 years. I’m a little annoyed that it has been 5 years already and I’ve never put in that extra effort to get this place looking spiffy, like beervana.com or…the other ones like dark side brew crew here in Albuquerque. I pay extra for the anti-spam jetpack, and then more for my email address, but that’s dope (you can find it in the about section, go ahead and email me about how much you’ve enjoyed my writing over the last few years…). I once set up a Patreon but haven’t really updated that recently, and my single YouTube video has less than 100 views, so this endeavor isn’t exactly making me famous, for all the effort.
Pretty…dark outside
The sun has forsaken it’s usual duty cycle and tucks in early, and that’s the signal for stout season to begin. I’m sitting at La Cumbre sipping on a banger of a nitro stout, in the middle of their 14th anniversary/stout week mini-festival. The BA versions of their darkest stout, La Negra, have been stamped off on my card, and I’m committed to trying a new stout every day this week to celebrate along with the brewery. We’re good friends like that. Fortunately, the taproom is less than a mile from home so I can indulge in the thick, rich pleasures of a big stout.
My ward tends to shuffle off to bed early on days when the sun sets around 5, and I’m okay with that, because I can put my boots on and gtfo of the house for a drink while fulfilling my actual purpose of being. I don’t exactly have a lot of other things to take up my day so even the small act of leaving the house for a freaking pint is something to look forward too. Sometimes I’ll even get other errands done, like picking up medications and groceries and coffee.
A reformed man
This week it was my turn to choose a meeting spot for the old man beer club hour, and I picked a little spot called La Reforma, way up in the north end of the valley past Alameda. The space is pretty nice, with decent decor and lighting, lots of room, and excellent service. Me and the boys enjoyed ourselves, gorging on nachos and tacos and a variety of stellar beers, ranging from IPA to german-style dark lagers (masquerading as Mexican lager). The service was so fast that we almost had to stretch to hit the hour mark after devouring our tacos. We didn’t really get a chance to explore the distilling side of the business, but everything else about the place was top notch. Watching the kitchen staff bang out orders through the window can be fun too, and I’m sure you can catch the brewers at work if you show up early enough in the day. Like any decent brewery, you can peek in on the natives through another window in the dining room.
Not every brewery…
Sadly, this is in contrast to some other local spots we’ve tried and found lacking – our visit to the Bernalillo location of Bosque Brewing was lackluster, with a server that smelled like an ashtray when he got close enough to take our order (rather, remembered to check in on us). The contrast in service can be stark; we had a bartender/server at a place calling itself Craft Republic that was visibly annoyed by our table, giving no fucks nor effort to do basic server stuff like ask if we’d like another beer while rolling her eyes. When our food came it was basically dumped on the table and we had to sort it out for ourselves. It was clear our table in particular, 4 old dudes with grey hairs, was being treated differently, but the kicker came when our server sat down nearby (without checking on us) and ate most of a meal while intently ignoring our table, a dozen feet away. Back turned, she texted and ate while we waited to grab her attention, empty glasses obvious on the high-top. As far as I know, there was no valid reason to treat us so poorly, as the Old Dudes are all civil and respectful. It was almost insulting, but that sounds like me crying about being treated differently (yikes).
I urge patience in these situations, because you’ll never get better service…period. If the server is in a shit mood, or the kitchen is fucking around and everyone is being childish, or the manager is gone and nobody feels like doing shit, you can just resign yourself to sub par service and for the love of God don’t ask for the manager – that shit never ends well. You, the customer, will always be the bad guy, the employee will probably not change, and the manager will resent you for making them do their job. They’ll smile and grovel, hopefully, but in the end they’ll probably never see you again and everyone knows it. You’ll be the topic of kitchen conversation for an hour or two and everyone will get right back to fucking off.
As a cook, I’ve been annoyed AF with my servers before, but there wasn’t much I could do from the other side of the window, either. I could ding that fuckin bell all I wanted and if the server I needed was out having a ciggy it was just a waste of my effort (better to flip a burger with that energy). Insulting as it was to have my fresh, hot creation sit in the fucking window for minutes after I had made it, I couldn’t serve it myself or force my people to hold up their end of the deal and get to fucking work. What I’m trying to say, folks, is that the frustration is real on both sides when your server isn’t focused on their effin job.
IN DA CLUB
I recently became a member of the Albuquerque Press Club, a storied institution, the local chapter of the National Press Club – basically, a place for journalists and ‘communicators’ to get together, chain smoke indoors, and drink. I figure this ties into my other expenses here, because while I’m not ‘accredited’, the fact that I pay for my own hosting is something few journalists can say – and the number of people who’ve encouraged me to use some free hosting services is disturbing in turn. It seems that most people have little or no real understanding of how ownership of written work…works. I pay for my domain and the space to store data on a server, while the ‘free’ WordPress or blog hosting services all take essential ownership of anything I post, much like it was Facebook or Myspace from back in the day. Most of these services can use content that’s hosted on their servers however they like, because that’s the nature of the agreements you sign. They’ve got the right to put ads all over your pages and use it, in part or in whole, for promotional material. So that’s a nope. $10 a month to securely hold and publish whatever I want online without any realistic limitations is the way to go, and I retain the rights to all my data.
I know I’m not technically a journalist, but you didn’t read that if you’re from the club (just kidding, I pay a higher tier because I know I’m not a big-j Journalist). I can’t say I ever wanted to be one, either, because even in the 90’s there was doomsaying about the condition of the 4th estate, and there didn’t seem to be a future in old-fashioned ‘news’ work. While the free press continues to function (for now, our incoming president and his cronies all have other ideas), the institution itself is indeed shot through with the rot of capitalism; Journalists today often have to juggle clicks and views with the need to do real reporting on real issues, depending on who they work for. The fact that local and regional newspapers and TV stations have all been bought up by a handful of corporations is shameful, and it’s a state of affairs that doesn’t seem likely to reverse itself. I respect the hard work it takes to survive in that industry, and I’m hoping some of that motivation rubs off on me, but I made choices long ago to be a different kind of writer. Whole lot of good that did.
The Point?
ABQ does have an abundance of breweries looking to get their name out there, so it shouldn’t be hard to move forward with some ideas that have been taking up space in my brain for a little while. If anything, the need to justify my expenses and validate my purpose should be enough of a driver to propel me forward in this craft, the whole writing for a reason thing.
This week I won’t have any photos because none of this really fits into a picture. I am working on some things that should translate into photos nicely, but it’s a big project meant to showcase the artistic side of the brewing industry, without having to track down a thousand different cans – that’s too big of a project for me to handle. I wish I was more adept at these things on a technical side, because I’ve always thought that hosting a collection of the best can art from all these places around the country would be awesome. I’m sure such a project would quickly require a higher tier of hosting, anyways, and this here written word thing is complicated enough.
If you’re reading this in a timely manner, it is almost Christmas, so happy holidays and may your gifts be on-point this year. If you’re reading this late, you’d better just start shopping for next year. Cheers