I might follow this map. Explanation:
Community beer and brewery review site RateBeer puts out a list every year of the top 100 breweries in the world, “according to reviews taken last year and weighted by performance within and outside of style, balanced by indicators of depth.” From this year's list, 72 of the breweries are based in the United States.
Randal Olson found a pretty good solution using genetic algorithms and the Google Maps API. He computed an optimal road trip to visit a historical landmark in each state.
Forget that though. I want beer. Tasty beer. I applied Olson's solution to breweries to get the order in which to visit them in the least miles possible.
The trip to see just the 70 breweries on Yau's list takes 197 hours over 19,789 km. He thinks he can do it in 8 days. Or he can stop at any of the 1,414 other breweries in between and extend the trip to a month.
On the other hand, given the same amount of time off, I might rather do a oneworld explorer fare.
Lottery, anyone?
I missed an important anniversary last Friday, probably because I was traveling and got distracted.
The Daily Parker is now ten years (and six days) old. I launched it officially on 13 November 2005, from Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters in Evanston, Ill.
In the 10 years ending last Thursday night, I posted 4,842 entries, averaging 40 per month, or one every 32 hours or so. Not a bad record.
Any odds the blog will be around another 10 years?
The good: A new study shows that drinking 3-5 cups of coffee a day has measurable health benefits.
The bad: A black resident of Santa Monica, Calif., got hauled out of her apartment at gunpoint by 19 police officers after a white neighbor reported someone trying to break in.
The ugly: Yale law student Omar Aziz writes about the soul of a Jihadist.
And the neutral, which could be ugly: forecasters predict 15-30 cm of snow in Chicago tomorrow night into Saturday morning.
...not everywabone would look like these guys, getting in a few waves just past 9 in the morning today:
These are just some quick edits on my Surface. When I get home I'll spend some more time with the few hundred photos I've taken today and yesterday.
Two from last night, near the Hermosa Beach Pier:
I'm totally swamped today, so here are the things I haven't read yet:
Twenty minutes until my next meeting.
First, Pabu Izakaya, early Saturday night (pre-party):
The inscription reads, "One Time, One Place."
Second, yesterday, on approach to Chicago:
That's approximately over Devon Ave., on approach to 27R, as I predicted.
On my way to have tiny sips of about 100 whiskies. Earlier, on the advice of the friend going with me, I laid down a layer of...well, fat, really...from Super Duper Burger.
Time to line up. Posting tomorrow may be...Sunday.
My trivia team, "I'm Goin' Alone," has a 16-2 record. The trivia host, Brain Sportz Trivia, posts the night's topics every afternoon on Facebook. But something has changed.
Initially, they posted the topics for all six rounds, including the Speed Round, which is key because a team can get 35 points (out of a possible 105) in that round. The members of I'm Goin' Alone dutifully studied the topics before each game, and routinely smashed the opposition, sometimes by 25 points.
Brain Sportz seemed to figure out that teams were doing this, and suddenly two weeks ago, they stopped publishing the Speed Round topic.
We won anyway, but only by 5 points.
Today, the sum total description of the quiz is this:
We're getting closer to Halloween, so tonight's trivia topics at Polk Street Pub (630), MATILDA-babyATLAS (730), Fizz Bar, Richmonds Sports Bar, The Reservoir & Links Taproom at 8 will cover #HALLOWEEN, #HORRORMOVIES, and everyone's favorite Halloween family, the #MUNSTERS
It's also Game 1 of the World Series, and one of our team mates is from Kansas City, so we may have some distractions.
We're still going to win. But we're a little annoyed that we can't study up for it, crush our enemies, see them driven before us, and hear the lamentations of their women.
Or, at the very least, get shots for each round we win.