Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween, everyone. Here are some pictures from our niece and nephews from last year. Have a fun and safe holiday. And thanks for your support for the first month of the blog.

"Little Guy" Update

Here's the latest: Angie had a checkup on Tuesday and the "little guy" is developing just fine. Thanks for the prayers and the good words. We'll tell you more as we find it out over the next four months.

A Cat Fix

Dear blogging community,

Here is your cat fix for the day. It's a picture of our youngest cat, Striker, in the closet.

Isn't that nice?

And now, I will answer some of the more intriguing questions regarding this post:

1) Yes, when I said "youngest," I implied that we have more than one cat. In fact, we have two. Our oldest cat is named Daphne. But we don't have enough cats to have the "crazy cat lady" title.

2) We prefer Scott toilet paper and Sparkle brand paper towels.

3) Those are Christmas towels above Striker. They have to go somewhere the other 11 months of the year, don't they?

4) The stack of towels that Striker is laying on is what we call the "dog towels." In other words, we don't use them for ourselves, but for wiping off the dogs' paws when they come in and it's wet outside. So we weren't worried about Striker being on those towels.

5) Yes, we also have dogs. And you may have noticed the apostrophe is after the letter "s" in "dogs," implying that we have more than one dog. Yes, we have two dogs, Dash and Maggie. But we don't have enough dogs to have the "crazy dog lady" title.

6) Speaking of "crazy cat lady," while in Seattle two summers ago, we were in a store that had a "crazy cat lady" action figure. Here's a picture:

7) No, we didn't just go to Seattle to take pictures of bizarre toys. We were killing time before going on the Underground Tour.

8) Yes, I will have pictures of the other pets in future posts.

9) Thanks, and you have a great day, too. Good bye.

The Beer Tasting

Last fall, our family had its annual beer tasting. We've done this a few times now. My dad always runs the show, and the format changes each year. I recently came across my notes from last year's event, and I thought I'd share them with you.

Last year, there were 13 beers. With each beer, we were told the type of beer, and which percent of online voters liked the beer on a popular beer website. At the end, we had to guess how many were imports, which one was my dad's favorite, and the capital of Bolivia. (We do not question why this needed to be known.) In the end, we were told the exact names of the beers. Here's how it went, and the comments I made.

Beer #1:
-Type: Kolsch Ale, originated in Koln, Germany
-Approval Rating: 89%
-My Comments: Nice
-And the beer is...Goose Island

Beer #2:
-Type: American All-Malt Lager, deeper malt flavor, bitterness
-Approval Rating: 97%
-My Comments: Still good
-And the beer is...Bells Lager

Beer #3:
-Type: Extra Special/Strong Bitter (ESB) Ale, low carbonation
-Approval Rating: 96%
-My Comments: Me likey!
-And the beer is...Left-Hand Brewery

Beer #4:
-Type: Spiced Beer (Vanilla Porter) Ale, can be almost anything
-Approval Rating: 86%
-My Comments: Sweet, but not too bad
-And the beer is...Breckenridge Vanilla Porter

Beer #5:
-Type: American Porter Ale, malty, citrusy hops
-Approval Rating: 99%
-My Comments: Count me in the 1% (who don't like it), if you know what I mean
-And the beer is...Sierra Nevada

Beer #6:
-Type: Witbier
-Approval Rating: 94%
-My Comments: Not too bad, not too good
-And the beer is...Avery White Rascal

Beer #7:
-Type: American Amber Ale, balanced with toasted malt taste
-Approval Rating: 90%
-My Comments: Okay
-And the beer is...Black Dog Ale

Beer #8:
-Type: English Brown Ale, malty, sweet, low hops presence
-Approval Rating: 93%
-My Comments: I don't know how to feel
-And the beer is...Wolliver's Brown Ale

Beer #9:
-Type: Altbier Ale, smooth, balanced between hops and malt
-Approval Rating: 93%
-My Comments: Weirdy weird weird
-And the beer is...Otter Creek

Beer #10:
-Type: Rye Beer, made with rye, some bitterness
-Approval Rating: 99%
-My Comments: Really bad, I mean honestly, people!
-And the beer is...Red's Rye

Beer #11:
-Type: Oatmeal Stout Ale, oats added to mash for smoothness
-Approval Rating: 95%
-My Comments: A new low
-And the beer is...Goose Island

Beer #12:
-Type: Irish Dry Stout Ale, lower carbonation
-Approval Rating: 95%
-My Comments: Passable
-And the beer is...Guinness Extra Stout

Beer #13:
-Type: Schwarzbier Lager, smooth, tastes light, looks dark
-Approval Rating: 98%
-My Comments: I think it's okay; Really, when you think about it, it could be worse. But overall, in the grand scheme of things, what is beer anyway?
-And the beer is...Sam Adams Black Large


Now, on to the final questions.

How many imports?
I guessed 8. It turns out there was only one import.

Which is Steve's favorite?
I guessed #7, the Black Dog Ale. I can't remember the correct answer.

What is the capital of Bolivia?
My guess was "Olivia." Wow, I'm just a regular Bob Hope. Of course, I was wrong. There were two correct answers: Sucre and La Paz. Bill Austin got this one correctly, mainly by sending a text message to his son to look it up. This is why Bill is a top-notch businessman.

There were many awards in the end, although none as memorable as those given during the first beer tasting. In the first go-round, somebody who shall remain nameless received an award for giving a high rating to Natural Light (these are blind taste tests, after all), and my grandmother won an award for giving a high rating to a strong Guinness.

We learned a lot, we enjoyed each other's company, and we found out just how strange America's taste in beer is. Honestly, look at how many beers had an almost unanimous approval rating that turned out to be terrible. And that's how it goes, folks.

Who Needs Leaders? Be a Follower!

Are you enjoying this blog?

I can't hear you! I said, are you enjoying this blog?

Good. Well, if you enjoy it, why not follow it. On your right is a link where you can sign up to be a follower of The Hynds Quarters. If you're proud to be a supporter of The Hynds Quarters, than you can choose to follow publicly. If you'd rather keep your allegiance private, than you can do so privately. Either way, it's an easy way to keep up, and you can know when something has been updated.

There's no better way to keep up with the Joneses (or in this case, the Hynds, but if you want to keep up with the Joneses, be my guest).

I'm Not a Criminal After All

If you tried to access this blog last week, you received a message that this has been suspected to be a "spam blog." It turns out Blogger's automatic spam detection software thought that this blog was just being used for spam. Nothing's perfect, so they sent me an e-mail, and I e-mailed back. A few days later, after some programmers looked at it, it turned out not to be a spam blog after all. Maybe it was the name of the blog, "The Hynds Quarters," that gave it away.

In all seriousness, I'm glad that Blogger is doing this, since it frees up bandwidth for us legit users. And, really, it was quite fun to wonder what you all thought when you opened it up last week. What an impressive first week to the blog.

Rest assured that I will never use this blog to offer low mortgage rates, get-rich-quick schemes, or meeting up with your former classmates. And you can take that to the bank!

Spoon River

This past Saturday, Angie and I went with the family to the annual Spoon River festival. This festival takes place in Fulton County and includes a lot of crafts, food, and scenery. Here, in picture form, are some highlights of the weekend:

Here are Angie and I in front of the river in Bernadotte.

A few minutes later, our nephew Caleb wanted to be in the picture. About five minutes earlier, Caleb did not want to be in the picture with his own family. This proves once again that there is nothing more steady and predictable than a four-year-old boy.

And here's our other nephew Chase playing in the leaves.

We had a great time. We saw the nice fall colors, we purchased a nice outfit for "Future Hynds," we ate some of the best caramel apple slices around, and we had a nice cookout with the family that evening.

Stay tuned to The Hynds Quarters. There are more fall pictures to come.

Tie Me Up, Mr. Metal Cowboy

Just for funsies, here I am pretending to be lassoed in by a statue of a guy on a horse in Knoxville, TN last December. Expect more pictures like this on this new blog - it's what we do.

Welcome

Welcome to The Hynds Quarters - a new blog about the goings on in the Hynds family. I hope to use this to post pictures and videos, and provide updates of the non-stop action that is our daily lives.

It's worth noting that it was three years ago today, October 1, 2005, when Angie and I went on our first date. So it's a pretty cool day to start this.

Funny thing - some of you might remember my last blog on Xanga (September 2005-January 2007). When I started that blog, most of my postings were about the White Sox, because they were about to win the division and ultimately win the World Series. And today, I happen to be posting this the day after the Sox beat the Twins in a tiebreaker game to win the division. Could another World Series title follow? We'll find out.

To end the first post, here's a picture of our trip to Arthur last fall, where we posed with the scarecrows.

Happy blogging, everybody!