Over at his fatherhood blog, DaddyDaze, Dave posted some father-to-son advice called, [Don’t buy crappy beer](http://dave.typepad.com/dave/2006/04/father_to_son_d.html). He says:

>Life is way too short to drink that swill. Seriously. You’re going to be tempted, but trust me, you don’t have to drink that junk. How do you know you’re drinking crappy beer? If you’re spending $5 on a 12 pack, or if you have an opinion on the “King of Beers vs. Silver Bullet” debate, you’re drinking bad beer.

I laughed, but here’s the thing: during the whole Passover clean-up process, I discovered that we had a lot of beer in our fridge. I don’t generally drink a lot of beer, but the guys bring it over on Poker Night and when there is left-over, I just toss it into the garage fridge. And, during the clean up, there it was.

You know what I discovered while engaged in a bottle-by-bottle observance of the ritual Passover Cleaning? I *like* cheap beer. Really, I do. I had a fridgeful of Coors Light and Bud Light and I drank it, and liked it. Yessir.

I used to be more snooty. I didn’t drink beer that often, but, when I did, I drank Guiness, Sam Adams, Pete’s Wicked Ale or Boulevard (our local KC micro-brand). But, I’ve come to realize that beer is really a comfort food. Like potato chips or soda, beer is an experience in which I’m not trying to find the best beer I ever drank… rather I’m looking for the *same beer I always drank.*

I mean, Coke makes lots of [wierd flavors](http://www.coke.com/usa/ourBrands/flashIndex1.html), but when I want a Coke, I want *a Coke,* and not a diet-caffiene-free-black-cherry-vanilla-Coke-with-lime. Right?

And when I want a beer, I don’t want to have to think about it. Just give me a Bud Light and move on to the next guy. I’ll be fine.

My 1997 Saturn SL2 is no more.

On my way to school just before Pesach, I ran a red light and had an accident. I can’t explain exactly how it happened, but–for a brief moment–I was so distracted that I didn’t see a traffic light turn red. When I did see that it was red, I hit the brakes but had not reacted in time to prevent my car from screeching into the intersection.

I hit a minivan coming through the intersection from my left to my right, impacting into its rear passenger-side quarter-panel. Our two cars rotated clockwise (to my right) 90 degrees and wound up in the median of the steet I had been crossing, as if I had made a right-hand turn.

Needless to say, this was not good news for my car. Both of my airbags deployed upon impact, though, since I had been slowing down (with my brakes locked) when I hit the minivan, I did not bounce into the airbags themselves. I called the police on my cell phone, then hopped out to make sure the woman in the minivan was OK. I then made sure that *I* was allright, then called Judi, to whom I had been speaking when the accident occured. My next call was to the auto-insurance company, who handled the whole thing wonderfully for me.

I am insured by AAA (the auto-club people), so they sent a tow-truck, recommended a collision repair shop and arranged for a rental car from the Enterprise office across the street from the place I took the car. The accident happened at about 7:40 AM and found myself back at school well in advance of my first class.

Since the accident happened just before Pesach, I didn’t get a chance to look for a new car (since AAA totalled my Saturn) until this week and, in my next post, I’ll tell you all about that.

Oh… and I’m fine. Thanks for worrying. 🙂

Funny Story: Our friend, Ephy, got a job a couple of years ago as the Alumni Coordinator for the Yeshiva I went to in Israel. One of the first things he did was clean up the alumni database by putting a form online and asking alumni to check their contact information. So, I did.

While filling out the form, I tabbed into the “title” field and it auto-filled with “Rabbi” (which I am not). I thought Ephy would get a kick out of it, so I left it there. That night, my phone rang. I answered it, and it was Ephy, who began the conversation with, “‘Rabbi,’ my ass!”

But, Ephy has an unusual sense of humor… so he left it. And the result is that my mother has the envelope from my invitation to the Annual Dinner hanging on her refrigerator and things like the image you see here get posted on the web site from time to time.