h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sometimes my inability to make connections staggers me to the point of complete gob-smackedness.

Today's the day of the Texas Craft Brewers Festival here in Austin. I went to it last year and it was fantastic. Almost every brewer from Texas, including a few I'd never had the chance to sample because they don't yet distribute to Austin, and a chance to schmooze with the brewers, most of whom I know because I'd been ordering beer from them for three or four years by that point. A good day all in all.

I was intending to go this year too, and then a few days ago there was a tweet from the organisers calling for volunteers. In Texas brewers aren't allowed to pour their own beer at events like this so the organiser has to provide either its own employees, as we did for the Drafthouse/Dogfish Head Off Centred Film Festival, or call upon volunteers, who get various perks and a share of the tips.

Even though I'd been intending to go since it was announced about six weeks ago it didn't occur to me to volunteer until I saw that tweet Which I did, and it seems I'll be working two pouring shifts (about three hours each shift), I suppose because they're still short of volunteers. That's a bit unfortunate because I won't have a chance to sample the other beers. Apart from getting in for free, being a volunteer gets you a handful of free beer tickets too.

It did mean though that I had to retake my TABC certification as a beer seller/server which I wasn't intending to do after I left the Drafthouse, but I guess means I can volunteer at some other events and festivals for the next two years, and Austin Beer Week is about a month away

I'm not sure how I'm going to get home though. The bus I'm going there on stops running around 8.30pm, and I don't anticipate getting out any time before 9.30pm. There's another bus that's a little further away but that one only runs every hour and five minutes and then I have to get a connection downtown. Apart from that the only other option is to walk the nearly two miles into downtown Austin (which would take me a lot less than an hour and five minutes) and catch a bus from there, but after six or seven hours of standing in a booth slinging suds I'm not sure how keen I'll be to do that.

Maybe some kind soul with a car will be going in my direction

Sounds like a good networking opportunity as well.

It was

And we had a downpour of biblical proportions in the middle of it

This doesn't do it justice it was stair rods http://twitter.com/karbachbrewing/status/384074632170450944/photo/1/large