Days That End in Y

You may have noticed a paucity of posts here at Days That End in Y. Don’t worry. That trend isn’t continuing. However, one that’s definitely ending is the frequency of posts. Instead of returning to the days of half a dozen or more posts per day, I’ll be writing less frequent but longer and more thoughtful posts. While I don’t think I risk death by blogging, this seems like the best direction to keep this site alive. I do enjoy writing, I do enjoy drinking, and I do enjoy operating this website, but I do also need to focus more energy elsewhere.

If all goes as planned, you should find me blogging from various parts of Europe over the next month and from various locations on the eastern seaboard shortly thereafter. Later in the year, there may even be a cross-country trip, provided the cost of gas doesn’t kill the idea! If you have any suggestions for must-see sites like wineries, breweries, and bars for absolutely anywhere in the country, then let me know! I’m always excited to diversify the experience here outside of Boston. I know I oftentimes focus on local events a bit too much.

That said, I have a couple great posts that I hope you’ll enjoy coming up over the next week!

And speaking of Boston, I might as well mention a few upcoming local events that I think are worthwhile to attend, even if you’re not from the area. Unfortunately, I have to miss a number of them!

• Beer Summit: The Beer Summit is back April 18-19. There are sixty-six confirmed brewers in attendance who will be dishing out unlimited samples at three sessions!
• NERAX: NERAX (New England Real Ale Exhibition) throws its twelfth annual shindig this April 30-May 3 in Davis Square. I think of this as the American counterpart to CAMRA. Indeed, from what I understand, casks are filled up all across Europe and then flown to the USA by CAMRA for this event. Then, those same casks are filled up all across the USA and flown to the UK for their events. I’ve seriously never seen more casks in one room before. They also need volunteers, which was definitely a blast for me last year working security and clean-up.
• Harpoon 5-Miler: You can either run or volunteer at this charity event benefiting The Angel Fund on June 7. Scarily, dehydrated runners get two free beers immediately after running five miles, but it’s all in the name of fun and helping others. I volunteered a couple years ago and highly enjoyed it. I’ll be back again this year.
• American Craft Beer Fest: Beer Advocate returns with its usual awesome festival June 20-21, except this one will be ten times as large! I can’t wait, and I plan on volunteering yet again! I do know that they will need many more volunteers than usual, so if you’re able, help them out!
• The Return of the Belgian Beer Fest: It’s never too early to plan for a beer fest September 26-27! I think this one’s supposed to be smaller than the June fest, so it just might sell out that much faster than usual.

I’d also like to give you a sneak preview at something I’ve been working on: the Boston Beer Trail. A full guide is coming shortly.

Somewhere in between recovering from Saturday night and cracking open a cold one on Sunday evening, Days That End in Y turned two years old, and I totally didn’t notice. That’s right! Two! I was only reminded of it only when I read Boing Boing’s own birthday post. I’d been so focused on getting my new business off the ground, writing up reviews, expanding interview notes, and coding random stuff like this Blingo gadget that Days That End in Y’s second anniversary passed by with nothing more than, well, nothing.

However, it gave me a little reason to reflect and reminisce on what has happened over the past two years in the drinking world, with Days That End in Y, and my own life.

When DTEIY started, there really was no network of blogs devoted to drinks aside from wine and beer, and the former seemed to truly take over the latter. In fact, blogging competitions have largely been won by wine bloggers, and I’d pretty much started ignoring them once I realized that there was no hope for a blog like mine. Instead, I just wanted to focus on building the best website in existence about all things alcohol.

Of course, I got derailed a number of times: a backpacking trip to Europe, lack of motivation, general drunkenness, the ennui associated with unemployment. However, each time, I got back into it and continued blogging, and thankfully, a number of readers have stuck with me throughout the process.

I still battle those demons, but in general, I’d say that Days That End in Y is the strongest it’s been in two years. I just completed an interview (likely to be published today or tomorrow) with some young entrepreneurs here in Boston, I have several drink reviews in the pipeline, and I have a number of original story ideas that I’m implementing. Plus, I’ve been steadily working on the link directory, the forum, and the store along with bringing DTEIY to Facebook and MySpace. If you haven’t yet, then please do look at all those features and introduce yourself per Skarrg’s first post! Then, there’s always the trusty Google gadget, which ballooned to ~100,000 users without my noticing! I also have my own powerful virtual server now, which should allow me to do more with Days That End in Y, and I’m looking into finding a summer intern for Whapow! (budget permitting) who will have to find time to blog a little on DTEIY as well.

Anyway, things are on the up and up, and I’m optimistic about the future, especially with this being an election year (buh-bye, Bush!). Thank you to all of you for sticking in there with me in this journey through the world of drinking! I couldn’t do this without knowing that there are like-minded people reading every word I write.

And now, I leave you with my first post written on January 20, 2006:

Welcome, boozers!

While I was lifting weights today (ironic considering alcohol’s sometimes deleterious effects), I thought of a great idea for a blog. Yes, it’s this one. Stop making that face.

I suppose a blog about alcohol isn’t exactly original. A Google search for the phrase “alcohol blog” brings up 2,550 hits. Without the quotes, it brings up 8,500,000. This blog will likely be lost in a sea of iJunk long before it even hits a month of posts and its imminent demise. After all, how long can a drunk really stay dedicated to blogging? However, who else has as great a name as “Days That End in Y” and the matching domain name? That’s right: no one.

Kick back with a cold one and enjoy the ensuing posts about anything and everything in the realm of alcohol, because I’m too boozed up to edit.

Photo Credit: Flickr user jemsweb licensed via Creative Commons

I’ve been playing around with Google Custom Search (which is freaking awesome!) and created the Days That End in Y Booze Search.

The results are based off of keywords and links from this site along with links that I mark as I surf. As a result, the searches are incredibly relevant. For example, if you type “Ithaca” into Google, then you currently get Ithaca College as the first hit. But if you type “Ithaca” into the DTEIY Booze Search, then you get Ithaca Beer Company as the first hit. Ithaca Beer Company doesn’t even show up in the top 10 results for a regular Google search. Try it out! I think you’ll like it. As time goes on and I fritter away more time surfing the web marking new sites, search results should improve even more.

If you’re willing to contribute to refining the search results, then just head over the homepage and click “Volunteer to Contribute”. It takes no time at all. Just mark sites as you surf.

I searched around for some CafePress coupon codes that can be applied in the Days That End in Y Store. Use these codes to save money on all that cool Days That End in Y stuff you’re buying!

• SRV217: Save $5 off $40 (expires Jan. 18)
• BEAUTYLEAVES: Save $5 off $50 (expires Jan. 20)
• CPCABIN1075: Save $10 off $75 (expires Jan. 31)

I applied each one of these to a cart, and the discounts all do appear. If I find more in the future, I’ll be sure to post them, especially if they’re better discounts than usual.

I just spent the day putting together a CafePress store with a selection of apparel and random other items. You can buy just about anything ranging from t-shirts to hoodies along with buttons, a cool clock, a drink log, and more!

The best deal is definitely the t-shirt (pictured here) for only $9.99 + shipping. You get a nifty, inexpensive t-shirt, and I get one whole dollar, which will help run this site. Your purchases help support Days That End in Y and keep you looking cool.

Just head on over to the Days That End in Y Store and check out the cool swag! And if you’re on my gift list, then guess what you’re getting this year! Well, provided I can afford to buy from my own store.

After that, consider checking out the new YouTube Videos section. I’ve been experimenting with a filter to serve relevant videos and will continue tweaking it. So far, it’s pretty good, and it’s shown me some interesting stuff I probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

So all of you MySpace users don’t feel left out, you can now find Days That End in Y on MySpace, too! Even better, you can even include the Today’s Reason to Drink gadget in your own profile, in comments, everywhere! Just copy and paste the following code into your profile:

<a href="http://daysthatendiny.com/"><img src="http://daysthatendiny.com/myspace/index.php" width="200" height="180" border="0" alt="Today's Reason to Drink via daysthatendiny.com" /></a>

It’ll look like this:

The reason to drink is automatically updated each day at midnight GMT. Sorry, there’s no way to know what time zone people are in with MySpace.

Actually, you can add this image anywhere you want. Just use the above code. However, it’s generally preferable to use the Google gadget instead, as the gadget will likely be served much faster.

Anyway, don’t forget to add me as a friend! Right now, my only friend in the world is Tom.

I finally sat down for a few frustrating hours and put together a Today’s Reason to Drink Facebook Application! It’s just like the Google gadget except you can add it to your Facebook profile and showcase how awesome you are.

Please let me know if you have any problems with it. It is my first Facebook app after all, and I, uh, may have been drinking a little when writing it.

Days That End in Y now has a forum! It’s currently completely empty, so please head on over and post something!

I’ll be sure to keep it free of spam so that the forum stays topical and useful. If you’re willing to moderate, then let me know by leaving a comment. I can’t promise you much in the way of satisfaction, but I may buy you an occasional drink if I’m in the area!

In case you missed the previous site announcement about the link directory, Days That End in Y now has a link directory, too! I’ve been busy populating it with links. There are currently 153 links, and I’m adding more, too. If your favorite site isn’t listed, then please suggest it! Just navigate to the subdirectory in which the link belongs and click “suggest it” at the bottom of the page!

In between drinks, I’m trying hard to make Days That End in Y the best alcohol-related site there is. More features and improvements are coming soon!

Days That End in Y now has a link directory. Any site can be linked here provided it is related to alcohol and not spammy. I’ve pre-populated it with links from the blogroll and anything that I’ve linked in the last ten posts, but the directory is of course woefully incomplete. Please help me out by adding a link!

Just navigate to the category in which the link belongs. Then, click “suggest it” at the bottom and fill out the form. If you think there should be a new category or subcategory, then please leave a comment or contact me.

Don’t forget that I’m also more than happy to exchange links with you if you run a booze blog! Just let me know that you’d like to be linked and stick a link in your own blogroll back to Days That End in Y.

It’s December 12, and I’m here to announce that Days That End in Y is officially back. I’m restarting my regular posting and have absolutely no plans to stop again.

The past week has been quite the roller coaster ride, and I’ve been seriously stressed. However, I think I have most of the server issues under control. Hopefully, apache won’t crash today, spammers will be held at bay, and traffic won’t bring my server to its knees. (Fingers crossed!) As I alluded to in the previous post, popularity of Today’s Reason to Drink (which you can see in the upper left-hand corner of the page) along with spambots caused my web host to shut down Days That End in Y and subsequently throttle visits to the point where the site was basically unusable. The gadget is currently getting about 1.4 million views per week, so that’s understandable. I’m now using a virtual private server with Slicehost, which is much more flexible and powerful than the shared web host I was on before. Unfortunately, it’s also more expensive. As a result, I’m looking for sponsors for Today’s Reason to Drink. Sponsor ads will be unobtrusive, brief text ads that show up at the bottom of the gadget, replacing the Days That End in Y link. If you are interested in getting 200,000 page views per day, then please contact me! If you know absolutely anyone who might be interested, then send them this page! I would greatly appreciate any monetary help to keep this site running.

Also, I’ve switched to WordPress. I think I managed to import and set up everything correctly. Previous permalinks will continue to work. However, if you’re linking to a page, please update your links to the new ones to help decrease load on my server.

Anyway, what’s been going on since August 13, which has kept me busy? Well…

• I backpacked through Western and Central Europe for one-and-a-half months. Some but not all of the photos I took are available. Not only did I meet lots of great people and see lots of great sights, but I also partook in lots of the local drinking culture. In Dublin, I stopped by Stag’s Head, toured Guinness, and went to the Jameson Distillery. In Lisbon, I drank plenty of Super Bock. In Madrid, I went out for tapas and sangria. In Germany, I stumbled my way through clubs and bars in Berlin. In Venice, I stopped each afternoon for a refreshing sprizze usually made with Aperol. In Bratislava, I bought and drank ridiculously inexpensive but good beer. In Belgium, I made sure to stop by lots of bars to drink incredible Belgian beers that cost so much in the USA that the price difference practically paid for the plane ticket. And in Amsterdam, well, I shouldn’t really publish those sorts of things in public under my name. Don’t worry. This wasn’t a complete itinerary and drink list!
• I went to San Diego and Los Angeles to a wedding and to visit family. Unfortunately, I arrived in San Diego the day that those huge wildfires started consuming everything in sight, so I was unable to visit Stone or any of the other great breweries in the area. However, I did have the opportunity to go to Father’s Office in Santa Monica, which is definitely on my must-visit list for any future trips to LA. Not only do they have a great selection of draft and bottled beers (where else are you going to find a peach lambic on tap???) but they also have the absolute best hamburger I’ve ever had on the West Coast. Unfortunately, I was in California when the Red Sox won the World Series (argh!), but I was able to watch the game with fellow Sox fans at Barney’s Beanery, which has an excellent beer list (132 total!) and more TV screens than Circuit City.
• I visited San Francisco twice. I apologize to anyone I couldn’t see there: too many familial obligations. Then, there was also my girlfriend’s family. Unfortunately, one of those visits was punctuated by hurling in a sink after having a little too much gin.
• I swung by New Haven and New York. In New Haven, I had the opportunity to go to Delaney’s for the first time, which I do recommend. Their drink menu isn’t as extensive as some of the other places listed here, but if you’re in New Haven, it’s a good choice. As for New York, I was really mostly just passing through.
• And of course, I’ve spent some time here in Boston just relaxing when not stressing over money and my server. I’m looking forward to a bit of quiet time interspersed with work, skiing, and drinking. I’ve already been back to a number of my favorite spots such as The Publick House, which is even agreeable with my girlfriend due to their great vegetarian-friendly appetizers and frites.

Anyway, that’s more than enough rambling about website updates and recent events in my life! Let’s get back to talking about booze!

I have a lot of catching up to do, so I apologize in advice in case I miss anything or rehash something that’s just plain old news.