Friday Four

1. I have been to St. Louis for the greater part of a year, but having two very young children in the house has greatly slowed down a vital part of becoming acclimated to the area: becoming familiar with the local microbrews. I do have a really nice find, though: Ale Mucho Hoppo, an imperial IPA brewed by the Charleville Vineyard Microbrewery in Ste.-Genevieve. I have to agree with the folks at Beer Advocate, who rate it nearly as high as my two favorite beers in that style, Sierra Nevada's Hoptimum and Odell's Myrcenary.

2. My daughter now almost always drinks from sippy-cups, although we still allow her to use a bottle for milk. This week, on observing her use a bottle, I realized that I never blogged one of those cute things that could easily go down the memory hole: She holds her bottles with her pinkie finger extended.

3. There is now an airline, in California, that operates on an "all-you-can-fly" business model:

Surf Air started flying in June, with service between smaller airports in Burbank, Calif., and San Carlos near Palo Alto, tapping into those who do business between Hollywood and Silicon Valley and would prefer to do so without the headaches of major airports. It added service last month to Santa Barbara, Calif., and is considering additional destinations by the end of the year.

File this under "interesting, but not likely to impact my life any time soon" -- unless you're such a frequent flyer that the pricing is actually appealing. Membership is $500 and there is a $1,650 monthly fee.

4. Two cheers for criminal stupidity and absent-mindedness. Recently, we were victims of a car burglary spree. On preparing to leave for work one morning, my wife noticed that our glove box door was hanging open. A portable hard drive of mine that had been inside was the only thing missing. There was enough personal information on the drive that I had to assume we were wide open for identity theft. I'd forgotten to lock the doors the evening before.

Mid-morning, while on hold with a bank, I got great news: a fellow victim a few doors down had found my hard drive discarded along the sidewalk. I also learned that the thieves had smashed the windows of cars that had been locked. From what I gather, they were looking for guns. Interestingly, I discovered that the glove box door was undamaged. (I am not sure how it occurred to me that it had been yanked open, and might work if I simply slammed it shut again.) Good news: no repair expense. Bad news: that thing is even less of a crime deterrent than I imagined.

Oh, and the hard drive still works.

I will be encrypting any portable storage media that will hold important information at the very next opportunity. I feel quite stupid about not having done this already.

Lesson learned.

-- CAV