6 x 10∧6

From the FWIW department...

For what it's worth, as of the morning of 26 April 2020, the 55,373 photos and images that I have posted to Flickr since 2006 have been viewed six million times.

And the pace of views is quickening. I passed five million views six months ago, on 27 October 2019. I hit four million views fifteen months before that, on 1 July 2018, and the three million mark, nearly two years earlier, on 16 June 2016.

Sine joining Flick in 2006, I've used six different cameras (excluding cell phones and Palm PDAs). In order, from most recent to oldest:

• 1. Olympus OM-D E-M10 II
• 2. Olympus Pen E-PL1
• 3. Canon PowerShot SX130 IS
• 4. Canon PowerShot SD400Digital ELPH
• 5. Canon PowerShot SD980 IS Digital ELPH
• 6. Canon PowerShot A520

Originally, most of what I was uploaded was beer-centric. In the past 4 years or so, however, my emphasis has shifted more toward 'artsy,' playing at being a photographer, if you will, if not always so successfully. The beer pics remain a-coming, just not as often.

Thank you to all who have viewed my images and to all of you who have 'favorited' and/or commented on them.

Yours for good fermentables,
Thomas Cizauskas
26 April 2020.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Purple wildflower in field

Wildflowers have begun to bloom at the end of the trail (or is it the beginning?).

At the Trailhead Community Park of the East Decatur Greenway, in Decatur, Georgia, USA. 22 April 2020.

The shot is a closeup — getting in close at a wide angle— so the purple blossom appears larger in the image than it does in 'real' life (~ 1-inch or 2.5-centimeters).

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A virtual Craft Brewers Conference

The [U.S.] Brewers Association —the national non-profit association on behalf of small and independent (and 'traditional') U.S. breweries— had originally scheduled its annual Craft Brewers Conference for this week in San Antonio, Texas. Then, there was this thing called a pandemic and the confab was scrubbed.

So, in lieu of an actual conference, the BA has been live-streaming seminars this week and will continue to so through 15 May.

There are almost 70 webinars in total. Topics include such as:

• Chemical Safety in Brewing: Do You Really Know What You're Doing?
• State of the Craft Brewing Industry
• Draught Beer Quality Workshop: Addressing Draught Beer Dispense Issues
• Don’t Get Gotcha’d: Regulatory and Compliance Best Practices for Growing Craft Breweries.

Downloadable pdfs and audio links are provided afterward for perusal. The full schedule: here.

More Brewers Association links:

• Twitter: @BrewersAssoc
• Instagram: @BrewersAssoc
• Facebook: BrewersAssoc
• Web: brewersassociation.org
• Craft Brewers Conference: craftbrewersconference.com

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Pic(k) of the Week: Outta beer; outta here.

Festooned with street art like this, a blocks-long metal wall separates the Atlanta BeltLine from the former CSX railroad Hulsey Yard, in the Reynoldstown district of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. 

I snapped a photo of this mural on 27 February 2018; now, its sentiment seems so appropriate. I haven't checked to see if it's still there. 

The Beltline is a not-yet-completed rails-to-trail pedestrian/biker/skater/runner circumnavigation of the city of Atlanta. A big sidewalk with a deficit of social-distancing but a surfeit of huffing-&-puffing, the BeltLine is something I'm avoiding these days.

Outta beer; outta here. 

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• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of images posted on Saturdays, occasionally (as is the case today) with a good fermentable as the subject.
• Photo 16 of 52, for year 2020. See it on Flickr: here.
• Camera: Olympus Pen E-PL1.
  • Lens: Lumix G 20/F1.7 II.
  • Settings: 20 mm | 1/320 | ISO 200 | f/2.8
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.


• For more from YFGF:
  • Follow on Twitter: @Cizauskas.
  • Like on Facebook: YoursForGoodFermentables.
  • Follow on Flickr: Cizauskas.
  • Follow on Instagram: @tcizauskas.

Pic(k) of the Week: Beer alfresco

Reaching back into the archives for the Pic(k) of the Week.

Enjoying a beer, alfresco, on a sidewalk patio in November 2009...when social-distancing was not a thing. At Max's Taphouse, in Baltimore (Fell's Point), Maryland, USA. Then called "Max's on Broadway"...the Baltimore Broadway.

In the glass: a pour of (then) 11-year old Millenium Barleywine, brewed by the former Dominion Brewing (of Ashburn, Virginia). Warming, malty, and still in condition: even then, a rare treat indeed.

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Our lager which art in barrels.

"Dear friends, we are gathered here today

to celebrate the union of malt, hops, water, and yeast.

Let us pray." 

Considering the day, today, I thought a prayer might be in order.

Here, Hugh Sisson, founder/owner of Heavy Seas Beer (a 25-year-old 'craft' brewery in Halethorpe, Maryland) delivers an invocation before leading a group on a tour of his brewery (back when social-distancing did not preclude such communal carousing).

Our lager which art in barrels,
Thy will be drunk.
Give us this day our foamy heads,
As we forgive those who spill against us.
And lead us not into inebriation,
But deliver us from hangovers,
For thine is the beer, the bitter, and the lager,
Forever and ever,
Barmen.

[Edited for universality.]

Be safe; be well.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Garden Party

The local shelter-at-home COVID-19 order permits me to take the dog out for short walks. I take my camera along.

On a recent walk, he and I saw this tea 'party' adjacent to the hiker/biker Stone Mountain Trail, in DeKalb County (Scottdale), Georgia, USA. 1 April 2020.

Was it a garden party or splendor in the grass? Cue Hugh Masakela (or Ricky Nelson, vice-versa).

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