Slacker.

I've said it myself many times.

Later. Eight in the evening, back from Sacramento, back from baseball, ready for, well, bed. A good day, sunshine all day, a great day to be at the ballpark, not that I've been in a lot of ballparks lately.

A drive, as I mentioned, rather than the train to Sacramento in my car, Mr. M joining Mr. E, Mr. S and I for the game, the idea to arrive before eleven to have lunch at a brewery pub Mr. E has been talking about for at least the last year. A brewery pub that allows you to brew your own batch of beer, if you so desire, in their on site fermenters so you can sit, have lunch, have dinner, watch the game with short breaks to wander over and, I don't know, stir your concoction. Mr. S is the brew master of our group, we've had many a tasting at his place up in the Oakland hills, and so naturally there was some interest in this particular concept. And, what the hell, we had to have lunch, right?

Remember my complaining of heartburn at The Chieftain, after a Guinness, and at Roy's, after more than a Guinness, this last week? I said I was going to be careful around Guinness in the future? Well I was and stuck to eating some of the appetizers we ordered - the place advertised the fact they served “award winning” onion rings - and drinking water. Heartburn when I got to the game, nothing too terrible, but what? Onion rings? Sounds like danger there. Onions? Deep frying? The plot thickens.

Brew It Up, the brewery pub, is pretty nice by the way. Lots of wood, glass and stainless steel. The “homebrew” fermenters, stainless steel tanks each producing 12.4 gallons of beer - this being much more than the typical 5 gallons in a batch that Mr. S and Mr. E are accustomed to producing - ran along one wall with the restaurant area beside them, a full bar at the far end of the building, lots of fairly nice booths and tables (and attractive waitresses). I think we decided to come back and brew a batch over the course of an afternoon. The entire process takes something like six weeks, so after your initial session you have to come back in about that time to do your bottling. I think I said I'd come along, although how much drinking I might do I don't know. No onion rings though.

A sunny afternoon at the park, the Sacramento River Cats versus the Tacoma Rainiers, the River Rats coming back in the later half of the game to win by a run. The Tacoma Rainiers were once the Seattle Rainiers (they moved after Seattle got a major league team I'm guessing) and I could root for them as easily as the River Cats, so either one winning was fine as far as I was concerned.

The crowd, about 8,000 they announced, was in a good mood, the park itself quite nice. Next time we'll buy tickets at the park and skip the fees Ticketmaster charges to buy them online as there were plenty of unsold seats in the bleachers behind home plate. The River Cats are the Oakland A's triple-A farm club and seem to have a good reputation, the locals out in force. Will I do it again? Probably not. Maybe come next time on the train and visit the train museum? I might. Go back and visit that brewery pub? If I remember to skip the onions.