So…had to watch one of my new co-workers retire today.  MMCS(SS)(RET) John Renfro for the last week has been in one of those moods – you know – anticipatory, excited and anxious all wrapped up in one.  Well, let me start from the very beginning of this whole thing.  Last night I partied like I was 22 again.  And I had a good time…until I got up to go to work.  The whole morning I could think about nothing but to getting back home and crash out on the couch.  Well being that I wanted to be at the ceremony and wanted to see John off to a good start by going to the reception, I was pretty torn about my inner “id” vs what I should do as in the “right thing”.  After copious amounts of water and aspirin, I watch the ceremony, hurting, and then I ran home to change and head on over to the reception.  Now I had just shown up to this command so I knew all of 3 people out of the many that were there.  I kinda felt like the FNG.  Well John had a kegerator with a 1/2 barrel of bud light in it.  I watched people come up and pour their beers and talk about the kegerator and how neat it was and all that jazz.  Now I gotta say, it is pretty amazing how many people do not know how to pour beer from a tap.  After giving some tips, one of John’s neighbors came up to me and started talking about brewing.  I guess my boss Greg Pelton had told a few people I brewed.  Cool.  Well as we were talking, I was eyeballing a really nice shiny and empty keg sitting 5 feet away from me.  As John walked by I jokingly told him that if he doesn’t keep an eye on it, it may just roll with me on the way home.  We laughed and the really cool thing happened.  John’s neighbor said he had an old keg in his backyard he wanted to get rid of and that I could grab it if I wanted too.  Sweet!  Ya sure.  Well John’s other neighbor came up to us and heard us talking and said he too had a couple of old kegs he was trying to figure out what to do with.  Right there in one fell swoop I ended up with an HLT, MLT and a boil kettle.  I was doin the happy dance at that point.

So lesson learned…even if you feel like complete ass from drinking too much, always always always attend your redneck shitkicker wearing coworker’s retirement reception because you never know when you will stumble on one sweet deal.  Oh and always do the right thing

Rob