"Saturday In the Park"

Perfunctorily, I had my last run tonight before Sunday's half-Marathon. I ran 9 miles in 88 minutes. I'm expecting to have my slowest time yet. This is disappointing to me because I've always finished under two hours and probably won't this year.

Saturday I went to Parkville, MO, right next to Kansas City, for their Parkville Microbrew Festival. They had 24 different microbreweries from Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska sampling their wares.

My day started, however, with breakfast with Brett Toay at Dixie Quick's Magnolia Room in Omaha. My apple and brie omelet with grits and English muffin was very tasty.

From 1 PM to 5 PM I sampled 31 different beers. All the attendees were given a souvenir tasting glass (I'm guessing it was 4 oz.). A quick tip if you're going to a similar event: Start asking for a half glass from the beginning. Two ounces is plenty to taste everything you need to, plus you can always get another sample if you find something you like. I started getting my half glass samples about halfway through the event so I would venture that I consumed around 90 ounces of beer in the four hours. This works out to 7.5 beers. This was a lot, but don't worry; I waited three hours including supper and dessert before I took to the road.

I won't bore you in this space with each beer that I tasted, but I'll mention a few that stood out to me. There were a lot of IPAs (India Pale Ales) and other Pale Ales, a few fruit accented wheats, a smattering of maibocks, with the rest being filled in with stouts, porters, and ales.

Coming in at 60 IBU [International Bittering Units (Budweiser is less than 10)], my favorite IPA was from 23rd Street Brewery in Lawrence. I tasted something in Blind Tiger's IPA that I couldn't pinpoint, but still enjoyed. 75th Street Brewery from KC, MO had a Double IPA with 103 IBUs, which is crazy--crazy good.

Free State Brewing Company [which created maybe my favorite beer: their Blackjack Porter (Baltic)] came through again with a Blue Sky Rye ale.

Of the four maibocks at the event, I enjoyed Boulevard's the most with its strong banana accents; Blind Tiger came in second, but surprised me. They were very consistent with the Java Porter and its tremendous nose very deserving of a Gold (2004) and a Silver (2007) at the Great American Beer Fest.

There were enough fruity beers with two peach, a raspberry, and a blackberry offering. O'Fallon's Wheach was the winner for a great peachy nose and taste. McCoy's had a Ginger Shandy that was also very tasty.

At the Microbrew Festival, I also met a lot of dogs:

Wylie, German Shepherd Husky mix (first dog I met, friendly owner's name was Dale)
Chinook, Siberian [all white and undersized for the breed standard (41 lbs. instead of a minimum 45)
Bam Bam, Pug (his owner created the website for the event)
Cessna, Black Lab ("father" is a pilot)
Duke, Viszla & Georgia, Yellow Lab (belong to the same couple)
Gertie, Bassett
Cappuccino and McLovin, Daschunds (not siblings just acquired near in time to each other)
Mini Cooper [full name (not certain of nickname), Yorkshire Terrier
Remington, Puggle
Mango, Black Mutt
Kaya, Chow Australian Shepherd mix (really neat coloring with a Chow-like pumpkin base with black tigery markings)

Can't Stop Bad Telegraph Pun Stop

I wanted to be cool like the Hartman Sisters (Ellen and Leah) and have a clever format like their interview or press release, but I don't know enough about telegraphs to pull it off. Just know it would have been rife with sentences ending in "stop stop."

I ran again Tuesday night, which makes four times since the 15th (23 miles in all). The last two outings I've averaged 8:30 for my three miles out and then three miles back from my place to 39th and Normal. I've always enjoyed a street sign on the path at Sumner and Capitol Parkway. On the top it has an arrow going forward to Holmes Park, and underneath that is an arrow to the left for Bryan Hospital. I like the dichotomy and choice I get to make each time I pass it. Either a romping frolick to city organized nature, or a hobbled limp to help at Bryan.

Oh, and I saw a dog named Winston.

Back in the Saddle Again

So the 1st of March was a very beautiful day and I ran.

Fast forward six weeks. I ran again last night for the first time since then. We'll see if I am ready for the Lincoln Half-marathon on May 3. I'll keep you updated.

Iegor Phetis
Aelita Miratztchijska
Drupatie Seepersaud
Monestime

Soul Snatchers

I am now a Pod person.

I got an iPod Shuffle. So now I can spend days putting music into the computer for my hour long runs.

Meet Lincoln.

So I've been in Lincoln since August of 1999. I've eaten at most of her restaurants, shopped at most of her stores, tasted many of her coffees.

Or so I thought.

Monday, I finally toured Empyrean Ales. Yesterday, I finally shopped at Leon's Food Mart. Today, I finally ate at Tina's Cafe and drank coffee at Meadowlark.

I'd always wanted to tour Empyrean, but never was available when they had hours posted for arranged tours, so I just didn't bother. Then I found out about their monthly tour the first Monday of every month and put it down in my mental calendar. Having not been to Lazlo's or had an Empyrean beer for a while, the previous Tuesday I had their LunaSea ESB (Extra Special Bitter) to compare with the Fuller's ESB I had at Yia Yia's. Fuller's was more balanced, tipping to the malt/sweet side. Then Sunday after painting our living room (Ralph Lauren's Dressage Red and Mesa Sunrise) and waiting for it to dry, my sister and I went to Lazlo's again. Monday made it three times in one week with four different beers (ESB, Irish Red, Belgian Wheat, Scottish Ale). Their monthly tours have a theme, and this month's was hops with a sampling of IPAs (India Pale Ale) and some ESBs. It was interesting to compare the LunaSea a second time with a more American ESB from Sierra Nevada (though to be fair, their ESB stands for Early Spring Beer, while their press release admits a nod to the English style.) Empyrean's ESB was much more balanced than Sierra Nevada's.

I had always heard about Leon's excellent meat department, but had never sat down to figure out where they were. Then driving home from work yesterday and wanting to make chili this weekend I caught Leon's sign out of the corner of my eye driving along South Street. So I turned around and got a pound of 93% lean and another of their beef stew meat. It is nice having a person behind the meat counter to weigh your order out for you instead of having it prepackaged in shrink wrap in a big chest cooler [not that I'm one to shy away from big chests ;)]. Fortunately, the meat department isn't the only impressive section of the store. They have a great cheese section and plenty of exotic dairy like two or three European butters and some creme fraiche. I'm sure that won't be my last visit there.
PS The chili turned out great.

Yestere'en after watching Leatherheads (fun enough but not solid anywhere, the seriousness toward the end really drained the comedy, and the love interests weren't developed enough for me to care), Marcy and I were discussing our plans for the morrow. Before thinking about church, we decided on breakfast, and I recommended Tina's Cafe, which is another little place off South Street, near 7th or 8th streets. I'd wanted to go there in the past, but again our schedules never aligned. We enjoyed it, and the cinnamon roll dominated the meal and our stomachs with its 6x6x2 dimensions.

After church, we wanted to stop in to Open Harvest for their spreadable horseradish cheese and acoutrements. But first I wanted to see Porridge Papers' hours, because I have designs on getting some personalised stationery* (notice the 'e' when talking about something you writ'e' on) from them. On our way back to OH we stopped at Cultiva for a Kahlua latte and a normal latte. Both were excellent, and after our visit to Open Harvest we went to Meadowlark where I got another latte so I could compare. Cultiva wins.

I'm not only meeting new business establishments in Lincoln, but also new people. Matt, who I went on the Empyrean tour with, was behind the deli counter at Open Harvest, and Spenser, who you might recall from my previous "Spear Ritual" blog, was in a similar position at Meadowlark.

*This means I'll be needing postal addresses, so that I can write people.

Spear Ritual

It is the artist, not the audience, who should be doing the suffering.

Ivanna Cone's peanut buttered ice creams are great because they use crunchy peanut butter.

Nyx and Niles are a black and grey cat respectively. Nyx is the goddess of night, but Nyx the cat is actually a boy.

Katie, Jesse, Kayla, Tamara, Cassie, Spenser, Amanda, Jemaine, Bret

There was a recent study released by Penn State University that concluded that satisfactory sex can be achieved between 3 and 13 minutes. I first heard this on a sports talk radio show The Herd with Colin Cowherd. Colin said he was happy to hear this because he's already half way there.

The following night Conan O'Brien relayed the same study in his monologue, and his funniest moment of his entire monologue that night was when he said that the 13 minutes for him even includes the apology.

Craig Ferguson was answering viewer email and a rabbit or bunny was mentioned. Craig said he always thought Warren would be a good name for a rabbit. I thought this was brilliant.

I've been sold on Herman as a name for my next pet for a while now, but Norman made some headway today. I don't know if Amy would mind if I used Fred too.

What does Sophonia mean? Can it mean "knowing sound," with double duty from the "ph" or is it one or the other?

Stennett Brooks