Eat Me. Drink Me. (or the Magnificent Seven)

It is getting late here, so I'm not going to post pictures yet, but I wanted to get my wonderful day all down in words before I forget some of it.

I'm vacationing in Portland, staying with my aunt just south between Sherwood and Newberg. Yesterday was the Coast starting at Tillamook and her cheese factory and going down to the beach at Lincoln City south on US 101.

Today, instead of going to Multnomah Falls and Crown Point, we "relaxed," which gave me the opportunity to go into Portland and hit up some restaurants/bars I'd been wanting to catch. My day started with making a rhubarb custard pie.

I made it to Clyde Common (1) at the tail end of their lunch around 2:40 and just before the 3 o'clock Happy Hour, so after my barrel aged El Presidente with my juicy cheeseburger and out of this world crispy fries, I had the Nasturtium (a cocktail with Dolin Blanc vermouth, Canton de Domaine ginger liqueur, and Bonal Gentiane-Quina aperitif) at the bar.

I thought my friend Neil was doing a tasting/cocktail demonstration across town at Immortal Pie and Larder (2) (a little wine and savory hand pie boutique) from 3 to 6 but discovered when I arrived at 4:15 that it didn't start til 5. This allowed me to wander up the street and discover Bipartisan Café (3), where I enjoyed marionberry pie à la mode with my Stumptown coffee (an "only in Oregon" moment).

At 5 I joined Neil, who I hadn't seen since Spring of '96, for a tasting of four aperitifs, starting with his company's Imbue bittersweet vermouth, Cocchi Americano, Cardamaro, and coincidentally, the aforementioned Bonal Gentian-Quina.

Since dinner with my sister's recently transplanted roommate wasn't until 8, I went to Voodoo Doughnut, Too (4) (as the original downtown location with the ambiance of the homeless is still under renovation) where I got an Angel Dust (marionberry filled, powder sugar coated), Old Dirty Bastard (peanut butter with Oreos), and Portland Creme (chocolate glaze with Bavarian creme) in addition to my Voodoo dozen (13 of their choice). For those concerned about my poor little pancreas, I only had the Portland Creme in the parking lot, saving the rest to share later.

The combination of my aunt's GPS and my Google Maps phone app got me to Beaker & Flask(5), which was everything my mind built it up to. I loved my New Vieux (view, not veau, for those of you rusty with your French) a "twist" on the classic New Orleans Vieux Carre with rye, apricot, Benedictine, and bitters, served on the Rock (they've got one of those fancy ice machines that makes the baseball sized ice cubes so your drink doesn't get diluted as fast.). While my crispy pig ears were being prepared, I asked if they had a session beer (an easy-drinking lower alcohol beer you can drink multiples of in a session), and sho'nuff, they had a beer called Session Lager. It was like asking for a refreshing drink and getting Refreshing Drink™. Nevertheless (what is the protocol on Nevertheless versus Nonetheless?), the Session lager was a fitting complement to my fried bar food.

All of that timed perfectly for me to pick up my sister's friend for dinner at Grain & Gristle(6), where I had mussel frites with my Upright Brewing's Seven (a Belgian style beer)after half of a Fressen pretzel. Dessert was at Rose's Ice Cream(7) where I had a shake made from fresh cantaloupe ice cream.

The last of it was when I got home at 11:30 and had a slice of the pie with some Yogi ginger tea.

Vegas Part Two

Just a skeleton to get my blog in today.

Marcy and I went with Bryant to Red Rock Canyon after breakfast at Roberto's, a Mexican fast food chain in town.

Red Rock Canyon was a cool place and it helped to have Bryant, who works with the USGS on that area and others similar to it.

After Red Rock we went to Torino's, the local Husker Bar for the second half of the football game. It was fun to see 400 people gathered in a bar a long way from Lincoln still feverish about the Huskers.

Then we had tacos at Tacos Mexico. These were very tasty. One of my tacos had buche (pork maws) and another might have been cabesa, which I was surprised in this case was beef cheek instead of brain, oh well.

This is where we made a sorta regrettable decision, instead of going home to take a nap, we "had" to go through some more of the Strip, checking out Paris quickly before picking up our "O" tickets for the 10:30 show that night.

Before the show, we ate at Merkata, an Ethiopian restaurant. My first time at such a place and very delicious and filling. Gotta love that ingera (spongy, sour dough type bread).

So because we didn't take naps, recommended if you are going to a show that starts 12:30 AM in the time zone you've traveled from, I dozed a bit during some of the slower parts of the Cirque du Soleil show. In spite of that I did really enjoy it. While the acrobatics and showmanship were very impressive, I was equally, if not more, impressed with the logistics of raising and lowering the stage with dozens of performers diving into and out of the water without any collisions underwater, or even slips on what I'm guessing was a pretty wet surface.

Brunch the next morning was at one of many Original Pancake Houses. I had a baby German pancake (our family calls them egg pancakes with the basic recipe being four eggs, a cup of flour and a cup of milk baked about twenty minutes in a cast iron skillet at 425 degrees Fahrenheit) and bacon pancakes. Our server April? made some cute comment about how "somebody's hungry" after my order and then another when I had eaten what I ordered about how I "actually was hungry," but obviously, five weeks later, I'm over it. The orange juice was very good here.

I might flesh this out later, but probably only if I can't think of other stuff to blog about.

And if you can't tell by my glowing comments about every experience, I really liked this trip and often (in still silent moments at work) I dream wistfully about going back soon (hopefully this winter after the new City Center is opened).

Las Vegas Trip Part One

We flew outta Grand Island on Thursday arriving without event fifty minutes later, thanks to the time change.

Friday we were going to go to Waffles Café for breakfast, but they probably (I say probably because it looked closed with the shades drawn and we didn't go up to the door) closed at 10am, so instead we went to Mandalay Bay and ate lunch at The Burger Bar.

Hubert Keller's restaurant was very delicious and wonderful. I had the Kobe beef burger with caramelized onions, oyster mushrooms and Black Perigord truffle sauce. Marcy had the Surf and Turf burger. Dessert was quite wonderful. We got the sampler paddle of beer floats: Blue Moon/strawberry ice cream, Guinness Stout/coffee, Lindemans framboise/vanilla, dunkel/chocolate, and Höegaarden/raspberry velvet. I recommend you try any of these combinations, though the best were the Blue Moon and Lindemans.

Supper was at In-n-Out Burger. I'd never been, but wanted to go based on its reputation. To paraphrase Abe Lincoln, if reputation is the shadow of the tree and character is the tree itself, then In-n-Out has a great tree. One clever touch is Rev 3:20 on the wrapper for the burgers. The burger, fries and shake were all well executed, and when that is all you have on the menu, it had better be.

Next was the feature of the day, The Bravery concert poolside at the Hard Rock Hotel. The concert was short, 50 minutes, but they made up for it in quality. I was very impressed with them, and Marcy loves them and still does.

After the concert, we went to the Fremont Street Experience in downtown, or the old Strip. According to Bryant, the current strip is unincorporated, not providing any taxes to the municipality, so the city needs the Fremont thing to boost its tax revenue. All in all, it was something to see, but not better than the regular Strip. After that we went to Circus Circus, but the shows were already over, so we went home and went to bed.

Big Weekend

Last weekend I went to Stillwater, OK for my Uncle Dennis' National Wrestling Hall of Fame induction. There's some pictures here too. Here's an interview that he did for the USA Wrestling website. So you have some context, it was taken after a hot windy morning of golf for him. I haven't seen the video yet, but there it is.

My favorite part of the weekend was seeing both sides of these legends of their sport. For example, I got to meet Dan Gable and most of the conversation centered around how he was going to pay for all of his daughters' education. Apparently, being a wrestling legend doesn't pay for Master's Degrees.

Then there was my introduction to Greg Strobel by my Uncle Duane. At a wrestling exhibition in North Carolina, Strobel was responsible for a group of wrestlers that were either blind or deaf. And at some point he came up to my uncles asking if they'd seen the blind and deaf wrestlers because he'd lost them. Later in the evening, I went to a feature on the Lehigh wrestling program which is celebrating its 100th season this year. And as the historian was talking about the different coaches who'd brought Lehigh success he mentioned Strobel, who'd returned them to prominence after a down period and now serves as Assistant Athletic Director at Lehigh. Funny, I knew him as the guy who temporarily lost a bunch of deaf and blind wrestlers and now he's in charge of 25 varsity sports programs.

The rest of the weekend was spent at Silver Dollar City on Sunday and meeting Allison's family on Monday before driving back home to Lincoln. A little over 1200 miles of driving all told.

If You'll Have Me

So I started using Google Reader to follow all my favorite blogs (don't worry, you're in there.), and because I wasn't coming here to dance the sidebar samba, I kinda forgot about producing my own content for others to follow.

Don't worry though, I've been doing plenty in the last three weeks. I went to Mobridge, SD for the weekend of the 4th. It was a good time; the highlight of which was a 16 team no holds barred (not really) bean bag tournament. It was a double elimination format, so after my team lost in the third round, we fought back through the consolation bracket to try and avenge our loss. We had to beat the team that beat us twice to win the championship, and won the first game, but lost the second one. It was great fun though, and the fans even did the Wave at one point during our finals match.

The weekend before that, I went to Nebraska City and picked four pounds of Montmorency cherries, which I turned into two pies (one with the almond extract in the filling and the other with the extract in the crust [very aromatic while working with it, needs a bit more to get the flavor to come through). Then I went up to Omaha for Shakespeare on the Green's performance of King Lear. I got there early enough to pick about 3 cups of mulberries, which I also turned into a pie (really tasty. I like the subtle flavor of mulberries.)

Forward to last weekend, I went to the Sunfest sponsored by Beer Corner USA in Omaha, which coincided nicely with the free Feist concert only 15 blocks away. At the beer fest, I tried to narrow my focus by sampling a few styles and comparing. I ranked the helles lagers, Kolsch, vienna lagers, and imperial porters and stouts. My pleasant surprise of the fest was the Eisenbahn Dourada from Brasil, which was in the Kolsch style, but had really great spice with an almost scotch ale finish.

As for the Feist concert, it was good. The Good Life, an Omaha group, and Juana Molina, an Argentine singer (who if looping yourself is a kid holding a stick, and Imogene Heap is a little leaguer, she is [insert favorite MLB star here]) opened for Leslie. Backing Ms. Feist for the concert was Clea Minaker, who does really great stuff with shadows/projection things. The performance was very good, and I appreciated that she didn't hold out her "popular" songs for an encore, she just made it all part of the show.

More to come about yestereen's Beer Advocate soiree. Suffice it now to say that I like beer people, and there are great beers and beer people near you.

Oh, after I went to the beer gathering last night I had a cake cone of peanut butter caramel and vanilla bean pear from Ivanna Cone.

. . . Jiggity Jig.

So Marcy and I made it back safely from the Black Hills.

We left Friday, stayed in a poor Super 8 in Hot Springs that night, did the Volksmarch at Crazy Horse Saturday, then the half-marathon on the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Sunday.

I finished the half-marathon in 1:47:31 for an average of 8:12 a mile.

We took Nebraska Highway 2 up to Alliance from Grand Island. This is the "Sandhills Journey" as the occasional signs along the way politely informed us. It is a very nice trip and much preferable to taking I-80 west to Ogallala. Amongst the many "unincorporated" towns between Broken Bow and Alliance is Mullen, "The Biggest Little Town in Hooker County." (Everybody's got a pitch.)

Now, for everyone's favorite time of my event blogs: the Dog Name List

Hannah, Golden Retriever
Sunshine, small perky blonde mutt (23 months)
Tori, Black Laborador
Millie
Isabel, Border Collie
Ranger, Golden Retriever
Rosey, Golden Laborador (after the Los Angeles Ram defensive lineman)
Armstrong, German Shepherd
Payton, Golden Retriever (same owner as Armstrong)
Husker, Beagle (owner graduated from Doland and had a daughter that went to UNL)
Lucy Collins, Black Lab (brand new pup, we met in the parking lot of Menard's as the owners were purchasing a crate for her. she was supposed to be picked up on Wednesday, but the folks surprised the kids.)
Fifi, English Bulldog (She was my favorite of the weekend. After I was introduced to the 2 year 4 month dog, I reached down to pet her, and she promptly turned around and sat on my feet. I can't begin to express how great it is to have a 40 pound bulldog named Fifi sitting on your feet.)

Picture Wisconsin

Orpheum, Capitol, and MMCA from State Street.

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

"Wisconsin" She has a miner's helmet and badger on her head.

Where I ate breakfast. Notice the original 1910 wood staircase.

Barb and Steve

Libby on her "bed-bed."

I'll stop badgering you now.

On Wisconsin.

I took a vacation last week to Southern Wisconsin. The reason I went north to Wisconsin at the end of February, instead of someplace warmer, is because I like beer, and New Glarus Brewery isn't someplace warmer. Plus, I had to take my vacation now, or I wouldn't have the opportunity again until after the first weekend in June. Surplus, it is really nice coming home from a vacation and having nicer weather, opposed to having worse weather at home after your vacation.

Folk

I stayed Sunday night at my Uncle Dennis' home in Minnetonka. I really enjoyed my time with Ceri on Monday morning, seeing her apartment and eating at the Bad Waitress. Barb and Steve were interesting bed and breakfast hosts, and their dog Libby was very nice too.

Tuesday I met Bruno, owner of the Alp and Dell store, which is connected to the Roth Kase cheese factory. He looked a bit like Bruno Kirby, but had a mustache and fun German accent that made "graze" sound like a legitimate pronunciation of "grass," very Chicago Bearse SuperFan. Later in Monroe, I was trying to get directions from a city crossing guard, and he pointed with his left hand to the left and said "take a right turn." I clarified if he meant left or right, and he said, "You have to understand the Swiss." I'm not sure what it is I have to understand about the Swiss, but it was funny enough anyhow.

My tour of New Glarus Brewery was highlighted by a comfortable chat with Brewmaster Dan Carey. I was taking their audio tour and went into their room with two large copper kettles, and he was in the process of replacing the insulation around the bottom of one of them. As I walked in, he said, "The things I do for beer." In the five minutes I spent there, he managed to cover topics as diverse as the climate shift that slowly moved hops cultivation in North America from Upstate NY in the mid-1600s to Eastern Washington and now north to BC to the anxiety of executing the fermentation and brewing of his Wisconsin Belgian Red (adding over a pound of cherries to each bottle complicates matters) to the joy he had in running around like Charlie Chaplin in his brewhouse before he had a big computer that automated the process for him.

My waitress at the New Glarus Hotel Restaurant was Courtney, and she enjoyed her "Swiss Barmaid" uniform, and it showed in her service. Roy owned the Bville Mini Mart in Blanchardville, which at one point made more Limburger cheese than anywhere in the world, making Blanchardville the Limburger capitol of the world.

Joe was my server at The Great Dane Pub & Brewing Co. He was very nice and even gave me a free sampler instead of adding an additional taster to my tab. "Shirley" was the older tour guide at the Capital Building. I added myself to the tour she was giving to a Fourth Grade class. Her technique was interesting. She was trying to be educational, but didn't really have the patience if they weren't quickly educated. She was talking about all the different countries that the various stone came from and would give them a hint by providing the first one or two letters of the country. When more than one student said Germany, after she had provided G and R, she kinda snapped at them.

Food

UPDATE: I had a scramble with red pepper, gouda and something else with hashbrowns and a chocolate malted shake at Bad Waitress.

My first meal in Wisconsin was a liverwurst sandwich at Puempel's Tavern in New Glarus. Tuesday started with a big breakfast of muesli, ham, 4 yr. aged cheddar cheese (exclusively from Brown Swiss milk), Deppeler's Baby Swiss (made from whole milk, while normal Swiss is made from skim), croissants, scrambled eggs, OJ, and coffee. Lunch was a Limburger and onion sandwich on rye at Baumgartner's. Supper was at New Glarus Hotel and was three different sausages (Kalberwurst, veal, and smoked) with sauerkraut, roesti, and spaetzli.

Wednesday was granola, French toast, and bacon, with OJ and coffee. Lunch at Marigold Kitchen in Madison was a grilled salmon BLT. Supper, just some baked goods from New Glarus Bakery. Thursday's breakfast was muesli, frittata, cantaloupe, and toast.

Fun

Sunday I went to the Huskers' last regular season wrestling match in Ames, IA against Iowa State. The Huskers won 4 of 10 matches, but it was a great wrestling environment with passionate fans. I was happy to catch up with my aunt and uncle, and we watched the Oscars together. He has decided to be the Vikings chiropractor for another year.

While I was not very pleased with the quality of the roads WI provided, they were kinda fun to drive on, what with the hills and curves. I can only imagine what it's like to ride a Harley-Davidson motorcycle on its native roads. I was sort of paranoid though because no one followed the speed limit, not that I really saw any patrol cars while there.

I enjoyed my tour of New Glarus Brewery, and I recommend that you tour the source of some food product that interests you some time. While I didn't learn a lot about the process I hadn't already known, it was really neat to meet the man responsible for such a high level of craft.

As for the Capitol Building, it might not have had as much art as Nebraska's, but it made up for it in execution of materials and size (Its outer dome is the fourth largest in the world.). Plus, I love that the gold statue on top of the dome, "Wisconsin," is a woman with a miner's helmet with a badger on top of it. Wisconsinites are Badgers because the miners that partook in the lead mining rush didn't build homes and just lived in their mines in the sides of hills like badgers.

The Jasper Johns print exhibit at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art was everything I'd hoped it to be. My favorites were Fool's House, Periscope 1, Good Time Charley, and Ventriloquist (bonus for the whale, as I'm almost done with Moby Dick). His black and white 0-9, and Alphabet were nice classic Johns prints too. I liked how he would sometimes hold off printing something until he found the right paper. There were as many types of paper as there were prints. It was interesting to me how he started by taking everyday objects/symbols and manipulating their presentation to challenge the meaning we've assigned to them, and he has moved toward using stock images from his own art, to do the same thing.

Fermented

I had two pints of Fat Squirrel, my favorite New Glarus brew. One of Spotted Cow, their most popular. A tasting that included Spotted Cow, Uff-da! Bock (another favored brew), and Snowshoe Red Ale (not a fave). I had a solid Badger Porter with my Limburger sandwich, and chased it with Blumer's root beer. My grilled salmon BLT was accompanied by Capital Brewery's Wisconsin Amber, which was nicely balanced with hops and malt flavors.

My tasting at The Great Dane (in the top five brew pubs in the nation with over 3000 barrels a year) included Oktoppelbock, Peck's Pilsner, Stone of Scone Scotch Ale, Emerald Isle Stout, which I enjoyed each of, and Black Earth Porter and Crop Circle Wheat, which I didn't.

On my way back home, I stopped in Omaha for a tasting at Nebraska Brewing Company. I previously enjoyed their Scotch Ale, and liked their Belgian Wit, American Pale Ale, and Chermaca Porter (cherry and some maca type aphrodisiac for Valentine's Day) this time around. I wasn't impressed with their hefeweizen, nut brown ale, or IPA.

I got a couple bottles of New Glarus' Wisconsin Belgian Red, one of which I opened last night. I wish I'd gotten more than two. It was really great, but don't take my word for it.

All told. I traveled 1372 miles.

Parade of Stars

I closed out my summer with a bang.

It started last Tuesday when Katie (my carpool shark) asked me if I was hungry. I said yes and that we should go to Bread & Cup that night instead of Thursday, as we had planned.

Wednesday, as well documented in my previous post's comments, I went to Bread & Cup with Karen and Wendy. It was nice to be recognized by the Mrs. of the establishment, and the cheese plate was good too. I guess seven attendances between the 7th (the second day they were open) and the 29th, managed to make me recognizable at the establishment.

Thursday Bryant and his brother Bradley (and Bradley's wonderful miniature Australian Shepherd dog Sebastian) were in Omaha, so Karen, Wendy, and I went to eat with the Reynolds boys, Bryant's friend Val, her boyfriend Matt, his brother John, and John's wife Sarah. Espana (Omaha's tapas restaurant) was pretty good. I had rabbit, divers scallops, and snails along with Spanish tortillas and cannelloni stuffed with a tuna salad of sorts. Because of Sebastian, who wasn't allowed to stay at Val and Matt's apartment, I was happy to host Bryant and Bradley for the night.

Friday after a busy, busy day at work, I drove to Champaign, IL to visit Ellen.

Saturday Ellen and I went to Allerton Park, Montgomery's in Monticello, Turkish Restaurant Pasha, and Bombay Indian Restaurant. Allerton was great, but has very poor maps. Montgomery's was my first wine and cheese tasting: Danish blue with a syrah and Emmenthaler and a blanco. Pasha had a server, Dila, who really liked the phrase "You're so welcome." At Bombay, I had rasmalai, a dessert I'd never had, but oddly enjoyed.

Sunday Ellen and I had breakfast at The Crepe Cafe, where I also partook in some nocciola gelato (hazelnut). Then we went to the library, and Spurlock Museum, before we realized her amount of homework, and my desire to see Michael and Buffy, since they were only two hours away, added up to me going to Lafayette while she went to her computer.

Sunday night, I got to join Michael and Buffy, Casey and Gretchen, and Brian at Sgt. Preston's on the River. I really enjoyed getting to meet in person personalities I'd only known in the blogosphere and MySpace.

Monday, I stopped in Champaign for lunch at Papa Del's for some super stuffed deep dish pizza with Ellen. I also gassed up in Newton, IA so that I could get some of their local Maytag blue cheese. I haven't tried it yet, but apparently it is the tits.

As for dogs and their names, you already heard about Sebastian. At Allerton there were a sibling pair of fawn boxer/pitbull mixes, whose mother was a collie, named Honey and Baxter or Buster, some "B" name (maybe Ellen remembers). And during a pit stop in Malcom, IA, I met a chocolate laborador named Hershey.

"Like a Kick in the Head"

I really enjoyed myself quite thoroughly on my trip to Des Moines with Karen, Friday. I'll give you an overview and then Break. It. Down.

We left at 10 and arrived uneventfully right on time to join Nathan for lunch at the Art Center's "five star" restaurant. Then we had a wonderful two hours absorbing the art. After getting a bit derailed by the one way street system, we had twenty minutes to buzz through the Capitol building. We then mastered the aforementioned street system and had supper at Court Avenue Brewing. This left us with enough time for me to 'av a pint at The Royal Mile, a British type pub, and another at El Bait Shop, with 100 taps from which beer comes. We arrived also on time for the Squirrel Nut Zippers concert (the main reason for the trip). The Dex Romweber Duo opened, and the Zippers headlined. And again we arrived uneventfully back at Lincoln right at 2.

Des Moines Art Center was really more than I had hoped for. I remembered that they had an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture from a documentary I'd watched on him. But the rest of their collection was really great and Karen and I really liked it. Some pieces I particularly enjoyed: Man and Pegasus, Women, Bird, Stars; Light over Gray by Rothko, A Panic That Can Still Come Over Me: Salvages II by Jess, Ballet Girl in White, Jasper Johns' Tennyson (a favorite of mine), Phantom in a Wooden Garden, Range by Brice Marden, Giacometti's Man Pointing, another one that was one of my favorites was a Samurai Tree by Gabriel Orozco, but I can't find a picture of it.

I thought it would be interesting to ask what the Art Center's guards' favorite piece was. Three out of five said John Singer Sargent's Portraits of Edouard and Marie-Louise Pailleron. Other favorites of the guards were Childe Hassam's Bridge in Snow, and Gerhard Richter's Landschaft. I liked the other John Singer Sargent they had there, Study of an Old Man, more. My favorite guard was Milton Bruce Jr. who had been at the center for 8 years after working 35 years mixing rubber for tires. He had worked at the same machine in the same room for 35 years. He said coming to the Center was like a kick in the head. I suppose so. It should also be mentioned that three different architects have designed segments building which is compelling in itself.

Karen and I were repeatedly impressed by Jean Dubuffet. We first saw his Villager with Close Cropped Hair on the main floor. And there were a couple others I really liked including The Gardens of the Highway. Another piece I couldn't find images of but enjoyed was Leon Golub's Colossol. And to fully document the rest of the pieces I liked: Ernst Barlach's The Avenger and Ritman's Nude in Landscape.

The Capitol Building was impressive. My opinion was that I liked the art of the Nebraska Capitol and the structure and ornament of the Iowa building.

Court Avenue Brewing was good. Karen liked her Porto Bomb sandwich and I my Black and Tan Reuben. They even had a very good bread pudding for dessert (though Famous Dave's is still tops). I tasted three of their beers and their root beer. I didn't care for the Blackhawk Stout or the Kaplan Hat Hefeweizen, but I did like the Capital Raspberry Wheat and their root beer was quite good with just enough kick. We then hit the Royal Mile where I had Fuller's London Porter. I liked it, but it was really sweet, so much that a whole glass was almost too sweet. At El Bait Shop I had Bell's Oberon, a wheat beer, that had very nice citrus overtones. Bell's is from Michigan.

By now it was time to head over to the Hoyt Sherman Place for the concert. The Dex Romweber Duo opened and did a fine job. I was thinking of how to describe them to you, and I decided that their style and music is what would have happened if the White Stripes (Dex's sister Sara plays the drums.) were born in the early 40's and had matured musically with the rise of Rock and Roll. And sure enough, if you click on my first link to them, there is a quote from Jack White about his influence. Dex is reminiscent of a winner of an Elvis contest at the Kremlin.

The Squirrel Nut Zippers were great. The last few concerts I've been to are Sufjan Stevens, Of Montreal, Ryan Stupe and the Rubber Band, and Gym Class Heroes. Sufjan opened his Austin City Limits concert with butterfly wings on his back, The Of Montreal lead singer opened his Sokol Underground show in a wedding dress so that he could legally make love to the audience. Ryan Stupe plays the fiddle and they have a song about a Banjo Boy.

Well Katherine Whalen opened the show with cowboy boots, a wedding dress, and butterfly wings, oh and she also played the banjo. The wings were the only thing that didn't last the whole show. I must say I was quite smitten. I'm definitely glad that our seats were in the center of the second row with no one sitting in front of us. They played all their hits from their previous three or four albums; this is their first tour in seven years. And then we got to participate in that great charade where they pretend they are done with the show and the audience pretends they have the power to control musicians by merely standing and clapping. Good stuff.

Between Dex and the Zippers I walked around the lobby and noticed the name Mrs. Galusha Parsons. I don't know if that is her husband's name or hers.

langoustine du murauskas

I left for SD about an hour later than I wanted because I was slow getting out of work because it was the end of our fiscal year. This put me at the camp site at 1:30 am and in bed in the back of my car, so's to not bother the others with rustling up more comfortable sleeping arrangements.

My Saturday was for my intents and purposes about 15 hours long from 8:30 to 11:30. There was an hour and a half of swimming (the first hour between 1:00 and 2:00, with no sun screen, the remainder at night with the "bear moon"* coming up), another ninety minutes of reading, maybe an hour eating, so that leaves 11 hours for bean bags and sitting around talking. I would say that I easily played two dozen games of bean bags on Saturday.

Sunday was a bit lazier. I got up an hour later and took another hour to get the bags going. Then after just two hours of bags, I helped roll out the dough to put the spiced burger in for the fleishkuechle. After that point, I read some and stewed in my own selfish juices, wanting the frying of our masterpieces to begin so that I wouldn't have to get back to Lincoln so late.

HERE'S SOME ADVICE: If you're camping with thirty other people, any personal agendas you have might want to be put on the back burner if you want any inner harmony.

What can I say; I'm selfish. I should have seen the church sign in Columbus earlier: "A chip on the shoulder indicates wood higher up."

Ultimately, I had a lovely jaunt back to Lincoln, with my orange moon as a companion and thirty miles of entomological orgy that is field after field of lighting bug mating on Hwy 81 north of Norfolk. I'm no A.S Byatt, but I think these gatherings should be called "insex."

* I say "bear moon" because it was a blue moon (second full moon in a month) and was also orange because of atmospheric interference, hence blue and orange at the same time just like my Bears.

"I'm a Survivor"

I'll do one better than Michael, and actually share my scribblings to tease my next, more thorough, post of my trip.

a Chip on shoulder
indicates wood higher up.

Bear moon

insex

ex-otic

"Bollixed up"

Coming up Milhouse

1.5 h. swimming
1 hr eat.
1.5 read
rest - Bags
8:30 - 10:30 Apercus

(mental note: big sprinklers are scary)

Jet Setting SD Style

So I was sleeping in Thursday morning, and I got a call from my mother. This was a pleasant surprise. In our conversation, my mother intimated that she wanted me to join the rest of the family as they camp starting this weekend at West Bend on the Missouri River.

So with a bit of filial piety, and a lot of hunger for fleishkuechle and playing bean bags, I depart for the week end.

Some names for you. There seems to be a bit of a spiritual slant to them this time.

Ted Christakes

Mylorde Cherenfant

Donnieval Walker

Sleed Dornelus

Lalfela Chhakchhuak

"Wherever you are, it is your own friends who make your world." -- William James

A Wonderful Time for a Wonderful Reason Part 1

I made it back safely from my travels to 21200 Last Chance Trail Lead, SD for the DMTM (Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon) on Sunday.

I got my PR [(personal record in runner lingo) you have to switch the event to half marathon and then you can search by my name and city to see my time], which has happened each time I've run a half marathon.

In the coming days, I'll break down the wonderful time I had this past weekend.

I will be having Rhubarb and Bean Bags again this Thursday night starting shortly after 6:30 PM. I got a bunch of fresh rhubarb from home so that should be very tasty.

I'm an Ernie's Kid

So we came back today from Columbia, kinda like Clark and Lewis (there is a great Far Side with Clark's mother nagging him about how Lewis will always be first). We started our day on recommendation of the Red Roof Inn desk attendant at Ernie's Cafe and Steakhouse. They were great. Apparently, all of downtown Columbia (pop. 140,000ish) has wireless Internet. The food was better than Waffle House, and the atmosphere was great. A particularly nice touch was a Black transvestite as a server. The two tells for me were the man hands and the fact that she was done up in makeup at 10 on a Sunday morning.

We made fine time on the Interstate with nothing of note occurring, thankfully. One thing that has bothered me since first driving with Wendy in Missouri four years ago for a Central States camp meeting is Missouri's road naming system. They have plenty of state highways that use numbers, but then there is also a naming system that uses single letters and double letters. Where my issue arises is with the seeming disorder of the lettering process. I see exits off the Interstate that have both H and Z as options, or E and U (Wendy was a trusty surveillance co-pilot and took pictures of a bunch of these for me) which is farther apart than U and I alphabet-wise (also Wendy's joke).

The third phase of our day was dinner at Upstream Brewing Company in Omaha. I had a really good hamburger made of choice ground chuck and samples of six of their beers (seven if you include Wendy's). I first asked for the Sampler before I found out it was eleven four ounce samples. 44 oz. daunted me, so I cut back. I had the O! Gold Light, Gold Coast Blonde, American Wheat, Capitol Premium Pale Ale, Dundee 90 Shilling Scotch Ale, and the Blackstone Stout. I also quaffed some of Wendy's Honey Raspberry Ale. I had their Caramel Bread Pudding for dessert, not as good as my bread pudding (or Famous Dave's)--plus I got an edge piece with a tough sticky outer part, no good.

The Light was fine; the Blonde solid; Wheat wasn't as good as others I've had; Pale Ale could make me a believer in hops (maybe even instill hop in me). I was pleasantly surprised by the existence of such a complex brew as the Dundee at a local brewery like this. It wasn't McEwan's, but they don't have anything to be ashamed of--easily in my top two from Upstream. Their stout wasn't as good as either of Flat Branch's but was a strong representative of its variety nonetheless. I've had the Honey Raspberry before at the tasting fests, and it was even better at the source. So it is my queen to King Dundee. Upstream's seasonal beer was a Red Wheat Ale made with red wheat and spiced with some cardamom, but unfortunately for my cardamom leanings, they were out of it.

The Brown Ale I had at Flat Branch was lacking in lots of areas for me. It had a poor aftertaste, unexceptional mouthfeel--not smooth like a stout or Scotch ale, and there is always this talk of a nut brown color, so that puts the expectation of a nutty flavor in my head. I've always liked Sam Adams' Brown Ale. Now when you talk about black ales New Belgium's 1554 is super duper.

As for the amount of beer actually consumed in the previous pictures, today's tasting was four oz. glasses, so comparatively I'd say there was about five to six oz. in each glass [Editor's Note: further investigation on Flat Branch's site advertises a 5 oz. sampler; I'm guessing this is what I got.] , and I maybe had only two oz. of the green chili beer, plus I shared to educate Wendy, so I probably had about 26 oz., just over the 20 oz. a full imperial pint would give you. Plus I had a bunch of bread and pizza and a homemade ginger ale, so I helped distribute the burden on my liver a bit.

That's all folks.

I'm a Waffle House Kid

So we got to Columbia right before 11pm on Friday night and checked into our reserved Red Roof Inn room. Saturday morning we went to breakfast at Waffle House. Pretty fun "Americana" experience but not as good as some places I've eaten food. Then was the first session of the Big XII Wrestling Championships. The Huskers did pretty well with four wrestlers winning their matches to get into the championships and three getting into the third place matches.

For the break between sessions, we went to Flat Branch Pub and Brewing. I got the Sampler of brews with my spiced lamb pesto pizza. The six varieties starting with the straw and going clockwise were Oil Change Stout, Milk Stout, Green Chili, Honey Wheat, Brown Ale, and Irish Red Ale. I didn't care for the Green Chili, which--surprise, surprise--tasted like a green chili pepper or the Brown Ale, which wasn't the strongest example of the variety. The Irish Red was pretty weak. The Honey Wheat was very drinkable. The two stouts are what took the cake. They have the same recipe but for 50 pounds of oatmeal flakes in the Oil Change, and lactose sugars in the Milk. This is an excellent pairing for a tasting because it allows you to isolate ingredients. So if you're in the area and want really good food with some pretty good beers, go to Flat Branch Pub and Brewery in Columbia, Missouri.

The second session of wrestling for the Huskers wasn't very successful. Only one wrestler won his match. So they finished with four second places, two third places, and one fourth place. But the rest of the wrestling was top notch and we enjoyed most all of it. Well worth the trip. Now we just return on Sunday and stop in KC for lunch. Thank you for your well wishes that got us through some harrowing driving on Highway 2 before we got to the Interstate.

"OJ Simpson . . .

not a Jew. But guess who is, Hall of Famer Rod Carew; he converted."

While I liked the previous radio station more, when a Lincoln station changed formats a few years back they played the Turkey Song, by Adam Sandler, continuously. The opening line is from another Sandler song, the Hanukkah Song. I had a happy turkey day. There were over twenty-five pies to choose from, this is a good thing. My favorite pie was my mother's raspberry pie, so delicious. And what I really liked about it was that it wasn't ashamed of being raspberry. There was some tart to it, which is what raspberries taste like. There is also some comfort in knowing the raspberries came from our own patch.

I watched a lot of football over the weekend. At one point on Saturday night, I was keeping fairly close tabs on three different games. I know I have a sickness. Most symptomatic of my illness is that I woke up at 6:50 am Sunday to leave SD so that I would be back in Lincoln for the Bears game.

The only travel drama came fifteen miles from home in Redfield where we got a flat tire. Then, of course, our limp-along tire also went flat. This was a very fortunate instance, all things considered, because we could have gotten stuck along the interstate somewhere; instead we just waited for Denny to pick us up. No big deal.

May the only things you consume this holiday season be conversation with friends, homemade food, and (some other good thing, suggestions welcome in the comments section). Don't worry about stimulating the economy; it's doing fine.

Viva Sardinia!

Of the many sights I saw when I went to Virginia, the Sardinian flag was one of them. It was hanging from the corner of a house in the gated community of Lake Monticello, where my aunt and uncle live. It wasn't until yesterday evening that I found out what it was. According to my aunt, a couple of older women live in the home. From the road it looked like the heads were blindfolded, and it seemed like it could have been a fairly racist standard, but the explanation here places it as either religious or respectful. Corsica also uses the Moor's Head on their flag.

My other joy of the evening was watching Lincoln's No Coast Derby Girls' travelling team, the Mad Maxines, beat the Chi-Town Sirens 145-65. This also means new names from the registery of roller girl names. The Sirens brought Helsa Wayton, Donna D'Apocalypse, Celia Coffin, Psyche O'Sis, Shocka Conduit, and, my favorite, Beth Amphetamine.

My Antonio or Across the Wide Missouri

We, my mother, sister and I, arrived at Dulles International Airport, outside of Washington D.C., around 8:30 pm EST. Because of some difficulties my Uncle Jim and his girlfriend Kym, or Kymie, or Kymberly, (author's note: I don't like any of those spellings, particularly the second.) had getting all of their luggage we left Hertz Rental in our Lincoln Navigator around 1:30 am EST. This put us in Waynesboro, VA sometime after 4 in the morning. Long day.

On my flight from MSP to IAD, I had the aisle and Lisa from Minneapolis had the window. One quirk of my trip to and fro was that I was on a fifty passenger plane on my longer flights and 130ish on my shortest. The 50-seater was also short and narrow; this made our flight attendant Lynn, Texan accent, even larger as she manoeuvered up and down the aisle. In response to a complaining passenger, she let them know, "I tell it like it is." I don't want my stewardess (weren't they first instituted to calm the male business travelers on the new uncertain form of transportation?) telling me like it is. I want her telling me how it could be, or how I want it to be, or about how I get to feed the rabbits. Her "telling me like it is" is the last thing I want to hear.

This is going to be a series about my trip to Virginia. I don't want to bog you poor readers down.

My Summer Vacation, Vol. 2

Where were wee? Oh yes.

July 3: Today I left for West Bend Recreational Area on the Missouri River at 7:30 am from Brighton, CO. Wyoming has a lot of nothing, and I got to see most of it. Then I entered the beautiful Black Hills and Hot Springs, where I visited my grandpa for a while. I also got to stop for an hour in Wall, SD, home of Wall Drug. There I purchased the rest of my shaving kit, a mug, a brush, and some shaving soap, to go with my straight razor and strop. Now all I need is the gumption to use them all. I arrived at West Bend very close to 8:30 pm. Just in time for supper.

July 4: Anniversaire of our nation's Declaration of Independence. This day was spent reading, eating, sleeping, and playing bean bags, not necessarily in that order.

July 5: More of the same.

July 6: More of the same, this time with two small bean bag tournaments with 6 and 5 teams of two respectively. I managed to be one half of each winning team for both of them. This belies the fact that my sister beat me for the first time in what she says is 12 years, I don't think she's been playing that long though. We also had /flysh keek-luh/, spiced meat (in this case an 80/20 deer/beef mix) wrapped in dough and deep fried.I also did some swimming in the river today too.

July 7: Today we, the Dickhaut family and affiliates, fried some of the 150 some walleye caught at that point for brunch. Then at 1:30 I left to come back to Lincoln. On my way back I went through Burke, SD, hometown of an old friend Tyann nee Jeffries. Nothink else of note.

July 8: Today I went to the Farmer's Market with Ellen, before we went and visited Amy's place in Iowa. Then we scuttled back to go to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest with Karen. I liked it. I knew going into it that the ending was a bit open ended, which I expected, and was fine with.

July 9: This day was a barbecue at Karen's with a viewing of the first Pirates movie. Then some more bean bags.

Thus concludes my summer vacation, estivation if you will.