half a cat

Indeed it is! What stink am I talking about ? It’d be the cigarette smoke, stale beer, motorcycle exhaust, fried food and a good dose of the sticky-icky. With the wonderful wife safely on her way to Oh! Canada, I ventured out for some good old fashioned male bonding.

JW & I hit up the Herkimer for some vittles and a little pre-gaming of adult beverages. The food was quite good, but an appetizer would have helped to fill us up - portion sizes are not obscene and thankfully normal. Who knew! They’ve also got a great selection of German style in-house brewed beers. I can’t remember ever seeing local Kolsch or Alt Bier on tap anywhere. Very nice. The night starts getting interesting when the dude next to JW just waves hello and starts talking to us - not rude or anything, but the guy was a little off. Thankfully JW was in a mood to chat with the guy, or I’d have just been an arse and ignored him. Sometimes you just want to enjoy your beer without the extra mental anguish of having a conversation. (Women take note….) Hrm - perhaps there is some subtle body language or mental telepathy that allows men to sit around drinking and watching a baseball game to communicate without actually speaking. Perhaps we are somehow gifted after all.

From there we headed to the planned destination(s) for the night - Whiskey Junction & The Cabooze. I’ve always wanted to head down there - it is supposedly one of the better biker bars in the area. It is, but oh so much more! The bars are on opposite ends of the block with nice large harley parking lot and open-outdoor-air-but-tented-roof bar, grill and tons of picnic tables. The outdoor area joins up with a bar called The Joint and The Cabooze. It was really cool just hanging out at a picnic table - drinking, telling lies and the mutual pauses in the conversation to appreciate the sound of Harleys rolling in and out. One nice thing about riding a Harley, I can get to the bar and park directly in front.

The Whiskey was fairly dead - they had a pretty good blues band playing and several pool tables. I’ve lost that lovin’ feeling when it comes to shooting pool, hopefully more trips to bars will cure that. It will be rough, but I think in the end it will pay off.

The Cabooze… well that is where things get interesting. JW & I headed over there once Jason and his buddy arrived - thankfully sparing us from playing another unfortunate game of pool only to find those guys at the pool tables in the Cabooze… I’ve never really seen a trendy kinda hippy bar next to a biker bar. One would think you’d get some broken and battered hippies out of that - but all was well. Maybe it was too cold (50F) for hippy pounding ? Cabooze is a pretty cool place - hugely cavernous inside with a triple tiered bar-slash-table setup so that drinking and watching the bands can be done from the safety of a bar stool. In the back by the pool tables there is a room with a locked door and marked “Private Party”. I’m sure it was private but there was less traffic to the bathrooms. It might have something to do with the pungent aroma of that certain something - good lord it was ridiculous. Perhaps that explained our desire to get cheese burgers, tater-tots (tots !!!) and tubed meat in a bun at 1am.

And really, no night is complete without watching someone boot. They have nice large garbage cans near the bathrooms. These are the industrial strength grey ones with handles - you know, to give you something to really hang onto while barfing up $40 of booze. The bouncers were pretty cool about it - just wanted to make sure the dudes buddies got him home, I think they even called a cab for them, the poor bugger Hippies are nice.

Well, one nice cool-ish ride home and I collapsed into bed, doggies grateful to be inside. I slept like the dead until ~10 am and now my underwear clad self is contemplating leaving the sanctuary of the sofa and my blankie for food and maybe even a shower. One must prepare for a full day of football and Nascar T.V watching properly.

Yes, yes — I know. I’m posting something here again. You’ll just have to deal.

So — what has been going on? Life, weddings, and more life. I’ll spare you the details for now, maybe I’ll try catching up later.

I’ve caught the flying bug. Bad. I blame his greatness. But to be fair, I think I really caught the bug a few years back while in Boulder,CO for a CFS brewhaha. I’d gotten introduced to the world of build-it-yourself aircraft and well — my “must have every detail” nature got me digging. Long story short: I’m the next Red Baron, just you wait and see. I will flour bomb your house too, or your dog.

Last night I went flying with a guy from work. His hangar was located on “Lighting” at Flying Cloud Airport located in Eden Prairie here in the greater Twin Cities. We climbed into N2307A and away we went. As it turns out, the MSP airspace here is fairly open, you just have to stay below 4000 feet for most of the metro. We flew within 1500 feet of downtown during a wonderful sunset, it was funny how cool the city looks from the air. We cruised out to the MN/WI border near Stillwater where I took over, and then down the Mississippi to Prescott, WI and then did a detour to fly over my home here. We headed south and did some 30 & 45 degree turns, some VOR work, and then used the VFR map to locate our position (god bless MN lakes and perfect compass aligned roads). I managed to get us back to the airport and executed my first pattern entry, downwind, base and final approach with VAPI before Don took over to get us back on tera firma. All in all, a nice 2 hours of flying in a kick of a plane.

Yes, the bug is firmly implanted now. I’ve scoped out a local community college that does a summer ground school course and I’m looking at the FCM airport facilities for other options. Now all I have left is to wait out our lease, buy a new house, fix up said house, upgrade the truck to something from the modern era and viola! I’ll be set!

Are you interested in making wine at home? Interested in how wine is made? No? Bugger off then hosehead.

Here are some notes and links I’ve found when starting to explore the process. I’m pretty familiar with making beer, so just a matter of figuring out the new “chemistry”

• Winexpert - maker of the apparently nice “Selection” kits.

• Northern Brewers - local St. Paul brew shop.

Q: Can I leave sulphite out of my wines?

A: Some people believe that they are allergic to sulphites, and want to leave them out of their kits. While this is their option, it’s a bad idea. True sulphite allergies are terrifically rare, and if someone has a reaction to drinking wine, it’s almost always due to some other cause (for a complete discussion on this topic, see our handout “Sulphites: the Facts”). Besides, yeast make sulphites themselves during fermentation, so no wine can ever be sulphite-free, no matter what.

Without added sulphites the kit will oxidise and spoil very rapidly. It will start to go off in less than 4 weeks, and be undrinkable in less than three months. Also, if the sulphite is left out, but the sorbate is added, the wine will be attacked by lactic bacteria, which will convert the sorbate into the compound hexadienol, which smells like rotting geraniums and dead fish.

The bottom line is this: if you do not add the sulphite to the kit, neither your retailer, nor Winexpert can guarantee the wine, so think carefully before you do it.

…. more to come as I find them….

So — I’ve been riding the hog to work these days, mainly because it gets 4x the gas mileage of the Brown Beast. I guess I’d rather spend the money on illegal immigrant labor and beer — well ok, just the beer. Here are a few things I’ve noticed…

• People read mother-!@#$$ing magazines WHILE DRIVING. If killing people ever becomes legal, this group is one case of shotgun shells away from a messy death. Seriously you fucktards, seriously.

  • Boxes 2 & 3 are for people who put on makeup - come to think of it, I’ve never seen a dude doing this stuff. MN Women — knock it the fuck off please. Oh yeah — MT women are thinner too, sorry.

• Minnesota smells like Pennsylvania — at least in the spring. It must be the humidity, open water, and the trees, but man is it nice to be zipping along to work and getting fresh mowed lawns, lilac bushes, wood fires, etc. I almost don’t need coffee to wake up after that — hey! I said almost…

• Curvy roads are still fun. Nothing really beats coasting into a posted 35mph corner at 45 and then romping on the throttle in the middle to come out at 65+.

  • Part 2 - I LOVE the part of my drive where I get to turn onto County-55 ala interstate on-ramp and rod up through the gears. 0-80mph by the end of the onramp. Un-freaking-raveled!
  • Part 3 - Minnesotans take their speed driving seriously. None of this speed limit crap, I’m gonna go fast! Posted 65 means 80, posted 45 means 60. 10mph over is a safe bet. The only thing worse is finding the asshole who actually drives the limit - move it turd.

• Wearing a helmet, while dorky and restricting, is quite nice on the morning ride to work. It is kinda nice to show up at work and not have a frozen mug due to the 45 degree temp and my refusal to drive the speed limit.

• Minnesotans also don’t screw around with the fishing. Lots of boats, even saw a dude fishing in a canoe in a small lake the other morning. I bet he was just out there to hide his drinking.

So — on random other thoughts… I am seriously considering trading the truck in or just buying outright a VW Jetta TDI. 35city/42highway in a decent looking package. I’ve heard tale that a nice catback exhaust system is good for ~15mpg too. Can you imagine 50mpg in a real car? Car and Driver even mentioned that you can’t even hear the diesel note common to these motors. Sweet. I think Portanaipolis is heading towards a Mini Coop, sexy

I want one:

The question left is: Flames or Biker theme?

Oh yeah, and with me doing the homebrew, it would so get turned into the Ultimate Beer Dispensing Apparatus ™. I’m thinking a couple CO2 taps and a Nitrogen “beer-gas” tap. Don’t hate me because I’m crafty.

Duuuuuuuuude, Harley season is sooo near. Not quite, but it was close damn enough to bust out the long johns and leather again today and ride the bike into work. If I get to ride my HD into work most days this summer, boy does commuting not sound like such a bad thing

The ride this morning was a bit chilly — I decided to forego the helmet option, I figured it was warm enough I really didn’t need face protection. Dumb idea 40F at 60 mph is a bit cold. It wasn’t so bad after ~5 min, I either got used to it or my face whent numb. The speed limit between Auds & work is 50 mph, and in MN that means 55mph minimum. I was more than happy to oblige! I’m looking forward to chowing my lunch at my desk and getting out for a nice noon-time ride today, might as well get it while I can.

The day starts well….

What a great weekend. Saturday was a marathon shopping day (yes, I do feel a bit odd admitting that) - craft show with the girls, then to a very near closed stained glass supply shop — they were selling the shelves, to the Pinball Warehouse, then another 40 minutes north to the biggest damned furniture store I have ever seen.

The pinball warehouse was just the coolest — seriously. They probably had ~25 refurbished machines on the floor and you could play most of them for free. There was an Indiana Jones game that totally tripped my wicket but at 3100 bucks, I’m going to have to save for a bit. They also had an older Star Wars machine that was still living up in storage that was only ~1900. Portana drooled, I could see it. I’m thinking once I pay off the credit cards and get my eyes laaaazered…yeah, pinball machine. Or Tivo Series 3 — it is a race to see if the v3 comes out in time… Oh sweet sweet dual HDTV tuners and cable card…ahhhh!

The furniture store was fun — an astonishing collection of stuff. Portana and I managed to find a end table and coffee table set that will go well with our newly purchased sofa & loveseat — but not before a Battle Royale was had. We agreed on the wood, but it has beveled glass inserts which I am less than fond of — we agreed we could get marble or granite tiles cut and use those instead. We really only wanted the one end table, but as it was in the “outlet” wing of the store, it came in a 2 table & coffee table set. Frass. Portana is dead set (and for good reasons) against having a coffee table in front of the T.V, so her & Aud had to beat me about the head and neck to convince me that it will make a good T.V stand. I compromised…we shall see Aud managed to make a pretty good haul — lamp tables, curio and appolstered chair (wing back? too many seen to remember) to match her new sofa.

We had left at around 10 am that morning, returning around 8 pm or so — tired, very tired. It was a good tired though — a great day of getting things done, but boy was sleep welcome

I awoke Sunday with the grand intentions of being a bum. There was NAPCAR and College Hoops to watch, other T.V to surf in the meantime and I made some mean coffee to start things off. I was doing well with my “Day o Laziness” until around 11am where apparently the Wild Hair started sprouting…it was 40F+, why not wash up the Harley and get out for a ride. There is never a good answer to that…other than yes A quick trip to the storage unit for leathers and helmet later, I was off to the self-service car wash to give the bike a good warshin’. It was pretty filthy — 1000 miles of bugs and road grime, not to mention moving dirt. Thankfully some “pre-soak” and a nice pressure washer later - no bugs! I tooled around (including a nice rear tire roasting coming out of the carwash — god bless a little water and cleared the cobwebs out of the motor. Boooooy is having real air again nice, Hello Msrs Horsepower and Torque, oh look there is your tag-a-long Mr Adrenaline. I boogied home to give Portana a call so we could get out together and enjoy some V-Twin Therapy. We checked out the local HD dealership for a bit, then motored over to Champs for a NAPCAR & Basketball grubbin. Not sure if it was being tired or what, but that ride home was a bit chilly. We both passed out pretty quickly on the sofas watching the race…damn you Rubberhead.

That about does it for the weekend — there was a small battle with Auds furniture (moving it out to the garage to make way for the new stuff), but other than that — crashed I’m reqlly looking forward to this Saturday - we should have the movers, the cable t.v feller, and the new sofa & loveseat all in one day. Wow, what a whirlwind weekend this will be Oh yeah, supposed to be in the 50s this weekend…soooo going out riding again.

Holy Feck. I’m looking forward to the move to Mipples — got my new email addy today (nic AT cray.com. sexy), along with my new office number and phone number for it for next Monday. Anyways,…back to this weather thing, today was retarded nice here in Billings. I’m talking t-shirt in the backyard nice, putting plants in the back of the pickup and driving them around town nice. I spent the day demolishing the garage, utility room and patio with Mom — thanks ! We can check that off the list now, just need to do the bedroom, kitchen foods, and the bathroom now. One more day of packing! I even managed to get the HD out for a ride tonight — just ’cause I can.

Anyhoo — Mipples: Please take a note out of our weather forcast. 50s or 60s for daytime highs. Nothing less, nothing more until April. I will serenade you with my sultry Big Twin rumble to your hearts content. Seriously. I promise. Sadly, looking at the weather forecast for MN reads like a whos-who of bad winter driving. Ice, ice pellets, snow then rain, rain then snow, etc. Thank god I spent this weekend redoing the front end (bearings, races, seals & hubs) on the Brown Beast - having 4×4 again will be nice. Now if someone could only tell me where to find a copious amount of sticky-icky mud near the TC that I can play in and not get arrested for…. This is your chance people — the comment link works!

Well — I’d best get folding and editing the wardrobe here unless I want to sleep on the floor. Yawn

I want one. Sadly the first thought through my head was “Oh #@$# I bet the is lame ass cable company here won’t have CableCARD support until 2050. Reason #442 that I am going to have to move somewhere in the next few years.

So, this seems to have all the features I would want in a new Tivo, well except a DVD burner — but I can live without that. The dual tuners is specatcular, especially now that they use CableCARD — no more anoying cable boxes, IR tents or serial cables. HDTV would be cool. I’ve yet to take the plunge for a new TV — just bought a Wega last year, and I can’t afford the ~46″ or so DLP that I want. BTW — what is the difference between LCD and DLP TVs these days?

I will have one of these little babies soon, sooner if Bresnan supports CableCARD anytime soon. No word on price yet…

I almost fell out of my chair when I saw this on CNN. It is possible that the car designers respsonsbile for the SUV disaster have some true skill left? BA! This car had better be good — you put the “Challenger” moniker on it — no pussy assed 4 cylinder engine, quiet exhaust or traction control shit. This baby better BURN rubber and gas - not like that half-assed Charger.

–Update– Better site with more photos