No Bad Days

Don Rich Should Be In The Country Music Hall Of Fame

2011-09-29T15:14:00.000-05:00

Who's Don Rich? That's the great Buck Owens in the video, isn't it?

Yep. That's Buck Owens in a video of Buck Owens and The Buckaroos performing at Carnegie Hall in 1966. That show was recorded live, converted to vinyl records, and is considered by many to be one of the finest live country music records of all time.

Don Rich is the harmony singer and guitar player in the blue suit. Don Rich was the reason Buck Owens sounded like Buck Owens.

Don Rich was a very talented musician and singer. He opened for Elvis Presley at concerts in 1957; he was only 16 years old at the time and still a high school student. He met Buck Owens in 1958, then joined Owens in 1960 after completing one year of college. Rich had planned to be a music teacher.

Don Rich played on every Buck Owens record and in every Buck Owens concert from 1960 until the date of his death in a motorcycle accident in 1974. He helped form Owens' backup band, the Buckaroos, wrote and scored Owens' songs, and developed the "Bakersfield sound" that made Buck Owens and The Buckaroos music distinct and different from other country western music.

Ringo Starr was a fan. He collected all of Buck Owens records and recorded Act Naturally on the Beatles Help! album. Ringo wanted the Beatles to record an album of Buck Owens songs; Lennon and McCartney thought otherwise.

Buck Owens stopped performing the day Don Rich died. Owens was heartbroken at his friend's death, and couldn't talk about it for years afterward.

Owens lobbied hard, year after year, for Don Rich to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He once interrupted his own live performance on an awards show to plead with the CMA to induct his friend into the Hall of Fame. Rich has not yet been inducted. He should be.

Ten years after Buck Owens stopped performing Dwight Yoakum knocked on Owens door in Bakersfield. Yoakam was in Bakersfield playing a concert and wanted to see if Buck would sing one song with him. Owens reluctantly said yes and performed Streets of Bakersfield with Yoakam.

A few months later they performed in Austin, here:

"All" Dwight Yoakam did was mimic the late Don Rich. What a fitting tribute!

Don Rich should inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

September 11, 2011

2011-09-11T07:59:00.000-05:00

I remember every second of that day - September 11, 2001 - ten years later. The television images of the burning tower, then the second airliner crashing into the second tower as cameras recorded it. I remember every moment.

I remember thinking about the burning buildings, and thinking that the steel cannot support the building at such high temperatures. And then they came down, one at a time. Horrible. Trapped people believing that their only way our was to jump ninety stories.

We must never forget what happened on September 11, 2011 in lower Manhattan, Washington DC and farm field in Pennsylvania.

Beaver Dam Peppers

2011-04-27T19:13:00.004-05:00

Surprises can come from the most unusual circumstances, like the lovely surprise I had this week.

My dad's parents emigrated from Eastern Europe just before the start of the Second World War. They came from Apatin, a small village in what was then in Yugoslavia, and although they spoke a German dialect, they sometimes identified themselves as Hungarian. It's easy to understand why - the national borders where they lived shifted frequently.

They settled in Beaver Dam, a small community in south central Wisconsin, on a block were others from their part of Europe also settled.

My grandfather died before I was born. I have a photo of him taken with his co-workers in Beaver Dam at the Louis Ziegler Brewing Company where he worked as a brewmaster.

My grandmother was years younger than my grandfather and outlived him by decades. I have many wonderful memories of her. I have photos of her taken when she was in her forties and older. Imagine Mother Theresa, but a little taller and heavier, with one eye, and the same loving disposition as the sainted nun.

She had been a cook on a wealthy family's estate in the old country, and wow, could she cook! Any conversation with cousins about Grandma soon lapses into memories of her cooking doughnuts, or baking cakes and cookies, or making filo dough, or her own noodles, or her goulash, especially her goulash.

My grandparents, like many immigrants, made do with very little money. They grew their own vegetables in a huge garden, and harvested fruit on trees planted in their yard. Their basement was filled with jars of canned vegetables and preserved fruit for winter eating. And there were barrels of home-brewed beer, home made wine, bottles of brandy, rye and bourbon whiskeys.

I remember Grandma showing me how to take the seeds out of peppers, tomatoes and other vegetables, dry them on a windowsill, and save them in an envelope for the next planting.

Goulash, who doesn't love goulash?

I can smell Grandma's goulash now, just as it was when simmering all afternoon on the old stove in Grandma's kitchen. Rich stock, beef, onions, garlic, caraway seeds and plenty of paprika. Served in a bowl, over noodles she made earlier in the day, a bit of sour cream on top. Indescribably delicious!

Grandma made her own paprika, crushing what she called Hungarian peppers, grown in her garden beginning with seeds she brought with her when she immigrated. The peppers were grown, picked, dried, and crushed to powder after the seeds were saved for the next year's crop.

The gardening gene runs deep in my ancestral DNA. My cousin Laura is in the middle of preparing her garden for this season. She sent me a message - "Hey!! Did you know that some seed companies sell seeds and plants for an heirloom pepper called the Beaver Dam pepper?? Try Google for 'Beaver Dam peppers!"

What? I Googled Beaver Dam peppers and sat stunned for a few moments when I read "...Hungarian heirloom brought to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin in 1929. Crunchy fruits are mildly hot when seeded. Excellent flavor, ripens from lime-green to red"

Those are Grandma's peppers! Oh my gosh! Good Lord. What a surprise.

I sat for a few minutes, remembering that some of my uncles ate the peppers raw cut into rings and mixed with sour cream. A bit more time on the internet and I found a comment about someone's old relatives eating the peppers sliced, with sour cream. I was stunned, happily.

Other stories I found on Google describe a different family that brought the the same seeds to America a few years earlier; they also lived in Beaver Dam, in the same block where my grandparents lived.

I don't doubt that they all sat together on the big front porch on the old house on Mill Street on a warm summer's evening, laughing, playing cards, drinking home-made kimmel and beer, and eating peppers with sour cream. I can hear their voices, their accents, their jokes floating back in my memory from a time when I was three or four years old. The memories embraced me like a warm wool blanket left on the clothesline to dry on a warm spring afternoon.

I'm not a gardener. I tried several times to plant a garden, but never wound up with the abundance of beautiful produce others always seem to harvest from their gardens. It seemed easier to just go to a farmers' market and buy produce grown by others who have the skills, time and patience I lack.

This year will be different. I have ordered some starter Beaver Dam pepper plants and will lovingly tend them until harvest time. And I'll save some of their seeds in an envelope for next year's garden.

Those are my peppers; the seeds came from my people. As did I.

An Interesting Story

2011-02-23T10:54:00.001-06:00

This is a re-posting of a story I wrote a few months ago on a different blog. Most of my regular readers haven't read the story because they don't know about the other blog.

I want to tell an interesting story; interesting to me, at least, since I heard it from a friend and it's about musicians.

My friend, I'll call him Mr. B here, called last Friday to ask if I'd like to meet at our favorite bar for a beer. Of course I would; that's what friend are for, and I always enjoy spending time with Mr. B.

Mr. B is an interesting guy. He's a high-powered lobbyist with offices in several of the fifty-seven states as well as in DC. He's also an amateur musician with a garage band and is a fan of rock and roll. We're the same age and like the same kinds of music.

We were talking about rock and I mentioned having received an email from my son telling me that Levon Helm is going to play near Chicago this summer, and asking whether I'd like to go with him to the concert. Mr. B's eyes lit up and he said "Let me tell you how I almost met Levon Helm."

Here is the story:

Back fifteen years or so, Mr. B's student intern approached him at work and said "Boss, my girlfriend Amy and I are graduating from the University of Wisconsin in a couple of weeks. Amy is a music major and wants to sing for her family and friends, some thirty people, after the graduation ceremony. She reserved a back room in a bar near campus, but they've canceled the reservation because they expect a large crowd that day. Would it be okay if Amy sang in your sun room or on your patio instead?"

So Mr. B said "okay", and ordered some food, beer, wine and rented some extra chairs for the event.

On graduation day, after the ceremony, Mr. B's intern and his girlfriend Amy arrive at Mr. B's home. The intern says "Mr. B, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend, Amy Helm." Mr. B says "Very nice to meet you, Amy, and congratulations on your graduation."

The intern says "Mr. B, You probably didn't know this, but Amy is Levon Helm's daughter."

Whoa. Levon Helm? Who isn't a fan of Levon Helm? Mr. B. asked Amy if her parents were going to be at the party, and Amy explained that her parents had divorced many years ago. Her mother remarried and would be at the party with her stepfather, but not her dad.

A few minutes later Amy walks up to Mr. B and says "Mr. B, I'd like to introduce you to my mother and my step father, Donald Fagen." Mr. B damn near passes out. He's a life-long Steely Dan fan, and here's Donald Fagen in his living room. The exchange pleasantries and Amy begins to sing. She sings and plays guitar for an hour and it's wonderful.

Donald Fagen hangs out at the rear of the crowd, shy, not really interacting. He disappears for a while and goes upstairs where a babysitter is taking care of the B's young children. Mr. B learns later that Donald Fagen sat on the floor with his kids and sang nursery rhymes.

The Amy Helm concert ends and the guests drift out. When there are only a few people left, Donald Fagen asks Mr. B if it would be okay to play the B's piano. Mr. B says okay, and Donald Fagen sits down and plays Steely Dan songs for thirty minutes. At Mr. B's piano, in Mr. B's family room.

At the end of it, the extended Helm family offers their thanks and everyone leaves.

Two weeks later a FedEx parcel arrives. It's from Donald Fagen and includes a lovely letter, an autographed picture of Donald Fagen with Mr. and Mrs. B, two tickets to a Steely Dan concert in NYC, several CDs and a photo of Donald Fagen playing piano in the B's family room.

How cool is that?

Here's a great vid of Levon Helm singing "The Weight", a song made popular when Levon was the drummer for The Band. You'll see Amy Helm singing backup in this vid, right next to Sheryl Crow. Sing along with the chorus. You know the words.

You might notice a guitar player who's wearing a fedora. That's Buddy Miller, one of the best studio musicians in Nashville, or the world for that matter. Buddy has several CDs of his own, some with his wife Julie. Buy one. They are exceptional. Buddy writes and performs "roots" music; music that harkens back to the beginning of country, rock and blues music. How good is Buddy Miller? Well, Robert Plant picked him to tour with Plant and Alison Kraus when they toured for the Raising Sand CD (another CD you should own).

Levon Helm has been in declining health of late. He has suffered two bouts of throat cancer that silenced his voice for quite a few months. He's touring again this summer, and I hope it doesn't become a "farewell" tour. If you don't have a recent Levon Helm CD, I suggest "Electric Dirt", another paean to roots music. The title song "Dirt Farmer" can be viewed on YouTube.

And since part of Mr. B's interesting story is about Donald Fagen, here's a vid of a song you'll no doubt remember.

Wasn't that a cool story? And don't you wish that you had been at that party? I sure do!

A Special Topic For Those Struggling With New Years' Resolutions

2011-01-05T11:55:00.001-06:00

Food! Yummy food!
Food you promised not to eat until that twenty, thirty or fifty pounds melted off of your frame. Food that if eaten will keep your swim suit or bikini in the drawer for another season.

Photos taken last month at the newly-remodeled Glorioso Bros. Co. Italian Food Market. I went there for a loaf of bread. I filled a grocery cart. No regrets.

Glorioso's opened in the 1940s. The same family still owns and runs it. It includes a butcher shop and meat market. Need some fresh Italian sausage? Regular or hot, just made this morning. "Sausage" is pronounced "Sah-SEECH" in this part of the store, by the way.

How about some imported olives? Great for snacks, meals and martinis. I bought plenty. They went fast; most are gone by now.

Freshly-made sauces. Marinara, pizza, caprese, bolognese and more. Mmmmmm.......

How about some exquisite imported dry-cured prosciutto? Salty, tangy, delicious; sliced paper thin and wrapped around apiece of melon, or chopped and warmed with eggs for breakfast.

Don't care for prosciutto? Okay, then pick up some pancetta, Italian bacon, something every serious chef needs in his or her kitchen. And so does everyone else.

Imported Italian cheeses, both hard and soft. A wedge of hard provolone found its way into my cart.

Freshly baked bread. The aroma was hypnotic.

A nice bottle of lush and lemony Limoncello to sip after dinner. Words cannot describe its wonderful flavors.

Shopping is hard work, sure to work up one's appetite. Lucky thing for me, Glorioso's has an eating area and they'll whip up a sandwich if you ask. I asked. I got a fresh sesame-seeded bun with a hot-from the grill spicy Italian sausage covered with a layer of Italian beef, garnished with fresh giardineria relish.

A guy wearing an apron and a big smile walked over to my table, hand extended. "Hey, I'm Mike Glorioso. Howza sammich?"

Incredibly good, Mike, and I'll be back again and again.

There was one more thing I needed. I found it on my way to the cashiers stand.

Bread and butter garlic cloves, prosciutto, bread, olives and cheese. Add a martini and it's instant happy hour.

You weren't going to keep those resolutions, were you? If you're going to break them, at least make it with something worthwhile.

Cannoli Taste Test (In The Interest Of Science, Cough Cough.)

2010-12-31T18:27:00.002-06:00

Mmmmm.....cannoli. Who doesn't like cannoli?

It was a quiet day here, but there was adventure in the air. Well, maybe not adventure, more like fog caused by an unseasonably warm thermal inversion, but there was definitely something in the air.

I needed a project, something to do while spending the afternoon waiting for new Years' Eve celebrations to commence. A science project would be good; something requiring some research and evaluation and careful thinking. Something that would take an afternoon.

A random tweet from a friend included the word 'cannoli'. Cannoli? Mmmm.... Say, I wonder, which local bakery makes the best cannoli? Learning the answer to that question would be grant-worthy scientific research.

I went to the reference library (err, iPhone) and googled 'Italian bakery' and the name of my home town. Eight listings popped up. Their locations were mapped and a route to all eight was laid out.

The method was to buy one cannoli at each bakery, return home, undertake a rigorous taste test and evaluation, then declare a winner. Off we went, my research assistant (and grant funder) and I, to collect all eight specimens of Italian dessert wonderfulness.

The first thing we learned was that some 'bakeries' were not bakeries, but were actually just take-out pizza shops that did not sell cannoli. They were scratched off the list.

The second thing we learned was that some bakeries did not make their own cannoli, but bought cannoli from other, larger bakeries. I did not know that "Big Cannoli" had a foothold in my hometown, but is surely does.

Our field research narrowed the suppliers down to four sources.

First, Scardinia Italian Bakery.

They make their own cannoli. We bought one.

Second, Scordato Italian Bakery located in a small shopping center.

We bought one of these, with a chocolate-coated shell.

Third, Canfora Italian Bakery. But wait! They were closing as we arrived. Noooooo! The clerk waved happily at us as she closed the side door of the bakery and walked to her car.

So we continued on to Peter Sciortino Italian Bakery to pick up our last sample cannoli.

Their cannoli were in a cooler in back, where I couldn't photograph them. But everything else, oh my!

We took the cannoli returned to the lab where a test bench with the necessary evaluative instruments was set up.

Careful and thorough testing was undertaken by a panel of researchers. It was difficult, painstaking, hyperglycemic work done in the name of science.

Each sample was judged on two criteria: Shell and filling. There was a discussion; notes were made, votes cast and re-cast.

The votes were counted, and the winner was.......Scordato Italian Bakery! that would be the middle cannoli in the photo up above; the one with the chocolate coated shell.

The chocolate coated shell had no impact on the judging. The shells of all there were pretty much equal. Scordata's filling was the best of the three. It was creamy, not too sweet, a slight taste of vanilla, and unlike the others, a light slightly lemony citrus flavor.

All hail the winnner! Actually, all three were very good, but Scordata's was just a bit better.

Having concluded the research, a nap quickly followed. Good grief, my blood sugar may not drop below 100 until next Tuesday. And that's when the New Year's resolutions kick in.

Experimental Aircraft Association - AirVenture 2010

2010-09-08T21:01:00.009-05:00

Watch this moving video of aircraft taken at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture 2010. Make sure your speakers are turned on.

If I had my life to do over again, I'd want to fly; to live in the sky if but for only a few hours a day.

Add a trip to the EAA's AirVenture to that list you're keeping of things to do before you die. It's held in Oshkosh every summer, at the end of July. You must see it, even if you aren't a pilot. I go every other year or so.

Now watch that video again.

An Encounter With A Bad-Ass Motorcycle Gang

2010-09-04T10:04:00.001-05:00

I live near Milwaukee, the spiritual home of Harley Davidson motorcycles. And I'm a (non-Harley) motorcyclist, so it seems likely that sooner or later I'd have a run-in with a motorcycle gang, doesn't it?

All the usual motorcycle gangs have chapters here. The Outlaws, Hells Angels, The Pistons, etc. are well represented. Don't just take my word on it, take a look at what the Wisconsin Department of Justice says about the presence of motorcycle gangs in just one small part of the state in this report. Pretty scary.

My green, leafy suburban neighborhood alone has several motorcycle gangs. They are highly visible every weekend during warm weather. The members dress in sleeveless shirts, leather vests or jackets, chaps, do-rags and sun glasses. We call one gang in our neighborhood "Hell's Accountants", and the other gang the "Legion of Managers." They're pretty mellow, compared with some of the more hard-core gangs.

I encountered some really bad-ass bikers this summer. I hadn't planned on it, of course, but it happened. I'd been riding for a few hours and needed a break so I wheeled to the curb in front of a coffee shop. When I came back out after filling my coffee tank, there they were, parked at the curb, waiting for me. Shit. Trouble. Out numbered.

I'd never heard of this club before. Maybe that is because they are so secret that they don't even have a name. Smart, very smart. If your club doesn't have a name......how can it be included in a Wisconsin Department of Justice report about motorcycle clubs?

I looked all innocent as I carefully took four candid photos.

Cheese on a cracker - vintage Puch (say: Pook) mopeds and scooters. Bad, totally bad. Look at the size of that gang - all those hot bikes. This is a bad situation.

I moved in a bit closer.

The gang members were riding mostly early to mid 1960's Puchs, with a few Sears Allstate and JC Penny mopeds thrown in for good measure. No Cushmans, though. Cushmans are for the bourgeoisie.

These bikes, my friends were not mere trailer queens, perfectly restored and ridden only a few miles on warm, dry days. They were original, unrestored, and ratty. The riders were doing all sorts of hellish antics, including riding up and down the street, exhaust baffles removed, some going as fast as 25, even thirty miles per hour!

I wanted to meet the leader of the gang. I looked around and thought I found him. We started talking, you know, sort of casually so I wouldn't raise suspicions. He opened up after a while and told me - gasp! - that being an undergrad totally sucked, and if it wasn't for his wheels and cheap Pabst beer and Ska bands he'd have punched out and entered the straight world months ago.

He saw my camera and lost his friendliness.

He turned back around and said "Okay, like I'm not the leader, I'm a co-leader because it's sorta a co-op thing, I think. The other co-leader is over there" pointing to a young woman in shorts, a top, boots and a skin-full of tattoos.

I slunk (damn, I like that word - slunk) over to where she was standing and took a photo of her bike. Awesome and strangely terrifying at the same time.

I've been thinking about my encounter with this gang for a few weeks now. I think I want to join, even if I'm a bit out of their base demographic. What the heck I do like Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and it did fuel my undergraduate years, so maybe I'd fit right in.

And I found this on eBay. Oh boy!

40th Anniversary of Sterling Hall Bombing

2010-08-25T07:26:00.000-05:00

I posted a comment on Ann Althouse's blog about my recollections of the night forty years ago when supposed anti-war protestors used a 2,000 pound bomb in an attempt to destroy the Army Math Research Center on the University of Wisconsin campus.

Althouse graciously took my comment ans front-paged it on her blog the next day. Some readers of my blog aren't familiar with Althouse's blog so I have re-posted my comment below:

I was there when it happened, asleep in an apartment about eight blocks east of Sterling Hall.

The blast threw me out of bed. I scrambled into the dark hallway and ran into others; we all thought that a bomb had been detonated in the basement of our building. We ran apartment-to-apartment making certain everyone was awake and okay. Then we helped the grad students get their notes, manuscript drafts, computer data cards, etc. out of their apartments in into cars for safe keeping.

We heard the approaching sirens of emergency vehicles, and were astonished when they went past rather than stopping. It slowly dawned that the explosion hadn't been in our building, but was somewhere on campus.

More and more emergency vehicles raced past. They were heading in the direction of the (old) University Hospital. A neighbor said "My God, did a boiler at the hospital explode?" We got dressed and ran toward the hospital, partly from curiosity, and partly to offer help evacuating patients from the hospital.

The street was filled with glass three blocks away. We got to Sterling Hall, which was across a narrow street from the hospital, and saw that it's front had been blown off. One side of the hospital had been severely damaged; it's windows were gone. Nearby buildings were heavily damaged and buildings several blocks away lost their windows. There was a crater where the explosion had occurred.

My roommate asked a fireman "What happened?" He answered "It was a bomb." That answer was shocking. How could it have been a bomb? You mean someone did this on purpose? How can that be? The peace movement isn't about bombs, it's about peace?!

A cordon was set up and we were pushed back. Standing near a fire truck so I could hear its radio I heard a fireman report finding one body in Sterling Hall. Stunned, I stood for a few more minutes than walked back to my apartment.

Two days later I cut my shoulder length hair and notified my landlord that I wouldn't remain as a tenant for the fall term.

I was done with UW and Madison, except for completing my studies. I rented an apartment west of Middleton and commuted, spending as little time on campus as possible. I didn't attend my graduation.

The anti-war movement was a sham; a cover for violent anarchists. It wasn't actually anti-war; it was mostly anti-draft, and nothing more. It was over-indulged white males who didn't want to be conscripted. It would never have happened if there hadn't been a draft.

I don't have a romantic version of the late 60s in my head. I lived through it, it was horrible. Sure, the music was good, the weed was abundant, "liberated" coeds eschewed underwear, and contraceptive sex had no risk. It was still an awful time.

Karleton Armstrong was lucky. He should still be rotting in prison.

Pig Roast 2010

2010-08-23T15:14:00.001-05:00

It's a wonderful blessing to have really great relatives. My wife's niece, her husband and their kids are a perfect example.

They throw a pig roast in their back yard every other summer. They invite everyone they know - relatives, neighbors, friends, children's friends and dates, the dates' parents, people from the community, the kids' teachers, co-workers, the guy across the street, college classmates and so on.

It's a big event that takes a lot of hard work. The event staff is immediate family members, and each one gets a special shirt to memorialize the event. Shirts from previous years pig roasts are treasured collectibles. Here's a home-built model wearing this year's shirt.

It's no easy thing, roasting pigs. The actual roasting begins twenty-four hours before dinner. Good oak and maple is carted in by the barrow full....

...and burned in a fire pit to make the hot coals that are used to roast the pigs.

The hot coals from the fire pit are carefully shoveled into the roasting pit, under the pigs. There were two pigs this year; one was the traditional whole pig roasted on an open grill, and the other was a whole pig that was sectioned and wrapped in foil to cook. The foil-wrapped pig was contributed by a friend as a sort of throw-down challenge to see which technique produced better barbecue.

I sampled both. My opinion: It was impossible tell which was better- we need another pig roast next year for additional sampling and tasting. (You reading this, Karen?)

The whole pig cooked a bit faster than the foil-wrapped pig, and was taken off the grill before my camera got there. More about what happened next in a moment.

Pig roasting is a team event. There is an overnight team that tends the fires from 5PM to 5AM, and then the daytime team takes charge until dinner is served.

The overnight team requires special equipment. First, the basket-o-bug repellant.

And second, the barrels-o-beer. Note the very redneck-esque improvised thermal wrap made of R-19 fiberglass batt insulation and matching pink blanket from someone's bed. (Side note: When you go off to college, anything left in your bedroom is up for grabs.)

The overnight team is sort of the after-party before the actual party. Energy is dissipated. Sleep patterns are disrupted. Stories are told. Songs are sung. Sobriety is quashed.

Meanwhile, the pigs cook.

The pigs are served Carolina style, which means pulled pork. Pork pulling is no easy task. It takes a dedicated and experienced crew of pork pullers (I'm wandering into dangerous territory with this sentence, aren't I?) to take apart the pigs and chop the meat.

Sadie patrols the perimeter of the table where the pig is pulled, keeping America safe from scraps that might fall to ground. Good dog!

How about a nice trotter hot off the grill?

Or perhaps whatever this part used to be...

Dinner was served at last. Big pans of pulled pork and roasted chopped chicken awaited. Just scoop it onto your plate and add barbecue sauce.

And then walk over to the big table, filled to overflowing with salads and fresh-from-the-garden vegetables. Fill the rest of your plate!

And then go outside to share the meal with relatives, old friends and new friends..

A big, big thanks to Karen, Jim, Amanda, Jack, Renae and Margaret. We had a great time, as always. Can't wait for the next one!

Polish Regatta, Part 2

2010-08-19T00:36:00.000-05:00

With the land games ended, (Part 1 below) it was time for the actual regatta begin.

The boats were all hand-built, mostly out of foam, conduit and duct tape and whatever other stuff could be scrounged in garages and basements. And sea-worthy ships they were.

The preliminary event was the Sinking Dinghy race. Two dinghys were entered, each with a team of two paddlers and one bailer. The bailer could use only a beer cup to bail water out of the dinghy.

The object was to paddle two laps around the course without sinking after the stern plug was removed. Go!

The winners made two laps without sinking. Hooray!

There was a brief intermission while a water ski team put on a show.

And now for the regatta, the main event!

The national anthem was played while a flyby....of snowmobiles....skimmed past the beach. yes, snowmobiles, racing across the lake, trying to make it to the beach before sinking. Two made it, six did not.

The regatta begins!

Boats must be paddled for two laps in a counter-clockwise direction around the course. Boats must have three paddlers. Previous year's winners must add one additional person for each year they've won. The starting cannon is fired. BOOOM!!

Defying (or maybe too drunk to remember) the rules, the boats take off in a clockwise direction. The first boat to capsize does so immediately after the start.

Confusion ensues as some paddles are lost overboard, some boat forgets which way it is going and the cop car boat turns on its flashing red and blue lights.

The leading boat, the green one, starts to lap the field, only to be met with ramming, pushing and general piracy.

The boats at the rear start coming apart...........

And the winner crashes into the shore. It's the green boat - a boat made of scrap sheet metal by three engineering students. Doggone engineers!

The winners were cheered. More food and drink was consumed. And the large crowd loved the beautiful, wonderful, sunny Saturday spent on a sparkling lake. A perfect day, spent without thinking of work, politics or anything other than having a very good time.

Want to be there next year? Bookmark this website.

Polish Regatta, Part 1

2010-08-18T23:25:00.000-05:00

The regatta is held annually in August at my favorite bar. It's called the Polish Regatta because the bar, restaurant and resort where it is held were built in the 1920s by a Polish immigrant couple. The place has never been out of family hands, and is now owned by third generation members of the founding family.

There are land events by which teams score the points necessary to give their boat a good starting position for the regatta. The land games change every year and are announced only seconds before competition begins so that none of the teams can practice before the event. There is a theme every year; this year's theme was "Cops and Robbers".

The first land event was called "Butt Darts". The object is to take a quarter off of a chair at one end of the playing field...

....then insert it between one's butt cheeks, run down the field without losing it and drop it into a bucket at the other end. The team with the most quarters in the bucket at the end of three minutes is the winner.

Running while keeping the quarter inserted caused some interesting gaits.....

Some teams were crowd favorites...

This is Wisconsin where drinks are a food group. The regatta special was a bucket of Bloody Marys, known as "vegetable salad" because of its contents. Buckets were everywhere.

The second event was "Polish Bowling". Teams of two were joined together by shrink wrap, and a pair of queen-sized panty hose was stretched over their heads. There was a softball in each foot of the pantyhose.

The object was to walk quickly down field swinging the balls to knock over beer bottles, all the while maintaining one foot on a center line to avoid penalty.

Some teams figured out the teamwork part of the game.....

.....and others didn't.

The third land event was the "Polish Rodeo." The object was for a team of three to ride their bucking broncos down the field, around a barrel and back to the starting line is as little time as possible.

The bucking broncos were actually bouncy balls, the center cowboy had his legs shrink-wrapped to the cowboy's legs on the left and right, and each contestant had to wear (and not lose) swimming goggles, a too-small hat and a bandana.

On your mark, get set, go!

A few bounces later......

The fourth and final land event was "Polish Baseball." The players had to begin by drinking a sixteen ounce beer through a straw...

And then spin around ten times with one's head on a baseball bat...

....then run down to the other end of the field, around a barrel and back to the beer table. No straight lines were run, and the audience often became the barrier that pushed stumbling, errant contestants back onto the playing field.

The land games ended! Let the water games begin! (See Part 2)

Hot Stuff

2010-07-30T09:33:00.000-05:00

"Here", said the portly bartender, "have some bar treats, pretzels and home-made mustard with horseradish. They're pretty good with that mug of cold beer."

"Thanks", I said, followed by four minutes of gasping, choking, crying and wheezing.

"How'd ya like it?" smirked the bartender.

"Aaahhhccckkk, gasp, hit's chust perfeck" I choked out.

I fall for that trick every time.

Sign...

2010-07-23T07:33:00.000-05:00

.....in front of a parking stall at a monastery near Eagle Harbor, Michigan.

We made our annual pilgrimage to the Jampot, store where monks in the Society of St. John (Greek Orthodox) sell jams, jellies, cakes, cookies and candies made in their kitchen. We weren't the only ones there, as usual; the line was out the door. People from all over the US stop there, or order online. It's worth it, believe me.

Just be careful where you park.

Old Race Cars

2010-07-17T18:54:00.001-05:00

My family moved from a distant part of the state to a small village near a big city when I was in second grade. The village we moved to had a population of maybe 600 people when we arrived, a couple of churches, a small shopping center, a grade school and a volunteer fire department.

It also had a race track, like so many small towns and villages did back then, and many still do today. The race track was pretty crude - a one-third mile slightly banked clay-surfaced oval ringed with a battered cyclone fence, bleachers, pits, a stand for the flagman and announcer, smelly restrooms and a stand where hamburgers, hot dogs, soda and beer could be bought.

The Speedway became my Saturday night hangout from grade school through high school. I'd walk there with a friend, pay the $1.50 admission (it seemed to increase $.25 every year), have a hot dog and a Coke and inhale dust as I joyfully cheered on my favorite drivers, and boo'd the bad guys.

I'd sneak into the pits after the evening's program had ended. Some drivers were spectator friendly; others were pretty rough characters, drinkers and brawlers, and adult voices and hands would shoo me away from where they were.

My hero was a driver named John Reimer, because he once let me climb into his car, grab the wheel and pretend to drive while he explained the purpose of each gauge and lever. His car number was A3. It was a deep burgundy car in a category known as "modified". Modifieds were the hot cars, back then.

Here's a photo of John Reimer's car taken in 1963. I saw it at a church festival a few years ago, mostly restored and being raffled off by it's owner. I bought tickets, didn't win. God, I wanted that car, but had no idea where I'd keep it, how I'd haul it, or how I'd maintain it if my ticket was drawn.

This is what a modified looks like. I took this photo today at a gathering of old race drivers and race cars.

The Saturday night race program had two levels of cars. The modifieds, and the sportsmen. The sportsmen cars began as older street cars that were stripped of everything not needed for racing, and had roll cages, push bars and upgraded engines and brakes installed.

I took this photo of a restored sportsman today, a 1957 Ford that was driven by Frank Smith, who won championships with this car for several decades. It never, ever looked this dent-free until it was restored.

There were two other kinds of dirt-track racers that ran on speedways in the midwest, but not at my local track.

One is called Midget, the other is called Sprint Car. Both categories still run on dirt tracks across the US today. They were once the training ground for drivers who moved on to Indy cars; now they are more likely to produce NASCAR drivers. A surprising number of them are driven by 16 year old boys and girls who want to make it into the big leagues.

This is what a midget looked like back in the day. I took this photo of a restored midget today.

They are rudimentary, and fast. No transmission, a simple hand-operated clutch used only to get the car moving (see the lever with the long chrome handle on the outside of the left side - that's the clutch). There were two pedals - brake for the left foot, accelerator for the right - and the drive shaft went between the driver's feet. No fire extinguisher, no fuel cell. The roll hoop and four-point harness were added to this car so it could be driven in vintage races.

This is a sprint car. They are brutal 900 horsepower, 1300 pound cars that go so fast around a dirt track that they seem to defy physics and reality. This one is still an active racer.

Some of my favorites, from back in the day.

Billy "The Cat" Johnson.

Etchie "The Flying Grandpa" Biertzer

Fuzzy Fassbender

Gino Wagner

Greg Krieger.

Ken "Mighty Mouse" Marquardt

Ken "Tweety Bird" Tlounga

Miles "The Mouse" Melius. He won EVERY RACE he entered in 1962.

A lot of young guys from Wisconsin got excited by short-track racing. Some raced, or still do. This area is a hotbed of Saturday night short-track racing, although more tracks are asphalt now, in stead of dirt.

The hot drivers in NASCAR are southern boys, right? No, not entirely.

Alan Kulwicki, God rest his soul, was a local short track driver who moved south and became NASCAR champion in 1992. He died in an airplane crash in April, 1993. There is a park named after him here, as is a building in the Engineering School at UW-Milwaukee, where he had earned a degree in mechanical engineering. There mere mention of his name at a gathering of race fans hereabout causes eyes to become teary. He was special.

Matt Kenseth grew up near here and was NASCAR champion in 2003. Mark Martin, four-time NASCAR champion Jimmy Johnson, former NASCAR champion Rusty Wallace and others lived and raced here at one point on their way up the ladder, worked as hired drivers for local car owners, before they made it into NASCAR.

If you asked any of them to name their favorite Wisconsin driver, you'd get the same answer: Dick Trickle. Trickle raced throughout Wisconsin, sometimes seven nights a week, eeking out a living as a short track driver. He was unbeatable; promoters would advertise a $1000 bonus for any driver who could beat Trickle.

Trickle moved south and made it into NASCAR. Trickle was a heavy cigarette smoker, and after he was caught, on camera, lighting up a cigarette in his race car during a race, NASCAR made him change his habit.

Here's the video clip. Trickle had installed a lighter on the floor of his car, next to his seat, and had a pack of cigs in his racing suit. Brilliant! he lit one up during a race at Talladega in 1990.

My childhood local track is gone now. Our village grew into a green, leafy bedroom suburb of some 7,000 people. The newcomers didn't like the nose made at the race track Saturday nights during summer, and they prevailed in having municipal passed to limit the hours, limit the volume, limit the traffic and so forth.

The Speedway finally closed on August 31, 2003. A shiny new Menard's store now stands where the speedway once was. There are a few of us who meet in the Menard's parking lot one night each summer, late at night after the store has closed and the last employee has gone home. We turn up our car radios and drive a few laps through the parking lot in memory of those Saturday nights at the speedway, long ago, when we were young. It's almost as if we want the cops to come and yell at us - "hey you kids, get the hell out of here" for old times sake.

You've probably seen those cars where you live, race cars being hauled on trailers to a short track somewhere. Go to a race, take your kids. Short-track Saturday night, nothing is more American.

The memories will last a lifetime.

Special Breakfast Treats

2010-07-15T06:45:00.002-05:00

I stopped at a good, local bakery for a sandwich yesterday at noon. One of the bakers was making...hold on to your chairs...donut hole shish kebabs.

Just when you think there could not possibly be any more advances in donut technology, science triumphs again. Donut hole kebabs, each individual hole covered with a different flavor sugar. Mmmm.

Say what you will about the genius of deriving an awesome new algorithm to make some software run ultra-quick, or discovering a few new quarks at the super collider in your lab, or maybe discovering a stone engraved with the five lost commandments on a dig in the Holy Land. Inventing the donut kebab trumps it all.

Sugar alone won't propel you very far this morning, so I've taken the additional step of providing you with some semi-genius bacon-on-a-stick, just to keep your sugar-to-fat ratio in proper balance.

Now what would make this a perfect hot summer morning breakfast? How about some nice, cooling coffee on a stick?

Now get out there and conquer the world!

Going Native

2010-07-12T19:16:00.003-05:00

Today was a free day - nothing planned, no appointments, no schedule, no chores that couldn't be put off until tomorrow. A rare sort of day, made all the better by middle-seventies temperatures, poofy clouds that threatened no rain, and enough change in the pockets of my jeans to buy a tank of gasoline for my motorcycle to sip.

We left with no destination in mind, no map and no route plugged into the GPS that sits in the middle of the handlebars. The day would be spent answering one question: I wonder where that road goes?

In an hours time we were in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, on unnamed back roads; roads so rural they had neither center strip nor shoulder. We rode slowly, my co-pilot and I, down narrow lanes in pine-scented woods. Past small homes, past people picking raspberries from roadside wild patches, past men in overalls splitting and stacking firewood to dry for winter's heat. Through small, unincorporated villages; places with two or three old homes, a welding shop, a bar and maybe a small bank branch.

The time passed blissfully as we rode along trails canopied-over by tall hardwoods on both sides. Turn here, turn there, ride a bit longer, turn again.

Mid-afternoon arrived and we hadn't had lunch. We know what to look for - native UP cuisine. We found it soon enough at Dobber's in Iron Mountain. Pastys, the delicious foi gras of the U.P. The haughtest of UP haught cuisine.

One beef and one chicken, that's what we ordered. They were excellent. Soul food of the north; comfort food. I went native - dousing mine with hot sauce and ketchup. Only later did I learn that real Yoopers cover their pastys with brown gravy topped with a pat of butter.

Lunch finished, we mounted up and turned back to where we started, back through small towns, past small lakes, through places the seasonal tourists never see. We made it home at dinner time, smiling, and still too full to eat. One of us took a bicycle ride; the other napped.

Comfort food. What is your favorite, and where do you get it?

ADDED: Good Lord! It looks like the pasty in the background was shot once in the chest.

Boating

2010-07-11T11:52:00.000-05:00

Some days I think my purpose in life is to keep the propeller repair industry solvent. These three props are ready for repair or retirement. The prop on the boat looks just as bad.

If you wonder what it would be like to own a fun, small boat, here's how to replicate the experience: Make a pile of hundred dollar bills in your driveway, douse it with lighter fluid, light it, and walk away. Then do it again next week.

That's boat ownership in a nutshell.

Would I Go Back?

2010-07-10T09:54:00.002-05:00

To Colorado, that is. Would I go back there again? Was the trip good enough to lure me back?

Nope.

It's not that I didn't like Colorado; I truly did. It is beautiful. The mountains, the valleys, the high plains and the southern desert, all of it was beautiful. I'm glad that I saw it all.

What attracts me more is the wide open spaces, something I also felt last summer crossing North and South Dakota. I'd happily return to those two states for an entire summer of riding and exploring.

And I'd happily return to the high plains of Nebraska and Kansas. I'd love to spend a few weeks in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas, a place where green grassy hillls stack up like bread loaves.

Nebraska has frontier museums, native art collections, ranches and rural towns. I'd like to see them all.

Iowa, especially the western half of Iowa is filled with places to see; places off of the beaten path. Rolling hills and flat prairie land. I'd happily go back there for a couple of weeks.

My idea of the meaning of "vacation" has changed. It used to mean "doing". it now means "being".

I'll explain. When younger or traveling with family, vacation meant to go someplace with the intent of doing something when we got there. Go to the beach. Go to SeaWorld. Go to DisneyWorld. Go to a place where there is something to do; something keep everyone amused and happy and occupied.

Now, at least for me, the idea of a vacation is simply to be in a place that's interesting; a place I haven't seen before. I don't need to find amusement because everything I see is interesting. I simply want to be there. I think that's why I'm attracted to the plains, to the arctic tundra in Alaska, and perhaps the hills in Appalachia.

Places that seemingly have nothing turn out to have everything I want to see. I want to spend time being in those places. Maybe that's the truest meaning of getting away from it all.

The Longest Day

2010-07-10T09:30:00.000-05:00

This day, the last day of this trip, was supposed to be an easy day with a short ride. It turned out to be the longest day of the trip.

It began in Kearney, Nebraska, halfway across that flat and windy state and ended at home, in our driveway in Wisconsin some seven hundred miles later. Seven hundred miles sounds like a piece of cake, doesn't it? It is, in a nice air conditioned car where one driver can nap while the other one drives.

It's not so easy on a motorcycle, on a very hot day, in traffic. I'm not complaining, though. I'll happily saddle up and do it again. And probably will later this month.

From Kearney we rode half way across Nebraska, across all of Iowa, half of Illinois and part of Wisconsin. The wind had finally died down; we made good time, averaging 76 mph (per the onboard computer) while on the bike. A few stops for water and food kept us in good condition all day.

Were were home by 9PM and had energy left to ride a few hours longer. Enough energy to consider doing an Iron Butt ride later this summer.

You probably haven't heard of the Iron Butt Association - World's Toughest Motorcycle Riders. Follow the link to read about some serious craziness. The minimum standard for membership is riding 1,000 miles in 24 hours. I think we could do that.

Some of the other things - like the 50 hour ride from coast to coast - I'm not so sure about that. Yet.

It was good to be home. A long soak in the tub followed by a night in our own bed was simply heavenly.

We awoke the next morning and, over coffee and breakfast, one of us asked "Where else are we going this summer?"

We have plans.

Sailing Home

2010-07-09T08:33:00.001-05:00

The wind was howling at sunrise; blowing from south to north on a day we needed to ride from west to east. The hurricane had come ashore in Texas sending wind straight north into the plains, and we were on the Colorado/Kansas border. The day's plan was to ride I-70 across Kansas, have an early dinner in KC (ribs, mmmmmm), then end the day in Des Moines.

I sought advice form a local guy who was hesitant to offer his opinion.

We hit I-70. The wind was gusting to 40 mph, blowing us from side to side in our lane. The only way to cope was to lean the bike into the wind and tack down the interstate. We moved along, hanging on, heeled over at 45 degrees. Turbulence from trucks, wind changes at underpasses and tree lines, and weaving motor homes made the ride utter misery.

We exited at the first opportunity, which was a large "Welcome to Kansas" rest stop and information center. The parking lot was filled with parked trucks, motor homes and pickup trucks pulling large campers, all waiting out the weather. A few of the large campers were parked in back, slide-outs open, as the owners had simply given up and called it a day well before noon.

We went inside and heard a voice ask if we needed any help. It was Tom, an state employee who worked at the information desk. We told him that the weather was giving us hell and we were going to revise our plan.

Tom plopped down in front of his computer and looked up the NOAA weather forecast for cities along our route and other possible routes. The news was uniform: the further east we would go, the higher the winds would be, all across Kansas. The 40 mph wind we had just fought would become a 50 mph wind seventy miles east of where we were, with gusts up to 60 mph all day. And the wind would continue to blow perpendicular to our direction of travel.

What to do? Our bike is clad in metal and plastic panels, has a large windshield, hard bags, a topcase and two riders wearing helmets. It has a large side profile compared with a sport bike or a Harley. It can be quite difficult to ride it at interstate speeds in a high crosswind.

We hatched an alternative route, with Toms help. Using his knowledge of the area, we laid out a new route of local farm roads that would take us mostly north rather than east. We'd spend as much of the day as possible riding in the same direction as the wind was blowing rather than fighting it. We'd get off I-70 and work our way north on back roads until reaching I-80 in Nebraska, then head east again.

We thanked Tom for his help. Tom told us that he rode to work today, on a 1961 Cushman scooter that he had restored. It turns out that his hobby is restoring old motor scooters and he has ten old scooters in his shop at home. This was his ride to work today:

Very cool scoot, Tom.

The back road ride was blessedly uneventful. We saw areas we would not have otherwise seen; small towns, massive farms, cattle ranches, local high schools that had rodeo rings (rodeo is a varsity sport in these parts), rivers and marshes. It may have been one of the best parts of the trip, actually, as both of us have a deep liking for the the plains.

We made it to I-80 and turned east once again. The wind had not abated, and finally at Kearney, Nebraska, we called it a day and stopped at a motel for the night. It was good to be off the road, although it meant that the next day's ride would be very long in order to make it home on schedule.

We missed stopping in KC for some good BBQ because of the change in the route. Turns out there was a BBQ joint called Skeeter Barnes in walking distance from where we were staying in Kearney. We had an exceptionally good dinner there - BBQ rubbed and smoked and served dry, the way it should be. A happy ending to a frustrating day.

Wolf Creek Pass

2010-07-08T20:09:00.002-05:00

It's pronounced Crick, not Creeeeeek.

Remember the country singer CW McCall? Let's let ol' CeeDub sing us up and down Wolf Creek Pass.

It was a bitter disappointment to learn that there is no feed store at the bottom of Wolf Creek Pass, but there is downtown Pagosa Springs, and it was a pretty neat place.

It's time to head home. We turned east at Durango, intent on being in Kansas by nightfall. Our route (the only practical route) took us over fabled Wolf Creek Pass on the way to Pueblo, then north to Colorado Springs.

The summit was at elevation 10,863. The climb was long but easy. Making it to the top was easy, or maybe we had had enough practice to make it seem easy.

The pass was one of the few that had a great road. Smooth, wide, not under construction and best of all, no gravel. it would be our last crossing of the Continental Divide on this trip.

The thing that caught my attention was the sign saying that the annual snowfall at the top of the pas was thirty eight feet. No typo there, 38 feet! Signs along the road warned motorists that the snow plows didn't operate between 7PM and 5AM during winter. Subtle way of saying "don't drive here at night."

The terrain and climate changed rapidly on the east side of the Pass. The temperature changed from a balmy 67 degrees to a searing 96 degrees in the span of five miles. The terrain flattened; the front range now behind us. We were on flat land again. It as hot, dry, dusty and ugly.

The ride up I-25 from Pueblo to Colorado Springs was not fun. It was windy, hot, dust was blowing and the drivers of cars and trucks seemed oblivious to the concept of "lanes".

We exited in the south part of Colorado Springs, worked our way through town (holy mackerel, what a bustling, growing place!) and found a county road shortcut to I-70.

The day ended late, in a motel in tiny Burlington in eastern Colorado, some 6,000 feet lower than the summit of Wolf Creek Pass. We were just a few miles short of the Kansas border, in the high plains.

The wind was howling as we pulled in. We wouldn't know how ominous that was until the next morning.

Pete and Tess Save a Bad Day

2010-07-07T16:28:00.004-05:00

We woke up in the beautiful and historic General Palmer Hotel in downtown Durango on a clear and sunny morning.

It was a splurge, staying at the General Palmer. The previous day's ride had been so tough, and we arrived in Durango so worn out that we treated ourselves to a night at the General Palmer in Durango's downtown where we could walk around for a while, find a restaurant, and have a nice dinner.

We had ridden from Leadville to Gunnison, and then along the blue, clear Blue Mesa Reservoir, Colorado's largest body of water. It was remarkable because we are used to seeing lakes surrounded by homes and cottages and trees. Blue Lake Reservoir had none. Just miles and miles of shoreline, broken by a few public campgrounds and boat launches and several marinas.

The road lead to Black Canyon of The Gunnison National Park, a deep canyon carved in ancient stone by the Gunnison River. I snapped this photo from the top of an escarpment overlooking the canyon and river.

The ride along the rim was only 92 miles, but took more than three hours to complete. The road was twisty, turny, uppy and downy. Exquisite. To our surprise, it was very lightly traveled, mostly ranch traffic, County trucks and a few tourists like ourselves.

After a stop in Crawford (see topic below) we turned south toward Montrose. Our plan was to take a rest stop in Montrose, then finish the day with an easy two hour ride south on Highway 550 to Durango.

We stopped at a McDonalds in Montrose for a bottle of water, a cup of coffee (it was already 5:30 and we had a ways to go) and a forty-nine cent ice cream cone. I met a couple riding a tandem 21 speed bicycle. It turns out that they were bicycling from coast to coast; San Diego to Virginia. I could not do that. I may be nuts, but I am not nuts-nuts, know what I mean?

We headed out on what we thought wound be an easy end-of-the-day ride to Durango. Only it wasn't. What we didn't know was that our route included three mountain passes - Red Mountain Pass at 11,075 feet, Molas Pass at 10,899 feet, and Coal Bank Pass at 10,640 feet. Each pass required about fifteen miles of treacherous uphill riding, often on narrow lanes with no shoulders, no guardrails and multi-thousand foot dropoffs. And then another fifteen miles of twisty, turny road headed down after reaching the summit. I used up two years of brake pads in three hours. We were exhausted; me from handling the 'cycle; Mary from reciting prayers.

That's how we ended up spending the night in The General Palmer Hotel In downtown Durango.

It was morning now and it was going to be a terrific day. The plan was to ride southwest, into the desert, and tour the historic Mesa Verde National Park. It has over 4,000 archeological sites dating back to 600 BC, cliff dwellings and much to see. From there, we were going to go another 60 miles southwest to the Four Corners Monument, take some photos then head back to Durango for a second night before turning east and beginning the trip home.

It was hot and dry. We were in a part of Colorado that looks like Arizona. No mountains, a few hills and buttes, and a lot of high desert.

We arrived at the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park and were greeted by two signs. The first said: Road Construction Next Ten Miles Loose Gravel.

And the second sign said: Extreme Danger Motorcycle Travel Not Advised.

Do we risk it or not? Risk it or not? Risk it or not? We stopped at the side of the road to evaluate the situation. After watching the line of campers, trucks, construction vehicles and motor homes lumbering their way uphill on a narrow road towards the park entrance we agreed: It was too risky.

Disappointed, we re-entered the highway and headed towards the Four Corners Monument. It looked like we were riding on the moon. We were along the Arizona border, and it was everything you think of when you imagine Arizona. Very hot. No vegetation. Desert, sand, and wind.

But we were going to see the Four Corners Monument! And when we arrived at the entry to the monument this is what we saw:

And this:

Crap. We are now zero-for-two on today's sightseeing objectives. Very disappointing. We weren't the only ones who were disappointed. Cars, motorhomes and motorcycles with license plates from all over America pulled in, saw the signs, and left. A few motorcyclists stopped to chat with us. One enterprising guy from Houston was able to see the monument.

We snapped a few photos and left.

Damn, this day is shaping up to be a total disappointment. We turned back. When we got to Cortez in mid-afternoon we were both thinking about lunch. Mary pointed out a restaurant called Pepperheads as we rolled through Cortez.

Pepperheads? Sounds like our kind of place, so we turned around, parked and walked in. That's when the day got better, all of a sudden and unexpectedly.

Pete and Tess Montana (a father-daughter duo) are owners of Pepperheads. This is a photo of Tess; she's very pretty. Pete is a regular looking guy, so I didn't take his photo. Sorry, Pete, no harm intended!

They were sooooo nice to us. Both of them spent time talking with us, both are happy gracious and delightful. They brightened an otherwise lousy day.

And then the food arrived, fresh from Pete's skilled hands, pots and pans. Oh. My. God. Incredible food.

I had chicken mole; Mary had carne adovado. Both were exquisite. We each ate half, then traded plates.

Tess and Pete came over again and talked some more.

Everything is made from scratch. Pete selects the peppers; everything is fresh. The recipes have been refined over three generations of time. And the food is....so good that I'd happily drive two thousand miles back there from home just to have another meal.

This may be the best New Mexican food on earth. No exaggeration. Pete told us how he cooked the food, which peppers he used, how he changes things a bit every day depending on which kinds of peppers he can get that day, how he balances the flavors and heat of the four or five different kinds of peppers in each meal. Incredible. Go there. Go to Cortez, Colorado just to eat at Pepperheads. You will not be disappointed. In fact, you will think that the trip was worth it, just for the food.

If Pepperheads was in Denver or Chicago or some other large city, it'd be a smash hit among foodies, jam-packed every day and every night.

By the way, they are riders. Tess owns and rides a Norton Commando. Yep, a Brit bike. She even re-wired it herself, does her own maintenance. Her brother rides a vintage Triumph. Pete rides a Harley. They are one of us.

Our day was suddenly better. After lunch we hopped back aboard the motorcycle and headed to Durango for our last night in Colorado before riding home.

ADDED!!

The Four Corners Monument was closed because........it turned out to not be at the four corners. A tourist happened to put his GPS unit exactly on the center of the monument last year and surprise! It was some thirty yards away from the REAL four corners. So a new monument is being built in exactly the correct location.

I wouldn't have noticed.

I Almost Have Lunch With Joe Cocker. Almost. Sorta.

2010-07-06T15:08:00.009-05:00

We rode from Leadville, south and west, toward Gunnison. The plan was to ride through the Black Canyon of The Gunnison, take a break in Montrose, then finish the day by riding to Durango. More about all of that in the next topic.

We finished the Black Canyon part of the ride and were tired, hot, and thirsty. It was hot and sunny and we needed water. I needed to confirm the route to Montrose because my GPS was having fits in the canyon when it couldn't see any satellites, so the directions were continuously being re-calculated, and the damn thing was providing guidance that was suspect at best.

We pulled over in Crawford, Colorado, population 366 according to Wikipedia, and a land area of .3 square miles. I think Wiki may be optimistic about the population.

There isn't much in Crawford. The state highway intersects three local rural roads, there is a cafe, a church, and insurance agent's office, a crafting shop, and a small general store. We parked in front of the general store and went in to buy some water. I asked the clerk which way I should turn on Highway 92 to get to Montrose. She hummed and hawed and finally admitted not knowing. She asked the owner, who hummed and hawed and admitted not knowing. And they were both Crawford residents, the road went only east or west, and Montrose was only 80 miles away.

We sat on a bench in front of the general store, drinking water and studying a map I had pulled out of the tank bag. Another Crawford resident stopped by to say hello. Since I always enjoy speaking with the toothless, skeletal remains of middle-aged meth heads, I happily obliged.

"Where you from?"

"Milwaukee."

"Where's that?"

"It's a suburb of Chicago"

"I like the Chicago Bears."

"I'm not surprised."

"Did joo stop here for lunch?"

"No, just water."

"You should eat over there, at Joe Cocker's Restaurant."

"Whut? Joe Cocker owns that cafe?"

"Yeah. Or I think he does. Or maybe he used to. He's got a ranch outside of town and he puts on concerts for charity at his restaurant. It's got his gold records and pictures all over the wall."

"Um, I didn't know that...Joe Cocker you say...."

"What kinda Harley izzat?"

"It's a BMW."

"Well, you have a nice trip, I gotta go home."

What the hell? Joe Cocker owns a place in Crawford, Colorado, population 366? This Joe Cocker? Ya gotta be kiddin' me.

We gave the Black Canyon Cafe the one-eyeball careful look. Not fancy. Not trendy. the people coming out of it's front door looked like ranchers and church ladies. I don't believe it.

Seriously, does that look like a place Joe Cocker would own? Nah, I don't think so either.

Back to the ride. We had a long way to go by day's end, and we needed to hightail it down the highway.

A few days passed and the Joe Cocker story was gnawing at me. He's a Brit, right? he probably lives over there, or if he lives in the States, it's probably LA or Manhattan, right.

I looked up Joe Cocker on Wikipedia. Um.....let's see...dayum! It says here that Joe and his wife live on a ranch outside of...wait for it...Crawford, Colorado.

Well, okay, but would he own a small cafe in West Nowhere? A bit of hunting on the interweb and ...bingo! Joe and Pam Cocker used to own the Mad Dog Cafe and Fountain in Crawford, Colorado. Check the last line in this article.

Shoot. Dang it. Next time I'm in Crawford, Colorado, I'll find the Mad Dog Ranch and ask Joe if I can sit in on I'll Get By With A Little Help From My Friends like these lucky people did.

A Fake Town, Kum & Go, Polar Opposites

2010-07-05T16:15:00.000-05:00

The plan for the day began with riding south from Estes Park on Highway 7, through the Arapaho National Recreation Area and the Roosevelt National Forest to Mount Evans, so we could ride the highest paved road in North America, topping out at 14,264 feet above sea level.

Let's add some perspective to "14,264 feet above sea level". A basic Cessna 172 single engine aircraft has an operating ceiling of 13,500 feet. We're going to be above that elevation on a motorcycle.

Private pilots in unpressurized aircraft are required to use supplementary oxygen at altitudes above 8,000 feet in order to avoid hypoxia that leads to impaired judgment and ultimately loss of consciousness. We are going to ride up, look around, snap a photo or two, then ride down. No problem.

The ride through Roosevelt National Forest taught us one thing: To see the best of Colorado, stay off of tourist-y roads. Highway 7 is a local-use road - people going to work, running errands, and so forth. There were blessedly few motor homes, gawkers or wildlife peepers hindering our travel, smooth driving, and plenty of wonderful scenery to enjoy.

We rolled into Central City, ready for a break. Central City instantly stunned us with its Disney-perfect rows of Victorian houses, quaint shops, and exquisite streetscaping. It was a perfect place to stop for a bottle of water and perhaps an early lunch and a stroll.

Except that it was all an illusion.

Central City is one of Colorado's oldest municipalities. It was, long ago, enriched by gold mining nearby. Now it is one big casino. Every building, every store front, each one lovingly restored to better-than-perfect condition, was in reality a casino. The perfect homes were, in fact real homes, but had been restored with casino money.

The illusion became apparent when we looked for a place to park. The narrow streets didn't allow on-street parking, and every parking lot had signs advising that parking was reserved for patrons of a particular casino. There were no gas stations, no convenience stores, no coffee shops in the two square miles that Wikipedia says comprise Central City.

I spotted a perfectly restored steam locomotive in a setting that made it look like it was emerging from a mountain tunnel. I wheeled around the block for a better look.

The reality was that the engine, a tender and one passenger car were emerging from a fake tunnel alongside a parking structure next to a casino. There was no way to get close to the locomotive; it rests on a high track bed too steep for tourists to climb.

We left Central City shaking our heads in amazement and disappointment. We rolled down a wide four-lane called Central City Parkway toward I-70 where we knew there would be a gas station or convenience store. Only there wasn't. Central City Parkway exists only to bring gamblers from I-70 to the casinos. On ramp, off ramp, nothing else.

We got on I-70 and rode to Idaho Springs where we exited so we could ride up Mount Evans. We stopped at this convenience store for water and fuel. [Insert your own joke here].

Here's a gas pump.

This chain has stores all over Colorado and a few other states we rode through. I was going to buy a tee shirt with their logo on it, but couldn't think of a place where I would wear it.

We met a couple on the parking lot, motorcyclists from Montreal who were riding across America. They had attempted to ride up Mount Evans and were stopped by weather conditions above 12,000 feet. There were clouds and rain at that elevation, and snow falling above that.

Snowy roads, lack of oxygen, steep curves, and lack of guardrails are a bad combination. I was lightheaded when we crossed a pass at 12,000 feet and didn't want to add 2,200 feet of additional elevation combined with a slick road to the day's ride, even with the small container of oxygen we could by at a local pharmacy. We scrapped the plan and revised the day's travel to include a stop at Vail.

We headed west on I-70 toward Vail. I don't like interstate highways unless I'm trying to make time by riding fast from one point to another. I-70 through the Rockies is an exception. The scenery is beautiful, the road is smooth and the traffic flows well, so long as you stay out of the right lane where heavy trucks grind up and down the mountains at low speeds.

We crossed the 11,900 foot Loveland Pass and the 10,700 foot Vail pass, then exited at Vail.

How to describe Vail? That is a challenge. I think this is best: Vail is a living diorama of how rich people live. People who are not rich can view the diorama year-'round, but the price of admission is quite steep during ski season.

Vail is quaint and cutesy in a manner imitative of Switzerland. Here's the "downtown" area.

We walked around, ate lunch and enjoyed the scenery. The crowd was mainly tourists; the rich people were all wherever they go during summer. I can't criticize them too much, they seem to like dogs, so they must be okay.

We called this sculpture "Left Leg, Broken Tib-Fib".

Already behind schedule, we hit the road. After a brief stint back on I-70, we turned south on Colorado 24 crossed the Continental Dives at the 10,424 foot Tennessee Pass, and headed toward Leadville.

Whatever Vail is, Leadville is the polar opposite. It is old, struggling, and non-touristy, at least for tourists who have money. It's old, more than 100 years, and was a mining town. Some molybdenum mining activity remains. Leadville is also Colorado's highest incorporated municipality, at 10,200 feet above sea level.

Also highest in another way, I expect.

We checked into an original old hotel and then took a walk. The local tech school posted a list of classes on a kiosk. This one caught my eye.

Leadville has an old opera house, built by Haw Tabor back in the late 1800's when Leadville boomed. The building is still there, timeworn, but in use for special events. Judy Collins is performing there this summer. Things must be rough for Ms. Collins these days. The Leadville Opera House is a small, small, venue

We saw a poster advertising a high-altitude triathlon later this summer. All events, swimming, running and bicycling are promised to take place at elevations above 10,500 feet. No thanks.

There is an Irish Pub in Leadville, oddly named the Silver Dollar Saloon.

It opened in 1888, and has been in the same family since 1941 when an Irish immigrant and his Las Vegas showgirl bride moved to Leadville and bought the building. The interior is pretty nice. They didn't have Guinness, claiming that a large group drank the inventory earlier in the week. Sounds like an Irish story.

We returned to the hotel after a few beers for an early bedtime because tomorrow is going to be a long day of mountain riding. I called the front desk and asked how to run the air conditioning. The clerk said "the windows open" and wished me a good night's sleep.

After Lunch

2010-07-04T19:20:00.000-05:00

It was time to move out. After lunch at the River Rock Cafe,and drinking enough iced tea to avoid the post-lunch coma, we mounted up and headed south on Colorado 125 from Walden to Granby.

Colorado 125 is not a tourist road. It's a working road used by ranchers, locals, cattle haulers, hay balers and not many others. It is a lonesome stretch that splits a high grassland prairie, sometimes fenced in, other times without fences. There are signs warning of cattle on the road, of elk and caribou crossings, farm equipment and slow moving vehicles. There were few other vehicles on the road. We went more than an hour without seeing one; a mishap would lead to a very long wait for help in an area without cell phone service.

The land is too rocky to be plowed and planted. All that grows is hay, and the growing season at 9,000 feet elevation is only 44 days long. Forty-four days to bring in enough hay to feed the cattle for the long winter. Three hundred twenty-one days of non-growing season.

No wonder there was an intense sense of purpose in the activities we saw. Imagine, one bad storm, or one week of cold weather, or one injury may become a financial ruin. Cattle may have to be sold on a market flooded with other cattle, equipment may get repossessed, property auctioned, homesteads lost. It isn't a easy place to work.

We crossed the Continental divide at Willow Creek Pass, elevation 9,621 feet above mean sea level. It was our first pass over the Continental Divide and was deceptively easy: A long climb up a mostly straight road to a summit, then an easy coast down the other side. It would be the only pass we enjoyed until our last day in Colorado.

We turned toward Rock Mountain National Park at Granby, taking Highway 34 north east into the park where it becomes Trail Ridge Road.

Beautiful, stunning, everything you could want and more. RMNP is a thing of wonder. Trail Ridge road climbs about 5,000 feet to Milner Pass, elevation 10,758 feet. The road is narrow, winding and heavily traveled. Bicyclists were mixed in with tourist coaches, minivans and mega-motor homes pulling spare cars behind them. Travel is slow, grades are steep, corners are sharp and off-camber.

Traffic halts whenever someone spots a goat, a chicken or some other animal. Cars stop in the road. Traffic halts. In this photo, someone thought they saw a mountain goat. Everyone was primed to capture the event on film.

Did they see anything? I don't know because I spent thirty minutes holding a 900 pound motorcycle upright on a cambered road with no shoulder and an 8% slope. Doggone tourists!

We got back underway and saw a sign "Motorcyclists Use Extreme Caution!" Okay, what joy awaits ahead?

Five hundred feet later the blacktop road changed to gravel. Ball bearings. No shoulders, no guardrails, a traffic jam of tourists. We drove oh-so-slowly for the next fifteen minutes before reaching the summit. We pulled off the road at a scenic lookout area at the top. Stared, then stared some more, talked to two other couples who rode their motorcycles to the summit.

It was worth second, every moment of fear, every bit of terror as wheels slid on gravel on curves where there were no guardrails.

Up The Hill, National Geographic's Lunch Recommendation.

2010-07-04T13:57:00.004-05:00

Now the mountain-y part of the trip starts. We stayed the night in Fort Collins, eager to begin our first ride into the mountains.

If I may begin with a word or two for those of you who own restaurants....

When we checked in at the motel we had randomly selected for the evening (it was something with a number in its name - Motel 6, Super 8, Nifty 9, #1 Happy Motel, Thrifty 3 - they all blur together) we asked whether there was a restaurant with a bar near enough to walk to. He recommended a steak house three blocks away. By the way, "three blocks away" has a different meaning to a motel employee who has lived in the plains all of his short life than it means to you or me. Specifically me.

We finally made it to the steak place, hit the bar, ordered a couple of beers and asked for menus. I asked the waitress/bartender which steak was her favorite. Her answer was that she really didn't like to eat meat, had never had a streak in this restaurant and probably couldn't give us any good advice. Alrighty then.

If you own a steak joint, maybe you shouldn't hire vegetarian employees. Just sayin'. Or if you do hire vegetarians, perhaps a bit of training would be good, so the question "Which steak is your favorite?" can be answered "They all look so good, it's hard to pick just one." Or maybe "Most people seem to like the t-bone best." Or even "They're all terrific."

I'm straying off topic, aren't I? Where was I? Oh yeah, up the hill.

The plan was to ride a big loop, starting in Fort Collins, then up the mountains on Highway 14 to Walden, then down to Granby, and then Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park, ending in the city of Estes Park for the night. Great day ahead!

We climbed uphill out of Fort Collins, riding along the Cache la Poudre River. The road twisted and turned, always going uphill. The noise of the cascading river drowned out everything else. We pulled over and took this photo.

Highway 14 is called a "scenic highway" and it was all that and more. We rolled through the Roosevelt National Forest, through alpine woods, then down into high alpine meadows, dotted with vast ranches, cattle and lonely cabins and homes.

We pulled over for a break at a scenic overlook above the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, a place where bison were once hunted. And a place that once-upon-a-time-long-ago was a seabed, before the tectonic plates met and rose to form the Rockies. A sign told us that in parts of the eastern valley of the Refuge, prospectors and archaeologists have found shark teeth, remnants from when this high meadow was a sea bed.

We rode into the small village of Walden at morning's end. Walden is a real village, not a tourist-y place. It's small, hardscrabble, and mostly a place where ranch folk buy supplies. Motorcyclists stop there in summer, and skiers driving to Steamboat Springs stop there in winter. The River Rock Cafe looked like a good place for lunch.

National Geographic had published an article about the area a few years back. The article included a recommendation to order the chicken fried steak at the River Rock Cafe. Who am I to doubt the esteemed editors of National Geographic?

Heaven on a plate in the wilds of the high plains of northern Colorado.

I thought I had walked into a meditation class because all I heard form the people around me was mmmm mmmm mmmm. It was the sound of people mmmm'ing their approval of the chicken fried steak they were eating. Recommended by me, and I am a better recommender of restaurants than is National Geographic.

The day's ride wasn't yet halfway done. The most dangerous parts were ahead (and are in the next blog topic).

Keep Your Horses Out Of The Cemetery

2010-06-27T08:29:00.000-05:00

We took a walk in Fort Collins last night. The sign above was posted at the entrance. I didn't know it was customary to ride horses in a cemetery.

And what the heck is "raw water"? Yuck.

Bury me where there are horses and rain. And no plastic flowers.

Turbulence

2010-06-26T20:58:00.000-05:00

Turbulence. TUR-byoo-lence. Now that's a funny word, isn't it? Turbulence. It sort of rolls off your tounge, doesn't it?

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

The wind blew hard all day, on the ride from Lincoln, NE to Fort Collins CO. It pushed us all over the road, cut our fuel mileage by 20%, and was si tiring that we took a break every two hours. Add in the non-stop of trucks and a 75mph speed limit, and the rest is just shy of hanging on for dear life. That part came later while we were crossing the Pawnee National Grasslands and rode into a storm with rain, wind and lightning.

Do you know what the sign "Open Range" means? It means that there are no fences along the highway and the dam cattle can walk wherever they'd like, and their size gives them the right of way.

The east half of Nebraska is green, with roing hills and pretty valleys. The west half of Nebraska is plate flat, dry, and more grassland than cropland. The east half of Colorado is flat, some small hills as you get closer to the Rockies, desolate, mostly grass and cattle.

The cattle are black angus, lolling about, eating their fill of grass. Mmmmm, steak. Then there are cattle crammed into feedlots. Awful. Smelly. I wouldn't want to eat that beef, but no doubt have many times. We also rode past feedlots of sheep. Don't know why that was surprising, but it made my head whip around when we rode past.

Tomorrow is the start of a multi-day ride through the Colorado Rockies, from north to south. It should be outstanding!

'Til then, enjoy the great summer weekend.

Mm

Waiter, There's A Peterbilt In My Soup

2010-06-26T07:30:00.002-05:00

We rolled across Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and part of Nebraska today. Twelve hours in the saddle on a sunny, hot day.

Iowa, a place not known for generating excitement, turned out to be a place whered I'd like to spend much more time. Much like I discovered in the Dakotas last summer, I could spend a month in Iowa and still not see everything I'd like to see. Here's a sampling of what we saw while blasting across I-80.

We saw plenty of green. Rolling countryside,'hills and valleys, covered in green. And not just one crayola green, but a thousand shades of green stitched together into a rich quilt of color covering the ground to the horizon. There are the greens of growing cornstalks, of alfalfa, of cattails in the wetlands, of the leaves on soft- and hardwood trees, of dozens of different grasses and mosses, of soybeans, and more. Today's cloudless sky looked like the glass dome on the Iowa terrarium.

Then there's John Deere green. It's everywhere, in every field and on caps on heads, although we haven't seen "Billy Bob loves Darleen" painted on a water tower in John Deere green. Yet.

The John Deere tractor was invented in Iowa. I'd lime to return when I have a day to spend in the John Deere Museum, and then tour the factory where Deere manufactures it's huge tractors.

Aw nuts. My iPhone battery is low and I forgot to bring a plug in charger. More blogging later, after this problem is solved.

CONTINUED

The Peterbilt in the above is one of several trucks inside the Iowa 80 Truck Stop in Walcott, Iowa, the world's largest truck stop. We had seen shows about Iowa 80 on the Travel Channel, so a stop (pardon the pun) was necessary, and coincidentally it was time for a late lunch.

The scale of the place is enormous. It covers hundreds of acres and multiple buildings. There is the main building which includes a dining room, a food court with most of the big-name fast food restaurants, a gift shop, and of course, a massive parts and chrome shop for truckers. There are restored trucks in the dining area, and several huge, fully blinged out trucks in the chrome shop.

Need some chrome exhaust stacks? Some sparkly lights? It's all there, plus a friendly crew to install it right away, or just as soon as you've met with one of several finance managers.

How about some new clothes while you wait (custom embroidery is available on-site)? Or a new pair of boots? Or gifts for the family? it's all here, in the Trucker's Mall.

Maybe you need a haircut, a bit of dentistry, a shower, or just want to borrow a book. It's all here.

We rode through the Iowa80 grounds on the way out and saw hundreds and hundreds of parked trucks, a Trucking Museum, a chapel, a huge facility for truck oil changes and minor maintenance, another building for major maintenance, a sleeping facility and more. There was a tank farm on the far end of the property. Iowa80 sells so much diesel fuel that it is delivered underground via a pipeline and stored in tanks for sale to truckers.

We needed to hit the road; the day's ride was only half completed. Maybe we'll return to Iowa80 in July for the World's Biggest Truckers' Jamboree........

Roll Me Away

2010-06-24T16:16:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about it every day since November. Didn't know if I'd be able to ride this summer; winter was a bit tough.

I'm (make that we're) back on the bike; pointed it west Thursday morning early. I'm told Colorado is nice this time of year. We'll find out soon enough.

Some riding music, courtesy of Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.

Overdue Spring Cleaning

2010-06-24T16:01:00.000-05:00

It's the same blog that you may have read previously, but it has a new name and a new design. I am still its one and only blogmaster.

It was getting a bit stale. I didn't like the colors, the background or the format, so I changed it. It retains the same URL as before, and all the old posts and comments are saved.

Carry on.

Country Music in Black and White

2010-05-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

I love Country and Western Music, especially the older, original songs and artists.

I like modern County as well, but tut-tut about how far modern Country has strayed from its prairie roots when I read that Brooks & Dunn's current tour requires more than twenty motor coaches, vans and tractor-trailers just to transport the sound and lighting equipment, stage, rigging, roadies, costumes, assorted personnel, a chef, a personal trainer, back-up singers, instruments and musicians and their families.

An old-time C&W band usually had just four musicians: A singer/guitar player, a drummer, a violin player and a steel guitar player. They traveled in a station wagon (no air conditioning in the early days), or in a black Cadillac if they were making any money. They band members lugged their own gear, set up the equipment, performed, and then packed it up again before they hit the road.

The music back then was very good. Original, easily played and sung, and without special effects, over-amping, or sound control engineers to make it sound better than it actually was.

Here's Ray Price when he was a young man, singing Invitation To The Blues to a television camera. See the band member singing high harmony with Ray? That's young Roger Miller. What beautiful voices.

I saw Ray Price two years ago, when he came through town with Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Price was in his 80s, impeccably dressed in suit and tie, and sang was well as he did in the video, although his voice lowered a bit with age.

Speaking of Merle Haggard, let's watch Merle sing Workin' Man Blues. Merle added a keyboard player and some horns in the background. Doesn't matter so much here because he's Merle Haggard and Merle Haggard can do what ever he damn well pleases.

Here's one more. It's Hank Williams singing in 1947, Move It On Over, a bluesy, country, rockabilly song. It was Hank's first Country hit, reaching #4 on the country singles chart. It's a little known fact that songs like this are one of the reasons why Hank Williams is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well as the Country & Western Hall of Fame.

Which old-time Country singer or band is your favorite?

Whatever Happened To Horn Bands?

2010-05-05T20:56:00.004-05:00

Maybe you remember horn bands - rock bands from the 70s and 80s that had huge brass sections.

Horn bands had lots of powerful trumpets, trombones, saxophones, all fronting strong percussion and guitar sections. And the horn bands always had a leather-lunged singer who had a great voice. They lyrics weren't the reason you listened to horn bands - it was the brass section.

The most famous horn band was Chicago, and their most famous song was 25 or 6 to 4. Chicago later went all Emo, their music sucked, and the horns were muted. But this song was great!

Chicago had a local competitor - The Ides of March - that was based in one of the suburbs near Chicago. They used the same basic formula, but had a bit less success. Remember Vehicle? High school pep bands everywhere still play it at varsity basketball games. I'm the friendly stranger in the black sedan....... It's still a cult hit.

Then there was the jazz-rock fusion band Chase. Bill Chase played lead trumpet with Maynard Ferguson in 1958 and Stan Kenton in 1959, and during the 1960s, played lead trumpet in Woody Herman's band.

Chase (the band) released their debut album Chase in April 1971. The album contains Chase's best-known song, "Get It On," released as a single that spent thirteen weeks on the charts beginning in May 1971. The song features what Jim Szantor of Downbeat magazine called "the hallmark of the Chase brass—complex cascading lines; a literal waterfall of trumpet timbre and technique." The band received a Best New Artist Grammy nomination, but was edged out by rising star Carly Simon.

The horns come it at 1:00 in the video below. Chase was a strong alternative to Chicago, especially after Chicago messed up their original sound. Regrettably, the band Chase all died in a 1974 airplane crash.

Two bands from Canada were in the horn band mix in the early 70's, Lighthouse and Blood, Sweat and Tears.

You may not remember the name Lighthouse, but you'll remember this cut, One Fine Morning.

Blood Sweat and Tears was the other Canadian horn band. BS&T was more voice oriented because of its great lead singer, David Clayton-Thomas. The horns were there, but more subdued than in the other bands.

I have a personal memory of BS&T. When I was a college sophomore I lived in a rented townhouse with four other guys. They were all recently returned veterans of the war in Viet Nam. Good guys, but ours was a rowdy house.

BS&T came through town on tour and played a gig at the college. One of my roommates, who will remain nameless in this story, was dating a stunning woman named Lisa. Lisa was blond, petite, beautiful.....and dumb as a rock. She had no real home life, lived in our house part of the time; with some girl friends part of the time. Anyhow, after the BS&T concert my roommate came back to our house angry as all hell. Lisa had hopped into the band bus at the invitation of David Clayton-Thomas and left with the band!

Lisa showed up at our house a few months later, ready to pick up with my room mate where things had left off. He had the good sense to say no. Lisa told us that BS&T was going to release a song in the next few months that was written about her. Yeah, sure, we all laughed.

The song Lisa, Listen to Me was released in 1971. Honest to God, this is a true story.

\

I must have missed a horn band or three. What are some bands you remember?

The Weight

2010-05-05T19:38:00.000-05:00

I've posted about Levon Helm before. And you've probably listened to Levon before, especially his timeless song, The Weight, originally performed and recorded in 1968 on The Band's album Music From Big Pink. The Weight is number 41 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time.

I have a mild obsession with The Weight. I keep looking for and listening to different cover versions, hoping to find the best ever version. I hope that I never do find the best version, because then I'd have to stop looking and listening.

Here are two wonderful versions. I hope you enjoy both.

The first cover of The Weight is by Gillian Welch and Old Crow Medicine Show. This is bordering on the best six minutes in pop music, in my opinion. I hope your computer has stereo speakers.

The second cover was an unexpected find. It is a version recorded by Aretha Franklin in 1969, just one year after the original recording was released by The Band. This version has the added kick of some great slid guitar played by Greg Allman.

I know you must have a favorite version also. Post it int eh comments so we can all enjoy it.

Thanks!

At The Slimey Crud Motorcycle Run, Part Two

2010-05-04T20:21:00.001-05:00

Here are a few more photos of motorcycles at the Slimey Crud Motorcycle Run on Sunday, May 2, 2010. I ran out of room on Part One, the post below.

Where did I leave off? Oh yeah, photos of British bikes. Here are three Triumphs, followed by a beautiful original Norton Commando.

Honda motorcycles from the 1960s, '70s and 80s have become collectibles that can be ridden every day. Parts are readily available and the motorcycles are simple to maintain and repair. When these bikes hit the US shores, they started a revolution. Compared to the American and Brit bikes that were the only real alternatives, the Hondas were reliable, didn't leak oil, were fast, had good brakes and good suspensions, and were inexpensive. Their engines were jewel-like in their precision and engineering.

The Honda Benley (weird name, isn't it?) was the first multi-cylinder Honda motorcycle brought to the US. It was a very big deal back then. Now, it's an itty-bitty bike with a 150cc engine. But it was a game changer for motorcycling in the US and in Europe.

The Honda CB160 was the next generation bike. It had a far better suspension and a stronger 160cc engine. These were hot bikes, and could hold their own with much larger British bikes.

Honda introduced new bikes rapid fire, several each year, and each new bike was a technological and performance improvement over the bikes introduced just a year or two back. This is a Honda 400cc four cylinder model. My kid brother owned one of these while he was in college. He rode the heck out of it, including a trip from Milwaukee to Las Vegas and back in August, during 100 degree temperatures. The Honda never skipped a beat.

This is a Honda 450 twin. I owned one of these a couple of years after finishing college. The one in the photo is a survivor bike - a bike that still runs well, and has never been restored or modified. Survivor bikes are sometimes more valuable than perfectly restored bikes that aren't ridden for fear of damage.

This is a Honda CB1000, perfectly restored, and still driven daily. The frame and body colors are the owner's choice, and not the original colors. The restoration was excellent. Even all of the nuts, bolts, washers and screws were sent out for fresh nickel plating.

Honda built a remarkable bike called the CBX. What made it special was its engine - an air-cooled double-overhead camshaft six cylinder stunning powerhouse. It was expensive for its time. It was also difficult to maintain. All six carburetors had to be in perfect synch, the valves all had to be in perfect adjustment, etc. When a CBX ran right - Lord have mercy, it was fast. And it sounded like not other bike on earth. Honda didn't make very many CBXs. One of it's biggest flaw was that the engine was simply too wide. It overhung both sides of the frame, making handling difficult.

There were two CBXs at the Crud Run. Both were survivor bikes, still being ridden in good weather and bad. Look at this engine. Masterpiece. God bless you, Soichiro Honda.

The north end of the Crud Run is in Leland, a crossroads that has two bars and maybe six houses. We headed there to mingle and stare.

Sprecher's Tap is the only combination bar and gun shop in Wisconsin. It gives new meaning to "I'll have a shot and a beer."

The other bar, the one across the road had a special. Fresh morels, picked in a nearby woods earlier in the day. Mary bought some. Hey, man, we scored a bag of 'shrooms, man!

Safety is a big thing among serious motorcyclists. For example, if you bring your young daughter to a motorcycle rally, make sure she has a full-face helmet and that you have a long-enough mullet for her to hang onto in an emergency.

We saw this 1949 Harley Davidson Panhead. The owner told us that it had never been out of his family. Granddad bought it, passed it to his son some years later, and now a grandson owns it. It has been ridden, and also lovingly maintained all those years. Some of the paint has been updated, but the engine hasn't been taken apart, evidenced by the authentic pool of oil under it.

Look at this - a hand shifter, mounted alongside the fuel tank on the Harley. This is how it used to be, back in the day. The clutch was foot-operated. It was called a suicide clutch for good reason.

As you might expect, there was some pretty strange stuff at the Crud Run. I'll finish this posting with a few miscellaneous photos.

This is an old Vespa scooter. These are very collectible. The owner is an artist who has had this scooter for a long time. It was his only vehicle for many years. He toodles along at thirty mph, enjoying the scenery. He also owns a 1955 Vespa that he's restoring to new condition. I want one of these. (Recurring theme, eh?)

A group of us could not guess what this might have been originally. We think it could have been a single cylinder Suzuki, but really, who the heck knows? Leave your guess in the comments section.

This thing looked like it might have been a Kawasaki at time point, with a sidecar fabricated out of an old cattle watering trough and a Model A Ford wheel. Would I ride in/on it? No way on earth. It was a complete rolling mess of junk, haphazardly cobbled together.

This began its life as a Moto Guzzi, a fine Italian motorcycle. It is now a chopped up mess with bobbed fenders. The owner should be imprisoned.

This vintage Harley Davidson has a sidecar made out of an aluminum canoe. Only in Wisconsin.....

And finally, a fund raiser. Crude but effective.

Your mileage, er, cholesterol, may vary.

Which motorcycle was your favorite? And why?

At The Slimey Crud Motorcycle Run, Part One

2010-05-03T21:47:00.002-05:00

The Slimey Crud Motorcycle Run is held twice yearly - on the first Sundays in May and October - between two small villages in Wisconsin. Mary and I went again this year. We met a lot of interesting and nice people and took many photos of motorcycles, mostly old ones, but some newer ones as well.

The Slimey Crud Run is loosely organized, and appeals more to the riders of old, new, ratty and restored European and Japanese motorcycles than to the traditional Harley Davidson rider. The motorcycles are some of the coolest stuff you'll ever see.

I'll let one of the original founders of the Crud Run, motorcycle journalist Peter Egan, explain how it began.

Sunday was a perfect day for motorcycling. The day began with clear, bright skies, temperatures in the upper sixties to middle seventies, and light winds. Central casting could not have ordered a better day.

We left home at 9:30, heading west on the Interstate. Our plan was to super-slab it to Madison, ride half-way around that city on the Beltline, then exit and go to Pine Bluff. Traffic was light, and although the usual idiots driving-while-celling were on the road, we kept clear of traffic delays and inattentive drivers.

We were parked in Pine Bluff and walking around by 11:00 AM. I pulled out my camera and began taking photos of bikes that interested me. I hope that you enjoy them.

It seemed like everyone who owned an old Moto Guzzi rode it to the Crud Run this year. The man who rode this one told me that it had belonged to one of his brothers who died two years ago. His two surviving brothers promised him that they'd keep it, and ride it to Pine Bluff every year in his memory.

These two Moto Guzzis are from the late 1940s and are irreplaceable. The owner started and rode both.

Here's a nice new Moto Guzzi. I've been scrounging around in my basement and garage for stuff I can sell on eBay to buy one of these. I have a lot more scrounging to do.

There were motorcycles of every brand and description. I took some photos of BMWs because they're my favorite, and Triumphs because I'd like to own one someday. <<< Note the recurring theme.

The couple that owns this BMW dualsport told us about their plans to ride from Chicago to Alaska and back in about 2-1/2 weeks time this summer. They probably can't do it, in my experience, especially the one-day ride they want to make from Deadhorse to Anchorage. That little ride took us three hard, long days to complete last summer, and I needed two days off of the cycle to recover. We didn't share that bit of information with them. Didn't want to ruin an otherwise lovely day for them, and they'll figure it out soon enough.

The owner of this old BMW told us that he inherited it last summer when his father, the bike's original owner, passed away. His dad bought it new and owned it for nearly forty years. It hasn't been restored, and won't be by it's second-generation owner who wants to ride it in nice weather and keep in in the condition it was when his dad owned it. The son updated the electric system, installed new tires and gave it a thorough safety check and tune-up last summer. Then he rode it from Wisconsin to Tennessee and back. He said it ran flawlessly.

Blogger has slowed down, perhaps because I've included too many photographs in this topic. I'll stop here and start another thread with a few more photos.

At The Mennonite Grocery Store

2010-04-24T18:56:00.001-05:00

I frequent a small grocery store in a small city near my cabin in the northwoods. The grocery store is operated by a group of Mennonites. They are very nice, very friendly people.

The store began a few years ago as a simple, small, store in one end of a metal building that housed an auto repair business. The owners bought organic dry goods in bulk quantities, broke them down into smaller containers, and sold them at very reasonable prices. The shelves in their small store were filled with consumer-sized bags of organic oats, millet, wheat, bulgar, rye, and other grains. There were stone-ground flours, dried organic beans, bags of rice.

There were some shelves with teas, things like hyssop, chamomile, mint, horehound and more. And a small cooler with goat milk, raw cow's milk and organic cheese.

All of it comes from organic farms, mostly from farms operated by other Mennonites, or from Amish farms.

The store expanded a little every year. One year they added just enough room for a couple of rows of fresh produce. Another year they added room for bulk herbs and spices, some books, vitamins and supplements. Then it was room for five-pound tubs of peanut butter, honey, molasses.

The neighboring auto repair shop has moved out. The grocery store now takes the entire building and continues to grow and thrive. The most recent addition has been a bakery. They built a wood-burning oven and a trained, licensed baker comes in twice each week to bake breads, pies, cookies, cakes and more.

That is the oven, wood fire a-blazin' when we were there. The bread is like none other. Thick rustic loaves with a dark brown crust, dark to the point of starting to burn, crispy, flying crumbs when you break it; a chewy, tangy sourdough interior. I bought a loaf, just so I could hurry home, break off a piece, and slather it with butter while the loaf was still warm. If there is bread heaven, this is it.

The baker bakes several kinds of bread. Baguettes, batards, sourdoughs, ryes, multigrains and rustic whites. And there are breadsticks and pretzels. The aroma can make strong men weep with joy. I bought four loaves of the multigrain; one for now and three for the freezer.

I am told that the pies are extraordinary. Nothing but fresh fruit, carefully made crusts, baked in a wood-fired oven. Pies are baked on Saturday, early in the morning. This sign greeted us:

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Fresh, warm pies made by Mennonite women and baked in a wood-fired oven by a baker who has gifts from God. Yeehaa! I asked for a pie, no, several pies. The flavor didn't matter, I just wanted pies and I was at the source Perrier of all piedom.

There are none left, I was told. Huh? What? The pies had all been purchased, mostly by people who had lined up before the grocery store opened. Bbbbuuut, but, but.....the sign says that the pies are cooling, I whimpered. The pies are cooling, it was explained, on the front seats of happy peoples' cars as they sped home, visions of ala mode dancing in their heads.

Shoot. I need something else as a consolation. The organic fruit looks pretty good.

Can't ever have too many kumquats. The tomatoes look pretty good as well.

I'm not so sure about the pickled eggs, though. Eh, I'll pass, I think.

Hmm.....some apples would be good. An apple a day and all that. I like my doctors, but I've been seeing a bit too much of them recently, so, yes, some apples would be good.

Say, do you know what happens when you put the vanilla and choclolate bunny cookies too close to each other?

Yep. You knew the answer.

Enough time was spent buying bread, recovering from pie grief and photographing the goods. People were starting to stare and frown. Time to head to the cabin.

Besides, I had warm bread and a good appetite.

A Thank You From Management

2010-04-24T17:25:00.000-05:00

I have been kicking around the idea of bringing and end to this blog.

Time has become less plentiful, and time is necessary in order to create interesting posts. Other matters have kept me occupied, and I honestly didn't know whether anyone was actually reading the doggone thing. Why bother blogging if the blog isn't being read?

I installed Sitemeter in order to better understand whether the blog is being read, and how often, by how many readers. To my surprise I found that more than 500 readers have visited the blog in each of the last two weeks. Three quarters were from the US. The others were from about thirty other countries. That's a bad days work for a famous blog, but pretty nice for this amateur, part-time, irregularly posted blog.

I've decided to continue the blog, and to settle into a rhythm of posting on the same day(s) each week.

Thanks for stopping by. Leave a comment once in a while, or send me an email if you'd prefer.

Total Eclipse Of The Heart - Literal Video Version

2010-04-16T11:41:00.000-05:00

I had to post this. It's too funny to let pass by.

My Favorite Bar Is Promoting Fitness

2010-04-15T12:58:00.001-05:00

My favorite bar is encouraging its patrons to improve their fitness and well-being.

You know where my favorite bar is located, don't you? I think about four of you know its location, even though I have never mentioned it on this blog. I'm not going to spill the beans now, because I don't want the place clogged up with flatlander tourists. Let's just say that it's "up north", and leave it at that. Unless you agree to buy a round, then email me for directions, the date you'll be there, and what you'll be wearing so I recognize you.

Anyhow, we stopped in for a beer last week, on a quiet and chilly afternoon. They had a wood fire blazing away.

Even though it was quiet, mostly because everyone who lives up north had gone down south for a week of warm weather after Easter Sunday, the bartender took good care of us.

This woman at the end of the bar wanted to go home with me. And that's how it turned out. :--)

Anyhow, we noticed a couple of new items on the wall and asked about them. We were told that the purpose of first new thing is to improve the bar's patrons' strength and coordination. The bartender could not recall one time when it has been used. But it's the thought that counts!

The second new item was an announcement for an endurance event, specifically created for the patrons of the bar. I'm out of breath just thinking about it.

Yes! Free beer, until the first person pees. Then the price goes to $.25 per tap, until the next person pees, then the price goes up another $.25, and so on until either the beer is gone, someone's bladder explodes, or the price is too high.

Now that's some great kind of endurance training!

Like all endurance events, the athletes need to load carbohydrates after the event for recovery. That's part of the bar's plan as well. What could be better than pancakes? Why, pancakes AND a polka band!

Wow. The caring and kindness of my favorite bar is nothing short of......touching!

What has your bar done for you lately?

Buddy Miller

2010-04-06T21:43:00.001-05:00

You've probably never heard of Buddy Miller. Few people have, and that's a shame.

Buddy Miller is a brilliant musician, writer and singer. He has performed with (among others) Shawn Colvin, EmmyLou Harris, Steve Earle, Dolly Parton, Linda Rondstadt, Patti Griffin, Lucinda Williams, John Fogarty, Robert Plant, Alison Kraus and others.

Buddy Miller's musical genre is loosely described as "roots" music; music that goes back to the roots of rock, country and blues.

If I were king, radio stations would play a lot more roots musicians, including Buddy Miller, and a lot less of the over-produced big-hat country music. But I'm not king, so all I can do is share this with you and hope that you'll enjoy it as much as I do.

Time To Ride

2010-03-30T18:26:00.001-05:00

The weather forecast looks halfway promising. I've got some days off. I'm gone Friday morning. Hope it don't snow.

I'll be in touch.

UPDATE: Friday's ride was perfect. What a way to begin the riding season, especially this early, when the conditions can be lousy.

Temperatures were in the low 70s most of the day, traffic was light, and the Smokeys were hibernating. A storm chased me the last hour of the ride; I out ran it by riding at extra-legal speeds. The storm arrived at my destination shortly after I did, brought with it high winds that knocked out the electric power for a while.

It felt good to be back on the bike.

Mmmmmm........Happy Hour

2010-03-26T10:29:00.000-05:00

A photo of a sign in the Bluebonnet Restaurant, in Austin Texas. Sent to me by my son and daughter-in-law who are on vacation in Texas this week.

What a good idea! And it's vegetarian, too.

What is Your Neighborhood Like?

2010-03-25T20:04:00.000-05:00

I found an interesting map of the United States.

It shows, in color, the relationship between the number of taverns and the number of grocery stores, on a county-by county basis, all across our fine country.

I live in Wisconsin, a state where we usually stop off for a couple on the way to the market to buy Cheerios for tomorrow's breakfast. Wisconsin is the part of the map where it looks like ketchup was splattered.

You must live in a boring place if you're not here.

A Walk Down State Street

2010-03-18T20:10:00.000-05:00

I was in Madison today and had some free time during the mid-day. I grabbed my iPhone and walked up and down State Street taking photos. State Street runs from the State Capitol on one end to the University of Wisconsin on the other.

Parts of State Street, and some of the stores, bars and restaurants are the way they were back in the early 70s when I was a student there. Other parts have changed.

I hope you enjoy the photos, especially if you've ever lived in Mad City.

Kiosks are still used for advertising concerts and other events.

Small fitness centers have popped up in several places, usually above storefronts.

The door into the Women's Fitness Center was strategically located between this.....

.....and this.

Two of my favorite hangouts are still there.

The dark and jazzy Paul's Club, which still has the huge oak tree in the bar room, with thousands of real-looking of artificial leaves remains in business, a dinosaur in a world of new sports bars.

And Gino's, my favorite lunch place is still there. Lunch was more often than not beer and a big salad. And it was good.

I spotted a beautifully restored BMW 2002. A college room mate, (the late) Bernie Williams, took out a student loan and used the proceeds to buy anew BMW 2002. On the first night he owned it, he hit a deer. Before buying insurance. He begged, borrowed and cajoled everyone he knew for a few bucks so he could get his car fixed. He finally did, and got into another accident on the way home from the body shop, before he bought insurance. He ultimately dropped out for a couple of semesters to work in order to pay for getting the car fixed a second time, then bought insurance. He kept that car for years. It was a wonderful car.

There is a recruiting station on State Street.

If you lived in Madison, you had ice cream form the Chocolate Shoppe. It was good, but was also the second-best ice cream in Madison. The best was made in Babcock Hall, where the dairy science students had their own ice cream plant. Nothing like it anywhere in the world.

Feminism is changing a bit. Signs that were not acceptable back then seem to be okay now.

This place is still there, after decades. The still don't sell sinks and faucets, though.

It was time for lunch. Lower State Street was awash in food carts. Back in the day, the only food cart was one guy selling falafel. Now....it's the United Nations.

All of those food carts looked and smelled good, but I'm a traditional guy, so I had a brat at the legendary and historical State Street Brats (which used to be called The Brat House). A yummy red brat, split, char-grilled to perfection, served on a fresh bakery run, with a pickle and hot brown mustard. It was as good as it ever was.

This was a favorite lunch, dinner, bar closing time sandwich place. It has gone downhill, sadly, and the food is reputed to be awful.

I stopped at this place to ask if they also had Englishmen and Joe Cocker. The counter guy had no clue what I was talking about. You probably don't, either. Sigh.

Does this strike you as being a bit odd? It's a poster advertising a speed-dating get together, with proceeds benefiting the Domestic Abuse Intervention Services. I dunno.

An abbreviated obituary taped to the window of a small food store.

Souvenir tee shirt.

Cheese. Really good cheese at a new place called Fromagination. They have a website, I believe. Wow. I bought a small piece of 12 year old aged cheddar. $47 per pound; I bought two ounces. Just incredible.

Time was running out; I needed to move on to the next part of the day. Remember to support your local tavern.

Mary's Birthday

2010-03-16T20:27:00.000-05:00

Mary's birthday was last weekend. She wanted to celebrate in Chicago, so off we drove for lunch and a walkabout. I-Pass velcro'd to the windshield - check! Radio tuned to the wonderful WXRT - check! Fuel in the tank - check! Coffee in the cups - check! Radar detector on - check!

Chicago is one of America's greatest cities, despite the Bears, the Cubs and the Daleys. It is a relatively new city, at least when compared with the big cities back east, mostly because it burned down in 1871 and has been rebuilt to a higher standard since then. Wood framed buildings aren't allowed, post-fire, and the masonry buildings that are allowed don't deteriorate as rapidly.

And as the downtown has grown newer buildings have replaced older, lesser buildings. It's a beautiful city. And a booming city, too; four of the twenty tallest buildings in the world completed in 2009 were in Chicago. No other city on the globe had that many, and Chicago's Trump Tower was the tallest.

Sunday was a great day to be in Chicago. The snow had melted, the temperatures were in the upper 40s and the sun poked out from behind the clouds every once in a while.

We headed for Wrigleyville, the area that surrounds Wrigley Field. It's an interesting neighborhood for a walk, and there are many, many restaurants. We saw this place where a perpetually losing baseball team attracts large crowds during summer and fall.

The Wrigleyville neighborhood is like a college town, except everyone has a job and an apartment. Drinking and vomiting are acceptable lifestyle choices. St. Patrick's Day has morphed into St. Patrick's Month, at least on the banners that festoon every saloon. The actual St. Patrick's Day festivities were starting to wind down by Sunday noon. Winding down means that most of the sidewalks in front of the bars had been hosed off, and most of the revelers had gone home, taken showers, and put on clean clothes in time to resume drinking at brunch.

The special of the day was.....kegs.

We passed some street sculpture that we didn't understand. It was cheap and colorful, so it blended in with the neighborhood. It was hidden under tracks for the El, on a dark corner.

We had planned to have a leisurely lunch at an upscale Italian restaurant that was featured on a show on Food TV. We checked the restaurant's website to verify that it would be open for lunch. The website lied. We arrived to find a sign on the door telling us that the restaurant would open at 5 PM that day. Sorry, we're not waiting.

We walked down North Clark Street looking for cuisine we hadn't tried. Mexican? Nope. Thai? Done that. Sushi? Eh. Chinese? had that two days ago. French? Mais non. Pizza? Ho hum. Moroccan? Ah ha! Now that sounds interesting.

We wandered into this place, the Andalous Restaurant. We were the only ones there, at least at the beginning of our meal. The owner greeted us warmly and explained the menus. So far so good. We ordered appetizers and soups to start, and then dinner entrees.

The owner brought us flat bread and some kind of bean appetizer. WOW! The flavors exploded in our mouths. Delicious was an understatement.

Next came a pot of Moroccan tea, made with fresh mint and orange blossom water. It's called Moroccan whiskey according to custom, because of its color. Slightly sweetened with date sugar, it was light, sweet, minty and flavorful. The restaurant doesn't serve alcohol, but they don't mind if you bring your own.

The owner, a happy and gracious man, brought out the appetizers we ordered. There were four items on one plate: an eggplant dish, a carrot and green olive dish, a spinach dish, and a roasted pepper dish. All were extraordinary. The flavors and the seasonings were unlike anything else we had eaten anywhere. We dug in.

The appetizers and soup were soon gone. Our entrees arrived - one was fish, vegetables, herbs and spices in puff pastry and the other was three kinds of kebabs, with a delicious sauce and big mound of couscous. We sat there, eating, and going mmmm mmmm mmmmm with every bite.

We've eaten lunch or dinner in Chicago once or twice a month for the past two decades. We've eaten in the very best steakhouses, the very dive-iest of the dives, mom and pop joints, neighborhood pubs, and everything in between. The meal we enjoyed at the Andalous Restaurant was the best meal we have eaten in Chicago, period. It was that good. We'll be back there again, that's for certain.

We were stuffed, so a long walk was in order. How long? Downtown, some thirty five blocks away, and then some.

Along the way we found a nice place to buy, although the heating bill is probably a bit stiff.

I suppose that I could send $50 to one of those ordination-by-mail places and become a minister, which would let me marry people in that church. And dress like Elvis, I could dress like Elvis. Nah, all of a sudden this sounds like a bad idea, even in Chicago, the home of bad ideas like paying Jay Cutler a lot of money to be the Bears' quarterback.

We stopped for a minute to say hello to Jack Brickhouse, the legendary sports broadcaster. He winked.

He didn't seem to be troubled by the chrome moose sneaking up behind him.

It's okay to pollute the Chicago River if you're Irish and it's St. Patrick's Day weekend. Tradition requires that the river is dyed green. The green color is a more vibrant, brighter green than the river's usual yucky, slimy dirty green.

The Trump Tower is nearby, in all of its glassy glory. There are some units yet to be sold, If you hurry, one can be yours, starting at $500,000 for a 580 square foot studio. The really nice units start at $3.5 million, comb-over optional. Tell the sales person I recommended that you buy a unit. That should get your parking validated.

Our brief moment as real estate tycoons over, we walked south toward Millennium Park. Along the way a pleasant guy in a storefront offered to align my chakras and cleanse my aura. My chakras didn't seem to need re-aligning as there wasn't evidence of unusual tread wear on the bottom of my shoes, and I had showered in the morning so my aura was still pretty clean. I thanked him and kept walking.

There were ice skaters in Millennium Park, despite the warm temperatures. This no doubt messed with the carbon footprint or something, but these Chicagoans seemed indifferent to all of it. The concern line must start about thirty blocks west, where Chicago meets Hyde Park.

Millennium Park is home to my favorite sculpture in Chicago, Cloud Gate. It's just a huge, chrome, reflective kidney-bean shaped thing, but it never fails to inspire awe. Every time I've visited Cloud Gate it has been surrounded by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people taking photos, admiring, seeing themselves reflected in the Chicago skyline.

Our next stop was quite a ways away, but worth the walk. Chocolate, who doesn't like chocolate? Hershey Chocolate has a remarkable store in a building on the Magnificent Mile. Everything chocolate, and most of it large scale, noisy and fun.

The chocolate chef demands that you, yes you, have fun!

Here's some fun - a five pound Hershey Bar.

And a one-gallon container of Hershey Syrup.

Too rich for me!

Time to keep moving, and we had walked quite a ways. It was time to hoof it back to Wrigleyville where we had parked the car.

We thought about letting Taco cart us a few miles, but the poor thing looked more tired than we were, so no. Sorry Taco. You deserve a nice, green pasture, I'm sure.

We thought about taking a taxi. What a surprise! Someone has been shrinking the taxis. Here's a new taxi that seems lost, parked in a parking stall for an old-style ex-cop car, full-sized taxi.

Pretty weird, isn't it? In the end, we walked back to the car. It took an hour or so, but was worth every step. Spring in the city, in our favorite city to visit.

And I bought a lottery ticket, just in case karma dictates that I live on the 60th floor of the Trump Tower.

Mid-Winter Afternoon

2010-02-21T19:18:00.000-06:00

We have reached the middle of winter. The worst of it has passed for this year, though there are a few storms yet to come before winter's end.

The days are longer than at the end of December; the sun is a bit higher in the sky. And the temperatures are sloooowly creeping up.

Today was sunny, beautiful, a good day to be outside. The sun was shining down on the wood shed. Plenty of wood left to finish out the winter.

The canoe is buried in snow. No problem, the snow will be gone before the lake is free of ice.

The deer have taken over while we were away. Their hoof prints are everywhere, including right up to the cabin windows. They have their own highway leading into the woods.

The sauna building, unused since New Year's Eve, is covered in snow.

Time to head out. First stop is the ice castle in town. It is constructed each winter by local volunteer firemen who cut some 2,500 blocks of ice out of a lake, shape them, transport them and then build the castle. It's a good bet that schnapps, brandy and beer are involved at some point in the process, because the temperatures are sub-zero when the work is being done.

And then off to my favorite bar to meet some friends. The parking lot is full; there's a big ice fishing tournament in progress. Get there any way you can.

Leave your hat at the door.

Find a seat at the bar. Oh yeah, our friends are down there at the end of the bar. And they are camera shy.

We had a great lunch, a few beers and found out that one of our friends is rejuvenating his rock band - some forty years after it's last concert. They have a gig booked in May; we're invited to the rehearsals, and were chosen to be non-paid roadies. There will be beer involved. And a free tee shirt. And special passes to wear attached to lanyards around our necks. And groupies, or as one woman in our party observed, "at our age, we're more like droopies than groupies."

A full report will be filed.

Tony Bennett and kd lang

2010-02-13T11:13:00.000-06:00

Beautiful version of Leonard Cohen's iconic Hallelujah performed by kd lang. I didn't pay much attention to kd lang until I heard Tony Bennett say in an interview that he believes kd lang has the best voice in pop music. High compliment coming from the master.

Here are Tony Bennett and kd lang performing Because of You.

Martini music. Nothing like it.

No Hidden Meaning

2010-02-13T10:20:00.000-06:00

I'm posting this simply because I enjoy it and hope that you might as well.

Ray LaMontagne's voice is a bit reminiscent of Joe Cocker's, but not as intense.

Compare and contrast.

Bob Dylan Is 70 Years Old

2010-02-03T11:35:00.001-06:00

Well, almost. Sixty nine and a fraction. Let's round it up to seventy.

How can that be? The first time I heard Bob Dylan he was 24 and I was 16. The last time I heard him (five minutes ago) he was 69 and I was 61. I can accept I am the age I am, but Dylan? Dylan seems like he's still 40, maybe 45 tops, and still 30 when I listen to some of his old hits.

Mick Jagger looks old. Keith Richards is old. Tom Waits looks dead. Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper are dead. Both died in an airplane crash thirty-one years ago today, on "the day the music died". They are dead, but look perpetually young.

The relationship between contemporary icons and time is a strange one. Dead icons seem young. Young icons look old. And the mirror changes each morning.

Bob Dylan sums it up.

The portrait of Bob Dylan at the top of this post was painted by Chuck Weber.
ADDED: That portrait of Dylan looks strangely like kd lang.

I'm Burned Up About How We Measure Freezing

2010-01-27T12:53:00.000-06:00

The temperature here when I woke up this morning was zero. Zero as in no degrees. The temperature tonight may be ten degrees less than zero. Ten degrees less than no degrees.

That makes no sense. It's like saying "I have one beer, so I'll drink two of them and then I'll have less than zero beers". Or "There are zero gallons of gasoline in the tank of my car, so I'll drive another thirty miles and it will have less than zero gallons."

Zero should mean zero. Zero as in none, bupkus, nada, zip or zilch. Zero as in "I have zero chance of beating Lebron James to the basket with my killer slam dunk."

Fahrenheit is a lousy way to measure most temperatures, that's the problem. When Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) figured out his temperature-measuring scale, he determined the point at which water freezes, the point at which water boils, and divided the difference between the two into 180 increments. Hence 212-32=180.

Problem is, the Fahrenheit scale doesn't match the physics of the world, hence the negative temperatures on its scale. It runs out of degrees while there are a lot of degrees remaining.

Centigrade or Celsius isn't any better. It has negative temperatures, on a different scale, just like Fahrenheit. Worse, the Celsius increments are further apart, so temperatures are fractional, as in 23.6 degrees.

Paging William John Macquorn Rankine, please pick up the courtesy phone.

Rankine had the bright idea to make zero actually equal zero. His scale sets zero °R as equal to absolute zero, or −459.67 °F. The Rankine scale increments are identical to the Fahrenheit scale. Water freezes at 492°R. It boils at 672°R. And there are no negative degrees.

See, it all makes perfect sense. And it's a balmy 480°R here as I write this.

Where's my Coppertone?

There's Something Good About Having a Favorite Bar

2010-01-23T19:45:00.002-06:00

My favorite bar is located in the woods, on the shore of a large lake. It's old, built in the 1920s by Polish immigrants, on land they bought from Charles Comiskey, owner of the Chicago White Sox and Comiskey field. It's in a log building well preserved and lovingly maintained with stone fireplaces, wood floors and a shiny wood interior. And a beautiful wooden bar with agreeable bartenders and good food.

There are no road signs, no electric arrows that tell you where it is. I learned of it years ago by word of mouth. I'm not going to tell you its name, but I may take you there when you visit.

Most of the people in the bar are local, or have owned cottages in the area long enough to be considered local. It's not a place to bring a tourist attitude. It is a place where someone my yell when you walk in the door "Hey Al, the more you come here the uglier you look!" Or maybe "I thought were dead. Maybe you are. It's hard to tell. Buy a round so I know for sure." Think Cheers, with musky and deer mounts on the walls and an up-north welcoming camaraderie.

Care for a beer? Me too. The first thing a good bar needs is good cold beer. A couple pints of Guinness, bartender.

Is anyone we know here today? Let's look around.

Yep, a few familiar faces, over there, and some new ones next to us at the bar. Two hours later and the new faces at the bar are now our new friends. And it turns out we have common friends, common interests and can marvel for a moment at how small the world seems.

Lunch was ordered and served. Bison burgers. Organic, grass-fed. No kidding. Deeelicious, with sweet potato fries.

Mmm, good.

A man walks in with his two young daughters. All are dressed for snowmobiling. The girls are excited; the dad is tiring fast.

The bartender looks at him and the dad says "A cup of coffee for me and a Miller Lite for each of the kids. Maybe they'll sleep for a while." The cup of coffee hits the table and, before the two bottles of Miller Lite the bartender holds can be opened, the mom joins the group. She looks at the bartender and smiles. "Ah, no. Just two root beers, thanks." And she grimaces at the dad for an instant before they both break out in laughter.

I wish for a fleeting moment that my kids were that age again, before slipping back into the comfortable contentment with life as it is on this afternoon in this place.

My favorite bar is a place where I can have a beer or two, a good burger; talk, laugh, and enjoy the company of others, and reflect on the goodness of life.

Where is your favorite bar?

Sunday! SUNDAY!! SUNDAY!!!!!

2010-01-18T19:55:00.000-06:00

Remember hearing those radio ads that started and ended with the announcer screaming Sunday! SUNDAY!! SUNDAY!!! I sure do.

Those ads were the staple of AM radio back in the day, when I was a teen. AM radio was what we had - FM was still in its infancy and FM stations mostly broadcast religious sermons or classical music. But AM, that's where the action, the noise, the rock and roll were.

And on AM radio, spring summer and fall, the ads for drag strips and dirt-track races seemed to be aired non-stop. Every ad had the same voice, the same excitement, the same sound, and always the same Sunday! Sunday!! Sunday!!!

I'd hear the ads in my bedroom, coming out of the tinny speaker on a Westinghouse radio (one speaker, no treble or bass controls). Sometimes I'd hear the ads blaring out of the speaker (singular) in my Dad's '61 Impala convertible (fawn beige, white top, 283, automatic) when I drove around town at night, top down, turning a 15 minute errand to pick up a bottle of milk into a 45 minute drive.

Other times I'd almost hear the ads coming out of the radio of my ratty '57 Chevy, glass pack mufflers drowning out the radio.

The ads played on WLS, the distant Chicago station that came in only at night, and were usually for the "...beautiful US 30 Drag Strip in Hobart, Indiana". Or sometimes for a dirt track race in Islip, Illinois. Or maybe a USAC midget race in sun Prairie.

When my feeble car radio couldn't pick up WLS, I'd hear similar ads on the Milwaukee rock and roll stations, WRIT, WEMP and WOKY, except they'd be for Great Lakes Dragway in Union Grove, an hour south of Milwaukee. And always, the ads would say Sunday! Sunday!! Sunday!!!

The person who created those ads was a man called Jan Gabriel. He passed away last week at age 70.

What a remarkable man. His love for life and enthusiasm for putting on a good show should be the stuff of marketing classes.

Here is an interview Mr. Gabriel did recently. It's a bit long, but mesmerizing. Watch the whole thing; there's a payoff at the end.

Somewhere in heaven the call to Sabbath prayer is starting Sunday! Sunday!! Sunday!!!

All Along The Watchtower - Which Version Is Best?

2010-01-14T19:31:00.000-06:00

"All Along the Watchtower" is a song written and recorded Bob Dylan. It initially appeared on his album John Wesley Harding, and has been covered by other artists in different genres.

Dylan recorded the song on November 6, 1967, at Columbia Studio A in Nashville, Tennessee. Dylan played acoustic guitar and harmonica, Charlie McCoy played bass guitar and Kenneth Buttrey played drums. The producer was Bob Johnston, who produced Dylan's two previous albums, Highway 61 Revisited in 1965 and Blonde on Blonde in 1966.

The session was the second of three in the recording of Dylan's ablum John Wesley Harding. "All Along the Watchtower" was done in five takes, the third and fifth of which were spliced to create the album track. As with most of the album's selections, the song is a dark, sparse work that stands in stark contrast with Dylan's previous recordings of the mid-1960s

Dylan's version is simple and timeless. Listen:

Then Jimi Hendrix performed his masterful version in 1968. Dylan said that Hendrix's version was "definitive."

A few lesser bands covered Watchtower, then Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young had at it. As much as I can't stand Neil Young, the dude can play.

The Grateful Dead made Watchtower a staple of the Dead's performances.

And so did many other bands. U2, for example.

Which cover is best? Vote at the poll in the upper right corner.

The Wait Is Killing Me

2010-01-11T20:50:00.004-06:00

I need to ride.

Riding is my heroin and I need it, bad, right now. I need to ride because my receptors need a deluge of dopamine to quell the shakes I get thinking about riding, and when I can't roll because it's winter and the roads are icy and it's near zero.

A blog friend, Trooper York, posted a thread on his blog asking where I'm going this summer. Hell, I don't know, yet. I posted back "Good trips are the smiling offspring of giddy impulsiveness...."

I'll know when I know, and go when I go.

Last night I listened to a band called Gin Blossoms. I wanted a diversion from the riding jones and didn't get one.

Turns out that their first hit included twelve-string guitar work and close harmony imitative of Roger McGuinn's brilliant playing and singing with a band called The Byrds, back in the day.

Bob Dylan wrote and The Byrds sang Ballad of Easy Rider.

Now that I've gone into a riding-deprived funk I may as well listen to another clip from Easy Rider, this one sung by Levon Helm.

Take a load off, Manny.

Spring can't come soon enough. I need to ride.

A Mid-Winter Fantasy

2010-01-06T20:25:00.000-06:00

It has been cold here of late. Not merely chilly, but cold; life threatening cold. Local temperatures have touched -10 at home and -20 a bit north at the cabin. Not unusually cold for the time of the year in these parts. What is unusual is that the cold has lingered for two weeks and looks to linger a bit longer.

On top of that, local weather forecasters (the tarot card readers of the science world) have issued a winter storm warning for tomorrow. High accumulations of powdery snow combined with blowing winds; perfect for planting a huge drift in my driveway.

My idle thoughts are of summer (just as they are of winter during summer). Lawn mowing, leafy trees, Bluegrass festivals; some of what makes summer...summer. Lawnmowers fly in my daydream, and an unseen group plays Cotton-eyed Joe.

How badly do you miss summer?

It's New Years Eve Day. What Are You Waiting For?

2009-12-31T09:05:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year everyone. Best wishes for a healthy, happy and successful 2010.

What are you waiting for? The bar is open.

Out Walking On A Winter Afternoon

2009-12-30T10:47:00.000-06:00

Cold, crisp winter air. Crunching snow underfoot. Fragrant pine and balsams. Quiet, so quiet that one hears one's own blood flowing through arteries.

Beautiful winter day.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

2009-12-23T17:32:00.000-06:00

Angel's Carol

Peace.

Twelve Days Of Christmas - Best Version Ever

2009-12-20T07:11:00.000-06:00

It's from the Kenosha, Wisconsin Police Department, and it's wonderful.

Merry Christmas everyone, and best wishes for a Happy New Year. ~Michael

Bad Christmas Decorations 4 - Mobile Festival Of Lights

2009-12-17T08:14:00.000-06:00

Nothing says Merry Christmas better than a beater pickup truck covered in festive lighting.

The owner of this truck put a portable generator in the pickup bed, then attached more than one hundred strings of lights to his truck (using duct tape, natch). He drives it around town at night, during the Christmas season, Christmas music blaring from the radio.

He has been stopped by the police many times, usually just to chat. He did get one ticket for illegal lights, but that was in the town next to the one where he lives. He says the local police are understanding, as long as he stays off of the highways. And out of the bars.

Forgetfulness - Don't Think That It Won't Happen To You

2009-12-16T10:01:00.003-06:00

Go ahead, play the video.

I can't remember whether I've always been forgetful.

Maybe I have, or maybe forgetfulness is just a part of becoming middle-aged, like some kind of partial baldness of the memory.

My car keys, glasses, gloves, cell phone, wallet and most other small possessions go missing several times each week. My wife usually recognizes the symptoms, asks what I'm looking for, and then finds the lost item in a place I've already looked. Twice.

Looking for my glasses? The last place I'd look is on top of my head. That's where they usually are. Sometimes someone will point that out to me. Other times I notice them when I walk past a mirror while looking for my glasses.

I keep three pair of glasses strategically placed around the house so I will always have a pair when I need one. Thank you, Sam's Club, for inexpensive four-packs of reading glasses. I lose them one pair at a time. When the third pair is lost I take the fourth pair from my car. The search begins when I can't find any of them. It's a safe bet that at least two pair will be on me; one pair on top of my head, the other in a shirt pocket. The worst thing is when I can't find my glasses because I need my glasses to find them.

I've left my car keys in pants sent to the dry cleaner, in the refrigerator, in a kitchen cabinet and in a tool box. I lose motorcycle keys as well. My wife carries a spare key for my motorcycle when we go riding because I have lost my key while stopping at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. I found them in a jacket pocket when we got home. I was wearing the jacket.

I'm best at losing my cell phone. It goes missing several times a week. I usually find it by picking up the home phone, dialing my cell phone and following the ringing noise to where ever I put the cell phone. Except last week.

Last week I was just pulling into the garage when my sister called. We talked while I carried in groceries, hung up my coat and took off my boots. I put the car keys on the hook in the closet (yay!), put my wallet on my bedroom dresser (yay! again) all while continuing the conversation.

Then I started to wonder where the hell I had put the cell phone. Dang it. I hoped that I hadn't left it at the grocery store or the gym. So I began the search throughout the house. My sister heard me walking around an asked what I was doing. I explained that I couldn't find my cell phone and was pissed that I had left it somewhere.

We continued our conversation while I'm searching for my phone. She seemed to be in a happy mood, lots of laughter. Helpful person that she is, she started giving me suggestions about where to look for my phone. At her suggestion and while we were talking, I looked in my car, under the bed, in my closet, in the basement, in the refrigerator, in my jacket pockets and a few other places. I became more frustrated and finally said "Sorry, I have to go. I may have to retrace the morning's route to find my cell phone." She said goodbye and we hung up. And there was my phone, in my had. It had been pressed to my ear all the while I was looking for it. Doh!

What have you forgotten?

Bad Christmas Decorations 3 - Lazy Neighbor

2009-12-15T20:36:00.000-06:00

Why bother decorating your house? All that work putting up decorations, keeping them operating in cold, snowy weather, then having to take them sown in even colder weather when the wires are all stiff and hard to coil.

Just do the easy thing and echo your neighbors hard work with a lovely and thoughtful Christmas sentiment.

Bad Christmas Decorations 2 - Poor Rudolph!

2009-12-09T11:29:00.000-06:00

Nothing says Merry Christmas than a lighted display that looks like a gutted reindeer, complete with pool of blood. This one should bring cheer to all the neighbors, and especially to their little children.

Snow Storm Blogging

2009-12-08T06:46:00.016-06:00

This winter's first major snow storm is (allegedly) on its way. The weather forecasters have been issuing dire predictions for the past 24 hours. The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning, and hinted that conditions may result in declaration of a Blizzard Warning later tonight.

I'm a skeptic.

Local television has done all the usual things when a winter storm approaches: Interview the guy who manages the salt supply for the city, show workers attaching plow blades to municipal trucks, interview hardware store managers about their supply of new snow blowers, and of course, show video of harried moms in grocery stores stocking up on frozen pizza, toilet paper and milk.

Will it happen? If the storm shows up, will it be as severe as was forecast, or just a normal winter snowfall? We do get a few walloping big snow storms here most winters. More often than not, though, the forecasts overstate the outcome.

I'm going to blog this one. Put on your mukluks, pour a shot of Jameson into your coffee and get ready for the Big One.

6:30 AM Tuesday

Storm watch blog begins. I have checked the supply of gasoline, and made sure my beloved wife remembers how to operate the snow blower. Snow has not yet began to fall. A quick check of refrigerator and cupboards shows that we have adequate provisions, although the beer inventory could be improved.

7:45 AM Tuesday

A light, powdery snow has begun to fall. Small flakes, not enough accumulation to cover the lawn. If this is the beginning of Snowmageddon, it's a pretty weak start. I am going to go to my local Ace Hardware store to find out if they sell Carhartt pajamas so I will be properly outfitted for the storm that is sure to come at bed time tonight.

11:45 AM Tuesday

No storm yet. Light snow continues to fall with very little accumulation. There is perhaps 1/2 inch of snow in my driveway. The storm was forecast to have begun by now, but it hasn't. It's taking its time getting here. The National Weather Service has just changed its forecast. The storm is now expected to begin "later this afternoon". In exchange for taking longer to get here, the storm is apparently going to stay in town a bit longer, resulting in the forecast accumulation being increased to 12 inches; blown around by 30 mph winds tomorrow.

I've been out running errands. The streets are wet, primarily because the municipality where I live heavily salts its streets before storms begin in order to prevent ice formation. Municipal trucks have been running laps around my block like they are NASCAR racers practicing for the Daytona 500. Maybe they are using the heat of their engines to melt the snow.

One of my relatives called to say he'd be available if we need any help clearing our driveway. Thanks, Donn, that was very thoughtful.

12:30 PM Tuesday

It. Isn't. Snowing. Milwaukee city officials have called a press conference for 2:00 PM today to discuss what they will do when it does snow. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has again changed the start time for Snowmageddon from "later this afternoon" to "sometime after rush hour."

2:30 PM Tuesday

Light, nearly invisible snow falling. Still not enough accumulation to cover the lawn. The forecast is changing. Snowmageddon may be heading north of the originally predicted route. The county north of where I live has a blizzard warning through midnight Wednesday. The county where I live has a heavy snow warning, now lasting overnight, where previously it lasted until the end of the day Wednesday. Sigh. I really want a blizzard. I'm Charlie Brown and the weather forecasters are Lucy holding that football.

6:30 PM Tuesday

It has started to snow. Round, hard pellets, just a bit more frozen than sleet. The wind has picked up considerably. Gusts feel like 25 to 30 mph, making the snow swirl around the house and yard. Weather radar shows the storm hitting here in the next hour. I've bought a few bottles of wine as a precaution. This doesn't feel like the start of a really good snowstorm, but the television meteorologists continue to call for 12 inches of snow with blizzard-like conditions. We'll see about that. Nice fire in the fireplace.

The snow must be falling more heavily a bit west of where I live. I'm monitoring the municipal police calls as well as the county sheriff and there are many accidents being dealt with.

8:30 PM Tuesday

The snow storm has arrived! High winds combined with a heavy, wet snow. Snow is accumulating at a rate of more than one inch per hour. The photo above was taken from my front porch, looking down the driveway and across the street at my neighbor's house. The temperature is hovering at 31 degrees; exactly the point where we get the heaviest storms. We may get thunder snow, a snow storm that includes thunder and lightening.

5:00 AM Wednesday

Twenty-six thousand people are without power in our area. Governor Doyle has declared a state of emergency for all of Wisconsin, allowing local government units to call out the National Guard if needed.

Our area is along a transition line from snow to rain. It snowed heavily for most of the night. It was a very wet, heavy snow, the kind that gives shovelers heart attacks. The snow changed to rain in the early morning hours, compacting the snow already on the ground and making it heavier. Our snow blower can barely move the show and clearing the driveway is a slow, tedious process. The weather reporters are predicting more snow this morning, with sharply falling temperatures. Everything that is now snowy will soon become icy, hence our eagerness to get the driveway cleared.

11:30 AM Wednesday

The storm is mostly over. We had about ten inches of snow, compacted by early morning freezing rain. It continues to snow lightly. The next phase is rapidly falling temperatures this afternoon, accompanied by wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour.

The local forecasters did a pretty good job. We got about what they said we would. So that's one in a row for this winter. Gotta keep an eye on them.

Bad Christmas Decorations

2009-12-07T08:18:00.000-06:00

This looks like something a New York Giants fan would put on his house.

The Best Apple Pie You've Ever Eaten

2009-12-06T20:28:00.000-06:00

I'll tell you how it's made. It takes time, good ingredients and skill to make great pie. And vodka.

Remember the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld? Near the end of the show, Kramer buddies up to the Soup Nazi and affirms "you have to suffer for the soup" as the key to the Soup Nazi's success. Well, you won't have to suffer for good pie. I'll talk you through it.

First off, start with something to drink. I'm having coffee.

We'll start by making the flakiest, best tasting crust that you have ever tasted. You'll need these ingredients:

2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1/2 cup cold lard, cut into 4 pieces*
1/4 cup cold vodka
1/4 cup cold water

*Lard is no worse for you than butter. But if you'd rather not use it, substitute an equal amount of cold vegetable shortening, or use all butter.

Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl.

The butter and lard should be kept very cold if the crust is going to turn out perfect. Take them out of the refrigerator, then cut the butter into 1/4 inch pieces, and the lard into four pieces.

Next, you'll need 1/4 cup of very cold vodka and 1/4 cup of ice water. Why vodka in a pie crust? Here's a bit of science. The vodka adds moisture, and the then alchohol cooks off making the crust flakier. And vodka doesn't aid in gluten formation while the crust is being prepared, which also makes the crust flakier.

Put 2/3 of the flour mixture in a food processor and pulse it a couple of times to mix the flour, salt and sugar. Then add the butter and lard and pulse a few times until the mixture looks something like cottage cheese curds.

Now add the remaining 1/3 of the flour mixture and pulse until all the dough is mixed into large crumbs.

Turn the mixture into a large bowl and sprinkle the vodka and water over the mixture. Then use a spatula to fold the mixture over until it becomes a ball of dough.

Work quickly because if you handle the dough too long, the heat in your hands will begin to melt the fat in the dough. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, shape them into flat rounds, about 4" in diameter, then wrap them tightly in plastic and refrigerate for about one hour.

Alright, and hour has passed, you've had a couple of beers, or taken a nap, or maybe walked the dog. Or maybe you've jumped ahead and made the filling. Who knows, do whatever works best for you.

Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees.

Take one of the wrapped rounds of dough out of the refrigerator, unwrap it, and place it on a heavily floured surface. Also flour your rolling pin so the crust won't stick to it. Roll the dough until it is about 1 inch larger than the upside-down pie dish you are using.

Good. Remove the pie dish and roll the crust around the rolling pin, then unroll it over the pie dish. Lift the dough all around the edge so it slides all the way down the side of the dish. Pierce the bottom of the dough with a fork. Then trim the excess dough off so that there is about one inch remaining beyond the dish, and put the dish back into the refrigerator for 15 minutes. It will look something like this.

Place aluminum foil or parchment paper into the pie dish and add pie weights, dried beans, pennies or whatever you use when you pre-bake a crust. I use dried black beans. Put it into a heated oven for 13 to 15 minutes.

Take it out of the oven, remove the pie weights and parchment or aluminum foil and return it to the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes. Keep an eye on it, the center of the crust should be just a light brown color, not any darker.

Remove it from the oven and let it cool. Pre-baking the bottom crust is time consuming, but it results in a much better pie, without the raw wet dough in the bottom of the dish.

And now the filling. Any kind of filling will work, use the one you like best. For an apple pie, you'll need these ingredients:

7 to 8 cups of apples, peeled, cored and sliced.

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup lemon juice

3 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

You might use fewer apples. This quantity is for a pie heaped full of apples. I use equal amounts of granny smith, fuji and jonathon apples because the mixture is very flavorful.

Mix the apples and other ingredients together in a bowl.

Then fill the cooled pie crust.

Take the other ball of dough out of the refrigerator and roll it out as above. Cover the top of the pie with the crust. Pinch the edge, and cut small openings in the crust to let steam out. Brush the crust with beaten egg, and sprinkle it with sugar.

Put the pie in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes, or until brown. I prefer a darker top crust, so I left this pie in the oven for 50 minutes.

Let it cool for at least an hour before serving. If you like warm pie, then warm a slice in a microwave.

Mmmmm. Pie. You will thank me for this recipe.

Amazon Kindle

2009-11-26T16:04:00.002-06:00

I finished reading the first book that I downloaded onto the Amazon Kindle. I didn't know whether I'd get used to reading books on the Kindle and grow to like it, or if it would become another semi-discarded electronic gizmo taking storage space somewhere.

As it turned out, I like it far more than I thought I would. In fact, I've downloaded a few more books onto the Kindle, despite having a stack of unread print books that require my attention.

Here are the pluses and minuses:

Pluses
It can store up to 1,500 books.
It is light weight.
The screen quality is excellent; it is very easy to read.
Built-in dictionary can be used by moving the cursor to a word and pushing a button.
Keyboard allows inserting comments and notes into the text of a book.
Quotes can be clipped and stored.
It can hold MP3 music for replay during reading, either through earbuds or built-in speakers.
Multiple-day battery life; rapid recharging.
Books download in one minute or less.
Downloaded books cost less than print books. I just downloaded a NYT bestseller book for $8.60. It's marked-down retail hardcover price is $19.39.
Some Kindle books are free.
Amazon has >300,000 books on Kindle.
Kindle can receive daily newspaper downloads at a reduced subscription price, including NYT, WSJ and IBD plus most major metro dailies.
Kindle can receive weekly and monthly magazine downloads at a reduced subscription price.
Documents can be sent to your Kindle for a small fee paid to Amazon.
Amazon keeps your purchases in a file for re-loading in case your Kindle is damaged or replaced.
It is easier to carry than books, magazines and newspapers.
It has a voice feature that will read a book or magazine to you.

Minuses
It's risky to read it in the bath tub - dropping it in the water is fatal.
It's pricey.
Like all electronic devices, it will one day be rendered out of date by newer versions.
Competing products from Barnes & Noble and (soon) Apple may be more to your liking.
It's hard to share books on Kindle with a friend, or sell them to a used book store.
Not all books are available in Kindle format, although Amazon claims that it's moving in that direction.
The screen is black and white only.

Amazon also offers Kindle in an iPhone and a computer format. I can't imagine trying to read a book via iPhone format, and a book on computer lacks portability and simplicity.

The Kindle is just right for most of the reading I do. It can't replace colorful magazines, cookbooks or other print material that has an art content. But for daily reading, I think it's terrific.

How Trooper York Samples Beer

2009-11-17T06:02:00.005-06:00

You all know my buddy Trooper York, don't you? No? Well, maybe you should.

His blog is always good reading; here's a link. You'll enjoy it,trust me, even though it can be a bit of an acquired taste at times, just like good booze.

Trooper York is his nom de blog. His real name is Buffy Kangaroo, or some Irish sounding name like that.

Trooper's a busy, busy man. He and his wife are proprietors of an increasingly hip women's plus-size dress shop in Brooklyn, their store provides background for Project Runway, and they design and manufacture several lines of clothing.

Here's the best part: He's an accountant who specializes in cooking the books for dive bars and Chinese restaurants in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

A recurring feature on his blog is a theme called Remembrance of Days Pabst, in which he describes alcohol-saturated client meetings, back in the days before the nannies scornfully pointed their gnarled, withered fingers at eight-beer lunches.

I've often wondered exactly how Trooper did his beer research. His descriptions of the places, times and libations are so exact, so spot-on, so perfect, that they have to be true.

In a moment of blog-jealousy, I hired Robert Marlowe to investigate. The super-secret video below was made by Marlowe, then smuggled out of Germany. The entire operation was highly covert; it was done under the guise of filming a movie called The Big Sleep.

The secret video is below. It shows Trooper York's beer tasting technique, the one that brings such a sense of real-life drinking to his blog stories.

Here's a bent elbow for you, Trooper.

EDIT: Hat tip to Chickenlittle and Amba 12 for links to video.

The Joy Of Being Home

2009-11-14T06:25:00.004-06:00

I'm back home.

Three simple words cannot sufficiently describe the feeling I had when I came home Friday afternoon. It's my home, or more accurately our home; where we belong. I missed the place.

There will be piles of books to read, a Kindle to enjoy, phone calls from well wishers, and visits from family for the next six weeks while I recover.

The surgery went very well. The cancerous part of a kidney has been removed; the remaining parts are working how they should work. I'm sore, bruised, bloated, bandaged, and treading a fine line between unconsciousness and effective pain control. The cancer was confined to one kidney.

I nap a lot, except at night, when I can't sleep a wink. That insomnia may be a hangover from hospital nights when I had to be awoken every two hours just to make sure that I had a pulse and temperature. I wore earplugs one night, to block the annoying noises of carts, conversation, and equipment in the hallway. I learned that soft-voiced nurses and a sleeping, ear-plugged patient are not a good combination, at least from the nurse's point of view.

A few nurses at the hospital and a neighbor who is a primary care MD, have volunteered their opinion that the surgeon who did the work is "masterful", without my having solicited their opinion. It's an odd thing to hear, but it sure is comforting. Masterful, big brains, steady fingers: Three traits I want in a surgeon.

It's another lucky day. A thing that felt like a kidney stone turned out to have been much worse, got fixed, and will soon become merely a story relegated to the trove of family lore; trotted out when needed at holidays, weddings and funerals.

People I know, people I only know from Twitter and Blogging, and people I'll probably never know on earth have said prayers for my well being. I cannot thank you enough. Your having done so is why I can sit in the living room and dig into that pile of books. Thank you, all of you.

For Trooper York

2009-10-27T12:29:00.002-05:00

Trooper, I saw the photo of Marilyn Monroe on your blog. Thought you might enjoy this one.

It's a painting (the original) by an artist called Chuck Weber. I saw it in a gallery window and bought it while the paint was still damp. Scroll down his page a bit and you'll find the official portrait of your current Archbishop.

It's called "An Incomplete Portrait of a Woman Who Had An Incomplete Life". The lighting in the photo is awful, and I took it with a cell phone. The painting is beautiful.

Day Trip To the Upper Peninsula

2009-10-11T09:38:00.010-05:00

Michigan's Upper Peninsula grabbed me a few years ago and hasn't let go.

Maybe it was trips to the Porcupine Mountains, or trips to visit to Sara while she was a student at Michigan Tech in Houghton, or the Lake Superior shore, or the thousands of miles of roads perfect for motorcycle exploring. Whatever the reasons, I always go back.

Saturday's trip had two missions: first, to enjoy the autumnal beauty of the place, and second, to visit two favorite shops before they closed for the winter.

It was sunny when we hit the border but then, all of a sudden, it was winter. Serious winter, with sleet, snow, hail and ice.

The winter storm photo was taken near Houghton. The driving conditions were horrible, made worse by other drivers having forgotten how to drive in winter conditions. Most were traveling at either 10 or 60 miles per hour, none in between. It was time for a break.

So we stopped for a lunch of indigenous food. And in Houghton, that means pasties. Mmmm.
There were awards on the wall of the bakery announcing that its pasties were chosen as the best in Houghton and Hancock twice in the last three years. Seems right to me; they were the best I've had, and I've been in a few pasty shops in the U.P.

I noticed an important event as we were leaving the parking lot.
My car hit the 200,000 mile mark. It's high-mileage, like I have become of late. We're both current on our maintenance. It had it's major service in August, mine will be later this month. Neither of us has any warranty left.

Back on the road, we headed to the first stop on the day's mission. The Wooden Spoon, in Mowhawk, north of Calumet in the Keweenaw Peninsula. The owner makes jams and jellies, mostly from wild fruit that he picks in the area, and an assortment of the most wonderful cookies and breads. The thimbleberry jam alone is worth the trip. We stocked up. Click here for their website. Christmas is coming!
We took of through the snow toward the west side of the Keweenaw toward our next destination. The wind picked up, gusts of 50+ miles per hour according to the WX report.
We stopped along the Lake Superior shore. To quote George Costanza "The seas were angry that day, my friend!" Okay, not the seas, but Lake Superior.
Weary of wind-blown sand abrading my eyes any longer, I hopped back in the car and took off toward the last stop of the trip.

Part way up the west side of the Keweenaw is the monastery of the Society of St. John, a congregation of monks that somehow wound up along the shore of Lake Superior in the Keweenaw.

The monks earn part of their living making jams, jellies, bread and cakes, then selling them seasonally at their store, which is called The Jampot. This is incredible stuff, made by quiet monks who must spend a great amount of their contemplative hours praying for perfect recipes and ingredients. Yowza, this is some of the best stuff on the planet! Christmas is coming....

Mission(s) accomplished, we headed back south. The snow abated, the clouds parted, and part way home we were treated to the sunny spectacle of brilliantly colored leaves dusted in powdery snow.

A beautiful day, by any measure. One for the memory book.

(You can click on any picture for a larger image)

Winter Arrives Early

2009-10-10T08:11:00.001-05:00

Winter arrived earlier than usual this year, at least in the front yard of my cottage. This morning's sunrise brought snow, the first snow of winter. Large, heavy flakes filled with moisture from the Lake Superior snow belt. The pine needles and leaves were soon covered; the ground cool enough to let the snow accumulate without immediately melting.

Some years ago, I don't know exactly when, I began to measure passing years not by a date on the calendar but by the change from warm to cold seasons. "We'll do that next summer" or "I'd better fix that before winter" replaced "July 8th" or "September 12th".

Some things still need specific dates, of course. "Are you available for dinner next Spring?" sounds dodgey. It needs a date.

This is the beginning of my 60th winter. I don't remember the first dozen or so with any clarity, except for the big snow storms that closed school and provided material for snow fort construction.

Somewhere along the timeline I started marking the seasonal changes. I still do, surprised each season by the beauty of the changes

It's time to get outside, hike into the forest, enjoy the snow, the falling lwaves and the chill wind. And then sit near the fireplace and enjoy the new year.

I Love Robots - The Dog Ball Robot

2009-10-03T18:06:00.002-05:00

An engineer built this robot in his spare time for his dog. Let's let him describe it.

I built the ball machine because I thought my dog Jerry, might like it and that it would be something fun for me to build. So after two years of on and off work, with many safety features such as IR proximity sensors to protect Jerry and my son from the machine, I finally complete.

Far from being a replacement for me, I was always right there with him enjoying his fun. And with all the troubles that I went through to build the ball machine, I still end up throwing more balls than that the machine could count! According to the computer, he played with the machine by himself only 3 times in his life.

I Love Robots - The Pancake Robot

2009-10-03T17:59:00.002-05:00

Robots are tangible proof of mankind's genius, especially engineering.

Watch this video. The first part is a bit of a manufacturer's commercial, with a pleasant British accent. The excellent part kicks in at about 1:20 into the video.

Joe Friday Talks To Roman Polanski

2009-10-02T12:36:00.002-05:00

Joe Friday Talks To Barack Obama

2009-10-01T11:35:00.002-05:00

I've been away from the blog for a few months and have decided to resume blogging.

This video is wonderful. Hope you enjoy it!

Word Verification

2009-08-13T06:49:00.002-05:00

My blog has been hit by spammers - automated commenters that leave messages directing readers to commercial sites. Spammers are a common problem on blogs.

I have added a word verification feature to my blog in order to make it more difficult, hopefully impossible, for spammers to leave automated messages. The only change that you'll notice is that you will be asked to verify a word shown on screen when you post a comment.

NY Giant QB Ely Manning Ready For The 2010 Season

2009-08-12T12:58:00.002-05:00

Las Vegas oddsmakers have picked the New York Giants as an early favorite to win the AFC and the 2010 Super Bowl.

Giants quarterback Ely Manning, above, said at a pre-season interview: "I have been workin' on some new plays during the of season, and especially working to improve the quality and variety of my passes. I have studied all the great quarterbacks and also the great baseball pitchers. I've developed a change-up pass that I think will surprise other teams. The change-up pass is remarkable. The defense will think the quarterback is throwing one way, at one speed, when he's actually throwing the other way, at a different speed. Throwing both ways should increase my scoring."

At The Cottage

2009-08-11T09:15:00.004-05:00

One dozen fresh, fragrant roses in a cottage-y vase.

A gift left by good friends when they visited.