Bier en modder

It’s not often I do this, but today’s NY Times had some fantastic stuff in it.  Kind of the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly-type of stuff.

First the Good:

Without question, I cannot believe that this hasn’t been pointed out to me before.

Bacon!

2 pounds of sausage wrapped by 2 pounds of interlaced bacon.  Be still my beating heart!!!

I’ve done some relatively over-the-top stuff with pork products over the years:  I grind and stuff my own sausage from time to time, have a bacon fat and lard “bank” in the fridge, and most recently deep-fried Scotch Eggs.  But this…this…I’m speechless.

Then the Bad:

8 babies?  8?  Really?

And lastly…the Ugly:

I’m a public employee.  There are certainly pros and cons to working private versus public.  I’ve tried both and seem to be happier and do better work on the public side.  So many (ok, all) of the perks and bonuses that come along with private work are, frankly, foreign to me.

However, given these times, the public sector is looking pretty good.  I’m certainly not having the issues that private employees do.

Taking this a step further, while no job sector has gone untouched (even certain parts of public, like development-related services), the financial section has particularly taken it raw.  A support group has popped up in NYC, not for the workers…but for their girlfriends who no longer are living the lifestyle they used to.  This article is a pretty decent and slightly funny (in a sad way) read.

Nothing earth-shattering here.  Indoor rides are humming along.  Hour here.  Couple hours there.  It all adds up.  I’m keeping things in the 6-8 hours a week range right now.  That’ll last until mid February when I get back from Hawaii.  Doesn’t seem to make a ton of sense to start increasing time or intensity when I’m going to be taking a full week off.  I’ll also order the new MTB when I get back too.  Exciting.

In the meantime, I’ve been riding some, brewing some, and trying to chase down some of those mildly irritating household fix-its that have been coming up.  First, an electrical line got a short circuit somewhere during the big that we had in late Dec. after the snowstorm.  It’s an outdoor/basement line.  I’ve chased it down to either the outside walkway lights or the outside outlet.  Haven’t taken it any further than that.  Next, a hose in the hot tub spring a leak.  That took a little time to get a new hose and replace it.  There’s others but I must be mentally blocking them right now.

Got a couple brews in the works right now.  One was a double alt I made around x-mas.  Looks like the yeast pooped out and it failed to finish fermenting.  I’ve gon through various phases with it; begging, pleading, bribing, cursing – but it still won’t finish.  Threw in some champaigne yeast but that hardly budged it.  Right now, it’s in the basement in a 10 gal. keg just sitting there.  I should try to pick up a bunch of yeast from Hopworks to finish it out.  If that doesn’t work, then there’s not much more I can do.  Drink it I guess, but I’m not a fan of sweeter beers.  The second beer I just made Sunday, an ESB, turned out good.  It’s in the basement too, bubbling away.

Have I mentioned that a week in Hawaii is just 12 days away.  I can almost taste the rum punch already.  A second trip this year, possibly to Disneyworld (whatever the FL one is), is being worked out with my side of the family for late August.  Still hammering out the details with the rest of my family.

OK, 2 quick movie reviews. Continue Reading »

Not a ton of posting lately.  A mix of ‘I’m too busy’ and ‘I have nothing going on’.  The 2008-9 Holiday Cocktail Season is over.  I’d like to say that with the snow days, it went exceptionally well.  Moving on though…

I’m hearing and reading of others who are hitting the trainers right around now.  For me at least, I’m in the pre-base or early base or whatever you want to call it where you just ride for a while with a couple intervals of moderate effort.  Nothing big.  Enough to break a sweat but not enough to feel it hours or days later.

Most of the shorter efforts I’ll just pop in a spinervals and go with it.  For the longer ones, I need something different.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Coach Troy, but a hour’s my limit.  Anything over an hour needs a movie or something like that.

So what makes a good movie to ride to?  An action flick is good, sci-fi would be a close second.  With noisy trainers, something with limited amounts of down-time or soft dialog.  A relatively obvious plot would help.  Basically, I’d like to not think about the fact that I’m on a trainer but I don’t want to get too lost or else I’ll end up soft-pedaling.

So here is the inaugural trainer movie review….

Continue Reading »