Weekend!
You go outside with your main squeeze and are having a conversation about this or that and, mid-sentence, she asks you “what happened to the mailbox?”
You turn and you look and, sure enough, there is a lovely space where the mailbox used to be and now is not. You look around on the ground, glance under the porch, and basically spin around in front of the house looking for, jeez, looking for the dang mailbox that, seriously, was just there the other day!
So now you have to go to either the Lowe’s or the Home Depot, whichever one we aren’t still boycotting, and pick up the $40 special “just pound it into the ground with a rubber mallet because cement blocks aren’t a legal base for a mailbox according to Colorado state law, as if that’s their purview” basic model and spend the next hour installing it.
And wondering about the kids these days.
Anyway, with that behind us, I asked Maribou what we’re doing this weekend and she answered, paraphrased, “everything”. Apparently, Saturday is booked from about 8AM until 9:30PM. Which is crazy to me. Luckily, Sunday is devoted to everything we couldn’t get to on Saturday, because we were totally booked. Which means that Monday is going to be the most sane day in a few days for me.
On the upside, we won first place in the pub quiz tonight and first prize was FREE BEER FOR A WEEK!
Of course: WE’RE ALL BOOKED UP THIS WEEKEND. Also: I’m a wino.
But at least we didn’t come in 2nd again. Because that was frustrating.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Photo is “Footrace finish line, 1925” from the Seattle Municipal Archives, used under a creative commons license)
Funny, ’cause when I had to replace my mailbox, the HOA already had a preferred vendor and approved design. I called them up, they rolled over the next day, installed it, with poured concrete and were gone in an hour, taking my 75 dollar check.
Done.
As to the weekend…going to see a play…in Baltimore. It’s been moved earlier so everyone can get out of town before the curfew……Report
I was going to take my kid to see the Orioles play, in Baltimore. Got the tickets and everything. I overlooked buying plane tickets to Tampa, so now we’re aiming for two weeks from now when the O’s are back in town.Report
What I saw on television the other day made it look like it would be easy to get good seats for a game.
(No politics.)Report
One of the advantages of the cluster mailbox, is that the USPS owns it and does replace it, with perhaps a weeks delay. My sister who uses a cluster mailbox had it vandalized (the door the postal folks use to put the mail into the box on the back was jimmied,) A week later it got replaced. Combine that with the fact that the mailbox actually comes with a lock on your side as well. This is what the USPS wants to do to folks with at least door delivery, and eventually I suspect rural style mailboxes in built up areas.Report
Just a further comment, I could have been folks joyriding and taking down mailboxes with their cars. I recall this happening in Houston a couple of times. Or if there is a driveway just opposite the mailbox it could have been an accident backing out.Report
Our mailbox is on the other side of the sidewalk. Had it been next to the street, I would have assumed mailbox baseball.
As it is, the mailbox was vanished. Poof. Nowhere to be seen.
I’m assuming that whomever took it didn’t want us to just put it back.Report
Sunday we are going to go see Die Walkure. We are bringing my 14 year old son along for this one, and it will be his first opera. Hopefully it will be an enjoyable experience.Report
I was supposed to see that last night. But 6:00 PM on a Thursday? I couldn’t even GET to the place on time. (We got season tickets to the opera, but the times and dates were quite scattered. One or two premiers, Saturday nights, Sunday matinees, etc.)
So, sadly, we missed it.
My kid’s first opera was The Merry Widow (yes, it’s an operetta, I know).Report
The Wife flies out tomorrow to visit her folks in TN, so I will be driving her to the airport in the AM. After that, a week unsupervised…Report
For a person who likes wine, the beer I would suggest is Monks Cafe.*
The style is Flanders rouge (also the name of a breed of cattle), aka the sour red; related to the oud bruin,** the sour brown.
The New Belgium Framboise is a good sour red, flavored with raspberries; not sweet like a Lindeman’s (which I typically re-ferment before consumption), but as I said, soured.
Believe me, if you didn’t already know that Monks Cafe was a beer before drinking it, you would never guess. Everything about it says “Wine.”
You owe it to yourself to give it a try.
Additionally, most of those sour yeasts attenuate at 93% or better (Orval attenuates at 94%), and as a result, are very low-calorie.
* Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. While looking up some links, I found a few sites listing gran crus as sour reds, but they are a completely different style from a completely different origin.
Another lists Duchesse De Bourgogne as a sour red, to which I say that you will be disappointed if this is your first encounter with the style, perhaps even thereafter.
This guy looks like he knows his sours.
** As for the oud bruin, there are a number of them that are very good. I believe my favorite is made by Piraat. I’ll have to double-check on that.Report
Also barleywines or Belgian strong ales generally might be nice to try, depending what your pub has on hand.Report
I would say most, if not all, barleywines I’ve had are too heavy for a wine drinker.
There are some of the Belgian strong darks that I would recommend for a wine drinker, Delirium Noel among them; but that’s getting more into iffy territory.
Monks Cafe is a sure bet.Report
I guess that depends what one likes in a wine, and what one dislikes in beers. I tend to like wines with a big flavour and a fair bit of tannin, and not care much one way or another for light white wines.
Similarly like bigger beers with an above-average but not insane amount of hoppiness, and don’t care that much about arms-races for the crispest, lightest lager. So maybe there’s some correlation…Report
That’s odd. I’m just the opposite with wines.
I tend to prefer dry whites (no Riesling).
The beers I like tend to have little hop character.
I don’t drink liquor much at all, other than Scotch; Auchentoshen Three Wood. I prefer liqueurs; Grand Marnier these days, burnt out on amaretto.
I used to like amaretto before it became a coffee additive. The smell makes me retch.
I’ll eat filberts still, but won’t go near hazelnut coffee additives because of the smell.
Madeira sounds nice.Report
Maribou likes the Lambics a great deal. I might drink one with dessert, but I couldn’t see making an evening of it.
I’ll look up the Monk’s Cafe. That sounds interesting.Report
I’ve applied a bit of thought to it, and Deus is the other beer I would recommend to wine drinkers.
That was one of the two beers that I paid over $80 for a bottle, and it is something of a disappointment to this beer drinker.
I’m glad I tried it though, so I can know what it tastes like.Report
I double-checked on the oud bruin, and it is not Piraat, but Petrus.
Petrus also has a Flanders red which sounds interesting. (USA Today article here.)
I also discovered I have a Spaten dunkel on hand, which is a good beer for those liking the sweeter flavors.
Also of note:
I found out that Piraat also makes Celis White (which is something of a surprise to me), and Augustin. They also make Gulden Draak, but I seem to remember hearing that before.
For these taste buds, Piraat is their best, though they do make a dubbel I’d like to try.Report
Weird, that. Who steals a mailbox? We have a world-beating security system for our mailbox: it’s a terrible piece of junk, cheap and flimsy the day it was made and now so worn and beat up the flap falls off it and lands in the flower bed nearly every time you open it.
This weekend we have to fill out our daughter’s kindergarten application, which is considerably more complex than my university application was, though slightly simpler than my honours thesis ended up being. Then Sunday or Monday (TBD) Fledermaus heads out of town for a month work residency, doing the costumes for a production of the Wizard of Oz, and taking kiddo for most of the stay. So it’ll be quiet around here for a while.
Also, Fledermaus will go to the advance polls at some point, as she’ll be out of town on the actual election day on Tuesday. This could be an interesting one – it looks like we might actually get a change of provincial government for the first time in 44 years, here in the land that representative democracy forgot.Report
“Who steals a mailbox????” was a frequently uttered sentence around our this this week, for sure. I mean, not just a mailbox, but a 13 year old mailbox…Report
Sadly, some folks are losers that will steal anything.Report
Tickets for the Giants tonight. Sunday is a TV marathon: Warriors-Grizzlies, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones.Report
Horribly sloppy game on both sides (wild pitches, passed balls, misplayed grounders, terrible throws), but the Giants won in the bottom of the 9th, so it all worked out.Report
Maybe I’m weird like this, but sometimes I find the horribly sloppy games more fun to watch.
You can never tell what’s going to happen next.
Every pitch is a cliff-hanger, because the guy might well toss it into the backstop (or better yet, peen the umpire), and next thing you know two runs walk right in. Good stuff.Report
There was a pitch that went right through the catcher and got the home plate umpire on the kneecap. He was down in great pain for what seemed like minutes before he got up and was able to finish the game. It allowed a runner to go from first to second, but he stopped there.Report
I like sweet wine, so I tend to recommend sweet beers — try doppelboks, or some of the dark porters.
(Edmund Fitzgerald’s the traditional “writers’ beer”).
Interestingly enough, the “enjoys sweet” preference gets me tarred as a “person of no taste” wrt wine, but someone of “sophisticated taste” when it comes to beer.Report
I would call Edmund Fitzgerald a stout, regardless of what the label says.
But there is a lot of that ambiguity of style between porters & stouts.
To me, they are very distinct. Porter is all about the black malt (except for the brown porter, the British version, which uses chocolate malt rather than black), while a stout is all about roast barley.
Porter originated from a drink known as “three threads” (a mixture of three styles of beer done right at the bar) which was popular in the London area in the 18th cent. The idea was to brew three threads into one beer.
Stout came somewhat later.
As for doppelbock, I note two distinct sub-types: the sweeter Paulaner type (which is the original doppelbock brought to Germany by Franciscan monks from northern Italy), and the spicier Celebrator type.
I think you would like Scotch ales.
I would recommend a McEwan’s.
I’m not really that impressed with Old Engine Oil, and some of the other Scotch ales the brew crowd is all gaga about.
Schlafly also makes a really good Scotch ale, but I doubt you can get it there.Report
Wasn’t stout enough when the gales of November came early.Report
Gaels prematurely ejaculating mid-Autumn notwithstanding.Report
For a Scotch (or Scottish, never sure which is preferred) ale Great Lakes’ Highlander cannot be topped.Report
I infinitely prefer the malty beers to the hoppy ones.
The other night, my co-conspirators ordered a coffee stout that was aged in a whiskey barrel and they made the “foreign candy face” when they sipped it but, goodness, it tasted like bread to me.Report
I like my beers on the malty side to. Its why I’m very fond of the Belgium and German beer families. Sour beers are another tasty treat.Report
I wonder where I fall on this distribution. I hate the hops wars of the craft brewing movement, but I like my beers to have a bit of bitterness. I just realized that I don’t like English beers much because they tend to have an almost no bitterness. Are English beers malty?
I like German lagers and pilsners, Belgiun blondes and browns, and American browns and ambers.Report
I’m a blonde and amber fan mostly, myself. Ales and lagers. Belgium all day.Report
Hops beer is like eating a dang flower.Report
Agreed. I like ’em sweet and complex.Report
That’s one of the biggest problems I have with most of the beer geeks.
In the parlance, the bulk of them are “hop heads.”
I prefer a “malt forward” beer.
Although I have taken a liking to British hops; more floral, no citrus or pine.
There are only two IPA’s I’ve had that Iliked: McEwan’s IPA, because it is hopped at a rate just under a normal beer, and Rush River’s Bubblejack, which is definitely an IPA.
Although I’m not certain of this, I’m pretty sure that Bubblejack uses first wort hopping and/or flame-out additions.
Baltic porters are my thing. I also like bitters.Report
Old Rasputin. Betcha you’ll like it. An English Ale the Russians love.Report
OR is an imperial stout, which is higher gravity than a foreign stout.
Not the type of thing I would see a wine drinker sipping.Report
@j-r : I like German lagers and pilsners, Belgiun blondes and browns, and American browns and ambers.
That’s a lot of territory there.
And since I’ll take advantage of almost any opportunity to talk about beer, here goes:
The German hops are distinct because these are most of the noble varieties, which means a low beta acid to alpha acid ratio. There are other hop oils that follow the presence of those acids, so it’s not all about the type of acid.
That said, there is a lot of difference in varieties of noble hops. Spalt has Budweiser all over it, and I can’t stand that hop. Sam Adams uses almost exclusively Hallertau (the Mittelfruh cultivar, I believe). For me, Tettnang is my favorite noble hop, and it is good with all additions.
Northern Brewer is a German-style hop, though it is actually of British origin. This is the only hop used in Anchor Steam, if you want to find out what it tastes like (hint: evergreen).
The British beers are hopped at a lower rate– almost half of that of American beers. An English barleywine, by style, will have roughly half the bittering units as an American barleywine. An English pale ale will have roughly half the bittering of an American pale ale. The English styles tend to be a bit darker as well.
“German lagers” covers a lot of territory, because most of their beers are lagered. The lager yeast (Sacchyromyces carlsbergensis) actually comes from a gene mutation; an adaptation to colder temperatures. (The Saison Dupont Vielle Provision is another notable gene mutation in yeast, that one from a red wine yeast.)
I always thought I hated pilsners until I had August Schell’s. That’s a good pilsner.
The Czech pilsners are more like an IPA, and I can’t drink them. Dortmunder export is similar in taste, though closer to the IPA in origin.
Kolsch is a good, easy-drinking beer. I like the Schlafly kolsch, one of my favorite summer beers.
The Sam Adams Oktoberfest is a good beer at a good price. There are better examples, but the increase in quality typically doesn’t justify the increase in expense.
The FK hefe is a classic.
Schlafly also makes one of the better schwatzbiers around. It’s probably out of your way to get, but worth finding a shipper.
Not too impressed with the commercial altbiers I’ve had, though I’ve had some from the homebrew crowd (including my own) that are pretty good.
There are several good bocks out there, and Leinenkugel’s is the best domestic example I’ve seen.
Of course, both the Salvator and the Celebrator are classic doppelbocks. I go back and forth as to which is my favorite, but these days it’s Celebrator.
One other item of note:
A Berliner weisse is the perfect diet beer.
I was about to go off on an exposition of Belgian beers before moving on to English ones, but the comment is already a bit long.
Short answer:
Yes, there are an awful lot of really good English beers out there. They do tend to have a low hop character, but the type of hop is very different; more floral (American hops are mostly citrus).
I don’t care for British porter (it is “brown porter” rather than “robust porter”), but I do like ESB’s. If you want a good one, move past the Fuller’s, because it’s a London-style ESB. Adnam’s makes a couple of good ESB’s, as does Courage.
The English pale ales are worth a try. The Whitbread’s has a very prominent and distinctive yeast character.
A good bitter is worth getting your hands on. Bluebird is a good one; again, Adnam’s makes a few, and there are several others.
Cheers!Report
I’m by no means an expert on English beers, but I’ve seen a thousand movies where an Englishman goes into a pub and orders a pint of bitter. Is English bitter not bitter?Report
A bitter isn’t very bitter at all.
They run about 4.6% ABV, right between a premium American lager and a light beer.
An ESB (extra strong bitter) runs about 5.2% ABV.
They are a bit darker in color, which typically comes from crystal malt– good stuff.
Like most European beers, except for the German ones, they almost always have added sugar, for “digestibility” (i.e., less beer farts). A good bitter typically has corn in it (what makes Moosehead taste different from American beers), and also flaked barley.
But very little bitterness, more of a lingering sweetness. The British really aren’t into the crisp finish thing.Report
I think an “ordinary bitter” is even lighter, around 3-4% ABV. Anyway, that’s what I shoot for when I brew what I call a “bitter.” And, like you say, just enough bitterness to not be over-sweet, but not a notably bitter taste.Report
Watched Age of Ultron last evening. It’s fun, even if it over-full and does’t do justice to some of the characters (particularly Black Widow). Has a good villain, good action sequences, and some good character interactions. A worthwhile movie, but not as good as Avengers.Report
@katherinemw
I saw it last weekend, I thought it was a lot of fun, I particularly liked Spader as Ultron.Report
Trying to remember where you are. New Zealand? I thought it wasn’t released in North America until yesterday.
Ultron was great, especially the way you could see how much of his personality was similar to Tony’s (snark, cultural references, arrogance).Report
@katherinemw
Yes I am in New Zealand. Us and Australia got it a week early for some reason.Report
I’m gonna see it this evening and I’m looking forward to it. I don’t require it to be as good as the first one, I’m not sure that’s even possible now that there’s so much hype and expectations.Report
I am probably going to the Alameda Flea Market on Sunday Market.
Sunday night is my highlight this weekend because I get to see these lovely ladies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLwD1to3dZUReport
I’m going out Salsa dancing tonight. On Saturday the subway connecting me to Manhattan is being worked on so I think I’m going to stay in and maybe watch a movie. Sunday, Wolf Hall is on television.Report
Agonizing over completed and impending job interviews.
I’ll be working my second job on Saturday, and Sunday I’ll be visiting my mother and amending my divorce papers. Tod bad because the weather is going to be amazing this weekend.
Being a grown up isn’t what I had imagined.Report
Good luck on the job interviews!!
I personally imagined my life would be more like Singles because I watched that as a very impressionable 12 year old.Report
Thank you 🙂
Apparently I knocked it out of the park at the interview yesterday. Now I’m worried they’ll offer me the job. Moving 3,000 miles away just for a job? That’s just silly.
The other option is becoming a certified independent consultant in Washington state. I don’t care for this idea as much as helping people become eligible for services, but at least I wouldn’t have to leave Oregon for it. And it pays more.
Choices choicesReport
Good luck with the job thing.
I still can’t imagine myself as a grownup. Whenever I look in the mirror, I wonder “who the hell is that?” for a brief second.Report
I look exactly like I did ten years ago. Lets hope I can still say that when I’m 50. 😉Report
So I got my new smartphone on Friday (there was some doubt, because it was going through Baltimore and FedEx informed me due to “local circumstances” mail going through Baltimore was being delayed. They ended up rerouting it through Dulles and Hagerstown, though.
I have forgotten how long it takes me to set up this thing. Despite import-export functionality, it’s 100,000 little things that I do. Going through app by app and setting things how I need them (or importing, when possible).
It literally takes me less time to set up a desktop.Report
Re: Beer and stuff. It’s my completely unbiased and totally objective opinion that the English make better beer than the Germans (“Two world wars and one World Cup…and oh yeah our beer is better”)(no politics). I was stationed in England for two years and I spent four months in Fairford, Gloucestershire, where I discovered what I still consider my most favorite beer ever: Arkell’s 3B (it’s on this page: http://www.arkells.com/our-beer.html).Report