Second Gen (2003-2016, 2016- )
Previous celebrations: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. The snow lays about in dirty lumps congesting into ice before it melts. Baseball is close now. SO close I can watch spring games on the iPhone. 450 onion seeds have sprouted in my basement. Under a grow lamp. One sole celeriac has sprouted, too. Hope lives in my edible basement grow op.
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Baltimore has given me a very good argument for its place as a beer destination and no other spot has made the case as clearly as Max’s Taphouse. We stopped in with the kids after taking the tour of Fort McHenry and crossing back across the harbor all by water taxi. The Fells Point area is a bit like the old port of Portland, Maine with the neighbourhood bars, funky shops and interesting restaurants. Max’s sits in the middle of it. I had a cask Red Sky saison from Clipper City as well as the recently released Union Duckpin Pale Ale.
Liked them both. The bar service meant a chat with the tender was in order and, like most sentences he hears all day, it was mainly about the stock – cask, taps, bottles and even stored un-chilled beer. He also explained that they did off license sales in Maryland as well as growler sales. If I wanted one of the special beers to take away, they just needed a few minutes for someone to go retrieve it from storage. The free state indeed.
But it’s not just this one bar. You go into most any bar and there are local beers on tap. Every few blocks in the center of town seems to have a reputable bar. We were at Joe Squared pizza for supper and there were a row of Duclaw taps. I had their double IPA as well as a blonde. Both very tasty and, at five bucks a shaker glass, not overly priced. Max’s was pretty reasonably priced as well now that I think of it.
We are already planning to come back and explore the city a bit more deeply. Sure, you will get the “you watched The Wire, right” line from half the people you tell you are heading to Baltimore but for a good beer holiday with family and kids, the Inner Harbor can’t be beat. Next time, the Orioles will be in town, too.
It has been a late spring, hasn’t it? I put out the squash and tomatoes this week but only half of them… maybe less. You never know if it is going to be in the 70s or the 30s this week. But I think that is over. We have the best dandelions on the block. Always do. Has something to do with the push mower I think. Not sufficiently black hole like in its capacities. But I do not apologize. I am not like Mitt in that respect. Unlike our stumping skills where we are one. This weekend may be dedicated to whipper snipping.
♦ Good for my old home Kings and good for us all that the selling of citizenships on PEI will now be properly investigated.
♦ Is this bad or good? I would have to know what the other applicants asked for. Who got bumped. But at the Federal level we never learn these things.
♦ Sloppiness. That is what I say about a lot of things, too.
♦ A great depression has fallen upon Red Sox nation. Why. Apparently they have decided to continue to suck. Time for the mega trade that should have happened last February.
Is that all there is? For a tra-la it’s May Friday do you really need more?
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We were fooled. Warm has been replaced by cold. Next week there is a risk of frost. Fortunately, we did not go too far down the road of planting. The peas are just taking their first peak above soil and the blue hubbard squash has been transplanted into pots that can be brought inside. Seeing as I have not even done the taxes, this is good timing. The Arkansas leeks and Cherokee Purple tomatoes seeds were only planted in the trays yesterday waiting down in the basement to decide when it is time to sprout. Very early days.
Lots of time for digging, however. Me and the lad were out this morning digging out a root ball of an ex-shrub. It took secateurs, shovels and an axe but the score ended up Nature 0 Mankind 1. I appear to be at the one shrub stage of life. Whacking away at the damn thing did not exactly set stars spinning about my head but a second might have. I wonder at what point the gardening shifts from telling me how out of shape I am and move on to letting me know the effort is worth it.
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Friday was a bit of a write off. I couldn’t get bullety. I was over in northern NY to see Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner at a charity dinner. A fun night of watching and talking ball and watching and talking about NNY. Then Saturday came and went. I was busy with errands, baking bread… and then not busy laying around. I watched 7 episodes of Doctor who from the early 70s and late 80s. I am not sure what this sort of weekend leads to. The Super Bowl of course. And seed catalogs. February is the New Brunswick of months, a stretch to get through.
♦ I think I find it more odd that most ancient writings passed down to us are not more like this.
♦ Hockey boycott? I never heard of a hockey boycott over the game being too rough.
♦ I remember the Spicer Commission because I was there.
♦ While I am not one of those who believes there is an anti-booze conspiracy, it does seem like this sort of article depends much on magical thinking, great pains being taking to make a rational point where benefit is harmoniously maximized.
♦ Big talk comes easy with low levels of responsibility. Like Ottawa leads the attack on the Iranian tyrant. But it would be kinda weird if we did.
There you go. Another week and another February. Think I will go for a walk. Feels like March out there.
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Will February be as soft as January? I make these observations thinking one day I will maybe go back and check how bad each winter has been year after year. But I don’t. These things just languish. Like so many dreams. Contemplating leaving other things aside first, however. The cable TV and direct line telephone are under the budget department’s eye. When we had the power outage the other day the land line failed us due to the electrified base the wireless phone depends upon. Why not just have another iPhone for about the same price? At least cable TV brings me 7 months of baseball.
♦ Quite right. Use of a martini glass does not make for a martini. Your government store in action.
♦ “As usual, the Flea is right: “I don’t expect I will be back to H+M any time soon. If you work in a “creative industry”, or hold any sort of intellectual property in any medium, I suggest you don’t either.”
♦ Neato. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) shaking hands during his lifetime with both John Quincy Adams, born 1767, and John F Kennedy who died 1963.
♦ As we have fun watching the GOP Super PACs lead to the GOP eating itself, consider, too, the guilt of the Tea Partiers whose great-granddad didn’t fill out the right paper work.
♦ Now I know why my Mother was enthroned as the Brisbane Queen in 1949.
So, there you go. I have to make this something more than an eight day commitment. But there is beer blogging to do, you know. Lots of beer blogging.
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What a funny season. Thaws, rains, freezes, winds, blackouts and snow with thunder. Reminds me more of the east cost than the center of the continent. OK, the eastern edge of the center. The debates go on for the GOP. Seems like every candidate is a bit sketchy but each distinctly so. Newt said that the media made it harder to attract good people to public office. Is the contest proving the point? Romney is still the most interesting character as his life has been so complex and alt. Mormonism, corporate savior and undertaker, the last man to buy Brylcreem.
♦ Loners and geeks outraged at outrageous slur against their lifestyle.
♦ I am pretty sure I met this man at college but had no idea that he had a life so well spent.
♦ I love the Soviet style use of anti-hero in this article.
♦ It boggles my mind that Ontario pays HST / GST to Ottawa and Alberta does not. Looks like 1 billion or so too much into the Federation. Can we get a rebate?
♦ Andrew Coyne really is a simplistic thick numbskull sometimes. Rather than discriminating all that is needed is an oath of office that manages the loyalty aspect. No need to create a huge class of second class citizens. But thanks for suggesting it.
♦ Framing one’s politics as conservative and being in favour of marriage is in direct opposition to swinger life style. Choose one or the other and stand by your decisions. But don’t pretend it’s not a core question of integrity.
There. Was this a big week? Who knows? Maybe next week will be really big. Or is that something we’d like, err, just to avoid.
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Is there nothing as fraught as a Canadian of any political stripe claiming that we are being manipulated by the United States?
The ammunition for Ottawa’s broadside against the pipeline’s opponents is drawn in part from the work of a relatively little-known blogger from North Vancouver. In the last 15 months, independent blogger and single mother Vivian Krause has become a one-person clearinghouse on how U.S. money is helping finance Canadian environmental activism. Ms. Krause has used her “Fair Questions” blog to document the money trail behind what she calls the “U.S.-funded campaign against Canadian oil” – research that’s been used by defenders of the oil sands, including the lobby group Ethical Oil, to blunt criticism of the tarry resource.
While “ethical oil” is one of the silliest ideas going it’s obviously not as bad as the blood diamonds or blood chocolate of some other energy sources. Yet it sure isn’t so pure as to deserve the label ethical. Let’s just call it “relatively a lot better” oil. That being the case, there is a valid political debate over whether methods of extraction or delivery or price or any number of other things are as good as they might be.
There is a parallel debate going on near here in central New York about another method of extraction, hydro fracking. And there is debate. That is a good thing. But that might be only be a good thing in America. Because, according to the story, folks would “like to see the Gateway pipeline succeed, but after decisions made by Canadians alone.” That’s asbestos logic. There’s money in outsourcing so don’t ask those who have to take on the associated issues. Especially Americans. Because we are generally so dislocated from them, separated. Aren’t we. Makes sense.
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Why do we moan about another birthday but not New Years? Consider the alternative. It’s me and the cat this week and I have been inordinately busy. The electrician has been in. The stash now has a light switch thanks to the electricians coming in on Wednesday. One wall has one coat of light sandy old paper sort of colour instead.of a grey plummy tone that looked like great auntie’s lipstick. I changed the furnace filter. I bought a toilet flap. I need to watch it. Handy is not a word associated with me.
♦ Paying a consultant to edit wikipedia to remove bad things people say is a bad business strategy.
♦ These new stats lead me to ask… what if Mr. Harper is not the economic wizz he admits he is?
♦ “…she’s upright…”
♦ What did you learn from Iowa? Can you even name the states that border Iowa?
♦ My in-laws are looking much better all of a sudden.
There. Caught up with the week. Tonight I strike a greater blow against plummy lipsticked walls. Viva! Viva!!!
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