Road Food

After taking care of business getting the new Florida homestead underway it was time for me to hop on a plan and head for home. This of course sounds far more simple than it really is! Here's the story:
It was an early rise, about 5:30AM so I could get a shower and a couple of cups of coffee in before I hit the road. I said my goodbyes and thank yous to Mr. and Mrs. FC (awfully nice of them to get up that early on a Sunday to see me off!), and then toss my bags in the car and head for the airport.

Tampa is about 3-3.5hrs drive if you stay on hwy-19 all the way or about 2-2.5hrs if you hop on to the Sun Coast Parkway (approx. $5.00 in tolls). I opted for the parkway and set off with the top down. About 1/2 way there I see the clouds building and darkening, but I was almost there so I powered through and only got hit with a few sprinkles before I reached the airport rent-a-car return. At that point it starts lightening, thundering, and raining.

I make it through security and get to my gate only to find that the flight will be delayed because of the storm that has settled in, but it is supposed to move off in a few minutes. The storm does finally move out and we end up only being about 30min late for take off. (Don't worry I'll get to the food part of this post in a minute)

We actually made up time in the air and land in Chicago only about 5 minutes behind schedule, which didn't matter to me because I now had 3 hours to make my next flight. I have to add that I absolutely hate O'Hare airport because as usual I land at one end of the airport and my next flight is at the other end! On top of this the gate for the next flight will change at least 3 times before the departure time, so I never know where to actually settle in for the layover, other than in front of the departure listings monitor!

(OK here comes the part about the food!)

So while I'm passing the time I find a Goose Island Brewery kiosk and plop my butt down in a chair to sample a Honker's Ale, Mmm tasty! Feeling a bit hungry and realizing where I was I opted for a local Chicago delicacy: The famous Chicago Dog. This is a huge beef hot dog that is smothered in onions, relish, tomatoes, mustard, little hot peppers, and a dill pickle!

Check this thing out (pictured with a Honker's Ale and bag of salt & pepper kettle chips for a completely nutritious meal, and the good thing is that they have a loan officer available so you can take out a second mortgage to afford this scrumptious feast!

So finally the time comes to head for the gate (which of course had changed again to the other end of the concourse). The arriving flight has just cleared the aircraft and they announce that they will begin boarding the flight for Calgary, Canada!? Yes, that's right they have four different flights scheduled to leave this same gate within about 15 minutes of each other. Here comes the entertainment, after boarding the 1st class passengers they announce that there's been a mistake and the plane is actually the one heading to Cincinnati, Ohio. So they get all the passengers that had climbed aboard back off, get us on and we are on our way. About an hour later we land and I'm back home once again!

In about 2 weeks I'll have to repeat the trip to meet with the General Contractor and Excavator once again after having the under brush cleared from the interior of the property. I think I'll try to get a route that takes me somewhere (ANYWHERE), but through Chicago!

Did the Earth Move?

No not this time, just the plants!

I'm down here at the PFHQ for a couple of days while taking care of some of the details to get the Wise Acre homestead moving forward, and yesterday FC and I were able to see a demonstration of a new implement of doom for unwanted jungle thicket.

I'm not sure what it's called, but this thing can rip through the brush faster than I can snap a picture, grind it into mulch, and leave the ground virtually untouched!
Then it mulches what it cuts









They plan to use it on our little piece of heaven because it is so precise that you only take out the jungle life you want to and no trees get damaged in the process. This leave it to the tree plucker to come in and grab the specific trees that have to come out.

Sort of like land clearing surgery instead of mass destruction!

This morning it was an early rise to head back out to the property to go over plans with the tree remover dude and the builder guy. This should get things started and get us closer to being here!

Oh, Check out the rental ride I snagged to get from the airport to here!
The top opens up with a bit of James Bond flare! ;-)

Pretty sweet huh?










Next time it's going to be a truck of some sort so I (with the help of FC) can haul tools reset posts, cables, keep out signs, etc. after the brush clearing.

So now the project starts!

Help From a Friend

A couple of weeks ago we received a phone call from one of our soon to be neighbors. She informed us that someone just drove up on our new property with a 4-wheeler and dumped off a bunch of deer carcases!
This was a bit disturbing, as you can imagine, but it was at least comforting to know that a soon to be neighbor took noticed that something wasn't right and took the trouble to contact our realtor to get our number and give us a call. This was after she had already alerted the local law enforcement! The next time I'm down there I'll make sure I stop by and thank her for taking the trouble and formally introduce myself.
Anyhow, the older section of land already had a fence on the road front side and I had strung up a chain and keep out sign, but the new property had an uninterrupted access which is where the perpetrator struck. I say had because a good friend of ours helped us out by placing fence posts with a cable across the entrance to impede this type of activity in the future!

Check out the professional job!












Thanks FC, I'll pay you back this weekend! ;-)

Prepping for Bike Week?

Last night was "Bike Night" at the local Quaker Steak and Lube restaurant. We met up with a few friends, thinking there would be a few bikes show up, and were amazed at the sight!

When we arrived there were already about 10-15 bikes in the lot, and we were able to get a seat. As we sat bikes continued to roll in one after the other for the next couple of hours. At the peak we estimated between 700-800 bikes!



A few views of the lot about 30 minutes after we arrived


Custom pipes












There was a live band and everyone seemed to behave themselves despite the flashing of several colors from some of the local riding clubs!
It was a little interesting maneuvering through the traffic and obstacle course of randomly scattered parked motorcycles when we went to leave, but I just look at it as practice for Daytona Bike Week.
What do you think Lightnin, maybe next March?

The Indiana Brewers Cup

This past weekend I had the privilege of being a judge in the prestigious Indiana Brewers Cup beer competition. Its the contest for the Indiana state fair and its open to both home brewers and professional breweries!
When I signed in at the registration desk on Friday evening I find that I'm assigned to judge Belgian Strong Ales; "Awesome" I say to myself, or at least I think I did! We had 10 beers in our round and most of them were good, but one stood out above the rest. It was a Belgian Strong Golden Ale and was as close to Duvel as you can get without being there! ;-)

I asked the photographer if he minded taking a few "action" shots while we were judging and he agreed. The following is the pictorial representation of the beer judging process:

Pouring the beer

Smelling the beer

Looking at the beer

Scoring and writing down notes

Tasting the beer

More scoring and notes


That pretty much sums it up. Yep it's a tough job, but somebodies got to do it! ;-)


We had to drive through a thunderstorm the entire way home, and at one point I thought I saw Dorothy and Toto fly by, oh sorry we're not in Kansas anymore!

Rabbit Hash Kentucky

Rabbit Hash, Kentucky is a tiny little town that sits along the Ohio River straight across from Rising Sun, Indiana. It's off of the back roads so it makes a nice place to ride the bikes to, and that's just what we did this past Friday. The weather was perfect sunny with temperature in the low 80's F. it made for a nice ride and we went from there over to Penn Town, Indiana to stop at "The Old Brick" for some of the world's best chicken (sorry no pictures of the chicken this time, but you can visit some of my old posts to see that)!

Green leaves and blue skies! Hey I recognize that bike in the lower left corner.

It's not exactly a secret to the motorcycle riding community.


Some weekends they have crafts for sale and the craftsmen working their various arts for you to see, so it's a nice place to visit when the weather cooperates!

One Mean Bike!

We've been pretty regular customers at the bikini bike wash and when we went up there the other day there was a custom drag bike parked out front. The owner did all the work on this thing himself.

Personally I wouldn't want this to ride, but it is pretty nice to look at!

The tag says it all!



If it's a nice day tomorrow Lightnin and I are planning to celebrate a day of freedom, provided by our ancestors whooping up on the British, by taking our bike out on a ride!

Lightnin and Thunder on the Radio

This past weekend one of the local radio stations broadcast live from one of our local hang-outs "The Dew Drop Inn" in Blue Jay, Ohio! Lightnin and I were there and ended up playing one of their games of asking embarrassing questions of the radio announcers. The questions were of course already prepared by one of the other announcers, but for playing along we each won a pair of tickets to the upcoming Aerosmith and ZZ Top concert!

Here we are posing with "Bob the Producer" one of the WEBN radio personalities present at "The Dew"



As it turns out this is also a wonderful birthday present to me as I have just today completed my 51st trip around the sun!

Summertime!

This year was a bit unusual here in the northeastern US river region of Cincinnati because we actually had a springtime! I've written before about the typical weekend going from winter to summer in one or two days, but this year we have actually had nearly 2 months of spring like weather. That's over now though and the temperatures are on the steady climb into the 90's F (that's 30's C for all my expat/non-American friends!).
So what do you do to stay cool in the summer heat?
Well the advice I call on comes from one of the fathers of the home brewing craze Charlie Papazian who said, and I quote: "Relax and have a home brew!"

So that's what I recommend!

This was a red ale that I brewed with friends and then shared with friends. I can't think of a much better way to spend a hot summer day!

Here's a couple of beers to come! I'm teaching my friends how to brew and these are a couple of theirs that we are planning to rack over this weekend!

They should be ready to serve in a couple of weeks, but of course we have to taste them when we rack 'em just to check their progress! ;-)

Father's Day! (Now with Photos!)

Yesterday was a beautiful day and Lightnin and I set out on the bike early in the morning, well OK about 8:30-9:00AM. We headed up to Lima, OH to visit some old friends and stopped at probably the best cheese burger place in Ohio, the Kewpie, and scarfed down a double cheese burger each. After that it was hop back on the bike and head for home! We put a little over 300 miles on the hog before we were done, and we're both feeling those miles today, but I'm smiling!

Visiting with my friends Harold (center) and Scott (Right), it was good to see them again!

A welcome sight after a long ride! This is Tina a bartender at one of our local hangouts. Lightnin and I stopped by to say "hey" as we got back home.

I hope all you fathers out there had a Happy Father's Day yesterday too!

This Is What Saturdays Are For!

I usually try to stay on top of the weather report, even though they are not very reliable, so that I can see if Saturday is going to be a good day to goof off or not.
If it turns out that luck is in our favor we will usually hop in the "rag top" or hop on the "hog" and cruise around the back roads taking in the scenery!

Of course you have to start off with a clean machine and it just so happens that one of our local hangouts has started up a new service that helps us out! Just take a look:

What better way to get your bike clean?



My buddy STEB had to work, but since he took such good care of my bike while I was in China of course I felt obligated to make sure his bike got cleaned too!

And after all the dirty work is done, and you've worked up a hunger, you have to take a ride to a favorite dive.

This is Lightnin posing next to our clean machine, and in front of the Old Brick, which serves some of the best fried chicken in the world.

This time however, frogs legs were the choice.

So if we get the laundry and yard work completed on Friday's we try to use Saturday's for their intended purpose: Having Fun!

The Little guy

Just thought I'd update our blog...partly because I'm getting tired of seeing the same pictures! This is our wonderful Grandson from Memorial weekend, complete with the poptart and chocolate milk mouth! He sure is a pleasure for us! His Grandpa is working this week in Iowa or at least that's what he tells me, he did mention something about watching the corn grow and making shampoo so maybe he really is working!

Birthday Celebrations 1 Year and a World Apart!

Last night we helped celebrate the birthday of my good friend, and ex-boss, Joia. It was a fun evening at a little trendy restaurant in northern Kentucky. The food and wine were both good, and the conversation hilarious at times!



It was an interesting group of folks who had all overlapped at one time or another during travels and the connection with our mutual friend!



This was 1 year ago in Beijing!



And here we are in the US today! Me being 40lbs lighter and a bit raccoon looking from riding the bike with proper safety eye wear, and Joia not looking a day older!



Ta shi wo de yong yuan de peng yo!

Spring is Here!

This weekend was definitely spring like, with 80F temperatures on Friday afternoon, then rain on Friday night and Saturday morning, and finishing with a low last night of 45F.
It was a great weekend for brewing beer and motorcycle riding (sorry no photos today)and we took full advantage of this and did both!
Now this week it's supposed to be sunny and get progressively hotter each day. Yep a sure sign that spring has sprung and summer is on it's way!

Small Town Life

Every now and again Lightnin and I get asked: "Why do you guys live so far out of the city and drive so far to work each day?"

Well there are several answers:
1) Most days we drive across traffic instead of getting caught in it, because the main work week traffic heads north and south, not east and west.
2) Everything we need is located about 10 minutes from home.
3) The airport is about 20 minutes away.
4) It's usually quiet out our way.
5) Well because you just don't see this type of stuff if you live too close to the city! ;-)




You just gotta love small town life!

Mother's Day, Motorcycles, and uuumm Lobster?

Yesterday of course was Mother's Day and since our sons all live away from home, and we live too far from home to just pop over, I decided to cook up something special for Lightnin(I bet you think it's lobster, but that's later).

I whipped up two of her favorite dishes from over in Beijing. XinJian style orange beef, and SiChuan style green beans. They came out fantastic, even if I say so myself! ;-)

After lunch we decided to get the bike out a run around on it for awhile. the weather was beautiful and we had a good ride.

At one of the stops that we made we ran into three young men who were having entirely too much fun celebrating one of their birthday's. Now to go on any further I have to explain that this restaurant has the little arcade crane game that is usually filled with stuffed animals, but this tank is filled with live lobsters. Well as luck would have it one of these three friends won the game, and this is the result of too much fun celebrating a birthday with your friends, and a lobster!

WARNING: If you're squeamish don't go any further!




And to think this is some lucky mother's son! ;-)


I hope all you mother's out there had a Happy Mother's Day!

The Blessing of the Bikes

Yesterday started out a bit iffy, looking like it was going to rain once again, but it cleared up and became a perfect day for the bike blessing event!
There were hundreds, if not thousands of bikes there and I tried to capture a few shots to give you a feel for what we experienced.

Our baby parked with some good company

Just some random bikes to give an idea of the size of the event



Friends and more friends


It was an all day event, starting at about 9AM with a semi-organized ride (scramble format), which we decided to pass on because I just didn't feel comfortable riding in a group of several hundred riders that I didn't know. There was a live band and also food, and drink available for purchase. At 3:00PM we were given the instructions of how we were to line up and ride through the long procession to have the rider(s) and the bike(s) blessed by a Catholic priest. It all went pretty smooth and much quicker than I expected, a big thumbs up to the quality of the organizers of the event.

Afterwards a few of us went out for a ride and to grab a bite to eat before putting the bike away until the next clear day comes along.

Now That's A Wrench!

I was working at another site yesterday and couldn't resist posing with this thing.

It's actually a 3-1/8" wrench and I'm guessing it would take at least 3 people to actually use it!

Brewing Again!

Well I finally put away all of the stuff that I dragged home from China, so it was time to get back to brewing!


With the help of a couple of friends (STEB and Gary), we produced a double batch of Wo Bu Zhi Dao Red Ale. By the way that's STEB in the "Beer Security" hat, and he was doing a good job of securing the beer. ;-)


It's name is derived from the fact that I couldn't get the hops that I usually use for my red, and since it's been so long since I've brewed I really don't know what this one will turn out like! (Did my hint help you with the translation?)

Let's keep our fingers crossed that it comes out good and I'll let you know!


Oh I almost forgot, the hops are growing like crazy again this year too!