I sat down the other night and was calculating how many different restaurants and cafes I've eaten at....in my 60 years of life. I would calculate that it's up between 3,500 and 4,500 total.
You have to remember, I've traveled around 70-percent of Alabama, around thirty-two states in the US, Australia, Iceland, Panama, New Zealand, Singapore, Dubai, South Africa, and twenty-odd countries in Europe.
I've eaten at some absolute terrible places...not worth mentioning. I've eaten at some airports that I left three-quarters of the meal on the plate. I've been served French hamburgers that were only 50-percent done (yeah, I left it on the plate).
But along the way, I've eaten at some rather fine places, so this is the list of the top five that made the list.
1. A mom-and-pop Italian shop in Vittorio Veneto, Italy....that was mostly hidden away and just a doorway leading to a long walk to this shop with just ten tables, run by Italian women all over the age of sixty. The place had ceiling fans running, and the paint-job was something out of the 1960s (this was 1995). Everything they served was rich and zesty....freshly made in the past hour. In the background was some Italian opera music, and the ladies waiting for the slightest hint of something being just a tad wrong. I was there for just seven days, and ate every night at the same place.
2. A couple of years ago, I went off to Vienna, and one evening....I really wanted something a bit different, and this thing showed up on Google.....'The Blue Donkey'. It's way off the street and just about impossible to find. But here's the thing....they served ribs, the old-fashioned way. Heavily marinated and cooked over a outdoor grill. A big patio area was the landscape, with the grill smell in the air, and these ribs ended up being the best I'd ever eaten.
3. A number of years ago, I went on a trip to the heart of Bavaria and ended up one night eating at a place in Ramsau....deep in the Alps....at a place called the Gasthof Oberwirt. It's a combination hotel and restaurant. I ended up with this gravy-dish with big chunks of marinated beef, and dumplings that made your eyes water. Afterwards, they brought out this desert plate (a heaping of some apple dish) with freshly home-made ice cream on top. There in this beer-garden area, in the midst of summer, you could gaze off at the mountains and appreciate a great moment.
4. In my period in Tucson, Arizona....down the street we had this grill operation called 'Jacks'. Jacks bar-b-q'ed in some hut around the back of the building, and had some secret recipe for everything. They did chicken, ribs, and briskets. They made some kind of charged-up beans with a spiced-up taste. You'd look at the building and think it'd marginally pass any health inspection. They would actually mount each inspection paper on the wall and always had near 95-percent for the grading. You'd almost think that nothing had changed in the building since 1955 (this was 1990).
5. Finally, there's this place on the road road through Athens, Alabama for catfish....called the Catfish Cabin (maybe number II or III). Between the five star tea (all you can drink), the hush-puppies, and the catfish....it's one of the few places left in the world where for $15, you get a fantastic dinner. Rustic? Well, yeah, that's probably the flip side of my choices.....I never select fancy dining places.
Sunday, 27 October 2019
The Doug and Nancy Story
If you follow Alabama Democratic politics right now....there's a 'war' brewing over the state agenda, and has impact upon the 2020 Democratic convention.
So the head of the state Democratic Party is Nancy Worley....who has a history going back to the state teacher's union. At age 67, she's the one voted into office as the party chief, back in 2013.
It's safe to say that Worley has a particular view on how Democrats in the state need to proceed.
Along came Jones (a catchy title), Doug Jones, who won the staged election for Senator in November 2017. Doug believes that the Democrats need to go in a different direction. Doug has the backing of the national apparatus. So Doug's people have issued 'orders' to Nancy on how to proceed. Nancy said no.
An election came up for the Democratic 'head' of the state party, and Nancy won yet again.
Doug's people laid down the 'ace', and cut off national funding....figuring that Nancy would give up, resign, and Doug's people would rebuild the party.
Well....Nancy said no. She won't resign, and the money be damned.
Now? The national folks say if Nancy doesn't correct all the actions....they will decertify the party, and they can't enter the convention of 2020, or represent the state.
Where this leads onto? Well....Super-Tuesday is not that far off, and there's some suggestions that it might get real messy for Democrats in the state.
What this really cuts into? It would appear that Nancy wants Alabama Democratic politics to stay regional, and not have some national influence or anchor attached to it. Doug's crew wants the national trends to be the focus for Alabama Democrats.
Here's the odd factor....both Nancy and Doug are dragging alone various black political groups and they are staging fronts against each other in the state. It's entirely possible that come November of 2020.....you could see half the black vote in Alabama....which ought to go to the Democrats entirely (say 90-to-95 percent)....simply stay home because of Doug and Nancy's little war.
Kinda funny to admire. But all of this really hurts Doug's chances.
So the head of the state Democratic Party is Nancy Worley....who has a history going back to the state teacher's union. At age 67, she's the one voted into office as the party chief, back in 2013.
It's safe to say that Worley has a particular view on how Democrats in the state need to proceed.
Along came Jones (a catchy title), Doug Jones, who won the staged election for Senator in November 2017. Doug believes that the Democrats need to go in a different direction. Doug has the backing of the national apparatus. So Doug's people have issued 'orders' to Nancy on how to proceed. Nancy said no.
An election came up for the Democratic 'head' of the state party, and Nancy won yet again.
Doug's people laid down the 'ace', and cut off national funding....figuring that Nancy would give up, resign, and Doug's people would rebuild the party.
Well....Nancy said no. She won't resign, and the money be damned.
Now? The national folks say if Nancy doesn't correct all the actions....they will decertify the party, and they can't enter the convention of 2020, or represent the state.
Where this leads onto? Well....Super-Tuesday is not that far off, and there's some suggestions that it might get real messy for Democrats in the state.
What this really cuts into? It would appear that Nancy wants Alabama Democratic politics to stay regional, and not have some national influence or anchor attached to it. Doug's crew wants the national trends to be the focus for Alabama Democrats.
Here's the odd factor....both Nancy and Doug are dragging alone various black political groups and they are staging fronts against each other in the state. It's entirely possible that come November of 2020.....you could see half the black vote in Alabama....which ought to go to the Democrats entirely (say 90-to-95 percent)....simply stay home because of Doug and Nancy's little war.
Kinda funny to admire. But all of this really hurts Doug's chances.
Saturday, 26 October 2019
Smoke Tray Story
For the A5, there's roughly seven pages of options. The wife did most of the selections on this. Frankly, I didn't care.
So she selected this one option....an cigarette lighter/ashtray. Neither of us smoke, and I didn't really think much of this. The lighter device could be used for the GPS device power 'box', or this small refrigerator unit that we carry with us on one single trip a year.
So the car arrives, and there is this hard rubberized container, with a fancy aluminum Audi-symbol top. Really nice item, and at first I thought....it must be for soda cans or such.
Well....no. This is the cigarette ashtray, which would fit in the drink holder along the center of the car.
If you finished up the smoke.....you could just drop the butt into the can, snap the top closed, and thats the end of the smoke business.
I shake my head each time I look at this container. This option, with the cheapo lighter power device, and this hard rubber container....was around 45 Euro (roughly 50 dollars).
Friday, 25 October 2019
Changing Times
There's a piece that came out this week, from an interview that was done with Bruce Springsteen....suggesting that President Trump doesn't understand 'what it means to be an American'.
I sat and read over the interview, and pondered upon it for an afternoon.
The problem that Springsteen has....is a Bob Dylan lyric that easily fits here...."...the times, they are achanging".
It's not 1984/1985 anymore, and Springsteen's America has slipped away from the pier, set sail, floundered a good bit, was hopelessly lost at some point, and some lighthouse suddenly came up in the past three years, and jacked up the beacon 300-percent to bring this boat back into port.
Once NAFTA arrived, and a million-odd jobs disappeared over a decade....Springsteen's America was dissolving away.
Then you had China take over industrial jobs, and import products into the US....with politicians like George Bush and Barak Obama claiming those jobs would never come back.
Then toss in the banking crisis and the real estate mess in California and Florida.
What people felt over the past thirty years was a demoralizing effect, a loss of respect for both political parties, and a disbelief in fundamental values. When you (the general public) say that 95-percent of people have some level skepticism...from a marginal level to a maximum level....on the news media, something's wrong.
My advice to Springsteen? Pack up your truck, and go take a 90-day drive around the US....talking to regular working-class people. Go talk to blacks, truckers, barbers, and farmers. Don't start your conversation about 'what it means to be an American'....but with 'how do you feel today'. Don't let the optimism freak you out.
Play Dylan's tune in the back of your mind. We are simply not in 1984 any longer....we've moved on. And those times are achanging.
I sat and read over the interview, and pondered upon it for an afternoon.
The problem that Springsteen has....is a Bob Dylan lyric that easily fits here...."...the times, they are achanging".
It's not 1984/1985 anymore, and Springsteen's America has slipped away from the pier, set sail, floundered a good bit, was hopelessly lost at some point, and some lighthouse suddenly came up in the past three years, and jacked up the beacon 300-percent to bring this boat back into port.
Once NAFTA arrived, and a million-odd jobs disappeared over a decade....Springsteen's America was dissolving away.
Then you had China take over industrial jobs, and import products into the US....with politicians like George Bush and Barak Obama claiming those jobs would never come back.
Then toss in the banking crisis and the real estate mess in California and Florida.
What people felt over the past thirty years was a demoralizing effect, a loss of respect for both political parties, and a disbelief in fundamental values. When you (the general public) say that 95-percent of people have some level skepticism...from a marginal level to a maximum level....on the news media, something's wrong.
My advice to Springsteen? Pack up your truck, and go take a 90-day drive around the US....talking to regular working-class people. Go talk to blacks, truckers, barbers, and farmers. Don't start your conversation about 'what it means to be an American'....but with 'how do you feel today'. Don't let the optimism freak you out.
Play Dylan's tune in the back of your mind. We are simply not in 1984 any longer....we've moved on. And those times are achanging.
Thoughts On MREs
In 1990-1991 timeframe (within the Air Force), we had a total of a dozen MRE 'selections' (combat rations) for eating purposes. Most people will tell you that they could do the MRE thing for about a week max, and then their patience, bowel movements, and desire for food began to cease.
There were only four of the twelve that I considered decent (the corn-beef-hash, the ham slice, the beef stew, and the spaghetti with meat sauce). Note, the spaghetti package needed to be warmed up...otherwise, it was like a cold can of Chef Boy-R-D.
The chocolate fudge bar? This always came with the ham slice dinner, and it was regarded as 200-percent fudge....meaning that you needed to drink something with it....to get it down your throat. The fudge bar tended to be the bowel movement blocker, and usually packed you up for a minimum of two days with no toilet visits.
The maple nut cake (it's hard to describe as an actual cake) was something that usually suggested that it was five years old and marginally edible.
The pack that usually got dumped by people the most? The tuna and noodles. This included some kind of nut-cake that was marginally edible and really only worked if you could get a can of Coke to go with it (almost never happened).
The thing I came away with from those MRE experiences, was that you really didn't want to be in a situation where this was your only choice of food for more than a week. I think most people would admit that after three days....they'd just start eating less and less food via the MREs. After this....anything that the chow hall offered, as marginal of quality that it might have been....was a four-star meal.
There were only four of the twelve that I considered decent (the corn-beef-hash, the ham slice, the beef stew, and the spaghetti with meat sauce). Note, the spaghetti package needed to be warmed up...otherwise, it was like a cold can of Chef Boy-R-D.
The chocolate fudge bar? This always came with the ham slice dinner, and it was regarded as 200-percent fudge....meaning that you needed to drink something with it....to get it down your throat. The fudge bar tended to be the bowel movement blocker, and usually packed you up for a minimum of two days with no toilet visits.
The maple nut cake (it's hard to describe as an actual cake) was something that usually suggested that it was five years old and marginally edible.
The pack that usually got dumped by people the most? The tuna and noodles. This included some kind of nut-cake that was marginally edible and really only worked if you could get a can of Coke to go with it (almost never happened).
The thing I came away with from those MRE experiences, was that you really didn't want to be in a situation where this was your only choice of food for more than a week. I think most people would admit that after three days....they'd just start eating less and less food via the MREs. After this....anything that the chow hall offered, as marginal of quality that it might have been....was a four-star meal.
Three Simple Lines
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
-- First Amendment, written by James Madison
It came up in news this week that a majority of Americans would like to rewrite the First Amendment. They aren't exactly clear on how it'd be worded, or if it could be contained on four lines. They just seem to think that you need more control, than you need rights.
What I always admired about James Madison and the three lines is the compact nature, blunt wording, and limited focus.
In those days leading up to the 1780s....you had no television....no radio.....no internet, and very limited news via regional newspapers. So after you'd eaten for the evening....you likely sat on a front porch or by a fire....with someone who'd dropped by and engaged in a two-hour conversation. A beer or whiskey was shared, and deep thoughts exchanged.
These conversations were way beyond anything that we'd talk about today. You would talk about the thrill of religion, or the sermon from last weekend, and then you'd dwell on the aspects of freedoms around religion.
Then you might pick up the topic of newspapers, and how they were careful to say things but often picked on simple things like some horse-buggy going into a river, or barn-fire.
Conversations went on and on, and you would dig deep into the crust of what was free and what ought to be prohibited.
Imagine over an entire decade....five-hundred of these conversations with like-minded people. So when someone stepped up to your porch and asked for the basic freedoms to write into the Constitution.....you knew the compact solution and it was not that hard to write.
Today? If you gathered forty people and asked for prohibitions, limits, curbs, 'fences', liberties or rights....this could get complicated.
You could end up on day ten of this exercise with 3,000 lines, instead of four.
You might go and create a truth-seeker under a congressional mandate who dictates what is truth, and what is not truth.
You might go and suggest a license for 'press' must exist, and that only the federal government, not the state government....could manage such a thing.
By day thirty of the exercise, some of the forty people assembling the new 'rights' would come to realize that you can't have a 3,000 line first amendment, and you start to chop on this.
By day sixty, you wake up as the key member of the forty 'writers'....to realize that you are now back down to just five or six lines, and almost identical to the original words of Madison.
What made America different from almost every nation that existed at the beginning? It was rights written into the First Amendment....not limits.
Analysis Free of Charge
The US Army went out and paid this team to study bowel movements under a normal diet, and under a MRE diet (the combat rations package).
I know....it's a total waste of time and I could have told them that.
So the study found (using 60 people) that that those who ate a normal diet....had typically one additional bowl movement a week, than the MRE group (eating at least two MRE meals a day).
I would offer this analysis....having done the MRE business a couple of times in my life. If you get the MRE packet with the fudge bar 'desert'....it's pretty good odds that you can go a minimum of two days without a bowel movement, and maybe even three days.
This packet, typically the one with the beef stew 'delight', and the peanut butter/cracker....combined with the fudge bar...would create a 'log-jam' of enormous proportions. If you can imagine eating five of those over a three-day setting, and feeling all stuffed-up....it's not a pleasant experience.
The Mexican 'delight' packet? Oddly enough, this would slide through and you might be able to do three bowel movement in a single day (this had the beef taco, the fruity 'thing', nut and raisin 'bar', and cheddar cheese spread).
What this all led to, is that you had to balance out your diet, and eat things that you typically didn't like....in order to maintain some type of semi-ordinary bowel movement situation.
I could have told these folks the analysis without all this testing business.
I know....it's a total waste of time and I could have told them that.
So the study found (using 60 people) that that those who ate a normal diet....had typically one additional bowl movement a week, than the MRE group (eating at least two MRE meals a day).
I would offer this analysis....having done the MRE business a couple of times in my life. If you get the MRE packet with the fudge bar 'desert'....it's pretty good odds that you can go a minimum of two days without a bowel movement, and maybe even three days.
This packet, typically the one with the beef stew 'delight', and the peanut butter/cracker....combined with the fudge bar...would create a 'log-jam' of enormous proportions. If you can imagine eating five of those over a three-day setting, and feeling all stuffed-up....it's not a pleasant experience.
The Mexican 'delight' packet? Oddly enough, this would slide through and you might be able to do three bowel movement in a single day (this had the beef taco, the fruity 'thing', nut and raisin 'bar', and cheddar cheese spread).
What this all led to, is that you had to balance out your diet, and eat things that you typically didn't like....in order to maintain some type of semi-ordinary bowel movement situation.
I could have told these folks the analysis without all this testing business.
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