The bar with no name

I stole the headline from this article in Rochester's City newspaper. The paper itself is sometimes a little short on content and long on liberal-ness and classifieds, but it's free, and they've recently designed the layout in a way that I think looks really good.

I'm certainly excited about the prospect of a new place for good beer in Rochester, especially with the credentials this guy's bringing coming from the Old Toad.

Cheers!

Walking update: 5 miles today

5 miles on the treadmill.

Wait, is that really Silverchair?

This weekend Lisa & I visited Lisa's cousin in Pittsburgh. We drove down Friday, arriving around midnight. We were up early Saturday and went to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater in nearby Bear Run, PA. It was a very cool place. I heard cantilever more times than ever before in my life! The house is built right over a waterfall and uses a lot of clever techniques to not fall in the river. There are stairs descending from the middle of the living room right to the river; you can hear the waterfall from everyplace in the house. And, because of the way it's built, it incorporates a number of rock outcroppings right into ground-floor rooms, and it features neat details like windows on one of the corners of the house. It's still furnished with all the original furniture and mostly original belongings of its owners, the Kaufman family (as in Kaufman's department stores). They died and left the house to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, so now it's a museum.

Saturday night brought game night with Lisa's cousin & a bunch of her friends - they were all really nice! We played some Cranium and a never-ending game of Trivial Pursuit 20th edition.

Sunday we took our time waking up, and in the midst of hanging out & getting ready, I watched (for the first time in probably four or five years) the VH1 video countdown. It was a trip to see some of these videos. I don't remember a lot of them, because I honestly don't listen to much radio at all anymore. But what really got me is that Silverchair has a video on the countdown!

I remember these guys from about 10 years ago, when I guess they were quite young. I had to visit Amazon to remind myself what their single, "Tomorrow," sounded like. Strangely, their new song sounds nothing like their stuff from a dozen years ago. Where they were a straightforward grunge band back in the day, they've got a totally different sound now, much more poppy than Frogstomp. I'd actually need to hear the song a few more times to tell you anything more about it.

We were back to Rochester Sunday afternoon, and I went for a walk (3 miles or so). Then some grocery shopping around 9 PM, and then to bed to get ready for another big week :)

Walking update: 2.5 miles today

Yes, only 2.5 miles today... and that mowing the lawn. I finally remembered to wear a pedometer when I mowed the lawn, and with less than half an acre, I managed to walk 2.5 miles! With the dry weather this summer, the mowings have been few and far between.

Petroleum Day??

One day when I hadn't been working for very long, I suddenly needed to know the date of some holiday. Or perhaps I needed some excuse to celebrate on some random day... I don't remember. However, my Google search that day yielded a site I've often revisited: EarthCalendar.

This morning, what with it being a Monday and all (and in the misery of seasonal allergies that drain energy and make the morning just that much more enjoyable), I surfed over to that trusty old resource. Lo and behold, today (in Texas, at least) is Petroleum Day!

So, let's see: everybody hates oil companies for making giant profits while gas prices are near/over $3 per gallon, the talk around the nation is of needing to get independent of foreign oil and move to alternative fuels, I still (many years later) can't think of Exxon without thinking of oil-drenched birds, and I generally view oil executives as either Monty Burns or the crazy Texan from the Simpsons.... hey let's celebrate oil!!

Now, to be fair, I have to throw a couple of modifiers in here. First, everybody hates oil companies *except* for all the people who benefit from their huge profits. That includes not only the rich but probably anyone at all who has a 401(k) or any other chance to own mutual funds. After all, the financial folks get paid to make us money for our retirement. So, really, I can't stay mad at oil companies.

And who knows? Maybe Texas is only celebrating its own petroleum, and not that of others. And when I think of all the other petroleum-related products out there like... um... petroleum jelly and .... well, you know what I mean - maybe we all need to take a little time-out to appreciate petroleum and all it does for us.

Finally, a quick quiz: without using the Internet to get the answer, what two countries are the top single suppliers of oil to the US? You may be surprised when you see the answer.

(The previous link is from the Energy Information Administration of the US gov't., which has more interesting info on oil in the US.)

The past weekend

Lisa & I had the pleasure of hosting our friends Josh & Elizabeth, along with their son (& our godson) Hayden. Since they've been living in Oklahoma the past few years, this was our first chance to meet Hayden, who was born on Labor Day last year.

They arrived Friday, and we just sat & talked; Saturday, they were off to meet up with some other Rochester friends, while Lisa & I went to my cousin's for a party. The weather was great, & after hanging out there for a while, we went to Henrietta to do some shopping.

And some shopping did I do! In Southtown Plaza, we hit up a newer place called Plato's Closet - it's got all used clothing (kind of like a consignment shop, but I think it's a little different). The prices were great, and I picked up a button-down work shirt and a sweater for $22. Lisa had similar luck, finding a great winter jacket for $22. After that, I wandered over to Play It Again Sports and found a left-handed sand wedge (a golf club, for anyone who's not familiar with the lingo - I didn't simply mis-type 'sandwich,' and I'm not at all sure I would have bought a sandwich from a store that sells sporting goods...) for $10. We rounded out our great deals with a third store in the same plaza, called Tuesday Morning. As Lisa described it, it's kind of like the homewares section of a TJ Maxx. I found a small french press pot, and to my absolute delight it was even orange! Now I can make just one cup of coffee in the morning instead of a small pot, and I won't go to work so jacked up on caffeine that I have tremors 'til noon. Oh, and I also found a decent pair of headphones - the kind that loop over the ear. I used them last night while walking, and even with my sweaty head in full walking stride, those bad boys didn't budge; the music was un-interrupted & thus I am a happy camper.

We met up with Josh & family for dinner at The Golden Port, a restaurant that does Chinese, Thai, sushi, Vietnamese, Dim Sum,... And having tried a number of things there, I think they do them all pretty well! We got & shared a variety of dishes and some sushi rolls, and a good time was had by all. Sunday, we caravaned to Warsaw, NY to visit our mutual friends Jeannie & Jeff (whom we met at Josh & Elizabeth's wedding). Josh & fam had to go on their way, but we stayed and played some games (namely, Lie Cheat & Steal and Mille Bourne). And just like that, it was Monday again....

Walking update: 8 miles yesterday

Hello again... Last night I made my biggest walk so far - 8 miles. I started from my house & walked to the gym (3.5 miles), followed by 4.5 more on the treadmill. The weather was kind of lousy & rained during the afternoon while I was at work, but it held out as I walked.

Walking update: 7.1 miles today

Tonight's walk was a little more mundane... the treadmill at the gym counted up to 99:59, rolled over to 0:00, and counted up to 20:00 again as I walked 7 miles in 2 hours. Nothing special to report tonight, except that walking 2 hours on a treadmill is really frigging boring....

As long as I'm at it, I'll tack on last night's 1.5 miles in this post. Lisa & I went to the Wayne County Fair! I hadn't been to the fair in a long time. When I was younger, it was the Otsego County Fair, and I can't say this one was any different. It just seemed a little smaller, probably because I'm about 10 years older now. A few of Lisa's students were showing animals - goats, cattle, rabbits, a guinea pig - and were very successful. It was cool to see all those animals and many more: sheep, chickens, even a turkey.

The past few days

Since I haven't posted in a few days, I figured I'd bring you up to date (whoever "you" are, anyway... who's reading this?) on what I've been doing.

On Friday, Lisa & I went to Lowe's in Webster (which is to say, not Loew's in Webster, which will soon become apparent). We spent 90 minutes at the hardware store! We were gearing up for the big Work Around the House weekend, which commenced Saturday morning.

This past weekend, we mortared, painted, installed, mopped, vacuumed, caulked, organized,
disposed, recycled, filled, sanded, mowed, and generally did a bunch of stuff we hadn't gotten to over the past 16 months of owning the house.

We took a break Saturday night to hang out at the Pittsford Pub with Carlo, Eric, Tiff, Karen, Jeremy, Kristen, Evan, and Don. You can read Eric's take on this one - he's got it well covered.

After some more work on Sunday, we took another break - this time to see the Simpsons movie, at Loew's theaters in Webster. (Ah, now it all becomes clear...) I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Adam said a friend described it as an extended Simpsons episode, and I wouldn't dispute that. I laughed out loud in the theater a bunch of times, enjoyed random lines from Ralphie and lots of other characters, and even stayed around long enough in the credits to hear Maggie talk. Yes, that's right, she spoke. So if you went to see the movie & didn't sit around through the credits, well then, tough cookies.

In all, it was a packed weekend, but it was nice to be at home & see our friends, and it was really nice to get a bunch of things done around the house.

Walking update: 7 miles today

Well, it's been several days since I posted about walking... which means it's been as many days since I took a serious walk. Granted, Lisa & I logged a mile and a half in Lowe's the other night, but more about that in a separate post to follow.

Today's walk was about 7 miles, up our road to the north, and "around the block" coming back the same road I walked last week. New critters this walk were a rabbit, a deer, and several chickens (no, not wild chickens - thank God, since I had forgotten my chickening stick).

I was amazed, walking up a road I've driven dozens of times over the past year+, at how different it looks walking instead of driving. There are so many things, so many houses and details I never noticed! It got so I actually wondered at one point whether or not I was on the correct road.

Keep a look out for 2 more walks this week, both at least 5 - 7 miles long.

Ah, the debates!

I just saw an interesting blog post on the NY Times' The Caucus blog. (You may have to register to view it, but I don't think so.) To quote:

"In some ways, the debates are the new campaign ads. There are so many of them — at least 21 more are scheduled between now and the end of January — that candidates are getting plenty of exposure without having to buy air time."

The statistic that catches me there is that at least 21 more of these debates are on the way before the official candidates of each party are even decided! Talk about information overload. So, do I put the part of my brain interested in this election into hibernation until, say, December?

Walking update: 6.5 miles today

I'm trying out posting my training walks as I go along. Hopefully, I'll look back a couple of months from now and see how I progressed. I invite you to do the same.

Walked about ~ 6.5 miles round-trip today (based on my pedometer - Google Maps says it was 7 miles). Weather was beautiful - clear blue sky and a sun not yet thinking about setting when I took off around 6:45 PM. For anyone interested - though I'm not sure why you would be - I started from home, walked east on C.R. 205 (called Marion Road along that stretch), turned left on Boynton Road, walked to the end, then turned around and came back.

Being that I was walking on country roads, I had the chance to see lots of wildlife. I saw a hummingbird, a yellow finch (I think - it looked like this), a bunch of dead frogs (unfortunately - I like frogs a lot), and a fox. I also saw some sheep, but I'm about 90% sure they weren't wild sheep.

I listened to my tunes and thought about how thankful I am that digital music exists. Now, for some reason, my mp3 player (a 1 GB Insignia brand player) orders my tracks alphabetically by song title, rather than basing it on the artist. This is a little strange, but it actually works nicely as kind of a randomizer. So on tonight's 110-minute walk, I got to listen to a whole range, from Gorillaz ("19-2000") and Smashing Pumpkins ("1979") through the Beatles, Foo Fighters, Wilco, and many more. (I ended up right at the beginning of "Du Hast" by Rammstein - but that song's a topic for another time.) To think that I grew up with radio and cassette tapes, then got my first CD player right before high school, and never even heard of mp3 music 'til I got to college. But look at me rambling like a... well, like a rambler.

All in all, an ideal walk.

Camping again? I'll be right back...

This past weekend had us out of town once again. This time, it was Ithaca & Buttermilk Falls state park. We enjoyed the campfire, great hiking, and great friends! We packed our little Chevy Aveo full to the top (I couldn't see out the back, only the sides) and made our way down there Friday... no thanks to Reserve America, whose website linked me to the Google map for the wrong park and almost got us lost several times with inaccurate mileage measurements. We never did see Pre-emption Road....

As I said, we really enjoyed the hiking: even though it was uphill a lot of the way (we were walking from the lower part of the park to the upper part), the views really made it worthwhile. I'm going to try to get some pictures up here; in the meantime, check out a Google image search to get an idea of the beauty of this place.

We packed up Sunday morning and came back home by around lunchtime; the rest of the day found us hitting up the mall so I could get a haircut & Lisa could do some shopping, then enjoying Rochester's gorgeous weather (not an oxymoron yesterday!) by taking a 5-mile roundtrip walk along the Erie Canal near Fairport.

All in all, a weekend packed nearly as full as our car!

Book review: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

I recently read a book which, as you can tell by it's title, is no run-of-the-mill book. It's a non-fiction account of the history, uses, and stories of cadavers. Let me say this right off the bat about this book - you won't like it if one or more of the following apply to you:

• You don't like reading about cadavers in sometimes surprisingly clear detail.
• You're easily offended.

For everyone else, this book has a lot of interesting information. We all know about anatomy classes' use of bodies, but who knew how important they still are for crash testing?

Two really interesting concepts emerged from this book for me. One is that there are many more people studying dead bodies than I thought, and for more reasons. The other: human composting. Strange, and a little gross... enough said.

Overall, the author's style is humorous and engaging; she makes the material interesting and explains background really well. Meanwhile, she finds places throughout the book to address real issues facing those left behind. One-and-a-half thumbs up.

You can read a better review than mine here; you can check it out on Amazon here.