One package is a charred oaken barren filled with corn squeezins’ and let sit for a decade. The other is a crude, yet effective attempt at medieval artillery fashioned out of bits and pieces from a local hardware store. Either is glorious!

It just so happens that I have photo galleriess of both such glories: 2006.05.04 – Taste of Oak and 2006.05.19 – Trebuchets.

The “Taste of Oak” thing was a fundraiser for the Easter Seals. Normally held during August, they moved the event to before the Derby (in fact near Oaks Day). The event involves a bourbon tasting and food from many different vendors, though the bourbon is the main attraction. Most of the major distilleries in Kentucky show up and are more than happy to give you all the bourbon you want in their custom glassware. Meanwhile, the Six Million Dollar Man and that Dead Guy From Lost Who Is Related to Tom Cruise wow the audience with their presence.

The trebuchet (treb-you-shay) thing started I-don’t-know-when, but suffice it to say any man with sufficient space at one point or another at least considers building a catapult. Last year, you may remember that some folks from our crue built potato guns for the Fourth of July. This year, we intend to keep up the sciency challenge with the building of catapults out of readily available materials. Rules and regulations are still in the works, but today (as witnessed by the photos and video) I put my small trebuchet through it’s paces with the help of Charlie Dillon. In the end we semi-reliably flung a golf ball about 60-75 feet. Glorious! This small model (named Cheap Plastic Artillery #1, aka CPA One) will be scaled up into a larger contraption that I have named THE POWER OF LOVE

So Saturday night after a fairly successful poker tournament, Hunter, Chuck, Chris, Kelly and I headed down to The Outlook in the Highlands to meet up with some other revellers, including Hunter’s fine lady Jamie (whose birthday it was). As it normally conspires at The Outlook, we sat around, chatted a bit in a the dark and loud “back room”. There are no TV’s in the backroom, and eventually our attention was focused on the two large windows facing the street.

These windows had shown us many things in the past, and tonight was no exception. No one really paid much attention to the two motorcycles parked just in front of the windows. No one paid attention until one of the riders appeared, that is. His first few fitful minutes of attempting the simplest of operations like putting on gloves, finding keys, etc. were not noticed, until someone realized that this man was heavily intoxicated. We all made suppositions as to his next move – would he attempt to find the sunglasses there were on his head? Would he fumble for his house key, and attempt to ram it into the unforgiving ignition? Would he release the kickstand and be crushed? Unforunately for us and most fortunately for he, none of these things happened. The entertained were no longer so.

But wait! There is still one bike left, and a rider no doubt. 10 minutes pass, and the other rider greets his hog. Thought not as obviously pissed as the first rider, I did notice his multiple attempts to fasten and zip his leather jacket. After at least 5 minutes, I decided that I could stand it no longer, and offered a bounty of $40 to anyone seated at our table that would help that poor man put on his jacket.

It should be clear to the reader that I did not expect anyone to take me up on such a ridiculous quest.

But someone did – oh, they did. Hunter immediately stands up, and I realize that of all the people there, I could count on him to hold fast to his boast. However, seeing as how Hunter had spent most of his luck (perhaps over-spent) placing 2nd in the evening’s poker tourney, I thought for sure he couldn’t complete the deal. My second thought was: My god, Brian Walls is not here, and Hunter is most certainly going to be killed. My third thought was then, of course: At least I will still have my $40.

Moments later, after Hunter had exited the backroom (with Katy in tow) I saw his betoqued head appear on the other side of our window of disconnect. I saw him face the big man, who was still struggling with the jacket. A number of possible scenarios raced through my mind, the least of which was Hunter explaining this farce and offering the dude $20 to have him zip up his coat. The worst was Hunter being punched so hard that he flew backwards into the glass, no doubt expending his $40 in stitches. Shortly after that grisly premonition, Hunter turned about face, saluted to us in the back room, and strode off exit stage right. My challenge well met.

Hunter and I had shook hands before, and I was therefore obligated to complete the bet, which I did. Hunter graciously gave $20 of it to Katy, though frankly if I had had the balls to confront a drunken ogre, I would have kept that $40 for myself.

It’s fairly safe to say that my bets in the company of the Incorrigible Mr. Dixon will no doubt be of a smaller sort from now on. Kudos to you.

Both Gary and Nick made it in town for Joe’s visitation and funeral. Gary flew in from Los Angeles, and Nick drove down from Chicago. Particulars of the situation aside, it was very good to see them both.

As I suffered through Joe’s “Celebration of Life” put on by his Friends of Hope friends, Hunter suggested I take off the next day (Friday) and kick it with him, Nick and Gary. Normally, it takes an act of Congress to get me to take a day off work, but there was compelling evidence in favor of me not giving a damn about work after the last few days, and the concentration of the old crüe would do me very fine.

We took the day and pounded the pavement from Longest to Trevilian on Bardstown Road and had a grand old time. I picked up a copy of “The Watchmen”, as well as issue #2 of “Y: The Last Man” at The Great Escape. Hunter and I bought a “Made in Louisville” onesie for the young Ella Pearsall and we spent a good amount of time in Book & Music Exchange. All in all, generally cutting up and trying to forget what we had seen and felt in the preceding 48 hours. It did the job, and did it well.

Can I tell you how great it is to be drunk around noontime when you should be at work? I can? Excellent. IT IS GREAT. We stopped at Cafe 360 for lunch and threw back some draught Smithwicks and tasty food. Hunter and Nick ate a tasty Indian dish called Chole Batura, and I had a leg o’ Tandoori chicken with tamarind sauce. The waiter told a so-so joke, and was honest with me about the tamarind soup. Good man.

Commisseration was completed as we sat out in the open at the Highland Taproom in the brisk air and warm sunlight. Bourbon polished a rosy patina on our cheeks. Ice Cube never said it better: “It was a good day.”

Later in the evening, we had a get-together at Holly’s (ne’ Chris’) house and played all sorts of bad music (some from cassettes), as well as some bizarro infite-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon-game. Beer was had.

Check ou the 2006.02.03 – Brothers in Arms gallery for photos, like this one below:

Maytag. What do you think of when you see that name? Most likely, you’d be thinking “appliances”, and you’d be right. It is, however, also the name of a famous American Bleu Cheese, which gets its name from the famous Maytag family that started the Maytag appliance company. Their Maytag bleu cheese is probably the most abundant variety we have in the U.S., and was featured in a piece this morning on NPR’s Morning Edition, in a piece entitled Little Big Cheese: Maytag’s Growing Niche Market. It quickly answered my question “Is Maytag bleu cheese in any way related to the Maytag company?”. So there is the first part of this little yarn.

The second part of the story comes in when Hunter mentioned that today’s Achewood strip had a bit of a continuity error citing a “public drunkeness” arrest outside of a saloon on September 8, 1932, more than a year before Prohibition would end in the United States. How observant! Whilst doing a little Googling about Prohibition, I found mention of Fritz Maytag in this Wikipedia article on Prohibition. That mentioning stated that he helped to restart the microbrewery/homebrewery movement that had essentially been suffocated by Prohibition by buying a controlling interest in the failing Anchor Brewing company in 1965 (read a good article on this here), saving it from being quite possibly the last speciality brewer in the United States to close. Now, Anchor Steam (and it’s brethren) can be enjoyed in 48 states, along side other notable “specialty” beers as Red Hook, Pete’s Wicked, and Sam Adams. Yay for Fritz Maytag!

Combine this with my recent infatuation with home-brewing, my love of the cartoon cats in Achewood, and my love of cheese, and you’ve got yourself a bona-fide co-inky-dink.

Holiday cheer has come to my beloved Interactive Department here at work in the form of a $16 Christmas tree from Walmart. Mix with left-over lights and a bevy of plushie animals, and you have the makings of mirth in tree form.

In other news, I made beer yesterday evening. I have had this
Brewer’s Best Steam-Style beer kit since last fall, and just now got around to making it with a little help from Winemakers & Beermakers Supply on Westport Road. Nice, helpful folks they are!

On a side note, Thanksgiving was also very nice. We house-hopped between Indiana and Kentucky and had a good time all around. The holidays are starting off well this year.

Hey hey! I’m uploading some photos as we speak. When they go up, they will be in the Hawaii Gallery! Keep an eye out. Off to some big-assed mall. Kelly is chomping at the bit!

Update: it should please the gentry that photos from our “Day Two” here in Honolulu are now uploaded into the Hawaii Day Two gallery. Nothing exciting yet, as the rest of the crew has not yet arrived.

The big-assed mall — the Ala Moana Center was indeed big, and filled to the brim with stylish and not-so-stylish Japanese girls. The Von Dutch trucker hat is lame in America, girls, so get with it! Gonna catch some sushi at this joint down by the beach.

Update, night edition: Kelly and I ate at Furusato (not Futosako, or whatever I told Gary earlier and he translated into “Old Sugar”) tonight. Wow. Man — such excellent fish at decent prices. Tuna sashimi, yellow tail sashimi, barbecued eel, poke (a tuna/seaweed/tomato/onion/sesame salad), Philadelphia and cucumber rolls were all had and delivered graciously and with an attention to detail that made me question the sanity of the waitstaff. I also had a double-deuce of Asahi which was fantastic. Really, all this is just a run-up — a test of my sushi mettle until we get to SanSei on Monday for the “pre-game dinner” (as Gary is calling it). Tomorrow, we intend on meeting up with the Pearsalls, and quite possibly hitting a luau.