Goal #39

Goal #39: time for a Goodwill run.

As I've been going through these first few weeks of reorganization, I've amassed a couple of big boxes of stuff which really just needs to be out of here.  So this week, it will be.

Recap of goal #38: the second bookshelf is ready to go, at least to the best of my ability.  I'm missing a few of the necessary parts, which mom said she found hiding someplace.  So I'm sure those will arrive any day now and I can complete the assembly.

What I'm Reading Now -- Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is a strange book so far.  I don't know much about it, except that it's not going to be typical.  Or at least that's what I've heard.

So far, all I know is that a new guy gets a job at - you guessed it - Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Something about the store doesn't quite make sense.  There are rarely customers, the store rarely sells any books. But somehow it's open all day and night, and somehow Mr. Penumbra manages to pay this guy's salary.

How?  I imagine we shall find out.

The Farm -- Take 2

I finished The Farm last weekend, after a small hiccup.  I was cruising along, listening to the tracks from the fourth CD, when suddenly there was a break in the story that didn't make any sense.  I didn't know what was going on.  A quick check on my iPod screen revealed that we had gone from the fourth to the seventh CDs, with nothing in between.

Maybe those tracks somehow ended up unchecked in my iTunes, so didn't transfer to the iPod when I synced it.  Nope.  They just weren't there.  Somehow I had missed two entire discs worth of my story.  I had to take a pause until I acquired them.

Once I did get the missing tracks, I continued on my way, listening along with Daniel as his mother recounted her tale, not quite sure what was true and what was not.  As the story unwinds, the picture gets muddier, then starts to take shape.

Daniel's parents moved to Sweden upon their retirement, and under circumstances which hadn't been clear to Daniel. Upon their arrival in Sweden, they met the neighbors, and the first of them gave his mother the creeps, to say the least.  She kept an eye on him, his family, and their acquaintances, certain that something wasn't right. Meanwhile, the creepy neighbor welcomed Daniel's father into his circle.

I won't say more for fear of spoiling any of the story.  If you want to know whether Daniel's mother is crazy or whether his father is in on the conspiracy, you'll have to read it for yourself.

Microbrewery: Bridge Tap House and Wine Bar

Technically, Bridge Tap House and Wine Bar is not a microbrewery.  It's not a brewery at all.  It's just a restaurant, but it has such an extensive list of craft and generally unusual beers that I thought I'd include it in this little microbrewery tour.

[Aside: remember way back when I started this with Schlafly Bottleworks? Then I went a long time before writing about Urban Chestnut, which now has a new location I still have to try.  I also went to Six Row, which I didn't even write about!  Clearly, I have not been very diligent.]

I've been to Bridge a couple times actually.  Once I went with cousin M, and enjoyed the pork belly banh mi.  I went later with T feasted on a board of various breads and dips.  The first time I was there, right after I moved downtown, I had duck tacos which are still my favorite of the three.

If you're looking for a beer you'll like and are a bit intimidated by the list, ask your bartender or server.  So far they've all been knowledgeable and eager to help out.  Or just go with M, because he knows his stuff.

What I'm Reading Now -- An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Mom sent me the audiobook of An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, and I didn't know much about it.  After I got it, I heard an interview with the author, Col. Chris Hadfield, on NPR.  He sounded like an interesting enough guy, so I thought I'd give it a try.

A thought on the audiobook version as I get started -- he reads it himself.  So far, this lends it both a casual air and a sense of legitimacy.  Every now and then he'll chuckle over a word or event, and it's nice to have him be the one reading it, because you know that's exactly how he meant it to be read when he wrote it.  At the same time, he is the person who really did all these things - who trained for 20 years and went to space and learned to speak Russian, and doing all those things were so important to him that he's reading you his story himself.

I like that.

Unbroken -- Take 2

Unbroken was everything I hoped it would be. I have described it to a couple of people as a tragedy of errors.  The unending series of events which befall Louie Zamperini, and the unending courage and good spirit with which he handled them, is truly astounding.

To tell the entire story wouldn't ruin it by any stretch of the imagination, but there were just so many that I can't remember them all: there was his trouble-making childhood, bitter disappointment when the Olympics were cancelled, all the normal struggles of a WWII pilot, crashing in the Pacific, living on a lifeboat for a month and a half, Japanese POW camp, followed by another, and another, with some of the worst prison guards you could possibly imagine, and of course the self-medication which followed.

Louie himself has written two autobiographies, both with the same main title: Devil at My Heels.  The first, subtitled The Story of Louis Zamperini, was published in 1956 and is out of print in its original version (though this may be an updated version of it; I can't quite tell).  The second, subtitled A World War II Hero's Epic Saga of Torment, Survival, and Forgiveness (again with the Oxford comma!), was published in 2003. The newer version was significantly updated, and appears to have provided the bones and structure for Unbroken.

Louie died this past July, at the age of 97.

Aside: for those of you who don't appreciate the usefulness of a good Oxford comma, behold the hilarity which E sent me:

Goal #38

Goal #38: the other bookshelf.

I had two bookshelves delivered from mom.   T and I set one of them up last week, and I started loading it up.  The second one will be more of a challenge, since I have to move a lot of stuff out of the way in order to get it in place.

Recap of goal #37: new rug is in place!  Somehow I managed to move all that furniture by myself.

What I Watched -- The Notebook

I was talking to my baby 20-year-old intern earlier this summer, and she mentioned that The Notebook was her favorite movie of all time.  I'm not usually a fan of sappy romances, but I was also interested to test a theory: someone else had told me that it was impossible to watch this movie and not end up in a puddle of tears by the end. I needed to discover the veracity of that claim.

I wasn't 30 seconds into the movie when I realized I'd already seen it before.  (Apparently I didn't find it noteworthy or memorable enough to write about.)  Regardless, I kept watching for the purposes of my experiment.

Result: theory not confirmed.  There were no tears, and there hadn't been the first time I watched it either.

Now, if you're looking for a love story for the ages, this is a good one.  It's just not really my type of movie, because I find it a wee bit too unbelievable.  I suppose I'm a bit of a cynic.

Bottom line: not my can of worms, but Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams make it as real as it can be.

What I'm Reading Now -- The Farm

While I certainly enjoy a good psychological thriller, this book probably never would have made it onto my radar if not for my old stalwart book podcast, Books on the Nightstand.

The plot is this: Daniel's father calls him, telling him that his mother is delusional and had been hospitalized, but checked herself out of the hospital. Daniel's mother calls him, and tells him that she needs his help to escape Daniel's father.  Daniel doesn't know what to believe, except that his parents' outwardly placid marriage is perhaps not what it seemed.

I'm listening to the audio of this, because I especially love audio books which have multiple narrators, and this one does.  It's told from Daniel's point of view; he and his father are voiced by one reader, and his mother is voiced by someone else.

I'm about a disc into it as I write this, and I can't stop listening!

Dinner at Alumni

Several weeks ago now, on one of the first cool (and windy!) nights toward the end of summer, T and I had dinner at Alumni. In general the food was decent, and my drink was delicious, but there is one particular item of note which I would like to bring to your attention:

Do you know what those are? Those are bacon-wrapped onion rings.  That's right, those are things which exist.  They take the raw onion, wrap it in bacon, batter it, and then fry the whole thing.  They were pretty tasty, but purely ridiculous.

Just thought you should know they're out there.

What I Watched -- A Most Wanted Man

J and I went to see A Most Wanted Man last week.  This was another one of those movie adventures wherein I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into, except that this was one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last movie projects.

Hoffman plays Gunther Bachmann, a semi-sanctioned German official on the trail of terrorists living in the Fatherland.  Specifically, he's on the trail of Issa Karpov, a half-Chechen, half-Russian immigrant.  But he's not the only one after Issa; suits from other government departments have their eyes on him, as does a representative from the American embassy (played by Robin Wright; her character is an international version of Claire Underwood from House of Cards).

What everyone wants to know about Issa is whether he is just in Germany to claim his deceased father's fortune, or whether he is there for more nefarious and destructive purposes.  On Issa's side is Annabel Richter (played by Rachel McAdams), an attorney helping him get settled and stay safe.

The mystery is two-fold: what Issa's real intentions are, and how all these people circling around him come together, or come apart.

Bottom line: I enjoyed the experience of having the story unfold, but I find current politics tiresome. History is more interesting.  (Ironic?) I liked Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy better.

Bike MS 2014

It still doesn't roll off the tongue to call the former MS 150 by its new name, Bike MS.  But since we're being inclusive and want to allow for multiple routes of varying lengths, we needed a new name.  And in fact, this year, T and I rode the MS 200!

Proof of my 200 miles!

If you'll recall the same ride last year, our first day was "hot and fairly miserable."  This year was quite different.  When we set off on Saturday around 7:15, it was 60 degrees and overcast - perfect for riding!  It got up into the low 70s that day, but T did not take my advice to wear sunscreen, and now he is shedding like a snake.

 Here we are, ready to go

Despite that, the first day's ride was simply lovely.  Not only was the weather better than last year, but the wind was better too: less of it overall, and we did all the riding into it early in the morning, and had it at our backs for the second half of the day. (Day 1 map.)

The end of Day 1

Back at the tent at the end of the day, I found this, which was awesome!

Look closely and you'll see not one but two drinks...

Sunday dawned much cooler; it was in the low 50s when we started riding.  It was a more challenging day to dress for, since it was also going to get up close to 80 and be sunny all day.  The weathermen were dead on in that prediction, and thankfully also in their prediction that we would do most of our riding into the wind early in the day. (Day 2 map.)

Fairly early in the day, T and I hooked up with a group that was riding a couple miles and hour faster than we were.  It's easy to add a couple miles when you're drafting, so we rode with them for 20 miles or so (including missing a rest station), and I made a new friend who joined us for the rest of the ride!

The route on the second day was tougher, a fair bit hillier, but even after the long ride on Saturday we were feeling good and didn't have any trouble making it back to the car in almost the same time as it had taken us on the first day.  We were shorted just a little bit on the route though, so we rode around the parking lot until we hit our 100 miles.

We loaded up our bikes and were all ready to head back home, but decided we needed a stop for some super-healthy dinner first!

Mmm, Steak 'n Shake!

Goal #37

Goal #37: a new rug.

Another one of the items I recently had delivered from mom was a  new rug.  With any luck (and maybe a little help), I am hoping to get it switched out with the rug in my bedroom before the end of the week.

This task is more complicated than it sounds, because it means I'll have to get a fair amount of furniture out of my bedroom, because there's not much room to maneuver in there.  But getting it out of my bedroom is also a challenge, just I am still working on organizing everything else that's out in the living area, not to mention the addition of two vintage Army trunks I bought yesterday, as well as an old wooden ladder.

Basically my entire apartment has become a jigsaw puzzle for the time being.

Recap of goal #36: I made some progress with the hutch, but I'm not quite there yet.  It's a two-part challenge: some of the hutch drawers are divided into smaller subsections. I want to make use of those in a way that makes sense. But I'm also trying to keep certain groups of things in drawers which are near to one another, rather than scattering them across the twenty drawers.  And no, the drawers cannot be rearranged.

What I Watched -- Bicycle Thieves

In preparation for my recent bike ride, I found a bicycle-themed movie to watch.  The lucky winner was The Bicycle Thief (or Bicycle Thieves, depending on which translation you have).

This is an old movie, in Italian with subtitles.  It's set in post-WWII Italy. The economy has been destroyed. Jobs are scarce, resources moreso.  A man gets offered a job, and to do it, he needs his bicycle.  Then, as you might have guessed from the title, his bicycle is stolen.  He and his son set out to find the thief and the bicycle, in an effort to save his job and the family.

Bottom line: It's a simple story, in the way old movies were.  There's not much to it, but it's nice in that way.

Goal #36

Goal #36: the hutch is here, now put it to work.

I'm a day late on this post for two reason.  First, I had a full weekend (more on that later). Second, I wanted to make sure I could show you my progress from last week.

In making room for the hutch to be delivered, I basically moved everything that was where it needed to go over to the other side of my apartment.  Now it all needs to go back into it's proper place, and I need to make some decisions about how I want it to be organized.  But this is the fun part!

Recap of goal #35: Since my furniture is being delivered as I type this, I can now show you my success!

St. Louis Architecture

The Laclede Gas Building

11th and Olive

Durango

Colorado! A couple weeks ago I headed out to Durango for a long-planned fishing vacation. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures, so you'll have to make do with what's here. 

I arrived mid-morning Wednesday and brought the gray, drizzly St. Louis spring weather to Colorado with me.  (Though it had been about a hundred degrees in St. Louis when I left.)  As a consequence, we didn't do much Wednesday or Thursday morning except watch the rain wash out the river down in the valley below -- which actually was pretty cool to watch, but it did put a damper on the lovely view.

If you have to work while you're on vacation,

this isn't a bad place to do it.

The view, after the rains.

Thursday around lunch, things finally cleared up.  We offered the trunk to Roxy and headed off up the Colorado Trail for a hike.  Not too far from the parking lot there was a photographer camped out, waiting for the finish of the Colorado Trail race.  The Trail runs nearly 500 miles from Denver to Durango, and these guys had been riding for just over 4 days.  Can you believe that?!  100 miles a day on a mountain bike?  I can manage that on a road bike (for one day, or maybe two if I really hate myself), but 4+ days on a trail?  That's insane.  But they were doing it.

Dad, Me, and Rox at the turnaround

Unfortunately we finished our hike about 20 minutes before they expected the lead rider to come barreling through.  Patient though we are (haha), we didn't feel like waiting around.  We headed home, showered, ate dinner, and capped it all off with some delicious peaches which D turned into cobbler.

Friday was Fishing Trip #1, and Dad and I set off early for New Mexico (not as far away as you might think) and the San Juan River.  We met our guide, C, who had the unenviable task of rowing us around the river all day in the blistering sun.  (Apparently the St. Louis summer weather followed me too.)  Despite the heat, we got in a couple good hours of fishing and caught some decent, lazy trout before they settled in for their midday siesta.  About the time they did that, we settled in for lunch, in the form of some sandwiches we had picked up at Bread on the way out of Durango.

That night, we headed to dinner at a local favorite: Seasons. We started with calamari, and D and I both had the chicken saltimbocca (and each took half of it home).  Between the four of us (C went too), we shared two desserts and two delicious bottles of wine.  And as a testament to how good the peaches were, I got the peach shortcake rather than something chocolate!  (It's true; there were witnesses.)

After our very tough day of sitting in a boat on Friday, we opted for something a little more aggressive on Saturday.  Boy, did we get it.  We rented me a mountain bike and headed out to ride the Hermosa Creek Trail, which D assured us was "all downhill."  Uh huh.  Not so much.

It was 20 miles of up and down, or a "death march," if you prefer/are Dad.  While a topo map will show that it was more down than up, I'm not totally sure I believe it.  The bike I was riding was a Rocky Mountain, which was pretty badass.  If I find myself in the market for a mountain bike, I might look into that.  (The truth is, I already did look into it.  The closest retailer is in Bloomington Indiana.  Road trip, anyone?)  Plus, it looks especially awesome when it's covered with mud (which we all were, pretty solidly up to our knees, and intermittently thereafter).

A hard day's work

Dinner that night was delightful: steak, local corn, and wasabi mashed potatoes, and some killer wines.  It was a perfect night, and we ate outside on the back patio taking in the stunning view, and later relaxing by the fire.

After our beater of a bike ride on Saturday, we decided to do as little as possible on Sunday.  We started out with brunch at the Kennebec Cafe, which was pure delight.  The weather was lovely, there was a shady patio, and the scones were to die for.  From there, we cruised the mountain roads for a bit, then just relaxed.  I worked, we took Roxy for a walk.  We ate.  There was another delightful patio dinner: this time, salmon, corn, quinoa.

The amazing sky after dinner.

Fishing Trip #2 was Monday, and it was a stunner.  We had C as our guide again, and went as far the other direction from Friday's trip as it was possible to go.  Friday on the Juan had been packed with boats and people.  Monday we left the parking lot and hiked about four and a half miles up a little piece of paradise called Cascade Creek. All four of us went on the trip, but just a few minutes before lunch, we got separated while fishing two ends of the same pool on the creek, and mysteriously didn't see each other again until the end of the day!  C and I were fishing together, and Dad and D were fishing together, and we were each looking for the others, but the others were nowhere to be found.

A neat spot to fish on the way up

I can think of worse places to take a walk...

No matter for C and me.  C had the sandwiches in his pack, so we had a lovely lunch break, complete with chips and cookies.  Aside from the swarming, carnivorous flies, it was a perfectly civilized meal.  We fished our way back down the creek to find Dad waiting patiently in C's truck, having eaten every morsel of food he could find.  D was long gone with the other car to rescue poor Roxy from her house-bound isolation.

...and also worse places to fish.

We all went out to dinner again Monday night, to an open-air dive call the Balcony Bar.  I don't think I ate a thing that night that wasn't fried, but it was all crunchily delicious - fried pickles, fried okra, a burger whose sourdough bread trappings were slathered in butter and grilled (so, basically fried), tater tots.  Really, what's not to like?  (Perhaps the heart attack I'll have in 15 years?)

My last day ended up being far longer than intended.  But before I discovered those misfortunes, Dad and I took Roxy for a hike at Falls Creek, a lovely little spot just perfect if you need to stretch your legs for an hour or so.

The Falls

Just before I was getting ready to leave for the airport, I got the first text message that my flight from Denver to St. Louis was delayed. Then I got another.  I called the airline to figure out whether I'd make it back to St. Louis that night as planned.  Of course, no one had any idea, so off we went to the airport, fingers crossed.  Then this happened:

Eventually I did make it home, at about 2:45 in the morning, but I made it.

Random Links

Bananas, as it turns out, are berries.

Vigilante justice, fast food-style.

Nutella catastrophe!

They mystery of ballpark hot dogs.

If you're an LA sanitation worker, you may now return to your nap.

"Only the Americans could do it."