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Continued pounding the pavement today and rode to work despite a little grumpiness from my right knee. Made great progress towards my funding goal this week, largely thanks to you guys.

I can say I absolutely adore my '12 VW Touareg hybrid living in this part of Tennessee. There's a curvy isolated road that I'm on regularly that I can maintain the speed limit (55) on, even in the curvy bits that are recommended 25, and if I'm in the mood, I've been known to take a lot of it slightly faster than that. I also regularly get to drive the dragon, because I have been kayaking regularly on the Nantahala. I'll be taking that drive again tomorrow morning. Nothing like hauling 3 kayaks and keeping up with the flow on 318 curves in 11 miles.

ODE TO SPAM. Most of you know that I'm a country boy. I may be gay, but I'm still a child of the woods. I was born and raised in Alaska, but my parents are both from South Texas. I grew up on Texan and Mexican food. Biscuits and gravy for breakfast, enchiladas or chicken fried steak for dinner. I always say I spent half my life in a tent. Sometimes we'd be in the middle of nowhere for weeks at a time. We relied on Moose and Caribou to fill our freezer. It was a fantastic way to grow up! I cherish those memories. Because of the long trips miles from civilization, we needed food that wouldn't spoil. One of the items we always had on these hunting trips was Spam. When the bacon ran out, it was Spam and eggs for breakfast. Even at home there was always Spam in the cabinet. Having two older Brothers, the lunch meat was often gone when I went to fix my lunch for school. So I'd break out a can of Spam. It started as my only alternative, but I quickly developed a taste for the stuff. Even to the point that I'd pass over the ham or roast beef cold cuts for my good friend Spam. Even today I feel the craving a few times a year, and I overcome the judgment of others as I take the Spam from my cart and place it on the belt at the checkout. Like a full moon to a werewolf, I felt the calling yesterday. So I loaded up a few cans of my old friend, along with other grocery items. Today I went to make myself a sandwich for lunch, and while grabbing pickles from the fridge, I spotted a jar of Tostitos salsa con queso dip I had picked up with tortilla chips. Hmmm? A healthy slather of the queso dip on a slice of the bread and some thick Spam slices, and a new favorite was concocted. A side of Grillo's pickles and Cheetos puffs, and lunch for a King was served and fully enjoyed! OK, King of the trailer park maybe, but I can live with that. I'm mostly English, Irish and Scottish, with a little dose of White Trash to round things out. D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S !

Halsey - If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power Halsey + Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross producing? Yes, please!

I'm going to be taking the kids with me down the Nantahala on labor day, and in preparation, my youngest has been in a sit in kayak on the lake a few times. Yesterday she decided she was ready to start learning to roll, and pulled it off in her 3rd attempt, and got it twice in a row.

Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé, M. 57 Charles Munch 1955 (It does suffer a little bit for not being gapless on tidal) Example:

Neal Morse Band, Innocence & Danger They’re doing a prog, as the kids say.

I like this one... I remember my Mother getting everything ready to make ham salad one day, only to find out that my Brother had eaten all of the ham she'd bought for it. With all the veggies already diced, she decided to use Spam, but she was furious with my Brother. As it turned out, everyone liked it better with Spam. She used Spam from then on.

Replacement Flair Royal arrived (doesn’t have the slip issue; it was apparently a washer that was not the correct thickness, which doesn’t give me a lot of confidence for longevity). Option-O Remi with contemporary burrs, slightly modified to suit my needs. Orphan Espresso Lido ET here soon. If anybody wants a comparison of three higher end hand grinders, I would be happy to (I’ve had a Commandante, but it was the second version: I’m sure I remember it fairly well). The modded Option-O Remi (minor mods were just for ergonomics for me in particular, and don’t affect grind at all) is dialed in, and produces incredibly good coffee (the even fluff!!) for pour-over and manual espresso. I’ll dial in the other two first before comparing, as I’m not an asshole, but I’m sure I’m biased towards the Option-O. I’m traveling soon, a few weeks from now, and I will take all three in their travel cases with my Flair Pro2 (V60 is already there, where I will end up). I might drop off a Breville thermoblock machine too (think Gaggia classic-ish), so I would test a variety of grinds.

Variations on a Melancholy Theme Brad Mehldau, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra 2021 The Theme:

"Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage! " In the words of the late, great Bill Hicks does anyone not know where this is going?

A nice Blue and Gold Macaw. My Oscar (see profile photo) is a youngster, only 34 years old. 😁

Churchill's parrot was a macaw, not an African Grey (or a Norwegian Blue). Here's an article about the bird, who was 114 years old a few years ago https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/having-chat-churchills-parrot-114-13642592

ran the nolichucky gorge yesterday. Way more river than I'm particularly ready for, but I made some class IV rapids successfully. Was on a 10' dagger torrent, a whitewater sit on top, so it was partially easy mode, but also crazy hard to work in the technical areas. I swam a LOT, and the shallow areas were a nightmare. But I did it. We initially were gonna run the lower part of the river, a class 2/3 with lots of flat water, so we all brought longer boats, then the level of the gorge was right, so we did it. I'm sore as hell today.

Luckily I was able to manage to grab 009BK and now out of production 009 silver for me 😊

Macintop is stuck in a loop where it won't full boot. Probability of a radio show tonight very low. Weekend is going to be "interesting" in the sense of the Chinese curse.