June 3, 201214 yr It's what I did yesterday, but Dusty and I linked up at RFD for beers last night after I had a work dinner. Good thing he's flexible with his time these days. Dusty came into town without regared for tornado warnings, flood warnings, buckets of rain, thunder and lightning, etc. We had a good time catching up and drinking some good beers.
June 3, 201214 yr Entrenching ... yes, that sounds about right ... will there be young ... nubile women involved? Al, glad you connected with Dusty ... you do realize that you were just 100 miles south of me? We need a tracking app ... could have slept together last night. Sorry ... I don't care who knows it.
June 3, 201214 yr It's what I did yesterday, but Dusty and I linked up at RFD for beers last night after I had a work dinner. Good thing he's flexible with his time these days. Dusty came into town without regared for tornado warnings, flood warnings, buckets of rain, thunder and lightning, etc. We had a good time catching up and drinking some good beers.This. Me too. Thanks for taking time out of your busy day and commiserate over beers and everything. And even though I was stressed out and not on vacation, I still wasn't an asshole. Much. I don't remember what all I had, but it was something like a Chouffe Brune? Chocolate City something (that was outstanding) -- Cerveza Nacional de la Capital? A Leffe something, and a Bell's Kalamazoo Stout. Belched and farted all the way home. Yeezh.
June 3, 201214 yr Has it really been 60 years? Seems like only yesterday .... Enjoy the spectacle, Grahame.
June 3, 201214 yr (Yesterday) We grumbled in the a.m. as my son's soccer game was NOT cancelled despite continuing rain and forecasts of thunder-showers. Travelled 45 minutes to the lovely town of Manchester, MA. Watched the end of the previous game, realized it WASN'T raining so hard there and the field was turf. RIGHT at the end of their game, the rain came down REAL hard, torrential. With both teams on the field, totally soaked, the ref calls the game due to weather Ended up making the best of it, found a nice little diner for breakfast, drove over to the beach and watched the waves from inside the car, then went to a mall. Came home, watched Forrest Gump on DVR, and just made a simple and fun eve of it. Today: weather cleared up a bit, though rain may continue in spotty segments. We'll head up towards the NH seacoast, maybe check out Hampton Beach and the boardwalk area there....
June 3, 201214 yr Attended the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts. Gorgeous weather, interesting food and a variety of art and music. Art at best average. Pretty decent folk musician and 70s tribute band. Beautiful day and lots of fun to investigate with my bride of 36 years. Friday I took Nitro (7 month old Vizsla) to the gun dog trainer. His first introduction to birds. Fabulous day. He not only pointed every bird, but held one point for more than 10 minutes before trying to flush the bird. Incredible performance for a rookie. His status has changed from a good prospect to an exceptional prospect. No pressure, but now I have high hopes for him.
June 3, 201214 yr Attended the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts. Gorgeous weather, interesting food and a variety of art and music. Art at best average. Pretty decent folk musician and 70s tribute band. Beautiful day and lots of fun to investigate with my bride of 36 years. Friday I took Nitro (7 month old Vizsla) to the gun dog trainer. His first introduction to birds. Fabulous day. He not only pointed every bird, but held one point for more than 10 minutes before trying to flush the bird. Incredible performance for a rookie. His status has changed from a good prospect to an exceptional prospect. No pressure, but now I have high hopes for him. Awesome Al!
June 3, 201214 yr Downloaded and installed Max Payne 3 on PC, only to have it be a complete mess, wrought with a performance-unrelated stuttering issue where the framerate is jumpy and audio cuts into its own future intermittently. Pondered purchasing "Viva La Madness", the sequel novel to Layer Cake (saw the film), an eventual get probably, just not quite right at this time and place. Feeling suicidal, but I always feel suicidal, in desperate need of a delicious fruit pie slice served by a psychotic ginger.
June 4, 201214 yr Not particularly today, but the last few days I've been reminded how much fire ant stings fucking SUCK. Those things need to be erased from the face of the Earth.
June 4, 201214 yr Gorgeous looking bread, Jacob, bet it wast tasty. Fax machine set to auto answer. Fire ants do, indeed, suck, Fitz. Becky is deathly allergic to them, and once went into anapylactic shock requiring emt's administering epinephrine on way to hospital to revive her. Very scary stuff.
June 4, 201214 yr i'm finally now getting the crumb consistency that i've been wanting: that looks awesome. sticky balsamic, pesto and olive oil would go so well with it. Then again, I would probably eat it as is before it go to the table.
June 4, 201214 yr oh, it was! here is the recipe. i never bake it to that color, as i'm already baking it longer than the recipe says, and my temp is spot on (and i have a big cordierite baking stone), but i think it's about perfect as i do it. nice crispy crust, light, delicious crumb. the KitchenAid really made the difference, as I was apparently never quite able to knead the dough enough, by hand. my bread was always good, but the crumb was always more homogenous, without the large air holes. i was getting what is called a "Parisian crumb," from what i've read, which is great for certain baguettes, but i wasn't making baguettes! That's looking good. Getting the mix right is half the "magic" and so is the duration of the mixing. The machines we use have two speeds so for a normal medium density bread it's 6 minutes slow and 3 minutes fast if using the German spec 550 flour. If using any of the French flours or the American variants then the times will be rather different and often unpredictable due to the high gluten. I did give mixing by hand a try over Easter and it is possible but rather time consuming. Took me about 25minutes for 1/2L of dough (1.4kg or so) with no tools except my hands. It was fun but I think I'll stick with my machines...
June 4, 201214 yr Unholy carp, that whole film is on YouTube.Thanks Dusty. Watched this morning. Interestingly it's Saul Bass' only feature length film.
June 5, 201214 yr Observed the transit of Venus thanks to a co-workers telescope Edited June 5, 201214 yr by Grahame
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