keg stands

It's been years since I last did a keg stand. My father had never done one, didn't even know what it was in fact.

Until Saturday night.

My mom threw a surprise party for my dad who turned 65 today. As the party was dying down my cousin commented that there was still a lot of beer in the keg he had brought. I jokingly suggested we do keg stands to draw it down a bit. One of my dad's co-worker leapt up in excitement, all to willing to take the first pull. He was a big guy, came to the icy keg brimming with experience, and posted a strong 18 count. 

I was leading the remaining guests in goading dad to mount up, but like an animal backed into a corner he lashed out, challenging me to get on the tap since I was yapping the most. Seeing no alternative way to get him to give it a go, I got on the keg for a solid 12, though the counting got off to a very slow start. I'm going to award myself a 15. Probably no more that the equivalent of a single pint of beer, but consumed in a way that took me back at least 15 years.

So it was Dad's turn. We reviewed the protocol and hoisted him skyward. I had the honor of holding the spigot and watched the old man take a nice long pull. The count: a perfect 10.

With the keg drinking over, we stayed up late, chatting about airplane radios and flying in general, his favorite past time. It was a great party and nice to see so many of his friends and family come out to celebrate.

Cheers Papa Al. Here's to many more birthdays in the future... and no more keg stands, I promise.

I don't get twitter

Am I missing something with this? Who would ever thought that there was a market for a service that allowed people to post what they just ate for breakfast and that they are headed out the door early to get gas before driving to work.... then an hour later that they are at their desks and gas was up $.05 today?

If you use twitter and you're a friend of mine, we can still be buds... but if I read your hourly updates, don't expect to have much to talk to you about when we get together. You should also prepare yourself to receive a good many updates on everything I have been doing since we last saw each other, otherwise known as "conversation." A growing number of my recent "conversations" with friends have been me just saying "yeah, I know." 

egg nog and pumpkin pie

I was speaking with a coworker on St. Patrick's day about dinner that evening. She was feeling the pressure from her mother-in-law to prepare corned beef and cabbage, one of the worst meals known to man, but no one in her family could stand it. I can relate. 

With the exception of turkey on Thanksgiving and Octoberfest beer in Spetember I refuse to believe that people really like any of the holiday/season specific foods. This list includes pumpkin pie, egg nog, corned beef and cabbage, and lamb on Easter. I'm sure that other heritages have their own list. If this stuff was so good, you'd eat it year round.

On a related note how is it that an entire civilization couldn't come up with one decent dish?When's the last time you went to that really great Irish place or shopped the Irish section of the market for that final something you needed to make your favorite Irish dinner? Thank goodness for Guinness.

a good 7 days

The boat

The cabana

The carrot cake

The pool

I'm torn

between wanting winter to end so that running and cycling are fun again and wanting it to stretch out a bit longer now that we've discovered skiing/snowboarding. "They" say that spring skiing is the best, so I'll just have to wait and see. 

My ironman training volume has been pretty high for a first timer this early in the season, I put in 8, 9, 12.5 and 11.5 hour weeks in February, and fortunately have been injury free, although today the inside of my right kneecap is tender. 

I pulled a Colin (I can't find the post where he talked about doing it, but he did) and cut the steerer on my road bike too short on Saturday. $250 mistake right there, perhaps offset by whatever I can get on ebay for a used custom painted fork with a short 1" diameter steerer, which isn't much I'm sure.

Two more days in New England and then we make our more-or-less annual trip to Puerto Rico. It sucks there - you shouldn't go. I'm not going to have any problem whatsoever relaxing and just doing nothing. People who can't relax when they are away from their daily routine don't have enough stress to begin with... and good for them. I love my job, kids, and home/family life but they boil up their fair share of angst so it's time to move the circus to the Caribbean and see how that works out. If I could get ride of just one of those three things, or better just the stress associated with one of them, I'd be high as a kite.

If the market is bad enough there may be some product* down there we will look at. 

* listening to NPR Saturday while cutting my steerer too short they had a lengthy segment about two guys who were buying up foreclosed houses in Norther NJ and they kept referring to the homes as "product." My high school girlfriend was the first one I ever heard using that word as a pronoun to represent something specific rather than just saying what she was talking about. She referred to her hair spray as product. In this case I use the term product to refer to real estate, not hair spray.