Worth Brewing

We went down to Worth Brewing tonight, takes less than 30 minutes door to door. Jon Guinea posts his beautiful la-de-da photos of big city beer. This is small town beer made by Peter Ausenhus in 10 gallon batches in Northwood, population 2050. Peter cut his brewing teeth at Summit Brewing up in St.Paul and then went small-time. As is normal, we were just out drinking beer and I didn't take my camera. We ordered three plates of assorted hors d'evoures and drank our way through a couple of 7-beer sample trays. We lined up the beers in order of favor, generally  leaning toward the IPA, oatmeal stout and a nice brown ale, tapering off to the lighter beers at the bottom.  The beer is all good - we ended up ordering a round of the oatmeal stout and the Field Trip IPA. The snacks were great, garlicky humus dip, and local sausage and cheeses. If you want more you can have it delivered from Soup's Pizza next door. Because the hors d'evoures were good we just grazed. In spite of spirited yelling and clapping, the Twins lost.  :-(

Another Diet to Try

Fifo Riders is a bicycle blog that was recently liberated. Good thing too, we need more of this kind of stuff:

"I was buying a large bag of Eukanuba dog food at my vet and standing in a queue at the check-out. A guy behind me asked if I had a dog.

On impulse, I told him no, I was starting the Eukanuba Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in hospital last time, but that I'd lost 22 kilos before I awoke in an intensive care unit with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told him that it was essentially a perfect diet and that all you do is load your pockets with Eukanuba nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. And I told him that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. I have to mention here that by now, practically everyone in the queue was enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind him.

Horrified, he asked if I'd ended up in hospital in that condition because I'd been poisoned. I told him no; it was because I'd been sitting in the street licking my balls when a car hit me."

Amy's Apartment

Addy has been visiting her lifelong friend Amy over the weekend in St.Paul and helping her get settled in her new apartment. I took a bicycle, a bed frame, desk chair and some miscellaneous up, shared a meal with Amy at D'Amico's on Grand Avenue, and brought Addy back (after two stops with relatives along the way ). Amy, my soul daughter, has a corner unit in a 1920s vintage apartment with one balcony facing the street and another one overlooking a lush green courtyard. This building is on Portland, only one block north of the Summit Avenue of F.Scott Fitzgerald. One time Addy mentioned she missed the green of the Twin Cities. This is nice. It is not expensive. It is within an easy walk of excellent restaurants. It is a civilized way to live.

Big Island Rendezvous

Every Fall a bunch of people get together on the shores of Bancroft Bay on the north edge of Albert Lea and play pretend 1840 fur trapping for two or three days. A few accountants, a few Native Americans, maybe a few Native American accountants? For two or three days they become someone else, someone they chose to be, not someone they are born to be - like Harley bikers without the bikes. They cheat time, but it's a good time ... with history, crafts, food and music - always a good combination. This is not my photo. I stole it from Lorna, who lifted it from someone else, who borrowed it from the photographer. Bless the obsidian, star-lit Minnesota autumn sky. Tonight the relative humidity is 35%. Hubble? We don't need no stinking Hubble. With no clouds, unpolluted air at 35%, you can see the edge of the universe with the naked eye. On a night like tonight you can lay out in the darkness of the autumn grass, and if you can focus far enough, if you can look deep enough in your mind, you can see the beginning of time. Of time itself.

Sammi Smith

For me, Country Music doesn't seem a natural fit for most female singers. The ones I like best, like Patsy Cline and Sammi Smith, might have country instrumentation behind them, but if you listen close, the vocals aren't really country. I realize that this is a minority opinion. So be it. Sammi died about  five years ago, generally ignored by Nashville and country fans because she was a subtle lady, didn't take herself too seriously ... and wasn't a NASCAR chick with skin-tight leather pants, big hair and huge breasts desperately trying to make a break for it.  ?

Here's another fun one, ukelele, kazoo, taps, the whole ten yards - with disabled embedding.

Jonathan Winters

In the previous post I referenced Newhart, Winters and Carlin. It struck me that most of you don't have a clue what I'm talking about (for nice a change of pace). Comedy records. Jonathan Winters was manic-depressive to the point of occasional hospitalization. Robin Williams was a disciple, but he was a wannabe pretender compared to Jonathan. When Winters was rolling and not ... quite ...over the edge, he was the fastest thing I ever saw.

English 2

I posted this yesterday. It laid out there for an hour before Lorna read it and said the language was too offensive, so I pulled it. Ya, it is offensive. If you have never been on a playground don't listen to it. I have listened to it a couple of times and I think it's pretty funny, not only the accents, but also the actual monologue itself - so I reposted it. Bob Newhart would be proud. Maybe you have to have grown up flopped on the floor of Margadant's cramped bedroom (a wide place in a short hallway) listening to LPs of  Newhart, Jonathan Winters, with maybe a dash of Carlin to really appreciate it.

John Prine

I used to be young. I once cut a fine figure of a man. Kinda cute even. Same with John. Now he looks like a truck mechanic. I think that would please him.

It's Never Too Late To Quotate

"They are like talking books in Fahrenheit 451 who are content to pass their lives filling up with knowledge which can never be used, and it is the very filling up that gives them a sense of life's pointless sweetness."

This is a scary quote. It means that some hacker has gained access to the hard drive of the Inner Gunnar.  They know me. The real me, not the cyber Gunnar. This is from an obscure book. Bonus points will be awarded to anyone who can attribute it - even the professional writers/readers, i.e.:  Dex., Michael, Matthew, Justine, Cheri, Maria,  etc. You know who you are. (Family members not included.)

Doug and Duluth

Doug Robertson is a year round bicycle commuter in Duluth, Minnesota.  Fall color has already hit hard up there and recently he's been posting some wonderful photos taken on his daily commute. Check him out.

62cm Kvale Touring on Ebay

 CHRIS-KVALE-CYCLES-CUSTOM-TOURING-FRAMESET   $1300 Buy it Now

Environmentalism As Religion

Jackson Gabus clued me on 3quarksdaily. I love it when I find myself have a laugh at another's expense and then realize it's me being lampooned.

For some individuals and societies, the role of religion seems increasingly to be filled by environmentalism. It has become “the religion of choice for urban atheists,” according to Michael Crichton, the late science fiction writer (and climate change skeptic). In a widely quoted 2003 speech, Crichton outlined the ways that environmentalism “remaps” Judeo-Christian beliefs: "There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe." In parts of northern Europe, this new faith is now the mainstream. “Denmark and Sweden float along like small, content, durable dinghies of secular life, where most people are nonreligious and don’t worship Jesus or Vishnu, don’t revere sacred texts, don’t pray, and don’t give much credence to the essential dogmas of the world’s great faiths,” observes Phil Zuckerman in his 2008 book Society without God. Instead, he writes, these places have become “clean and green.” This new faith has very concrete policy implications; the countries where it has the most purchase tend also to have instituted policies that climate activists endorse. To better understand the future of climate policy, we must understand where “ecotheology” has come from and where it is likely to lead.