May 2010 Archives

born to be kings
we're the princes of the universe!

passed by an ethnic grocery on my bike ride today (fish waffles didn't show up for her lesson, argh!) and saw a big bold sign that said, "fresh goat".

now i have a great reason to finally break out the smoker. tomorrow's dinner: smoked goat. yum!

pair that with the fresh chevre i picked up from the chesbians on friday, and we've got something.

now i need to come up with a masala for smoked goat, and pick a wood, no less.

yesterday there was a giant swarm of bees outside on our lawn. i've never seen anything like it, the swarm was the size of a camry, and it was moving pretty much right toward me, slowly. i went inside and watched them settle down into a tree in our yard. the swarm lasted a good 30 minutes before they settled into the tree. i did not film it because i am not your gorram discovery channel.

i did, however, go outside today to photograph the new bee home:

maybe i'll take some more later, these came out pretty cool. if you want closer closeups, you're welcome to come by, i'll point out the tree for you.

yesterday after a rather intense weights workout, hops and i went to tomales bay to meet the Captain and his sister+husband at the Hog Island Oyster Company.

I've never really had oysters before, but now I really have.

The Captain apparently forgot we were joining him and arrived 30 minutes late, after I'd had a full batch of oysters and already decided that I didn't really like oysters. Then I had some more and I guess I do. I'm not an oyster nut by any means.

We lit a charcoal fire and "grilled" (steamed, really) some oysters and some clams. I most definitely am a fan of clams, and those had to be the best I've ever had.

By the end of our visit, I'd had two differnet kinds of oysters ("small" and Kumamoto) dozens of different ways, with hot sauce, with bbq sauce, with lemon, raw, cooked. i actually do like the Kumamoto, raw, cooked, with or without hot sauce. the small, not so much. clams, yum.

anyhow, I don't feel like a big long description of the day, so suffice to saw we saw sheep on the way:

After we were done there, we headed into point reyes station and located the Cowgirl Creamery to see, as The Captain's bro-in-law said, "some chesbians". There were definitely many friendly chesbians, and they gave us lots of samples, and we bought more cheese than we really need, particularly considering that most of what we got is available at our local grocery. Anyhow, the fresh chevre is *not* available locally, so there we go.

After this it was on to pt reyes lighthouse, which is at the end of a rather long bit of coast:

Home to interesting erosion formations:

as promised, a lighthouse:

the lighthouse was closed by the time we got there and we couldn't go in. i urged hops to use her connections to get us a tour but she really hasn't got any, so no tour for us. she couldn't tell us where any of the roads led or what any of the sites were, but she could point out where all the park's contraband was hidden.

literally moments after hops proclaimed, during our departure drive, that she didn't have to look out for cows in the road because they were all fenced in, we encountered:

cows in the road.

The Captain unwisely decided not to join us for dinner. I suspect he'd been misinformed as to the nature of the Avatar's restaurant we were visiting. He'd heard of the same-owner, same-name Burrito Shop in mill valley. We were going to the original and most awesome Avatar's in Sausalito:

samosas and free paratha.

that's my jamaican jerk chicken enchilada with indian chutney sauce. or is it hop's fresh dungeness crab enchilada with indian chutney sauce?

both were superb, as usual. the crab was really of this world in the context of an indian enchilada, and the jerk chicken was great too.

hops enjoying herself:

for dessert, Avatar's Dream:

the eponymous Avatar is long passed, sadly, but his dream lives on. some kind of ice cream cake with pistachio topping and mango/strawberry sauce. delicious!

after that we got stuck on hte GG bridge for about half an hour as an accident was cleared. i fell asleep as soon as we got home.

and i was all set to implement austerity measures, like the ones i went through way back at the beginning, with planned meals, counted calories, and a whole lot of grilled chicken breasts. while poking around for some of the magic calorie counting formulas that i've forgotten, i came across these bits of wisdom from my good buddy Draper:

Watch calories, watch carbohydrates. Avoid excessive fats (high calories) and carbohydrates. The big bonus here is that after a few weeks, your tastes and habits will simply change. Fats, sugar and salt become less interesting. For an intense fat burning regime, try the following tricks.

• Don't scrutinize. Permanent changes take time. Test and record your bodyfat level every two months. If you use a scale, weigh only once a week. After an initial drop in weight, plan to lose 1/2 to 1 pound per week steadily - a realistic goal.

yes, instead of panicking, how about a moderate approach?

great idea, thanks, Dave!

another alternative that I'm keeping on the back burner is Dave's own tuna and water diet which i've been meaning to get around to for about 8 years. it's only 3 days, what's the problem?

Dan John recommends the Velocity Diet, which you can google yourself, dear reader, but summarized: protein shakes only for a month, with one meal a week of chicken breast, rice, and green beans. His reasoning is sound, and it is this: fat loss is all out war, so wage war against fat without mercy, and do it only once a year or so. His analogy proves by extension that war is hell.

that one's also on the back burner. Dan John rightly points out that guts that hang over the belt are killers of Americans, and while I'm not quite there, I'm basically borderline.

sigh.

first off, a couple posts ago i introduced a blog character with the name "artemis". that's a lame-ass name and regret it.

henceforth, i'm renaming that guy "miles o'brien", on account of how he argues with keiko. har har har! "artemis" sounds all pompous and faggy.

anyhow, hops and i went down to miles o'brien's place last weekend for some ribs, latakia, and trash talk. we got more than we bargained for as he graciously served us anniversary-style champagne, some awesome, CA-made (CA: fuck yeah!) private label tiny-batch brandy, and a metric ass-load of allergens.

the first thing I noticed when we got into his pad was how much cleaner it looked than last time.

I later found out that miles o'brien had given it a big cleaning because he'd read on my blog the day before that I was cleaning as much as some lady and he didn't want to fall behind in the power-cleaning arms race.

har-de-har!

all righty then. as a follow up to my recent post about setting realistic goals, i'm going to do just that.

I've read and re-read, grokked and modified Dan John's opinions on goal setting. He quotes The One Minute Manager (of whom I've never heard, but who cares?):

Look at your goals.
Look at your behavior.
Does your behavior match your goals?

And Dan's contributions, at least the contributions I'll be using, are these:

If your goals don't match your behavior, either change your behavior or change your goals.

Hidden in there is this little nugget of truth, which I dug out all on my own using my critical thinking shovel: if your goals don't match your behavior, perhaps
you've lied about or omitted a goal or a behavior.

Or maybe you haven't, and you need to change a goal or a behavior.

Two final tips from Dan John: start living like you've achieved your goal, and let everyone know about your goals so you're more likely to be shamed into achieving them. I'm definitely on top of the sharing bit.

I've made two additions of my own to the goal-setting ideas espoused in Dan's book: I've categorized my goals into three groups, "attain", "maintain", and "attain and maintain". And lastly, possibly most importantly, through the experienced garnered of years of trying to be both a distance runner and a lifter, I've decided that a goal setting system needs priorities, so that if it becomes obvious that one goal is interfering with another, I can decide which to drop.

So without further ado, here's what I've come up with after some days of brainstorming, my near and long-term personal fitness goals:

Attain (I have never done any of these):
- deadlift 5x405
- clean and press bodyweight
- 15 palms-out pull ups

Attain and Maintain (I've done two of these before):
- fit into size 36 pants
- sport a single chin, manly and well defined, needing no beardly obfuscation
- beefy forearms

Maintain (I like these):
- eat good food regularly
- drink wine/whisky regularly
- continue rock climbing as a relaxing rest activity
- continue cycling as a relaxing rest activity
- baseline of strength such that 5x315 DL is "easy"
- good GI health
- long-term health, ability to keep lifting into old age

I've kicked my DL goal way up, adding 5lbs and changing it from a 1RM goal to a 5RM goal, because I think I need to stop whining about how hard 400 is and just friggin do it. It's not that hard, it's only 50lbs more than my current 5RM, and I've got the rest of my life to do it, though the sooner I manage, the sooner I can start shooting for 500.

Single-chin + good GI health is my original fitness goal from way-back-when, and while I've done reasonably well on the GI front (fighting my genetics tooth and nail), the single-chin issue is a big one for me. In fact, I think a bodyweight C+P will be easier for me to manage.

So, as for priorities, here's the same list sorted by priority (sorting it right now, this part I haven't thought about until now):

Goals, all, prioritized:
- M: good GI health
- M: long-term health, ability to keep lifting into old age
- M: baseline of strength such that 5x315 DL is "easy"
- A: deadlift 5x405
- M: eat good food regularly
- A: clean and press bodyweight
- M: drink wine/whisky regularly
- M: continue cycling as a relaxing rest activity
- A+M: fit into size 36 pants
- A: 15 palms-out pull ups
- M: continue rock climbing as a relaxing rest activity
- A+M: sport a single chin, manly and well defined, needing no beardly obfuscation
- A+M: beefy forearms

So there we go, lucky 13 goals, sorted two ways. Someone should put that on a Chinese food menu.

I guess this post will actually be a part 1 of 2, since I haven't the time to examine my behaviors right now and formulate training plans. I guess that I'm lucky since after honest sorting, my top 3 are all maintains -- although at some point (soon) my #1 becomes "lose weight" just like my #9.

In part 2, I should also come up with a deadline for the A/A+M goals, I guess, though of all the goals I've set, "beefy forearms" is the one I have the least idea how to attain. Like with "good GI health", I think my genetics are against me there.

It seems that at the moment, lifting goals dominate my thoughts, and thus my goals. It's very possible that will change. What effect that will have on my behavior remains to be seen.

As a booster to my morale, I will point out to myself that I recently set a goal of posting more on the blog, analyzed my behavior, and took the necessary steps to achieve my goal. I'd say that was a success, to the detriment of my readers (har har).

wish i'd learned them years earlier.

in addition to being a fantastic exercise in their own right, once the bar has been cleaned, i can press it overhead, push press it overhead, jerk it overhead (if i learn the move), and i can front squat it. there are probably a dozen other things i can do, like throw it up into the air and catch it on the way down, but press and squat really fill out the gaps in my no-bench no-rack gym setup.

sure, i won't be front squatting any more than i can clean, but that just means i can get my form nailed down. in any case, front squats are so friggen hard that i don't need to use much weight right now.

i have trouble imagining a day when i can press more than i can clean, but i guess it's possible. until such a day, i can now do presses, which i need.

if only there were some way to do pullups on the cleaned bar...

the cost of a lobbying license in CA is on the order of 10 bucks a year.

i wonder how it got so low?

Anyone who finds "hope" in The Road wasn't reading very carefully, or alternately, I wasn't reading very carefully.

The book made it pretty clear to me that all non-human life was dead: trees, birds, fish. I don't think we ever saw an insect, although I also do not recall insects specifically mentioned as wiped out.

Anyhow, with no plants, no animals, and no food source other than fellow humans, what exactly is there to be hopeful about? The kid finds a new family (maybe) at the end, but once the canned potatoes run out, there won't be any more. Unless life is thriving on some other continent, there's nothing to be particularly hopeful about. The author does not paint a clear picture of the world, instead focusing on relentlessly driving home the mood. The mood is: everything's totally fucked. I'm not getting the hope, and since I couldn't find any in the book, I found it to be a pointless exercise in mood writing. Yup, the author very successfully set a mood. But in the absence of story, in the absence of any hope for a future, I could have just set that same mood by reflecting on my own life. WTF do I need a book for to be depressed?

i really want to get super mario galaxy 2, or even the recent super mario side scroller, but SMG1 broke my trust: it did the same thing as any mario game. Sure, it starts out fun, but just as I got into it, it turned prohibitively difficult. Okay, I get it, I'm supposed to be building up skills. Bah. If I wanted to do something productive like building a skill, I wouldn't be playing a video game. Now, it is said of both the subsequent Mario games that this philosophy is taken into account, but I just don't believe it enough.

Besides, suddenly I'm on a reading roll, and that's much better. On the other hand, I would have been better off shouting at the TV than reading "The Road".

time for some farscape

do it your damn self, i'm not your sed monkey.

i can finally clean as much as this young lady: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TlbDQUWs0s.

now, the next milestone is to look as good as she does doing it. that one's inaccessible, i think.

last night i finished dan john's book, which i mentioned just last post, and in the very end he has a rather short list of recommended reading.

under the section "On Learning", he's got Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which I had just begun reading that day.

spookly!

i'm nearly through my first reading of Dan John's excellent book. I haven't read such a great book since I read Draper's, and I'm still digesting it (actually, at the moment I'm attempting vainly to digest a fish oil capsule, which I've re-begun taking since John recommends them so thoroughly, and I already knew they're good for me).

Yesterday's reading had a lot to do with goals and goal setting, and it's really gotten me thinking: although I've whinged a lot on the blog about how I just can't seem to bike and lift at my best at the same time (like everyone else, duh), I've never actually set a goal. Well, I've set goals in both areas, just not lately.

Dan John emphasizes picking realistic complexes of goals, and not fudging in any way. For example, a realistic complex of goals for me would be:

It's Frobuary 0.5, YOMHC 0x63!

Haircut before dinner. #4 is pretty darn short for the landing strip, but now i can save again on hair gel.

still prickly.

In the messages, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, Landis accused other top American cyclists on the Postal Service team, including Armstrong, of using performance-enhancing drugs and methods.

Hold on now, are you saying that Lance Armstrong used performance enhancing methods to enhance his performance?!

Stop the press!

i'm actually advancing in one of my lifts, and that's nice. i power cleaned 175 today for 3 singles: two good ones and one scary one.

i've been cleaning 95 for lots of reps, so today i did a bunch more of those, then 135, then 155, then figured 175 sounded conservatively reasonable. the first single was actually an attempt at a double, and the last one was probably illegal in some federations, but the first and middle were good.

i ordered some XL underpants, whether it's the wine or the power cleans, my enormous legs simply don't fit in L underpants. the trouble is that my arse isn't all that big, so XL may involve a whole lot of folded material in the sits area. i've taken to slitting the legs of my L underpants just so I fit, perhaps I will apply my tailoring skills to the new XL boxers and make them assless.

stayed up "late" last night playing portal, then hops decided that 6:30 was the time i'd be waking up today. recovering from dual workouts yesterday, plenty o crap to do today. bleh.

i have a bug to fix but i can't concentrate without all my clutter.

and it still fucking blows.

"runaway" sucks bigtime.

the image quality is nice, though.

yesterday while enduring a bout of forced antiquing, i ran into a nerd with a felt cowboy hat buying another felt cowboy hat, presumably both antiques, since we both were, at the time, inside an antique store.

the nerd gave me a double take, then could no longer restrain himself and told me i had a cool beard. here, though, is where this fine young nerd distinguished himself from the legions of other adoring fans of my facial hair: he added, with much nerdly gusto, which is to say, in complete monotone: "there was a viking named Sven Forkbeard who had a beard like that."

the antique shopkeep, not to be outdone, offered these facts: that her father had been unable to grow a mustache, but when he did, it came in blond, like a German, in contrast to the dark hair on his head.

altogether, it was a successful trip to the antique shop. in addition to two fascinating bits of beard historical mythology, we succeeded in not buying any furniture or hawaiian shirts.

i should have bought the things i liked while i was in chicago. since i'll eventually buy them anyhow, i might as well save on shipping.

years ago before i corrected my DL form I'd constantly scape the skin off my shins, drawing blood and creating bald spots. those days are pretty much behind me (though they made a brief comeback, recently, on my two PR workouts), but now I've got a new problem: chafed adam's apple during cleans. and since my workout consists of 5x5 cleans, 5x5 mil press, and 5x5 front squat: that's a lot of apple chafing.

needlessly mean unsolicited political jab: perhaps if ann coulter tried my workout she'd end up looking less like a man.

the weather was not ideal, but it was not raining, so after i finished my deadlifts, i butched up (choad) and took my toys outside. cleans, mil press, front squats: out on the lawn in front of god, my neighbors, and any weightlifting coaches who may have passed by.

the thing about lifting outside is that i have to put pants on, and the weights are wet from the grass, and, of course, the ground is lumpy and uneven. all of these, except for the pants, were welcome and easily overcome challenges. chalk and a towel took care of the dew, and the lumpiness of the ground added an element of interest to lifts that were already pretty interesting, being new to me.

maybe i was just well rested, or maybe being outside was invigorating, but the lifts all went well, with plenty of energy. i will definitely make this a regular habit, and perhaps i'll even move the deads outside. i don't really want to destroy the lawn, but then, i'm a rentor, so what do i care?

i wish i could make a living out of spewing such crap. i can definitely spew crap, just poke around the blog. but i don't make a living out of it.

i was going to lift outdoors today in the bee-yoo-ti-ful weather, but it seems the nice weather came around yesterday morning and then left.

italian burp.

i'm going to remember to take my camera with me to sawyer camp.

i really, really didn't want to go up that last hill today, because

1) i was tired and unmotivated
2) it was not required, my route is out-and-back so I could reverse course at any time

and those, dear reader, are the two reasons i went up that last hill, plus the one after it.

bargh!

A while back, my bro asked me how to tell if he can afford something.
He was asking specifically about a HAM radio he wanted, but he also
wondered about the wider, generic version of the question, and got me
wondering too. In full disclosure, I don't know that I came up with a
useful answer, but I do have some general guidelines that I currently
operate by. I say currently because of course my SOP is subject to
change without notice and my guidelines may be superseded any minute
now.

Generally, I intend to die broke. The trick is to be old at the time
and rich up until the last minute. I don't really have a clear plan
to achieve either of those. The closer I get to being old, the more I
begin to suspect that my plan is difficult.

Still, I'm doing a lot better than most people. This trip to Chicago
really got me thinking about the question of affording things,
because, of course, I went there with the intent to buy expensive
pipes. How much could I afford to spend?

I ended up spending less than what I had budgeted (my some methods of
accounting, more by other methods). I didn't go nuts, I didn't cut
deeply into savings, I didn't delay any forthcoming major purchases.
I raised my bar a little. Whereas before I thought it was ridiculous
to spend X on a pipe, I spent at least 2X on each of the 4 I got, and
now X seems like a very reasonable price for a pipe. It's funny how
that works. I will say that in terms of aesthetics and smoking
quality, there's definitely a 2X improvement over the X range.

Anyhow, this post isn't really about how many pipes I can afford, or
how many bottles of wine I can afford (apparently, the answer is
lots). This post is about what I can afford to waste. I smoke
the pipes, I drink the wine, I even use my grill, and surely intend to
use my smoker any weekend now. I use my kettlebells, I used the heck
out of my power booth, I use my car and my gym membership. But I've
not been using my espresso machine.

I used the heck out of it when I got it, as any search of this blog
will reveal. I used the heck out of it for several years after that,
making many modifications and enjoying it thoroughly. But since I
moved, and even before that, I have used it very little. In fact,
I've only used it for one 8oz batch of beans since I moved. It was
quite literally gathering dust.

Some months ago I offered to sell it to a friend. That never really
happened. Yesterday, I asked if he'd take it for free, and he said he
would.

So here's the interesting question: can I afford to give it away? In
terms of dollars, I could get as many dollars for it, probably, as I
spent on one of the pipes in Chicago. Throw in all the accessories and it's worth a good chunk of change -- if someone would buy it. To get a buyer, I'd have to post an ad, deal with flakes and fakers who want to waste my time, or, more likely, deal with no takers at all. Meanwhile, it gathers more dust.

On the other hand, I could give it away to a guy that I know will not only like it, not only love it, but give it the kind of heavy, loving, and extremely nerdy use that I gave Silvia during the years that I tinkered with her and drank espresso. I can effect a torch-passing, more than a sale-to-stranger. I'm looking at this like a puppy: I can sell it to a stranger who may beat or kick or totally ignore my puppy, or I can give it to a friend that I know will provide a loving home with lots of meaty alpo.

For me, knowing that after the transfer of ownership, the machine will be in use (unlike the Gaggia I sold to get Silvia: is it in use? I have no clue), and moreover, I will have made someone I like a little happier. A couple hours after I made the offer, he'd already burnt up a batch of beans in preparation. Did the guy who bought my Gaggia on ebay do the same? I doubt it.

So any day now my friend will be down to take Silvia off my hands. hops is a little perturbed by this idea (she's convinced that any moment now I'll get back into espresso), and I must say that I spent all yesterday craving espresso. I can tell the difference between a false craving and a real one, though, and the bare fact of the matter is that I haven't had more than a week's worth of espresso in 2 years. Silvia, sitting unused in my kitchen, is contributing the clutter of my home, and more, is witholding happiness from other would-be owners. In the greater scheme of things, I get more "money's worth" by giving Silvia away than by hoarding her.

"why are you even looking at that website?" said hops, "you said you're not going to buy a pipe from them."

"yeah," i said, "but i can look."

"if it was up to me," said hops, "you wouldn't even look."

"okay," i said, "how about baki?"

"who?"

[ baki's website loads ]

"oh," says hops, "you can look at them."

"great, and buy from them?"

"sure," said hops.

"great, i bought one this morning."

"which pan will we use?" asked hops.

"for the dino kale?" i said.

"yeah," said hops.

"the greens pan," i said

"the one we always use," she said.

"yeah," i said, "i call it alan".

"..."

"alan greens pan," i said.

on the one hand, it's nice to look tidy. on the other, much larger hand, i inevitably miss a spot, or my razor refuses to cut a hair and i quit rather than be meticulous, and the dentist will be sure to notice.

so i'm extra stubbly today, since the plan was to dentist yesterday and that got moved to today. i'm 4 days behind. scruff.

This morning I began reading Mean Ol' Mr. Gravity (by the way, check out that url... that's what google returned when I searched for the book. slight wtf...)

Anyhow, the book was explicitly (and I mean explicitly, check the amazon page) billed as a book for reading on the crapper, and I was using it as instructed, and when I got to page 2 (it was a mighty yam this morning), Rip answers some schmuck who's asking whether he needs to get bumper plates for power cleans or can he just catch and release them (as one might a trout), lowering to the floor.

This all sounds mighty familiar, since just yesterday I called around to get prices on bumper plates since I assumed they were better than just lowering the clean. In addition to the plates, for my setup, I'd have to get 3 more sheets of plywood, at a cost of probably 60 bucks, plus another 200 or so for a minimal set of bumper plates.

Rip's answer was "wtf do you think we did back in the 70s before they'd invented bumper plates? we lowered our cleans!"

Okay then! Money saved.

(The careful reader will notice that the book I purchased for 20-some bucks is a compilation of web forum posts, the latter being available totally free. So make of that what you will (but I suggest you consider the consequences of me taking an internet-enabled device on to the crapper, and count yerselves lucky that I shelled out the 20 bucks for the dead tree version)).

last thursday i banged the shit out of the funny bone in my knee, and just now i smacked the crap out of my shin on the door of my dish washer.

i can avoid injury while lifting heavy crap off the floor, but i can't seem to move my legs about in space without bumping hard into something.

just watched a white zombie video of "more human than human"

some censorious tard decided that "i want more life fucker i ain't done" was obscene, so they obfuscated the word "fucker". instead of the original line, it sounds like he says "i want more life nigger i ain't done".

success!

we're all in this together.

so i've kept my word to more or less quit facebook, and posted no new status updates there (though i still, as promised, make snide remarks on the statuses of my pals).

The furor lately has been about facebook's attempt to steal the web out from under us, and indeed, there is a real danger of that, and it will suck if it happens. There's also the problem of facebook selling us out and invading our privacy. That's a real concern as well.

But for me, the most insidious effect of facebook was that I stopped writing. Now, you may say, and I'll agree, that blogging doesn't count as writing. But like a pea sized nugget after a week of constipation, I'll take what I can get, thank you very much (and you're welcome!).

Facebook taught me to compress my thoughts into their 480 character limit, or whatever it is. And if I couldn't compress, truncate. If I had something to say that was serious, it didn't belong on facebook, since folks there were more interested in jokes. Well, there's nobody here, so I can say whatever I like. At least, I can say what I like and pretend there's nobody here.

fb brought me in contact with some folks I haven't heard from in ages, and that was cool, for a while. After a bit, though, I see my own banality reflected back at me as I'm deluged with reports on what's for dinner, what song everyone's enjoying, how many hours of sleep we all had last night, and on and on -- in other words, exactly the same crap I was posting to facebook. Enough already.

There might be people out there posting useful stuff to facebook, and in truth, some of my friends there would post funny videos, interesting links, or just interesting personality-related stuff. But for the most part, facebook is a wasteland, and its attempt to turn the rest of the internet into a wasteland of "likes" and "checked-in"s is doomed to failure.

But more importantly to my own life, whether facebook lives or dies, I'm writing again, and it's good to be back, even if I have only as much to say here as I did on facebook.

just like regular chickens!

provided by greg pease, claudio cavicchi, jesse cook, david lynch, and a whole lot of japanese people.

while poking around my father-in-law's backyard, I happened upon a honeycomb inside a pipe he uses for a clothesline:

After a while, hops' dad sauntered over, looked into the pipe, and declared, "looks like a wops' nest in there."

I told him they prefer to be called "italian americans".

i just spent $X on fancy tobacco pipes in chicago, and now I'm stressing about spending $X/N (where N is pretty large) on bumper plates for cleans?

that's just not right.

is less good than the previous 3 seasons, but better than nothing. at least it doesn't have the screecher.

we could be drivin
we could be far away from here

it's frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x62!

once again, we picked a cold day to give me a close haircut. brr!

last night we finished a bottle of ardbeg uigeadail. in my life, such as it is these days, this counts as an accomplishment.

As life sometimes does, my life sent me some strong messages this past week.

First, the overwhelmingly positive experience of the Chicago Pipe Show put me in contact with a large number of very good people, friendly, welcoming, and warm (not to mention mostly stinky, like myself). Because I was surrounded the whole time by people who evidently wanted to be my friend, I now view all people in that light. I've made two new friends (both neighbors, even) since I got home. Hopefully this frame of mind does not wear off any time soon.

Second, Tim died. Tim was younger than me, and an instructor/employee at my climbing gym. Years ago, he gave me and Spu our very first climbing lesson, where he earned the behind-his-back nickname "Faux Hawk", which was also our coining/discovery of this phrase, on account of his comb-up-from-the-sides-and-gel hairdo. Then more recently, he taught Spu, me and hops how to lead climb. He was a really great guy, always joking around and inviting us to go climbing with him outside. We never did, and now we never will.

The missed opportunities of friendship are a tragedy, when we recognize them. Tim's death made me realize, far too late, how much I actually liked the guy, and how the invitations were given for a deeper friendship, which I ignored. And of course, the loss of someone younger and more accomplished than me is just the thing to trigger reflection on my own inadequacies.

But these thoughts are tempered by the sense and joy of community that my Chicago visit brought. I am pursuing the opportunities for friendship presented there, and not only the internet-friends, but the ones who live nearby that I can meet in person.

Omar Khayyam, an old friend whom Chance saw fit to bring back into my life, said, in my very car, via Dr. MLK Jr.,:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

Tim is gone, and the best I can do now is to use his passing as a lesson to improve my life and the lives of my others. I can learn that it will someday be too late to tell my friends how much they mean to me, and that I may not even realize what a friend they are until it is too late to tell them.

So, dear reader, if you care to witness my maudlin and weepy gratitude to those who have put up with me these many years, do read on. I considered attempting a tearful "you're the greatest! Don't die soon!" moment with Spu yesterday, but our conversation turned quickly, inevitably, and inextricably to farts, where the opportune moment obviously did not arrive, and besides, the written word is my fortress where I may say what I will more clearly, freely, and in my estimation, nicely than person to person.

Some people make hundreds of "friends", and are content to have someone to talk or go have lunch with. I prefer to befriend people who have mastered some part of life, people who inspire me in some way, people who can teach me humility because they are in some way or another my better. I am lucky that life apparently is constantly tossing such people in my direction, waiting only for me to expend the effort to reach out to them. Or perhaps in bothering to get to know people, I can see the ways in which they are extraordinary.

First, Steak and Mayonnaise, my second mentor. S&M (whose shortened nickname I did not think of until just this moment, though I've been calling him Steak and Mayonnaise for years) talked to me faithfully and incessantly at a time in my life when I needed to listen. He was the polar opposite of my first mentor. While the two of them share an earnest spirituality that I admire (and have lost, to my detriment), S&M is a man of great physical accomplishment and ambition, an explorer and lover of life and living, a humble person with more brilliance than he lets on.

As far as I am concerned, though, Steak and Mayonnaise's greatest influence was his imparting to me the love of iron. S&M taught me to lift, and to love lifting, and few have had such a lasting impact on me. I recall his words of inspirational not-getting-it when I told him I'd begun to deadlift, that I'd discovered the exercise which to this day motivates me and gives me both fitness and joy: "great, that will really help your squat go up!"

My friend Ka D'Argo is a family man, with a history of great setbacks in his life. Any number of his setbacks have been greater than any I've ever had to face, but he pushes through them like President Truman bashing his way out of a crate in "Roswell that Ends Well". Moments of doubt and sadness afflict him, as they do us all, but throughout, the extraordinary definitiveness of his personality puts him back on course to optimism. His optimism, sacrifice, and resilience are truly an inspiration for me, as well his unrelenting loyalty to his own personality. He knows who he is, and he is that person, and this knowledge and strength of being creates worlds around him. Also, nobody can bust out an "I wish you were never born" quality pun like him.

I know on the order of four Bulgarians, but only one The Bulgarian. The Bulgarian lives in his own world, and shares time occasionally with ours. His world is filled with the joy of discovery and learning: languages, technical details of all stripes, bits of trivia that amuse him to no end and confuse the rest of us. He is an explorer of the greatest magnitude, and the world contains no end of things for him to delight in finding. Even then, the joy of exploration is still in its infancy, as he must scan the vast expanse of his vocabulary to find just the right turns of eloquence to convey what he has found. Majestically unpredictable at times, for the most part, he is a master of the art of contentment, finding peace of mind and enjoyment in ways that would make The Buddha jealous. Not all of us are given the opportunity to create our own worlds, and many of us who are so blessed create an unlivable place. The Bulgarian has made a good place for himself.

Artemis (hurf durf!), my first mentor, taught me the art and science of laziness, the greatest sign of an exceptional programmer, the Tao of which I am still endeavoring to learn. From laziness flow all things, in the best possible way: the way of other people doing those things for me. In some professional circles this is called management, but I see it for what it is, and it extends into all aspects of life. Laziness is the greatest force in the universe, and wielded properly can move mountains, provided there are others around to do the actual lifting and moving and such.

My first mentor put the seed of laziness in me, and it germinated, and now that it is sprouting, the rewards in my life are many. It took my second mentor to point me toward the master, but only much later did I realize that within me were at least two masters, balancing the artful and focused laziness of Artemis with the ass-kicking, all-out-effort of Steak & Mayonnaise.

A person defined by only one characteristic is a dull person indeed, and there's much more to Artemis than laziness, though none of his other traits are so amusing to write about. Greater than the laziness (which I have exaggerated for my own shits and giggles) is his generosity, which I hope has rubbed off on me as much as his laziness. His example has taught me Connectedness To Place, which runs deep in my own life, to the consternation of some of my friends. Through exercising my sense of Home these last few years, I have grown to know and befriend many in my community, and I can see when visiting Artemis that he does the same. It is a rare, old-world trait that I find absent in most people, but absolutely vital in life.

Of course, one could say Connectedness to Place is just another way of saying Too Lazy To Travel, but one would get smacked upside the head for saying such a thing, surely.

Iron Maiden (oh, another good one! So impenetrable she might not even recognize I mean her. I'd better make with the really good description...) interacts with the world much differently than I do. She pours herself into her work, infusing her endeavors with so much of herself, managing every detail with such vision and imagination that she thrives impossibly in a world that cruelly destroys most who try what she effortlessly does. She brings to life a Space which is her own, and stunningly genuine in a time of blatant fakery. People come together around her, she has made a place for new friendships and enjoyment of life. Only briefly and occasionally can I muster the force of creativity that she wields every hour of every day.

The Captain has an awesome and apparently lifelong laser-like devotion to his three interests, and nothing else. His focused devotion has led to an impressive level of mastery of the two endeavors that could entertain mastery, and his oft-ebullient pursuit of the third makes him enjoyable to be around. In my own life, I have too many interests and pursuits to ever sustain the focus that he shines on his hobbies, but his tri-mindedness serves as an inspiration for me to push myself forward on all fronts

hops puts up with me, and grows things for me to eat where gardens seem unlikely. her enduring optimism cuts through my pessimism (most of the time) and she continually leads my life toward a better place. I'd hope that like my brother and my folks, she doesn't need a blog post to know how important she is to me, but omitting her would be rude.

My brother is the best person I know. I'm afraid that's all he gets here, and, brief as it is, is more than my folks will get, since they really don't need additional buttering-up, beyond pointing out that my capacity for enjoying my friends comes from them, in every conceivable way.

Spu, of course, is a douche. The world's biggest sack, His Majesty reigns with an Iron Grogan over the Kingdom of Tards.

So there you have it, a catalogue of the best people I've known and how I see them. sux2bu if you weren't listed. if you were listed, don't let it go to your head.

ergo, what i had last night was bad chinese food.

We arrived at the strong-coffee-party room, Brother David's room (I've considered obfuscating his name, on the assumption that Brother David's room is like Fight Club, even though nobody told me as much, but I am torn over motivations. There's a better than fair chance that a year from now, if/when we head out to Chicago again, I'll need this blog posting to remember everyone's names, so pseudonyms won't help (I can get away with 'hops' as presumably I'll still remember her name, and I don't call her by name anyhow). At the same time, I don't really want to out people that prefer to remain anonymous. I think my goals harmonize around the fact that nobody actually reads this crap but me), and I could see Gabriele inside, and a couple other people I didn't recognize. Before I got far, Brother David asked if I'd brought a pipe. For some reason, I hadn't.

Actually, the reason was probably that I'd figured I was done with smoking for the day. Despite my enthusiasm to attend a pipe show, I'm really not much of a smoker. I try to keep it down to 4-6 bowls a week, a number chosen arbitrarily to preserve my health, and I prefer to smoke outdoors, because indoors the secondhand smoke of others interferes with the appreciation of my own tobacco.

Anyhow, I admitted I didn't have one with me, and Brother David shooed me out to go get one, so I went back to the room and picked up my new Dal Fiume. By the time I got back, the maker had left, but there were still plenty of others there. I was introduced to Jeff, who shared some Va/per labeled "Ashton Old London Pebblecut OLD". I'd actually been having a pretty poor time on the technical side of smoking during the show. This was a partially rubbed out flake, and the FVF I got the day before from Gabriele was a flake. I like to rub out my flakes (aka crumble them into smaller bits). Actually, I don't just "like to" rub them out, that's simply what I do, and the only way I currently know how to smoke flakes (there are other methods that I am aware of but not experienced with, and the pipe show was not the place to practice). At home I rub out my flakes onto a piece of paper or a loaf pan. At the show, I had my lap, which is certainly not a good container, especially for gifted "prize" tobacco. So I didn't rub it out very well, and thus it didn't smoke very well. I got the gist of it, more or less, but had a whole lot of relights and not a lot of reward. I've come to accept this as the result of group-smoking, although I suppose that with more practice, group-smoking could become as relaxed and relaxing as solo. In any case, I was really there to socialize, which I did.

The guy next to me introduced himself as Mike, and I remarked that it was a good name, and probably the only one from the whole show that I'd remember. He didn't say much, and he kept pulling Castellos out of his pipe bag. After I got home, I realized that this was the noted Castello collector of the smoking forum. I hadn't made the connection at the time.

There were also two guys that worked as corrections officers and were overjoyed to find another federale (hops) to speak to about beating people up or locking people down or whatever it is that federales do. I was laughing on the inside as one of them admitted that he normally doesn't reveal what he does because a lot of people have negative preconceived notions about his job. He was speaking to hops, but I was right next to her, and I sure do have a lot of those negative preconceived notions, as the attentive reader may have inferred from my rude comments above.

The guys were friendly, of course, and outside of work one of them made pipes (I didn't catch his name, alas) and the other was an avid bicycle tourist. It was great to meet someone whose hobbies intersected so well with ours, and we talked of cycling and piping and pipes and bicycles. I could talk all day about pipes and bicycles, and sometimes I do.

The whole time, Paolo Becker was leaning against the wall behind us, in a very Italian style, speaking with a large, Nordic looking young (well, older than me, older than Lasse, but younger than, say, Lars Ivarsson or Paolo Becker) pipemaker whose name I never caught. I didn't really have anything to say to Paolo and contented myself with the fact that I was in a room with Paolo Becker and I wasn't being forcibly ejected.

Periodically, whenever the conversation turned back to pipes, Mike would whip out another Castello to show everyone. It really should have been obvious who he was. He used the adjective "Castello-y" at one point, too.

Brother David brought out his coffee, finally, after enlisting me earlier on to provide some muscle for the brewing process (he used an Italian stovetop espresso maker, which requires some twisting to seal). It was, as advertised, very sweet, and very strong. I drank some to be polite, and it was good, but we had warned Brother David hours earlier that we couldn't drink much, or really any, if we wanted to sleep that night. Since the party typically ran to 4AM, he didn't see the problem. Since I was already time-hosed by the travel and needed to be up early to get to Chicago by 9 the next day, in the middle of road construction season, I saw a problem. Still, I had a little, and we managed to get some sleep that night.

The other two guys, whose names I really can't recall, began to talk with each other, and hops excused herself to visit the loo. Mike left, and I got up and wandered over to the other part of the room, where Dr. Fred J-polish-witz, a very nice guy whose name I (of course) do not remember fully, was sitting, chatting with Uhle and Marty Pulvers. I'd met Fred J earlier while admiring Fred Hanna's collection of straight grains. Fred J had made a humorous comment of the sort that pipemen make about other pipemen's collections (everyone says of Uhle's 50+ Bo Nordhs, "it's a good start", har har har), something along the lines of "they're nice, but they'd be nicer if the grains were straight". Fred and I talked a lot about life, smoking, getting older, health, and, of course, everyone's favorite topic, tobacco taxes and laws.

Uhle was smoking the same Bo I'd seen earlier (full and shameful disclosure: I don't like it myself. Perhaps it smokes incredibly. But for my tastes, it has two fatal problems: first, it's a full black stain, which I don't like, and second, the sand blast is too smooth. There aren't any interesting pits or ridges. That's my who-cares-what-toad-thinks review of the only Bo Nordh I've ever seen being smoked. I could tell it gave Uhle great joy to smoke it, so I'm glad it's in his collection and not mine!). He gave me a couple of tips on how to light a pipe, and lord help me, I've forgotten them, but I think they were things I already knew and was already doing. Or at least I hope I'm already doing them. Say what I will about one particular pipe, the guy owns 50 of the world's most valuable pipes, I figure he's someone who knows how not to ruin a pipe when smoking it.

The conversation turned to the Stanwell factory. Lasse had told us he got his wood from Stanwell, but can't anymore because the Danish factory had closed. I asked why everyone supposes the quality would suffer, since Castellos are made in Italty to high standards, and what's the point of moving a factory and then letting the brand go to shit?

Marty said that the folks who bought Stanwell consider them a nuisance to their bottom line. They're a cigarette conglomerate, and cigarettes are commoditized and very predictable. You make them, ship them to stores, and someone comes in and buys them. You don't need salesmen, people willing to spend a half hour selling an item to a buyer, fancy websites, etc. Contrasted to selling a pipe, it's easy to sell cigarettes, and since the pipes accounted for such a tiny percentage of the conglomerate's income, it was the table's consensus that the conglomerate wouldn't mind killing Stanwell just to be rid of the bother. A depressing and unfit end for a once great brand. Still, Stanwell's fate remains to be seen. I'm a positive person, unfamiliar with the industry (though Marty's insights went some length to cure my ignorance), and I remain hopeful that Stanwell quality will actually increase in the hands of the Italians.

Uhle passed around a Lars Ivarsson (I think) acorn, and someone commented on how the Danish masters could really bring grace to any pipe shape, and that others tried to imitate, but many of the imitators, notably the Italians, ended up making "clunky" pipes lacking the harmony and grace of the Danes. I puffed a little harder on my Dal Fiume, fatto a mano in Italia. Again, the Danish pipe was beautiful, and indeed graceful, but I didn't care for the finish, and given the choice, I'd take a similar pipe from Rad Davis, who produces some shapes that resemble this Dane, and whose finishes I like very much. I'm a barbarian, there's no getting around it.

After a while, the freshly honored Dr. of Pipes Fred Hanna came in, still with tears in his eyes (don't tell him I said so) from the award ceremony. Fred greeted everyone warmly, including me, personally. That's why he's the Dr. of Pipes, I reckon: he treats everyone like and old best friend. Everyone in that room treated me like an old best friend, and they continue to do so. Several of them admitted frankly that they're happy to see a young dude like myself taking up the pipe and bringing some new life to their hobby.

It was getting late, by which I mean not 3AM but merely midnight. Still, we wanted an early morning, so we said our farewells and thanked everyone thoroughly for their friendship and hospitality, and headed to bed.

The next day we got up bright and kind of early. Early enough that the Sunday buffet was not open for another hour. We ended up at the "fancy" hotel restaurant where we'd gotten our wine, and the only reason I mention this is because we ended up with the same smiling guy for a waiter that we'd had the two previous days at the buffet. He was following us! The breakfast was competent and more expensive than the equivalent breakfast at the buffet. That's the price of an early rise on a Sunday.

I wanted to go back and have another round of the tables in the mega center, maybe pick up that Neerup that I couldn't decide about, this thought probably implanted in my head by our pre-breakfast elevator ride with Peter Jeppesen and his wife. But I saved that for next year, and we drove to Chicago, encountering much traffic.

We saw Millennium Park, which has a ridiculously large fountain.

We saw Lake Michigan. We saw some people with orange shirts who were having a walk against some disease. We walked around lost in the neighborhood, looking for pizza, being led in circles by my god damned phone before giving up and heading for the bbq-and-pizza place that I had spotted right by where we parked.

The pizza here was different than the Chicago-style pizza in St. Charles, and I would say Geno's East in St. Chuck's was much better. Ironically, the pizza I had in Chicago was not as good as the Chicago-style pizza I had outside Chicago.

I did not say it was bad! It was still better than 50% of the pizza I can get delivered to my place, but Geno's was better than about 85%, so there you have it.

The waiter, a very young kid, asked us what we were in town for. I said we were there for the pipe show, assuming, uncharacteristically, that since I knew about it, everyone did, especially those in Chicago, where the show is nominally but not physically held. The kid cogitated for a moment, and asked, "Pipes... like steel plumbing pipes, or skating pipes?" I told him neither, the show was for smoking pipes. He cogitated for even longer on that one, the wheels spinning around and round up in his head, and then he lit up. "Are you guys like glass blowers or something?"

I disappointed the poor kid and told him that it was a show for tobacco pipes made from wood, and we joked about how even though that probably would bore him, a show of plumbing pipes would bore all three of us to tears.

We finished our pizza and took the long way to the airport, through the Chicago ghetto. I've now toured the ghettos in: Cathedral City (technically the barrios, there), Oakland, St. Louis, Chicago, and Atlanta (GPS error thanks to hops). This one was the scariest but there are still many exciting ghettos for my wife to drag me to, so I remain hopeful that it can be topped.

Okay, my meta-memory informs me that the ghetto tour took place on the way to Millennium Park, and that after pizza we went straight to the airport. Still, to revise is against the spirit of blogging, and thus the flow remains as it is.

And now, since I am late for my bike ride, the super condensed version of what happened next:

We flew to St. Louis. We ate the remainder of the Chicago pizza on the plane.

Arriving in St. Louis, Pappy's was closed on Sunday night, so we drove, me in hungry disappointment, and stopped at Missouri Hick BBQ instead, which we'd seen advertised on the highway (this should have been a clue). I ordered the 3-meat-sampler, which was advertised as ribs, brisket, and pulled pork. I got 2 baby back ribs (WHAT THE FUCK. TWO?!?!) which were relatively tasty, the worst executed pulled pork I've ever seen, and a chunk of mystery meat. Literally mystery meat. I've seen a lot of meat, and I've eaten a lot of meat. To this day I have no idea what this was in my sampler plate. It was certainly not brisket. It could have been pork, but it was a big chunk, not pulled, and besides, the pulled pork was definitely pork, poorly executed as it was. I tasted it, then thought again and decided I didn't want to eat meat I couldn't identify. The meal sucked. Don't go there.

DONT GO THERE.

hops' folks were doing well. We talked and went to bed.

The next day I smoked some free show cigars while hops' mom was at the dentist. I found some unidentified substance in the parking lot which hops claims was puke. You decide:

We went to lunch at "Southern Spice" in St. Robert. They were out of the pulled pork, the only really southern thing on their menu. I had the steak sandwich and chili, instead, and...

to my surprise, they were excellent. Excellent! Like really really good. In the middle of nowhere. I was blown away. hops and I concurred that this was the sort of good food we'd eat even in our hometown, so it wasn't just "better than the other crap out here", it was objectively good. You can see how surprised I am to have found such a place. hops' dad liked his food.

Her mom hated the food and told the waiter as much. Ha! I was in a good mood.

For dinner that night, at 4:30pm (argh!!!) was ribs that hops' dad picked up at hte local grocery store. They were smoked! To my surprise, they were good, too!

I spent the evening smoking cigars on the porch and reading my book. I finished two books on this trip, and I haven't really read books the last couple of years. Hopefully I'm on a trend. I also smoked some Squadron Leader in my new Radice and confirmed that it's an awesome pipe.

The next day we dined at Dr. Phil's in Waynesville.

Right off the bat hops' mom let Dr. Phil know that she didn't think highly of the Waynesville municipal water supply, and had brought her own water. Dr. Phil was a little too laid back to really care. Dr. Phil delivered EPIC awesome fried catfish to hops, and really poorly done ribs to me and hops' dad.

Hushpuppy bonus!

To be avoided!

You should probably avoid the Mexican food in Waynesville when you visit, but I'm sure you already knew that.

After that, we went back, and I enjoyed some more of Gabriele's FVF in the pipe he made, though I reconfirmed that FVF isn't my favorite tobacco. When I was done, we hit the road for the airport.

I later remarked that The Tao Of Missouri is a porch, a chair, a good book, and a good pipe. I actually enjoyed my stay in Waynesville. No internet, warm weather, a good porch and chair, and plenty of fine tobacco. Set and setting.

We stopped by Pappy's Smokehouse so I wouldn't whine all the way home, and I got myself a full rack.

I finished them in under 10 minutes. Good lord Pappy's is awesome.

I hosed myself down, and we got on the plane with minutes to spare. Badda bing, badda boom, we arrived home.

I had a great time, as you can tell. I kinda regret not getting more pipes, but I am very pleased with the ones I did get, and the prices I got them for.

The second day I was back, I went to Emergency BBQ a couple miles from home, and had the ribs, and told the ribmaster that I'd just come from St. Louis, rib capital of the world as I know it, and the Emergency ribs were the best ribs I'd ever had (in a restaurant).

It was good to be home.

Back in the tent, I picked a new table for breaking in the Lasse. I spotted Mike from the local pipe club back in my home town, whom I'd run into earlier that day. He was sitting with the mustachioed Buddy and some gentlemen I'd never seen before. I sat down next to Mike and lit up my new pipe.

Buddy was smoking a very nice Baki calabash that he'd just bought. Another guy was smoking the largest and most ornate meerschaum pipe I've ever seen, complete with a silver wind cap.

A gentleman in a fedora came and sat down, and he looked shaken up. The other pipemen at the table seemed to know him, though I never caught his name. He said he'd been accused of stealing by the wife of one of the vendors, and that the police had searched him. They told him he had "nothing to worry about", but he worried nonetheless: the accuser was quite powerful at the show, and he feared he may get blacklisted, which, apparently, has happened to attendees in the past. We talked about how stealing pipes really never pays off, since pipers are not only social, but recognize pipes that have been reported as going missing.

Ted from Oak Creek Creators came by. Ted was one of those guys I'd seen a dozen times at the show, but whose name I couldn't remember. He re-introduced himself, and it turns out he's a neighbor and friend of Maigurs Knets, who is helping Ted learn the art of pipemaking. Ted makes tampers out of deer antler, and we discussed the business side of this, and how some Chinese businessmen came and bought his entire stock all in one lot. Ted opened up a bag of tobacco and lit up his Neerup. It was a nice piece that I'd considered getting myself. I fancy the Neerup stains, but I wasn't caring for the shapes Mr. Jeppesen had on display.

The man in the fedora rolled his eyes at me: the bag of Tobacco Ted was opening had come from the same vendor that had accused Fedora. We shared a chuckle and Ted remained unaware of the reason.

Presently, my smoke came to an end, and so did the conversation. I enjoyed Star of the East, although the smoking tent is a terrible place to evaluate tobacco, and a barely acceptable place to evaluate a pipe. In any case, it wasn't awful, which is about the highest praise that I think I'm able to confer in that environment.

hops and I went down to a French Pipemaking talk that she wanted to attend. It was in a panel format, and I am sorry to admit that it was quite boring. There was a video produced by Chacom, and one of the French pipemakers read, word-for-word, a pamphlet that was already at each of the audience seats. Really, the panel set-up was the problem: had it been an informal conversation over beers or something, it would have been quite pleasant, but the lecture-hall approach and the talk-about-what-we-just-watched-on-screen method don't add up to an engaging time. We met Alan, a pipe collector we'd run into a couple of times already, and his friend, whose name I don't recall. Alan, his friend, hops, and I took off at the earliest opportunity. I hope some of the folks attending the talk enjoyed it, I'd hate to think everyone was as bored as we were. [ Note: okay, I really should have taken better notes. I think this actually happened on Friday, but then that would displace the Perique talk, which, incidentally, is not on the CPCC website, so I don't know when that happened during our visit. In any case, I stand by my assessment that the French guys were boring, but it seems I was bored by them on Friday and not Saturday. In fact, I went straight from smoking the Lasse to the Cigar Dinner, about which I am nearly ready to write. ]

After the French Pipemakers talk [ Not really! ], we went to the Cigar Dinner, which was a paid event, to keep out the riff-raff. I expect next year they will raise the price, as we still managed to get in.

When we arrived with our tickets, Ted, the maker of antler tampers, was purchasing a ticket. I greeted him and introduced him to hops, and he sat with us, as did Alan and his friend. We also had some other guys at the table but they didn't talk much. Now, this being a steak dinner, hops and I went to the bar and asked what wines were available. The surly bartender said "cabernet and chardonnay". The cab was sitting out and I could see from the label that it was far below my standards, such as they are. hops asked if she could see the label for the chardonnay, and the surly bartender dismissed her and asked for the next customers' order. Wow!

So we sauntered off in search of better wine. Our search eventually led us to the "fancy" restaurant in the hotel, where we were able to obtain a reasonably priced California (hell yeah!) Pinot Noir. We brought that back to the ballroom, where the Cigar Dinner was being held. The ticket takers said, "Oh... Pinot Noir! You've seen Sideways!", and then, when we got back to the table, Alan said, "Oh, fans of Sideways, eh?".

Sigh.

Anyhow, the wine, the name of which I, of course, do not recall, was quite good, and we shared it with the table. Throughout the dinner, the surly bartender came around and "topped off" people's cab, mixing bottles and filling the glasses (stubby flutes, the wrong kind of glass for any wine) within a centimeter of the rim. Barbaric!

I remarked at one point, after our bisque and salad, that it seemed they weren't going to ask us how we'd like our steaks cooked. Ted asked if that bothered me because I liked mine rare, and I said I don't like it rare, but unless the cook is told just how I like it, how is he to cook it properly?

Well, I guess they'd already figured that one out, and they brought out a fleet of medium-rare filets. They weren't bad at all, although for the price, I could have made it a double at Jocko's. Still, I reminded myself that I was here for the fellowship and not the food, and my self-reminder was received pleasantly on account of the sweet California wine, a rare treat which does not often present itself in the wastelands to which my wife periodically drags me.

With dessert was a brief awards ceremony, where Fred Hanna was awarded the "Doctor of Pipes" award for general service to the pipe community. He was honestly surprised and touched. Some other people were recognized, including the president of the CPCC, who was retiring this year from his post as organizer of the show.

On the way out of the show, I embarrassed myself in a way that makes for a good story, so you, dear reader, get the pleasure of hearing about it. I turned around on my way out, for some reason, and saw a French guy, one who'd been at the panel talk. I went up to him and asked him if he'd ever found his chapati, and I got a blank stare. I asked again, and he gave me more blank stares, and some apologies, and two things became clear to me: first, that this was not the French guy who had asked about chapatis the other day, and second, the poor Frenchman thought that the problem was on his end, that I was indeed making some sort of sense which his limited English comprehension could not grasp.

I tried to extricate myself from the situation, with apologies for disturbing him, and assurances that I was the one having mental problems, not him, all the while without revealing that all French guys look and sound alike to me and that this was at the root of the embarrassing and very confusing conversation that seemed to be coming, if not gracefully, at least hastily to a close. It was at this moment that hops came up and said, more or less (the exact words were not imprinted into my memory, my brain being seized with horror at the gist of them), that I had mistaken him for another French gentleman we'd met earlier, since all French people look alike.

Sigh.

Then we made some comment about how California has better wine than France, and beat our retreat out of there.

On the way to our next engagement, we ran into the pipes2smoke people. The wife seemed sheepish, and the husband, rather glum. The wife came up to us and said that we'd gotten a great bargain on the Lasse. The husband piped in that the wife had sold it to us at the Euro price, that is, the 210 price was Euros. I agreed that I had indeed gotten quite a bargain, and said what a nice pipe it was. When I got back home, I decided that I'd had such an overwhelmingly positive experience in Chicago, that I felt so welcomed into the community, that I didn't want to leave anyone I'd met with an ill impression of me. The guy had seemed genuinely distraught, so I offered to pay some of the difference, and ended up owning the pipe for a grand total of $235. Whether requesting an additional 35 clams was a good business move, dear reader, I leave to your own imagination, particularly when stacked up against the vendor who knocked as much off the pipe he sold me on account of liking my beard, and the carver who would have let me walk off into the sunset with his high-end pipe, leaving no collateral, as I visited my bank.

That settled, more or less, we went to the tent to attempt to quickly smoke some free cigars given to us by our Stokkebye friend. They were not particularly good, which is fine, since we didn't have much time before the cigar rolling talk. We snuffed them after about half way.

Then it was back to the tower, where we headed up to listen to a talk by Pablo the cigar roller. He was very nervous, and lacked the English words for many of the technical terms related to tobacco processing, but as the talk moved along he got much more relaxed, and his enthusiasm for and enjoyment of cigar making was obvious, and carried him through his difficulties. Mark Ryan, Perique tycoon, was also present, and since the processing of cigar leaf bears some resemblance to perique processing, Mark was able to assist with some of the terms Pablo could not translate. Pablo rolled some cigars with Mark's pre-release perique, and also some "English" cigars, which I guess had some latakia in them. We smoked both cigars a couple days later, and the cigar leaf was top notch and very enjoyable, the additives were not particularly noticeable or pleasant. I have high hopes for Pablo's other cigars, and he was a pleasure to watch, though he wore a wrist brace and I felt sorry for his RSI. I wouldn't say the talk was the most informative I've attended, but it was interesting, and it's the only one where I walked out with free cigars and free cigar boxes. There were a lot of folks we knew, and some folks that I later found out that I knew from the forums, but did not recognize during the talk.

And then, finally, we headed off to the strong-coffee party, even though it was getting late.

Saturday was officially the first day of the show, although unofficially the show had been rolling on for at least two days already. We got up a little late, had our breakfast buffet (and spoke to our new best friend the dining room waiter guy), and headed over to the mega center...

To stand in line for another 20 minutes, since we were early. Oops. We chatted with folks in the line, and before we knew it, we were in. Security was surprisingly tight, there were 5 or 6 Chicago PD patrolling the floor and guarding the door, which, I suppose in retrospect, was probably a good thing, since I was walking around with quite a bankroll, and I'm no high roller in the pipe world.

First stop, Fred Hanna's pipe collection. He was still setting it up. I introduced myself and admired his pipes. I recognize and appreciate the beauty, rarity, and effort-of-collecting that went into his collection, but at the same time, he's got a very different aesthetic than I -- which is a good thing, it means we won't ever be in competition for a pipe! The pipes were all straight grains (very rare), mostly by big-name carvers, spanning many years of collecting. Most had provided someone, if not Fred, with smoking enjoyment. They were all in proudly exquisite shape.

Then, I wandered. To hops' despair, I didn't have a pre-planned search pattern, I ambled. We talked with folks we'd met the days before, with folks we were just meeting. I looked at pipes, pipes, pipes, and more pipes. I stopped by the C&D booth but really wasn't in the mood for a sample, nor did I get samples from McClelland. In retrospect, I should have gotten more samples. Next time.

We checked in again with Frank, and I avoided Gabriele's table, lest I buy another of his wonderful pipes. I saw some nice meerschaums and calabashes, but didn't get one of either.

I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, I think!

I was on the hunt for a Cavicchi, but to my dismay, I didn't find any that were nicer than the ones I'd seen on the web prior to the show. I saw lots and lots of gorgeous pipes, and several that I would have liked to buy, but I was in the mood to stick to makers like Cavicchi, Radice, and Lasse that I'd either researched or already experienced. I bought a tin of McCrannie's Red Ribbon and one of Red Flake, and headed out for lunch.

We decided not to go in search of food, but instead got sandwiches at the in-hotel sandwich shop. The sandwich was competent and good, but not special. While waiting and eating, though, we struck up a conversation with Carlos, a local pipe smoker who'd attended the pipe making seminar on Wednesday. He'd had a blast and was enjoying himself at the show. We spoke at length on various tobacco and pipe related topics, then it was back to the show floor. Decision time.

I was disappointed to find out that Jack Howell wouldn't be arriving until Sunday, after we'd left. We stopped by the table of a pipe collector who had some old tins of Edgeworth Ready Rubbed, at least 40 years old, that had been found in a basement. He had one opened and offered us a sample. I'm not a fan of cheapie blends, nor of burley tobacco, and ERR is both. However, it smelled fantastic, and I wasn't likely to be offered 40 year aged tobacco any time soon, and what's more, hops was very much interested in trying it herself, she being a big fan of things that are old, which is always fun to ponder, since evidently she likes me and I'm always the youngest guy in the room when my brother's not around. My brother was not at the pipe show.

I decided I wanted the Cavicchi that qualitybriar was selling. Big D was happy to evangelize all of the qualitybriar pipes, but that was the one I wanted. He set it aside for me and told me to come back when the shop owner was back. So we wandered over to the pipes2smoke table and looked at a nice Lasse sandblast horn.

It had two price stickers, one said 255, one said 210. I figured 210 was a sale price, and it was definitely a bargain. So I asked if that was the price, the pipes2smoke wife said it was, and that if I paid cash she'd drop it to 200. I told her it was a deal, and I scored my second pipe of the show.

I was getting the hint that haggling was the way to go at the pipe show.

Pablo, a Cuban ex-pat living in Miami, working as a Cigar blender, was there rolling fresh cigars:

We bought a couple of his cigars and he threw in a pair of freshly rolled cigars.

We met Marty and spoke a bit, and joked a bit, and I told him how much I enjoy his frequent and always funny missives. He seemed genuinely touched not only that someone enjoyed his writing, but that someone read it. I know the feeling.

I looked at pipes, and more pipes. Astonishingly, there were pipes I hadn't seen yet. I looked at them, and at pipes I had already seen. We admired the stunning and creative work of Maigurs Knets. We talked to Will Purdy about his tadpoles. I found that one of the Rad Davis pipes I'd admired the day before had found its way across from Rad's table onto the table of a re-seller. That's business!

I found my way back to qualitybriar and made an offer for the Cavicchi. Nick looked me up and down and decided to sell it for the price I'd offered. He said he liked my beard, and threw in a very cool tamper. He gained himself a very happy customer!

The day was drawing to a close, hops was getting tired and bored, and I was ready to smoke my pipes. I'd promised her she could smoke the aged burley, but I didn't want to lend her my new pipes, nor did I want to go back to the room to get my used pipes. She'd been shown an estate (aka pre-owned, aka used) pipe, priced $85, unsmoked, which she said was a Dunhill. I should have known there's no such thing as an $85 Dunhill, but we went over and it was some other brand, and though it was unsmoked, it was clearly not $85 of quality. Instead, I led us over to neatpipes, and bought a Radice chubby billiard. The price, for once, was not negotiable, but it was already rock bottom, so I can't complain, and I had only offered $15 less, so it wasn't a big deal. We took the Radice over to the Edgeworth Ready Rubbed, and loaded up.

Or rather, we nearly loaded it up. The gentleman at that table told us that he coats the inside of new pipes with high quality rum, and listed off some reasons why he does this. He suggested we do it, and I had a moment of worry as I recalled smoking my not-rum-coated Dal Fiume just the day before, potentially, according to this gent, ruining it. The fellow brought over his buddy to confirm this tradition, which he did, and I decided to give it a shot. The Radice is no beater by any means, but of the three I had with my, it was the experimental pipe. So we coated it with rum and loaded it with aged burley.

Then I went over to Rad and Will's area and told them about the rum, and the reasons behind it, and asked their opinions on the subject. They were unanimous: it's hogwash. I said I figured as much, since the notion that a new pipe must be coated inside with Rum implies that makers such as Rad, Will, Luigi Radice, Claudio Cavicchi, and Gabriele sell pipes that are nearly-but-not-quite ready to smoke. I found that hard to swallow. Still, there are as many "secrets" and "tips" as there are pipe smokers, and we all agreed it probably would do no harm (the volatile rum evaporating before the tobacco could even be loaded), and hops and I went out to the smoking tent to enjoy the pipe.

In the tent, we sat down on a couch and lit up. The burley was much better than expected, and was pleasant for a bit, though hops didn't cotton to it much. After a bit, we'd both had enough of it. Buddy, whom I'd seen around all weekend, came by and I insisted we get some shots together, for obvious reasons.

A man napping on a nearby chair woke up and we talked about pipes, tobacco, and the things pipesters talk about when they wake up from a nap in the smoking tent. Uhle came by, and showed us a Frank Axmacher he'd just bought (one that I'd nearly bought myself!), and then another pipe that looked very much like it:

As it happened, I failed to guess that the second pipe was a Bo Nordh, a very rare and highly sought after pipe. Uhle has a large collection of 60 or so Bo Nordh pipes, and was nice as could be, and very proud of his pipes. Most of them he came by honestly, buying them from Bo before Bo was a big name in the world, and before the world put such outrageous prices on pipes from Denmark.

The erstwhile napper introduced himself as Brother David, or, rather, his nametag identified him as such, and he did not dispute this moniker. He said the real party is in his hotel room every night, when he makes his special thick espresso and pipemakers and collectors of great prestige stop by for conversation and a smoke. He invited us. Wow!

After a bit, Brother David, being an official of sorts at the show, had duties to attend to and excused himself. Buddy and Uhle also left, and we were done with the burley. hops went back to the room for a run and a nap, and I went back to the mega center for a sample to load into my Lasse horn.

I went to the C+D booth and packed the pipe with Star of the East, a latakia blend I hadn't tried before, and went back to the tent to find a new crowd to meet.

Where to start? So many things happened, many of which were simply moments of shared interest, smiles, nods, laughs, or awe. A straight exposition will leave out many things, but perhaps in writing, I can develop a mood, and characterize the great time that I had at the Chicago pipe show.

We arrived at O'Hare on Thursday evening, and drove our rental car to the burbs to eat at Al's #1. After a brief time being lost on foot at a confusing intersection, we located Al's #1, and I ordered a regular beef and a chi-dog. The dog was disappointing, as was the beef sandwich. Both were good, and I'd go so far as to say the beef sandwich was excellent, but the neighborhood was gentrified suburb, the shop smelled like lysol and felt like a Subway Sandwiches, and we were the only customers in the shop at 7:30 on a Thursday. Eventually 3 kids came in, but as an experience, it was anti-climactic. The sandwich was beefy with deliciously complex flavors that I've tasted before but could not place, and I've never had its equal in California, though I've not sought out the Chicago beef sandwich here. The Chi-dog, however, I could easily best at any number of California hot-doggeries, though, to be fair, Al's #1 is known for their beef sandwich, not their hot dog.

After we finished, we proceeded unceremoniously to St. Charles to checkin to the hotel. When we arrived at our toom in The Tower, hops declared that we were too close to the elevator and should request a room change, which we did, and while we were waiting for the bellman to arrive with our new room keys, I circumnavigated the tower, which took less than a minute at a slow pace, on account of the fact that the whole floor had only 16 rooms in a square formation. In other words, no room was particularly far from the elevator, since no room was particularly far from anything in the rather cramped tower. Live and learn. Our view improved, though.

Our lodgings settled, we ventured out to other rooms in the tower, where various vendors had their wares set out for us to peruse. The first stop was pipes2smoke, where the owner and his wife poured us some Highland Park 12 (scotch) as I looked at their Cavicchis and Lasses. I had seen all their pipes on their website, but found that photographs warp the impression, and that various pipes were much larger or much smaller than I'd thought them to be, not to mention that a photograph conveys no sense of weight, or worse, a false sense of weight. The Cavicchis were lighter than I expected. We met a pipe collector/shopper whose name and face I proceeded to forget, like so many of the great folks I met that weekend. The pipes2smoke wife was warm, funny, and talkative.

Then we were off to neatpipes, to look at, again, Cavicchis and Lasses. While I was there I got to hold the Pease/DiPiazza nose warmers, and to my relief, discovered that I did not like at all how they felt in my hand. I had come close to buying one the week before Chicago, I am glad I did not! The neatpipes/Radice chubby billiard, on the other hand, which I did not particularly care for on the web, felt great in my hand! I always knew that buying pipes on the web was a gamble in many ways, but the pipe show revealed just how poorly informed a web-buying experience really is.

After neatpipes, we went up to the top floor to visit Iwan Ries, the Chicago fixture. We met Mr. and Mrs. Ries, and their son, all of whom work at the shop. We talked at length about Chicago, and what we should do on Sunday to explore the city. Mr. said that Chicago has two seasons, winter and road construction. We laughed but agreed, having been delayed significantly by (seemingly pointless) road construction en route to the hotel. The scotch that was poured was not as good as Highland Park, but just as free. We had a good time, and after a while, went to bed, probably stopping on the way to visit more rooms that I can't remember.

Friday morning we headed down to the breakfast buffet, where a Frenchman asked the Mexican hotel worker if the pancakes were chapathi. After a number of blank stares from the buffetman, I told the Frenchman that they were flapjacks, and he remarked that he thought the buffetman might be Indian. I had a good internal chuckle at that.

After breakfast it was on to the pre-show, having attended Thursday night the pre-pre-show, I guess. We arrived in the mega center and looked around. Lasse himself was there, as were a bunch of folks we'd met the night before, and various pipemakers and vendors whom I assumed I probably had heard of but did not recognize by sight. Over by Rad Davis' table, while looking at his fantastic pipes (he had 2 Radesians I liked, and 2 volcanoes with superb grain and blast, thought I bought none of the above, since they didn't tickle my fancy quite enough, though they did confirm my suspicion that I'll someday have a Rad in my collection), we saw an Italian selling blocks of briar. A tall fellow was browsing through them, and we asked how he picked his briar, and he showed us a couple tricks, and explained how the block would look when carved. We asked if he knew when he bought the block what the finished pipe would look like, and he said that usually he did. He paid for the briar and left.

A bit later, we saw the same guy standing behind a table, so we walked over to see his wares. He was Frank Axmacher, whose pipes and name/fame I knew, but whose face I did not. His pipes were pricy but gorgeous, and he proudly told us more about them, and about how he carved pipes. He confessed to us that sometimes, after a hard day's work, he'll set up his blocks of briar, settle into his comfy chair with a drink, and have a "briar peep show" where he envisions what each block should become. We had a great time talking to Frank, then and again the next day. hops offered to buy me one of his pipes, but though they were gorgeous, I didn't feel right spending that much money on a pipe that I didn't absolutely love, until...

We found Gabriele's table. His pipes were much smaller than I'd imagined from pictures, which was a big plus since my collection is lacking in small pipes. Additionally, they were all masterfully carved, artfully conceived, and made from gorgeous wood. Unlike Frank's pipes, though costing about the same, they tickled my fancy. There were too many to choose from, but somehow I managed to choose one. He showed me the price and I decided to grin and bear it, since I really liked the pipe very much, and that was what I was there to do: buy pipes. It was getting near lunch time, and I had no cash on me, so I asked Gabriele to hold the pipe for me while we went and had lunch and got cash to pay for it. He insisted that we take the pipe with us and pay later! He said we had truthful eyes and he was sure he would see us again. What a guy!

In the end, we did not take the pipe. We went to the bank and I put more money in my wallet than it has ever held at one time. Then we went to Gino's East and ordered a pizza. I wanted to get a small since I didn't think a personal would be big enough, but the waiter convinced me that a personal would be sufficient, and in any case, I was hungry and the personal would take 30 minutes less to cook than the small (!). The pizza was delicious, with fresh sausage and a soft, crumbly, buttery, corn meal crust. Unfortunately, since I got the tiny size, the crust-to-everything-else ratio was way too big, and I ended up with mostly only crust. Next time, we'll plan ahead and get the small. Still, it was excellent. I left a sizable tip, and when hops commented on it, I said that if I could afford a Dal Fiume, I could afford to leave a 50% tip on the world's most underpriced pizza.

Back at the show, we made a beeline for Gabriele's table. I whipped out the cash but he wanted to talk, so we did. He told us more about how he likes his pipes smaller, what the symbols mean (he puts a turtle on some pipes, and a snail on others. I think the turtle goes on the rough pipes and the snail on the smooths, but I was busy wondering if I should buy additional pipes from him (and now, I'm sorry I didn't, realizing at what a discount his pipes were offered), but in any case, the turtle and snail indicate that DG pipes are slow-smoking), how pipe making is his side job and his real job involves global consulting, and that if pipe making was his only source of income, his wife would get a new husband.

Finally, it was time to pay. He got out his price sheet again and pointed at a price that was clearly for a different pipe, and 20% lower than the original agreed upon price. We tried to clarify, but this was the price he wanted, so it was the price I paid. We took a photo of the three of us:

Parting, I asked him what tobacco would be good in this pipe. He then gave me some of his private stash of 4-year-old FVF. The dude is crazy generous! I thanked him as profusely as I could manage and got on with my show.

The pre-show is relatively small, and we went and looked again at Lasse's pipes, but that was more or less it. I headed out to the smoking tent to look for the smoker's forum members I planned to meet, and to try out my new pipe.

I managed not to ruin the pipe on the first smoke, and had a great time with the forum guys. at some point during our conversation, Gabriele walked into the tent, and I rushed over to thank him again, and tell him how wonderfully his pipe smoked (it's impossible to tell before buying whether a pipe will smoke well. It is generally possible to make an educated guess, and for anything over $50, it is reasonable, in my opinion, to expect it will smoke well. Over $150 I'd expect it to be excellent, and this pipe was beyond that, so it should be no surprise that it smoked well. However, everyone's idea of what "smokes well" means is a little different, and I was pleased to discover that DG's interpretation matched mine, and the pipe smoked well). He asked how I liked the tobacco. I told him it was great, but to be honest, between you and me, dear reader, the Chicago smoking tent, while a great place to enjoy the nuances of fine conversation, is a horrible place to discern the subtleties of fine tobacco.

After I finished my smoke, the allergies kicked in. I had wondered where they'd been all this time. There's only so much wind and dense tobacco smoke they can take, and with a non-dramatized sneeze, I excused myself and went back to the room to shower.

We attended the free welcome buffet dinner, where we felt welcomed.

Each place setting had a tin of free tobacco, of various blends. We sat with a woman and her husband, the latter having just begun a new job as a Peter Stokkebye salesman, and attending his first show in that official capacity. Neither of them smoked a pipe, but cigars instead. They were nervous in anticipation for the next day, when the show officially started.

The roast beef in brown sauce was not only the best buffet beef I've ever had, but also quite possibly in the top 5 of roast beefs I've ever had. The dessert was good, too.

After dinner, we went to a talk by Mark Ryan about his purchase of L.A. Poche Perique, and perique farming/processing in general. It was quite fascinating, with a very vocal and opinionated audience member adding interesting and occasionally controversial comments. I later found out that said member was the head blender at McClelland Tobacco, and a customer of Mark's.

After the perique talk, which was fascinating (not only for its content, but also for the personalities on display) but endearingly poorly prepared, we did another round of the same pipe vendors, who had nothing new to show, plus a stop by Quality Briar, where I looked at -- you guessed it -- more Cavicchis and more Lasses. And, since they were there, the multitude of other gorgeous pipes on display. Big D was there in some assisting capacity, and his ebullient enthusiasm for pipes went unmatched the entire time I was in Chicago. He was fun to be around, to say the least.

On our way back to our room, we stopped by to see Chris Askwith and Larrysson Pipes. Chris' morta pipes are beautiful, but I didn't favor any of the shapes he'd brought. He was a delight to talk with, as was Larysson, whose real name does not stick in my head. We spoke at length of bog wood, and Larysson's family of artists.

I had been warned by many people that the next day would be overwhelming. I readied myself and went to the room. There was, by this time, a thunderstorm. We were on the 15th floor, and St. Charles is quite flat, so we had an exceptional view of the sort of lightning storm that one does not see in the parts of California where I've lived. In other words, it was a lightning storm like I've never before seen. It was great. We went to bed, very tired.