Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Posting will be light until we get back home. Had to be up at 5:30AM to be in Roanoke on time. My brain doesn’t much work before 9AM. I’m more a night owl than a morning person.
Kitchen smells delicious. We made some home made cinnamon ice cream to bring down to compliment dessert. It’s been on dry ice since we left. If you were to ask the FDA, it’s actually a frozen custard. I should probably clarify that before the G-men come bust down my door and have me arrested. See, our federal betters have determined that if you use more than a certain amount of egg it ceases to be ice cream and becomes frozen custard and must be called such.
I for one am thankful we have a federal bureaucracy dedicated to the proposition that not all frozen desserts are created equal, and have pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to protect us from the menace of too many eggs.
After Bitter dragging me to go see the movie of the concert adaptation of the English translation of the musical adaptation of one of Victor Hugo’s novels, all I have to say is that Nick Jonas sucks. Hear me screaming teenage girls? Your teenage heart throb is a shitty stage singer. You don’t stick a pop singer on the stage with classically trained opera singers and not expect him to bring the whole performance down a few levels. The kid has no stage presence, and he has a weak voice. He doesn’t have a bad voice, compared to most boy band phenoms, but there were more than a few moments I wanted to send a TSA agent up on stage to grab his junk and scream “Sing, damn you, sing!” I couldn’t hear his mincy little voice over the women singers, let alone over the men and the orchestra, and his ability to hold a note was not only disappointing, but downright criminal considering the material.
I have never seen a better Valjean than Alfie Boe, and Norm Lewis, who currently stars in the stage version in London, is quite enjoyable as Javert. An excellent cast, except the Jonas creature. Having the teenage girls who came to the theater scream every time Jonas moved his lips inaudibly on stage only added to misery of his presence in this performance. The producers of Les Miserables probably figured they needed to mint a new generation of fans, so they can milk this franchise for another 25 years. That’s fine. I’m not against capitalism. But I am against pop stars with weak voices playing Marius. My only hope is that in a few years when those girls grow up, they’ll go see someone who can show them how the part of Marius is properly performed.
That is my critical review of Les Miserables 25 Anniversary Concert. We now return to our regularly scheduled gun blogging.
I’ve dragged poor Sebastian out to the movies to see the US showing of the Les Miserables 25th anniversary concert tonight. I’m nervous. There’s a Jonas brother in it. I know nothing about Jonas brothers other than they appear on TMZ from time to time, and teen girls apparently throw their undergarments at them. Fortunately, this particular species of Jonas brother plays Marius, and I have no particular favorite actors in that role whose work said Jonas brother could destroy.
The characters that make me the most nervous are Enjolras and Javert. I don’t think there’s any room to improve upon those in the 10th anniversary concert “dream cast.”
As I’ve previously stated, Michael Maguire has the kind of voice to inspire some patriotism. If I’m not up on my feet and trying to lead a revolution in the theater during Red and Black, then the current actor playing Enjolras has failed. Not that I have high expectations or anything…
By the time you read this post, I’ll be well on my way to bawling my eyes out. I cry every time I see Les Mis. It’s just that good.
The deciduous trees, which are now in full fall color, are beginning to shed their leaves. When I was growing up in Delaware County, the annual ritual involved blowing the leaves onto a large tarp and hauling them out to the curb, where the Borough would come along and suck them up with a giant vacuum truck. The job could be done in an hour or two. That was also practice when I lived in Chester County, judging from the piles of leaves I’d see in fall. When I got to Bucks County, it was tough to believe we were back in the dark ages where leaf collection involved having to bag them and put them out at the curb.
Bucks Right is mocking Southampton Township managers for making lame excuses as to why the Township won’t switch to leaf vacuuming, which is a far more efficient way to do leaf collection. They do cite cost, which I think is a legitimate issue. I wonder why we have to make this a debate about taxing and spending. I’d gladly pay the Township a Jackson or two to bring a giant suck-o-matic over to my house so I don’t have to bag. Why not do it as a fee for service rather than funding it with tax dollars?
Thanks to FatWhiteMan, we tried smoking cornish hens back in May. We’ve made them at least three more times since then. If you have a smoker and have not yet tried smoking cornish hens, do it.
We make our own rub with a ginger base, but the real prize of the meal is the glaze that we put on after they have reached temperature. We glaze them and then stick them on the grill for a few minutes to finish on the outside. The glaze is super simple and worth sharing: 1/4 cup orange juice concentrate, 2 tablespoons dijon mustard, and 2 tablespoons honey. Mix & coat.
Now, the wish bones are drying out on the dining room table. What should I wish for when I beat Sebastian at tearing them apart? I already lost out on an iPad for the kitchen when I didn’t take his bet that the homemade bread wouldn’t rise due to the quality of the yeast. (It rose beautifully. Damn kitchen iPad…)
For those of you who noticed a brief outage last night, that was me rearranging cabling in my office. One of my monitors died a few days ago, so I decided to get another one that was roughly the same model:
Both are HP LCD displays, but in order to accommodate two wide aspect monitors, I had to move the machine running the blog up to the shelf in the top of the photos. Previously I just had my workstation and the server sitting side by side. Moved the UPS and scanner to the top of the cabinet I keep my air guns in, and moved the wireless switch up topside too. On top of my Frankenstein machine, which is really a Mac in a PC case, is my flight yoke for X-Plane. Rudder pedals are pushed off to the side under the desk. All this leaves enough room for my MacBook or iPad on the stand to the left.
I like the glossy HP monitors for the home office, which don’t distort the clarity with an anti-glare matte, which I don’t need down here. The old display on the right is the HP w2338h, the display on the right is the HP 2310m. The 2310m looks a bit better than the 2338h, being a newer model. My big pet peeve is that the 2310m came out of the box with a marketing sticker on the top, telling me what a great monitor it was, which was difficult to peel off and left glue residue that impossible to clean off the otherwise shiny, ebony bezel. As pretentious and controlling as Apple can be towards customers, they would never do something like that with their packaging.
Sebastian and I don’t travel much to places we haven’t already been or to places that don’t have 60,000 gun owners descending on them at once (i.e. NRA conventions). Our usual hot spots are DC and wherever the Sight Selection Committee chooses. So planning for a trip to Hawai’i was a bit of an adventure in a) trying not to bust a budget, and b) tolerating travel.
I’ll put it below the jump, but I thought it was worth mentioning some of the tools and people that made planning the trip much easier. I’m doing this because I suspect some of you planning trips (not necessarily to Hawai’i) could benefit and to recognize some good work. If you are headed to the islands, then these suggestions may come in handy. Continue reading “The Travel Adventure”
You can see some other parts on YouTube here and here. I probably watched some of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation videos myself when I was in Junior High too. It’s occurred to me that I was probably among the last of the 16mm film reel generation. When I entered high school, the schools were just starting to get the newfangled Laser Discs, which could be controlled with a nifty Apple IIGS computer. Kids today will never know the disappointment of being subject to regular lessons because the projector wouldn’t track correctly, the film reel broke, or the bulb in the projector blew out (some teachers knew how to fix these things, others didn’t). I’m sure with a new generation of media came a new generation of films, which means kids today will miss out on the delight of what I saw in Volcano National Park in Hawaii, reliving some interests from childhood:
Parts two, three and four if you’re interested. Documentary filmmaking today doesn’t have the same dry, cheesy appeal. No dramatic score, or inappropriately deadpan, unenthusiastic narrator. In part four, at the end, I was particularly struck by the fact that they used, as evidence of mother nature recovering, that they tilled over the soil, and planted some papayas, and they grew, dammit! Today it would be some kumbaya crap about fragile native plants that man as clearly destroying growing in the lava, and starting the cycle anew, rather than man punching mother nature right back in her face and getting some farming action back on.
As it is, I hiked through the area mentioned here, and it’s still pretty desolate.
I guess we didn’t punch mother nature quite hard enough. Not often you get to hike on naturally made, volcanic gravel — a remnant of the lava fountain that spewed here for a while.
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much tuna and other seafood in my life. And you know what? It was delicious. Here are my thoughts on our culinary tour of Hawai’i in no particular order:
Coconut makes everything more delicious. Â I knew this before we left, but my belief was confirmed. Â Coconut pancakes topped with coconut syrup? Â More please! Â (Diamond Head Market & Grill) Â And Starbucks has a Mocha Coconut Frap that you can supposedly only get in Hawaii. Â It’s like a Mounds slushie.
Never, ever, ever miss this if you visit the island of Hawai’i: Tasting or luncheon at the Hawaiian Vanilla Company. Follow their directions, not Google’s. Trust me. But get there and get there fast. The tasting is actually about 3/4 of a meal, or a full lunch if you had an early breakfast. Delicious and divine. We bought several items in the store and plan to replicate most of their recipes. Sugar/vanilla/spicy crusted pecans? Check. Vanilla caramelized onions to top some brie warmed in pastry? I’ll host dinner for guests just as an excuse to make it. Vanilla balsamic vinaigrette? Bought it & already opened it up for dinner last night. Vanilla bean lemonade? I’m all over that one. Also free: tips on mixing vanilla with booze & how to best use said booze in food. This will be an “every future trip” stop for us any time we hit the Big Island again. Best $25 you can spend on food.
Are you an atheist looking for proof of a higher being? Â Proof that there is a God and he loves us is found in a plate of Shrimp Scampi from Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck. Â It was so good, we visited both locations the two days we were up on the North Shore.
Best unexpected find? Â Ilikai Bar & Grill. Â Sit outside at the bar, enjoy the sounds of the harbor and take advantage of the good company behind the bar – particularly a bartender named Sarah. Â She was great – so was their coconut shrimp appetizer. Â I kept reading complaints that the property was dated, but I didn’t think it was in a bad way. Â The atmosphere was great.
A great hidden gem: Liliha Bakery. We were the only rental in the lot – that says a lot right there when every other customer in the packed joint was kama’aina. The haupia cake – oh, be still my heart. It was so simple and mild, just what I love about it. Not too sweet, not overpowering, and wonderfully moist. The coco puffs are a delicious treat, and it’s worth picking up some cinnamon donuts for breakfast. There’s a reason they’ve been in business longer than Hawaii has been a state.
Looking for the tiki bar vibe? Â Hit up La Mariana Sailing Club on Oahu. Â The drinks were a bit weak, but sitting on the water and enjoying the harbor sunset made up for that.
Kona Brewing Company was worthy of three stops (two on Oahu because it was the only place outside of Waikiki we could find that was open at a reasonable hour and one on Hawai’i when we stayed in bumf*ck no where and had to drive to Kona for dinner). Â I strongly recommend the roasted garlic appetizer.
Luau: Most people will tell you not to waste your money on a commercial luau. Â I can somewhat sympathize because, from what I have read, most have terrible food and many are pretty damn expensive. Â But, Sebastian was up for a luau, and I read there are only two worth seeing according to residents & frequent visitors: one on Maui & one on the Big Island. Â We were on the Big Island, so we ended our trip with the Polynesian luau hosted by Kona Village Resort. Â At just over $100/person (adding tax & extra drinks), it isn’t cheap. Â But, for a multi-hour dinner show & bbq with a buffet that definitely qualified as filling & good, it was a reasonable price. Â It was a great last evening for a trip to the islands. Â Also, the fire dancer on their website – totally hot in person.
Obviously, we did eat more than just these places. Â Oh, and Sebastian was introduced to the wonderful varieties of macadamia nuts thanks to my grandmother. Â He loves them. Â If you ever want to know, Mauna Loa Honey Roasted are superior to Hawaiian Host Honey Roasted. Â But neither of us turned down either of the bags offered to us. Â And if you aren’t walking it all off, then you aren’t doing Hawaii the right way. :)
Our Hawaiian adventure is over. Arrived back on the east coast at Newark, New Jersey at 6AM. Too early for the trains to run. Feeling like a day just up and disappeared, I was too tired to wait for them to start running, so we rented a car, one way, at the Newark Airport and high-tailed it down the New Jersey Turnpike for home. The good thing about a two week vacation is you’re kind of glad to be home, and don’t have to keep living out of a suitcase.
The latest Hawaiian vacation trend seems to be taking the kids along. Let me amend that — taking your screaming kids along. You’d almost have a hard time believing we’re in a recession, that people have money for the whole family to go on vacation. We took driving vacations to such exciting destinations as Ocean City, New Jersey, Lewes, Delaware (I never did get to see the screen door factory, though) and one trip to Florida (we drove). When my parents went on vacations that required flying, we got dropped off at the grandparents.
Standards of public behavior for children have also definitely gone downhill. If my parents had taken us on a plane, there’s no way I would be permitted to run up and down the aisles, and wander the plane annoying people. On the flight out, the parents were busy getting liquored up, while their kids were having free reign over the incredibly cramped 757. I think if you have your bratty rug rats with you, and you’d rather drink than parent, you ought to be required to buy drinks for the whole plane. I believe I  will take this up with the FAA.
I think the root of this problem is you can’t smack your kids in public anymore, and parents seem to think there’s no problem with imposing their kids on the rest of the world. I would have gotten smacked if I had behaved like that. It almost makes this tame:
