Last night A, R and I (no, not some guy named Ari) went and saw MarchFourth Marching Band at The Independent:


Mediocre picture, I know, but in some ways it does a strange sort of justice to this fantastically strange band. (Yes, that is a stilt walker on the far left.)

One reason the picture isn't so great is that I took it without a flash, observing the request of the venue, unlike many other dbags in the hipsterarrific audience.

Really a great show. I can't possibly begin to do it justice, you should read about the band or, better yet, go see them in person: it's that kind of show.

Merry New Year & Happy Xmas FOOD PORN!

Christmas Eve dinner, California vegan-style:
clockwise from left, that's oven roasted potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onions, fried potatoes, flash fried brussels sprouts, and tofu taking center stage.

Now for some perspective, here is how my family likes to assist with my taking pictures of food:
See what I go through to get you your food porn?

Waaaaaaaait: did someone say FOOD PORN? Holy moley it's been a long time, readers. Fortunately, at least half of my known readership was present in the room for this next food porn extravaganza, where three of us gathered in Kitchen Stadium, East Bay Satellite Location, for a Chopped Top Iron Chef Throwdown.

With a spending limit of $25 at Berkeley Bowl, we all made dishes with the theme ingredients of tofu and asparagus. Except that the asparagus was too damned expensive, so we whacked it from the competition mid-shop.

Soon, the kitchen in E & K's apartment was buzzing: blenders blending, frying pans frying, ovens ovening. The guest judges played Nintendo Fit in the living room. I worked double duty to provide commentary on the dishes as they were being prepared, and then served.

Here are the final dishes, (sort of) just before being fed to the judges.

Since I know you were desperate for details, and that jerk Alton Brown seems to have abandoned this blog post, here is my (winning) dish:

Tofu, Thai style
Baked firm tofu squares
Manila mango slices with salt and chili powder
spicy Thai peanut gin sauce (this was damned delicious, if I do say so myself)

Tofu, Mexican style
(in the rough shape of the Mexican flag)
fried extra firm tofu squares
green: avocado slices and garlic chives
white: disc fried white onions
red: flashed fried tomatoes and red peppers
pureed sauce of chipotle, adobo, cocoa powder, and Mexican spiced chocolate

Good times were had by all. The leftovers lasted us three days back on the peninsula.

Now in my continuing search to find a bike I can ride in tonight's critical mass. My life will be complete when I have ridden Critical Mass in San Francisco on New Year's EveHalloween.

Thoughts on airport

Catching separate flights an hour apart, J and I hurried to the MARTA station this morning, only to find it running less frequent than usual. The train was the most crowded MARTA train I've ever been on. Nothing like a crowded NYC subway, mind you, but essentially full. Lots of huge people with big bags and bigger voices. Full-on pedestrian traffic jam to get on the stairs down, with people shoving and talking shit not quite under their voices. Christmas does bring out the best in people, doesn't it?

At the airport, J was cutting her flight a little close, while I have time to blog. By email, we agreed that elite status is worth every penny sometimes. It's a regular fucking freakshow at the airport. The south security line was fine. Of course the morons in green jackets were telling people bullshit about which lines had which waits, and claimed that both south and north had 15-20 minutes waits, while main was allegedly sub-10 minutes. Total bullshit, especially for elites: I could see a long line at main, which doesn't have an elite line, and my wait was about three minutes in the elite line at south (which they are actually enforcing today, a relatively rare occurrence.)

The underground walkway between terminals was fine, since most people preferred to sardine themselves into the inter-terminal train, but walking through the B terminal is like the Amazing Race.

Now in the Sky Club at B25, there are two enormous fat guys, apparently brothers ("Think mom is awake yet?") sitting a table one over. Brother #1 just can't shut his fucking mouth. Just keeps talking. About nothing. And saying "unbelievable" with a big gushing release of air sort of sigh. Brother #2 mostly wipes his Mr. Clean head, picks his nose, and ignores him. Brother #1 is making various phone calls to get a "general antibiotic" and discussing checking into the hospital. Totally unclear why.

Interestingly, while the other people on the MARTA and many other passengers in the airport are all a-tizzy (or just downright rude and obnoxious) the staff I've dealt with have all been cheery and happy, including some of the rentacop TSA agents.

California here i come (remember that song?)

Family Joad Style

Bet you can't guess where I am :
J and I did a bunch of cleaning before a recent (lovely!) visit from A2. As part of this, we revisited our need to get rid of the crappy green thrift store suitcase that I bought (on a trip with A2!) at a thrift store in Denver for $7. It served its purpose then, which was getting a bunch of bike stuff back to Atlanta, but, well, it kinda didn't roll.

So we filled it up with a bunch of other stuff we needed to donate, and did the logical thing: strapped it to the back of my bike. J and I then rode to the always miserable Lenox Square Mall, only to find that the Goodwill collection trailer that used to live in a parking lot behind the mall is gone. No indication on the website, no signage in the lot.

We call to confirm the other collection center still exists. J goes into the mall to scout out replacement suitcases (we're really picky: we want a hardside 19" or 20" spinner that will absolutely fit in overhead bins. When you fly as much as we do, it's nice to be able to predict your suitcase will absolutely fit.)

I ride three miles up Peachtree Road to the new Costco location which is, inexplicably, located within a couple miles of the other two Costcos in Atlanta, all three of the min the northern suburbs.

The only notable thing on the ride was some pedestrian who, as I rode by, offered the unsolicited advice "get your ass out of the road." Thanks, asshole. Maybe next time. Or not.

I then get to the brand new, just constructed, built to suit Costco, to find that it has NO BICYCLE RACKS. Fail. Serious, serious fail. So I lock my bike to a pole. Inside, I find a suitcase that is basically perfect, for $50. I buy it, and to the significant amusement of the woman marking receipts at the door who sees my bike helmet, proceed to strap it to the top of my bike.

Here's the story (were you getting bored yet?) So I get back to Lenox Square, and we still have to ride about seven miles back down Peachtree Road, then a couple miles up Collier Road, to get to the Goodwill donation center that is actually open. How are we going to manage this, you wonder? Here's how:


Ohhhhh, yeah. Sitba kicks ass. Even the three cars engaging in a loud and reckless illegal street race on Peachtree Road near Piedmont Hospital gave me wide berth with this.

xmas spirit and bike porn! (and When Panoramas Go Horribly Wrong)

My regular readers (all four of you) know that I'm a fan of panoramas taken from my balcony. That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm technically competent, or that Hugin panorama creator will always save me (even when I spend a LOT of time manually providing stitch points.)

I nevertheless thought this was kind of cool looking, in an apocalyptic kind of way. This is a 33% version, converted to jpeg, since the full size tiff version is 7.6mb.

Speaking of apocalypse, we LOVES us some post-apocalyptic and dystopian movies. last night our netflix movie was among the worst movies I've ever actually finished watching: Cloverfield. Totally inexplicably to me, Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 76% fresh rating. Some of them got it right, though, like Brian Orndorf, from DVDTalk.com: "Basically a 70-minute YouTube video, Cloverfield has all the head-rattling jolt and dramatic verisimilitude of a prank phone call" and Kyle Smith, of KyleSmithOnline.com: "A combination of unpleasantness and stupidity that would be difficult to match, unless you were stuck in bed with the shingles while being forced to watch The Ghost Whisperer."

On another note, just in case any of you have ever accused me of being anti-christmas, or ever even CONSIDERED such an unjust accusation:


And as more evidence of it, I picked up a super deluxe xmas tree for J. From the ground. In the bike parking area at Whole Paycheck (where they obnoxiously kept storing xmas trees, so for over a week I kept having to shove them out of the way.) Here is said xmas tree:

Don't look too closely, or you might realize that it's, uhhh, about three feet by three feet. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to throw it away today, since it drips a little sap, and J and I are both going to be (separately) gone for xmas anyway.

California tomorrow(!)

Food porn, winter, and stuff.

When I woke up this morning, it was 17 degrees in Atlanta. Woo whee! To warm it up a bit, here is some food porn.

K, recognize a couple ingredients? Concerned?

Here are the tofu steaks. And what is that goodness peeking in at the top?

That's right: ONIONS!

Brussels sprouts with red pepper flakes.

Home again

Ahhhh, Atlanta, the temperature might be half (literally) what it was in Honolulu, but I'm glad to be back. Weirdass posters advertising the state of Georgia's "Felon Search" on the MARTA notwithstanding.

What I particularly like about the poster is the graffiti. Just in case you can't read it in the picture, it says

Leave me alone and let me get a fucking job

Indeed.

And why in the fuck is the State of Georgia charging for this, anyway? Since when was access to public records a profit making venture for state government? Prison industrial complex, anyone?

Of redeyes and green faucets

This is the bathroom faucet in the little strip mall where we had surprisingly good sushi last night. Ick.

I hate redeyes. Even when I manage to sleep for most of the flight, as I did last night, I still feel zonked out on arrival. Awaiting my connection to ATL, which I plan to sleep for most of.

The crappy little terminal I'm in at SFO has no interesting breakfast options, so I'll probably just eat a clif bar on the plane. SFO would be an okay airport if it weren't so compartmentalized: there are literally three foods options, all mediocre, without leaving security. And I definitely don't have the energy for any of TSA's asinine security theater foolishness this morning.

Happy hour, part, uhhhhh... Six?

4:18, must be Tiji's, again. Delicious mai tai.

Walked most if the way out on the beach, and was amused to ignore the various hotels that have tried to privatize parts if the public beach.

Flying out tomorrow, after a delightful and much needed rest. Looking forward to a relatively calm December, even though a lot of work is ahead of me. Better drink up now!

Room service

Let me start by saying that I NEVER, EVER get room service. Literally: I'm pretty sure that in all the hotels I've stayed in, I've never actually ordered room service before.

But here at our:
ridiculously fancy hotel (this is the saltwater "Private Sunset Beach" lounging pool complete with a fake sand beach) J got a $25 gift card for her elite status, for use only for room service or the spa.

Not one to pass up mostly free beer (they were $9 each), I was quite pleased to see these three options on the room service menu. (See? Told you it's a fancy hotel. Thanks for paying your taxes: they're hard at work!)

Not the prettiest pour ever, nor a proper glass, but when Marriott is paying, I'm drinking.

Oh, and this is just a random shot of a happy hour Lava Flow from earlier in the day.

2011

I was inspired while reading this post on a blog I like to consider the year ahead.

Notably, the post is a fun read if you're any kind of a cyclist: this guy is a seriously obsessed gearhead cyclist. From what I can tell just from this post, he and his wife own about nine bikes between them. That would be one more than J and I owned at our peak in Alaska, but several of those were kids bikes from when we were fostering. He loves the high-tech expensive stuff, which I'm somewhat ambivalent about (like dyno hubs) but it's fun to read someone else's considered opinions even when I would never buy the stuff.

Anyway, on to 2011: some ideas, some plans, and some hopes for what I might do.

VERY LIKELY OR DEFINITE

• Continue my legal work with activist communities, including (already planned) trips to West Virginia, Nevada, and Columbus, GA.
  
• Do at least one lengthy bike tour: already have one in the planning stages from Atlanta to Richmond, Virginia, then on to West Virginia. And I'd love to do Adventure Cycling's Underground Railroad Bicycle Route, but I don't know if this is the year. More possible is the C&O Canal Towpath.
  
• Participate again in the Courage Classic. Fundraising appeal coming soon!
  
• Have a vacation with J. We're thinking about something outdoor rather than tourist travel. Maybe Colorado, maybe Alaska. See below.
  
• Continue and improve my short story writing. (Interested? You should be. Many of you are characters.)
  
• Some mountain biking. I've got that fancy new mountain bike, so I need to use it. Probably both some local stuff in Atlanta (which has some surprisingly fun trails intown) and also some in the mountains of north Georgia.
  

KINDA LIKELY

• Get better with linux, really dig in to my ubuntu installations, and understand more of what is going on under the hood. A, are you listening? I might want boot camp. I'll provide the beer.
• Speaking of beer, get back to regular homebrewing. As delicious as it is to have Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and Westy 12 and Hebrew Bittersweet Lenny's RIPA on tap, I'd like to have some of my own on tap again.
  
• And speaking some more of beer: every time I'm in a beer store with any kind of a legitimate selection (which gives me a pass on most of West Virginia) not buy a beer I've already had if there is something reasonably interesting to buy instead (or at least in addition to.) Notice the multiple qualifications. This is something I've been working on for the last couple years.
  

NOT VERY LIKELY BUT FUN POSSIBILITIES

• Hike the Chilkoot Trail. I definitely want to do this sometime, and Skagway is truly my favorite small Alaska town, but I'm just not sure it's feasible to have it on the agenda for this year.
• Get rid of our car, and go car-less, again. Primarily this is unlikely because we'd take an absolute bath on the value of the car: we tried to sell it in Alaska, with no luck, where people genuinely need 4x4, unlike Atlanta. As it is, we leave it parked for an average of 26 or 27 days every month. We'll continue working on this.
  

Happy hour, continued

3:28pm, must be stop #2 on my Waikiki happy hour crawl, and a DELICIOUS mai tai at Lulu's . Good times.

Happy happy hour!

2:45pm, must be happy hour at Tiki's Grill and Bar overlooking Waikiki Beach.

This is a stupidly strong Blue Hawaii: basically 85% hard liquor. Phew.

Have a portobello burger on the way to soak some of it up. Whoops, no: the great bartender just clarified with the kitchen that the bun for the portobello involves butter, so switching to a salad.

Vegan complications notwithstanding, vacation is fun.

More vegan Hawaii!

A bunch of random Hawaii vegan food porn and costs:

Vegan pupuu (appetizers) at Ryan's Grill, beer (Deschutes Jubel) and the first of two mai tais. Grand total at happy hour? Around $22 plus a hefty tip.

Our personal french press of 100% Kona coffee at Honolulu Coffee Company. A chain, but a smallish one, and entirely located in Hawaii and the Pacific islands (two locations in Guam.) Very good coffee, and I'm glad I got it once ($6.95) but I certainly wouldn't spend a ton of money on the beans.


This is our other dish at Ruffage Natural Foods, a vegan tofu scrambler. Fairly tasty, especially with a little hot sauce.

Finally, while it seemed like it would be the most exciting, this was the least flavorful and interesting dish of the bunch, a vegan "pork" type thing at Simple Joy. Not bad, just not... that interesting. A little bland, a little lacking of substance.

Island time

Here's the view from our hotel room window:

Yes, life is good. I'm going to spend much of the day exploring happy hours in Waikiki.

Since I'm five hours earlier than EST, I'm streaming one of my old public radio stations: KSKA. I was amused to hear the temperature forecast and current temp rundown for various locations in Anchoragua, none of them above 5 degrees fahrenheit, and 15 degrees below zero for East Anchorage. It's currently 81 in Honolulu.

Wonder how it is in the F-B-X... oh, -25! Maybe my friends are too busy huddled by the heater to e-mail or respond to text. Oh, btw, know that if any of you ever do text me, I have a new number I need you to use for texting (yay for google voice!) Email me for details.