If it's Tuesday, it must be Nashville

Okay, fine, so it's actually Wednesday. And it's Atlanta. And tonight is Sacramento. But these photos are from Nashville!

These are the delicious buffalo tempeh strips at The Wild Cow in Nashville. Everything on the menu is vegan unless you request dairy cheese. (No, I don't really get it, either.) The buffalo strips and "ranch" had great flavor, but definitely aren't as amazing as the all-time reigning king of vegan buffalo wings, at the old City 'O City in Denver. And of course, the company there was also fantastic. (A2, we miss you!)

Here is my reuben, which was good, but not great (the bread needed to be toasted more, and the tofu needed to be more heavily fried.) The side of BBQ seitan was very tasty (and in the right of the frame you can see the remains of the buffalo strips, which we demolished.)

This is J's seitan philly, and garlicky kale. Also tasty, but again, not amazing. We would totally go back, but would branch out some on the menu.

From Massachusetts: this is a mural I painted on a wall in my college dorm in my first semester, Fall 1993. Still there, with a few later artistic adaptations. (It used to say "...ITY)

In Revere, from a hotel room window. I noticed plenty of traffic on the road below, but zero on the overpasses. Clearly this needed to be explored.

The roadbeds themselves are abandoned. You can see them on this google map link, just north of the hotel. It looks like maybe they used to be highway on/off ramps, but it's hard to say for sure. Could also have been access roads to the abandoned Muller Airfield / Revere Airport. (Scroll down on that link, or search Revere...) It made for an interesting way of crossing that rotary to get to the bus stop on the west side without walking alongside traffic.

Did some mountain biking and urbex last night with D3 here in Atlanta, including the fascinating Hartsfield Incinerator site.

Named for the former mayor of Atlanta, William B. Hartsfield, just as the airport. In searching for it, I found this amusing bit of historical commentary in a google book: William Berry Hartsfield: Mayor of Atlanta, by Harold H. Martin (1978.)

...his profound interest in garbage paid off in honors when in May 1963 a new incinerator was named for him -- a fitting tribute, according to editor Eugene Patterson. "After all what more appropriate monument could be raised to the hottest-tempered old tyrant in the municipal annals of benevolent despotism than a roaring, 1,500-ton fountain of blue blazes," wrote Patterson. "Where is the man who has done more slow burns, roasted more enemies alive, thrown up more smoke screens or carried more coals to Newcastle than the former mayor who will be honored by a city that was shaped brick by brick in the kiln of the irascible genius? Bill Hartsfield never cooled off in twenty-three years as mayor. Now his temperature belongs to the ages." (p.171) 

This is the rusting but still climbable conveyor strutcure. 

Here is the observation post on the top of the conveyor, just above the massive hopper. 

To get up to it, you briefly have to crawl up the conveyor belt itself before switching out to the stairs (visible on the right.) 

 Lots of old cylinders laying around. 

Naptime! 

Under the pavement, the forest.


Which a little searching indicates might be an adaptation from a beautiful Wendell Berry poem:

IN A COUNTRY

ONCE FORESTED

By Wendell Berry

The young woodland remembers

the old, a dreamer dreaming

of an old holy book,

an old set of instructions,

and the soil under the grass

is dreaming of a young forest,

and under the pavement the soil

is dreaming of grass.

Various and sundry

Hot off the digital presses, since I know y'all must be missing the food porn and gardening porn something fierce.

This is this year's crop of container gardening tomatoes. (Containers, in this case, are drilled out 6.5 gallon homebrewing buckets. I sold some brewing equipment through Craigslist right when we moved to Atlanta, and the guy who came to pick the stuff up noticed I was using old brewing buckets for gardening, said something like, "Wow -- you really must have a ton of brewing equipment!")

The larger plant to the left looks healthier, but it struggling a bit. Atlanta is a tough place to grow tomatoes, and buckets are a tough place to grow tomatoes.

Now on the left is the smaller plant, a Tumbling Tiger, with a couple delicious specimens picked and sitting on top. And that's our little baby herb garden with, I think, oregano and thyme. We finally gave up on some transplated hydroponic basil which did surprisingly well for a while, but then just wasn't having it.

Here are those Tumbling Tigers in action: sliced on toast with Better Than Cream Cheese, then going clockwise: sauerkraut, fried tempeh, sauteed broccoli, and caramelized ONIONS!

My favorite apron from my time cooking aboard ship has a silkscreened patch sewn on. The text is: "under the pavement  |  the forest".

I love exploring, particularly abandoned buildings and industrial sites. I particularly love it when nature takes back over.

I'm posting this from my college alma mater which many of you know. Yesterday I moderated a roundtable discussion of alums and friends about Occupy, caught up with one of my most important faculty mentors (K), and am going to a couple more workshops today, and get to just wander around and re-explore the place.

Above is a shot from my bike and hike this morning through the "pine forest." (See any pines?) (Stir any memories?)

It's a little hard to express how amazing this place is for me, and for many people.

Here's a toad trying hard to blend in on that same little path. 

Students here make stuff. Sometimes it's hilarious.

I'm lodged in the housing group (starts with "P") I never did officially stay in, but spent plenty of time in. The first time was when I needed to flee the rages of Fuckmonger, and an upper year friend invited me over. They were going out on an exploration of the former SAC bunker built into Bare Mountain. (Neat video in that link.) It's massive: almost 26 acres, and 44,000 square feet. Now owned by Amherst College and used as the Five College Book Depository, it contains nearly 500,000 volumes, filed by size rather than by subject, on over 8 miles of shelving. Here's a wonky article all about how it was set up and is used as a library depository. Its initial purpose (1957-71) was as the eastern communications hub for the Strategic Air Command, and it played a significant role in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Back in 1993, however, it was in a strange transitional state of use, and, well, some students knew how to get in. And so we did. And wandered, climbed around, sat and spun around in really uncomfortable office chairs, went through piles of old records (mostly boring stuff like time logs.) For further details on this trip, we'll we'll have to talk in person.

This is only the second time I've been back to campus for any significant period of time, the first being June 2010. As of then, my mural was still up in the basement of the dorm I was housed in. I'm hoping to be able to go check it out today and see if it's still up.

Tomorrow: Boston for some friends, some Red Sox, some wandering.

US Virgin Islands! (and stuff)

In the USVI with J, her sister, and sister's fiance. We spent the last three days hiking and snorkeling, so a rainy day is a welcome rest day. It also gives me a little time to catch up on blogging!

These three shots are from some of the worst mountain biking or trail riding I've ever done. I was exploring the powerline cut behind the former Bellwood Quarry site in west Atlanta. Don't ask me why.

It was: terrible. Like, no joke. I fell constantly, my legs were torn to shit by brambles, there were hidden holes throughout the knee to waist high brambles. It sucked. These shots are actually all from laying down on the ground after falling.

These shots are actually all from laying down on the ground after falling. This must have been a relatively early fall, since my legs are only very slightly bloody, and my shorts aren't torn yet.

The angle of the shot isn't an artifact of the digital camera: I was laying down where I fell, backwards in the weeds at about a 20 degree angle.

Another shot laying down backwards after falling.

Hey, since we're here, how about a little FOOD PORN? You wouldn't believe how many search engine hits I get from that term. Or maybe you would. They mostly probably weren't looking for pictures of tempeh and flash fried brussels sprouts.

St. John has a lot of ruins left over from the days of sugar plantations, started by the Dutch in the mid to late 18th century with slave labor. According to one source, there were as many as 109 sugar and cotton plantations, covering most of the island. Fortunately most of the island is part of the Virgin Islands National Park so the sites are protected. This site is great, and only accessible by hiking in.

These are the boiling vats which once produced rum. Yum!

Here is our comprehensively stocked freezer, which shows we're drinking plenty of the modern day product. Liquor is ridiculously cheap due to some weirdness with duty fees. A liter of basic Cruzan rum, made on neighboring St. Croix, costs as little as $4. Yep, you heard that correctly. Fortunately there is also a very generous import allowance of up to five liters of hard liquor per adult, and a bonus sixth if one of them is USVI produced.

This view shows part of the giant steam-powered sugarcane crushing machinery, which the book "St. John Off The Beaten Track" tells of a child getting crushed in:

On March 7, 1908 fifteen year old Maunie Dalmida was crushed in the gear assembly next to the rollers. The following account is taken from... "Boy That Got Caught in the Cogs": The undersigned was sent at Par Force to get information regard to a boy that got caught in the cogs of the mill... With his back toward Dalmida, J Samuel hord the cracking, he then look bahind him saw Dalmida caught in the cogs. Mr. Marsh... was outside of the boiling house, he run and stop the ingin. He was already broken in too. The right hand was also smash, the belly was smash, his bowels was torn asunder...

It's interesting (and heartening) to see the jungle reclaiming many of the ruins. These are the oddly named Par Force ruins. While par for the course, they are not forceful. These are a little over a mile from the Reef Bay ruins above, which are all part of the Reef Bay Sugar Factory Historic District. The Library of Congress has some neat B&W photos of the site before the NPS restored it in the 1960s. Here, for example, are the same boiling vats I pictured above.

C'mon now: you didn't think I'd do this long a blog post with this many randomass pictures without including some ONIONS, did you? Really?

Especially for R and A, here is a video clip of one of the many "Soldier Crabs" that inhabit the entire island, and according to one guidebook make an annual trek in August to the beaches to lay eggs (and presumably find new shells.) We were initially quite surprised to find them, since the first I saw were at least 3/4 of a mile away as the crow flies, with a 440 elevation gain: about a dozen were marching along in a line alongside the America Hill ruins. Yesterday at the Reef Bay Sugar Factory ruins, we saw them as big as an average adult's fist.

Edit: I'm not sure if that video clip is working for y'all out there in Internetlandia, since it's not working for me, so here is a screenshot of the solider crab in question:

Also at the America Hill ruins, since mom loves these shots of me behind signs indicating that it's dangerous and I shouldn't be there.

Okay, I'm going to post this sucker, and maybe, if you all play nicely, you'll get more later.

Walking

Back from an excellent guided walk on the Beltline's west side:

Angel was an amazing guide, and the walk through the snow, ice, and slush actually made me miss walking in Alaska.

Now to overhaul, or alternatively destroy, my rear disc brake. It's full of crap and grit and so not operating properly (it doesn't spring back after braking, so the cable doesn't stay taut. I already lubricated the cable housing.) I figure I don't have a lot to lose: worst case, I screw it up beyond my ability to put it back together, and I go into the LBS tomorrow or Monday and tell them I fucked it up.

Busy busy busy, and a rancid coconut in seven acts

Another whole random pile of updates:

1) J deployed to Haiti today, so we've spent much of the last few days packing and preparing. She has already e-mailed, and arrived safely. She's staying on the embassy grounds, so safety isn't a big issue, but her food life is likely to suck for the next week to three weeks. Her luggage (pictures to come) included about 50 pounds of food, which is good, since the MREs can be pretty vile, especially the very limited vegetarian options.

2) We walked a chunk of the Beltline on Saturday through Piedmont Park and up to the Armour Yards: it was a pretty great walk. Only a few places required some, uhh, trailblazing. Yesterday to meet J at the Sweetwater Breweing Company for happy hour, I walked another chunk from Peachtree Street back over to Piedmont Ave, which was interesting, more industrial, almost all on railroad tracks. I scouted out some more areas today and worked on maps. Pictures to come!

3) I think I have finally given up up the laser printer: after spilling beverage into it, and despite multiple attempts at cleaning and trying a new toner cartridge, it just doesn't print right. This led me to try to resurrect the Epson CX5400 inkjet that hasn't printed for a long time, and which I've been using solely for the scanner. Much ink on my fingers and an hour or so later, I hereby declare it beyond help. I'll try freecycling it to see if someone wants it for just a scanner, but since I'll be replacing it with another multifunction, I won't need it.

4a) I bought a fresh coconut the other day at the utterly miserable Dekalb "Farmer's Market"*. Well, two coconuts, actually: I bought one fresh/mature coconut, and one Thai "young" coconut. We used the young coconut the other night in a recipe (photos may follow, if you're good) and this morning I noticed that the mature coconut had leaked a small drop of very sticky stuff out of one of the eyes. Rut-roh. Hoping to make the best of it, I found a couple recipes for fresh coconut, both of which would require a trip to the supermarket. So I decided to confirm first that the coconut was still good.

4b) *"Farmer's Market" is in quotes because it's not. It's a big warehouse like store that is almost always maddeningly, make you want to crap your pants crowded, and where Atlantans inability to identify acceptable flow of traffic patterns comes to a real head. Lest you think it's me being overly sensitive, just read some of the yelp reviews.

4c) And it's not even particularly cheap: notwithstanding the knuckleheads on yelp who don't actually know how to do price comparisons, any number of the produce items are the same or more expensive than at the average local supermarkets, Public and Kroger, and are only slightly less than similar items at Trader Joe's and Whole Paycheck. Seriously, with the exception of cheap spices, the ONLY reason to shop here is selection for obscure ingredients for ethnic cooking, especially Asian, since the nearest Asian markets are way the hell out in Doraville, Duluth, and Chamblee. To hell with that: as much as I love Asian cuisine, I'd sooner fly to Asia directly than drive out to those burbs regularly.

4d) Oh, and despite many people considering them one of the best Asian supermarkets in Atlanta, they don't sell sushi rice, pickled ginger, or real wasabi, and the nori is in a different place than the supermarket-grade fake wasabi. The nori, however, is the biggest cheapest damn package of organic nori ever. So that's something.

4e) But back to the damn coconut. So ANYWAAAAAY, I did some online research, which indicated that if there is a slight hiss when you pierce the soft eye, that's a good thing, since a little pressure should be built up. However, if there's a significant hiss, that's a bad thing, since it likely indicates a bacterial infection. What the web didn't cover is when you put your small screwdriver in the soft eye, it plunges right through, and rancid coconut water blasts you in the face like a malicious geyser, covering your glasses, face, and shirt, and spraying your 10' high ceilings.

4f) Friends, don't try this at home: if there's creepy sticky shit leaking out of your coconut, just trust me: assume it's rancid and turn it into either trash, or a party activity.

4g) BOO!, too, since I was going to try a Gin Coco, which is gin, coconut water, and ice. Sounded good. But somehow not worth scraping the rancid coconut water from the kitchen ceiling.

5) Upcoming travel: DC, Eugene, and the SF bay area. Woo hoo!