Photo backlog!

Bikes, food porn, witty commentary. C'mon, whaddya want? WE KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!

Pretty much just since this is the order these uploaded in, for no obvious reason, let's start with "ahhhhhh, shit" when Dollar General thinks this is the best way to advertise the fact that they sell death.

This is in a neighborhood right around the Dodgers game I went to a few weeks ago. I'm not at all convinced that there is any legal authority for this. 

More on the parking theme: I hope McDonalds doesn't mind that I wasn't a Drive-Thru customer.

But, hold on a second: why in the hell do they have parking for Drive-Thru anyway?

It's crass and kind of gross, but I felt like I had to document the immense amount of roadkill on Georgia 101 between Rockmart and Rome that made this incredibly narrow shoulder even less pleasant to ride on. And no, this isn't, by any means, the most graphic shot I could have taken. But this was about as close as I could get without retching. 

This is the lovely tempeh hoagie I had at Mellow Mushroom in Rome, where they happily held the mayo, and substituted Daiya for the cow juice cheese.

And finally, this is the assortment that I made my wrap for that tour from. And the last day ended with 57.31 miles ridden. And a slightly sore butt.

Headed to California tomorrow, so posting will be predictably intermittent.

Dirty Bastard

No it's not a Coors Light. It's half and half Guinness and Arrogant Bastard. Mellow Mushroom in Rome, Georgia: feeling pretty good about it!

Tonight a minor league baseball game. And a 7 mile ride back to the hotel after about 56 to get here. And another 56 or 70 tomorrow.

Good times!

Vegan lunch at mile 36 of the Silver Comet

On my way to Rome!

Food porn. Straight up.

Poblano peppers and onions, and tofu upper right. Yum.

bucket lists

On a recent road trip, J and I spent some time writing up our bucket lists. Mine currently has 37 items, broken out roughly in four different categories, and each with an "A" or "B" priority. Here's an "A" highlight from each category:

travel: Nunavut (the only Canadian province or territory I haven't been to)

skill: learn basic welding and metalwork

[check out this amazing image, which I don't want to rip off as it's surely copyrighted]

outdoor: hike from Badwater, Death Valley, the lowest point in North America, to the peak of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the continental United States.

(i couldn't find an image to adequately convey this. use your imagination.)

experience: work in a baseball stadium as a vendor so that I get to yell out "PEANUTS CRACKERJACKS POPCORN COLD BEEEEEEER!" or the like at the top of my lungs.

Today's study in contrasts is inspired by the fact that they are both roughly circular when you're only looking at thumbnail sizes in your photos folder.

First, some delicious FOOD PORN! (Oh, and to hell with those who say looking at food porn makes you fat: you're just not looking at the right stuff )

Anyway, above are vegan hot dogs from a couple nights ago. J's version on the left has (bottom) homemade sauerkraut, grilled poblanos, and dijon mustard; and (top) homegrown pineapple sage (about the most vigorous plant in our kitchen garden raised bed on the front porch), sweet (YUCK) relish, and dijon mustard. Mine on the right has pineapple sage, homemade sauerkraut, grilled poblanos, dill (YUM) relish, dijon mustard, and veganaise, with a side of grilled ONIONS!

And now to remind you of a previous fun topic, namely of the perils of not cleaning out your drains on a semi-regular basis (or at least the perils of you both growing your hair out.) The bathtub has been starting to not drain as quickly in the last few days, so this morning I cleaned out the drain. Big times here at Dangr-us Thoughts World H, lemme tell ya'.

Riding out now to bike bicycle tubes!

Garden porn!

Looks like we might have overwatered the red oak leaf lettuce - two plants died. But the (bolting) mesclun greens and herbs are going like gangbusters!

Dinnertime!

Grilled tofu, tempeh, onions, and poblanos, with tomatoes, brown rice, and Thai peanut dipping sauce.

Food porn

Ok,.fine, so I'm bored, waiting for the grill to cook. But that means you get MORE FOOD PORN!

Vegan grill dinner ATL!

J coming home soon. YAY! making grilled tofu, tempeh, onions, and poblanos, with brown rice.

Suitcase

Pretty good looking, eh? Yes, that's a key ring substituting for a zipper pull tab. I really hate throwing things out, and it functionally works fine.

And I hope the baggage crew at Delta gets a kick out of it now and then.

More silly cars & lumber

More adventures with lumber hauling. That's a piece of 4x8 3/4" plywood.

And in the interests of protecting the innocent and the guilty, I boxed out my somewhat astonished nephew's face.

Beer can porn?

Or, in the somewhat crass way it's said in the bar industry about empty kegs, dead soldiers?

For the sharp-eyed (or just ultra-critical) in the readership, no, I didn't drink the Coors. Except one, which I had to shotgun after I lost a silly bet that, surprise surprise, I can't remember what it was.

When buying beer for this, I tried really hard to get the more easily recyclable and much more regularly recycled aluminum cans, though I confess that a few glass bottles were harmed in the making of the fence.

Asparagus, yo!

Brussels. Fucking. Sprouts. Yo.

Got mushrooms?

Long but great day with family in the central valley of California.

Tried to go to the River Cats game with mom but it was rained out with zero played; still a fun time.

Cooking now as much for therapeutic value as anything else.

Vegan road food!

For today's drive to Fresno

Friday night, it must be Sacramento

Rebuilding a fence tomorrow.

What, you don't normally use a Hyundai Elantra hatchback for hauling lumber?

Where, friend, is your sense of adventure?

UPDATE: here's another shot that better indicates the, ahem, ridiculousness of this operation:

Fence = done. Mostly. I'm still not pleased with its unevenness on the east side, but that unevenness dates to five or six years ago: we mostly rebuilt the west side. Oh, and all of the struts. And the gate.

Oh, San Francisco

I think i love you.

Golden Road vegan beer & food

Now THIS is some fucking sold vegan food and beer. Golden Road Brewing, in the North party of LA (practically the San.Fernando Valley.)

Hallway dumpstered dinner!

Already ate the best part: olives, tomatoes, and bread.

Now, that's vegan food

Not the most amazing I've ever had, but Rasta Pasta in Colorado Springs was delicious, cheap, filling, and the Bristol Brewing Winter Warlock for $4 was the perfect accompaniment to take the edge off of the spicy pasta.

Sadly, kinda disappointed.

J and i had the seitan "buffalo wings" at the otherwise awesome Trinity Brewing in Colorado Springs about a year and a half ago. I remember then as much better. This time they were yay enough, but really just crusty little seitan balls, with a very, very thin vegan ranch dressing. Really not worth the $10 - I'd have been mildly okay with them for half that.

Heading out of the Springs today, and have a kinda weird, last minute itinerary for LA. S, about to email!

My rental car

My calculations suggest it's not quite that good of gas mileage, but the 2013 Hyundai Elantra has been averaging in the high 30s the whole trip, including mountain passes and extensive dirt roads. Good stuff. Now a fairly leisurely evening in Colorado Springs (well, leisurely except for returning some unused rebar.)

Alamosa hotel vegan!

Bread, "steak", avocado, and hot sauce.

Unknown

Where I'm headed next:

Google Maps, sometimes you're just... silly. But occasionally in a cute way.

In other activities today, I had to take a picture of our jeep to send to my mom. I went through literally thousands of images (not all of them: the "Pictures" folder on this computer has 43,140 items, totaling 100.1gb) to try to find a picture of the Jeep, and couldn't find a single one.

I found scores of pictures of bicycles. I love the balance.

Off to the airport to experience the manufactured FAA personnel "crisis"!

Oh, hell, yeah.

It's all Led Zeppelin, all the time, here at Dangr-us Thoughts World Headquarters. J is... amused. Fortunately for her I'm traveling most of the next couple weeks. Gotta get this shit on my *pod!

Spring cleaning!

Well, kind of of the house, yes, since I'm teaching a sauerkraut making class tonight, and the only time J and I really clean the house is when we have people coming over.

But specifically, I mean of my phone, and the photos that are building up on it. So there absolutely may or may not be a sudden rush of blog posts of not, um, entirely timely travel, food porn, and other such shit. But c'mon: when is food porn NOT timely?!?

Here is my beloved Sitba loaded down like she likes it. I don't have any recollection where I was going with my big suitcase on my bike. Memory, such a fickle thing.

And here is delicious vegan food porn from the Little Grill, an awesome worker owned collective in Harrisonburg, Virginia, from our recent road trip. Tofu Rancheros on top, and the delicious Lambert's Platter on the bottom:

Lambert’s Platter (V)
Tofu scrambler, soysage, and fried potatoes covered in groovy gravy. Served with your choice of bread.

La Guardia

I'm labeling this "walking out of airports" because it seems silly to create a new label for "walking in to airports". And because technically, you don't need to walk in or out of La Guardia (LGA) just to avoid a bullshit surcharge to discourage people from taking public transit, like JFK.

Rather, several MTA buses (M60, Q48, Q47, Q33, Q72) go directly to LGA for the same as you pay for any MTA bus.

My friend T was curious about why I didn't just take the M60 to LGA, and I explained that as much as I love public transit, I try to avoid buses at all cost. I'm just too damn tall to be comfortable on them. And in particular, I've been stuffed into suffocating spaces with people and luggage on the M60 before.

Anyway, to walk to (or from) LGA without taking the bus, you take the 7 train (subway) to Junction Boulevard & Roosevelt Avenue. When you step off into the utter chaos, traffic, and street vendors, walk directly up Junction all the way to LGA. (It turns in to 94th Street at 32nd Avenue, but you might not even notice.) Here's a map.

And here's the only worthwhile photo I have from the walk, at 94th Street and Ditmars Boulevard, just south of LGA: 

The take home message here is essentially "don't run the red light."

Big NYC walking days: three boroughs, 9.5 miles!

I'm actually not a huge fan of New York City. As I described to my friend T this morning while walking along the Hudson River greenway, as a result of trying to cram too many different people with too many different needs and interests into too small a space, it's like a low simmering catastrophe, which, with rare exceptions*, doesn't really boil over.

I did a lot of walking in several different parts of the city today...

To get to the Upper West Side to meet T.  

From the Upper West Side to Chelsea, where I had a delicious (previously blogged about) Buffalo "Chicken" Sandwich at Terri on West 23rd.

I then tried unsuccessfully to get takeout at Blossom du Jour, which was apparently closed for a private party.

Then I took the subway to Flushing, Queens, and walked from the Junction stop on the 7 train, all the way up Junction to La Guardia. It was a study in some extremes: the first section is like being in a street market, then it's astonishing gridlock traffic for a bit on Junction, then it's a fairly pleasant stroll through a mostly residential neighborhood, until you start hearing the jet engines roar to a start. And LGA, well, it's... LGA. Not my favorite airport in the world by a longshot, but also not in the rungs with the worst (Dallas, Miami.)

Awaiting a flight back to ATL for the first decent amount of time in a bit, which is nice. Home for a couple weeks, then Colorado and California at the end of April / beginning of May.


* Consider, for example, Hurricane Sandy, the NYC Blackout of 1977, the Son of Sam Murders, about half of the Yankees fans who wander the city unattended, the pisspoor thin brown liquid passed off throughout the city as "coffee", and almost the entire New York Police Department.

Terri nyc vegan

Buffalo "Chicken" sandwich. Delicious especially after walking here to Chelsea from 96th Street! Terri is very small, about eight counter seats, zero tables, and zero bathroom, but provides tasty vegan food at a good price point for NYC (the above sandwich was $8.75 total.)

Baseball stadium project game 1

The stadium is big and fancy and huge. The weather is cool and overcast, but not cold. The game is solid, and the Orioles are currently beating the Yankees 5-2 in the bottom of the 5th.

The fans are some of the most obnoxious I've ever been to a baseball game with.

First trip!

Beginning my project to see a baseball game at every major league stadium in the US. Life to date: 10/30.

Total project cost so far: $23 (all ticket).

Staying about five blocks away.

Go Orioles!

More from North China Restaurant

The food!

Surprisingly delicious!

North China Restaurant, Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Intensely solid service. This Chinese restaurant was pretty close to the only real vegan option in the entirety of the bizarre tourist town of Gatlinburg, TN. J calls Gatlinburg the "bastard child of Estes Park and Atlantic City." Home tomorrow!

Vegan pizza fixins!

In Vermont. Yum!

Clockwise from left: baked marinated tofu, fried green peppers and garlic, sauteed mushrooms, and delicious caramelized ONIONS!

Ninety-nine point nine fahrenheit degrees

My weather app thingie is confusing the 45 degrees outside at the ATL airport with actually nice weather.

In the airport with J, flying to Vermont, to drive back down to Atlanta. We're looking to visit a couple national parks on the way back, albeit briefly, including Shenandoah, and Great Smoky Mountains. Whee road trip!

The TSA agents were dumbasses as always. When they also irritate J, that really says something. 

Hampshire

And now for a moment of non-photo blogging. If you're a Hampshire alum, please go vote for me for trustee.

Vegan hot dog!

Just as advertised. Because that's how I roll.

Kimchi!

also spelled kimchee, kim chee or gimchi.

Holy crap, I might be breaking my all-time single day blog posting record. But I'm not inclined to go check.

RETRO DIRT

This is returning unneeded dirt on my beloved badass bike Sitba. Around eighty pounds of dirt. Newly built and filled raised bed in the background.

I have no idea why, when I re-sized for posting, it turned black and white.

HOLY FERMENTATION, BATMAN!

This is a whole pile o' fermenting love recently made at a fermentation class that C and I co-taught for the Atlanta Free School.

From left, that's three 2-quart jars of sauerkraut, a 2 quart of kimchi, two jars of (turnip) sauerruben, on the bottom right a jar of mixed sauerruben (turnip and cabbage), and on top, another sauerruben.

The stuff I hung on to is starting to get deliciously funky!

Raisin' the beds!

This is a set of raised beds I recently helped make in West Virginia, almost entirely out of scavenged and re-purposed materials. I built the top three; and helped a newbie raised bed builder with the bottom (closest to the camera) bed.