Sunday, April 26, 2009

Guinness 250th Anniversary beer thing

I found the 250th anniversary Guinness underwhelming. It does not have the good bite and full body and taste of the extra stout. It is better than the draught Guinness which is pure shite. This beer is definitely not in the same category as the Foreign Extra Stout, or the Special Extra Stout (Belgium only), or the Nigerian export. Actually, the Guinness' I had in Asia or the Caribbean are much better than this. I was really hoping for something really good. Perhaps they would have been better off resurrecting the porter. The porter is the beer that made the Guinness fortune and reputation. Now that would have been a real great idea. I guess Guinness has too many bean counters at Diageo looking at the bloody bottom line. With so many really good stouts and porters made in America and especially here in the Twin Cities, spend your money here and forget the Guinness 250th.

State Law Librarian Things

Well, I did not get the position as acting state law librarian. The search team decided to put Judy Rehak in as acting State Law Librarian. Good choice, she will be really good for the library. She is a good patron and knows everyone in the library. She will lead impartially and well. I am especially glad DL did not get the position. It seemed he thought of himself as the 'chosen one' to lead the library. A real prat who is full of complete tosh.

I had not really thought about applying at first, however, nudged by my colleagues, I went for it. In the process, I realized I did have the potential to lead the library and do a good job.

Did I really and truly want it? No and then ... yes. I wanted to lead the librarian into a new direction using some of the new web 2.0 technology. I probably will still do that. I am very excited about the Twitter account for the library. Now I need to act on the MySpace and Facebook. The extra money would have been nice. I worked hard but neglected to tell them what I really wanted. This is now all in the past and the library will survive as it has in the past.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

April Vacation Things Pt. 1

Recovering still from the epic drive down to Orlando and back. It was a great trip, long but great. We had some amazing food down South. They are without a doubt the best place to go for real regional cooking. The bbq, the veggies, and the grits all are sooooo good. We had a good deal of eating Southern food with a few exceptions.

The first night we stopped in LeRoy, Illinois. The first place we stopped for real Southern cooking was at Swett's http://www.swettsrestaurant.com/ in Nashville. Chicken was the specialty and you could have it fried or rotisserie. Both were really good and the sides of cornbread, greens, squash, sweet potatoes, and mac & cheese were tasty. When we walked in some people going in, looked like a man and his mom, said it was the best place in Nashville. Rated by the tasters **** out of five. Afterwards, we stopped and saw the only full scale reproduction of the Parthenon (Athens). It was very cool.
That night we stopped in Decatur, Alabama.

The next day we stopped at the Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman, Alabama. The grotto was created by a monk from the Abbey of St. Bernard's http://www.avemariagrotto.com/index.php?cPath=159&osCsid= This grotto is a must see. The amount of time and dedication to this work was amazing. He did miniatures of famous buildings from all over the world, mostly religious. He does a miniature of the city of Jerusalem. It was all very cool. We also stopped in the Cullman Flea market bought some things. I bought whoopie pies from some Amish ladies, excellent. We also grabbed a snack of tacos. They were made with pulled pork and they were rated by our panel as a ***** treat. We arrived in Orlando at 10:30 that evening and katherine was there awaiting our arrival.

The following day, Kat and I went to Winter Park http://www.ci.winter-park.fl.us/
and the Skrades went to Wet & Wild. K and I sought out Vegas Cafe home of the Cuban sandwich. It was closed. We went across the street to Chan's for dim sum and it was very good. Rated **** by our impartial panel. K and I took a boat ride for an hour. It was very relaxing and then went to the Morse Museum http://www.morsemuseum.org/home.html This for me was one of the best things on the trip. They have an incredible collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass and art. They also have his Byzantine Chapel http://www.morsemuseum.org/collection/tiffany_chapel.html which is an amazingly beautiful, reverent work. It was created for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. They also have a nice painting collection and an American decorative arts collection from 1870-1920, roughly. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant Saigon not far from Chan's on Colonial Drive. We had a very tasty oriental meal. Rated *** 1/2 by our expert panel.

Nex day we went to Universal World http://www.universalorlando.com/index.html?__source=ps.yssp.tlp and spent the going on rides and walking around. I went on two rides that were completely different than what I usually do. The Revenge of the Mummy and the Simpson's Ride. I thought I was going to lose it both times. We also went to four other things Disaster (Nic was picked as an extra), Jaws, Horror Film techniques, Terminator 3D, Shrek 3d, and Universal City Walk. After a long day of walking we decided to stay close to our hotel, Best Western Universal. In the evening we went to Kobe Japanese Steak House and had a teppanaki meal which was very good. Rated **** by our non-partisan panel.

The Skrades went to the other half of the Universal Theme Park and I took Katherine to the Airport. We stopped at Vegas and split a sandwich and I drove to Winter Park to search out more museums. I stopped at the Cornell Museum in Rollins College, $5.00 and the Orlando Museum of Art, $8.00. The Orlando MOA wasn't worth the price of admission. The best things I saw were the African art mostly textiles, Aztec and Zapotec art, and a very nice collection of netsukes. Rollins had an exhibit of portraits of ladys from around the turn of the century 1900 and a small exhibit of Delftware. We are lucky to have a very strong art scene in the Twin Cities.
That evening we went for pizza. It was okay. It was rated *** by our discerning panel of judges.

To be continued....