Web Wednesdays – OhGo.sh

I referenced a post on this website Monday. OhGo.sh is one great cocktail site. (For those of you techies who want to know a .sh extension denotes St. Helena. Here the webmaster uses the .sh to spell “Oh Gosh” the name of a cocktail.)

I’d have to say that this is the best site on cocktails and spirits I have found to date. This site includes recipes, reviews, and comparisons of different types/brands of spirits. Want to know which brands of Old Tom Gin are good? How about Campari? Check here and you will be the smart guy at the bar or cocktail party next time out. I envy the contents of this man’s bar. It looks like many ingredients are more available in the UK.

The Glass Key redux

I finished The Glass Key last night with a martini by my side. I checked out some articles on it and it turns out that Ned Beaumont was the inspiration for Gabriel Byrne’s character in Miller’s Crossing. For those of who have read (or conversely, never plan to read) the novel already, here is a great article by a lit professor at Case Western Reserve University.

A Wii bit of product maldistribution

I got a Nintendo Wii for Father’s Day, and I love it. It’s the first gaming console I owned since the Atari 5200 (which I still have), and I can think of no better system for our family. The girls can play Wii Sports: Golf or Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey. Jackson and I can play MLB 2K8 (and I can get livid watching him beat the tar out of me). The Wii Fit is challenging in parts, fun in others, and lame in a few spots (running in place = dumb). With the Wii, I became increasingly fascinated with the supply/demand curve heavily skewed towards the demand side.

When checking on Wii Fit availability, I learned that getting a Wii Console or Wii Fit was generally a product of luck or tenacity. I got our Wii Fit by keeping a spreadsheet of all GameStops in the Milwaukee area and calling when I was near one. The one I got was the only one they had and came in hours earlier. Days later, we walked into a Best Buy in Dubuque and saw three consoles and six Wii Fits on a table. Nobody was buying them, except us, who got one and sold it to an undisclosed third party.

I’ve heard several people attribute the lack of supply to some Nintendo conspiracy aimed at keeping demand artificially high. I chuckle at the thought, and usually ask the following question:

“If you were Nintendo, and all of these people wanted something of yours and you knew you could easily sell thousands or millions more, why on earth would you limit the supply?”

I then mention the only people profiting from the low supply are the resellers at places like eBay and Amazon. At that point, they usually get it. Don’t take my word for it – here’s a post that underscores and explains this phenomenon.

The bitters guru

I was looking to link to my earlier blog post on bitters, and on a whim I googled “orange bitters” half-expecting to find my post. Boy was I wrong. My favorite post by far was this one. Here’s a guy who spent the money, took the time, and gave himself the difficult job of sampling martinis with six different brands of orange bitters. He even made his martinis with Plymouth gin and Noilly Prat vermouth. His are wetter at 3:1 (gin : vermouth – mine are 4:1). I need to get me some Regan’s and Angostura Orange.

On my bookshelf: The Glass Key

As mentioned before, I don’t read fiction too much, as I am busy enough to stay in a book for extended periods of time. However, I do read fiction in spurts, and right now I am in a Dashiell Hammett mode. I read (and wrote a paper on) The Maltese Falcon in college, and I am currently listening to the audiobook version. We have a box set of the Thin Man series that the kids love. Anxious to read another of his novels, I got The Glass Key from the library. I am almost done with it, and I hope to finish it tonight. Since I would never divulge an ending, I am far enough into the book to give you a brief rundown.

Prohibition, one of the best things to ever happen to cocktails, is winding down. Ned Beaumont is the top “advisor” to Mayor Paul Madvig. I use the word advisor with quotes because Mayor Madvig reminds me very much of Boss Tweed from Tammany Hall. Madvig is up for reelection, and becomes embroiled in a murder scandal. Ned becomes an ad hoc detective and works to figure out what happened. I don’t know whodunit yet, but the writing is colorful, realistic, and gritty. Ned reminds me of Gabriel Byrne’s character in Miller’s Crossing. At just over two hundred pages, it’s a nice break from the media world of 2008.  For some reason I feel like wearing a smoking jacket and drinking a Manhattan when I read it.

The Cy Young of Youth Baseball

I came across this article today about the pitcher who is “too good” to play in a nine-year-old league. What cracks me up is that there were kids like this in our league too. I don’t know if this is a select league or not, but it makes for interesting reading. The displaced barber who runs the league is a nice touch.

Summer Camping Trip (1 of 2)

It’s August 25, and summer is over for our family. The kids started school today; this is nice in early June, but it stinks in late August. Our summer was full of baseball until late July, and all of the weekend rain date make-ups we had precious little time to do things like camp and go to the lake. But alas, we did get some whole-family quality time in.

Our first camping trip was a last-minute deal. We planned to go to a Cub Scout campout, but I was missing time with my not-so-little girls. So I decided to give Nicole a break and take the kids to a nearby State Park. We found a site at Pinewoods Campground in nearby Ottawa, WI (in the Oconomowoc/Dousman area). They were almost out of sites, so we had to pitch our tent over my lunch hour.

There is this common-sense rule about tents (or many other camping things for that matter). The rule is never pitch a new tent (or use new gear) live onsite without testing it out at home). It’s not good to find out you’re missing poles or your tent has a rip when you’re in the middle of nowhere and there’s nothing you can do about it. Due to the rush to get a site, I ignored that rule. It worked out this time, as our Kelty Mantra 7 was a charm to put up. I finished the day at work, packed up our stuff, and headed out.

Last year I took the kids to Rib Mountain State Park by myself and it was a watershed experience. To expect a similar experience would be a recipe for disappointment, so our only goal was to get away from it all and have some fun. After buying food for the weekend, we got into camp at 10:30. The first thing I noticed was a sea of stars against a crystal-clear night sky. It brought back memories of my trips to Lefeber Northwoods Camps as a Boy Scout. A after a trip to the vault toilets (a technical euphemism for outhouse), we settled into bed. The forecast called for clear weather so we pulled off the rainfly with the stars above us, we prayed and fell asleep.

For those of you out there who don’t get why camping is so rewarding let me paint this picture: lying down on a comfy sleeping pad next to your kids, looking up at the stars. It’s hard to find any constellation, because there are so many bright stars. No phone, no TV, no Internet. I’ve no need to worry about work, home, or even the score of the Brewer game (pennant races are more exhausting at 37 than when I was 11). No stress, just some quality time with my kids while beholding the wonder of God’s creation.

While taking the kids to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I was able to teach them how to walk in the dark without a flashlight. I learned this from Rudi Dornemann the Nature Center director at LNC in the late 1980s. You basically close your eyes for 10-20 seconds and allow your eyes to adjust to the light from the sky. It doesn’t work in the deep woods, but when navigating an open road in the night it’s awesome.

After breakfast (and espresso from my Bialetti Moka) we had to go to Wal-Mart to get some dish pans and a few other things we needed. We got back to camp and went swimming at Ottawa Lake Recreation Area, only five miles from camp. Jackson was hesitant to go in the water because there were girls from his school there. It turns out he’s already self-conscious around girls going into fourth grade. Between the awkwardness with girls and getting him deodorant the day before, it was a bit much to process. I emphasized the normality of his plight and told him he should feel free to tell me anything, because I’ve been there before.

By then the kids were wiped. I made a fancier dinner (grilled chicken, rice blend, and sugar snap peas) and finished the dishes. We would have made S’mores, but I left the chocolate and marshmallows in the car to melt. Once again, we slept under the stars with the rainfly off.

We awoke the next morning with spots of water in the tent. It took a while to teach Jackson about tent condensation, but he came around. We had a full breakfast: French toast, sausage, and overcooked espresso, and milk. In retrospect, I should have done something easier. We packed up and got home at 4:00. That’s a long time, but there was only one adult. Before we left, we made a list of things we remember. I will update this post with them sometime in the future.

Baseball Year-end Recap

Almost two weeks have passed since the baseball season ended, and I never finished with a recap of the season. What can I say, things were busy.

We finished the season with two wins. The first was against a team with like talent. The second was against a team on the short end of the talent stick. We played great in both games, and the kids had fun. We lined the kids up on the fence and did an introduction to the sound of clapping parents. Because “there’s no crying in baseball,” I did my duty and held back the tears. Those were my boys: their parents entrusted them to me, and I hope I did a great job in coaching them. I had great assistants: Coach Smith as my fellow strategy guy and pitching coach, Coaches Witty and Schaefer on the bases, Coach Christian who did anything possible to lend a hand, and coach Rakowiecki who kept our heads up and held everyone accountable. Thus the season came to an end. It’s been nice to have a bit more free time, but it’s hard to think of it in the past tense. There is always next year…