I was just thinkin’, Cooks, Illustrated should have a recipe for making breakfast cereal.

They would have endless taste tests for the proper ratio of milk to cereal, the ideal temperature of the bowl, whether to put the milk in before or after.

And they would settle on some complicated formula for putting in 1/3rd of the milk, then the cereal, then the rest of the milk.

And the frustrating thing is, I would try it, and decide it’s actually better.

Saturday night’s date was… good, but not quite what I was aiming for.

My intention was for a nice dinner and show somewhere up in the city (“The City”). So, I went to my “restaurants I want to check out” list (yes, I have such a list; I have lists for everything) and picked one, then went to my “cool events” mailing list and found a show that sounded appealing.

Dinner was “Biscuits & Blues”. I don’t know where I first heard of this restaurant such that it made it on my list. For some reason, I thought of it as a nicer restaurant that occasionally had live music. Now that I’ve been there, it has more the feel of a music club that also serves a small menu for dinner. The drinks menu was about three times the size of the dinner menu, if that gives you some clue. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t quite what I had in mind. The food was more along the lines of Mel’s as opposed to Boulevard. The music act was fairly good, although loud for my middle-aged ears. A three-man blues combo from Austin, named Nick Curran & the Nightlifes, they had a sound somewhere between Stevie Ray Vaughan and Brian Setzer.

After that, we went to see “Dr Techno’s Traveling Vaudeville & Medicine Show” at the Shelton Theater. Again, not a bad experience, but not really what I had in mind. A little too amateur hour and not nearly enough… I don’t know. I’ve had great success with similar shows at the Climate Theater, and I guess I was hoping for something a little more like that. No such luck.

I’m not griping. I had fun, and a night out on the town was most welcome, and my date seemed to have a good time. But next time I think I’ll aim a little higher.

I’m taking a friend kayaking on the Monterey Bay this weekend, and I’m being asked what to expect. Well, here’s what it’s like for me.

The last two nights we were fortunate to find camp sites right on the beach.
Follow the yellow brick road.

Some backdated travelogue. On Tuesday of last week, April 27, we went hiking along the Columbia River gorge. This is a gorgeous area, with a wealth of waterfalls. We started at the easily accessible “Horsetail Falls”, which you can take pictures of from your car window as you drive by.

However, for the easily-winded-but-eager-anyway, there’s a trail that takes you up a staggering series of switchbacks up the cliff to the smaller-but-still-lovely Ponytail Falls.

After the hike, my knees reminded me of my age, but it was definitely worth it.

On Tuesday I drove by a spot I still vividly remembered from another road trip.

Several years ago, I owned a pickup truck with a shell on the back. The primary motivation for this arrangement was that I could throw a futon cushion in the back and do light-weight car camping in considerable comfort.

One such road trip was in northern California, along a road called “The Avenue of the Giants”, through the Humboldt Redwoods Park. One afternoon, the combination of full belly and warm sun conspired to make me drowsy while driving. Being a clever sort, I decided to find a quiet spot to park and make use of the futon. Sure enough, there was a turn-off from the main road, with a sign that read “High Rock Conservation Camp”.

Soon after the turnoff was another bill board with all manner of warnings and prohibitions. I skimmed it and wondered briefly at it.

No alcohol, no drugs, weapons, that seemed normal enough, No explosives? No teargas? Sheesh, rough neighborhood. But, I didn’t give it any more thought, proceeding along the road until I found a flat, secluded turn-off where I could take a bit of a nap. Once I found such a spot, I climbed into the back, took off my shoes and drifted into sleep.

Some time later, I was awakened by a knock on the camper shell. I groggily raised up, to see a man in some sort of uniform, park ranger-ish maybe.

With a dubious voice, he asked, “What are you doing?”
“Umm, well, I was drowsy, so rather than take a risk driving, I decided to take a nap. Why, is that a problem?”
He twisted up his face. “Do you know where you are?”, he asked in a disbelieving voice.
“Some park, isn’t it? Is camping not allowed here? I wasn’t going to stay overnight, just an hour or so.”
He spoke with a slow patient voice, as one who was trying to explain algebra to a horse. “This is a conservation camp. Property of the department of corrections. A work camp. A prison.”
A small light went on in my head. “Oh.” I remembered the sign at the turn off. No weapons, no explosives, no teargas. “Oh! I could be leaving now.”
He smiled grimly, “That would be best, yes.”

I quickly pulled on my shoes, hopped into the cab of the truck and pulled out of the camp and back onto the main road. Somehow, I wasn’t really drowsy anymore.

A couple of years ago, during a trip to the UK, I finally decided I needed a bag to carry on my travels. I was trying to juggle a wallet, camera, binoculars, passport, postcards, pen, notepad and who knows how much else. A shop conveniently presented itself and I found a nice black shoulder bag made out of some heavy-duty, man-made material with lots of convenient pockets, nooks and crannies.

Fairly immediately, I started getting good-natured teasing from my friends for carrying “a purse”. Though the teasing didn’t particularly bother me, something about it resonated inside my head. It didn’t feel like a purse to me. I toyed with calling it “the man bag”, or the vaguely more salacious “man sack”.

The contents of the bag gradually became more techie. A combination laser-pointer voice recorder was added, along with a set of jeweler’s screwdrivers. A tiny pocket knife was acquired, and a LED flashlight, and a thin 6-foot tape measure.

The correct analogy for for what I was building finally occurred to me. It wasn’t a purse at all; it was Batman’s utility belt! All I needed was a grappling hook and tear gas pellets and the equipment list would be complete.

Hmm, I wonder if Batman carried hemp lip balm in his utility belt?

The inaugural voyage of the tugboat “I Quit” out of the port of Cupertino, California is going quite well so far. We departed on Thursday morning and made our way up California, via 101.

Some details and pix behind the cut

I’ve been making more of an effort to get out and see people lately. At least in part, quitting work has given me more energy and bandwidth to be sociable.

So, I’ve been making an effort to be more outgoing, asking people out, making plans. In some cases, I’ve even asked out a few near-total strangers. (As I’m trying to describe this, it sounds _soooo_ geeky. Oh well, welcome to my head.) So, I initiate things, asking someone out a couple of times, trying to get to know each other a little better. And (so far) they almost always appear to go well, even the cases where I’ve asked someone out, out of the blue. Lots of good conversation, laughing, enjoyment, a good time had by all.

And yet, I’ve been surprised at how many of those occasions are followed up with total silence. No emails, no calls, no suggestions for another outing, nothing. In some cases, I’ve waited a couple of months and then tried again, and I’ve gotten the same friendly response I got the first time, and we’ll have a fun time. But things again go silent long term.

So, I’ve grown to interpret that silence as ambivalence. “Ehh, it was okay, but nothing to write home about.” “I could take it or leave it.” Which I could understand and accept, if it didn’t seem like we had a warm and friendly time when we did get together. Maybe I’m just really bad at reading these things. Or maybe I’m a good first date, but not so good at second dates.

Thankfully, they haven’t all been like that, and I do seem to have cultivated at least one new friend who actively initiates plans and makes an effort to stay in touch. But that has felt like the distinct minority these days.

See, here’s the thing about being friends with foodies.

As of 2 in the afternoon on Sunday, I had no solid plans for dinner. I had thought about going over the hill to Santa Cruz for some seafood, but nothing quite specific. Then I chatted with Melody up in Portland, and found out Dan is having a bunch of people over, grilling pork tenderloin and generally making a big production of things. At which point the guilt kicked in.

So, one quick trip to the market, and a flurry of activity in the kitchen. For dinner this evening, I’ve made carolina pork tenderloin, sweet and sour cole slaw, garlic and rosemary roasted potatoes, salad. Add some sourdough bread and wine, and I don’t think we’ll starve.