Thread: Ramblings From The USA - 1

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Well jb, since I have apparently become your culinary guide on this trip, I hope you enjoyed the Black Butte......one of my favorites. It's made just south of us in Oregon so I hope they "export" the good stuff back east. Ah tamales!! Yummy stuff, though a lot of joints get the ratio of filling to wrapping off.............probably for cost control.

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Well jb, since I have apparently become your culinary guide on this trip, I hope you enjoyed the Black Butte......one of my favorites. It's made just south of us in Oregon so I hope they "export" the good stuff back east.

Is the Pope a Catholic?
Hell YES!
The Negra Modelo I had t'other day tasted like watered down possum pee after the Arrogant Bastards I'd been sucking on previously.
But that Black Butte was bloody gorgeous.
Sir: I admire your good taste!
(I have to; it's the same as mine!)

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Ah tamales!! Yummy stuff, though a lot of joints get the ratio of filling to wrapping off.............probably for cost control.

Yeah...well...this bloke got his ratios wrong...by the time I'd skinned and gutted it I was left with about 25% of carcass weight...where your average beefy weighs out at around 55%.

Not to infringe on Uncle Bob's culinary advice, but you might give Chiles Rellenos a try - Mexican Stuffed Peppers. No pastry to fight, just a hollowed out sweet bell pepper (or two) filled with your choice of savory meat in a sauce. Tasty! A side of rice & beans, either refried (mashed) or black and you've got a nice feed.

Originally Posted by rspears

Not to infringe on Uncle Bob's culinary advice, but you might give Chiles Rellenos a try - Mexican Stuffed Peppers. No pastry to fight, just a hollowed out sweet bell pepper (or two) filled with your choice of savory meat in a sauce. Tasty! A side of rice & beans, either refried (mashed) or black and you've got a nice feed.

I welcome the help Roger.....but...........BELL peppers?!?!(must be a Kansas thing)
Poblano or Anaheim...........not bell (yuck!)

jb, glad the BB met with your approval. I suspect you feel "..you're still a hard bastard.." is a compliment..........I agree.

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

I welcome the help Roger.....but...........BELL peppers?!?!(must be a Kansas thing)
Poblano or Anaheim...........not bell (yuck!)

jb, glad the BB met with your approval. I suspect you feel "..you're still a hard bastard.." is a compliment..........I agree.

My sincere apologies. I said "Bell" solely based on the appearance, not from any recipe, nor from any experience. I was simply trying to recommend something that jb might find to his liking, since he's such a picky culinary connoisseur. I mean, unwrapping a burrito and bypassing the flour tortilla as "pastry"? I'll leave the recommendations to the rest of you guys.

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

I welcome the help Roger.....but...........BELL peppers?!?!(must be a Kansas thing)
Poblano or Anaheim...........not bell (yuck!)

Johnboy, if you do decide to try out "Chilis Rellenos", be aware that they can be a "crap shoot"; Anaheim and Poblano chilis are generally pretty mild in nature, sometimes as mild as a Bell pepper, but with a different taste, more flavorful in my estimation. However, once in a while, you will get one that might cause your ears to smoke and your eyes to steam, and most times, you'll get something somewhere in between the ho-hum, and the whooeee. Doesn't matter to me as I like 'em any way, but some folks do not have the tolerance for heat that others of us do. Just a note of caution to the uninitiated.

.

Thanks for the warning Rrumber...taken on board.

The bore holes you speak of are drilled and then filled with the blasting medium....sometimes ammonium nitrate (blasting grade) or whatever.... ANFO is ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. The charge is set off to cause the rock wall to break off and fall.....Usually the waste rock is used to make a fill in a low spot so the volume blasted out is used elsewhere on the roadway. Similar process is used in open pit mining. The blasting medium has a "speed" associated with it....military blasting of a building requires a different speed of blasting medium. The speed is the speed of the shock wave thru the material. In open pit mining they will blow a wall at the end of the shift to let the next shift remove the debris and drill another set of holes. The location and spacing of the holes is relatively scientific nowdays....in mining, the destination of the rock is known (either waste or to the crusher) since the bore hole material is analyzed as to makeup.

Originally Posted by robot

The bore holes you speak of are drilled and then filled with the blasting medium....sometimes ammonium nitrate (blasting grade) or whatever.... ANFO is ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. The charge is set off to cause the rock wall to break off and fall.....Usually the waste rock is used to make a fill in a low spot so the volume blasted out is used elsewhere on the roadway. Similar process is used in open pit mining. The blasting medium has a "speed" associated with it....military blasting of a building requires a different speed of blasting medium. The speed is the speed of the shock wave thru the material. In open pit mining they will blow a wall at the end of the shift to let the next shift remove the debris and drill another set of holes. The location and spacing of the holes is relatively scientific nowdays....in mining, the destination of the rock is known (either waste or to the crusher) since the bore hole material is analyzed as to makeup.

Okay...I think I've got it now.(I've got a brain like a computer; information has to be punched in.)

Thanks robot and Roger.
It's just that it was entirely new to me.

Thursday 3rd September.

Arrived USAF Museum, 1100 Spaatz St., Wright Patterson AFB OH 45433 at just before nine o-clock’
Went to look at the display aircraft parked on the tarmac first, the day is only going to get hotter; so we’ll do these now rather than not do them later because it’s too hot.
But that put us about a mils from the entrance, (well it wasn’t, but it sure looked it!) so we started to walk Got about a quarter of the way there when some nice fella with an elongated golf buggy yelled “Do you people want a ride?”
Hell yes! Even at 9:00 it’s too hot to walk too far…seems he’d come to help a tradie carry his tools into the Base…and we were lucky.
We walked out again a bit after 1:00…completely airplaned out…and we hadn’t seen all of it.
A truly fascinating place; I don’t have enough superlatives for it.
Magnificent…we’re going to have to go back on our next trip over here…that’s a given.

But…the battery in my watch is playing up; and the strap has suddenly started to fray.
Bloody Murphy!
Back home I’d have it sussed in thirty minutes…not so over here.
The chain stores, selling cheap watches have made it cheaper to but a new one than replace a battery or strap, and they’ve driven the family jewellers out. As they have with the majority of all Ma and Pa stores.
But there’s sentiment attached to this watch.
Ronny Oxenham gave it to me thirty years or more back when he left my employ.
“You’re the hardest boss I’ve ever worked for,” he said, “ but also the fairest, and the best. And the easiest to get along with. But you’re still a hard bastard.”
And we’re still good mates.
So I want to keep this watch.

We eventually found a jeweller, and $31 later we’re back in business with a reliable time-piece…all good.
At 3:45 it’s too late to go looking for the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery so headed for the Motel 6 as recommended by Ken Thomas to overnight.

Boonshoft tomorrow!

Disclaimer: be aware that the views and the opinions expressed by the author of this missive are bloody good ones.

I think I've been to the AF museum 5 times and ain't done yet-they keep changing and adding stuff-at least its free parking and entry and if you happen to have race car trailer behind your crew cab-you just got to park a little farther out

It far exceeded my expectations Jerry.
You said to expect to spend all day there; and we could've.
But there was just too much to assimilate...information overload!

Johnboy, the last time I was in Bowling Green for a race, there was a national corvette convention at the plant and museum. We drove my vette there and parked next to some "rare" corvettes. It was really amusing listening to the purists, and the non purists going back and forth. Those purist corvette people are in their own mind. That's all I have to say about that.

I think the old nachos plate, chips and salsa, and a bowl of chile verde or chili colorado with a few warm tortillas makes a mighty fine meal, or just a super buritto with guacamoli sour cream, and steak !

Friday 4th September.

Okay…the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, 2600 De Weese Parkway, Dayton OH 45414.

We didn’t have a clue as to what we were heading for; the google search I’d one wasn’t terribly forthcoming.
Soon found out!
It’s aimed at school kids eight to ten years old…dealing with concepts of physics in their most basic of basic forms.
I’m not the brightest crayon in the box but that’s a little bit too basic even for me.
We stayed about half an hour.

Ah well; truck on to the Blair Museum of Lithophanes, 5403 Elmer Dr Toledo 43615.
Here’s another one I don’t know much about; once again the google search was not overly explicit..
My understanding of lithophanes is that they’re etchings of some type done on glass in the mid to late 1800s, and are very attractive objects.
But we’ll never know.
We arrived, pulled in to the car park, and read the sign that said: 1 to 4 pm Weekends May to October.
It’s 10:45 on a Friday.
I’m not waiting that long.
So we meandered north, just playing; stopping in at junk shops…just gawking at ‘stuff’.

So I picked a couple of dud bunnies…bit of a bugger…but them’s the breaks!

So here we are overnighting at a Baymont Motel in Munro…within easy striking distance of Dearborn for to-morrow.

Disclaimer: be aware that the views and the opinions expressed by the author of this missive are bloody good ones.