canyonwalker: Hangin' in a hammock (life's a beach)
Weekend goal: accomplished! ...No, it wasn't "clean the house" or "sweep and pull weeds on the patio", though I did wash a load of laundry each morning. My goal for this past weekend was to spend both afternoons at the pool. I already posted about "#PoolLife" for Saturday. Here's Sunday.

Relaxing in the pool on Sunday afternoon (Jun 2025)

Years ago my father would critique my photos, "Son, the picture's empty. You need people in it." Well, aside from the fact that landscape photography is a thing— and it's always been my thing, whereas his was portrait photography—there are people in this photo. Two of my neighbors are sitting in the deep shade off the left, and those are my feet at the bottom center. My feet are in the frame on purpose because this is a photo I made while floating around on my back in the pool, barely a care in the world on a warm weekend afternoon.

I seized the opportunity when I saw the weather would cooperate with us this weekend to lounge around by the pool all afternoon each day. I cleared the schedule and said, "Let's plan to stay home and enjoy the pool." Still it took a smidge of effort each day to get out, versus lounging comfortably inside the house, but I'm glad I did it.

I didn't just float around on my back sipping margaritas all afternoon. I mean, I only had one cocktail, and it wasn't a margarita. 🤣 Before floating around lazily I did aerobic exercises in the pool. I got my pulse rate up for 30 minutes or so then treating myself to lounging around. Oh, and I didn't drink alcohol in the pool. That was for after, while sitting on the deck. I'm responsible that way. 🤣

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
We faced a choice for this weekend. A week ago we were deciding how long to make our July 4 vacation. Would I take the entire week off from work so we could travel 9 days? Honestly I didn't feel like it. I looked at the weather report and saw that Saturday and Sunday were forecast to be beautifully warm days— with afternoon highs of 84-86°F (29-30° C)— and decided I'd rather stay home for the weekend and enjoy some #PoolLife. Plus, I had too many meetings on my work calendar already to feel comfortable taking off the whole week, so I'll work Monday and part of Tuesday.

Friday evening we had dinner with friends and I shared my totally un-ambitious weekend plans. "We're going to take advantage of the warm weather and enjoy some pool life," I boasted.

"Ah, #PoolLife!" Bobbi replied, pronouncing it as 'hashtag pool life'.

I had a moment of "WTF?" wondering if Bobbi is reading my blog. I introduced 'pool life' as a tag about a year ago. Meeting someone who might have read my blog is weird because I have, like, maybe ten followers... and at least 2 of them are bots. 🤣

Relaxing in and around the pool on Saturday (Jun 2025)

So how was it? It was glorious. The temperature was already up to 85 or 86 as we drove home from dining out for lunch and running a few quick shopping errands. Later in the afternoon it hit a high of 88, according to the weather app. We splashed around in the pool for a while, doing exercises going back and forth, then floated to relax in the warm sunshine, then soaked in the hot tub, then laid out on the lounge chairs.

I wiled away the afternoon mostly in the shade, as you can see in the photo above. Hawk took a spot mostly in the sun (not in the photo). I had my laptop with me, and Hawk had her tablet, so we kept ourselves quietly occupied for at least an hour while drying off and enjoying the warm weather.

It was satisfying to spend this day by the pool. I've been waiting for the weather to be warm enough to do this for a few months. This weekend isn't the first legitimately warm weather we've had this year, but it is the first we've been here for. 😅 I think there were a few warm days in April when we were traveling in Georgia and then a few in late May when we were in Italy. I hope now that we're really into summer we'll have plenty more like this, so I can enjoy more afternoons by the pool.

Oh, and the next afternoon by the pool? Today. (Sunday.) The weather's similar to yesterday's, and like yesterday, I've kept my schedule clear of commitments so I can relax and enjoy some... #PoolLife.

canyonwalker: WTF? (wtf?)
Hawk and I have made hotel reservations for a trip next week. We're taking extra days off ahead of July 4. For our 6 nights in 3 different cities (we're driving) we looked first at the main brands where I have elite status and frequent guest points: Hilton, Marriott, and IHG. And out of 6 nights we booked... none of them at these hotel brands. They're all too expensive!

We saw rates of $250-300/night or higher for the areas we checked. And we're not staying in Beverly Hills or Manhattan, BTW. We're looking at roadside motels in the mountains of California and Oregon. I'm willing to pay a reasonable premium to get the benefits of my top-tier elite status (or next-to-top tier) with each of these brands, plus earn more points, but these price premiums were completely unreasonable. We booked all 6 nights at lower-rung hotels. Are they as nice? Probably not. But they're also literally half the price of Hilton/Marriott/IHG.

canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
One of the enjoyable things about June is the days are long. Sunset the past few weeks has been around 8:30pm... which means there's still light in the sky until 9. Sadly, the past few weeks I haven't always been able to enjoy it. Half the time I've been tired early and gone to bed while there's still light in the sky. Thursday evening I even laid down for sleep at 8:30, before actual sunset, I was so tired.

Curiously it reminds me of a snapshot memory I have from my childhood. I remember one night I was going to bed at my 9pm bedtime, and when I looked out the window it was still daytime! There was light in the sky with which I could see across our yard, to the street beyond, to the houses across the street and the woods behind them. "How was it still daytime at 9pm that one time?" my child brain wondered for the next few years as I never caught the same perfect alignment of date and time again. Well, now I've seen it again. And sadly it's like I've come full circle. As I'm getting older I'm back to needing a 9pm bedtime some nights. 😔
canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
This week a few colleagues and I ran a booth for our company at a small trade show. I say "small" because it wasn't even a trade show, per se. It was a "Developer Day" at a major bank that's one of our customers. This "Developer Day" was like a trade show, though, in that it was an exhibit showcase by multiple vendors, plus various internal teams that platform our solutions. We had table on the exhibit floor.

Here are Five Things:

1. Like with most trade shows, the most common question we got was "So, [Company Name]... what do you do?" But unlike most trade shows, once we gave a one-sentence explanation identifying how we're used in an internal platform, almost everybody was like, "Oh, yeah, I use that daily. Cool." Thus the challenge I put to my team internally was, How can we increase our brand awareness within the bank?

2. We had a good spread of swag...at least to start. We had logo hats, logo socks, USB charger/adapter cables, logo air fresheners (like for a car), and the old trade show standard, logo stickers. I quip at least to start because we sold out of the hats pretty quickly. They were gone within the first hour. The socks went next. Then the charger cables. The air fresheners were a dud until all we had left were those and the stickers, then everybody at least took a whiff of the air fresheners to decide if they like them. 😅 We had, like, a bazillion of them, though, so we packed most of them to send back. I took two home thinking Hawk would like them, since they're lavender. She was skeptical at first but then noticed they were lavender— and purple. She took both.

3. I was bemused at how fast attendees scooped up our merch. I've written before about how all trade shows have a certain class of attendee, the "swag hound". These people cruise from booth to booth, not really interested in what any of the vendors do but feigning just enough interest to hoover up all the free giveaways and enter drawings for big prizes if there are any. Typically, in my experience, swag hounds match one of two stereoptypes: students/very entry level tech workers (i.e., people who are still impressed by getting cheap things for free) and, oddly, mid- to late career government employees (who maybe also are still tickled to get cheap things for free 🤣). But the attendees at this show were all software developers well employed by a major bank. You'd think if they wanted ballcap or a pair of socks, they could afford to buy them.

4. Yes, socks. They're the "it" thing for trade show swag right now! I was very much 🙄 when I saw this fad emerging two years ago— like, really, socks? People can't buy their own socks?—  but it works. Socks are just enough different from the trade show standard of t-shirts that they attract an extra dollop of attention. And my company's socks are actually pretty good quality. Plus, the logo design is just subtle enough that I can wear them with business casual/business dressy outfits when I'm visiting clients. When people at the bank were skeptical about our socks, I stretched my leg out alongside the table to show them I was wearing a pair.

5. Getting colleagues to stay in the booth was a problem, as always. I get it, most people hate standing in the booth waiting for questions— or waiting for real questions instead of people feigning the minimum interest level required to bag our swag. It frustrates me when colleagues who are supposed to be there with me wander off the moment there's a lull... because "Just text me if it gets busy" doesn't work. When it gets busy it gets busy. And when I have a crowd of people in front of me all trying to ask questions it is NOT the time for me to ask them all to wait while I pull out my phone to frantically text people. This show was like many, where I often found myself in the booth alone— because I have a stronger "This is the job I'm here to do" ethic than most of my colleagues. But this time I kept my frustration at bay by choosing to believe that my colleagues who skipped out of the booth were having high-value conversations out in the hall. Were they having high-value conversations? I'm sure they had at least one or two. For the rest of the time that's simply what I chose to believe while I was manning the booth, and facing the crowds, solo.

canyonwalker: Better Call Saul starring Bob Odenkirk (better call saul)
I've kind of lost interest in finishing Better Call Saul. I havn't watched an episode in... checks calendar... five weeks. And I'm just two episodes from the end of the series!

BCS switches gears after episode 5.09. That was the one where Kim leaves Jimmy. Arguably that emotional loss is what tilts Jimmy into going all-in as Saul Goodman. With that the essential character arc of the series is complete. Jimmy has full transitioned from "Slippin' Jimmy" the small-time conman, to "Johnny Hustle", the hardworking young lawyer trying to carve out a career amid various people who won't give him a chance, to Saul Goodman, the no-ethics lawyer who'll break any law to make a buck, as long as he can get away with it.

The writers could have ended the series with ep. 5.09. Yeah, it would've been a ragged ending. We viewers would've wanted some kind of closure, some kind of coda that ties the story back in to Breaking Bad.

The writers give us more than just a wrap-up or coda, though. Like El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie told the tale of how Jesse Pinkman escaped to a new life post- the events of Breaking Bad, they want to tell us what happens to Jimmy post-Breaking Bad. The last 4 episodes of the series switch gears— and years; jumping the timeline from 2004 to 2010— to do so.

And that's where the series lost me. I watched the first two "Jimmy post-Breaking Bad" episodes. They aren't bad per se; they're just... tiring. Not fun. I paused the second to last episode after the opening credits because I realized I'd rather do something else than continue to watch. I paused it, got up from the TV, and walked away. That was five weeks ago now.

There's a saying in writing. Okay, maybe it's not much of a saying. I think one of my friends coined it 30-ish years ago. I call it "The 7 Deadly Words". Those words are Why do I care about these characters? I call them the seven deadly words because when audiences start saying them, it's the death knell for a series.
canyonwalker: Driving on the beach at Oceano Dunes (4x4)
We brought our Nissan Xterra to a mechanic earlier this week. The "service engine soon" light had come on after the car occasionally stalled out at idle and had recently started having trouble catching ignition. Although we brought it this time to a trusted local mechanic, Mr. Le, I dreaded getting a repair bill like we'd gotten from the Nissan dealer the last few times we went there for repairs. The dealer always seemed to find $1,400 of things wrong with the car and their explanation always was, "You got it muddy."

We followed up with Mr. Le yesterday to check the status. Good news/bad news: It was so simple he'd already fixed it. Without giving us an estimate first. But it was just $150.

"Problem simple," he said. "It your drain sensor."

I'm familiar with at least the names of parts that could explain the problems we'd experienced, and drain sensor isn't one of them. Plus, there isn't even such a thing as a drain sensor, AFAIK.  I asked him to tell me again what part was broken.

"Grain sensor," he said louder, emphasizing the Grr- sound of the word.

Knowing our Nissan is not a farm tractor I was pretty sure it doesn't have grain sensor. I asked again.

"Brain sensor! Brrrrrrrrrain sensor!"

Yes, he trilled the R good and long like a first year Spanish language teacher teaching kids the difference between "r" and "rr".

I silently asked myself what all the sensors are that rhyme with drain, grain, and brain. I couldn't think of any. I decided the conversation wasn't getting anywhere I would stop asking Mr. Le for clarification and just go pay the bill. At least then I could see the description of the part printed on the bill. 🤣

It turns out it's the crankshaft position sensor (CPS). I guess the guy was trying to say "crank sensor", though I've never heard any other mechanic call it that. Others have always called it "CPS" or used its full name.

At least Mr. Le fixed it for $150 instead of $1400 and blaming the problem on mud.

canyonwalker: Hangin' in a hammock (life's a beach)
I've been hearing/seeing repeatedly in the news that hot weather is gripping the Eastern US this week. "Temperatures of 100+ will seen from Louisiana to Maine" an example blurb on news radio mentioned yesterday. "Tuesday was the hottest day in over a decade for parts of the East Coast" read a headline on CNN. "Heat dome's triple-digit temperatures breaking records from Southeast to New England" said Fox News. Meanwhile, here in the San Francisco Bay area, the weather was slightly cooler than normal Monday-Tuesday. Later this week it will warm up to merely pleasantly warm.

Today, for example, the high temperature forecast in Sunnyvale is 79° F (26° C), just slightly above the average for the date of 77. Highs over the weekend are predicted to be 84F (29C) both days.... I'm looking forward to enjoying afternoons by the pool both days!

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
There's a water leak in our condo complex. These happen frequently with the landscape irrigation system; squirrels and other critters chew chew the half-buried plastic pipes. This leak seemed a bit more persistent than a landscaping pipe, though. Water was leaking steadily, not just for the 15 or 30 minutes a day that the irrigation system runs. Concern about the problem led to a robust discussion in our neighborhood email forum.

"Supergirl has looked at the water leak", the HOA president assured us.

That was certainly an autocorrect mistake. 🤣 Our landscaper's name is somewhat similar, at least in terms of how autocorrect works, to "Supergirl". But I couldn't resist picturing this...

Supergirl the plumber - generated by Gemini AI (Jun 2025)

...with the help of Google's Gemini AI.

That's right, AI. The thing that's going to take all of our jobs in a few years. We'll be sitting at home, surviving off our unemployment checks— at least for the 13 weeks those last— but we'll be able to entertain ourselves by prompting AI to draw pictures making light of our woes!

I made that first picture with a simple prompt like, "Draw a comic book style picture of Supergirl as a plumber." I then refined it a bit to include cues about where the leak is in our neighborhood and got this:

Supergirl the plumber - generated by Gemini AI (Jun 2025)


canyonwalker: Driving on the beach at Oceano Dunes (4x4)
Today I took our Nissan Xterra for an oil change. That prompted me to check the odometer. It's just under 129,000 miles. For a car we've owned nearly 14 years that's actually kind of low. The normal range in the US is 12-15k per year. The low end of that at 14 years would be 168k. We averaged around 12k/yr for the first few years we owned the car, then we dropped to 8k/yr, then 5k. Now we're even lower. I think this car's only logged 2,000 miles since 9 months ago.

How did the car celebrate this milestone?

The Dreaded SERVICE ENGINE SOON Light

Ah, my old friend, the CHECK ENGINE light. 🙄 It came on today after the car had ignition problems at the oil change shop. Recently the car had started stalling out occasionally when sitting at idle.

We've dropped the car off with a local mechanic who'll look at it tomorrow. We'll see if he can root out what the problem might be. Hopefully it won't be one of those car mechanic equivalents of the doctor saying, "Get your affairs in order." I mean, I get it that even small repair could cost $2,000 today, which is probably a significant fraction of what this car is worth. But newer cars have gotten so expensive without really being compelling that we'd rather keep driving our 2011 model for a few more years.

canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
The other day I went digging on one the shelves in my freezer. It's the one where I store frozen meat. I knew I'd find a few surprises... though finding surprises wasn't the main point. Mostly I wanted to understand what I have so I can make plans to eat it. Still there were a few surprises.

Freezer surprise - food frozen up to 2 years! (Jun 2024)

As you can see in the photo, I tend to part out meat into small packages before freezing it. We're a two person household. And Hawk doesn't even eat much meat. A medication she's on has a side effect of making meat, especially red meat, taste bad.

Another thing you can see in the photo is that I write the dates on packages of meat when I freeze them. Often I just write MM/DD... which as you can see from the packages that are MM/DD/YY isn't enough. Multiple packages are from 2 years ago! Some without years in their date could be even older. 😳

I defrosted those shrimp from nearly 12 months ago and ate them for dinner Friday. They were a little freezer burnt and had lost some of their flavor. But they weren't bad. And now they're gone— and not in the trash. I hate it when I leave food too long and have to throw it out because it's gone bad or gone tasteless.

I defrosted a package of ground beef and made part of it as a hamburger this evening. The meet was getting gray, color-wise, but still tasted fine. The way I pack things in the freezer, setting them in air-tight bags and squeezing out most of the air. helps them stay fresh better. I'll make the rest of the package of ground beef for a meat sauce to enjoy with pasta tomorrow. Or maybe I'll make a burger again.

I also defrosted one of the packages of chicken. I've put that in the meal plan for tomorrow night. We'll see how it goes.

canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
After two days of feeling like a slug, mostly staying at home on my four-day weekend I had a definite not-slug day today. Hawk and I drove out to the Point Pinole Regional Shoreline park in Richmond, California for a hike. Mind you, Hawk is still getting over a bout of bronchitis, so doing this hike today was a big deal for her.

Point Pinole is not the kind of place you see on a map and say, "Ooh, let's go there!" That's mostly because it's not the kind of place you see on a map. It's an out-of-the-way park in in Richmond, California, a suburb of Oakland and San Francisco. It's behind a county juvenile detention facility, on the site of a former dynamite factory that closed up 65 years ago.

The fact that it's out of the way is kind of cool. That means it's not thronged with visitors even on a beautiful Saturday on a holiday weekend. Oh, there were plenty of people at the park with us today. But the ample parking lots were not full.

We started from the parking lot up a hill on a paved road and then over a bridge across train tracks. This was easily the worst part of the 5 or so miles we hiked. Fortunately it was also short. Once across the bridge we left the paved road and ambled down to a shoreline trail tracing around the west side of Point Pinole.

Hiking the Shoreline Trail at Point Pinole in Richmond, California (Jun 2025)

After the paved road being the worst part of the hike, this stroll along the western shore and then the bluffs above it was the best. From here we could see clear across the bay to the hillside of Marin County, including Mt. Tamalpais in the distance.

We traced along this side of the promontory for maybe two miles until we reached the tip of Point Pinole.

The Pier at Point Pinole in Richmond, California (Jun 2025)

Here there's a fishing pier. It wasn't too busy with fishers today as, presumably, a) it's far from the nearest place where one can park, and b) it was very windy out on the pier when we walked even 50 feet out from the shore. Beyond the fishing pier, to the right in the photo above, are the remnants of an older pier. It was used by the Giant Company, the dynamite manufacturer previously located here. Cases of dynamite were transported on local rail out to the tip of the point, then on conveyor belts to small ships docked at the pier. The small ships would transport it to freighters out in the San Francisco Bay, from where it would be shipped to places around the Pacific Rim, from Mexico to Chile to the Philippines and beyond.

From here we hiked back on the other side of the triangular peninsula. The west side has saltwater marshes (i.e., swamps) along the coast, which are protected— and frankly wouldn't be fun to hike through anyway— so we didn't enjoy views from as close to the water.
canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
I mused yesterday that I was a slug on my day off. Well, today I had the day off, too. It wasn't a public holiday (yesterday was Juneteenth) so I took PTO. And today on my second day off I was slightly less of a slug.

Like yesterday I started the day by sleeping in. I didn't sleep in anywhere near as much, though. I was out of bed before 8. (It helped that I wasn't up half the night sleepless and with stomach problems.) I still frittered away the morning... though we got in a dip in the hot tub before I went out for lunch.

On the way home from lunch I ran one small errand then got back to frittering. Hawk suggested we go out for a hike instead of just frittering. I agreed. We changed into our hike-y clothes and drove out to the Sunnyvale Baylands.

It was a nothing-special hike, just a walk in a local park. Hawk is still getting over sickness so we didn't want to commit to anything big or strenuous. It was good to get out. The conditions weren't great, though. There was a strong wind on the bay, and the smells from the sewage treatment plants in the area were fierce. 💩😷 Also, the water was green. Bright green. When the bay looks like a bazillion people went 🤢🤮 it's kind of a turnoff. BTW, the green water isn't literally because 🤮; it's most likely because of a high concentration of algae or other microorganisms, and they can also contribute to the water smelling like 💩.

Despite the conditions we got a good hike in. I know because my feet were achy at dinnertime.

For dinner I had "freezer surprise". I'd dug through one of the shelves in the freezer earlier in the day and uncovered a bunch of stuff I'd forgotten I have. I defrosted and ate one of those finds, a package of precooked shrimp.

Tonight I'm frittering again. Hawk hopes she'll be up for a bigger hike tomorrow. Maybe we'll go back up into the mountains, like when we hiked at Russian Ridge two weeks ago. If not, maybe we'll get together with friends who are hosting a boardgames day.

canyonwalker: Hangin' in a hammock (life's a beach)
Today was the start of a four-day weekend. We'd had plans to travel but canceled those plans a few days ago due to lingering sickness. Instead I stayed home and basically wasted the day. 😞

I had trouble sleeping last night. I got down to sleep okay, going to bed a bit early (before 10pm) as I'd been up since 5:30am. But then I awoke at 3am and could not get back to sleep. I tossed and turned in bed for a bit, willing myself to get back to sleep, but gave up after 30 minutes or so when I could tell that wasn't going to work. I got up and fooled around on my computer for 3 hours. I felt tired after the sun had risen and went back to bed at 6:30. Then I slept until almost 11. I'd fret about wasting half the day in bed but it's not like I had much else to do today.

Hawk and I got out late for lunch today. It was her first dining out in several days, since she was diagnosed with bronchitis. She still has a cough— we both do— but it's typically for a cough to linger without being contagious for a few weeks after this kind of sickness. I'm very familiar with the lingers-for-a-few-weeks cough, unfortunately. Anyway, since it was her first time out of the house in a few days we went to one of her local favorites, Speedy's Tacos. We got donuts after at Daily Donuts.

In the afternoon I continued my tempo of not doing much at home. Late in the day I got really bored and finally pulled out my sewing kit to fix seams and buttons on some pants and shirts that have been waiting for attention for, in some cases, 6 months. I had been debating the over-under of sewing them myself versus taking them to a tailor shop to be fixed for, I dunno, $10 or whatever each. Probably it would've made economic sense simply to pay for someone else to do the work, but I chose to do it myself because there's a certain Zen aspect to doing it. Even with the frustration of how it just gets harder to thread a needle as I get older.


canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
For several weeks we'd been planning to travel this weekend. Tomorrow is Juneteenth, which is a company holiday, and I used PTO for Friday to have a four day weekend. It'd be our first trip of the summer. Unfortunately we decided Monday to cancel it. Why? Because we're still sick.

Hawk visited the doctor on Monday and was diagnosed with bronchitis and an ear infection. I'm still getting over my cold... which may actually be/have been bronchitis, too. We hope to be better by tomorrow or Friday, but just in case we're not we made the tough decision to cancel our travel plans.

I hate missing the opportunity for a vacation, even a short one. Being sick really sucks.

canyonwalker: Better Call Saul starring Bob Odenkirk (better call saul)
Episode 6.09 of Better Call Saul, "Fun and Games", is not the last episode in the series. There are 4 more after it. But it completes a story arc I've been wondering about since the start of the series: How does Kim's story end?

We've known since the start that Kim's story has got to end somewhere in this series. That's because of what I've repeatedly referred to as The Star Wars: Rogue One Rule. A major character in a prequel who doesn't appear in the original series— Kim is not mentioned at all by name in Breaking Bad— is doomed. The writers had to get rid of her to maintain continuity with the original series.

Spoilers! )
canyonwalker: A toast with 2 glasses of beer. Cheers! (beer tasting)
Yesterday I wrote about trying shit beer just because it's well reviewed in a Buzzfeed listicle. Well, there was another beer on one of those shit lists that I was keeping in the back of my mind. Not because it's actually shit but because I've had it before and— at the time at least— didn't think it was shit. I mean, how could this beer be shit when it didn't just impress 10 random bartenders surveyed for a 2020s Buzzfeed listicle but inspired a blockbuster movie franchise in the 1970s and 1980s?

That's right, this beer inspired a movie.

I'm talking about Smokey and the Bandit.

And it wasn't just a touchstone of American cinema from 1977 but it also launched the career of movie star Burt Reynolds.

And the beer? I'm talking, of course, about Coors Banquet.

Coors Banquet, the original Coors beer (Jun 2025)

"Wait," you might be thinking, "Isn't Smokey and the Bandit about Burt Reynolds exuding ``country cool'' while outfoxing a bunch of incompetent Southern sheriffs who are trying to write him speeding tickets?"

Yes, it is about all that. But the driving motive of the story, the thing that kicks off all the action, is beer. And not just any beer, but specifically Coors Banquet.

It's part of American folklore that Coors, based in Golden, Colorado, didn't distribute its beer west of the Mississippi River until 1986. For decades people who traveled across the US found that this really tasty beer that was available in Western states wasn't available in the rest of the country. Among beer aficionados it became notorious. Travelers would bring cases home with them. Coors is even reputed to have been carried aboard Air Force One multiple times, as presidents Eisenhower and Ford were fans of it. Thus the MacGuffin for Smokey and the Bandit in 1977: a wealthy gambler in Atlanta challenges a truck driving team to bring him a shipment of 400 cases of Coors Banquet— illegally— in time to show off to his peers at a racing event. They have to drive from Georgia to Texas to fetch it, then back in record time to deliver it.

So, after that wind-up, how does it taste?

It's... not shit.

Unlike other "shit" beers I've tried— unlike pretty much all other traditional mass-produced US beers— it doesn't have a nasty taste. It doesn't have a nasty taste at the beginning that fades away, it doesn't taste nasty at the end. It doesn't taste nasty on its own, it doesn't tasty nasty with food. It just tastes... decent. Like mass-produced US beer if it... wasn't shit. 😳

Mind you, it's not a richly flavorful beer. It's basic beer. But it's decent basic beer. Like, I could set this alongside any of countless basic European beers and it'd fit right in.

Mind you #2, this is not Coors Light. The "Silver Bullet" is a hugely selling beer, propelled by the sales and marketing behind its lower calorie formulation. It's lower in calories and also way lighter in taste. Coors Banquet is the original Coors and has a richer taste.

So, pop open a gold label Coors and watch country-cool Burt Reynolds outfox a bunch of dim-witted Southern sheriffs trying to write him a speeding ticket.
canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
It was a quiet weekend at home for us. No, not in the "Let's spend hours sitting by the pool on a warm day!" fun kind of way. Though I did get out for a soak in the hot tub Sunday morning. Our around-the-house weekend was a mostly in-the-house weekend as we are still dealing with being sick and didn't have much energy for getting out and about.

For me, I'm mostly over my cold. The worst days were Wednesday and Thursday last week, thanks in no small part to allergies combining with the cold. But a hacking cough has stuck with me since then. Oddly, OTC cough medicines (guaifenesin and dextromethorphan) don't help this cough but nasal decongestant pseudephedrine does. We're going to need to hunt for more of that since drugstores no longer stock it regularly thanks to the government cracking down on a real or perceived drug epidemic.

Hawk has the same bug I've had but is a few days behind where I am on the curve. That means while Wed-Thu were my worst days, hers were this weekend. Thus she didn't have energy or desire to go out anywhere, not even for a short hike like we'd hoped as of Friday.

canyonwalker: A toast with 2 glasses of beer. Cheers! (beer tasting)
Every so often I get inspired by one of those Buzzfeed listicles, "We asked 10 bartenders what shit beer they like." Of course they don't actually call it shit beer; they use some euphemism like "cheap beer" or "traditional American style lager". Y'know, the pisswater American macrobrews like Bud and Miller, except not Bud or Miller. Usually. That's how I was inspired to try a 12-pack of Miller Hi-Life a few years ago as part of my ongoing beer tasting project. Verdict: pisswater beer was kinda... pisswatery. Well, after a few years I was motivated by another of these "shit beer that online randos say they like" listicles to try Narragansett Lager.

Trying Narragansett Lager (Jun 2024)Those of you of a certain age who hail from Rhode Island, all maybe 200,000 of you, may object to my lumping Narragansett in with shit beers. 'Gansett is your state brew! There was a time decades ago when regional beers were more prominent— and generally they were better, if even by a little bit, than the nationally distributed swill of Bud, Miller, or what Schlitz degenerated into.

The fact that Narragansett is a regional beer from all the way across the country made me wonder if I'd be able to find it here in California. It turns out it's not so hard. My trusty regular source, Total Wine & More, keeps it in stock. I picked up a 6er of it when we were out last weekend.

The first thing of note about Narragansett is that it come in 16oz. cans. It sells for a price similar to packs of 12oz. cans, though, making it a bit of a deal right there.

The next thing I noticed, when I poured it into a glass, is that it foams into quite a head if not poured carefully. The glass pictured (right/above) is an 18oz glass, and that's not even the full can I managed to pour in before the head filled it up.

So, how does it taste? In a word: Uhh....

Uhh is because this beer starts out nasty. It has a sour, skunky taste at first sip. Fortunately that clears up quickly and the beer becomes somewhat pleasant, if bland. But still, starting out icky and then only improving to "bland" is hardly a recommendation.

Maybe I should stop trying to believe these Buzzfeed listicles that the best shit beers are any good.


canyonwalker: Y U No Listen? (Y U No Listen?)
Two years ago I bought a straw hat. It's well made and looks great. I liked it so much I signed up for the hat maker's mailing list. That was fine for two years... until recently. Recently they've been emailing me with hat updates, like every day.

And these aren't even earth-shattering "Check out this crazy new hat!" type announcements; they're "Hey, have you ever seen a plain fucking standard ballcap in black?" Like, OMG, yes, a billion times. Then the next day: "Stand out from the crowd in this gray ballcap!!1!"

WTF is with a hat company spamming me every day to buy a hat? Especially a completely generic hat? Why do companies abuse communications like this? If they were still sending me one message a month, I'd read it. Now I've unsubscribed and they've lost a customer.

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