Post Race!

[Shaggy Hiker]

What we have are concrete bike paths that look like incredibly nice broad sidewalks to the clueless. These now run through neighborhoods that built up around them over decades.

Check. That describes ours, as well. We even have center striping on them (dashed pretty much everywhere, I believe).

Because it become impossible to police this (imagine that every Joe Weeble started walking down paved streets one day) bike rotes were moved back into the road by restriping 4-lane roads into 3-car+1-bike lanes (center car lane for left turns only).

That may be it. We do have bike police patrols and volunteer patrols (not on bikes). The police patrols are quite rare, though, so I'm not sure that really does account for the difference. After all, I don't know of any rules they enforce aside from leash laws.

Another wrinkle is that if by fiat those were declared to be sidewalks the cost of snow clearing and repairs all falls on the adjacent property owners. They've paid nothing directly for them ever unlike all other sidewalks. They also lose their primacy and become subject to crowding by trees, shrubs, utility pole guywires, crossing driveways, etc.

That's not the case out here, and perhaps that's the real difference. Our greenbelts are in places where people can't build due to it being a riparian flood zone. Despite the reservoirs upstream, almost every year sees parts of the greenbelt submerged as the dams release water to dig a big enough hole to handle the snowmelt. That's a fun little exercise to observe each year. They've got it dialed in pretty well. When the water managers start to freak out, then everybody should, and that's when it gets fun for those of us nowhere near the river.

In places that more closely resemble what you described, we don't have bike routes, just sidewalks (standard width, or narrower, and uneven) and some bike lanes. So, the real difference might just be that for the most part, we didn't build bike paths like you have, and everybody is just on the roads. Where we do have paths, they really can't be seen as sidewalks.

[dilettante]

Does anybody else still make Chicken à la King? I don't have it often, but it is still in the rotation here. I prefer it over long grain and wild rice, but I've also had it over spinach pasta cooked with peanuts or slivered almonds.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm not good enough. I only make Chicken a la Fool.

[wes4dbt]

Awfully quiet around here. Is everyone busy making Chicken a La King.

I haven't heard that name in a long time. Never see it at Panda Express. lol

[dilettante]

We have some locals with weird names: The Kung Fu, Wok & Roll, Royal Pot, Gaslight Kitchen, Chop-Chop Shop, Lucky Dumplings, etc.

[dday9]

This race has post.

[szlamany]

Hits acre ash stop!

[FunkyDexter]

Gaslight Kitchen

There's no such place. You're imagining things again.

[szlamany]

There's no such place. You're imagining things again.

That really made me laugh! Thanks!

[Shaggy Hiker]

I was away, sorry.

[wes4dbt]

I had never heard of this before,

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/...141400432.html

That just doesn't sound right, my guess is there were other contributing factors.

Feel bad for that family.

[dday9]

I heard of this before. In 2008 there was a contest called Hold Your Wee for a Wii and a woman died after drinking 2 gallons of water in 3 hours.

[Shaggy Hiker]

This is reasonably common, and often isn't reported on. It's mostly found in young athletes who get super dehydrated either playing a sport or practicing for a sport, then drink too much water too fast.

I heard about it in grad school. I was going to go into toxicology initially, and there was a certain toxicology focus by many of the professors at the school, even if they weren't explicitly teaching about toxicology. One of the phrases that we discussed was, "everything is toxic, it's just a question of dose." Somebody brought up water, not counting drowning, at which point the physiology of water toxicity was discussed.

[dilettante]

Robocalls are up for some reason. Lately I find weird messages left when I get home too. Some sort of noise like a modem or fax machine, just a short burst before they hang up.

Any ideas?

[jdc2000]

Fax scam spam? Maybe a 3rd world country hacker still working on WarGames?

[Shaggy Hiker]

Robocalls are up for some reason. Lately I find weird messages left when I get home too. Some sort of noise like a modem or fax machine, just a short burst before they hang up.

Any ideas?

It's the 80s calling.

[Shaggy Hiker]

AI has gotten to the point where they can make prank calls?

[Shaggy Hiker]

An elderly fax machine looking for a hookup?

[dilettante]

I went to buy a hand made milkshake from a drive-through place shaped like an ice cream cone today. Got there but instead tried something new.

They had a "chili wagon" sort of like a street vendor's cart outside. Two kinds of chili, Regular and Experimental.

Both are pretty generic, ground beef and beans in a spiced tomato, peppers, and onions base. Experimental was marked as having cinnamon and cocoa powder in it though.

I got a small bowl of Experimental, and it was pretty good. They also offer a quart container, which they pack 4 frozen blocks into at a good price. Great option for people who only need a serving or two at a time. Chili freezes pretty well if mushy beans don't bother you.

Their "chilled salad bags" were simple but weren't too bad either. Those were basically a plain old plastic sandwich bag without a ziplock top they stuffed with cut lettuce, green pepper, carrot shreds, and cherry tomatoes. Not fancy but a deal for 75 cents including a plastic fork. Came with a drizzle of vinegar and oil with a little lemon pepper. It all seemed pretty fresh.


I was glad I got there early. They are on a State highway about 1 mile down from a truck stop. Truckers have been buying them out by 1 PM each day this week.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That experimental recipe sounds like Cincinnati chili. They're big into the cinnamon chili.

[dilettante]

That experimental recipe sounds like Cincinnati chili. They're big into the cinnamon chili.

Been there, done that. I found it a little on the sweet side for my taste. This chili I had today wasn't so sweet but the cocoa really seemed to mellow out the spice. The flavor was novel, but not so much that I wouldn't accept it any day. Some "fun" recipes for things work once or twice but not regularly.

I wish I'd shown up earlier. They were out of baked potatoes, and chili works great as a topping on those.

They said the plan might be to extend their season a little this year with a chili, soup, and potato operation. Ice cream sales alone drop off too fast after Labor Day. Chili sales have been so good they might stay open a whole extra month.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I wasn't impressed by the Cincinnati chili, and too sweet does sound right. It wasn't my preferred flavor for chili.

Chili pepper and chocolate go well together, so it wouldn't surprise me for cocoa and chili to work well together. At one point, I made fuego fudge, which was some simple chocolate fudge with a couple drops of an artificial hot sauce. Artificial hot sauces are those that have more capsaicin than any pepper has naturally. It's essentially capsaicin in some kind of medium. In that case, it was fruit, but there was so much capsaicin that nothing else could be tasted much.

I didn't think the fudge worked all that well. It tasted great, and did what I wanted, but was essentially a dirty trick to play on people. It would start off as a rich, though heavy, fudge, and then the burn would set in.

[dilettante]

I used to be a lot more interested in spice like that. Some bars would bring you a basket of chips and a carrier full of various bottled pepper sauces.

While I still use dried red pepper flakes and even some of the Asian chili pastes and such I don't go to Thai restaurants and fry my tongue any more.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I've dialed it back a bit, as well. I still enjoy spicy food, but if it gets too spicy, it just isn't worth it anymore.

[dilettante]

Why so many "guest" visitors here? I see well over 3,000 right now. Can most of them be bots?

I understand people ending up here through searches, but it still seems out of proportion.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Probably bots. I assume that they'd show up as guests.

[wes4dbt]

Uninvited guests!!!

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'll be off sailing for a week, or so. Didn't want the Post Race to vanish while I was gone.

[dday9]

Sailing. Takes me away to where I've always heard it could be.

[dilettante]

I'm seeing a sharp decline in junk mail. Is this mainly technology, the increased cost of printing, a tight economy where ads don't stimulate sales, or what?

Mailmen must be getting nervous.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Now that you mention it, I seem to be getting less, as well. It's only fourth class mail, but I would guess that the rate of return on your dollar for junk mail versus spam is modest.

The volume of mail has been in decline for quite some time.

[dday9]

Back when I owned my Allstate agency, I did direct mail campaigns. By far my biggest expense was paying someone to print the copywrite, handwrite the address, and assemble the envelope.

My contact rate hovered between 2-3% but when you consider how cheap direct mail actually is (and how expensive auto insurance is in Louisiana), I would only need to write 1 out of every 10 people who contacted us from a direct mail campaign to make money.

If I hadn't sold the agency, direct mail would probably still be my number 1 marketing tool.

[wes4dbt]

This is a lot of bull!!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ebraska-watusi

[dday9]

What in the world...

[Shaggy Hiker]

Maybe his horn was broken and he decided for a makeshift replacement.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I liked the fact that the car was outfitted specially for the bull, but that seems like a lot of BS, to me.

[Shaggy Hiker]

On the other hand, maybe the guy was just REALLY into leather seats. He just wanted them to be super fresh.

[dilettante]

Well the best leather is pliable and compliant, right? Maybe he had psychological profiles at hand to make his selection among types of cattle and this one is near the top?

[Shaggy Hiker]

Bull...

[Shaggy Hiker]

Still, that leather does have an advantage: You'd have a heated seat.