In Memoriam

Leo the Cat

August 2nd, 2010 ~ December 10, 2015

He was obediant.

Leo wasn’t in the least obedient, of course; he was a cat, for heaven’s sake. That doesn't change how we feel for him, though. We loved that handsome devil. As cats go, he was a good one. We had him fairly well trained where he [mostly] stayed off forbidden areas, and we'd even taught him to stand up on his hind legs and sit down on cue, with varying degrees of success. He could be very affectionate, and was especially fond of giving belly kneads.

While he was living with us, he only used up two, maybe three, of his nine lives. Either he got shortchanged, or he had a very wild and misspent youth. We are grateful for the slightly more than two additional years we were able to add to his life.

He is survived by his human family and his abusive wife from his arranged marriage. He will be mourned and missed.

Random Recap

Random Recap... Have I used that title before??? It seems like I may have. A cursory search doesn't show up that exact title, though, so it stays.

Anyway, as usual, a lot happens, so here I'm cramming it all into one post. Of course, Halloween happened. First up is Wilsons' German cousin, Voit, in his costume.

I did the same pumpkin as last year, but got a bit further on the interior. Made up a Charmander out of modeling clay with a candle holder for his tail. The clay was staying a bit pliable, so I stuck it in the oven to try & set it up. That was a mistake, it caved in on itself. Stole a gargoyle statue decoration from the boys' room & stuck it inside instead. It rotted to mush before I could throw it down.

The costumes for this year. My wife stayed with the feline theme. The only child boy went as a security guard from Five Nights at Freddy's, which other kids understood. His badge says "Freddy Fazbears Entertainment". I finally did a costume I've been saying to do for a while, aggressive panhandler. The boy was greatly entertained by my spiel, I'd roll up on people and go, "Hey, can you help me out??? I'm just trying to get a little money together to get some food..." and usually they'd put some candy into my can. I'd look at it, then tell them, "That's no good to me, I can't exchange it for booze or drugs!!!"

Of course, I worked that day, then we went to my parents' to trick or treat. An interesting side note, I've got an app that counts my steps on my phone. On a typical work day, I'll do anywhere from around 15,000 to 20,000 steps. On this Halloween, I ended up with around 28,500 steps, which comes out to about 19.5 miles. It is the highest amount of steps I've done in a day since I got the app.

The Friday before my wife & I made a run up to Magic Mountain again. Got there, and rode the best two rides in the park, then went home. Giant creepy Jack in the Box.

They had done a good amount of theming for the Halloween time.

And, fittingly, the best ride in the park is declared Satan's Domain.

Ever since our anniversary four years back, the wife & I make a long weekend vacation out of it. This year we headed up to Reno!!! It was a good trip, but it was colder than we're used to!!! Saw our quota of snow for the year, none of it actually in Reno.

The first day we headed over to Virginia City, which dates back to the 1800's silver rush, the Comstock Lode. On the way we headed through the state capital, Carson City, just because for all the times we've been in Nevada we've never been there. Rolled through the hilariously named Mound House, and drove past several whorehouses.

There's the pistol packing preacher of Virginia City.

If you make it though there, get lunch or dinner at the Virginia City Jerky Company. We'd already eaten, but stopped in because, who doesn't like jerky??? It smelled amazing in there!!! They had chili on the menu, and I'm always curious to see how other peoples' chili is, so I got a small side. I think it was about the best chili I've ever had that wasn't made in someone's house!!!

The last day we headed over to see Lake Tahoe. It was amazing, but windy and cold!!!

Slots seem looser in Reno than Tahoe. I came up with a fairly profitable method to usually win at roulette.

Just a week ago we headed to the local Slater's 50/50. I like the boy's pose in the background.

And finally, just last night, the boy had heard of this trick. Balancing a fork and spoon on the edge of a glass by a toothpick.

It's an old Jedi center of gravity trick, my boy!!!

At Long Last, My Search is Over

Back when I was around 11 to 13 years old, my father was working as a field serviceman for an electronics company. Sometimes during summer vacation he would take me along on service calls. This one time we were out on a call in West L.A., and around lunch time my dad asks me what I'd like to eat. Pizza, I reply. Can't go wrong with pizza, right??? One of the guys at the customers' place says, "There's a good pizza place a couple blocks up called Chicago Pizza Works, you should go there." It came recommended, so that's where we went. At my tender young age, I didn't know from Chicago pizza, I though pizza was pizza. Little did I know. I learned that day, and my world was forever changed. Chicago deep dish, thick as a cake, with just a skin of crust, with cheese, sauce and toppings swimming within. Angels wept. Quite simply, it was the best pizza I'd ever had.

Around the time my firstborn was about the age I was at the time of my pizza awakening, it occurred to me that with the advent of the internet, I could find the place and return. I easily found the address, and packed up the family for an amazing lunch. We made it out there, only to discover that it was long since closed. I had built it up to them pretty much like the first paragraph, and I was disappointed. That seemed to set off a pattern of disappointment, with every place claiming to have deep dish pizza actually having fill-up-on-bread thick crust.

So, this was another huge attraction for this year's vacation trip to Chicago!!! We're going to go to a get a genuine Chicago deep dish pizza in Chicago!!! More than one to choose from, but from the Yelp stars and proximity to our lodging, Giordano's won out.

Ended up being the evening of the day we'd gone up to Milwaukee to see The Fonz. I'll give a bit of the back story, since I've not done a lot besides high points and the Six Flags Great America fail. The night we got there, we ended up about two hours later that the time we had planned on, thanks to the crap bag car rental I'd booked, Payless. Do not rent from them. Rat bastards stranded us at the airport for more than an hour, and told baldfaced lies every time we phoned them. It ended up being around 2 in the morning when we finally got checked into our room. The next morning was the pass in review ceremony, fairly bright and early to get there on time and get parked, in the hall and everything. After that, the man-boy had liberty until 1900 hours. We went to lunch with my parents and him, he selected Steak & Shake, which we had enjoyed on our last Florida trip. Following that, we went to see Jurassic World. The wife & I both dozed off a little bit during that, and we ended up bailing out a few minutes before the actual end, because showing up AWOL on his first day would have been a bad thing. One other main thing the fresh faced sailor wanted was his laptop and his MP3 player. It was not allowed in boot camp, and subsequently could not be handed off to him on base, but could be given to him at the airport before his departure to South Carolina... at zero dark 30!!! After the few hours of sleep the night before and the theater nap, I got another couple hours in, then back to O'Hare. Thank you to the USO for having a lounge there were I was able to meet up with him for the hand-off!!! Turns out that military families are allowed to pass airport security to be with the servicemen until they actually depart, so I ended up hanging out with him until around 0600, then Chicago traffic back to our lodging and FINALLY a bit of sleep. Another sleep deprivation experiment!!! Got up around 2:00 in the afternoon, and headed up to Wisconsin. Got turned a bit on the way back, and added probably another hour or so to the drive, and finally made it to the famed Giordano's. It had started raining on the final part of the drive, after being overcast all day.

One thing to know about a true deep dish pizza, it will take a while in the oven. After the side trip short cut detour, everyone was already hungry. In addition to the pizzas, we also got an order of mozzarella sticks and cheese garlic bread. I don't know if I've ever seen this kind of perfection in mozzarella sticks, not in the flavor or construction, but in the serving temperature. Usually they come out flaming hot and, unable to be resisted, burn the taste buds off your tongue and the skin off the roof of your mouth, but these were perfection in edibility!!!

That first pizza pic is now the lock screen on my phone.

My parents got a small Chicago Classic, that has pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers & onions. I could take or leave the 'shrooms, but I don't do green peppers, they have a lingering after effect on me for a day, quite unpleasant, even if I'm fine with them while downing them.

We got a medium Meat & More Meat, that has pepperoni, salami, sausage & bacon, and a small Bacon BBQ Chicken with BBQ-basted chicken, bacon & balsamic onions, with BBQ sauce instead of tomato sauce. Oh. Oh yes!!! Truly AMAZING!!! It was SO good, but it's a lot. I may have only had one slice of each, or perhaps I split a second slice of the meat masterpiece with my wife... or maybe I put away a whole second slice by myself!!! It was a pizza lovers' utopia!!!

We had enough leftovers for something like three more meals, and reheating didn't diminish the magic!!! They also will ship out frozen pizzas for a fairly reasonable price (considering they aren't that cheap to begin with, and if you were to factor in airfare to Chicago, it's a relative bargain), something I will likely do at some special occasion in the future.

So what was the verdict of the rest of the family??? After hearing me go on about Chicago deep dish pizza in such glowing prose for so many years, they agree that I did not oversell it!!!

Yoshi and The Tire

Down at my parents house swimming today, and my mom had some pool inflatables she'd picked up on clearance. My nephew declared the blue sea monster float to be Yoshi. When one of us had said Yoshi and the tire, we came to the conclusion that, when paired like that, it sounds like a wacky radio duo. The hijinks ensued. We went on for a couple of hours coming up with all kinds of situations for them. There may or may not be more episodes in the future!!!

Wanna Go Scream Punk???

Don't know that I've made mention here, but starting this year I'm on the weekend crew at work. It was a few years that I'd put my name in when there'd be an opening, and finally they took me on. Not only do you get a weekday swap, but they bump your pay by $1 to sweeten the deal. So, one of the advantages, I get Fridays off now. Yesterday we went to the local Six Flags park, Magic Mountain, to (finally!) take advantage of some of the payback from the epic fail at Six Flags Great America!!! After I'd gone off on the park director there for their screw up and they're lame attempt at a buy off, he asks me what I thought would be appropriate. Well... I honestly wasn't prepared for that!!! Thought we were gonna have to go round and round before we got anywhere, so off the top of my head, I said I thought a full refund of the season passes I'd bought would be right, along with passes back to his scummy park to try and get on the one coaster I'd wanted to ride (which he kicked with, but I never did get the chance to make it back) along with the $25 of park vouchers & complimentary drink voucher.

He was good about it, refunding the season pass price that very day, and sending an Email with the code to redeem for new passes back at the local park. Apparently doing the refund voided the passes we had, so new ones needed issued.

So, last time we'd gone was on Memorial Day to activate our passes. The two I'd wanted to hit while we were there were Full Throttle, new since last time I'd been there, and the just re-opened Twisted Colossus. The former kept breaking down, and the latter had a 3+ hour line by the time we made it in. Didn't get on either. It was truly a terrible day to go.

The area around Twisted Colossus has been re-themed as the "Scream Punk" zone. That's mostly what I've got shots of here, the theming elements. There's a lot of pipe construction with valve wheels and gauges, and a lot of gears.

The second photo you can even see what looks to be a flex fan from a diesel truck.

And the fourth shot features three automotive flexplates, entwined with bicycle style chain. I don't think those go together.

Off to one side they have the hemi powered steam tractor. Every few minutes it does a blast of steam from it's stack.

A closer inspection reveals that it appears to be a genuine hemi engine!!! I was getting the closer shot for the Monster Energy coil cover.

I would have liked to see the show, "Kwerk" that they have in the GearWorks Theatre, but it wasn't going on while we were in the area. They've got that, the old (relatively) Scream coaster, and the flagship Twisted Colossus in the area. Needs MORE, I think.

They do have a new sandwich shop and a gift stand, too, but I still say more...

SO, about that Twisted Colossus... Last year for my birthday they closed down the Colossus coaster. It still held it's own in my opinion, with an awesome drop and great air time whoops, but it was old and a rough ride. I always think all they have to do is put new bearings or wheels on these old coasters, but I'm no expert.

Shortly after, they announced they were going to re-make it. Nice. While they were working on it, it caught on fire!!! From that point, I always thought they should re-title it the Phoenix, but no, they went with Twisted Colossus.

More Steam Punk theming on the line going in, and the coaster cars themselves.

It used to have two tracks, but they changed that... kinda. Now it makes one circuit of the track, and comes back for a second trip through on the other track!!! Two times through for the wait of one!!! Good deal!!!

Seems like it doesn't have quite the drop of the old one, but it now has twisted barrel roll inversions, and several of what they call "High Five" effects, where you're opposite the other train. Oh, and SMOOTH like a dream!!! Probably my #2 favorite coaster now, behind the always epic X2 (which we didn't make it on again... from this point on, don't know if I'll be able to make it again, they're calendar doesn't have many Fridays, my off day).

AND!!! on the way out, I found on the ground my very own Steam Punk Souvenir!!!

Oinkster's Burger Week 2015

I've made mention in a few other mentions about Oinkster in Eagle Rock, including a post chronicling my first visit back in 2007. The place is a little pricey, but totally worth it. This year, they were having (though not for the first time, just the first time on my radar) Burger Week in the first week of June. This year all the creations are inspired by movies and television, a different one each day. Buy all seven, & you get a T-shirt. You know I'm a sucker for a T-shirt!!! Challenge accepted!!! I'd been planning on doing it all solo, but I told my wife about it, and she wanted in on it, too. OK, my free T-shirt price just doubled!!! Coulda been worse, though, if the firstborn wasn't off in boot camp!!!

This meant that after getting off work and going home to get my wife, it's after 8 by the time we get there. Even at that hour, there is still a line going out the door and around the side of the building. Burger week brought 'em out in droves!!! So, it's kind of late by the time I eat, but I'm good and hungry for it. I missed getting a shot of the first day's burger, the Krusty Klogger, from the SImpson's movie. Ironically, that was the catylist for this post. Took one of my random, use 'em up, vacation days today, and FXX had The Simpsons Movie on, and I had to watch it. It's a double cheeseburger (homemade cheese) with bacon, bourbon-bacon jam, bacon dressing and even a side of pork rind dust!!! It was a worthy burger, and for all what's on it, a fairly pretty good deal. Of course, we had to get an order of fries and extra of their incredible garlic aioli sauce!!!

Day two they have the Atomic Hot Pepper burger from Dumb & Dumber. I was a bit worried about this one, sounds SUPER spicy!!! It has a HUGE cheddar-filled jalapeño popper, marinated red peppers, housemade chorizo nacho cheese, chipotle-garlic aioli, shredded lettuce, chopped onion and tomato. The first few bites I managed to avoid the popper, and it wasn't prohibitively spicy, actually VERY tasty. Finally, I bit the bullet & bit into the jalapeño popper... Nope!!! My mouth is on FIRE!!! I had to tap out and remove it to finish that burger, so I fudged a little on eating every burger in it's entirety. My wife, however, is a fiend for spicy, so she ate all of hers... which ended up being her undoing. The next day she had a doctor's appointment, and he advised her to cut out a lot of the bread in her diet to help lower her blood sugar, and the jalapeño had made her sick to her stomach all day. She bowed out after the second day, making it so I could head over directly from work and not be eating quite so late at night.

Day three has Bet it all on Black Garlic from Bob's Burgers. Black garlic cream cheese, black garlic aioli, onion and mixed baby greens on a black garlic butter-toasted black burger bun. You know how I feel about garlic!!! Not only was this possibly the most visually stunning of the week, I think it may have been my favorite. Without my wife along, I ended up taking my younger son, so didn't save any time getting over there. He's not much of an adventurous eater, but he'll have one of their pulled pork sandwiches, albeit without the purple slaw on it. He loves his chili fries, so we got an order of those, a first for me. Why would I deviate from their Belgian fries & garlic aioli???

Day four has the Ulti-Meatum from The Regular Show, one of my favorite shows. This sounded like it was going to be one of my top favorites in burgers, too. On this burger there's pastrami, pulled pork, Swiss cheese, blue cheese cole slaw and Himalayan ketchup. Don't even know what Himalayan ketchup is!!! It was pretty good, but it didn't wow me like I thought it would. DId I over hype it in my mind??? Maybe. This time I picked up some of their Piggy fries, kind of like In-N-Out's animal fries, only better.

Day five was a pair of Red Castle Sliders from Harold & Kumar go to White Castle. OK, like the movie, and it's a decent concept, but in my opinion it was about the most pedestrian burger of the week. Also, it was the best price of Burger Week. This was my day off, and my wife accompanied me on this run again. She opted for their Chinese chicken salad, and declared it great.

Day six was the Big Kahuna burger from Pulp Fiction. It had charred pineapple, kalbi-marinated Spam, kimchi pickles, green curry mayo and teriyaki sauce, and it was delicious!!! I'd thought they would have gone with the Royale with cheese, since that is mentioned in that movie in a few places, but they've already got a Royale on their menu, and I think it would exceed the one described in the movie. Also thought they should have done a promo shake that day, the "I've like to know what a five dollar shake tastes like" shake.

For the final day, they had the Krabby Patty from SpongeBob Squarepants. It has a crab AND shrimp patty and cocktail and tartar sauce, butter lettuce and tomato. My wife also got in on that one, too, against her doctor's advice.

And there's my wrist full of wristbands, reflected in their window (while waiting in line) on the last day.

Also got their Burger Week cupcake on the last day. Pretty visual, and tasty, too. Quite a bit like a twinkie in flavor.

A shot of the Piggy Fries. Tasty, but I think I'll stick with the Belgian fries & garlic aioli!!!

So I ate seven days worth of burger week, spent something like $95, and all I got was this freakin' awesome shirt!!! Well, that's not all, I got a belly full of tasty food every night, and, as I always appreciate, a good story to go with it!!!

The Better Part

Back from this year's vacation, and not only did we have the Six Flags Fail, but there were also other monumental failures. But, instead of going on about those, I'm going to hit some of the high points from the trip in this post!!!

The primary reason we'd gone to the Chicago area, the older boy's pass in review ceremony from boot camp!!! My parents also came out for it, and this is at lunch we all went to afterwards. Good to see him!!!

In the O'hare airport, he had the world in his hands!!! That, and a rather cool light-streak effect!!!

Found out the next day, that just a ways up from there, there's a bronze Fonz statue in Milwaukee!!! Just like in National Lampoon's "Vacation", we had to make the side trip to see it!!!

I realized in retrospect, our trip was quite like that movie, including Six Flags reprising it's role as a huge disappointment!!!

And, finally, Giordano's Pizza, truly worthy of it's own post!!!

Father's Day Fail

I don't usually do posts when I'm on vacation, but for this one I'll make an exception. Truth, I haven't been doing a lot of posts at all recently. While we are on vacation this year, we were going to be in the Chicago area. A bit north of there is a Six Flags park, Six Flags Great America. Like the local Six Flags, they've got a bunch of sweet looking roller coasters. One is billed as the tallest, steepest, fastest wooden coaster, and of course I wanted to give that one a go!!! Additionally, Six Flags Magic Mountain just recently opened their re-done Twisted Colossus, which looks amazing, and a day pass at either park isn't much price difference from a season pass. The clincher is that the pass is good at all Six Flags parks. Of course, I went ahead and got those for the family!!!

Made the mistake of taking it to activate at Magic Mountain on Memorial Day. Headed up at what should have got us there around a half hour before the park opened, only to discover everyone else had the same idea!!! It was an hour later before we got parked, then another hour before we got through the security check (VERY poorly organized!!!) and into the park. By then it was already a three hour line for Twisted Colossus. Nope. Saw Full Throttle (also new since my last visit) had what looked like a reasonably short line, so got in line for that instead. Not long after, it breaks down. We wait, and it gets going again after around 10 minutes... then breaks again. Another 10 minutes and it's up again... for one cycle. I think it broke down a third time before we gave up on that. Seems like I remember it being 2 hours in the park before we got on our first ride... the Orient Express to the top of the hill!!!

Anyway, yesterday we hit Great America. Working our way in, we see Vertical Velocity, a magnetic linear induction launch coaster that pretty much just goes straight up, with a twist, falls back down, and goes up the other end backwards. Rinse and repeat. We ride that, and it's as awesome as it looks, probably better than I described.

Goliath, the tallest fastest, steepest wooden coaster was our target, but we get back where it is only to discover it's closed and won't open all day!!! Huge fail!!! A big part of the reason I was making the stop!!!

After that we go on a kiddie coaster, the little dipper. Meh, about what you'd expect. In the same area they've got the go-carts, and the younger is finally tall enough to go solo. One of those additional fee rides, but they're a blast!!!

American Eagle, a side by side wooden coaster that's REALLY long (you drive through it on the way into the parking lot) was next. Nice size drop (nowhere near the tallest, fastest or steepest, though). Really rough. Feels like it's got square wheels. Probably just all the bearings on the cars are shot.

Another kiddy coaster, Spaceley Sprocket's Rockets. Gotta love a cartoon reference that probably none of the kids today get!!!

By this time the rest of the family has had enough, so we decide to hit the Sky Trek Tower on the way out as our last ride. Usually not much line on rides of that sort, and they're pretty mellow. Off we go. Up the tower, we're enjoying the view, snapping pictures, spotting our rental in the parking lot.

We get to the top, and it starts coming down, and I have the feeling that things are going awry. As it's rotating and coming down, it feels wrong, kind of a rachetey feeling three times, like it was turning but not coming down, then it would drop some and turn but not go down. About this time the idea enters my head, "What happens if this thing comes undone??? If it were to fall from here, I don't think it's survivable!!! Surely it's got some kind of braking system..." Right??? Well, not long after that, it stops completely. Maybe ten feet from the very top.

Of course, there's a ride operator on board, but he doesn't seem to have any information. Ten to fifteen minutes later it starts down again, but without any rotation, then it stops again, maybe a third of the way down.

Parents are trying to keep their kids calm, with varying degrees of success.

Of course, we're on the side that the sun is shining in on. Oh yeah, added bonus, most of the time the air conditioning hasn't been going. It's like a sauna in there. I try calling the park, but you can't seem to get a live person without an extension, and even if you do have an extension, you still can't seem to find a live person.

One of the passengers a few over finally calls 911, and he's on the phone with them for the next little part. Close to an hour later it starts down again... but it seems to be a bit faster than normal, not falling or anything, but quick enough that hitting the bottom at that speed seems like it'd be trouble. Not to worry, though, seconds later it slams HARD to a stop!!! Interestingly, it shakes a bunch of water off the top of the cabin. Also sends the frazzled nerves of the kids (& probably more than a couple of adults) over the edge, and there's a few minutes of crying and screaming that can probably be heard on the 911 recording!!!

FINALLY, I'd say an hour and a half after things came off the rails, they announce that they're going to evacuate down stairs in the middle of the tower. REALLY??? This was an option THIS WHOLE TIME and you wait that long before you do it???

Of course, most everyone has to pee, and our good luck to be some of the last people out. Another brilliant move, they sent up a bunch of bottled water. Just what you need when you've already got to whiz. I had a bottle I'd brought up with me that was mostly empty, which I drained out the door holes, then refilled with my own urine (only half-draining myself, but taking much needed pressure off) once the bulk of the passengers were off and I could get a little privacy around the other side.

Through the hatch in the back of the seats into an open area between the cabin and the post, then up a ladder into a small access hatch, then down the stairs.

There were a couple of amusing bits of graffiti on the inside, "Fuck me damn flag!" that I got a shot of, and "Fuck me this sucks damn gorilla" that came out blurry on my shot. I have no idea what they even mean with the gorilla comment.

Oh yeah, it was grubby inside the tower. Maybe if you clean your damn tower it won't be breaking down!!!

How long altogether??? It was a bit tricky to determine as no one caught exactly what time, but my pictures of the panorama were time stamped at 5:51, and the first one out of the hole at the bottom was at 8:15, so close to 2 1/2 hours.

So what did they want to buy us off with? $25 of park vouchers, a complimentary drink voucher, a pass to come back, and a front of the line pass. ONE Front of the line pass, for ONE ride. Weak. I really don't have time to make it back, and the main one I'd wanted to ride wasn't even going!!!

Ever since then, the boy gets quite anxious when he has to ride in an elevator. Most of the time, not much of an issue, but when you're on vacation and your room is on the 15th floor, it's a thing. I'm fairly sure most any psychiatrist would deem that PTSD.

Final shot: That's as far down as it made it.