We got both kinds, psychedelic and....er.....delic.

Wichita. Kansas. To keep Steve up to speed, that's in America. In fact it is damn close to the exact middle. When the good folks ramping up the war effort in WWII looked for a place to build airplanes, they figured as far as possible from the coasts to physically protect the plants was a good idea. Hence Wichita. When the war ended all that talent didn't go to waste, they started building civilian planes there too.

But I digress...

More bowling.

The Alley, a family fun establishment directly behind the people storage units we stay in twice a year. It's new, which usually would be an automatic disqualifier, but pickins are slim way out east of downtown. They have regular bowling and extreme bowling lanes, indoor go carts of a sedate nature and pool. they also have signs that say you cant bring your firearms in and bowl. Whatever posers.

Nermal bowlin for the Nermal folks

Black lighted funny cartoon punctuated bowlin fer you long haired hippy freaks.

Judge not, lest ye be judged...

Sometimes my enthusiasm is not matched by my travel partners. Case in point:

Nice.

We're sooooo happy!

Im always a little disturbed when the menu items are so happy to be eaten. Is this a Kobe beef thing?

Having said that, they were delish. Fort Pierce FL

Beer goggles

...nuff said.

Oh hey, I don't remember taking that picture.....

For obvious reasons.

Here is the older snuff flask, the schnapps glass and pictures of the stuff Carl has parts of on his hat.

Meet Carl...

This is Carl. We met Carl at his reserved table in the HoffbrauHouse in Munich. Normally you wont get to sit at a reserved table there, they are, well, reserved for the family or club or organization that has earned the right to keep a table at the place. Some have been reserved since before World War 2. Oh and Hitler spoke here and got people all riled up about shit and....

But I digress.

See the rack behind Carl's right shoulder. Those are the locked storage racks for the regulars. Carl is rack no. 43. Thats pretty high seniority. Carls hat has the bushy hairs of a wild boar for decoration. Carl killed that boar a long time ago and that is the trophy for doing it. Carl also had some deer horn and elk horn on that hat.

Carl enjoyes a full spectrum of traditional German drinking tradition. You cant see it here but carl carries two unique flasks at the table. One is filled with some wicked peppermint schnapps. This goes down in shooters in between litters of beer. It is an interesting shift of gears and breaks up the march of beer consumption. That flask is practically new, dating only from about 1890. The other flask is filled with snuff. Also peppermint. Also wicked stuff. This flask has been in continuous use for snuff since 1760. Carl shares with people he likes and I guess he liked me.

I hope I get to see Carl again sometime.

Yeah meat!

Say what you want about them liking David Hasselhoff, the Germans know their meats. Here is a 1/5 of the selection in the local meats shop in Baden Baden. And they are fine with shaving you just a couple of delish samples off of each.

The BEST idea ever.

I get A LOT of airport appreciation time. Airports in the U.S. are on average more like shiny cattle shoots than a place you would enjoy. There are exceptions, and they are getting better, not because they want to but because 9/11 brought about the requirement for reconfiguration to accommodate all the additional bad security. Ask me how many times I have had things stolen from my checked baggage. I can safely say the threshold for tampering with luggage and removing my stuff , or potentially inserting BAD stuff is about 4 bucks.

But I digress....

Airports. Good ideas. How about a full on gourmet supermarket IN the airport! Food you WANT to eat! Hot and cold! Fresh fruit and veg!

Again in Frankfurt, the grocery made a perfect stop for a break before catching the train and provided the first opportunity for a beer.

There is a bottle of water there, but there's water in beer right? Why be redundant.

The Kings Pilsner. It was a good counterpoint to the thinly sliced deli meat with goose liver swirled in it.

I like that place.

Check out the big brain on Brad

Frankfurt Airport train station.

I dont F-ing roll on Shabus

I like bowling alleys. I dont bowl. They are just interesting places with people getting their roll on. If I see one and it looks interesting I'll stop and have a looksee. By interesting I usually mean old. The more patina the better. Here is the one in Pismo beach, CA. It's little, Pismo isn't a very big place, so that's probably the right amount of lanes.

It has automated scoring but it is first gen and very 4bit.

This interest could have something to do with these guys.

Left to right that is The Dude, Donny, and Walter. At this moment they are talking to Jesus. Seriously.

Maybe I'm just looking for them....I'll check Ralph's next.

SHHHHHHHHHHHH hold very still

My best Museum of Natural History pose.

Speaking of targeted ads...

Nothing mixes quite as well as children's entertainment and hard liquor. Hence my favorite beverage store and it's signage.

Lakers

Winning ugly. Nice series Celtics. Lets do it again.

Oh and Gasol should shave.

If you blink you'll miss it.

Wow. That took about 3 seconds. Look at what The Google did as soon as I finished my post. Note the ad for grave decorations in the upper right hand corner and the coupon for sushi in Kansas City where I posted from.

These guys are good.

Lets see how good.

Robots. Kittens. Orange. Drum Corps.

Munch on that, Google.

Does The Google think you're gay?

Google AdSense is the little gizmo that puts targeted ads into your Web Log. I find this interesting. Not the placement of ads, but the targeting. I want to see what The Google thinks is relevant and how someone would try to use this to get after your walking around money.

Experiment: I signed up for AdSense to watch it work. I want to see what the crawlers think about my junk (web junk that is). Should take a couple of days before the targeted stuff starts to show up. Can it be manipulated, spoofed, directed, counter targeted? I dunno... but I'm willing to try, you know, for science.

Hey Mav, you got the number of that truck driving school..

In lieu of flowers...

The best funeral flower arrangement I've seen so far.

Gorey, IRL.

BBQ

Lechon. Roasted Pig. Crispy. Real crispy. Get a fence post, weld on a car steering wheel, get a couple of cinder blocks, a piece of board with nails in it and some charcoal and you are just about set. These guys were yummy. I didn't turn the entire time, a couple of neighborhood kids got paid in pork to keep this moving from early morning.

Paid in pork.

And they say romance is dead

Spotted in Baden Baden

Welcome

The Solipsistic Sophist. Just use the Google, I'll wait.

Are you with me?

Fancy huh. Not that I'm all fancy but my mind is not out in public with pajama bottoms and slippers on.

Let's see where this goes.....

Test Blog

Hello world