Friday was Michael’s birthday. I spent the evening home with the cats and a couple good books. He ended up heading out for the evening to build the fire and be the rock carrier for the monthly men’s sweat lodge down in Malvern as a way to spend his birthday in service. While he was there he was asked to be the support person for the upcoming The Sun-Moon Dance (info here), which he agreed to and will cause him to be gone from this upcoming Friday through Monday (which works out well, since I’ll be on call/working this weekend anyway).

Saturday was spent doing some major cleaning of the house while the weather was still tolerable. Saturday evening we headed down to the Bird Song Peace Chamber for a fire ceremony (more on this in an entry to come). After the ceremony Michael and I headed up to Ortino’s Northside to relax with a couple of beers. I grabbed a Saison DuPont – Belgian Farm Ale, recommended by the bartender we trust. It was quite a treat even though it had a strange skunky smell, surprisingly dry and crisp, now one of my favorite saisons. I also grabbed a Allagash Curieux – Burbon Oak Aged Ale, which our bartender described as obviously burbon-y, and sort of burns when it goes down. Wow! I had to try that. It didn’t disappoint, I won’t be finishing a whole 750ml bottle myself again anytime soon, but it was an interesting change for an ale to be so liquor-ish.

Sunday it was starting to get hot. I spent the morning outside with Caligula writing a letter on my laptop until it got too warm for me and I headed inside for the afternoon to read in the air conditioning. Michael can tolerate the heat much better than I and spent the afternoon outside exploring the area behind the garage where we have an accidental tree nursery. Some walnut saplings (4+ ft tall), a couple spruce and some others. He ended up planting the walnut where an old shrub I didn’t like used to be. For dinner that evening our friends David and Constance took us out to the Parc Bistro for dinner to celebrate Michael’s Birthday. The dinner there was good as usual, even if the Chimay cheese on the cheese plate we ordered was much more mild than ones we’ve had in the past.

Finally, I started going to the gym in the evenings. On my way up to Vidalia Marketplace near where I used to work the other day I realized how much I valued that time I used to spend commuting home, some days it was quite theraputic. I certainly don’t want a commute again! Between time and money lost of commuting I never want to go back to that. But I think I did need a way to ease from work to evening time better and the meditation/grounding methods just haven’t been cutting it. So Michael suggested I head to the gym in the evening so I have that time I need after work. My only concerns were how full the YMCA parking lot is in the evening as opposed to the morning and how tired I was the last time I attempted to do the gym thing in the evening. I went last Thursday evening and yesterday evening and learned that most of that is families spending time in the pools and child-centric events, rather than adults in the main workout room, there is plenty of space for me to get my workout done. I also found that taking the hour+ of commuting out of my day gave me some of my energy back, I didn’t feel nearly as tired as I had in the past when going in the evening. I think this will work out well, I’m home by 5:30PM for a shower and a reasonably timed dinner.

After some major problems with headaches this spring Michael went in for some blood work. It all came back fine except for one thing – his cholesterol. What?! We didn’t eat the greatest over this past winter (both of us put on a few pounds), but we still didn’t eat fast food aside from pizza and were in general more healthy than typical Americans are. And he doesn’t have a family history of high cholesterol. It’s all quite puzzling.

As puzzling as it is, we need to do something about it. We’ve cut red meat out of our diet and eliminated a lot of cheese. More fish has been added as well as a lot of healthy snacks. We’re now looking to expand our dinner menu but the cookbooks we have just aren’t cutting it, and neither is the google (so much pan fried, quick-and-easy, and full of cheese recipes out there!).

We’re primarily looking for healthy vegetarian dishes. So I’m asking for suggestions: cookbook suggestions, meals/recipes you love, websites you find particularly helpful, other comments? TIA!

On the 4th of July I didn’t really have plans until the evening before when mentioned that the Battleship Farragut was in the Philadelphia port for the 4th of July holiday and giving tours. Cool. I love boats and ships, when I was in high school I grabbed extra history credits (of which I had more than enough) to take a Maine Maritime History class that I found absolutely fascinating. Going to see a battleship on the 4th seemed appropriate.

I met up with mct around noon and we headed down to Penn’s Landing. By the time we arrived the line for the Farragut tours was stretched halfway down Penn’s Landing, no joke. We watched the line for about 10 minutes and it wasn’t moving, so we decided to explore the rest of Penn’s Landing and come back later to see how much the line had moved and if it was worth spending whatever amount of time in it.

At the end of the landing there was a submarine and a big 19th century ship, and a booth from the Independence Seaport Museum selling tickets to board the sub and ship, including tickets to the museum. You can go inside the submarine? Cool! So a couple tickets were purchased and we started out journey inside the submarine. Tickets in hand I took that opportunity to tell mct that I’d had several nightmares about dying in a WW2 era submarine and it’s going to be a bit scary to actually go inside one, but I figured I’d be good as long as it didn’t move (it wouldn’t, it was sitting on the bottom of the harbor and probably hasn’t moved for years). Thanks to mct for taking pictures :)

Upon decent into the sub I quickly learned that it was not scary in the slightest, the Becuna submarine was neat!

Me standing in front of some graph thing with paper in it (whoo technical!)

mct checking out one of the radios in the sub. If you notice above him is a red light – don’t let the flash fool you, this entire room was bathed in red like which gave it a sort of eerie feeling. Turns out they actually used the red lighting because it’s easier for your eyes to adjust from red light to dark than from white light to dark, so quite appropriate for use in this room with the periscope when one needed to look outside at night.

Torpedo room! The folks who worked the torpedoes actually slept right below and on top of unfired torpedoes since they were virtually harmless until fired.

Radio room. This is just one of the several rooms with tons of dials and switches. Neat stuff.

The USS Cruiser Olympia looked amazingly spacious after being inside the Becuna. The officers had whole dining rooms with wooden furniture and glassware that’s nicer than what you’d see in most homes! The regular enlisted men still got hammocks though. They had an operating room, dentist office, and all sorts of things on the ship. Unfortunately for us the upper deck was closed off due to the pilothouse reconstruction project.

After visiting the ships we took advantage of our museum tickets and went to explore that. They had a pretty interesting exhibit called Women & the Sea, and it’s companion exhibit Ladies who Launch. The rest of the museum was pretty neat too, if small.

By the time we left the museum it was around 4PM and tours of the Farragut had ceased. Perhaps for the best, I didn’t fancy spending a couple hours in line for some crowded tour. I enjoyed exploring the submarine a great deal more anyway. But mct did get close enough for photos of it.

From there we headed back to the suburbs as rain was threatening. We met up with Nita and had some pizza before I headed home. It ended up pouring for a good part of the evening. Some areas attempted fireworks, a friend of mine took a bunch of photos of the ones in Philly. Michael and I didn’t bother though, we just had a relaxing evening in.

Most of you have heard me complain about the bizarre liquor laws in PA. You can only buy hard liquor and wine in state stores that have restricted hours and only a handful of which are open on Sunday. Beer is only sold by the case at Beer Stores, except for at restaurants and bars that have a liquor license which allows them to sell up to 2 six-packs of beer. To skirt the law some small pizzerias and the like have attained restaurant liquor licenses and sold a minimal amount of food and a huge quantity of beer, these places that sell more beer than anything else are affectionately referred to as “Stop and Gos”

So when Bob emailed Michael this week about an article he saw about Vidalia Marketplace, saying it was some kind of beer store I quickly hit Google and found their website. Their website has a beer menu item:

The Rumors are true – as long as you are 21 years old, you can buy beer at Vidalia Market Place!

Gasp! Upon inspection of the website you discover that it’s just a grocery store, but includes an eat-in area, which is probably the key to this in-grocery-store beer shopping – they are a restaurant with a liquor license!

There will be a vast variety of beer available from all over the world! If you have any questions about our beers or you would like us to carry a particular beer, please ask a beer associate for assistance.

Sweet! It’s not rows and rows of Budweiser!

My favorite is this bit: State law requires that we ring your beer purchase at a designated cash register in the beer section. In addition, you may also purchase your food items in the beer section, even if you only shopped for food items at Vidalia. We will always have an open register in the beer section available for your shopping convenience.

Ahahaha the hoops they have to jump through to get away with this.

The same day Bob emailed us (July 3rd) I decided to take a trip down to Lansdale after work to check this place out. I figured that if they were too expensive (as often is the case when you buy beer from restaurants or bars) or had lousy selection I’d just hit the beer store in Skippack for our 4th of July case of beer.

But I wasn’t disappointed! Great selection! Reasonable prices! And I had to take pictures:

A whole aisle of imports, mostly Belgian! Sweet! They had a bunch of lambics I’ve never tried, some Duvels, a bunch of Chimays. Oh yum yum. The aisle facing this one was full of microbrews.

The beer cooler! Lots and lots of 6-packs, plus cases and singles. I managed to take both these pictures while there weren’t people standing in the way, which was a bit of a trick, the beer section was pretty full of people the whole time I was there. And people were talking to each other, saying how great it was that they could buy six packs, how amazed they were at all the beers they’d never heard of. It was amusing and a bit sad – where I grew up this was normal! In spite of having a few amazing breweries, PA is for the most part living in the beer dark ages!

So I grabbed 3 six-packs and went to stand in line to get my beer (remember – only one register can handle beer, and lots of people wanted beer!). So I get up to the cash register and was hit by the “2 six-pack maximum” thing. D’oh. No worries, all I had to do was take two of my six-packs out to my car and come back into the store and buy the third. Absurdity abounds, but that’s what I did. I happily drove home with six-packs of Rogue Dead Guy Ale, Victory Hopdevil and Victory Prima Pils.

Hopefully the popularity of this upscale grocery store will make more stores start doing the same, as a lot of modern grocery stores have eat in areas. Or (dare I hope) start to clue the lawmakers into changing our alcohol laws. This isn’t some dingy Stop and Go in the city, we’re wealthy, high tax paying folks in the suburbs picking up our hummus and beer at a nice store, and this is what we want.

Yay!! Happy Birthday myn, love you (:

Our campsite last weekend was crawling with poison ivy, a fact I only learned after I had walked all through it in my sandals to put up my tent. I have never been good at identifying plants, and just didn’t realize what it was. 5 days went by following the trip where I didn’t realize that I had it, I just “have a few bug bites on my ankles” – but this weekend I showed the spots to Michael and he confirmed that the clustering pattern was poison ivy. It’s not a bad case, just a few spots on my ankles, nothing I’ll need to see a doctor for (I don’t think…), but it is my first time catching it and I’m learning a whole new meaning of the word “itchy” this weekend, aarrrg! Thank you neighbor Doug at the campground for pointing it out to us when we met and the other neighbor who loaned us some gloves so Michael could remove most of it, you folks prevented me from getting a much worse case I’m sure.

A couple years ago Michael had a severe case of it, covering half his left leg and much of his right forearm. I don’t know how he coped! He didn’t end up going to a doctor for it (I would have. Steroids ASAP!). This was from some very mature ivy in our back yard when he was cleaning up back there, I was lucky enough just to rub against some young ivy.

So, do you have a poison ivy story?

Friday night Michael suggested we head out to Marsh Creek State Park to do some kayaking over the weekend. Cool. A couple of friends with kayaks recommended the location, and after hitting the website Saturday morning to check out rental rates we packed up a few items to bring along for our day out.

We arrived at the park around noon, covered ourselves in suntan lotion and rented a 2-person kayak and headed out on the lake. I’d been kayaking before, with some friends way back in high school in the ocean (well, a bay), and this was Michael’s first time. Using a kayak when you’re not dealing with ocean currents is quite different from doing it in a lake, and I really enjoyed the calmness of lake kayaking.

We spent two hours on the lake, long enough for my arms to get quite a workout from rowing (even though Michael did most of the work). It was a lot of fun, next time we’ll probably go with separate kayaks, but the two-person one was a fun experience. Afterwards we put a blanket out on the grass under some trees and just hung out for a while and did some reading and relaxing. It’s a bit pricey to go out and do this, $50 for a 2-person kayak for 2 hours, and it would be $80 total for each of us to have a kayak for 2 hours, I guess this is why so many of our friends own their own, which is something we’ll consider if we really start getting into it. One thing we do want to go out and buy is a couple bikes to ride on local trails. We don’t want to spend a lot on bikes right now, and will probably just end up heading out to Target in a few weeks and picking up a couple $100 bikes to get us started.

Michael gave a couple friends a call to get recommendations on places to eat in the area and around 4 we took up one of their recommendations and headed to the Brickside Grille, which is owned by the same people who operate The Drafting Room, for dinner. It was a good recommendation! The shrimp we ordered as appetizers were great, brick oven pizzas we ordered were great, the beer selection was good. Unfortunately our service was lousy, our waitress didn’t write down our orders, so screwed mine up (offered to fix, but no discount on the bill, boo), she hardly ever came to check on us and I had to call her back every time she flew by to drop off food to get more beer or whatever, we never did manage to get her attention long enough to request a couple glasses of water. I’d go back though, having a Golden Monkey with my great shrimp and pizza was exactly what the day called for. Oh, and Victory is right in that area, but after our lousy food experiences the last few times we’ve been there I think we’re close to giving up on their brewpub entirely.

In all, a very good day. Unfortunately both Michael and I got some sunburn, patchy in a few places but I realized this morning that the places I was burned were the spots that got wet while we were kayaking, my right wrist and some on my left, my upper legs. The lotion is supposed to be water resistant, but we used suntan lotion from last year, I know I’d heard that you’re supposed to buy new lotion every year because it doesn’t work as well the next year, but I thought that was just a gimmick by the suntan lotion industry to sell more. It’s just that suntan lotion is so expensive and we never come close to finishing a whole bottle in a season. Sigh, I sure learned my lesson.

Today I have a bunch of errands to run and might round off the afternoon by heading down to the outdoor pool at the YMCA, new suntan lotion in hand.

My email has been moved a few times over these past few years, just ask my boss, I think two migrations happened while I was doing contract work before I was hired, he must think we do email migrations for fun!

Michael has been running qmail on a Gentoo machine for much of this time, but sometime last year he took Google up on their free beta testing of email hosting for your domain. Bevilacqua.us has hosted email by Google, and I signed up with WallaceAndGromit.net (which didn’t even have email hosting previously). PrincessLeia.com email has happily been run at home, with very occasional outages due to the DSL line being down, our migration to FIOS or power outages. Michael’s tried to push me in the direction of using Google to host email for it but I’ve been reluctant, mostly because I love mutt. Until this week, that is, when I finally resigned myself to admitting that making Michael maintain a whole email server just so I could use mutt was silly. Besides, gmail has pop3, if I hated it too much I could always fetchmail from that into mutt, everybody wins.

So I signed up for Google Apps for your domain which includes a free gmail service that is no longer in selective beta testing. I can add a bunch of users to PrincessLeia.com if I felt so inclined (I don’t) and have 2G of space for my own email account, which is PLENTY. Before we made the DNS changes I spent a few hours bouncing from mutt all of my archived mail, which amounted to 5 years worth, 176M (a whole 8% of the total space Google is giving me at the moment). I figure I can just go on using this forever, or until they stop doing it or start charging outrageous amounts for it.

I haven’t had a ton of time to do configuration on my spiffy new google-hosted email address, but I think I’ll be able to adjust. I’ll miss mutt a lot, and will have to run gmail in basic HTML on my laptop (otherwise it’s just too slow). I’ll dearly miss mutt’s threading (gmails “conversations” just aren’t the same), and folder hooks (automagically using my @ubuntu.com email addy for ubuntu lists, different signatures for different email addresses). Suggestions on how to adjust are welcome, Michael just suggested I check out keybindings so that’s my next task.