Happy Memorial Day

Ok, I keep forgetting to take pictures of my burgers, and this time it is really unfortunate. Kathryn and I went to her mother's house for a Memorial Day cookout, and there were some burgers and hot dogs since I think it might be the law that you have to serve them at any Memorial Day activity. Unfortunately, Chloe and Odin were not invited, even though Odin would have loved the yard there. It was completely fenced in and probably close to 3/4 of an acre. Plus there are some snakes that live in part of the wall. I feel like those would have entertained him for hours. Then I would have either a story about Odin running around carrying a snake, or a story about us taking Odin to the vet to treat some snakebites. Win-win really.

Back to the burgers. These were not your everyday, run-of-the-mill burgers though. Due to whatever combination of factors caused it, the burgers ended up being super tiny once they were cooked. We're talking like maybe and inch and a half across. They were like sliders! That means I ended up eating 4 burgers, but I am not counting it as a tie for the record due to the minimum size requirements. That title still goes to Amy and Scott's cookout from last June. In addition to the burger medallions, we also had fruit salad, baked beans, some salmon and beers. I imagine my stomach is going to be upset with me within the next 12 hours.

So the short version is that I really dropped the ball on the picture taking today. I apologize profusely. And also about the length of this story. I used up all my words yesterday typing about the beer tasting. Go read that if you need more Jon-based journalism.

-Jon

3 Burgers in 1 Day

Burgers and snack food were pretty much the entire menu for today. I suspect that it will turn out that this is not a decision that a smart person would make.

I am not really the kind of person who has a plan for his life. For instance, I have already resigned my current job without a new job lined up. Most people would not consider this to be a good plan, but for me, plans are pretty much what I make even though I generally have no intention of actually following through on them. I am a much bigger fan of just waking up and going with whatever seems to be happening. So when I heard a commercial for a summer kick-off party with beer-tasting and free hamburgers that was happening at a giant package store, that seemed like a good thing to do. And it was! All the of-age brothers (plus Tony) attended this rocking event with high levels of beer-based success.

I tried a whole bunch of new beers for the grand total of a $5 donation, and you can read about that here. I also got to eat a hamburger for free. It was still overpriced.

I understand that when you are a radio station sponsoring an event, you are probably not overly concerned with the quality of the food; you just need to get the jokers attending the event some food and get them out of line. On the other hand, all you need to improve a burger is a little bit of seasonings. Salt, pepper, garlic powder, grilling seasonings, onion powder, granulated onion. . . the possibilities are pretty much only limited by your imagination. Unfortunately, the people in charge of this event decided to choose the last option, which was none of the above. And they didn't even put cheese on the burger! And I had to wait a while for the burger, which wasn't even good! That was a very disappointing burger, which slightly marred the rest of a pretty good event.

After that, I headed over to Michelle and Steven's for their 3-hour cookout. It actually turned out that the 3 hours was not accurate, but it's much funnier if you think of it as the world's shortest cookout. Steven was running the grill, and was obviously much more capable than the folks taking care of things over at Table & Vine. Not only did these burgers actually have cheese on them, there were tomatoes and red onions for additional burger awesomeness. Anyone who knows anything (or reads this blog) knows that red onions are a great way to make a burger better. I ended up eating 2 of these burgers, a bunch of Doritos, a few pieces of barbecued chicken, some fruit and way too many cookies. Nice work, Steven.

-Jon

Brewers Festivals are Awesome

This was the first brewers festival of any type that I have attended, and it was great. The closest thing to it that I have been to was the Taste of Springfield, which sucked. Everything was overpriced, and it was in Springfield. The First Annual Brattleboro Brewers Festival, on the other hand, was not overpriced (because Kathryn bought my ticket for me. Thanks!) and was not in Springfield. Also, it was focused mainly on beer, which is obviously an improvement for me. I mean, how much food can you possibly eat compared to how many beers you can try? Exactly. Since I knew I was going to be having all new beers, I drank a Summer Ale right before we left, just out of respect for Sam. 86 and counting.

There were a whole lot of beers I tried, so I wrote that part of the story over there. (Dear Jon, could you please make the last 2 words there into a link to the other blog at some point? Thanks, Jon)

After the festival ended, Diana & other Jon, Laura, Kathryn and I went to get dinner at this place called The Marina up the road from where the festival had been taking place. It was nice if you like places that overlook ponds that are covered in tons of pollen. I got the Bacon Burger, which was disappointing. I ordered medium rare as usual, and got whatever you call it when there is just barely a hint of pink, as if the guy cooking it had forgotten what he was doing until the last possible second before it turns well done. If I had wanted to eat a charcoal briquet, we would have stopped at Hannaford's instead. Also, the fries were garbage. I ate like 6 of them, hoping that things would improve. Sadly, I had no such luck. Luckily, I ate a couple delicious things at the festival, and I know that we will be going to the Mohawk Diner in the morning (I hope the blueberry pancakes are available!), so the weekend was not a total food loss. Plus, there were all the beers. Go read about those.

-Jon

A Nice Day for Burgers

Tuesday was a terrible day. I don't know what my students' problem was, but they were absolutely awful. Wednesday was a slight improvement, but still not great. Then somehow, today turned out to be fine, even though it was basically a Friday in the kids' minds. Oh well. Life is funny sometimes.

Then the day turned even better! Burgers for dinner!! And we also had Kelly's tomato salad, which only makes things even more awesome. In addition, Dad was doing the grilling, so you know you're actually getting a medium rare burger instead of whatever foolishness is currently passing for medium rare at your local establishments.

After school, I made yet another attempt to mow the disaster I currently call a lawn. I managed to do the majority of it before I lost my patience (and will finish the stupid project tomorrow so I can return the lawnmower to its proper owner), but I still dumped the extra clippings all over the place because 1) I am lazy and 2) I don't know what else to do with them. My lawn looks like a grass genocide took place.

After that, Kathryn and I walked over to Dad & Kelly's with Chloe and MonstrO to hopefully wear that little black beast out a bit before bed time. It turns out that all he needs is to run around like a nut for 2+ hours to turn him from a tiny black demon into a normal, calm puppy. He still makes it very difficult to type on a laptop when he decides you are a pug-bed though. For example, he is attempting to sleep on me right now, but can't find a comfortable place. Silly pup.

The burgers were obviously awesome, and the tomato salad was also awesome. And the chocolate milk I drank with it was awesome too. Hopefully tomorrow's prosciutto-wrapped pork can live up to my currently raised expectations.

Ewwww! There are pug boogers on my shorts! Dammit, Odin!

-Jon

A Return to Form

Wow! Two posts in one day!! Looks like I am officially back!

Since James and Nicole closed on their house and officially moved out, I have been quite busy with what basically amounts to re-moving in to the exact same place I have been living for the past year. It turns out that most of the important things for day-to-day life were not mine, just as they were not mine when I lived at Munsing. But no more!

I am now the proud (?) owner of such exciting things as a TV stand, plates, bowls, silverware, a knife set and a whole host of other kitchen items (see the post 2 below this one for the details of my unmanly excursions). And all of these things need to be washed first before you can use them, which is a lot of work in itself even if you don't include the gargantuan task of trying to eliminate all the husky hair that took over the house.

Enter Kathryn, Queen of the Vacuum.

While I did all the boring stuff that needed to happen, Kathryn let loose the fury of her crazy, animal-hair seeking, pug-scaring super vacuum on the many carpets of the house. All told, she filled and emptied that thing 5 times of dog hair before she was satisfied with her work. I think she also cleaned the bathroom, not to mention the delivery of all sorts of unmanly things like candles and fancy hand soaps. I suppose this place will need a woman's influence once my brothers move in.

After all that cleaning, we decided to grab dinner at Ruby Tuesday and then look at rugs at Ocean State Job Lot. Actually I decided on the dinner part, and Kathryn was the only one who looked at rugs because I hate Ocean State Job Lot with a passion due to the many "quick" trips I've been subjected to at the hands of my mother, but I went there with Kathryn anyways because obviously I owe her one.

The funny part of dinner is that since there was a short wait, I put us on the list and then loudly said to Kathryn, "Do you want to wait outside since it's nice?" to avoid them thinking we were leaving. Except that they still thought we were leaving, and then skipped over my name on the list. Stupid ball lickers. We did quickly get a seat after they realized the error of their ways, but it was not enough to avoid mention in this tale.

I ordered the Brewmaster Burger, which tasted like something I had eaten before. I really have to go back through all these stories and update the tags at some point so I can actually look this kind of stuff up. Maybe after 100 posts. Familiar or not, it was still very tasty, especially when combined with my new side of French fries with Tabasco ketchup. I would tell you the recipe for Tabasco ketchup, but it's a closely guarded family secret. (Hint: the name of the recipe is the whole recipe!) If you like spicy and you like ketchup, I would give it a try. Take a look. The picture sucks because of the weird-ass plates that they have at Ruby Tuesday, but as a bonus you get to see Kathryn's Avocado Turkey "burger."

More important than the ketchup though, is the fact that they actually cooked my burger medium rare! It was perfectly done. And just in time, because I was starting to lose hope for a decently cooked burger in a western Mass restaurant. Thanks for bringing back my faith, Ruby Tuesday!

-Jon

That Was a Fun Day

Since we got the tickets way back in November, I have been pretty excited about the Mark Knopfler concert for a much longer time than is probably safe. Finally, the big day arrived, roughly 6 months after Kathryn got the tickets and we got our free copy of Get Lucky.

The concert was over at the new MGM Grand at Foxwoods, so we decided that it would be even more fun if we met up with Scott & Amy and Alex & Erica beforehand. This turned into a barbecue that I was unaware of ahead of time, and that turned into surprise burgers!

Scott came up with some kind of crazy concoction for the meat that started with a bunch of diced up vegetables (mushrooms, green peppers and onions), the huge hunks of burger, and then "Burger Seasoning." I believe this may be the same seasoning that was previously documented at a different cookout hosted by Scott and Amy. Those beasts looked something like this:

I am not sure if you can pick up on the enormity of them from the pictures, but they were massive. Maybe this one will give you a better idea of what was going on.

And yes, I ate 2 of them.

After that, it was time to lock up the pups in pug jail and head over to Foxwoods. Side note - I am not a fan of the new road system around Foxwoods, which causes me to freak out unnecessarily and frequently end up going in the wrong direction. Stupid Foxwoods.

Did you know that the MGM Grand and the normal Foxwoods are not connected to each other by any kind of walkway and are actually quite far apart? I know that now. It is a good thing that we arrived with ample time before the show and are excellent Foxwoods navigators, because we got the shuttle and arrived at the MGM way before concert time. In fact, there was plenty of time for us to wander the slot machines and find out that the one Kathryn likes is apparently very popular.

The show was awesome. Not so much the girl who opened, because she kept using the word beautiful over and over and played music that was a little too country for me. I may be imagining the second part though, as the guy who accompanied her had a cowboy hat on, which means I was going to hear country music no matter what he played. However, the Mark Knopfler part was fantastic. The only negative was that he did not wear a headband or wrist bands or a sports coat with weird pants, but his voice was exactly the same as I remember it from those old CDs. It was kind of weird, but it really crushed my memories of 1980s Dire Straits. I hope that Tom Petty doesn't do the same thing in August.

-Jon