Cinco de Patrick

America has a Borg-like ability to assimilate cuisines and convert the minor holidays of our immigrants into excuses for everyone to get drunk.
"Welcome to the U.S.! Do you have any festivals that would lend themselves to wearing silly hats on 2-for-1 pint day?"

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 12, 2021

*pours out a Zombie Dust for my homies*

NOOOOOOOOO!

Did you see this tragedy, @KirkFreemanLaw?https://t.co/pboXjHPVkZ

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 16, 2020

Something you don't see every day...

Some people might not be aware that aluminum beverage cans are lined like this. (Which is what makes it fun when you run into the occasional fedora who still tries to impress with his refined beer palate, declaring that he doesn't like the 'metallic' taste of domestic beers in cans. Whatever, bro. Craft brewing's been trending to pint cans for years now.)
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Labor Day

I did my mile walk around the block this morning and returned home feeling like I'd gone for a swim. According to Siri, the dew point outside was 71° (Siri knows the dew point and barometric pressure; Alexa is stumped by those two.)

I walked over to Sam's Gyros for lunch and tipped extra because Sam was in there by hisself on Labor Day and it was hotter than dammit in that kitchen. Heat index was over 100 today in weather that was more Floridian than Hoosier.

I had a lager because lower in carbs, but then I had a Hoppopotamus IPA from Metazoa Brewing because Labor Day.

Sat at the counter at Fat Dan's for a couple pints and pecked away at the Glock 19X review while keeping half an eyeball on the Braves playing the Red Sox on the overhead TV screen.

The Logitech keyboard case I got bundled with the new iPad while I was up in New Hampshire has been super handy. Since I have Word on the iPad, I don't even bother dragging the MacBook Air with me around town now. The notebook is strictly a roadtrip productivity machine so that I can work on stuff in hotel rooms at gun school and such without dragging the beastly heavy Dell gaming laptop and its power brick (more like a power cinder block) along with me.

On the way home I spotted these beasties parked up in front of Moe & Johnny's, and so I crossed the street for a closer look.

Mmm-hmm. I could live with that Duc. I was sad I hadn't brought more camera; I just had the little Samsung TL350 with its twee little steam gauges in my shirt pocket. It acquitted itself okay, I guess.

The sidewalk in front of The Jazz Kitchen and a couple shops next to it was host to an outdoor jazz concert and al fresco dining.

I love my neighborhood!
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A Farewell to Carbs...

Well, while I was all jacked up with my arm in a sling, I figured I'd make the experience a little more tolerable by allowing myself to enjoy some of the things that I'd missed most on my new diet. So allowed myself to have some IPA, an order of fries here and there, the occasional hot dog bun...

Also, I didn't pay much attention to my calorie intake. Well, that's not accurate, actually. I still recorded everything I ate, but didn't care if I blew over the calorie limit every day.

Yesterday was my first day out and about without wearing the sling, since I wasn't planning on going anyplace crowded where my shoulder was likely to be jostled. (I might have overdone that a bit, 'cause my clavicle was hurting by nightfall...)

Anyway, since I'm gradually working my way back to light duty, I figured it was time to step on the scale and see how much damage I'd done, between lack of physical activity and indulging my every dietary whim. Fourteen pounds in two months and a week.

No worries. That's still twenty-six pounds lighter than I was this time last year.

Back to work, then.
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Prime.

A couple of shots with the Nikon 1 J1 and the 1 Nikkor 18.5mm f/1.8 prime lens. Thanks to the crop factor of the 1" sensor on the CX-format Nikon, this has the field-of-view of a 50mm lens on a full-frame camera.

 It handles daytime indoor available light shooting pretty nicely if it's not super dark.

I love the tap handle for Fountain Square Brewing's "Hop for Teacher" IPA. It's the one that looks like a paper airplane.
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Relic of the Past

So, Indiana is the state where you can buy a bottle of Jack Daniels in the CVS with less hassle than a packet of Sudafed, since you need to take a card to the pharmacist who stores the Sudafed behind the counter with the opioids and weapons-grade plutonium but the whiskey is just out there with the soda pop and bottled water.

Indiana is also...still...the only state where you can't buy cold beer anyplace but a liquor store, for some vague and no doubt John Dillinger-related reason.

This leads to the weird sight of grocery stores that have coolers for white wines and champers, but the beer is just sitting out warm.

A bill was advanced to allow cold beer sales in convenience and grocery stores this legislative session, but it died in committee, thanks to stiff opposition from the liquor store owners lobby.

"Alcohol and gas do not mix. So let's go ahead and use Hoosier common sense and be different from the other 49 states," said Knightstown resident Sarah Ward, who is president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union of Indiana.

Wait, the WCTU is still a thing? Apparently it is here in Indiana.

At least it looks like we'll get Sunday sales this year. (When I moved here it was only for sale by the drink on Sundays, and recently they added an exception for on-premises sales by breweries, wineries, and distilleries.)

Designated Driver, Designated Shooter

In a comment thread at Oleg's to a post containing a picture of a pistol and a bottle of liquor, someone felt compelled to remark:

Which, I mean...Ell Oh Ell.

My thinking (which coincides with the law in Indiana) is that public intoxication is illegal. There's no special law in Indiana about public intoxication while strapped. I think getting drunk in public isn't a good idea anyway, but if your plans involve going out and getting turnt up, leave the gat at home. Let your Designated Driver be the Designated Shooter, too.

I personally have no issue with the idea of a beer or two or a glass of wine with dinner, or an after-dinner drink while toting, but too buzzed to drive is too buzzed to tote.

Other states have different laws, of course, and most seem to frown upon alcohol consumption (no matter how little) while strapped. Know yourself and your state and local laws and ordinances...
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You keep using that word...

Indiana's liquor laws are pretty good. You can go to the grocery store or the Walgreen's and grab a bottle of Jack Daniels off the shelf with less drama than it takes to buy Sudafed, for which you must carry a token to the pharmacist and sign a log and stuff because meth.

About the only notable laws are the prohibition on the sale of alcohol for off-premises consumption on Sundays (with the exception of beer purchased at the craft brewery) and the somewhat unusual prohibition of the sale of cold beer at grocery stores, convenience stores, and drug stores. You can sell chilled white wine in these places, but cold malt beverages are right out. Like any time there's a weird law in Indiana, I blame John Dillinger.

There's a good run-up to repealing this law pretty much every legislative session these days, but the state liquor store association, who has the monopoly on cold beer sales, defends their iron rice bowl tenaciously with lobbying and campaign contributions.

Enter a couple convenience stores of the local chain, Ricker's.

Like a lot of convenience stores, they have a little restaurant area with a couple tables for seating. They serve made-to-order food, they're a restaurant, ergo...cold beer sales were allowed in these Ricker's.

"Oh, no, no, no!" say state legislators, with the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers' collective hand up their poopers, opening and closing their mouths. (IABR will drink cold beer while the Senators say this. It's good ventriloquism.)

So there's a hasty scramble at the statehouse to close this loophole, with "loophole" meaning "someone doing something perfectly legal that I don't like."

Thing is, the proposed patch can't just stop Ricker's, because that would be a bill of attainder and un-American. Instead, they figure the proper American way to stifle this business competition would be to reclassify a "restaurant" for purposes of alcoholic beverage sales as someplace that derives at least eighty percent of its revenue from food and beverage sales. So, if it passes, good bye to alcohol sales in movie theaters, bowling alleys, golf course clubhouses...

Laws and sausages.

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Tuesday shooting stuff...

Tuesday morning I dropped the Zed Drei off at the shop to get that cracked rim finally welded. From there I walked over to Indy Arms Company to continue the testing of the Glock 43...

A hundred rounds of CCI Blazer Brass 115gr FMJ. I'm getting my grip issues ironed out a little bit better, but I still have a way to go. I also have a G42/43 adapter plate on the way for my Ameriglo sight pusher. Can't wait to get some real sights on this thing.

There were no malfunctions of any type to report.

This makes 750 rounds fired since the gun was cleaned or lubricated with no malfunctions. 1,250 rounds to go.

After shooting, I grabbed an Uber home, where I dropped off my range bag, grabbed my iPad, and then walked over to Twenty Tap to get lunch.

A spicy Cuban sandwich and a pint of Angle Juice, an American Dark Mild that's a collaboration between Sun King and Round Town. A nice, sessionable 3.7%ABV brew that doesn't leave you feeling guilty for having a pint with lunch.
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Work is the curse of the drinking class...

"The idea that’s gaining support at Göbekli Tepe was first proposed more than half a century ago: Beer, rather than bread, may have been the inspiration for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to domesticate grains. Eventually, simply harvesting wild grasses to brew into beer wouldn’t have been enough. Demand for reliable supplies pushed humans first to plant the wild grasses and then over time to selectively breed them into the high-yielding barley, wheat, and other grains we know today. Some of the earliest evidence of domesticated grain—an ur-wheat called einkorn—comes from a site a few dozen miles away from Göbekli Tepe. The coincidence is suggestive."

The "beer-before-bread" theory of Neolithic agriculture has been around thirty years and more, but it's gained a lot of traction with recent archeological studies.

Further, fermentation produced a lot of nutrients that were otherwise missing from the diet of porridge, bread, and occasional chunk of meat for special occasions that was the daily fare once people did start settling down into city life in Mesopotamia.

BOOM

Friday was my last range trip before heading to SHOT, so I just decided to have some fun with the noisemakers: 10mm Auto and .357SIG...

The .357SIG I was trying to see just how fast I could run it. I probably should have gone a little slower, as that egregiously dropped shot shows. That's what happens when your trigger finger sets the pace, rather than the sight picture.

After the range trip I headed over to Twenty Tap for lunch...

The special of the day was a burger au poivre, which was delicious. Twenty Tap's burger game is on point, and their specials rarely disappoint. (Be sure to order some horseradish aoli for dipping your fries.) I paired it with a 10 Speed Hoppy Wheat with Mango, from Bloomington Brewing Company.
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Crown Point Gun Show, Part II: The not-guns part

The old Lake County courthouse in Crown Point is a glorious Victorian-era pile occupying the whole of the town square. Naturally, the seat of county government has been relocated to a hideous concrete-and-glass complex hard up against the jail, outside of town.

The old Lake County Sheriff's House & jail, famous for a gangster who stayed briefly within its walls before letting himself out and taking off with the sheriff's car.

Right next door to the old jail is Crown Brewing. That's their Basilisk chocolate milk stout.

After stopping in at Crown Brewing, we headed slightly north and west to Griffith to check out Blythe's, a large and bustling gun store. A couple doors down from Blythe's was a shop called simply "Charcuterie". If Griffith could put a pass-through between the two stores, they'd have a hit on their hands.

After browsing guns and smoked meats, it was time to head just around the block to New Oberpfalz Brewery for a late lunch. I had a pint of Hopwagen American IPA, on the right, while Shootin' Buddy ordered their Krieghammer APA.

 I was in the mood for some charcuterie.

And then it was time to head back south, through the fields of spearmint and corn stubble and spinning kilowatts.

Giant machines to suck the lightning from the sky and send it through copper pipes into faraway houses where it's turned into glowing dreams on Chinese glass.

Saturday night's alright for fightin'...

Well, a roller derby bout isn't exactly a fight, but derby's definitely a contact sport...

At some point around the turn of the Millennium, roller derby somehow exchanged the trailer park for a loft in the arts district, and swapped PBR for IPA (unless you're drinking the PBR ironically.)

My hosts here in New Mexico are both heavily involved, Stingray as a referee and LabRat skating for the local Los Alamos team. The latter had its final bout of the season Saturday night, an away game against Albuquerque at Expo New Mexico, which I gather is the state fairgrounds. I have an affinity for fairgrounds, so I tagged along.

The lighting indoors was...let's go with "suboptimal", and I almost went and locked the camera bag in the truck, but I decided to keep it with me rather than risk window breakage on the Nerds' vehicle. Besides, I'd hate for a thief to be embarrassed by trying to pawn the contents of my Lowepro.

I had the D1X and the D200 with me, but the usual zoom lenses I keep on them for travel are painfully slow for the lighting conditions in the exhibit hall, and especially when attempting to do action photography. Oh, well, I dialed up the ISO and opened wide...

Los Alamos was ahead at the half, but they were short a few skaters and the home team blew it wide open in the second period in front of a wildly enthusiastic all-ages home audience that filled the bleachers, the chairs, and the floor in front of my seat. After the buzzer, the fans all crowded the track to exchange high fives with the circling skaters, home team and visitors alike.

After the bout, we repaired to the local Rudy's for some well-earned postgame chow: baby back ribs and prime rib and a Shiner Bock to wash it down.

And then it was time to drive back up to the ranch, listening to Wolf 359 podcasts on the truck's stereo.

It was a pretty good Saturday night, all-in-all, even if it did ensure that I'm going to have to save money for some faster glass.
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Sorry!

Bobbi's working the weird shift again and that's got my sleepytimes all scrambled, too, since I try to stay awake at least until she wakes up, and then have to wake up to feed the cats at 0600.

This morning I had a delicious Broad Ripple breakfast at Taste with Shootin' Buddy, and then we repaired to Indy Arms Co. for a little shooting. After busting caps, a trip to check out Redemption Alewerks up on 96th street...

A flight of six little beers at Redemption Alewerks

Home for a quick nap and then met Keads who had dropped by Indy to see some sights. We sat on the patio at the Broad Ripple Brewpub and chatted over a late lunch while watching the neighborhood enjoying a glorious early autumn evening. He needs to come back when he has time for the museum tour!

Yesterday as viewed through Prisma...

Shootin' Buddy arrived at 9:00AM and we saddled up the bikes and headed northward. Our Zero Point was roughly 54th street. Bear in mind that Indianapolis blocks are a tenth of a mile.

We stopped for a late breakfast at  Public Greens in Broad Ripple (64th Street). Shootin' Buddy had scrambled eggs and a cup of yogurt, while I had the chilaquiles. They put feta cheese in their chilaquiles. Too few dishes on this planet have both feta and salsa verde.

We stopped at the Kroger on 86th Street for some bottled water. There's a little bicycle maintenance station, with cabled tools and a tire pump, out by the bike rack at the Kroger.

This is the Palladium concert venue in Carmel. Just south of 126th Street.

We got all the way north to Grand Junction Brewing Co. just south of 176th Street in Westfield, where we enjoyed a One With Nature APA before turning around and heading back south. The exercise doohicky in the iPhone indicated we'd done about fifteen miles at this point.

While pedaling north through Carmel, I'd noticed Union Brewing Company just off the trail to the east. On the way back south, we stopped in for a pint of their Preacher Pale Ale, never having sampled the place or its offerings before. We will be back for sure.

 Arriving back at 86th Street, it was time for lunch at Big Lug Canteen. I had the Hans Grubeer, a "German IPA" with Hallertau and Mandarina Bavarian hops, and a charcuterie plate with their delicious bacon jam.

By the time we pulled back up to the garage at Roseholme Cottage, the iThingy indicated we'd ridden as close to thirty miles as makes no nevermind. And my backside is feeling it today.
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A Good Day

Shootin' Buddy arrived at 0900. We'll say our story starts at the intersection of 54th Street & the Monon Trail, since that's about where it started. From there we pedaled the mile-and-change north to Broad Ripple proper, to get breakfast at Public Greens.

I had the chilaquiles with a fried egg and smoked pulled pork, washed down with a couple glasses of water and a cup of coffee to fortify me for the day ahead.

About six miles south on the Monon and then a jog right on 10th Street puts you on the Cultural Trail, pedaling down Massachusetts Avenue.

The Cultural Trail wends right past Henry's Coffee Bistro, where we stopped for a breather. Shootin' Buddy had a cup of joe, but I got my SWPL on with an iced mocha latte.

Then it was back on the bikes to wend our way through downtown, circling around to a new spot at College Avenue and Georgia Street...

Metazoa Brewing Company. They weren't technically open yet, but the guy behind the bar took pity on us and pulled a couple pints. We looked like we'd been riding a ways, I guess.

Just north up College Avenue a half mile or so is St. Joseph's Brewery & Public House, where we pulled in for a half pint of their Seraphim Sour Ale before pedaling northwards in earnest.

At 25th Street, we took a detour west, pedaling a few blocks off the Monon to The Koelschip, located next to Goose the Market at 25th & Delaware. Since I'm stuck on sour beers for the nonce, I went with Artisan Tears, from Central State Brewing.

 I mentioned it was next to Goose the Market, right?

And then it was back on the bikes for the long uphill pull past Broad Ripple, and into Nora up on 86th Street, to try out another new-to-us place...

 Big Lug Canteen. This was where we had lunch...

I ordered a pint of their Bruce Lopez, a salted lime pale ale, and a charcuterie plate that came with a healthy scoop of the best bacon jam I have ever had in my life. Seriously, I'm going to go back and see what I can do to order just a fist-sized dollop of that bacon jam and a pile of crostini to smear it on.

And then it was back south to 54th & the Monon.

And I didn't have to use my AK.
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Pound Takes Pounding On Brexit Vote

I'm going to go stand in the beer aisle at the grocery store and wait for them to mark down the Boddington's.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) June 24, 2016

That gunwriter life...

Friday morning I dropped the top on the Zed Drei and headed north to meet up with Mike Grasso and go do some gunwriter stuff at Atlanta Conservation Club. I could tell when I got into Hamilton County by the scenery...

I had a couple of pistols with me that I need to shoot a bunch for an upcoming article.

Along for the ride were a Nighthawk Custom Kestrel in .45ACP, a Commander-size pistol optimized for CCW...

...and a Wilson Combat Tactical Carry Professional in 9mm, a 4" gun also set up as an ideal carry piece.

Mike shooting the Wilson. It has run like a sewing machine from the get-go. Two hundred rounds of the Winchester NATO 9mm so far with nary a bobble to report.

Mike had brought along a custom gun of his own that had just had some work done on it and needed to be put through its paces to make sure everything was still right. It was.

After wrapping up at the range, we stopped off for lunch at Grand Junction Brewing Company in Westfield for lunch. I had a pint of their One With Nature APA with some boneless hot wings.

Since I did not have to use my AK, I am going to pronounce this a good day.