Damor

Sometimes, there's a post... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a post. And I'm talkin' about the Duck here. Sometimes, there's a post, well, it's the post for its time and place. It fits right in there. And that's this post. By the Duck, from del Muerto. Sometimes, there's a post.

I have Sun Kil Moon tickets for tomorrow night in Austin that I can't use. Anybody interested just let me know.

I hate that this thread exists. I love all of you fuckers posting in it.

^^^ Except it's esophagogastroduodenoscopy. @Sbbruin gets a pass because chemo brain. @Brisketexan, not so much. Et tu, Plan II grad?

After you ask your wife about Gal, she'll probably offer to drive the bus. My dad brought up moving to Hawaii so that he would be eligible to invoke their Death with Dignity act when his time comes (he's worried about dementia, not cancer at present). He and I are both docs, and he asked me if I had any ethical, professional, or spiritual reservations about that. I was like, Medicine is supposed to be about the relief of suffering. Some suffering is meaningless and cruel. Although progress is slow, I'm glad to see that we are shifting toward providing that relief.

I don't remember where I found this (probably on some prior iteration of this board, though), but if I ever grow up someday I'd love to pull this off: Roads and Kingdoms League of Travelers As I understand, it's got the backing (or at least endorsements) of Jose Andres and the estate and former associates of Bourdain. Looks like they put together some amazing stuff and staff it with insightful hosts/guides.

Well, my son hit a deer last night in his Taco. Thankfully, he's fine, but the bumper is toast, the grille is cracked, and there's damage to a quarter panel and the hood. Since I'm going to be putting money into it anyway, does anyone have any recommended brands to look at for aftermarket bumpers and stuff? He's taking it to school in Colorado this fall, so I thought we should at least price something that he can make updates to over time, add a winch, etc. Assume I know nothing about this stuff.

God bless all of y'all, no matter where you are in your journey. My dad just called to let me know that his wife passed away from recurrent "triple-negative" breast cancer, the same variant that my mom died from. Made a widower twice by the same malignancy. That's heartbreaking cruelty. Fuck cancer indeed.

@dcbc Yeah, similar concept. I'm glad I didn't know about those before we built or that would probably have been a few more thousand spent. I don't know if those have just one central heat source whereas on the Evo you can adjust or even have off the inner or outer ring, but otherwise sounds similar. @jimmyjazz I just scrape and oil it (and did with my older flattop as well), which is one reason I love cooking on it, almost no pots/pans to clean up. I am a lazy caveman cook.

Well, that's what grad school was for. It was a dumb poorly thought out phrase, but you'll get an explanation and you'll like it. I was probably just a bit OCD when cooking on my rectangular cooktop and had a nice, linear progression of temps from one side to another, and was a little guilty of cooking in a tidy and gridlike fashion. With the Evo being circular, your temperature changes radiate outward from the center instead, so you either have to arrange things in a circular or radial pattern, or just randomly throw shit on there. That took me a while to adjust to. As for the French cooking suite, I guess I wasn't liberal-artsy enough to learn about those, but while yes, you can use the two zones on the Evo to cook at different temps, there's some variation even at the same distance from center you have to learn about. Since a picture's worth more than my verbosity, in the action shot from yesterday's mother's day burgers, the patties are cooking at a higher temp than the buns are toasting, but I know from experience that the patty at about 2 o'clock and the buns from 1 to 2ish are going to cook more quickly, so you have to keep an eye on that portion of the griddle to keep them from burning: But all of that is a long and awkward way to say that the Evo is great, but if you're happy with your Blackstone it doesn't offer any world-changing improvements unless you have built-in/aesthetic/wife approval factors.

I've got one. I had a Camp Chef before (pretty much a Blackstone), and there are some things better, some not as good. I do love it and I use it all the time. Advantages: -- I think the surface area is a little larger than the Blackstone overall, but it's pretty close. -- The circular drip tray around the outside makes grease management a little easier, and the cooktop is slightly curved so grease runs off evenly. -- Gets hot AF quickly. I sear steaks around 600F and that's set just above medium heat. I don't know if you could go higher without warping it, but I'm not sure I'd ever want to. -- It still has hot spots, but it's more even than my old rectangular griddle. I like that for cooking large amounts of vegetables, tacos, etc. -- The tighter fitting lid makes it good for steaming things. Haven't ever tried using it as a pizza oven. Disadvantages: -- It only has an inner and outer ring, so you can't fine tune multiple temperature zones as easily as on a rectangular 4-burner. -- The curved surface means if your oil or ghee or whatever is going to try to run off and it has to be scraped around. -- OCD types who like cooking in Cartesian coordinates may struggle moving to a polar system. Good thing I was a liberal arts major. -- Duh, it's stupid expensive. When we were building the outdoor kitchen, though, there weren't a lot of options for something more built-in without going commercial, which is even worse and nobody would install it anyway. I actually have the tabletop model on a shelf made to fit it, because the "built in" is somehow even more expensive. -- It still doesn't keep me from being a shitty cook.

Hmm, dunno then. I assume you did the usual IT trope of power cycling it? My pool guy had me do that including detaching the data cable for a minute, but I don't remember if that made much of a difference since my issue was with signal strength.

I had the same thing happen when I changed mesh systems. It doesn't make any sense to me, but I had to move the transmitter out of the network rack I had it in because it was no longer communicating with the receiver. Check and see if the send/receive lights on the transmitter are active.

You mean like, "Infinity is so super weird that it doesn't require a calculator!" and "So if Capt. Quackenbush's spaceship exists in only two dimensions, if he passed the event horizon of a supermassive black hole would he be stretched out like a piece of infinite Silly Putty or achieve total Consciousness?" We looked at a property with transmission lines when our kids were little, so I read about it a bunch and asked a smart oncologist for his thoughts. There's no good evidence to support causation. If I remember right, the cluster cases were reported in the British Medical Journal, which for some reason likes to be alarmist about this kind of stuff and medical radiation. Although I suppose it could be because their socialist grid is missing 10Hz of MURICAEAGLEFREEDOM.

Everything is starting to come together for our late June/early July trip, but I still have stupid questions because... obviously I'm not a golfer. My older one has expressed wishes to play at Kapalua. He's not a serious golfer but at least has coordination and can put together about a 5:1 ratio of nice shots to where-the-fuck-did-the-ball-go. I'm absolutely horrible and would be happy to have that ratio in reverse, but whatever, it's a graduation trip. I think therefore the Bay course is the better option, both from a cost and frustration perspective. I see you can book up to 90 days out for the Bay course by paying a premium ($320 vs $280 for a 30d window). I know things are crazy with revenge travel, but anyone with any experience regarding how difficult it is to get a tee time? I also saw a recommendation on Reddit for a place called Jimmy's Maui Golf Rentals which would cut the club rental in half, which sounds like a good option. They also offer discounted green fees, but as a golf ignoramus, is that the kind of thing that's likely to be legit, or risking no availability or a shitty time?

Don't forget James and the Giant Peach.

Those are independent of how I book, though, aren't they? I'm planning to use the AMEX, but I guess my question is whether or not to use their travel portal. Although I don't travel a lot, I've had more issues when booking through a travel portal than direct, so I was looking for any perks I'd be missing out on. If all else is equal and I'm getting 5x points either way, I'm more likely to go direct with the airline.

More dumb question amnesty, please, regarding using AMEXtravel for flights with a personal Platinum. I get 5x MR points whether I book directly with the airline or AMEXtravel, correct? Is there any reason I should use AMEXtravel over direct booking if the fare is the same?

Ignorant question: What is Paris like this time of year for visiting? Next year is our 20th anniversary, and if we wanted to do a trip, I just wondered what to expect.

Mine are now 15 and 18 (and about to graduate), so you are hitting me in the feels. I have an admitted bias towards things I remember from when I was little (thus making them classics, irrefutable in their cultural significance), but: Arnold Lobel: arguably the GOAT as far as I'm concerned. "Frog and Toad" series is the most prolific, and is awesome. Don't sleep on "Small Pig" either. That said, "Owl at Home" may be his greatest single work. I could recite "Owl and the Moon" from memory after having read it to mine hundreds of times, and is pure poetry. When my boys have their own kids, they will be receiving a bundle of Lobel books as gifts. Seuss: A given, but the Sleep Book is a bedtime gem. Another I know by heart. Judith Viorst: Alexander and the THNGVBD is a given. My Mama Says is good for those with nighttime fears. Richard Scarry: Great picture books, less so at bedtime due to all the shit going on with fucking Dingo Dog driving erratically all over the fucking place. Some antiquated ideas for sure, but what little I know of housing construction, electricity generation, and papermill operations comes from "What Do People Do All Day." The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster: one of the great books ever written. Save this for when they are 8 or 9, when they are wondering why they should learn this stuff and why any of it matters. Shit, most adults need to read it now. I just discovered the annotated version and am reading it myself. Amazing. I agree that the Great Brain series is excellent, though that was more independent reading for me and mine. When they are bigger, The Hobbit and CS Lewis' Narnia books are excellent. The Hank the Cowdog books are great for upper single digit kids and are even better on audio, as read by Texas (and Plan II) grad John Erickson. Damn, it went fast.

Maybe we can help! We have powers and knowledge that are far beyond younger men!

I'm not good enough of a cook to deserve it, but I am still smitten with my 48" Bluestar cooktop: I absolutely love it, and all that capacity is awesome at holidays. When we built, I was in charge of that, the vent hood, and the nugget icemaker. For everything else, I let my wife pick out matching stuff she liked, because I know anything with a circuit board in it is doomed. She went with Electrolux stuff which has been pretty good so far (fingers crossed) aside from some relatively minor issues. Are you doing a warming drawer? If I was ever going to do this again (God, I hope not), I'd love to have a second or a bigger one. It fills up quickly, particularly at the holidays or otherwise cooking for groups.

I'm not the travel expert that others on this thread are (I can't say I've seen London, haven't been to Paris in 20 years, and I ain't never seen no Queen in her damned undies as the feller says), but airline fare pricing is weird, so try some weird things. For example, we are flying to Maui this summer, and it was 20-30% cheaper to fly from AUS/GRK/ACT-->DFW -->OGG than it would have been to drive up to DFW and take that same direct flight to OGG. Spend some time playing around with it on Google Flights and set up a bunch of price watches, the more specific the better. And subscribed to this thread for great info for future travel, thanks.

I've never fished Brushy Creek, and if I did I'd probably be terrible at it, but I trust Living Waters and below is their request for action on TPWD input for protection via bag limits: The Link And for @Born to Run, there are a ton of variables that go into it, but I'll echo the TFO recommendations. You may end up wanting something slightly different, but that TFO will always have a home and play a solid role in your "quiver." Also, don't underestimate how much importance the line plays. It's an underrated but over-represented part of the experience as I've learned from those on here and from my limited experience.

Finally, this timeline gives us something good to look forward to. Or, more likely, we're being teased with nice things and the world will end before my preorder ships on 10/10/2023. Watterson is returning with an illustrated "fable for grownups," which I am anticipating will be beautiful, thoughtful, meaningful, and more difficult to pirate as something pissing on a Ford logo. Simon & Schuster announcement: From Bill Watterson, bestselling creator of the beloved comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, and John Kascht, one of America’s most renowned caricaturists, comes a mysterious and beautifully illustrated fable about what lies beyond human understanding. In a fable for grown-ups by cartoonist Bill Watterson, a long-ago kingdom is afflicted with unexplainable calamities. Hoping to end the torment, the king dispatches his knights to discover the source of the mysterious events. Years later, a single battered knight returns. For the book's illustrations, Watterson and caricaturist John Kascht worked together for several years in unusually close collaboration. Both artists abandoned their past ways of working, inventing images together that neither could anticipate—a mysterious process in its own right. Some early interesting conjecture here. I anticipate there will be some mewling about Watterson not being the primary illustrator, but the only thing better than his art for C&H was his writing. The art previews look fantastic, but I'm going to refrain from peeking at any more than what's already been shown.