Top 25 Things Vanishing From America

WalletPop takes a look at 25 such things that are quickly disappearing from our country. From honey bees to checks to bowling alleys to incandescent light bulbs, we count down 25 things you may not be able to find in the U.S. for very much longer. Take a look here.

Did we fall off the planet?

The ski’s have been busy during the past month doing this and doing that and we apologize to our many loyal readers about our lack of posts lately. With that said, here are a few highlights:

• Went camping up in Burlington Vermont. Spent the weekend with a bunch of friends camping, hanging out at the beach (Lake Champlain), kayaking, playing warshers, jamming on the guitars and bbqing. Good times were a had. Especially when our drunk neighbor came over to our site and began impersonating “Popeye.” Unbelievable.
• Went to a JJ Grey and Mofro concert up in Burlington the same weekend we went camping. Great concert. You should really check them out.
• Celebrated my buddies 30th bday at the swankiest bar in town – Alibi
• The better half has improved drastically on her guitar skills. Curfew is still on effect. After 11pm I hide the darn thing.
• Picked up V.I.P. tickets to Farm Aid. They are coming to town in September. Gonna be awesome!
• Watched a gazillion episodes of Battlestar Galactica. For someone who isn’t known to be into Sci Fi, this show is addicting for some random reason.
• Took in the movie Dark Knight and absolutely loved it. Great movie. Christian Bale is the best Batman yet. The movie is much more realistic than those silly past movie’s with Kilmer, Clooney, and Keaton. To read a good movie review, take a look here.
• Went to Dave and Busters with this guy and played the arcade version of trivia pursuit for almost three hours. Won basically three million tickets. So many tickets that after picking up beer mugs, soccer balls, candy, a toaster oven, a playing card shuffler, coffee mugs, a blender and an inflatable giant hammer balloon (all mentioned items with the Dave and Busters Logo on them) we still have one million tickets left to spend on senseless items. (Oh and I wasn’t able to use the hammer balloon on my wife because of the repeated use on the civil servant during the ride home.)
• Picked out a new pair of glasses from Lens Crafters. Between the superior service Lens Crafters employees provided and my indecisiveness on what type of frame to pick made this an enjoyable experience. You should just ask my better half.

And that wraps up the past two weeks.

Happy Belated Birthday America

So the Ski’s ventured out to the Berkshires to spend a nice weekend celebrating Fourth of July. On Friday evening we took in a James Taylor concert at Tanglewood. One day I will regale you with hilarious stories of our experience with lawn seats at Tanglewood and the various nitwits and pompous yuppies that we dealt with. Regardless, the concert was absolutely fantastic.

Hello Summer

For the first time this year, hazy, hot & humid weather will settle into the New England Region and will last into the middle of next week. With such hot weather in the 90’s so quickly, it’s only fitting to blog about the summer. While everyone is probably planning trips to go camping, learning to play the guitar, going to the beach, watching the Celtics beat LA, or taking in a concert,  Outside magazine put together a few abnormal ways to enjoy the warm weather before the leaves turn color again. Folks, now pay attention, these are some must do once in a life time activities here:

1. Collecting prize money for killing gophers at the Gopher Count Festival in Viola Minnesota (June 19)

2. Spitting seeds for four days at the Watermelon Thump in Luling Texas (June 26-29)

3. Literally watching paint dry at the National Fence Painting Championship in Hannibal Missouri (July 3-5)

4. Calling mosiquitoes at the Great Texas Mosquito Festival in Clute Texas (July 24-26)

5. Learning to Polka at the 2nd Annual Tobacco Festival in Sunderland Massachusetts ( September 14)

Now where is that air conditioner…..

ode to CCB

i was clicking through my list of websites that i check on a daily basis….when suddenly… my whole life changed.

over here at this great blog, i found a post about chocolate covered bacon. at first i thought…. ew….. then i thought.. hmm… i love bacon… i love chocolate…. so why wouldn’t i love chocolate covered bacon?

so, tonight i walked to our local market and picked up some chocolate chips to make my own batch of ccb.

after whipping up my first batch of ccb, the ’skis sampled the new treat.

the verdict: incredible. pow! my taste buds leaped with gladness as they greeted the sweetness, then the saltiness, then the sweetness again. the perfect blend of sweet and salty. a happy marriage of calories and saturated fat. (i calculated each slice to have 110 calories and 7.5 grams of fat).

at first glance, i thought this was a crazy idea that no one would dare to recreate. however, it seems that ccb is much more common than i thought.

Happy Memorial Day America!

Here’s to the start of Summer!

a family of phs grads

may has been a busy month for the ’skis. first the derby, then a cousin’s wedding, then my nephew’s high school graduation. this weekend my bestcousinfriend comes to boston. all really great and fun things, but also busy, busy, busy.

last weekend i flew home to thehappiestplaceonearth. i bought my ticket last minute (only four days before) so i was rather limited with flying choices. not wanting to spend more than $1700, i decided to take a us air flight through philly on a regional jet. mistake. big mistake.

we pulled away from the gate in boston and the pilot let us know we were going to be waiting on the tarmac for awhile due to delays in philly. he also mentioned that he would kill the engine to conserve fuel. (hint #1). after 3 minutes, the pilot came back on the speaker and said we were clear for take-off. we took off for our 1 hour flight to philly.

2 hours later, we were still in the air when the pilot let us know that we were being diverted because we didn’t have enough fuel to make it to philly. they didn’t tell us where we were landing, but just said we were going to be on the ground in 15 minutes. we landed in allentown, pa which was 60 miles outside of philly.

this was disconcerning for several reasons 1) we didn’t have enough fuel to make it 60 miles?!?!? this isn’t a car that you simple pull to the side of the road when you run out of gas. when a plane runs out of fuel — people die!!!! 2) thanks for not telling us where we were until we were on the ground. i thought we had landed in montreal when we finally touched down. 3) after this diversion, i clearly missed my connecting flight to st louis. i wasn’t aware that there was another flight to stl that day and i was convinced that i had spent $500 to fly home only to miss my nephew’s graduation because a stupid pilot forgot to check the fuel gauge before we took off.

the good news is: there was another flight to st louis that day. it wasn’t until 4:30 and was delayed until 5:30…which meant i had to spend my day in a philly bar drinking manhattans and talking to a 60 year old man about horse racing.. but i made it just in time to see my nephew cross the stage, collect his diploma, and become ninth graduate of perryville high school in our family.

derby recap

 

Hello Racing Fans!

This post is a little overdue, but we’re back from the Derby and we had a blast!   The weather was wonderful, Kentucky was beautiful, and the bourbon was plentiful. 
I’ve always wanted to go to the Derby, but we were prompted to go to the 134^th Kentucky Derby by an article in the New York Times last November.  We’re huge fans of bluegrass and bourbon, so why not combine those two great gifts from God with a slice another slice of Americana, the Derby?

Like the article suggested, we toured a few bourbon distilleries:  Maker’s Mark and Woodford Reserve.  Both distilleries are in the middle of nowhere and both made us think twice about whether were completely lost, despite what the Mapquest directions and GPS unit said.  After driving down two lane roads through horse pastures, then down to one lane gravel roads, and over low-water bridges, we found the Maker’s Mark distillery.   As soon as we arrived, we noticed that there were an uncanny number of guests dressed in their finest Derby attire walking toward a white tent.  Underdressed in our jeans and flip-flops, we were afraid that we had just crashed a southern belle’s wedding reception.   We checked in at the visitors’ center and realized that was not the case, but rather Mr Bill Samuels’ (president of Maker’s Mark) just knows how to throw a great Derby Party.    We were treated to barbeque and all the mint juleps we could drink, all compliments of Mr Samuels.  

After all the mint juleps on Friday, we were ready for the Derby on Saturday.  Despite the overnight rain showers, we had beautiful weather.   We placed bets, drank more juleps, and talked with everyone we met.  Everyone goes to the Derby with the intention of having fun.  That combined with the overall Southern Hospitality, makes for a very friendly crowd. 

Of course, despite all of the good times, the Derby ended on a sad note with the euthanization of the crowd favorite, Eight Belles.  I bet her across the board and felt a little guilty cashing in on her death at the window.    

Check out our pictures and start making plans to join us next year!

derby week

this week is derby week!

the ’skis met up with our friends/fellow derby goers last night to make the final plans for our trip to kentucky.  all four of us sat down at our dining room table with the intention of forming a rough agenda for our five days in the bluegrass state, however we were sidetracked multiple times by conversations about general patton, the correct pronouciation of louisville, how to make a kosher beef jerky food dehydrator, and which handbag would best match my derby hat.  we came away this agenda:

thurs: fly in to louisville (pronounced lou-a-vull).  check out 4th st and the louisville slugger museum.

fri: bourbon distilleries.  maker’s mark and woodford reserve.  buy maker’s mark t shirt and dip our own bottle.

sat: derby day!   put on hats and bowties, find our seats, place a bet on big brown, drink a mint julep, sing “my old kentucky home”, watch the best two minutes in sports.

sun: observe the day of rest.  hit up mammoth cave.

mon: visit locust grove.  fly home with all of our earnings from big brown. 

 

if any of you fine readers know of any sites-to-see in kentucky, please let us know!

hero for a day

 yesterday was patriot’s day.  aka marathon monday.  

it’s a holiday here is massachusetts.  a day when we celebrate things like the first shots fired in the revolutionary war, skinny kenyans, and not-so-skinny dominicans.  a day of heroes of all sorts: the original american soldiers, world-class runners, and baseball players.

patriot’s day is my favorite holiday in this state.  it’s the unofficial start of summer to me.   when i worked in public accounting, it was the sign that busy season was over and baseball season had begun.  nice weather sweeps in and pushes out the snow and grey skies of winter. 

ah, patriot’s day. 

but patriot’s day wasn’t so sweet this year, as i had to work.  what a shame.  however, i still found time to log in to wbztv.com just before noon to see the end of the marathon.  i witnessed the closest women’s finish in history, where dire tune and alevtina biktimirova duked it out to the finish.  (how can a woman find it in her to kick a quarter mile to the finish after running 26 miles at 5:33 pace?)

ah, patriot’s day.

even though i missed out on the day time festivities, i decided to take a run after work and run the last stretch of the course from kenmore square through the finish line and to our place.  the area looked like a scene from new year’s eve with trash, puke, and alcohol littering the streets.  (i couldn’t tell if it was athlete vomit or alcohol vomit — probably both). 

i decided against actually running through the finish line, already looking like a total poser crusing the streets some six hours after the elite women finished the race. 

instead, i cruised the side streets, curving around the medical tents, running past the runners in plain clothes with a finisher’s medal around their neck that were trying to find a place to have dinner.    i felt shamed running past them during my slow five mile run - i didn’t deserve to be on the same sidewalk. 

they were my heroes for the day. 

 

 

(edit:  i opened the comments for this post….finally)