MOAB defeated and a beer review

Wow.. they did it. Not much to say about it online, but over a nice brew I would love to discuss today. btw, I didn't make up MOAB, i read it online a week ago or so, and thought it was perfect description since it was the same MLA(multi letter acronym) to describe the Mother Of All Bombs, another ridiculous device used in Iraq.

So, on the way home from work I picked up a new favorite brew... Magic Hat seasonal, Jinx. Holy crap, if you haven't tried this one please do. Pick one up immediately. Along the lines of Long Trail Double Bag, but a little more flavor and about the same @sskick of high % alcohol. Hmmmm Mmmm perfect. Who knows, if the economy really tanks like they're saying on the news, this could be the last expensive six pack I can afford for awhile....

In some more cheery news, today I scored big at work, I got the sole collection rights to all our coffee grounds. Coffee grounds make ridiculously good compost for the garden.

-40

New Look for Pandapas, and the MOAB (mother of all bailouts)

Whew... crazy stuff is going on in the world. Major banks are failing, the gov't is now the owner of 1/2 the country's mortgages through Freddie and Fannie, the talking head politicians are still going strong with their campaign messages... etc. Things are so nutty the treasury secretary kneeled before the speaker of the house to beg for a bailout (anyone else find it odd that the Secretary of the Treasury is the ex CEO of Goldman Sachs... one of the banks that will benefit from the bailout?). So, instead of fixing problems that caused the economic mess (median income falling below the median home price, and lending ridiculous amounts of money to people who can't afford it), the govt is just doing the same thing, borrowing money they can't hope to pay back to dump down an unsustainable black hole of debt feeding the cancerous suburban sprawl. Reality always wins in the end unfortunately... the world is running out of oil to feed anymore suburban buildout, and in a country without any real industry left (50% of our GDP is fed from military spending, everything is made in china, etc), we're in for fall from superpower status. If the sh*t that's going on down south post hurricane over lines at gas stations is any indication, all the gun toting Joe Six Pack in this country isn't going to take all this lightly. Watching those morons bitch and moan on CNN over not having gas and ice for a couple weeks is enough to dash any hopes I had that the US will pull out of this mess peacefully.

Anyhow, out here things are still moving along. We're finished the majority of the harvest from the garden. No more tomatos, beans or cucumbers, we're back to the tastless store bought crap. The potatos are still in the ground, and we've picked about 1/2 the butternut squash (37 pounds so far from 2 plants... kickass). I've planted more cold-weather stuff in pots on the deck. Peas, carrots, beans, beets, lettuce. Hopefully I can get more out of that before the icy weather sets in.

Check out the butternut squash plants back in august:

I put in a second raised bed in the front yard.. filled it with homemade compost.. check out this stuff... Black Gold:

Now where the two raised beds are i'm hoping to build a super rednecky greenhouse so we can start plants even earlier in the spring. next year we're hoping to have a much larger and productive garden.

I've finished the 2nd to last ibucket for the FlatTires, just one more to go for Kaptain Krunch. In other news, mark your calendar for next weekend, Oct5th, RINEMBA funride, then for the weekend of oct 18th, the 5th annual RAMHADAB!!

Time to head to the dump with Flattires, then I'm going surfing. Yeee Ha. -40.

Cinqo de Bike-O Non-Post

The bike weekend would traditionally been a couple weekends ago. Labor day weekend, or thereabout, is usually the last summer event. It started five years ago as a Serious Bike Ride, after which the clan and other folks consumed a keg of glorious Long Trail. The weekend was perfect, and every year only better from. Year Deuce saw the emergence of fireworks, disc golf, pseudo-nude crochet, and well, more beverage consumption. From then on, the years flew by. I could spend some time to recap year 3 and year 4 but well, search the blog for RAMHADAB and read the recaps yourself. (Sorry for lack of links, but I haven't been spending much time these days inside...even less on the computer to update the blog. ) Over the years, the ride has gotten somewhat easier and some riders complaining about parts of the ride. This year we'll probably be doing a ride around the CTLPs backyard, Arcadia, Pachaug and Beach Pond. Sweet. Hopefully it'll be easy enough that no one talks about dropping out, and we won't have to drop a vehicle down at the lake to get home.

Man.. the summer really flew by. I spent this summer in a mad rush of trying to get some gardens set up and grow potatoes, carrots, beets, beans, tomatos, squash, etc and generally messing around mtbiking, kayaking, surfing, walking around in the woods with Snoopy, going on a long vacation, and oh yeah... working too.

The garden.. I posted about it back in the spring after spending the day digging, filling, four new beds. Over the summer, I realized the beds I put in get too little sun until I clear some branches and maybe cut down a tree or two, so I put in a couple more in the back yard. Lots and Lots of digging out rocks, shovelling shit(horse to be exact), and even more of the legendary FlatTires leaf compost. There is something indescribable about eating food you grew yourself. Our potatoes pretty much rock, and digging them is a bit like digging clams, except without the muck.

So those are my excuses for not updating the blog. Sorry about that. Lately there's been just way too much fodder that have gone wasted... The DNC, RNC, and now, the (seriously...wtf!?!) Nationalizing (?!??!!) of more than 1/2 of the country's mortgages. All the chatter around the DNC and RNC about energy, the economy, Palin, etc, has been driving me absolutely insane. (I can't believe people aren't absolutely shitting themselves over the the Federal reserve taking over 5 trillion in housing debt. 5 Trillion. )

Anyhow... Mark your calendars for upcoming events:

Sept 13th- Burlingame Trail Work weekend (with the AMC)

Oct 5th (i think)- NEMBA Fun Ride, Arcadia, leaving from, and returning to CTLPs with some trails wandering through Pachaug.

Oct 18th- the 5th annual RAMHADAB weekend. This years theme is Cinquo-De-Bike-O. Stay tuned for details and the t-shirt design!

And now.. how about someone else post about something happy? :)

-40