We Bike to the Train

While I was on the train yesterday, I noticed a bunch of people riding Jersey Transit with their bicycles—something I've never done—so today Cat and I biked to the New Brunswick station and took a weird hidden elevator up to the Eastbound Track (the elevator was so small we had to ride up one at a time) and took the train to Metuchen, with our bikes; from the Metuchen Station it was a short bike ride (just past Wood Stack Pizza) to an entry point to the Middlesex County Greenway, a shaded bike path that goes all the way to Fords; we rode the path until the end and then back to Metuchen, where we intended to go to Hailey's Pub for a beer and burger, but Hailey's was closed, so we tried a new Latin American cafe, Fresh Twist, and everything was delicious . . . we had an empanada (they have a WIDE variety of empanadas, including Shrimp, PB & J, and the one we got: Sweet Plaintain, Cheese, and Beef) and I had a beef patacón sandwich, and Cat got a chicken and avocado wrap, and apparently the birria tacos are also delicious—this place is a winner, lovely decor, great food, casual, and not too expensive (especially for the center of Metuchen) and we will be going there again; then we caught the Westbound train and we wanted to get off at the Edison Station, which is a slightly longer bike ride, but less hilly, but for some reason our train car door did not open, so we continued on the New Brunswick and then made a much easier exit on the Barnes and Noble side of the station and biked back to Highland Park . . . very fun, especially since there's no pleasant way to bike to Metuchen (and we can't afford to move there-- the real estate prices are out of control).

Bars and Belmar on Bikes

My wife and I were going to paddleboard this morning, but it was drizzling, so we got on our bikes instead: we had a beer at Darcys, the Bradley Beach soccer bar which opened at 7:15 AM for the start of the Premier League, we got there at 11:30 AM and it felt like we were playing catch-up; the place was raucous; then we hauled it over the bridge to Belmar and had beers at Bakes Brewing Co, which were delicious, and the space is epic; then we biked towards home and ate at 10th Avenue Burrito, which was great, as always, and now we are going to get motivated and head to the beach and enjoy the east wind (and we've been using our bikes so much that I have greasestains on both my calves, from the chain I guess-- which I will have ot really scrub at in the shower).

Dave is a Fucking Genius

I think by this time, we all know that you put the beer in the cooler first, then the ice—but I just developed a similar move that I've never seen before; I was going to heat up some rigatoni and meat sauce in the microwave, and usually the sauce splatters all over the inside walls, so I have to put a paper towel over the bowl, but this time I had a brilliant idea, and I put the meat sauce on the bottom of the bowl and I covered the marinara with the rigatoni—so then when I microwaved, there was no splatter!

From Jersey to Double DC

Yesterday my wife and I drove through violent rain to Washington DC— for two hours, it was a white-knuckle drive, and— as usual on the Turnpike— despite the weather, people were driving like assholes and there were several accidents; but we arrived at the Hyatt near DuPont Circle (double DC!) safe and sound, my wife jumped out with the stuff, and I attempted to navigate to the parking garage, but Google led me astray and I pulled into the wrong underground garage— so I switched to Waze (I’m tech savvy like that) and blindly backed out into M Street— a move that would have met with ire, honking, and perhaps a collision in NYC, but the people are more forgiving in the South, so the maneuver went fairly smoothly— I found the deck, parked, reconnoitered with my wife and we went and got some happy hour dumplings and noodles and beer at an unassuming restaurant called CHIKO— a portmanteau of Chinese and Korean and a really cool and affordable casual place serving upscale Asian comfort food— we’d go back— then we got lost inside the O Mansion, one of the weirder museums I’ve ever wandered through— it’s five connected row houses full of vintage treasures and vintage junk, with no real differentiation between the two categories of stuff— piles of stuff, signed guitars and toys and paintings and photographs and antiques and clothing— but the fun is exploring the houses, which are connected by many many secret doors— we found quite a few— one led to a log cabin inside the house, hard to explain but an epic place and worth a visit— it’s also a working hotel and bar; after a couple hours inside that weirdness, we walked to a local dive—The Commodore— and had espresso martinis and chatted with the bartender; then we took a swim in the little pool in the basement of the Hyatt-- caution, world's slipperiest floor--took a nap, walked over to the City Tap House for beers and some sliders . . . a good half day of vacationing, after an awful drive.

It's Never Ugly in Princeton (Even When the Air Quality is Awful)

Yesterday, we took the train from what has to be one of the filthiest, smelliest, most dilapidated train stations in New Jersey: New Brunswick . . . the passages between tracks are often closed, the station houses a number of drug-addled street folk, and there's the ever-present smell of urine and feces; the dark warren of grubby shops is rather pathetic, there's a gross Dunkin' and a little flower and plant store (which our friend owns and runs; she finally had to call the cops because there's so much drug dealing and drug use right in front of her shop) and the railing all the way up the stairs to the southbound track is rusted, jagged, and coming out of the concrete—and New Brunswick Station is even more of an eyesore now that the multi-billion dollar HELIX (Health and Life Science Exchange) complex is nearly finished, as it's located directly across the street—but if you take a 17 minute train ride south, to Princeton Junction and then ride the two-car "Dinky" train for five minutes (2.7 miles) into Princeton proper—as we did yesterday—then it's like you've left New Jersey and gone to to a different country . . . the train station is beautiful and immaculate; you walk up a set of modernist stairs and past an enormous outdoor sculpture installation featuring 12 massive bronze animal heads that represent the signs of the Chinese zodiac-- and then we stopped at one of the best small plate and fancy drink places in the universe:The Dinky Bar and Kitchen-- which is in the old train restored station . . . we had espresso martinis and bao buns-- and then we wandered through the Gothic stone buildings on campus (some of which are hundreds of years old) and we then wandered over to the Princeton University Art Museum-- which is a Manhattan quality museum plopped down right in the middle of campus, and totally free-- and we saw the recent new exhibit, the mesmerizing and layered abstract canvases of Willem de Kooning-- plus loads of other stuff (which only represents five percent of the museum's holdings) and then I got some expensive sorbet at The Bent Spoon while my wife went to the consignment shop and then we met a bunch of friends at Triumph Brewery to listen to jazz and drink great beer in what might be the nicest bar in New Jersey (it took seven years to renovate the old post Office in Palmer Square into this space) and then we were lucky enough to catch a ride home-- Cat and I are the only people that regularly take the train to Princeton, I'm not sure why-- but everyone else drove-- and the next thing we knew, we were in South Brunswick, the North Brunswick, the New Brunswick, then Highland Park . . . and all that Laura Ashley preppy style was long gone and we were back in the Jerzee we all love and know.

It's Very Hot and Dry, So-- in the Name of Liberty-- Let's Shoot Off Some Very Loud Incendiary Devices

It's really fucking hot out, like actually hotter than the kind of heat that I normally complain about, but our neighbors are still having their annual July 4th BBQ-- on July 2nd, to coincide with the town fireworks, and our town is still shooting off their annual July 4th Fireworks (on July 2nd?) so at some point I'm going to brave this heat and drink a beer and play some cornhole-- and though it is an inferno outside, it's fairly pleasant in our house-- probably due to the awesome ceiling fan that I REINSTALLED today (with the help of my lovely wife) so that the connection plate is now perfectly flush with the ceiling, eliminating the slight wobble which I noticed yesterday (and remedied with two folded up piece of paper-- practical but not particularly classy) and I also tightened the fail-safe wire loop so that even if the screws fail, the fan housing will not crash down on anyone's head (unless you're like six foot five, sorry Whit).

First True Day of Summer (for Dave)

Today was the first real day of summer for me—a weekday when everyone else is working, and I have no obligations, so I can do shit during off-peak hours: I woke up when I wanted to wake up (5:50 AM) and worked on my podcast, then I turned off the electricity breaker and started to install our new ceiling fan, but when I opened the package, I realized that my wife ordered the wrong fan (plastic blades, not wood . . . super cheesy) and so I went to Wal-Mart and returned aforementioned ceiling fan  at 10:00 AM . . . no line at customer service; I was in and out and playing pickleball at Ace by 10:15 AM—and over the past two days I've really established myself with the good younger players that play in the middle of the day (do they work?) which isn't easy for an old man, but now they know that looks can be deceiving—and then I watched Brazil defeat Japan (and took a nap at halftime) and after that I went to the Liquor Cave, before rush hour . . . when that two-mile drive becomes impossible to navigate (although it's probably easier now that school is out) and on my way home I asked Google why you can't serve beer over ice and it's because the ice melts rapidly and the coarse surface makes the beer release all it's carbonation, so it gets watered down and goes flat-- so then I had an idea for a plastic frozen stick that goes into beer to chill it but luckily these things already exist, so I don't have to invent them and market them (has anyone used one?) and now I'm going to unload the dishwasher and then try to relax a little, as it's been a hectic day.

Knicks! Knicks?

Alec, Catherine, and I went to the River Road Tavern last night for cheap beer, fairly cheap Blanton's, and great cheesesteaks . . . and to watch the Knicks (because there's no dedicated sports bar in New Brunswick right now-- annoying) and the crowd in this joint was comically diverse-- all the ethnicities of central Jersey in one small dive bar-- mainly there to watch the Knicks dominate once again . . . this is an absurd run, ten wins in a row and a +225 point differential over that stretch-- but my son tells me that the teams from the West are very, very good, and if the Knicks make the finals, things won't be as easy.

Reffing Inside Plato's Cave

I am finally home and drinking a cold beer after a taxing weekend: I reffed six games-- three on Saturday and three today-- and I worked three games as the center ref and two games as AR where the home team was running a serious offside trap, so I got some good experience calling various infractions, from the center and from the side-- and while I'm really starting to get the hang of things-- checking players in, keeping order during substitutions, calling fouls and restarts, and the various organizational duties of the ref, but I still haven't given out a yellow or red card yet and I haven't called a penalty kick-- but I'm ready to do so-- and this weekend, i worked with some veteran refs, including Rocco, an older Italian gentleman who condemns Venmo and only operates with cash and our one-armed assignor, who told a youngster who was nervous about his performance "the best ability is AVAILability"-- which is a fucking great old man statement; anyway, I've noticed that the difference between being a ref and being a coach is that when you're coaching, you are looking for reasons the ref should call a foul, but when you are reffing, you are looking for reasons to NOT call a foul: advantage, there was no contact, the player tripped over his own feet, the player's hands were against his body, little kids are just generally spastic, the ball is stuck in a pack of seven children and there's going to be random bumping without malevolence, a player tripped over the ball, etcetera . . . and there's definitely no way to get it all correct-- reffing is an exercise in futility, an exercise in unreliable narration-- but you have to be confident with your calls-- you can't reveal to the crowd and the players and the coaches that your perspective is limited, that you are at the mercy of your angle and your eyes and your old legs, you can't reveal that we are all residing in Plato's metaphorical cave, only perceiving the shadows of reality, not the actual truth, and your calls are just one subjective view among many, from one particular view of the field, your calls are not biased by rooting for one team or another, your calls are biased because you are a human, living within the flow of time, unable to stop it, run it back, rewind it, slow it time, look at it frame by frame-- this isn't TV-- and there's something very excellent and fun about this, you make a call and sometimes you nail it, and sometimes you wonder, and sometimes you get it wrong (and sometimes your AR corrects you) but you are outside, in the sun, watching sports and listening to passionate fans and players-- so, as a retirement job, it sure beats tutoring kids for the SAT or helping them write a college essay (plus, I got a shitload of exercise-- my feet hurt . . . also, if you bring any of this up during a game, I'll give you a yellow card for dissent).

Go Knicks!

My wife returns from Florida tomorrow morning, and then life will regain its usual rhythm-- not that I did anything wild while she was gone, it was mainly business as usual-- but I tried to do a bit of socializing even though my instinct when I am left to my own devices is to hole up and read and get high and strum my guitar: I went to Happy Hour yesterday at B2 Bistro, but I only had one beer (and then a Coke, which Cunningham roundly insulted for drinking) because I had pickleball practice at 7 PM and needed my wits about me (Terry also only had one beer because he was reffing a soccer match at 7 PM but he had a Diet Coke after his beer) and pickleball practice was fun-- my calf is healed and my new paddle seems to be functional (Vatic Pro V-sol Power) but because my friend Ann wasn't there-- her knee hurt-- there was only one other non-Mandarin speaker at practice and so I really did not understand exactly what was happening-- and then this morning I substituted for Catherine and had coffee at her friend Johanna's house (Connell and Adrian were there too, so I wasn't the only guy crashing) and I talked to my neighbor Pernille quite a bit about the state of education and AI (she's a Rutgers professor) and tonight I'm hanging out with Ian and his friend (and possibly Alex) for the Knicks game-- I'm buying sandwiches so that the youngsters will socialize with me-- but I will be very glad when Cat is back in Jersey.

Dave as a Bachelor is No Gourmand

My mom had heart surgery yesterday, and she is already checked out of the hospital-- the miracles of modern medicine . . . and she didn't even need Donald Trump to lay hands on her!-- meanwhile, back at the ranch, I miss my wife-- she went down to Naples with my brother to help my mom out . . . Ian and I have been eating the baked ziti she made before she left, but we're nearly at the end of it, so we got some sandwiches from Park Deli for dinner tonight-- and I did cut up some peppers and lettuce and cucumbers and eat a salad with the ziti last night, to get some roughage-- but it seems that if my wife leaves town, the menu mainly consists of pasta and beer (and takeout) and so I will be glad when she returns.

Bipolar Beach Day

Ahh . . . Spring Break . . . finally: Cat and I headed to the beach, and while the water was very, very cold, the air was alternatively very very warm and randomly-- if the breeze shifted-- quite chilly; we ate amazing sandwiches at the Speakeatery in Asbury and then stopped for some beer at the Source Farmhouse Brewery (I had the nitro-conditioned Irish Red Ale . . . it took several minutes to pour and had the character of Guinness but with a malty flavor: delicious) and then we got some bread and cheese at Delicious Orchards . . . a good day (aside from the traffic and construction on Route 18 . . . will it ever end?)

I Thought Last Year Was Well Organized?

 

My cousin Kim pronounced last year's Easter Pizza resurrection as "total chaos" with no "quality control," and so this year things were much more organized, and generally the experts did the delicate work of folding dough and making the "toes"-- so my wife had to work all afternoon (and so did some small children) while I only had to cut some sausage and then got to watch basketball and drink beer-- and this year's pizzagaina were notably more uniform and delicious than last year's batch-- and I am certainly better at eating them than making them.

Spring Break!

Judging by the table on my deck, we got more snow during this storm than we did during the last storm (the top photo is the last storm; the bottom is this one) but shoveling out of this one is more pleasant because it's not as frigid as it was during the last storm-- and we have another day off tomorrow, so I'm trying to enjoy myself . . . since we didn't budget any snow days, this is ostensibly our spring break . . . and I'd be able to enjoy myself more if my wife had told me she was going to the beer store on Sunday-- she bought herself some Asbury Park Blonde, but she did not buy me any Asbury Park Stout (we only drink beer that represents our physical characteristics, thus I can't have any of her Blonde and she does not drink my Stout).

The Best Place to Be a Regular

We braved the cold with our old friends Mel, Ed, Rob, and Julie in Princeton yesterday: after lunch, we explored the recently opened Princeton University Art Museum-- Princeton University has always had an incredible art collection, but it was crammed into a smaller building-- but now everything is on display in an enormous 146,000-square-foot modernist building with 32 galleries stocked with incredibly art and history, Monet's "Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge" and a Manet and a Pisarro and a Van Gogh and a Rodin and an unfinished studio version of Jaques-Louis David's "The Death of Socrates" and several detailed Roman mosaics from Antioch, Turkey and much ancient ceramics and sculpture . . . and it's free! you just wander in! and then we went over to the newly renovated Triumph Brewery, which has the nicest lounge and the best jazz around (and the beer is great too) and we also noticed that Princeton did a much better job with snow removal and street and sidewalk shoveling than New Brunswick (and especially the no man's land between Highland Park and New Brunswick . . . Princeton, that's where the money is . . . and the endowment money . . . 36 billion dollars of it).

Crullers, Calder, and Cheesesteaks

Typical day in Philly: donuts from the Amish bakery at Reading Terminal Market, a visit to the new Calder Sculpture Garden and Museum, a cheesesteak at Shay's, and then we retreated to Stacey's apartment so I could rest my stupid swollen knee; last night, we enjoyed dumplings at Emei and beer at Love City Brewing, where we watched the Eagles eke out a victory over the Bills . . . there's nothing like a Philly bar during an Eagles game (even if you're secretly rooting for Buffalo to take it into overtime).

Gettysburg: A Whole Lotta History (and beer)

Some of the Gettysburg experience: Seminary Hill, Cemetery Hill, Pickett's suicidal Charge, Little Round Top, Big Round Top-- with my sense of direction, I would have definitely gone to the wrong Round Top-- thousands of corpses to bury . . . before the pigs got to them (and they weren't discerning between dead bodies and nearly dead bodies) a stench of bodies so bad it could be smelled several towns over, so many smells that paranormal experts insist that these ghostly scents still pervade the battlefield to this day, hastily assembled rock walls, the lone civilian casulaty Jennie Wade, philandering Dan Sickles and his amputated leg, the Dobbin House and a pile of amputated limbs, many monuments to many men, and so many bars and craft beers-- at one stop a rather inebriated lady asked us if we had been daydrinking and then said she had been to 17 bars in one day (maybe not this day) and then she proceeded to compare random people at the bar to celebrities. . . we saw faux-Freddy Mercury and an impoverished man's version of Rocky's trainer Mickey, then today we went for a rugged hike in Caledonia State Park and saw 19th century furnaces and hearths, and of course, many old houses-- made of stone and brick-- and we have read many placards, listened to many historians and guides-- and I've been plowing through some Civil War books, so in the end it is far too much history to digest (plus the film and the museum!) but the Military Park is very well-marked and quite easy to navigate (for its vast size and scope) and you really can understand how this infamous and pivotal battle went down.

Automobiles, Automobiles, Automobiles (and The Cult)

A very un-Dave weekend, but I survived and had a pretty damned good time, despite all the traffic: Saturday morning, I drove my Kia Sportage forty minutes through typical New Jersey traffic to Zman's house-- there's no good way to get there from Highland Park-- and then after listening to a few tales of Zwife's driving misadventures, we got into Zman's Alfa Romeo and headed up to Hopkinton-- home of Gormley and also the town where the Boston Marathon starts-- but we had to wade into epic traffic on the Hutchinson or the Cross Bronx or the Merritt-- who the fuck knows the difference between those roads?-- so we stopped for lunch at Zuppardi's Apizza in West Haven, which was delicious-- and then fought through a bunch more traffic on the way to Gormley's lovely abode, in the piney, fern gullied, rock-walled suburbs of Hopkinton-- and then we took a walk through the hood, where we did NOT encounter a beach ball (fucking AI is destroying reality) and then got ready to head to the show, which was in Boston city center, at the Orpheum-- and Gormley's wife drove us in, through even more traffic (thanks Liz!) and we hopped out at a traffic light and then I had to chase down the car because I left my phone charging in the backseat . . . I caught up to Liz as she was turning right, knocked on the window, jumped in and grabbed my phone, and then jumped out of the car before anyone could even beep at her-- a random middle-aged white dude was impressed by my alacrity and he said, "nice move!" and I held up my phone and told him "my ticket to the show is on here!" and he said, "Are you going to see The Cult?" and I said, "Yes I am!" and then we went to jm Curley's for drinks and food and then walked to the Orpheum for the show-- the opening act was a noisy duo called The Patriarchy-- but the lead singer was a lady . . . ironic!-- and then The Cult came out as The Death Cult, the goth-punk band that preceded The Cult-- and Ian Astbury was in some sort of Native American dress-robe and they played all the old stuff from Dreamtime and before (e.g. "Gods Zoo") and then the curtain went down, we restocked our beer, and then The Cult came out as The Cult and played all the old favorites, from "Wildflower" to "She Sells Sanctuary"-- I especially enjoyed a stripped-down double time version of "Fire Woman" . . . I guess they were like: we're required to play this but we're going to do it quickly . . . anyway, it was a great show, the band seemed especially energized and invigorated playing the old goth-punk stuff-- Billy Duffy had to actually pay attention to what he was doing instead of cranking out the power chords and the drummer, John Tempesta, is exceptional and really laid down those culturally appropriated tribal beats-- I did have to tell the guy in front of me to lower his phone-- he seemed to think he was filming a documentary-- but once I said something, he stopped holding it up without any conflict-- and in general, the crowd was very pleasant-- it was essentially a convention of burly middle-aged white males, a few still sporting long hair but most bald or balding-- and everyone looked like they were trouble thirty years ago but had since more-or-less assimilated into normal society-- it made me think of how long a history I have with this band-- I first saw them on the Electric tour in July of 1987 at the Felt Forum-- so 38 years ago-- it was an insane show-- they opened with "Bad Fun" and the moshing was actually violent and Ian got stuck on top of a amplifier at one point and roadies had to help him down . . . there's not many bands that I saw in high school that are still touring (The Who are probably the only other band that fits into this category, although I think they are done now) and then after the show we went back to jm Curley's for a nightcap and caught a ride back to Hopkinton (thanks for arranging that ride, Gormley!) where I finished the leftover pizza and hit the sack and then Zman and I got on the road early and hauled it back to Jersey-- that's more car-time than I prefer to do but I chewed some gum and enjoyed the good craik (as they say in Scotland) and Zman's flawless driving and now I'm home andd getting ready for school tomorrow . . . a whirlwind weekend.

Sandy Hook, The Mule Barn, Idioms, Lanternflies, Always Sunny . . .

My wife and I had no school on Tuesday (because of Rosh Hashanah) and so we drove our bikes to Sandy Hook and rode the multi-use trail through the old yellow brick army barracks (some of which have been renovated into beachfront rentals) and to the various beaches (one of which is clothing optional, we did not opt to stop) and finally to the new bar/restaurant, The Mule Barn-- which has a lovely patio, but we elected to have a beer indoors because it was hot as fuck out-- the Mule Barn is a great joint, on the water, all the way out on the end of the hook and it serves a variety of New Jersey beers (and apparently the food is good as well) and while we were there, my wife-- who is a mix-master of idioms-- described someone as "loud in the crowd" but then she did not possess the second half of this phrase she invented-- she wanted to say that this person is "loud in the crowd" but shy in smaller groups . . . so I enlisted AI to come up with a rhyming second half but the best it could muster was "loud in the crowd but a mouse in the house" and "loud in the crowd but a bore when it's four"-- I odn't think those are lexical masterpieces-- and then we drove back over the bridge to the Atlantic Highlands for lunch and a beer at The Proving Grounds, where we were swarmed by lanternflies-- I thought those things pretty much died out in New Jersey but apparently they all migrated to the beach to enjoy the waterfront views-- so though our food was great, we beat a hasty retreat once we finished and headed back to our lantern-fly-free but very humid hometown and I walked to New Brunswick with the guys and we went back to Harvest Moon for shitty beer-- why?-- and we sat outside in the humidity--why?-- but I did get to meet up with my son Alex, who had just gotten out of class and he walked back to Highland Park with us, to my friend's house and had a beer with us-- and then we watched two very funny episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "Mac and Dennis Become EMTs" and "The Gang Goes to a Dog Track"-- highly recommended . . . a fabulous day off from work.

Harvest Moon: Making Fairly Shitty Beer for Nearly Thirty Years

For the first time in a long time, I went to Harvest Moon last night for a few beers with the guys, and I was duly impressed: the Firehouse Red tasted bland and fuzzy; the Fuller Moon IPA left something to be desired in the way of hoppiness, crispness, and flavor; and the Dunluce Castle Stout, while drinkable and not as disappointing as the other beers, was not notable in any particular way . . . it's fairly amazing-- this microbrewery, which has been operating in New Brunswick since 1996, has consistently made lame and lousy tasting beer for three decades, yet they keep plugging along, while more interesting pubs have withered and died-- but you'd think they'd figure out how to make better beer by now.