Southern Arizona Meetup 2007
Posting from: Tucson, AZ
A couple weekends ago a few other southern Arizona locals and I hosted a meetup of pro-freedom individuals down here. I had a great time. I wished a few people from last year's meetup were also here, but we got an extremely good turnout roughly doubling last year's attendance. Here's the blow-by-blow of what I participated in. This post will be updated multiple times in the next few days to capture it all in one place. I'm going to start putting the new material each day in a different color since I've started going back and filling in details that I forgot during the initial write-up. If the color doesn't work for you, let me know and I'll either change it or get rid of it. And I think I'm going to pop this up to the top of the page until I'm finished writing it
Thursday night
I drove up to Phoenix to pick up Dave Polaschek who flew in from Minneapolis. His plane was pretty close to being on time and he was easy to spot being one of the tallest people coming off the flight and also wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Hawaiian shirts would be a recurring theme for him through the weekend. We drove home to my place getting in around 1:30 am on Friday morning. We slept about four hours and then were out the door again the next morning so I could put in a half day at work before our planned trip to the ball park for a spring training game.
I forgot to mention before the little adventure that was the trip home. It was easy to get into Sky Harbor Airport. I-10 to 143 to the airport exit. Circle around to your terminal. Park. Go in. No problem. But getting out was harder. I wasn't sure which exit out of the airport to take but managed to get the right one which took me onto 143 which SHOULD have taken me to I-10. But with no warnings and no recommended detour, the exit to I-10 was closed and I just kept on going. Having left my map safely at home where it could not accidentally get lost, I wandered around a bit on the freeways until I got on the 202 or 101 loop which eventually got me back to I-10 and going in the right direction. This would be a recurring theme that weekend.
Friday morning
I gave Dave a free pass and dropped him off at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for a few hours and headed to work. I blew on out of work a little after noon and headed back to the museum to meet Dave in the cafe/gift shop. However, he was standing out front having seen all he was going to see and not wanting to take up a table in the cafe when people were looking for a place to sit. He was wearing a very bright Hawaiian shirt that day and reported that it went over well in the hummingbird aviary. Apparently there was at least one who spent a lot of time hovering over his shoulder- unfortunately not in a place he could photograph it.
Polaschek's posting some of his desert and desert museum photos. I'll link to them here as they get posted. The panoramas are particularly good, and I noticed this morning that I was looking at my mountains with fresh eyes after seeing them through his lens.
Mountains at Sunrise (taken from my back porch)
Arizona-Sonora Desert Panorama
Squishycow in the Desert
Cholla
Barrel Cactus
Desert Panorama 2
Sprinkler
Javvy
Whitetail
Cactus Flowers
Bird and Cacti
Coyote
Ocelot (WARNING: INCREDIBLY CUTE!)
Dove on a Cactus
Hummingbird
Friday afternoon
We headed over to Tucson Electric Park for a spring training game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago White Sox. Dave asked for best available seats and we wound up just a few rows behind the White Sox dugout even though it was already well into the game. We first stopped into a shop to get a hat for Dave to help fend off sunburn, and then we got lunch at a Thai concession stand and at a rootbeer float stand before making our way to our seats.
I didn't recognize any of the players' names except Junior Spivey, and we only saw one run scored. But it was really cool to be so close that we could see the expressions on the players' faces and watch the White Sox tossing balls to the fans between innings. Dave is a huge baseball fan with season tickets every year to the Saints games up in Minnesota. He was a good person to quiz on things like what is a designated hitter and what the H/E box on the scoreboard is for. He also took a bunch of pictures at the game which I hope he will post soon on Flickr. I can't wait to see how they turn out. As we left the park, I asked Dave if he'd managed to violate the no tripods prohibition even though the security wench had looked through practically every crevice of his camera bag. No, he said, but she'd missed the pocket in which he'd had a prohibited umbrella.
Two neat things that happened at the ballpark that I forgot to mention before. One guy leaned out of the press box looming over the stands and managed to catch a fly ball. A ball came bouncing our way when it was bobbled by a few people trying to grab it and Polaschek almost got it. Unfortunately, he lost it too and it went to some blonde chick in front of us.
I was wearing a tank top, but I apparently I basted myself sufficiently in sunscreen because I didn't burn. I think Dave got a little pink but his brand new Diamondbacks ballcap seemed to take care of his noggin nicely.
Dave has started posting some of his pictures from the game. I'll post more links as he adds pictures.
Panorama of the field from our seats behind the White Sox dugout
Jorge Julio pitching for the Diamondbacks
Sunshine and Smiles- anyone know who this is?
Diamondbacks Dugout
John Danks warming up
A pitch that's A Little Low
Foul Ball
After the game, we headed over to Circuit City for another card for Dave's camera, Trader Joe's to grab some groceries for the weekend, and then out to fungusmunkey's house for the evening meet-and-greet get-together.
Friday night
Dave and I headed over to fungusmunkey's place where we found several people already gathered in his front yard sitting around a chimenea- azcoyote, gooch, enemyofthestate, and henshawe in addition to fungusmunkey. There were introductions, setting up of chairs, opening of beverages, and status checks on who was still to come. Jac was not able to come out to Tucson, JDW had called to say he wouldn't make it that night but would be arriving the next day, and Ted Nielsen, li'l p, and Brenda were still to arrive. We'd gotten a message earlier in the day that Ted had not yet picked up li'l p so we knew they'd be late. And I think Ian had PM'd me that he wouldn't arrive until Saturday afternoon.
Shortly after we got there, people started making noise about being hungry and we went through the painful process of ordering pizza. Pizza-ordering by committee under the influence of alcohol got off track a couple of times so fungusmunkey and I picked a pizza menu and went around the circle of folks in the front yard to find out what they wanted on their pizza and how many slices they were going to eat. We took up a collection, and I ordered the pizza. We ended up ordering two 16 inch sausage and pepperoni (henshawe insisted that he must have an entire 16 inch sausage and pepperoni to himself), one very veggie (by request of gooch), and one Rasta with spicy Jamaican chicken (by Dave's suggestion).
Sometime either shortly before the pizza arrived, li'l p, Ted and Brenda arrived. Brenda had brought one of my favorite wines that I had first tried when she brought it to the Tucson meetup February last year and also cookies from Trader Joe's which she had also done last year. I was driving so I just had a little bit of wine, and I had a couple of chocolate dipped macaroons to tide me over until the pizza showed up. It turned out we had ordered more than enough for everyone even though li'l p, Ted, and Brenda weren't there when we ordered so we didn't need to reorder. We even had one entire sausage and pepperoni pizza leftover which was reportedly eaten for breakfast the next day by those staying at the fungusmunkey house. I was also later told that henshawe did not recall having insisted on his own extra large pizza. That would explain why he seemed terribly confused when I tried to hand him his pizza to take back to where we were all going to be sitting while we ate.
We sat around eating pizza and enjoying the entertainment of li'l p acclimating to "the big city". He'd hear traffic or sirens or hear air traffic overhead and look visibly nervous. And he was pretty vocal about not liking Tucson. Fortunately, he was staying at my place in a small town west of Tucson. Chitchat including making plans for what we'd do the next day. It was decided that we'd go out to the Three Points Public Shooting Range the next morning, and some of us would break away mid-day for a home electronics lab and machine shop tour. Li'l p skewered his foot on a mesquite thorn that went right through the bottom of a rather robust boot. I gave out some welcome bags I'd put together with things like notepads and pens, sunscreen (SPF 45), a bottle of water, etc.
Li'l p had ridden down to Tucson with Ted, but he was going to stay out at my place so we had to move all his stuff over to my Element to come home with us. There was a duffle bag, a big box of carpentry tools (he was going to make some of my house problems go away), multiple firearms and ammunition containers, and li'l p himself to pack into the car. Behind the back seats was partly full with a cooler, my bugout box, and other things I'd brought, and Dave's rather large camera bag was in the back seat already. We also had to fit in a record player (YES! THANK YOU!) that Brenda had brought for me. Dave and li'l p seemed skeptical, but I knew everything would fit for I am a Master Packer. There was some packing and unpacking and repacking as new things appeard on the sidewalk next to my car, but everything fit in. The only axis in which anything was packed uncomfortably was the z-axis because the people riding along with me were pretty tall and the back seat is offset upward a little bit in what is referred to as "theater-style seating".
At some point after we'd made a plan for Saturday, people started dispersing. I think we were all tired. Fungusmunkey tried to send us home with all the beer saying that he was cutting way back after that night so we ended up with a cooler more full of beer than when we arrived. Dave, li'l p and I all loaded into my car and made the hour long drive out to my place. When we opened the door to my house, li'l p said out loud what I was thinking- the place smelled like cat piss. I don't have a cat, though. The only thing I could think of is that maybe it was from steam cleaning the carpet if the people who lived here before me had a cat that peed on the carpet. However, it didn't smell like that to me a couple of days before when I had actually steam cleaned it nor in the days after that. I'm not sure what that was about.
The three of us stayed up for a while just yammering before we went to bed- Dave in the guest room and li'l p on the couch in the living room.
Saturday morning
I woke to the sounds of things going on in my kitchen. Dave and li'l p were making breakfast. I got dressed and came out to set the table. I think we had an egg scramble with bell pepper, onion, bacon, and cream cheese. Possibly some other things in there. I just remembered- also tomato. I can't remember if we had toast with that, but it was delicious. I was going to home roast some coffee but Dave is not a coffee drinker (he only likes the smell), and li'l p has gone caffeine free and I did not have decaf. I think breakfast beverages involved whole milk and Mountain Dew.
After breakfast, I was going to drop the two of them off at the range down the street from my house to meet the others and then come home for some alone time. An INTJ gets cranky if she does not have her alone time. But li'l p made a good case that they should have an escape vehicle at the ready in case anything sketchy safety- or other-wise happened so I brought drumsticks and a book to keep my occupied while I sat in the car.
We drove out to the range and signed in at the office where the guy at the desk gave me the Women Can Shoot, Too, You Know pep talk. I wasn't shooting that day because I don't like to shoot with people I don't know. He got us set up with targets, something something indicators I think for the rifles, and I grabbed coupons to a couple of local gun shows coming up. Then he directed us out front of the office to the 100 yard black powder range. The 1000 and 300 yard ranges were apparently occupied by matches that morning.
Dave and li'l p started setting some things up. We didn't have a stapler with us and the target needed to be attached to the target stand. I fished around in my bugout box and came up with some first aid tape. Fungusmunkey and a friend showed up next followed by azcoyote, enemyofthestate and gooch. I got some nice pictures of people shooting some of which I may post if I get their permission. Dave, having flow in, did not bring his toys with him so he just kind of sampled what others had. I stayed in the car most of the time. I had earplugs in, but I was still hearing some of the bigger stuff at uncomfortable levels. Someone- gooch maybe?- offered me a pair of earmuffs but I just hopped back in the car. My camera batteries died so I let my roomies know that I was going to run back home for fresh ones since I'd forgotten.
On the way to the range, we'd seen two Border Patrol vehicles at the intersection of the Ajo Highway and the Sasabe Highway. That had doubled by the time I went home to get my camera and come back. When I got back to the range, it was time to go back into Tucson to Machine Shop Andrew's place for a tour of his home electronics lab and machine shop. We saw more than two handfuls of BP vehicles traveling west on Ajo Highway as we traveled east. I pointed out which ones were good and which ones were no good to flip off based on my experience having been pulled over and harassed by a border patrol agent when I flipped him off last year. Parked by the side of the road? Do not flip that one off because he can pull out and chase you down. Driving in the opposite direction and pulling a trailer with ATVs behind him? Okay to flip off. But we didn't flip anyone off that weekend so as not to interrupt any of our plans with unwanted law enforcement encounters.
Before I left the range, I got a call from JDW who was now a couple dozen miles outside of Tucson and looking for directions on how to get to where everyone else was. A bunch of people were sticking around the range for more shooting so I gave him directions out to there. I was pretty sure he'd be interested in the shooting thing, too, and probably moreso than the machine shop tour although I probably should have asked. I'm not very good at making arrangements for things under pressure and on short notice. The details tend to escape me until later.
Saturday afternoon
We got over to Machine Shop Andrew's place and parked in front of his house. The garage/machine shop was up and his front door was wide open. I think Ted and Brenda may have gotten there before li'l p, Dave, and me.
Our first order of business was to order lunch from East Coast Super Subs. We got a tuna for Brenda, a Philly cheesesteak I think for Machine Shop Andrew, and then li'l p, Ted, and I got a cheesesteak, a club sandwich, and something with turkey and cheese which we cut up into sandwichettes and split between the three of us. Damn those were good sandwiches. I love East Coast Super Subs. We also had an order or two of curly fries. I ran down the street to Circle K for some sodas. We sat around chatting about Andrew's setup and what he was doing with it while we ate.
I've seen all this stuff many times before, but I never fail to learn something new each time I go there. This time it was about circuit cards and how to build them. It turns out that a person can actually do this in his or her home without too terribly much trouble. Handy. He showed us the software he uses for the card layout, and how he removes the unwanted metal from the board leaving behind the appropriate metal footprint for the circuit. He has a special little fixture he built to hold the masking images he uses to block UV light from hitting those areas so that the metal is maintained in those places. I think I should have taken more pictures of that setup.
In the machine shop, Andrew walked us through all of the tools he has including one machine which is only for making screws. He has been getting some old and rusty junkers through various sources at very cheap prices- so cheap that some are worth more as scrap metal than what he has paid for them. Then he restores them by hand to working condition. One was completed and sent off to live at a friend's house. He has six or eight others in progress in his garage/shop.
I'm going through my pictures to see if there are any I can post. Most of them have people in them so I need to get their permission. I'm also going to try and get the pages Andrew made of his restoration of a lathe put up on my site if he'll let me. It was an INCREDIBLE transformation! When I first saw the hunk of junk, I didn't think he'd get it done. But I promised him I'd buy him sushi if he did completely restore it, and sure enough I had to pay up some months later. I was personally very inspired by that.
At some point during the machine shop tour, I left the garage and went into the house. I think I was looking for something on my computer and wanted to sit somewhere comfortable. A few minutes after I sat down, I heard something I NEVER hear out where I live- the ice cream truck! That hideously annoying fake music backed up by the drone of a truck engine. It's an attrocious sound, but it signals a wondrous moment in which one has the choice of 8 bazillion little ice cream novelties that one need not buy a box of 6 to indulge in. I grabbed a five out of my wallet and headed out only to see li'l p headed out of the garage toward the ice cream truck as well.
When I got out there, the driver lady was turning the cassette tape over to play more music. I picked out some kind of mudslide ice cream sandwich- a very easy sort of sandwich to enjoy. This is where I found out that li'l p is not a fan of chocolate. I became very wary of him at this point. That's just not right. I think he ended up with an orange creamsicle of some sort. We took each others' pictures with our desserts in front of the ice cream truck, and then sat with the others on the driveway in front of Andrew's shop chatting for a while longer. It was a good day to be an adult- no begging mom or dad for money for ice cream!
Here is where the fact that my bad luck of last year has not carried over into this year really started paying off this weekend.
We left Machine Shop Andrew's place and were driving over to Brew Your Own Brew to pick up a Show Low Pale Ale beer kit to take out to the brewing demo at Jac's place the next day. We got almost all the way there when I realized I'd forgotten my purse. So I called Andrew and luckily (make a note of this part- it will be important a little later) he was still home so I was able to run back and get it. Then Dave, li'l p, and I set off a second time for BYOB. When we walked in the door and made our request, the person who greeted us asked him to just give him a moment because they were boxing up the exact kits we were looking for as we walked in the door. We picked up our kit plus some liquid yeast and some replacement dry yeast for my ginger ale project that has yet to get off the ground, and checked out. Li'l p was horrified that, after having given my real name at the range when registering, I was now giving my real name to the good folks at my little independent beer brewing store. I told him that was nothing- he should have been with Dave and me when we were in Circuit City and Dave was giving them his real phone number and address for their database. There was a little Rusy Shackleford (spelling?) chitchat, and then we set off for my place to pick up/drop off things before the evening barbeque out at azcoyote's place.
I headed west on Grant thinking I'd catch I-10 to I-19 to the Ajo exit and save a bunch of time on in-town driving since we were running late. However, it became obvious when I turned to get on the freeway that it was worse than in-town driving. Since they are getting ready to do 2 years worth of construction on I-10 that will involve closing all on- and off-ramps from Prince to 22nd street, we have had built for us a grand and glorious three or so lane frontage road that is actually quite nice. So I decided to take that instead. Plus, we were pretty thirsty and there's an AM/PM gas station and convenience store at the end of the Speedway off-ramp.
There's one little catch to this frontage road that I always seem to forget- the damned stop signs for those on the frontage road so that traffic coming off the freeway has the right of way. D'oh! So we came to a rudely quick stop when someone kindly pointed out the sign. We made the stop okay. I remember looking. I remember going after looking. Then suddenly I notice a car coming off the freeway and I are on a collision course. My bad for missing that. I don't know if it was one of those things where I looked, saw, and it didn't register, or if it was in my blind spot at the moment that I happened to be looking.
I was going pretty slowly, and I think if he'd just kept going at his pace then he'd have gone in front of me with no problem. But he didn't- he slowed down, and I wound up in front of him. We proceeded to the stop light at end of the on-ramp, and as I was making a right turn onto Speedway to go into the AM/PM I ended up being pulled over by a cop who'd seen the whole thing.
First thing he wanted was my license and registration and proof of insurance so I pulled out the folder I keep it in, looked in the pocket where it should be and realize- OH SHIT!- I took out my registration to do my taxes since I can deduct that from my federal income taxes and I had three insurance cards of which none were current. I figured it was probably clipped to my registration and came out, too. So now I was up to potentially three tickets instead of just one, and I am pretty sure that you no longer will get off without a fine in Arizona by sending in proof of registration and insurance within thirty days.
Meanwhile, he saw that a passenger in my back seat was armed. Open-carry is legal in Arizona, and one of my passengers had been taking advantage of that. But I think this made the cop a little more attentive. He couldn't see very well back there because I have well-tinted privacy glass on all but the front windows. A conversation ensued:
Cop: Could you roll down this back window?
Me: No.
*uncomfortable moment of silence*
Passenger in the back: I think it pops out a couple of inches.
Me: Right! It doesn't roll down, it just has this latch thingy and it just kind of angles out a little bit.
Cop: Never mind, I can see from here. (looking back through the front window)
There were some jokes about that armed passenger almost getting Tasered after that. I am training myself to say nothing more than is absolutely necessary to cops, but I can see how a little more explanation was helpful in this situation. He then took my license back to his car to do whatever check he was doing where he may have noticed that the address on my license does not match the address the DMV has for me.
Cha-ching! There I was at the AM/PM (1) having violated the traffic law, (2) having a driver's license with a non-current address, (3) not having my registration on me, (4) not having my proof of insurance on me, and as I found out later (5) having an unbelted passenger in the back. That could have been a mighty expensive day. Thank goodness I at least had my license on me although that almost didn't happen!
But the cop, in his best swaggering voice of authority said, "I'm feeling generous today..." and I was off the hook with a warning. Phew! Oh, man, that could have gone all kinds of badly- particularly if I hadn't been able to get my purse back and was also licenseless when I was pulled over or if li'l p's flannel shirt had accidentally draped over one of his weapons thereby turning it into an illicit concealed weapon or something to that effect.
We parked and ran into the AM/PM for drinks as I think everyone was pretty thirsty which was why we were going to AM/PM when the cop pulled me over. Then we headed out to my house where we put the liquid yeast (which had been on ice in the cooler) in the refrigerator, grabbed a couple of things, and headed back out to azcoyote's house for the evening barbeque. I called her on the way there to let her know that we were running late.
Saturday night
So we get on out to azcoyote's place, and I'm looking for the house that looks like the description she gave (color of house, color of trim) but that turned out to be extraneous. How could we miss the place with the big Don't Tread on Me flag waving proudly from the front of the house? At first, I thought it was Dull'hawk's Time's Up flag, but she corrected me. I always liked Dull'hawk's flag, but never knew what I'd do with it. Now I'm thinking that this might be a great use for one so I'll have to go see if they're still available. Anyway, the Don't Tread on Me flag was a really nice landmark, and a great start to what I think was hands-down the best event of the meetup.
There were twelve or thirteen people in attendance sitting around a campfire in lawn chairs. There was beer, there was bonfire, there was bullshitting. Certain groups of people tended to congregate together more frequently than others, but I think everyone probably got a chance to talk to everyone else. I moved from seat to seat around the fire tolook up Ian's kilt get a chance to hear a little bit of what everyone was talking about. (About the kilt- Ian would neither divulge the status of his undegarments or lack thereof, nor did he accidentally show anything conclusive. The only thing he would tell us was that he was definitely NOT wearing the pink elephant underwear.)
I don't really recall the order of the events through the evening so these are somewhat random. There was a call from woodtramp which was arranged pre-meetup. He chatted with me a while about the Beyond Bullets and Ballots conference he was attending which prevented him from being at the meetup. I am trying to get him to send me his presentation, and I'll share it if he gives me permission to do so. I also tried calling PSM but got voice mail. He'd mentioned that an illness in his household was still running rampant so I decided not to call back later in order to not interrupt any sleep they might be getting.
There was some grilling. Azcoyote had a burger and a hot dog for everyone. I saw gooch and fungusmunkey somewhere in the vicinity of the campfire at the moment the most infamous quote of the weekend was uttered. There was some flipping and turning of items on the grill when, in a moment of relative quiet in the area, I heard a mildly dejected expression from fungusmunkey of, "Wiener down." Yes, there had been a casualty- a dog overboard, if you will. One hot and juicy wiener had taken a dive into the dirt and was thereafter referred to as the dirt wiener. One person quickly acted so as not to violate the 10-second rule, fished the dog from the dirt, reportedly wiped it on his jeans, and replaced it to its rightful position on the grill. I have also heard tell that said dog was subsequently consumed by the rescuer in question.
There were some magical moments which involved one Mr. JDW- storyteller, indeed. It's as though sitting around a campfire is his natural habitat. People quickly figured out that when he started talking, it was in all of our best interests to shut up and let the magic happen. If you read some apparently inside jokes about an icepick and a van, well, you shoulda been there! He has said that he'd prefer that and other stories not get posted publicly, and even if that weren't the case, I could never tell it as it had to be told anyway. But if you hear that he is going to a meetup, I highly recommend you try to make the same meetup yourself.
Other interesting conversation revolved around dreams- specifically, more than one person mentioned having a series of dreams in which they were needing to fire a gun at some bad guy and the gun wouldn't fire (or some variation on that). I think a couple people said the dreams stopped at some point after having had the same dream except that the gun functioned fine.
Other bits and pieces of the evening may get added later. I really do remember this being my favorite part of the meetup, but the details escape me at the moment. At the end of the evening when we were getting ready to go, Ian mentioned that he did not yet have sleeping arrangements so he followed Dave, li'l p, and me home in his vehicle. It was about an hour long drive from azcoyote's place, and I don't recall a lot of the conversation. At this point it had been three or four days in a row that I was getting only 4-5 hours of sleep, and I was pretty tired. We got home, I threw some sheets on the other bed in the guest room for Ian, there was a quick smoke break out on the patio, li'l p peed off my patio down into my yard because he doesn't like toilets and I figured if it's good enough for Pepper it's good enough for him, and everyone went to bed shortly thereafter. And I think that covers up through Saturday.
I believe it was also Saturday when fungusmunkey's wife made clear that she was not interested in being referred to as "Mrs. fungusmunkey".
Sunday morning
On Sunday morning I once again woke to the sounds of breakfast being made in my kitchen. The day before I'd eaten WAY too much. I'm not normally a breakfast person, but I'd eaten a really delicious egg scramble. Then I had a huge lunch. By dinner time I only ate a plain hamburger on a bun and a cookie for dessert. So on Sunday morning, I just had a small breakfast of blueberry crumpets from Trader Joe's and some tea because tea and crumpets go together. The guys made another egg scrambleand I threw some sourdough English muffins in the toaster which they had with cream cheese and smoked salmon (whoops, wrong breakfast) and someone fried up the chicken breakfast sausage I'd gotten at Trader Joe's on Friday. The apple-smoked bacon from Trader Joe's got good marks from li'l p (a former chef), but he and possibly everyone else looked down upon the chicken sausage with scorn. Ian made some kind of strange concoction which involved, I think, ginger powder, water, vinegar, and brown sugar. I had a little taste. It didn't taste too bad, but I'm not sure why I'd drink it instead of something else.
After breakfast, I did a little bit of much-needed kitchen cleanup and the guys hung out on the patio. It wasn't exactly alone time, but it was a pretty nice break from all the socializing. After clearing space and cleaning enough dishes to do it, I started making salsa (here's the basic recipe with one poblano, one banana pepper, two jalapenos, and two habaneros) to take to Jac's place where we'd be later for a brewing demo, Linux workshop (I use that term loosely), shooting and dinner. Originally it was going to be taken to the barbeque the night before, but I didn't have time to make it after all the running around and being pulled over and whatnot.
I got most of the way through it before the guys came in and helped me finish it up so we could get out of there and on the road to Jac's place. There was some knife-sharpening before they got started, I believe. I think Ian did the cilantro (which I most hate chopping- thanks, Ian!), Dave saved me from going bell pepper-less by pointing out that they hadn't used all the bell pepper for breakfasts and chopped that up, and li'l p did the habaneros. Li'l p was all excited about the recipe until- HORRORS!- I plopped in a can of El Pato jalapeno salsa. That was cooked, so now it was no longer true pico de gallo.
Once we got the salsa done, loaded up beer and soda, salsa and yeast into the cooler. We loaded tortilla chips and games and cooler and guns and computers into the car. We were all set to go except... now I couldn't find my camera. I looked in my computer bag and all over the car which were the most likely spots. We all piled out to search the house. No luck. Finally, I just gave up and we piled back into the car for the trip out to Jac's place.
Sunday afternoon
The trip out east to Jac's place started off, I think, with a stop at the gas station. One of us needed to stop for ammo, but we decided to do that at a Walmart out near Jac instead of when we were hitting the road. We were pretty sure there'd be some standing around time during the beer brewing process so we figured we'd save time that way. It turns out that was good because the first thing we did when we got to Jac's was to send a group out to Walmart for water for beer-brewing anyway.
On the road out to Jac's we played a game of Apples to Apples. Li'l p read the adjective cards, everyone picked a noun from their hand of cards, and Ian read off all the entries. Then I picked which one I thought best matched the adjective. It was okay, but it's a lot more fun when played the right way with everyone getting a turn to be the judge. But since I was driving, I couldn't do anything that involved reading. Anyway, I made a comment that we weren't keeping score and someone from the back- Ian or li'l p- said that yes, of course, we were keeping score. I never found out who won, though. The game just kind of fizzled out when we got into town and I had to call Jac to find out how close to the edge of town was the turnoff to where we were meeting. A few minutes later we were driving in his neighborhood and saw Jac waving us down from the side of the street. I think we were the first ones there. Shortly afterward Ted and Brenda, fungusmunkey and his wife, and enemyofthestate all showed up. Then a while after that we also had gooch arrive.
We were stationed in the garage of Jac's brother with a lot of open space in the middle and some shelves and chairs around the edges. After introductions, chitchat, and some standing around, the first order of business was a trip to Walmart for water for beer brewing and ammo. It was rumored that one of our number became mesmerized with the plasma TVs and a rescue mission had to be mounted which allegedly explains how long they took at Walmart.
When they got back from Walmart, brewing commenced. It turns out it's not terribly hard or confusing if you get your kit from Brew Your Own Brew. We were brewing their Show Low Pale Ale. They included a very explicit step-by-step instruction sheet which we followed. I think our only deviation was to use separately purchased liquid yeast instead of what was in the kit.
After brewing got going, some people started taking turns stirring and adding ingredients and whatnot while others pulled out their laptops, plugged into power, and started futzing with their 'puters. Jac and li'l p spent a lot of time getting Ubuntu Linux set up on his computer. I'm not sure what everyone else was doing but there were at least three other computers open and at least three other people hunched over them or kibitzing from the side.
Then at some point, the vast majority of the crowd piled into the back of Ted's truck with guns and ammo and they all went out shooting while Dave P and I stayed to babysit the beer. This was kind of cool because we got to hang out with Jac's brother who is a nice and friendly guy. I remember chatting about beer- he's a brewer as well- and also, most interesting to me, the very large machine tool (a drill press, I believe) parked in his garage which will eventually be restored. Hmmm... so it's not just Andrew...
When the shooters got back, I think Dave and Jac's brother had gotten us set up to chill the beer in a tub of cold water. Jac's brother had disinfected a carboy and they were just working on getting the water level in the tub of water high enough to chill the entire container but low enough such that the beer wasn't floating. When everyone showed up, I think Jac wrapped up work on li'l p's computer, I made a dinner reservation for our group at a local Mexican restaurant, and then we wrapped up the beer brewing.
Here's where the lack of Alone Time really kicked in for me. A little thing became a big thing in the space of less than a minute. I had spent pretty much my entire weekend up until plus put in several hours of work a week for a couple of months before hand making sure that people had things to do, knew where to go, had places to stay, had opportunities to meet each other, etc... Absolutely nothing I had done this whole meet up was new to me EXCEPT the beer brewing. I was very excited about that. Up until this point I think everyone had gotten a chance to do something to contribute to the beer brewing process EXCEPT me. The one thing I was going to do was add the yeast, and I asked Dave to please take a picture of me doing that as a little memento of my participation.
I had the tube (looks like a fat test tube) of yeast in hand, and I asked Jac what to do with it. He pointed out that there were solids settled out of solution to the bottom of the tube and told me to shake it up to get all the solids uniformly distributed. This was tougher than I thought it would be because the solids were all kind of stuck together in one lump in the bottom of the tube, and that lump was firmly affixed to the tube. I shook it this way and that way for a few minutes with a couple of people offering to take a turn, but I declined because this was MY turn to participate.
When I finally got it all mixed back in uniformly, I asked Jac what I was supposed to do with it next. He said to go ahead and open it and then we'd get it into the brew. So I opened it and was rudely surprised by it fizzing out all over my hands. Apparently some pressure had built up in there even though it had been refrigerated and the result was something like shaking up a bottle of soda and then uncapping it except on a smaller scale. So I set the tube down and turned to look for something to wipe off my hands before I finished up whatever I was supposed to do with the yeast. Now apparently it was no big deal for me to sit around for hours that day waiting for people to go to Walmart, waiting while people took their turns stirring and whatnot, waiting while people tweaked their computers, and waiting while people went off shooting. But I set the tube of liquid yeast down and probably not even a minute later without even asking someone had snapped it up, dumped it in before I could even protest. I could just go fuck myself because there it was- the one thing I was going to get to do on the whole project and that entire day- my only opportunity to participate was abruptly snatched away by someone who couldn't wait two minutes for me to wipe my hands off. This pretty much did in my last nerve.
Probably wouldn't have been a big deal ordinarily, but I'd been running on four or five hours of sleep for several nights in a row, I hadn't eaten much that day other than chips and salsa and a light breakfast maybe (I can't remember for sure), and I suddenly had a bunch of people in my life all the time except when I was sleeping or in the bathroom. No Alone Time- VERY BAD for the INTJ. I am a little bit pissed off at myself for not sticking to my plan wherein I had Alone Time scheduled for myself. I should not have caved to peer pressure. I'll know for next time. So I went to go sit in my car alone listening to music and trying to unwind.
Later, when I downloaded my pictures I found out that Dave, FSM bless him, had snapped a picture of me shaking the yeast before it was absconded with. Unfortunately, that picture will have to be destroyed because I look horrible in it. But it was nice that he was thinking of me. And on further review I see that I will also have to destroy the picture immediately after that one because it is a photo of the person who grabbed the yeast dumping it into the brew. I don't really need that keepsake.
Beer brewing photos appear (with permission of those I could identify in the pictures)
here
here
here
here and
here
Sunday night
Some time later, with beer brewing and 'puter futzing wrapped up, my passengers piled back into the car plus Jac. The three skinniest shared the back seat which has only two seats (each with plenty of hip room). Jac navigated us over to a Mexican restaurant where we had reservations, and others followed behind us in their own cars. Everyone made it to the restaurant, and we were seated immediately.
I ordered the same thing I'd ordered the one time I'd been there before with Jac and his family- the machaca chimichanga, enchilada style. Then I proceeded to commit the classic Mexican restaurant blunder- filling up on free chips and salsa before dinner arrives. The important thing was that I felt a lot better after having had something to eat. Apparently somebody didn't because we lost him after he ordered his dinner and before it arrived at the table. I'm not entirely sure what happened that pissed him off, but the important thing is that I was not involved and can't be blamed. My only involvement was that I and another TCFer split the cost of his dinner that he'd ordered and then left without paying for, and then I took it home where it languished in my refrigerator for a few days and then was chucked.
After dinner, we dropped Jac back at his place, and Ian, li'l p, Dave and I made the trip back to my place. That was an interesting drive filled with conversation because there wasn't much else we could do in the dark. Topics ranged from mental masturbation (e.g. how would national defense work in a world where the United States became Libertopia but not all other countries did, does a person's lack of friends necessarily mean that she doesn't deserve to live if she can't afford some necessary medical treatment, etc.) to the practical yet inspiring (e.g. li'l p relating his move from a big house and high-paying job to his current lifestyle of more freedom) to (of course) talk of guns which fits into all of those categories. We got home so late that Ian opted to stay an extra night. There was once again a quick smoke break when we got home during which time I put away the leftover salsa in the refrigerator and gave Ian directions so that he could get from my house back to recognizable civilization in the morning. Then I set my alarm for about four hours later so that we'd get out of the house in time to get Dave Polaschek back up to the airport in Phoenix.
Monday morning
My alarm clock went off at about 5:00 am and I hopped into the shower before waking up the guys. A few minutes later I was dressed and poked my head into the guest bedroom, saying "Chirp, chirp, chirp." After everyone had complained of the "chirpy birds" outside my house waking them up at the crack of dawn, I figured this would be a good strategy. While everyone was getting dressed and getting their things together, I took a turn at making breakfast. I kept it pretty simple since we were in a hurry- plain scrambled eggs, sourdough English muffins, cream cheese, and smoked salmon.
Then li'l p, Dave and I piled into the Element while Ian loaded into his vehicle to follow us back out to the freeway. This was probably not a bad idea even though he'd gotten directions from me the night before- more than one person has told me they've had a hell of a time finding their way back out of my neighborhood.
We left at about 6:00 am for a 9:16 am flight Dave was catching in Phoenix. Everything was smooth sailing until we got to Phoenix where we hit stop-and-go Monday morning rush hour traffic. Fortunately, someone in the car was smart enough to point out to me that we qualified for the carpool lane and we sailed past traffic. Then we had a few butt-clenching moments as I made my way over to the right to the exit for the 143 which would take us into the airport.
I think we got there about 50 minutes before Dave's flight. We let him out at the terminal curb instead of parking and walking him in so that he'd have a shorter walk to his terminal. Then li'l p moved up to the front seat and we wandered out of the airport. Once again the exit from the 143 onto eastbound I-10 was closed, and I kind of drove around until we found our way onto I-10. We stopped at a Burger King for a quick snack and bathroom break before heading back down to Tucson.
On our way back to Tucson, I pointed out such scenic features as those bird cage and robot art thingies on that piece of land that has been for sale since FOREVER between Phoenix and Tucson and Picacho Peak which I think I pointed out way in the distance from the other direction the next day coming down the hill from my house.
When we got back to Tucson we headed straight for Home Depot to get what we needed to fix my carport door, put up the two security screen doors, and repair my sliding screen door on my patio. This was an interesting trip. Li'l p gave me a nice tutorial onfinding good wood selecting quality lumber. Conversation went something like this:
Li'l p: (holding up a piece of lumber and staring down it lengthwise) See how this one curves to the left? We don't want that.
Kirsten: I agree- it reminds me of my ex-husband. Why is there blue stuff on this piece of wood?
Li'l p: That is actually caused by a fungal infection and boards like this made for very popular decorations not that long ago.
Kirsten: Fortunately, this one does not remind me of my ex-husband.
It was a good place for this tutorial since we found exactly ONE (1) piece of lumber in the appropriate size that was decent. Therefore, I got a little schpiel on each rejected piece of lumber as to why it was no good which I stored away in my noggin for future reference. Unfortunately, this also meant that there weren't enough pieces for what we needed to do. So li'l p decided we would go with some particleboard face boards. We also got some assorted hardware plus a new screen and spline and little wheely tool thingamabobber to fix the screen door. And I got some wildflower seeds. Once we'd loaded up the cart and double-checked our list of what we wanted to get, li'l p went outside to hang out near the car while I checked out.
Monday afternoon
While we were loading everything into the car, we got a couple of calls from Ted and Brenda. We were originally going to meet at the Black Rose Caffe, but it turned out they were closed on Mondays which I'd forgotten when I suggested it. We needed a new place, and I couldn't remember Beyond Bread's name. That wasn't too far away and has a ton of sandwiches to choose from so I thought it would be a good place, but we couldn't meet there since I couldn't tell Brenda which place it was since I couldn't remember the name. She suggested the Blue Willow which was also on Campbell, and that is where we ended up. Li'l p and I drove over there and sat around in the parking lot waiting for Ted and Brenda to show up. Then I think we finally called them to find out where they were- the answer was they were inside. Turns out they'd gotten there before us but I just hadn't seen Brenda's car when we pulled into the parking lot.
While we were out in the parking lot watching people go in, li'l p made a comment that this place probably had things like cucumber sandwiches. I said yes, it was kind of a bakery/tea house/restaurant place, but they also had more substantial sandwiches with meat. Then when we got inside and sat down at the table with Ted and Brenda, I had the pleasure of watching a horrified li'l p forego the manly meatloaf sandwich in favor of turkey while Brenda ordered a veggie sandwich featuring, yes, cucumbers. We took a few pictures during lunch that I'm not posting since Brenda's and my eyes are closed in them. Then on the way out we had fun browsing the gift shop where li'l p got a souvenir for his wife.
After lunch, I braced for the trauma of the day- my man-hating, strangerphobic, anxiety-ridden sweet little Pepperdogger meeting the hairy mountain man known as li'l p. Pepper was kenneled all weekend, but I figured she'd be okay with just one person left at my house once we'd gotten through the initial meeting trauma. She'd nipped Tin-Man last year when he greeted her with a screw driver in his hand hidden up his sleeve, and she'd had Jac on his knees all weekend by barking anytime he stood up. I was CERTAIN this was not going to go well. And then came those oh-so-familiar words out of li'l p's mouth, "It'll be fine. Dogs love me!" Gee, where have I heard that before? Oh, yes, right. Last year that's what Jac told me before Pepper let him have it.
We arrived at dog daycare and went inside to get Pepper shortly after nap time. I seem to recall li'l p being amused by dog naptime. Lindsay was there and let me know that the kennel had not given them her seatbelt and leash when they picked her up that morning. Since they were just around the corner, I left li'l p there watching the dogs over the wall while I ran down to get her stuff. He seemed to be having a ball watching them playing on the little doggie slide and whatnot. Dog daycare isn't the sort of thing you find in the small Montana town where he lives.
When I got back, Lindsay set us up in a little fenced-off get-to-know-you area, and I gave a baggie of treats to li'l p. It went surprisingly well, particularly considering that he had his hat on (another Pepper no-no). It probably helped that (a) Pepper was pretty hungry since I kept forgetting to bring her lunches on the weekend so she was down about 1/3 of her normal food intake, and (b) li'l p was not armed. A few barks, some feeding of kibbles which she thinks are treats, and we were on our way. I was a terrible hostess and made li'l p ride in the back seat on the way home so Pepper could have her usual place riding shotgun with mom. She just circled up in a little dog pile and slept all the way home.
I think we got home around 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a day when it was supposed to reach 90 degrees. It turned out that it only got up to 84, but li'l p seemed to notice that it was a bit toasty outside. Fortunately, he was working mostly in the shade of my carport and we had the carport door open so he got a little bit of cool air from the house. He did pretty well for a pansy-ass Montana/Colorado boy.
And Pepper did pretty well, too. She was very interested at first in what he was doing particularly when things got noisy, but she mostly stayed on the carpet where she could see what was going on. I think she only forgot who he was a couple of times when he went out of sight and then came back.
Li'l p is, among other things, a self-taught carpenter. He was going to fix my carport door (which has had a quarter inch gap allowing all kinds of airflow and bug ingress since I replaced the one that was broken in through when my house was robbed last summer) and put up two security screen doors (one on the front door and one on the carport door) and a couple of other things if we had time. I stood around and occasionally holding something, but he basically fixed my door for me and answered questions. I alternated between cleaning of the kitchen andholding wood for him keeping the faceboards still while he cut them. I think I did a few other things, too, but I can't remember what at the moment. Mostly I just paid attention to what he was doing and his thought process for how took everything apart and made it all fit back together, but he was very good about talking me through anything I wanted to try working on myself. At one point, we had the following conversation:
Li'l p: I'm going to cut this piece here and here. Can you just make sure it doesn't move while I'm cutting it?
Me: Yeah, okay. I think I can do that.
Li'l p: And if you want to try making some of the cuts yourself, we can do that.
Me: I'm considering it, but I'm kind of afraid of the power saw. If I cut off one of my fingers, we are five miles away from the fire station and then like twenty miles away from the nearest hospital.
Li'l p: That's okay. Remember, I'm also an EMT!
And this, dear reader, is one of the things that many people do not know about li'l p even if they've met him. This guy is about the same age as me and has a huge list of things he's not only tried but is more than competent at and could make a living off of with little trouble. Foul-mouthed and lacking in tact though he may be, this guy is useful. More on that later. In fact, that may warrant a separate post.
Other chitchat while he was working included li'l p's repeated insistence that I need a man around the house to do all this for me (or, I thought to myself, I could just learn to do it myself) and who was the next TCF woman who needed to be paired up with a guy (E., I'm afraid li'l p is currently compiling a list of potential suitors for you).
At some point while li'l p was working on putting up the security screen doors, I hopped in the car with Pepper and ran down to my local hardware store/gas station/convenience store/grocery store place to get baked potatoes. When I got back, I started making dinner. I remembered that li'l p had said it had been a while since he'd had a nice surf and turf plate, and I had some steaks in the freezer from a recent gift certificate redemption from the Omaha Steak Company. Plus, I needed to redeem my reputation for taking nearly an hour to get a fire started at last year's meetup. So dinner was going to be steak with sauteed mushrooms, grilled shrimp skewers, baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli.
Li'l p took a break while he waited for me to get a fire started and then come hold a couple of things in place while he screwed them to the door frame. He looked like he was going to come over and watch what I was doing, and I had to put a stop to that. No need to have someone watching over my shoulder to report back what kind of ridiculous fire-making mistakes I might make this year, I figured. Last year I got a hard time from no fewer than four hungry people glowering at me as I insisted that steak must not be cooked on a fire that used lighter fluid. Sure, it took a little longer, but this is my RELIGION we're talking about!
I would like to say for the record that I KICKED ASS MAKING A FIRE THIS YEAR DAMNIT!!! I was brilliant, in fact. It required only two matches, and one of them shouldn't count because it burned too quickly for me to get it near the unstarted fuel pile so I blew it out to save my fingers. What was my secret? Upon a suggestion from lewlew, I have been hoarding dryer lint and toilet paper rolls and paper towel tubes for the last year. I put one towel tube full of lint down in the grill. Then I put two lint-filled toilet paper rolls down perpendicular to the center of the towel roll forming an X (kindling). I put a pile of charcoal (fuel) in each of the four quadrants. Then I piled on some dried mesquite sticks (tinder) on top of everything such that it overlapped both kindling and fuel. I then lit the lint-filled tubes which then caught the mesquite sticks on fire. Then, following Erin's brilliant suggestion from last year, I put the lid down with the vents open and let the fire do its thing. AND IT WORKED! So shut up, people who were here last year! I will hear nothing further out of your loose yaps.
Okay, I feel better now. Where was I?
Once the fire was lit, I went out front of the house with li'l p to get the front security screen door hung up enough that he could finish it without an extra set of hands holding things in place. Then I went inside to set the table and prep the food that wasn't already cooking. This involved slicing and sauteeing some mushrooms, cutting up some broccoli to be steamed in the microwave, skewering the shrimp and coating them in oil so they wouldn't stick to the grill, and then prepping the steaks. Now normally, I would do nothing to steak before grilling it. But I'm not set on that, and some people like them seasoned with salt or pepper or garlic powder or something. So I asked li'l p how he wanted his steak.
That was the smartest thing I did all weekend. He asked me how I cook my steak, and I said as little as possible. Then, li'l p, being a chef and also being the filthy mountain man known as li'l p, got that look in his eye and that grin on his face and said in his creepy mountain man voice that he'd "show me somethin' real nice." He said to mix some melted butter with some white wine and onion powder and then he'd cook the steaks when he was done with the door. I didn't have onion powder, so I just did the butter and wine. When he got done with the door, he came went out on the back patio where I learned something I've been trying to figure out for years.
Now when I say I like my steak cooked as little as possible, I'm not kidding. Seriously, just sear each side to kill off any E. coli and then serve it to me cold and bleeding inside. That's all I'm looking for. Simple, right? Sure, except that I couldn't figure out how to cook the sides, and it's a little awkward to keep rotating the steak around the perimeter to get the sides all cooked. I was sure I must be doing something wrong, but I didn't know what. Well, the butter/wine mixture solved all that. As I understand it, he plopped the steaks on the grill, poured some butter/wine over the top which then dripped off the sides and into the fire causing it to flare up and then flipped 'em over and did the same thing on the other side. This, I am told by Chef li'l p, not only gets the sides of the steaks cooked, but also quickly seals the outside surface of the meat keeping them nice and juicy inside.
Quotes from the Weekend
-Don't smell it. Just lick it.
-Wiener down.
-Beard power, man!
-Attendee X: I've been grinding my own 6 inch. Attendee Z: Remind me to show you my 8 inch later.
-Attendee A: I'm going to run out to the hardware store to get some baking potatoes. Attendee B: That's not something you hear every day. You know, we don't have to have baked potatoes if you don't want... Attendee A: ARE YOU MAD?!?!? Of course we do if we're going to have good steaks!
A couple weekends ago a few other southern Arizona locals and I hosted a meetup of pro-freedom individuals down here. I had a great time. I wished a few people from last year's meetup were also here, but we got an extremely good turnout roughly doubling last year's attendance. Here's the blow-by-blow of what I participated in. This post will be updated multiple times in the next few days to capture it all in one place. I'm going to start putting the new material each day in a different color since I've started going back and filling in details that I forgot during the initial write-up. If the color doesn't work for you, let me know and I'll either change it or get rid of it. And I think I'm going to pop this up to the top of the page until I'm finished writing it
Thursday night
I drove up to Phoenix to pick up Dave Polaschek who flew in from Minneapolis. His plane was pretty close to being on time and he was easy to spot being one of the tallest people coming off the flight and also wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Hawaiian shirts would be a recurring theme for him through the weekend. We drove home to my place getting in around 1:30 am on Friday morning. We slept about four hours and then were out the door again the next morning so I could put in a half day at work before our planned trip to the ball park for a spring training game.
I forgot to mention before the little adventure that was the trip home. It was easy to get into Sky Harbor Airport. I-10 to 143 to the airport exit. Circle around to your terminal. Park. Go in. No problem. But getting out was harder. I wasn't sure which exit out of the airport to take but managed to get the right one which took me onto 143 which SHOULD have taken me to I-10. But with no warnings and no recommended detour, the exit to I-10 was closed and I just kept on going. Having left my map safely at home where it could not accidentally get lost, I wandered around a bit on the freeways until I got on the 202 or 101 loop which eventually got me back to I-10 and going in the right direction. This would be a recurring theme that weekend.
Friday morning
I gave Dave a free pass and dropped him off at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for a few hours and headed to work. I blew on out of work a little after noon and headed back to the museum to meet Dave in the cafe/gift shop. However, he was standing out front having seen all he was going to see and not wanting to take up a table in the cafe when people were looking for a place to sit. He was wearing a very bright Hawaiian shirt that day and reported that it went over well in the hummingbird aviary. Apparently there was at least one who spent a lot of time hovering over his shoulder- unfortunately not in a place he could photograph it.
Polaschek's posting some of his desert and desert museum photos. I'll link to them here as they get posted. The panoramas are particularly good, and I noticed this morning that I was looking at my mountains with fresh eyes after seeing them through his lens.
Mountains at Sunrise (taken from my back porch)
Arizona-Sonora Desert Panorama
Squishycow in the Desert
Cholla
Barrel Cactus
Desert Panorama 2
Sprinkler
Javvy
Whitetail
Cactus Flowers
Bird and Cacti
Coyote
Ocelot (WARNING: INCREDIBLY CUTE!)
Dove on a Cactus
Hummingbird
Friday afternoon
We headed over to Tucson Electric Park for a spring training game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago White Sox. Dave asked for best available seats and we wound up just a few rows behind the White Sox dugout even though it was already well into the game. We first stopped into a shop to get a hat for Dave to help fend off sunburn, and then we got lunch at a Thai concession stand and at a rootbeer float stand before making our way to our seats.
I didn't recognize any of the players' names except Junior Spivey, and we only saw one run scored. But it was really cool to be so close that we could see the expressions on the players' faces and watch the White Sox tossing balls to the fans between innings. Dave is a huge baseball fan with season tickets every year to the Saints games up in Minnesota. He was a good person to quiz on things like what is a designated hitter and what the H/E box on the scoreboard is for. He also took a bunch of pictures at the game which I hope he will post soon on Flickr. I can't wait to see how they turn out. As we left the park, I asked Dave if he'd managed to violate the no tripods prohibition even though the security wench had looked through practically every crevice of his camera bag. No, he said, but she'd missed the pocket in which he'd had a prohibited umbrella.
Two neat things that happened at the ballpark that I forgot to mention before. One guy leaned out of the press box looming over the stands and managed to catch a fly ball. A ball came bouncing our way when it was bobbled by a few people trying to grab it and Polaschek almost got it. Unfortunately, he lost it too and it went to some blonde chick in front of us.
I was wearing a tank top, but I apparently I basted myself sufficiently in sunscreen because I didn't burn. I think Dave got a little pink but his brand new Diamondbacks ballcap seemed to take care of his noggin nicely.
Dave has started posting some of his pictures from the game. I'll post more links as he adds pictures.
Panorama of the field from our seats behind the White Sox dugout
Jorge Julio pitching for the Diamondbacks
Sunshine and Smiles- anyone know who this is?
Diamondbacks Dugout
John Danks warming up
A pitch that's A Little Low
Foul Ball
After the game, we headed over to Circuit City for another card for Dave's camera, Trader Joe's to grab some groceries for the weekend, and then out to fungusmunkey's house for the evening meet-and-greet get-together.
Friday night
Dave and I headed over to fungusmunkey's place where we found several people already gathered in his front yard sitting around a chimenea- azcoyote, gooch, enemyofthestate, and henshawe in addition to fungusmunkey. There were introductions, setting up of chairs, opening of beverages, and status checks on who was still to come. Jac was not able to come out to Tucson, JDW had called to say he wouldn't make it that night but would be arriving the next day, and Ted Nielsen, li'l p, and Brenda were still to arrive. We'd gotten a message earlier in the day that Ted had not yet picked up li'l p so we knew they'd be late. And I think Ian had PM'd me that he wouldn't arrive until Saturday afternoon.
Shortly after we got there, people started making noise about being hungry and we went through the painful process of ordering pizza. Pizza-ordering by committee under the influence of alcohol got off track a couple of times so fungusmunkey and I picked a pizza menu and went around the circle of folks in the front yard to find out what they wanted on their pizza and how many slices they were going to eat. We took up a collection, and I ordered the pizza. We ended up ordering two 16 inch sausage and pepperoni (henshawe insisted that he must have an entire 16 inch sausage and pepperoni to himself), one very veggie (by request of gooch), and one Rasta with spicy Jamaican chicken (by Dave's suggestion).
Sometime either shortly before the pizza arrived, li'l p, Ted and Brenda arrived. Brenda had brought one of my favorite wines that I had first tried when she brought it to the Tucson meetup February last year and also cookies from Trader Joe's which she had also done last year. I was driving so I just had a little bit of wine, and I had a couple of chocolate dipped macaroons to tide me over until the pizza showed up. It turned out we had ordered more than enough for everyone even though li'l p, Ted, and Brenda weren't there when we ordered so we didn't need to reorder. We even had one entire sausage and pepperoni pizza leftover which was reportedly eaten for breakfast the next day by those staying at the fungusmunkey house. I was also later told that henshawe did not recall having insisted on his own extra large pizza. That would explain why he seemed terribly confused when I tried to hand him his pizza to take back to where we were all going to be sitting while we ate.
We sat around eating pizza and enjoying the entertainment of li'l p acclimating to "the big city". He'd hear traffic or sirens or hear air traffic overhead and look visibly nervous. And he was pretty vocal about not liking Tucson. Fortunately, he was staying at my place in a small town west of Tucson. Chitchat including making plans for what we'd do the next day. It was decided that we'd go out to the Three Points Public Shooting Range the next morning, and some of us would break away mid-day for a home electronics lab and machine shop tour. Li'l p skewered his foot on a mesquite thorn that went right through the bottom of a rather robust boot. I gave out some welcome bags I'd put together with things like notepads and pens, sunscreen (SPF 45), a bottle of water, etc.
Li'l p had ridden down to Tucson with Ted, but he was going to stay out at my place so we had to move all his stuff over to my Element to come home with us. There was a duffle bag, a big box of carpentry tools (he was going to make some of my house problems go away), multiple firearms and ammunition containers, and li'l p himself to pack into the car. Behind the back seats was partly full with a cooler, my bugout box, and other things I'd brought, and Dave's rather large camera bag was in the back seat already. We also had to fit in a record player (YES! THANK YOU!) that Brenda had brought for me. Dave and li'l p seemed skeptical, but I knew everything would fit for I am a Master Packer. There was some packing and unpacking and repacking as new things appeard on the sidewalk next to my car, but everything fit in. The only axis in which anything was packed uncomfortably was the z-axis because the people riding along with me were pretty tall and the back seat is offset upward a little bit in what is referred to as "theater-style seating".
At some point after we'd made a plan for Saturday, people started dispersing. I think we were all tired. Fungusmunkey tried to send us home with all the beer saying that he was cutting way back after that night so we ended up with a cooler more full of beer than when we arrived. Dave, li'l p and I all loaded into my car and made the hour long drive out to my place. When we opened the door to my house, li'l p said out loud what I was thinking- the place smelled like cat piss. I don't have a cat, though. The only thing I could think of is that maybe it was from steam cleaning the carpet if the people who lived here before me had a cat that peed on the carpet. However, it didn't smell like that to me a couple of days before when I had actually steam cleaned it nor in the days after that. I'm not sure what that was about.
The three of us stayed up for a while just yammering before we went to bed- Dave in the guest room and li'l p on the couch in the living room.
Saturday morning
I woke to the sounds of things going on in my kitchen. Dave and li'l p were making breakfast. I got dressed and came out to set the table. I think we had an egg scramble with bell pepper, onion, bacon, and cream cheese. Possibly some other things in there. I just remembered- also tomato. I can't remember if we had toast with that, but it was delicious. I was going to home roast some coffee but Dave is not a coffee drinker (he only likes the smell), and li'l p has gone caffeine free and I did not have decaf. I think breakfast beverages involved whole milk and Mountain Dew.
After breakfast, I was going to drop the two of them off at the range down the street from my house to meet the others and then come home for some alone time. An INTJ gets cranky if she does not have her alone time. But li'l p made a good case that they should have an escape vehicle at the ready in case anything sketchy safety- or other-wise happened so I brought drumsticks and a book to keep my occupied while I sat in the car.
We drove out to the range and signed in at the office where the guy at the desk gave me the Women Can Shoot, Too, You Know pep talk. I wasn't shooting that day because I don't like to shoot with people I don't know. He got us set up with targets, something something indicators I think for the rifles, and I grabbed coupons to a couple of local gun shows coming up. Then he directed us out front of the office to the 100 yard black powder range. The 1000 and 300 yard ranges were apparently occupied by matches that morning.
Dave and li'l p started setting some things up. We didn't have a stapler with us and the target needed to be attached to the target stand. I fished around in my bugout box and came up with some first aid tape. Fungusmunkey and a friend showed up next followed by azcoyote, enemyofthestate and gooch. I got some nice pictures of people shooting some of which I may post if I get their permission. Dave, having flow in, did not bring his toys with him so he just kind of sampled what others had. I stayed in the car most of the time. I had earplugs in, but I was still hearing some of the bigger stuff at uncomfortable levels. Someone- gooch maybe?- offered me a pair of earmuffs but I just hopped back in the car. My camera batteries died so I let my roomies know that I was going to run back home for fresh ones since I'd forgotten.
On the way to the range, we'd seen two Border Patrol vehicles at the intersection of the Ajo Highway and the Sasabe Highway. That had doubled by the time I went home to get my camera and come back. When I got back to the range, it was time to go back into Tucson to Machine Shop Andrew's place for a tour of his home electronics lab and machine shop. We saw more than two handfuls of BP vehicles traveling west on Ajo Highway as we traveled east. I pointed out which ones were good and which ones were no good to flip off based on my experience having been pulled over and harassed by a border patrol agent when I flipped him off last year. Parked by the side of the road? Do not flip that one off because he can pull out and chase you down. Driving in the opposite direction and pulling a trailer with ATVs behind him? Okay to flip off. But we didn't flip anyone off that weekend so as not to interrupt any of our plans with unwanted law enforcement encounters.
Before I left the range, I got a call from JDW who was now a couple dozen miles outside of Tucson and looking for directions on how to get to where everyone else was. A bunch of people were sticking around the range for more shooting so I gave him directions out to there. I was pretty sure he'd be interested in the shooting thing, too, and probably moreso than the machine shop tour although I probably should have asked. I'm not very good at making arrangements for things under pressure and on short notice. The details tend to escape me until later.
Saturday afternoon
We got over to Machine Shop Andrew's place and parked in front of his house. The garage/machine shop was up and his front door was wide open. I think Ted and Brenda may have gotten there before li'l p, Dave, and me.
Our first order of business was to order lunch from East Coast Super Subs. We got a tuna for Brenda, a Philly cheesesteak I think for Machine Shop Andrew, and then li'l p, Ted, and I got a cheesesteak, a club sandwich, and something with turkey and cheese which we cut up into sandwichettes and split between the three of us. Damn those were good sandwiches. I love East Coast Super Subs. We also had an order or two of curly fries. I ran down the street to Circle K for some sodas. We sat around chatting about Andrew's setup and what he was doing with it while we ate.
I've seen all this stuff many times before, but I never fail to learn something new each time I go there. This time it was about circuit cards and how to build them. It turns out that a person can actually do this in his or her home without too terribly much trouble. Handy. He showed us the software he uses for the card layout, and how he removes the unwanted metal from the board leaving behind the appropriate metal footprint for the circuit. He has a special little fixture he built to hold the masking images he uses to block UV light from hitting those areas so that the metal is maintained in those places. I think I should have taken more pictures of that setup.
In the machine shop, Andrew walked us through all of the tools he has including one machine which is only for making screws. He has been getting some old and rusty junkers through various sources at very cheap prices- so cheap that some are worth more as scrap metal than what he has paid for them. Then he restores them by hand to working condition. One was completed and sent off to live at a friend's house. He has six or eight others in progress in his garage/shop.
I'm going through my pictures to see if there are any I can post. Most of them have people in them so I need to get their permission. I'm also going to try and get the pages Andrew made of his restoration of a lathe put up on my site if he'll let me. It was an INCREDIBLE transformation! When I first saw the hunk of junk, I didn't think he'd get it done. But I promised him I'd buy him sushi if he did completely restore it, and sure enough I had to pay up some months later. I was personally very inspired by that.
At some point during the machine shop tour, I left the garage and went into the house. I think I was looking for something on my computer and wanted to sit somewhere comfortable. A few minutes after I sat down, I heard something I NEVER hear out where I live- the ice cream truck! That hideously annoying fake music backed up by the drone of a truck engine. It's an attrocious sound, but it signals a wondrous moment in which one has the choice of 8 bazillion little ice cream novelties that one need not buy a box of 6 to indulge in. I grabbed a five out of my wallet and headed out only to see li'l p headed out of the garage toward the ice cream truck as well.
When I got out there, the driver lady was turning the cassette tape over to play more music. I picked out some kind of mudslide ice cream sandwich- a very easy sort of sandwich to enjoy. This is where I found out that li'l p is not a fan of chocolate. I became very wary of him at this point. That's just not right. I think he ended up with an orange creamsicle of some sort. We took each others' pictures with our desserts in front of the ice cream truck, and then sat with the others on the driveway in front of Andrew's shop chatting for a while longer. It was a good day to be an adult- no begging mom or dad for money for ice cream!
Here is where the fact that my bad luck of last year has not carried over into this year really started paying off this weekend.
We left Machine Shop Andrew's place and were driving over to Brew Your Own Brew to pick up a Show Low Pale Ale beer kit to take out to the brewing demo at Jac's place the next day. We got almost all the way there when I realized I'd forgotten my purse. So I called Andrew and luckily (make a note of this part- it will be important a little later) he was still home so I was able to run back and get it. Then Dave, li'l p, and I set off a second time for BYOB. When we walked in the door and made our request, the person who greeted us asked him to just give him a moment because they were boxing up the exact kits we were looking for as we walked in the door. We picked up our kit plus some liquid yeast and some replacement dry yeast for my ginger ale project that has yet to get off the ground, and checked out. Li'l p was horrified that, after having given my real name at the range when registering, I was now giving my real name to the good folks at my little independent beer brewing store. I told him that was nothing- he should have been with Dave and me when we were in Circuit City and Dave was giving them his real phone number and address for their database. There was a little Rusy Shackleford (spelling?) chitchat, and then we set off for my place to pick up/drop off things before the evening barbeque out at azcoyote's place.
I headed west on Grant thinking I'd catch I-10 to I-19 to the Ajo exit and save a bunch of time on in-town driving since we were running late. However, it became obvious when I turned to get on the freeway that it was worse than in-town driving. Since they are getting ready to do 2 years worth of construction on I-10 that will involve closing all on- and off-ramps from Prince to 22nd street, we have had built for us a grand and glorious three or so lane frontage road that is actually quite nice. So I decided to take that instead. Plus, we were pretty thirsty and there's an AM/PM gas station and convenience store at the end of the Speedway off-ramp.
There's one little catch to this frontage road that I always seem to forget- the damned stop signs for those on the frontage road so that traffic coming off the freeway has the right of way. D'oh! So we came to a rudely quick stop when someone kindly pointed out the sign. We made the stop okay. I remember looking. I remember going after looking. Then suddenly I notice a car coming off the freeway and I are on a collision course. My bad for missing that. I don't know if it was one of those things where I looked, saw, and it didn't register, or if it was in my blind spot at the moment that I happened to be looking.
I was going pretty slowly, and I think if he'd just kept going at his pace then he'd have gone in front of me with no problem. But he didn't- he slowed down, and I wound up in front of him. We proceeded to the stop light at end of the on-ramp, and as I was making a right turn onto Speedway to go into the AM/PM I ended up being pulled over by a cop who'd seen the whole thing.
First thing he wanted was my license and registration and proof of insurance so I pulled out the folder I keep it in, looked in the pocket where it should be and realize- OH SHIT!- I took out my registration to do my taxes since I can deduct that from my federal income taxes and I had three insurance cards of which none were current. I figured it was probably clipped to my registration and came out, too. So now I was up to potentially three tickets instead of just one, and I am pretty sure that you no longer will get off without a fine in Arizona by sending in proof of registration and insurance within thirty days.
Meanwhile, he saw that a passenger in my back seat was armed. Open-carry is legal in Arizona, and one of my passengers had been taking advantage of that. But I think this made the cop a little more attentive. He couldn't see very well back there because I have well-tinted privacy glass on all but the front windows. A conversation ensued:
Cop: Could you roll down this back window?
Me: No.
*uncomfortable moment of silence*
Passenger in the back: I think it pops out a couple of inches.
Me: Right! It doesn't roll down, it just has this latch thingy and it just kind of angles out a little bit.
Cop: Never mind, I can see from here. (looking back through the front window)
There were some jokes about that armed passenger almost getting Tasered after that. I am training myself to say nothing more than is absolutely necessary to cops, but I can see how a little more explanation was helpful in this situation. He then took my license back to his car to do whatever check he was doing where he may have noticed that the address on my license does not match the address the DMV has for me.
Cha-ching! There I was at the AM/PM (1) having violated the traffic law, (2) having a driver's license with a non-current address, (3) not having my registration on me, (4) not having my proof of insurance on me, and as I found out later (5) having an unbelted passenger in the back. That could have been a mighty expensive day. Thank goodness I at least had my license on me although that almost didn't happen!
But the cop, in his best swaggering voice of authority said, "I'm feeling generous today..." and I was off the hook with a warning. Phew! Oh, man, that could have gone all kinds of badly- particularly if I hadn't been able to get my purse back and was also licenseless when I was pulled over or if li'l p's flannel shirt had accidentally draped over one of his weapons thereby turning it into an illicit concealed weapon or something to that effect.
We parked and ran into the AM/PM for drinks as I think everyone was pretty thirsty which was why we were going to AM/PM when the cop pulled me over. Then we headed out to my house where we put the liquid yeast (which had been on ice in the cooler) in the refrigerator, grabbed a couple of things, and headed back out to azcoyote's house for the evening barbeque. I called her on the way there to let her know that we were running late.
Saturday night
So we get on out to azcoyote's place, and I'm looking for the house that looks like the description she gave (color of house, color of trim) but that turned out to be extraneous. How could we miss the place with the big Don't Tread on Me flag waving proudly from the front of the house? At first, I thought it was Dull'hawk's Time's Up flag, but she corrected me. I always liked Dull'hawk's flag, but never knew what I'd do with it. Now I'm thinking that this might be a great use for one so I'll have to go see if they're still available. Anyway, the Don't Tread on Me flag was a really nice landmark, and a great start to what I think was hands-down the best event of the meetup.
There were twelve or thirteen people in attendance sitting around a campfire in lawn chairs. There was beer, there was bonfire, there was bullshitting. Certain groups of people tended to congregate together more frequently than others, but I think everyone probably got a chance to talk to everyone else. I moved from seat to seat around the fire to
I don't really recall the order of the events through the evening so these are somewhat random. There was a call from woodtramp which was arranged pre-meetup. He chatted with me a while about the Beyond Bullets and Ballots conference he was attending which prevented him from being at the meetup. I am trying to get him to send me his presentation, and I'll share it if he gives me permission to do so. I also tried calling PSM but got voice mail. He'd mentioned that an illness in his household was still running rampant so I decided not to call back later in order to not interrupt any sleep they might be getting.
There was some grilling. Azcoyote had a burger and a hot dog for everyone. I saw gooch and fungusmunkey somewhere in the vicinity of the campfire at the moment the most infamous quote of the weekend was uttered. There was some flipping and turning of items on the grill when, in a moment of relative quiet in the area, I heard a mildly dejected expression from fungusmunkey of, "Wiener down." Yes, there had been a casualty- a dog overboard, if you will. One hot and juicy wiener had taken a dive into the dirt and was thereafter referred to as the dirt wiener. One person quickly acted so as not to violate the 10-second rule, fished the dog from the dirt, reportedly wiped it on his jeans, and replaced it to its rightful position on the grill. I have also heard tell that said dog was subsequently consumed by the rescuer in question.
There were some magical moments which involved one Mr. JDW- storyteller, indeed. It's as though sitting around a campfire is his natural habitat. People quickly figured out that when he started talking, it was in all of our best interests to shut up and let the magic happen. If you read some apparently inside jokes about an icepick and a van, well, you shoulda been there! He has said that he'd prefer that and other stories not get posted publicly, and even if that weren't the case, I could never tell it as it had to be told anyway. But if you hear that he is going to a meetup, I highly recommend you try to make the same meetup yourself.
Other interesting conversation revolved around dreams- specifically, more than one person mentioned having a series of dreams in which they were needing to fire a gun at some bad guy and the gun wouldn't fire (or some variation on that). I think a couple people said the dreams stopped at some point after having had the same dream except that the gun functioned fine.
Other bits and pieces of the evening may get added later. I really do remember this being my favorite part of the meetup, but the details escape me at the moment. At the end of the evening when we were getting ready to go, Ian mentioned that he did not yet have sleeping arrangements so he followed Dave, li'l p, and me home in his vehicle. It was about an hour long drive from azcoyote's place, and I don't recall a lot of the conversation. At this point it had been three or four days in a row that I was getting only 4-5 hours of sleep, and I was pretty tired. We got home, I threw some sheets on the other bed in the guest room for Ian, there was a quick smoke break out on the patio, li'l p peed off my patio down into my yard because he doesn't like toilets and I figured if it's good enough for Pepper it's good enough for him, and everyone went to bed shortly thereafter. And I think that covers up through Saturday.
I believe it was also Saturday when fungusmunkey's wife made clear that she was not interested in being referred to as "Mrs. fungusmunkey".
Sunday morning
On Sunday morning I once again woke to the sounds of breakfast being made in my kitchen. The day before I'd eaten WAY too much. I'm not normally a breakfast person, but I'd eaten a really delicious egg scramble. Then I had a huge lunch. By dinner time I only ate a plain hamburger on a bun and a cookie for dessert. So on Sunday morning, I just had a small breakfast of blueberry crumpets from Trader Joe's and some tea because tea and crumpets go together. The guys made another egg scramble
After breakfast, I did a little bit of much-needed kitchen cleanup and the guys hung out on the patio. It wasn't exactly alone time, but it was a pretty nice break from all the socializing. After clearing space and cleaning enough dishes to do it, I started making salsa (here's the basic recipe with one poblano, one banana pepper, two jalapenos, and two habaneros) to take to Jac's place where we'd be later for a brewing demo, Linux workshop (I use that term loosely), shooting and dinner. Originally it was going to be taken to the barbeque the night before, but I didn't have time to make it after all the running around and being pulled over and whatnot.
I got most of the way through it before the guys came in and helped me finish it up so we could get out of there and on the road to Jac's place. There was some knife-sharpening before they got started, I believe. I think Ian did the cilantro (which I most hate chopping- thanks, Ian!), Dave saved me from going bell pepper-less by pointing out that they hadn't used all the bell pepper for breakfasts and chopped that up, and li'l p did the habaneros. Li'l p was all excited about the recipe until- HORRORS!- I plopped in a can of El Pato jalapeno salsa. That was cooked, so now it was no longer true pico de gallo.
Once we got the salsa done, loaded up beer and soda, salsa and yeast into the cooler. We loaded tortilla chips and games and cooler and guns and computers into the car. We were all set to go except... now I couldn't find my camera. I looked in my computer bag and all over the car which were the most likely spots. We all piled out to search the house. No luck. Finally, I just gave up and we piled back into the car for the trip out to Jac's place.
Sunday afternoon
The trip out east to Jac's place started off, I think, with a stop at the gas station. One of us needed to stop for ammo, but we decided to do that at a Walmart out near Jac instead of when we were hitting the road. We were pretty sure there'd be some standing around time during the beer brewing process so we figured we'd save time that way. It turns out that was good because the first thing we did when we got to Jac's was to send a group out to Walmart for water for beer-brewing anyway.
On the road out to Jac's we played a game of Apples to Apples. Li'l p read the adjective cards, everyone picked a noun from their hand of cards, and Ian read off all the entries. Then I picked which one I thought best matched the adjective. It was okay, but it's a lot more fun when played the right way with everyone getting a turn to be the judge. But since I was driving, I couldn't do anything that involved reading. Anyway, I made a comment that we weren't keeping score and someone from the back- Ian or li'l p- said that yes, of course, we were keeping score. I never found out who won, though. The game just kind of fizzled out when we got into town and I had to call Jac to find out how close to the edge of town was the turnoff to where we were meeting. A few minutes later we were driving in his neighborhood and saw Jac waving us down from the side of the street. I think we were the first ones there. Shortly afterward Ted and Brenda, fungusmunkey and his wife, and enemyofthestate all showed up. Then a while after that we also had gooch arrive.
We were stationed in the garage of Jac's brother with a lot of open space in the middle and some shelves and chairs around the edges. After introductions, chitchat, and some standing around, the first order of business was a trip to Walmart for water for beer brewing and ammo. It was rumored that one of our number became mesmerized with the plasma TVs and a rescue mission had to be mounted which allegedly explains how long they took at Walmart.
When they got back from Walmart, brewing commenced. It turns out it's not terribly hard or confusing if you get your kit from Brew Your Own Brew. We were brewing their Show Low Pale Ale. They included a very explicit step-by-step instruction sheet which we followed. I think our only deviation was to use separately purchased liquid yeast instead of what was in the kit.
After brewing got going, some people started taking turns stirring and adding ingredients and whatnot while others pulled out their laptops, plugged into power, and started futzing with their 'puters. Jac and li'l p spent a lot of time getting Ubuntu Linux set up on his computer. I'm not sure what everyone else was doing but there were at least three other computers open and at least three other people hunched over them or kibitzing from the side.
Then at some point, the vast majority of the crowd piled into the back of Ted's truck with guns and ammo and they all went out shooting while Dave P and I stayed to babysit the beer. This was kind of cool because we got to hang out with Jac's brother who is a nice and friendly guy. I remember chatting about beer- he's a brewer as well- and also, most interesting to me, the very large machine tool (a drill press, I believe) parked in his garage which will eventually be restored. Hmmm... so it's not just Andrew...
When the shooters got back, I think Dave and Jac's brother had gotten us set up to chill the beer in a tub of cold water. Jac's brother had disinfected a carboy and they were just working on getting the water level in the tub of water high enough to chill the entire container but low enough such that the beer wasn't floating. When everyone showed up, I think Jac wrapped up work on li'l p's computer, I made a dinner reservation for our group at a local Mexican restaurant, and then we wrapped up the beer brewing.
Here's where the lack of Alone Time really kicked in for me. A little thing became a big thing in the space of less than a minute. I had spent pretty much my entire weekend up until plus put in several hours of work a week for a couple of months before hand making sure that people had things to do, knew where to go, had places to stay, had opportunities to meet each other, etc... Absolutely nothing I had done this whole meet up was new to me EXCEPT the beer brewing. I was very excited about that. Up until this point I think everyone had gotten a chance to do something to contribute to the beer brewing process EXCEPT me. The one thing I was going to do was add the yeast, and I asked Dave to please take a picture of me doing that as a little memento of my participation.
I had the tube (looks like a fat test tube) of yeast in hand, and I asked Jac what to do with it. He pointed out that there were solids settled out of solution to the bottom of the tube and told me to shake it up to get all the solids uniformly distributed. This was tougher than I thought it would be because the solids were all kind of stuck together in one lump in the bottom of the tube, and that lump was firmly affixed to the tube. I shook it this way and that way for a few minutes with a couple of people offering to take a turn, but I declined because this was MY turn to participate.
When I finally got it all mixed back in uniformly, I asked Jac what I was supposed to do with it next. He said to go ahead and open it and then we'd get it into the brew. So I opened it and was rudely surprised by it fizzing out all over my hands. Apparently some pressure had built up in there even though it had been refrigerated and the result was something like shaking up a bottle of soda and then uncapping it except on a smaller scale. So I set the tube down and turned to look for something to wipe off my hands before I finished up whatever I was supposed to do with the yeast. Now apparently it was no big deal for me to sit around for hours that day waiting for people to go to Walmart, waiting while people took their turns stirring and whatnot, waiting while people tweaked their computers, and waiting while people went off shooting. But I set the tube of liquid yeast down and probably not even a minute later without even asking someone had snapped it up, dumped it in before I could even protest. I could just go fuck myself because there it was- the one thing I was going to get to do on the whole project and that entire day- my only opportunity to participate was abruptly snatched away by someone who couldn't wait two minutes for me to wipe my hands off. This pretty much did in my last nerve.
Probably wouldn't have been a big deal ordinarily, but I'd been running on four or five hours of sleep for several nights in a row, I hadn't eaten much that day other than chips and salsa and a light breakfast maybe (I can't remember for sure), and I suddenly had a bunch of people in my life all the time except when I was sleeping or in the bathroom. No Alone Time- VERY BAD for the INTJ. I am a little bit pissed off at myself for not sticking to my plan wherein I had Alone Time scheduled for myself. I should not have caved to peer pressure. I'll know for next time. So I went to go sit in my car alone listening to music and trying to unwind.
Later, when I downloaded my pictures I found out that Dave, FSM bless him, had snapped a picture of me shaking the yeast before it was absconded with. Unfortunately, that picture will have to be destroyed because I look horrible in it. But it was nice that he was thinking of me. And on further review I see that I will also have to destroy the picture immediately after that one because it is a photo of the person who grabbed the yeast dumping it into the brew. I don't really need that keepsake.
Beer brewing photos appear (with permission of those I could identify in the pictures)
here
here
here
here and
here
Sunday night
Some time later, with beer brewing and 'puter futzing wrapped up, my passengers piled back into the car plus Jac. The three skinniest shared the back seat which has only two seats (each with plenty of hip room). Jac navigated us over to a Mexican restaurant where we had reservations, and others followed behind us in their own cars. Everyone made it to the restaurant, and we were seated immediately.
I ordered the same thing I'd ordered the one time I'd been there before with Jac and his family- the machaca chimichanga, enchilada style. Then I proceeded to commit the classic Mexican restaurant blunder- filling up on free chips and salsa before dinner arrives. The important thing was that I felt a lot better after having had something to eat. Apparently somebody didn't because we lost him after he ordered his dinner and before it arrived at the table. I'm not entirely sure what happened that pissed him off, but the important thing is that I was not involved and can't be blamed. My only involvement was that I and another TCFer split the cost of his dinner that he'd ordered and then left without paying for, and then I took it home where it languished in my refrigerator for a few days and then was chucked.
After dinner, we dropped Jac back at his place, and Ian, li'l p, Dave and I made the trip back to my place. That was an interesting drive filled with conversation because there wasn't much else we could do in the dark. Topics ranged from mental masturbation (e.g. how would national defense work in a world where the United States became Libertopia but not all other countries did, does a person's lack of friends necessarily mean that she doesn't deserve to live if she can't afford some necessary medical treatment, etc.) to the practical yet inspiring (e.g. li'l p relating his move from a big house and high-paying job to his current lifestyle of more freedom) to (of course) talk of guns which fits into all of those categories. We got home so late that Ian opted to stay an extra night. There was once again a quick smoke break when we got home during which time I put away the leftover salsa in the refrigerator and gave Ian directions so that he could get from my house back to recognizable civilization in the morning. Then I set my alarm for about four hours later so that we'd get out of the house in time to get Dave Polaschek back up to the airport in Phoenix.
Monday morning
My alarm clock went off at about 5:00 am and I hopped into the shower before waking up the guys. A few minutes later I was dressed and poked my head into the guest bedroom, saying "Chirp, chirp, chirp." After everyone had complained of the "chirpy birds" outside my house waking them up at the crack of dawn, I figured this would be a good strategy. While everyone was getting dressed and getting their things together, I took a turn at making breakfast. I kept it pretty simple since we were in a hurry- plain scrambled eggs, sourdough English muffins, cream cheese, and smoked salmon.
Then li'l p, Dave and I piled into the Element while Ian loaded into his vehicle to follow us back out to the freeway. This was probably not a bad idea even though he'd gotten directions from me the night before- more than one person has told me they've had a hell of a time finding their way back out of my neighborhood.
We left at about 6:00 am for a 9:16 am flight Dave was catching in Phoenix. Everything was smooth sailing until we got to Phoenix where we hit stop-and-go Monday morning rush hour traffic. Fortunately, someone in the car was smart enough to point out to me that we qualified for the carpool lane and we sailed past traffic. Then we had a few butt-clenching moments as I made my way over to the right to the exit for the 143 which would take us into the airport.
I think we got there about 50 minutes before Dave's flight. We let him out at the terminal curb instead of parking and walking him in so that he'd have a shorter walk to his terminal. Then li'l p moved up to the front seat and we wandered out of the airport. Once again the exit from the 143 onto eastbound I-10 was closed, and I kind of drove around until we found our way onto I-10. We stopped at a Burger King for a quick snack and bathroom break before heading back down to Tucson.
On our way back to Tucson, I pointed out such scenic features as those bird cage and robot art thingies on that piece of land that has been for sale since FOREVER between Phoenix and Tucson and Picacho Peak which I think I pointed out way in the distance from the other direction the next day coming down the hill from my house.
When we got back to Tucson we headed straight for Home Depot to get what we needed to fix my carport door, put up the two security screen doors, and repair my sliding screen door on my patio. This was an interesting trip. Li'l p gave me a nice tutorial on
Li'l p: (holding up a piece of lumber and staring down it lengthwise) See how this one curves to the left? We don't want that.
Kirsten: I agree- it reminds me of my ex-husband. Why is there blue stuff on this piece of wood?
Li'l p: That is actually caused by a fungal infection and boards like this made for very popular decorations not that long ago.
Kirsten: Fortunately, this one does not remind me of my ex-husband.
It was a good place for this tutorial since we found exactly ONE (1) piece of lumber in the appropriate size that was decent. Therefore, I got a little schpiel on each rejected piece of lumber as to why it was no good which I stored away in my noggin for future reference. Unfortunately, this also meant that there weren't enough pieces for what we needed to do. So li'l p decided we would go with some particleboard face boards. We also got some assorted hardware plus a new screen and spline and little wheely tool thingamabobber to fix the screen door. And I got some wildflower seeds. Once we'd loaded up the cart and double-checked our list of what we wanted to get, li'l p went outside to hang out near the car while I checked out.
Monday afternoon
While we were loading everything into the car, we got a couple of calls from Ted and Brenda. We were originally going to meet at the Black Rose Caffe, but it turned out they were closed on Mondays which I'd forgotten when I suggested it. We needed a new place, and I couldn't remember Beyond Bread's name. That wasn't too far away and has a ton of sandwiches to choose from so I thought it would be a good place, but we couldn't meet there since I couldn't tell Brenda which place it was since I couldn't remember the name. She suggested the Blue Willow which was also on Campbell, and that is where we ended up. Li'l p and I drove over there and sat around in the parking lot waiting for Ted and Brenda to show up. Then I think we finally called them to find out where they were- the answer was they were inside. Turns out they'd gotten there before us but I just hadn't seen Brenda's car when we pulled into the parking lot.
While we were out in the parking lot watching people go in, li'l p made a comment that this place probably had things like cucumber sandwiches. I said yes, it was kind of a bakery/tea house/restaurant place, but they also had more substantial sandwiches with meat. Then when we got inside and sat down at the table with Ted and Brenda, I had the pleasure of watching a horrified li'l p forego the manly meatloaf sandwich in favor of turkey while Brenda ordered a veggie sandwich featuring, yes, cucumbers. We took a few pictures during lunch that I'm not posting since Brenda's and my eyes are closed in them. Then on the way out we had fun browsing the gift shop where li'l p got a souvenir for his wife.
After lunch, I braced for the trauma of the day- my man-hating, strangerphobic, anxiety-ridden sweet little Pepperdogger meeting the hairy mountain man known as li'l p. Pepper was kenneled all weekend, but I figured she'd be okay with just one person left at my house once we'd gotten through the initial meeting trauma. She'd nipped Tin-Man last year when he greeted her with a screw driver in his hand hidden up his sleeve, and she'd had Jac on his knees all weekend by barking anytime he stood up. I was CERTAIN this was not going to go well. And then came those oh-so-familiar words out of li'l p's mouth, "It'll be fine. Dogs love me!" Gee, where have I heard that before? Oh, yes, right. Last year that's what Jac told me before Pepper let him have it.
We arrived at dog daycare and went inside to get Pepper shortly after nap time. I seem to recall li'l p being amused by dog naptime. Lindsay was there and let me know that the kennel had not given them her seatbelt and leash when they picked her up that morning. Since they were just around the corner, I left li'l p there watching the dogs over the wall while I ran down to get her stuff. He seemed to be having a ball watching them playing on the little doggie slide and whatnot. Dog daycare isn't the sort of thing you find in the small Montana town where he lives.
When I got back, Lindsay set us up in a little fenced-off get-to-know-you area, and I gave a baggie of treats to li'l p. It went surprisingly well, particularly considering that he had his hat on (another Pepper no-no). It probably helped that (a) Pepper was pretty hungry since I kept forgetting to bring her lunches on the weekend so she was down about 1/3 of her normal food intake, and (b) li'l p was not armed. A few barks, some feeding of kibbles which she thinks are treats, and we were on our way. I was a terrible hostess and made li'l p ride in the back seat on the way home so Pepper could have her usual place riding shotgun with mom. She just circled up in a little dog pile and slept all the way home.
I think we got home around 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a day when it was supposed to reach 90 degrees. It turned out that it only got up to 84, but li'l p seemed to notice that it was a bit toasty outside. Fortunately, he was working mostly in the shade of my carport and we had the carport door open so he got a little bit of cool air from the house. He did pretty well for a pansy-ass Montana/Colorado boy.
And Pepper did pretty well, too. She was very interested at first in what he was doing particularly when things got noisy, but she mostly stayed on the carpet where she could see what was going on. I think she only forgot who he was a couple of times when he went out of sight and then came back.
Li'l p is, among other things, a self-taught carpenter. He was going to fix my carport door (which has had a quarter inch gap allowing all kinds of airflow and bug ingress since I replaced the one that was broken in through when my house was robbed last summer) and put up two security screen doors (one on the front door and one on the carport door) and a couple of other things if we had time. I stood around and occasionally holding something, but he basically fixed my door for me and answered questions. I alternated between cleaning of the kitchen and
Li'l p: I'm going to cut this piece here and here. Can you just make sure it doesn't move while I'm cutting it?
Me: Yeah, okay. I think I can do that.
Li'l p: And if you want to try making some of the cuts yourself, we can do that.
Me: I'm considering it, but I'm kind of afraid of the power saw. If I cut off one of my fingers, we are five miles away from the fire station and then like twenty miles away from the nearest hospital.
Li'l p: That's okay. Remember, I'm also an EMT!
And this, dear reader, is one of the things that many people do not know about li'l p even if they've met him. This guy is about the same age as me and has a huge list of things he's not only tried but is more than competent at and could make a living off of with little trouble. Foul-mouthed and lacking in tact though he may be, this guy is useful. More on that later. In fact, that may warrant a separate post.
Other chitchat while he was working included li'l p's repeated insistence that I need a man around the house to do all this for me (or, I thought to myself, I could just learn to do it myself) and who was the next TCF woman who needed to be paired up with a guy (E., I'm afraid li'l p is currently compiling a list of potential suitors for you).
At some point while li'l p was working on putting up the security screen doors, I hopped in the car with Pepper and ran down to my local hardware store/gas station/convenience store/grocery store place to get baked potatoes. When I got back, I started making dinner. I remembered that li'l p had said it had been a while since he'd had a nice surf and turf plate, and I had some steaks in the freezer from a recent gift certificate redemption from the Omaha Steak Company. Plus, I needed to redeem my reputation for taking nearly an hour to get a fire started at last year's meetup. So dinner was going to be steak with sauteed mushrooms, grilled shrimp skewers, baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli.
Li'l p took a break while he waited for me to get a fire started and then come hold a couple of things in place while he screwed them to the door frame. He looked like he was going to come over and watch what I was doing, and I had to put a stop to that. No need to have someone watching over my shoulder to report back what kind of ridiculous fire-making mistakes I might make this year, I figured. Last year I got a hard time from no fewer than four hungry people glowering at me as I insisted that steak must not be cooked on a fire that used lighter fluid. Sure, it took a little longer, but this is my RELIGION we're talking about!
I would like to say for the record that I KICKED ASS MAKING A FIRE THIS YEAR DAMNIT!!! I was brilliant, in fact. It required only two matches, and one of them shouldn't count because it burned too quickly for me to get it near the unstarted fuel pile so I blew it out to save my fingers. What was my secret? Upon a suggestion from lewlew, I have been hoarding dryer lint and toilet paper rolls and paper towel tubes for the last year. I put one towel tube full of lint down in the grill. Then I put two lint-filled toilet paper rolls down perpendicular to the center of the towel roll forming an X (kindling). I put a pile of charcoal (fuel) in each of the four quadrants. Then I piled on some dried mesquite sticks (tinder) on top of everything such that it overlapped both kindling and fuel. I then lit the lint-filled tubes which then caught the mesquite sticks on fire. Then, following Erin's brilliant suggestion from last year, I put the lid down with the vents open and let the fire do its thing. AND IT WORKED! So shut up, people who were here last year! I will hear nothing further out of your loose yaps.
Okay, I feel better now. Where was I?
Once the fire was lit, I went out front of the house with li'l p to get the front security screen door hung up enough that he could finish it without an extra set of hands holding things in place. Then I went inside to set the table and prep the food that wasn't already cooking. This involved slicing and sauteeing some mushrooms, cutting up some broccoli to be steamed in the microwave, skewering the shrimp and coating them in oil so they wouldn't stick to the grill, and then prepping the steaks. Now normally, I would do nothing to steak before grilling it. But I'm not set on that, and some people like them seasoned with salt or pepper or garlic powder or something. So I asked li'l p how he wanted his steak.
That was the smartest thing I did all weekend. He asked me how I cook my steak, and I said as little as possible. Then, li'l p, being a chef and also being the filthy mountain man known as li'l p, got that look in his eye and that grin on his face and said in his creepy mountain man voice that he'd "show me somethin' real nice." He said to mix some melted butter with some white wine and onion powder and then he'd cook the steaks when he was done with the door. I didn't have onion powder, so I just did the butter and wine. When he got done with the door, he came went out on the back patio where I learned something I've been trying to figure out for years.
Now when I say I like my steak cooked as little as possible, I'm not kidding. Seriously, just sear each side to kill off any E. coli and then serve it to me cold and bleeding inside. That's all I'm looking for. Simple, right? Sure, except that I couldn't figure out how to cook the sides, and it's a little awkward to keep rotating the steak around the perimeter to get the sides all cooked. I was sure I must be doing something wrong, but I didn't know what. Well, the butter/wine mixture solved all that. As I understand it, he plopped the steaks on the grill, poured some butter/wine over the top which then dripped off the sides and into the fire causing it to flare up and then flipped 'em over and did the same thing on the other side. This, I am told by Chef li'l p, not only gets the sides of the steaks cooked, but also quickly seals the outside surface of the meat keeping them nice and juicy inside.
Quotes from the Weekend
-Don't smell it. Just lick it.
-Wiener down.
-Beard power, man!
-Attendee X: I've been grinding my own 6 inch. Attendee Z: Remind me to show you my 8 inch later.
-Attendee A: I'm going to run out to the hardware store to get some baking potatoes. Attendee B: That's not something you hear every day. You know, we don't have to have baked potatoes if you don't want... Attendee A: ARE YOU MAD?!?!? Of course we do if we're going to have good steaks!
Labels: Arizona, ASDM, Dave_Polaschek, freedom, meetup
posted by Kirsten | 4/06/2007 12:01:00 PM
7 Comments:
Welcome bags? I didn't get a welcome bag when I was visited...
We're not important enough for a welcome bag...
PK, you'll get a welcome bag this summer- only then it will be renamed a good will bag or something like that.
Jac, you'll get a copy of my (and maybe some other folks' if I can collect 'em) pictures from the meetup. Trust me when I say that's better than the bag which had in it things like sunscreen, bottled water, pens and a notepad, and a Twinkie.
Sorry I missed it, sounds like a lot of fun goings-on in the desert.
kel
I'm sorry you missed it, too, kel. I look foward to seeing you this summer!
You really should have put more thought into this last update... I mean, really; Li'l P teaching you how to keep meat juicy?
You're just asking for it this time. It's like a Certain Persons bat-signal.
There's also the method of using a hairdryer to blow soot off of the coals and plopping the steak directly onto the coals for searing, as demonstrated by Alton Brown on FoodNetwork. Not sure how well the sides get cooked, but...
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