In search of the perfect cheeseburger

I was a super picky eater as a kid.  I blame squirrels.  My soon to be mom took the dog out during an ice storm  when I was still inside her tummy and said dog saw a squirrel and took off.  she slipped and fell on the ice and I said LET ME OUTTA HERE! 

I was 6 weeks early and I'm told I did not have a fully developed stomach (which seems to have corrected itself).

ANYWAY - I was picky and when my parents went on a vacation I would eat cheeseburgers and I had a little book where I would write down my feelings in each cheeseburger.   THUS - you know where I am coming from 60 years later.  I'm still looking!

We went to The Old Rock last night thinking it;s been a number of months since the change in ownership - how were there burgers NOW!   

WELL - The texture is fantastic, juicy wonderful meat, the burger to bun ration is perfect, the cheese was melted to perfection.   HOWEVER - I SWEAR the new cook came in, saw the grill and with a sander ripped off all that ugly brown seasoning that had built up over the last decade to a brand new spanking clean grill . . . . with zero seasoning.

The burgers had EVERYTHING going for them  except . . . flavor.  Not a bad flavor at all  just a serious lack of any seasoning. ZIP, nada, none.  Was this fried on Teflon?  How utterly disappointing to have what could be the best burger in the tri county area to and ALMOST perfect burger with no flavor but truly outstanding everything else.

Does one bring their own seasoning to a restaurant/bar?  Is this uncouth? 

So at the moment the #1 burger is still . . .oddly . . Mooyah Burgers.  The Caribou Bar in Madison is pretty darn good, Mullins 1/4 pounders were pretty good, Eddy's in Sun Prairie are good depending on the cook.

The search continues.

I see Fast lanes is begging for workers along with most American businesses.  I wish there was a group of skilled, law abiding workers that wanted to come to America for work.  where can we find such a group.  How do we get people to want to come to America.

Democracy is actually a giant ponzi scheme where we NEED people to keep growing.  If population stagnates so does the economy.  Nobody ever said a city that is losing workers is growing.  Every  legal OR illegal immigrant that enters America grows the economy.  Its a fact.

WAIT - is it time for another market pull back?  seems so!

The markets are trading around their all-time highs and are potentially setting up for some pullbacks after their recent rallies. We think the support levels below the indexes offer clues as to how far they may pull back with the Dow Industrials having support at around 26,200 and 25,200 with equivalent levels of 2900 and 2750 for the S&P. Anything above those lower numbers would be considered normal and even expected, in our opinion, but we think breaking the lower supports would indicate some possible larger corrections that could be in the 10%–15% range,. The market indicators reached some areas of being modestly overbought, but not excessively so, which we believe implies that any pullbacks may also be more average and contained.

    

and BTW - anybody saying this is all Trumps wonderful economy . . . . no - it's not.

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DJ and I went on 12 mile 245 feet up cycle trip yesterday.  I love these apps that tell you how many feet UP hill there is on a ride. Who cares about downhill, it's the uphill that bikes worry about.

   
The CWCC (Columbus Wi Cycling Club) will have a ride sometime in the near future to Sassy Cow Cremery and will be joined by the Sun Prairie Club to come back to Cbus.  a 23 mile round trip ride and looking at Sunday morning the 21st depending on weather and other factors.

Anybody wishing to join up we meet at Cercis Brewing on Sundays about 2:00.  DJ and I will be at art Fair on the Square this coming Sunday.  The parade reaped at least 3 new members so far wit h4 more interested and were looking for a bike club in the area.

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I have to admit - the fireworks in Washington DC were fantastic.  Set to the 1812 Overture, my very first album my parents played on their new stereo council in the late 60s.  Great canons.

Tchaikovsky hated this work with a passion.  It's a work influenced with Russian folk songs and celebrates a huge Russian war victory over Napoleon.  Odd how a celebration of everything American is put to a Russian piece celebrating everything Russian.   How ironic.

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and BTW - who is in Mountain View CA - Welcome!!  a town about half the size of Columbus.

HOWDY STRANGER!  Sorry - just looking to see where people came from.

Columbus fireworks FUBR

WOW - The perfect storms pulled up to Columbus 15 minutes before the famous fireworks and it was a total  FUBR with a serious lack of communication on the city's part.  I had falsely assumed that SOMEWHERE down the road someone was in charge but it seems I was wrong.

Just when things were getting settled  down and the crowd was at it's biggest two tiny storms developed from outflows of larger storms and both were very very moist with a LOT of rain in both.

The first one goes through with plenty of lightning and from our house near HWY89 there was a constant stream of cars leaving Firemans Park.  People on Facebook were asking if the "works" were canceled?  still on?  Nobody knew.  Then a second larger storm was approaching but veered east just under Columbus.  Tons of lightning . . . and still know word.  There were loud speakers available but . . .who was in charge.  Anybody anybody?

Seriously - there has to be SOME type of hierarchy for an event of this size.  SOMEONE needs to make the decision.  Was there a total lack of leadership and coordination AND communication? 

The Mayor?  The City Administrator? Emergency Management?   I will be the first to defend "the city" because the people that run things are just normal people doing the best they can.  But there SHOULD be something in place for non-life threatening emergency's in major events that draw ten's of thousands of people to our city.       

and yea - this happens once ever 50 years - HIDEOUS timing for the storms. Half hour either way and no problems.

I was online telling people it was a small storm that was wet but not dangerous (for the most part). There could be a 20 minute delay but . . . . .nobody at the park had a clue and nobody was going to tell them anything.

They did go off as the highways were crowded with traffic leaving the park and they actually held my attention this year. 

I felt the last 2 years they had gone DRASTICALLY downhill.  I can once again say they were very excellent

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Wednesday night The Oaks had something very very sad happen.

Their signature tree was hit buy lightning.  A beautiful Hickory that was just off the putting green.  So so sad.

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What has happened to all the overpriced ball players - Bryce Harper who had 2 out of 7 great seasons signed for 300 million and is now WISHING he was as good as a hitter as Eric Thames?

Manny Machado has NEVER had a GREAT year but had a very good year LAST year has a .828 OPs which is in the "good" range but pretty pedestrian as a 300+ millionaire.

Speaking of Thames - nobody is noticing that he is having a pretty good year at the plate.  We won't talk about his fielding but for a first baseman there is only 1 ball every 3 games where skill is actually needed, you just hope it does not lose a game when that skill IS needed.

Thames has a .369 on base and over .500 slugging and he is not really letting down vs. LHP. 

Yelich is having an AMAZING year ESPECIALLY vs. RHPs. Against right handed pitching he has a .466 on base % and a .765 slugging - HOLY CRAP!!   BUT WAIT.

As I'm finding out on my strat-o-matic team.  Ballparks are everything for Yelich.  At HOME Yelich has a .896 slugging, on the road .559.

this is why I'm changing my ballpark in strat-o-matic.  You can change every 3 years and right now I have San Diego.  With Yelich signed for 2 more years and Trout for 4 more - it's time for a hitters friendly ball park.

Yelichs OPS at home is 1.371   WOW!!

Fun stat - when Yelich is in a 1-0 count (1 ball no strikes) he has a 1.666 OPS.

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The Independence Day Parade.  The Columbus Wi Cycling Club had 14 people in the parade this year

Our group was at the 36 minute mark   CWCC 

https://youtu.be/bBbkOXASAzY



zit for today - gotta run!   Have a great week!!

Storms and more storms coming

You know how the weather was yesterday?  Pretty much going to be like that for the next 6 days.

The cool news was MY reading in Columbus of a 52 mph wind gust was used by NOAA and CH27.  Seems I'm taken seriously by NOAA and last night COLUMBUS 52 was on the news.

The storms sure looked rather threatening.  #1 with the 52 mph winds looked pretty scary

and it was about this point where . . . . .

the kid mowing our neighbors lawn stopped mid row and ran . . RAN home.  I'm not even sure the lawn mower was turned off LOL  (note, the light pole is straight up - 10mm lens does that)

Then in round 2 a truly magnificent shelf cloud, roll cloud, arcus cloud rolled over us.  The leading edge of a gust front.

Cool, sinking air from a storm cloud's downdraft spreads out across the land surface, with the leading edge called a gust front. This outflow cuts under warm air being drawn into the storm's updraft. As the lower cooler air lifts the warm moist air, its water condenses, creating a cloud which often rolls with the different winds above and below.

In June we had 17 days with some sort of rain for 5.58 inches.

One year ago today we had a dew point of 78.8 and a heat index of 107.   SO . . . can't complain.

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Look for us in the parade Thursday - I thin we will have 10? 12? riders. We're working on a book of 20 routes.  We meet at Cercis Brewing every Sunday about 2:00 at the moment.

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Saturday the president of our home brew club FINALLY opened the brewery where he is the head brewer .  Ooga Brewing in Beaver Dam and damn he makes good beer.

He produced a coffee pale ale that I totally love.  Even with all the new equipment issues he had with his first bunch of brews this one was great.   He has 4 beers on tap and there are 3 or 4 more guests taps at the moment.

When I started brewing people kept telling me to open a brewery - NO!!!  That would be like work.  Jeff is working like 70 hours a week trying to keep up . . . and dare I say loving every second.  It's nice when you see a dream come true.

This whole thing about working for your self is bull.  Why would I want that stress.

It's also nice when someone who is a step above home brewing turns pro and is successful.

The odd thing is is that in the last few years many of us old timers that started home brewing a decade ago with pretty good success and many awards . . . stopped.   The issue is why brew now when you can go to a store with  SO MANY OPTIONS and just buy a 6-pack.

A decade plus ago there were not that many options of when you could buy.  I have two recipes that I will brew - My Double Chocolate Stout and my East Indian Porter.  But even then - if you want my Double Chocolate Stout  just go to HyVee and buy Samuel Smiths Organic Chocolate Stout.  I'ts truly my favorite stout and is as close I you can get to perfection in a chocolate stout.

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The debates - who won?   The first number is the likability AFTER the debate - (like - dislikes).
The second number is before the debate

1- Warren- 58.9% (49.9%)                 = +9.0
2- Sanders- 58.8% (56.7%)               = +1.8
3- Biden- 56.5% (60.4%)                   = -3.9
4- Harris- 54.1% (44.9%)                   = +9.2 
5- Booker- 41.9% (33.9%)                 = +8.0
6- Buttigieg- 40.8% (35.2%)              = +5.6
7- Castro- 36.1% (20.0%)                 = +16.1
8- O’Rourke- 31.6% (35.9%)             = -4.4
9- Klobuchar- 24.4% (19.9%)            = +4.5
10- Gillibrand- 23.5% (21.0%)           = +2.5
11-Yang- 15.0 (15.2%)                       = -0.2
12- Inslee- 12.4% (9.1%)                   = +3.3
13 (tie)- Gabbard- 10.6% (5.8%)       = +4.8
              Swalwell- 10.6% (9.8%)      = +0.8
15- Bennet- 9.6% (8.6%)                   = +1.0
16- Ryan- 8.7% (7.7%)                      = +1.0

17- Hickenlooper- 7.7% (7.5%)         = + 0.2
18- Delaney- 6.7% (6.8%)                 = -0.1
19- de Blasio- 2.4% (-2.1%)              = +0.3
20- Williamson  -2.3% (4.2%)           = +6.5

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Because of climate change (something republicans do not believe in) Alabama has seem 90+ super nests of wasps that contain over 15,000 wasps.  Normally they find one or two.  this year over 90 as their climate warms more then normal.  How awesome is THAT!

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Even though Kim Jong Un executed his staff for the failed Trump nuclear meeting last time El Presidente' loves the killer of families with more photo ops and then takes credit for saving America for a mess he created.

The average American female player in the World Cup earned $260,869, compared to $1,114,429 for a male player.  and what did the males do this year?  Have they played?  Did I miss it?

The stock market continues to run sideways

We think the markets are slated for a strong opening today as the recent news is causing an increase in the optimism, but as we have seen so many times this year, that optimism can be fleeting. The best technical pattern for the markets, in our opinion, would be to hold the initial gain through the day and then build on it further over the next few days. A reversal from the strong opening could signal some toppy action that would be more significant now that the DJIA and S&P are in their previous high territories. We still view the markets as a mixed bag, of different trends in stocks, groups, and indexes, that is not positioned well enough for a continued uptrend at this time, and regard the current action as more of a short-term peak.

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OH - I'm on The Twitter.  Rod Melotte.  Random comments normally about the Brewer games and odd facts about life.

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Big Brother is off and running and now you can tune in as the first few episodes are over where everyone is REALLY fake. it takes a week to really get going and peoples real personalities show up.

Of course an 8 person alliance is already about to fall apart (like they do) and a new Head of Household was picked last week.

Amazing Race ended and Colin and Christie were by far the strongest team.  They were in The Race in 2004 and he was just a total asshole to his wife and he vowed to get better. What a nice change 15 years later.

OH - you asked about LOVE ISLAND?   Just say no.  They are advertising it as a REALLY SHALLOW eye candy show.  YUP.   We really only watch the big 3, Survivor, Amazing Race and Big Brother.   

Have a warm  day - ENJOY   lol