San Francisco - Day One (5/26/09)

“Attention passengers”, the voice of the airport concourse public address system said. “Today’s flight to San Francisco is being delayed, as a screw and bracket assembly is required to repair a window on the flight deck.” Great. We’re all being held hostage by a parts kit that probably cost $1.29 to manufacture. I won’t publicly say the name of the airline in question, instead choosing simply to say that it rhymes with “Malaska”.

Two hours later, a little after 2:00 pm, we were out of the gate and on our way to start a three-day whirlwind tour of San Francisco. In retrospect, I guess that if we avoided a cockpit catastrophe at 30,000 feet because of a leaky window it was worth a couple of hours and a few turns of a screwdriver.

The Galleria Park: great hotel, great location
Fortunately the remainder of the flight was smooth and uneventful. We made our way to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) terminal at the San Francisco Airport for a half-hour ($5.35) ride to the downtown Montgomery Street Station. A word about BART: They’re frequent, they’re fast and they’re cheap (at least until the transit authorities raise fares to try and get out of the financial mess that every place in California is in). We really wish that Seattle would have gotten the hint in the 70s and 80s and been proactive enough to have done something like this. Imagine an elliptical route from Everett to Tacoma that goes around Lake Washington...

The first order of business at Montgomery Station was to purchase a couple of three-day Muni (local bus/train passes) for $18 each and a $3 detailed map. The map is well worth having even if you think you know where you’re going. The Muni system is excellent but along with it comes a lot of detail and the map is a must have.

Our hotel, The Galleria Park, was located an easy block and a half from the station. It was particularly easy because we only brought carry-on luggage with us. The Galleria Park is in a perfect location, in the Financial District at 191 Sutter Street. It’s an older property but has been recently updated, is clean, and the staff was awesome. And it was a bargain as we used our Entertainment Book to land a rate that was less than $100 a night. The only knock? The rooms are quite small as they tend to be in older hotels, but for us it was an extremely minor point.

The brick oven in action at Tommaso's
We walked in a northwest direction along Kearny Street and found the San Francisco Brewing Company. This is a fairly small brewpub that looked like it was frequented by mostly locals. The India Pale Ales we ordered were thirst quenching but didn’t quite have the same hop levels and body that we’ve grown accustomed to at home.

It was on to dinner. We were looking for a reasonably priced Italian restaurant that was in the good graces of the locals and served excellent pizza. Prior to leaving, we searched yelp.com for such a dining establishment and we found it in Tommaso’s in the North Beach part of town. We shared a Caesar salad (average at best) but were more than rewarded with one of the best brick oven pizzas we’ve ever had. Simply topped with sauce, cheese, basil, oregano and garlic, we ate it all and had a happy walk back to the hotel to call it a night in anticipation of the trip to Alcatraz Island the next morning.

Day two coming up...

BowlingWidow in front of the restaurant after dinner

It Ain't Easy Bein' Cheesy

Okay, so maybe I stole the title line from that famous feline philosopher, Chester Cheetah. But unlike Chester I'm not hawking Cheetos. This was better. Way better.

It was a nice Sunday afternoon and we were able to get most of our outdoor chores done yesterday before and after watching what was a great Preakness horse race on TV. As BowlingWidow was quick to point out, a "girl" horse won that particular race for the first time in 85 years.

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A scene from one of the many tasting lines at the Cheese Festival

This weekend was the annual Seattle Cheese Festival at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. It's a tradition that has only been going on for a few years but we hadn't been there yet so we jumped at an impromptu chance to show up.

If we learned one thing today it's that cheese is very popular. Particularly when they're giving out free samples. There must have been 50 cheese makers there, ranging in size from Tillamook to the tiny Samish Bay Cheese Company in Bow, WA. And they came from as far away as the state of New York (Yancey's, from which we bought some really tasty extra sharp cheddar).

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Some favorites: we couldn't stop ourselves from buying them

I can't begin to rattle off all of the different types of cheeses but they were all there: Gouda, Dubliner, Gorganzola, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Asiago and so on. There were cheeses with Merlot in them as well as one with a wasabi/horseradish combination.

After sampling around 25 cheeses each and purchasing a few of our favorites, we concluded the afternoon with a pint of ale at the nearby Pike Place Brewery.

Yeah, it was a pretty good day.

Fear and Bowling in Las Vegas

In 1975 the band Supertramp released an album called “Crisis? What Crisis?”. That particular album title was running through my head as I rode the slow shuttle from McCarren Airport in Las Vegas to my hotel, The Golden Nugget, on Fremont Street in “old” downtown Vegas. The shuttle was not slow due to any severely restricted speed limits. It was slow because of the thousands of vehicles and pedestrians that were clogging Las Vegas Boulevard, a.k.a. The Strip. If there is a nasty recession going on in this country, a large chunk of Vegas doesn’t seem to be participating.

I was in town for the 2009 U.S. Bowling Congress National Tournament. Every year, somewhere in the country, 80,000 of my closest bowling friends will cycle through during a five-month (or so) window hoping to tally some singles, doubles, and team scores that will give us a dose of feel-good bowling ball-tossing pride as well as a few bucks to go along with it. I’ve been going for a few years now as part of a group of 20 combatants who are brilliantly organized by my friend Brian from the South Puget Sound. More on that in a couple of minutes.

After finally arriving at The Nugget, I went to check into my room, only to see somebody else opening the door. He had been there for a couple of days so I was clearly the victim of a check-in desk mistake. No harm, no foul as I got a new room.

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2009 Miss USA Contestants: Sorry ladies, I'm married

I headed to the Sports Book to meet my friend and co-worker Tony (who wasn’t in Vegas to bowl, but could have been here to fit a snitch with a pair of cement shoes). We had beers for $2 a piece as we watched the end of the Masters golf tournament and decided which games to put a few dollars on in the next couple of days.

Much to our surprise, all 51 of the Miss USA pageant contestants (the big show was last Sunday) made an appearance at the pool of the Golden Nugget. Being a married man, however, BowlingJoe had to disappoint all of them by saying 51 times that he couldn’t be their date for the evening.

After a ten dollar prime rib meal it was time to take a cab to Caesar’s where Elton John was headlining. We were in the “cheap” hundred dollar seats in the comfy 4300 seat venue. I really didn’t know what to expect but I’ll say this about Elton John: he can still deliver the music at the age of 62 (although he seemed to get a bit winded whenever he left his piano to walk around the stage). The sound quality was excellent and he had his original drummer and guitarist with him. And the hits, from “Bennie and the Jets” through “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues”, kept on coming. The giant inflatable boobs on stage were a bit weird but, hey, it is Vegas after all.

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BowlingJoe with what could be the worst looking Elvis in Vegas

We caught a cab back to the hotel and watched The Fremont Experience, a huge music and video show displayed on the inside of a two block long canopy. It was time to call it a night at around 12:30am.

I got up at around 7:30am and at around 9 I called Tony, hoping to meet him at the buffet or somewhere for breakfast. There was no answer so I immediately wondered if somehow HE was the one who was “sleeping with the fish”. I had one of the all time best omelettes ever and he finally did show up as I was about to leave.

The team event was that afternoon, Brian and his wife Kim were kind enough to pick me up at the hotel and give me (and my bowling equipment) a lift to the Cashman Center where the tournament was being held. As it turned out, I didn’t bowl particularly well but was surrounded by some awesome teammates who did, and we’ll certainly cash in that event. Sometimes you help carry the team and sometimes you’re the guy riding in the back of the rickshaw, as it’s unusual for all five bowlers to be firing on all cylinders all the time. At any rate my Boys Night Out #2 team of Darrin, John, Conrad, and Jim were talented and a lot of fun to bowl with.

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A fine team....that even has matching red shirts!
After another cheap steak dinner, I looked over at Tony, and his tank was clearly empty after two nights in a row (he got there the day before me) of the Vegas experience. If it were a boxing match I would have given him a standing eight count and stopped the fight. He went off to his room and crashed hard, while I did some souvenir shopping for an hour and did the same.

Tuesday's singles and doubles events were pretty much of a bowling train wreck except for a lone 256 game that I managed to roll and save a semi-respectable three-game set of 550. Nic was a fine doubles partner but both of us struggled in two of our games and we both vowed to make up for it next year.

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BowlingJoe dreaming in color
In singles, well...there are probably some physics and kinetic reasons that I tallied an embarrassing 424 series, but to simply say that I missed a lot of easy spares and generally bowled like doggy-doo pretty much tells it all. It was so bad that I briefly considered renaming this blog to "BlowingJoe".

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At that point it was back to the hotel to meet the recovering Tony and hail a taxi back to the airport. Like many who have tried before me, including Hunter S. Thompson, I went to Las Vegas looking for the Heart of the American Dream and came up empty.

Perhaps I'll find it a few hundred miles north next year when we return for the 2010 tournament in Reno.

BowlingJoe on the approach with much of the "crew of 20" in the background: things went well that day until I released the ball. (Thanks, Kent, for capturing the shot)

Separated At Birth: Revisited

I need to take care of some unfinished business as I contemplate writing about the Las Vegas bowling trip I just returned from. A while back I blogged about myself and comedian Frank Caliendo who, according to some, is actually my (much younger) double.

I opened it up for anyone who has a similar "Separated at Birth" situation and managed to garner one from BowlingWidow's co-worker, Joe , the brains behind the Captain ILL blog.

Once again, you be the judge. Separated at birth? The "Other Joe" as a baby and Winston Churchill?

Yoga Joe

The staff association where BowlingWidow works recently organized a weekly yoga class that they’re holding on Monday afternoons from 5 to 6 pm. My idea of exercise is to put the iPod ear buds in and hit the elliptical machine for 30 minutes at the Boeing Recreation Center. Doing bendy things has never been my forte.

Still, when she asked me whether or not to pick up an extra yoga mat for last Monday, I gave her an emphatic “yes” and told her I was ready for the challenge. Until now, the closest I’d been to a yoga experience was listening to George Harrison albums while burning musk incense in my twenties. These days though, the biggest question I had was, “Will stretching and getting in touch with my inner self translate into more pinfall on the bowling hardwoods?”

We arrived on time in our sweats, unrolled the mats and took our shoes off. We had to sign a waiver agreeing not to hold the workplace liable in the event that something very bad happens. Great, they were expecting me to snap like a pretzel stick .

Being "bendy" is a struggle for some of us
The instructor introduced himself to the class. He was probably in his early 50s and looked to be in great shape, like he’s been doing this for a long time. He was soft-spoken and seemed “enlightened” to me, as though he’d been sniffing some musk incense of his own. His demeanor and phrasing reminded me of the late Bob Ross. You remember him. The frizzy haired artist on public television who liked to paint “happy little clouds” and trees and mountains…..

He started us out by sitting with our legs folded, doing a few sustained movements and poses from that position. Actually it was more than just a few. I looked at the clock and nearly 15 minutes had gone by. He told us to relax and take in the ambiance of our surroundings. I had a hard time with that since I was feeling like two teams of NFL linebackers were having a tug of war contest with banjo string-tight muscles in both my hips. BowlingWidow looked at me and hoped I’d be able to stand up for the next set of exercises. I was thinking the same thing.

Next up were a series of poses in which we were asked to balance on one leg. Everyone in the room seemed to handle that task with ease. Everyone but me, that is. I felt like I was trying to balance on ice skates. If it weren’t for the chairs we were allowed to use “just in case” I would have made America’s Funniest Home Videos. Joe (another Joe, the creator of the fine blog apparently on hiatus, Captain ILL), the only other dude in the class, was a natural at all of this. In fact, I’m sure he attained the highest level of self-actualization.

One CAN attain self-actualization in one's pajamas
We ended the session with a series of exercises in which we were on our hands and feet, or even laying down. My kind of yoga. Again, our instructor told us to close our eyes, relax and float in space for a while. All fine and good but I never did see those “happy little clouds”. I’ll be back next time to see if I can.

Sleep Apnea Study: The Inside Scoop

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to spend the night at “The SleepLab Hotel”, a fine four-star establishment on the water in the Everett Marina Village. Actually, it was a hotel at one time but it’s long since been transformed into a place called The North Puget Sound Center for Sleep Disorders.

The SleepLab Hotel at The Everett Marina
I had no plans to blog about this, but as I told people what I was doing, many of them said that they had symptoms of sleep apnea or had been told by their wives or husbands that they do.

And that’s how I ended up there. Over the last couple of years, BowlingWidow has told me that at times I’ve stopped breathing for 15-30 second intervals during the night. I also snore but, hey, who doesn’t? The breathing thing became enough of a wakeup call though, even for someone like me who would rather bowl ten 140 games in a row than go visit a doctor.

Sleep apnea is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, high blood pressure, arrhythmias, and diabetes. It’s not gonna get you that one time but the cumulative effect can sneak up on you and make things miserable during those so called golden years (that seem to be approaching faster than I care to admit).

The bed: did I get the death penalty?
My night started at 7:00pm when I checked into the place. At around 7:30 I met with the technician who described the process. I changed into some pajamas and gave a test run to a CPAP machine. This is a sealed mask connected to a machine that delivers a constant air pressure through the nostrils. It’s designed to keep air passages open throughout the night and is 100% effective in eliminating snoring and sleep apnea. The downside is that it takes some getting used to and will immediately remind you of Darth Vader (although the mask is not nearly as intrusive as Darth’s) or more accurately the character played by Dennis Hopper in the film “Blue Velvet”. Other options to the CPAP include surgery, however it’s widely considered by the medical types to be less than 50% effective.

The CPAP was for demonstration only and was not to be a part of the diagnostic study. At around eight, they began attaching wires to me. Not just a few. There were somewhere around 15 of them. Several were on my head in various locations. These were designed to track localized brain activity during the various stages of sleep up to and including REM sleep (which does not imply that I was dozing and listening to the music of Michael Stipe and Peter Buck).

BowlingJoe as Lab Rat: Doctor, please don't administer the shock
There were wires to track breathing and my heart activity. They even had them attached to my jaw and calves to measure teeth grinding and restless leg syndrome, respectively.

Fully wired up and with a plastic device in my nose to monitor air pressure in and out, I was targeting a “bedtime” of around 9:45. I started reading the book I brought with me hoping it would help facilitate the process. It helped a bit but not much.

Actually focusing on going to sleep when “I had to” was challenging, particularly when combined with dodging wire bundles and making sure the tape holds (in most instances they used a type of glue to bond, but on the face proper it was tape).

I think that it took me around an hour to sleep and I remember waking up several times, including once to get permission to go to the bathroom. Yes, the technician has to come in and disconnect the wire pack so you can go do your business. But getting that to happen is easy, as there is a live intercom system as well as a camera on the ceiling above the bed. They don’t miss much.

At 6:15am the next day, they came in and woke me up; telling me that the data collection they had planned for was a success. I have no idea how that happened because it felt like I got a less than optimal night of sleep. But I’ll trust them. The data has been sent to the sleep disorder specialist for interpretation and recommendation but I have yet to meet with him as I write this.

A typical CPAP mask


My guess is that I’ll be invited for a return visit to The Hotel, find a CPAP mask that’s comfortable (inasmuch as those things are comfortable) and do the test over again only with the mask.

If you’re in a position to do so and have concerns about sleep apnea, I’d encourage you look into it. It doesn’t hurt and only costs you one, maybe two nights in terms of the time investment. Getting used to the mask, however, could be something else entirely.

May the force be with you.

Thanksgiving in March?

The Smoker Hard At Work

Well, not exactly. But we had to do something with the turkey in the freezer to make room for the next wave of frozen food. I won the free range 16 pound bird in a radio station contest a couple of months back and we decided that this was the weekend to put it in the smoker and pick the carcass clean, saving most of the meat for future use in soups, on sandwiches and even to stuff enchiladas.

I’ve smoked plenty of chickens in the propane smoker but never something as large as this. And with the rule of thumb that states a half-hour for every pound at 250-degrees, I was looking at around an 8 hour endeavor. After preparing the rub and basting mixture the night before I started out at 8:30 in the morning.

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The Turkey in the "Tanning Booth"

I like to use a technique in which a ¾-filled beer can is inserted in the cavity of the bird throughout the smoke. This gives it a nice moist texture as well as a bit of extra flavor. And adding thyme and bay leaves to the brew certainly enhanced that.

Just above the flame at the bottom of the smoker is a cast iron bin that contains the wood chips or pellets. I happened to have some apple wood pellets on hand so that’s what I used. And directly above the pellet container sits a large bowl of water that becomes heated and produces a nice “sauna” effect.

Here’s the recipe. And by the way, it turned out great. Nice and moist with a fine smoky flavor.

The End Result: So Tender it Practically Falls Apart

Ingredients:

* 1 whole turkey, about 15 pounds

* 16 oz beer plus 2 tablespoons

* 6 bay leaves

* 2 teaspoons thyme

* 4 tablespoons brown sugar

* 2 tablespoons ketchup

* 2 tablespoons white vinegar

* 2 teaspoons hot sauce

* 2 tablespoons paprika

* 1 tablespoon black pepper

* 1 tablespoon salt

* 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

* 1 24 ounce beer can

Preparation:

Empty the beer can into another container. Cut the top of the can off and pour in 12 ounces of beer. Add bay leaves and thyme.

Set aside. Combine 2 tablespoons brown sugar with the paprika, salt and pepper. This is the rub for the turkey.

In another container combine 2 tablespoons brown sugar, ketchup, vinegar, 2 tablespoons of beer and hot sauce. This is your baste for the turkey while it cooks.

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Prepare smoker for an 8 hour smoke. Rub surface of the turkey with the spice rub. Try to get as much as you can under the skin, particularly over the breast meat. Stand beer can up on the smoker grate and gently set the turkey over the can so that the can is completely inside the cavity of the turkey. Make sure that the turkey stands easily and doesn't sway. The turkey needs to be stable. Once you have the turkey in the smoker let it cook for about 8 hours at a temperature around 250 degrees F. Check for an internal temperature in the thigh of about 165 degrees F. This is when the bird is done. Baste the turkey with the baste mixture every 2 hours.