The beauty of barbeque

To me, nothing says “Summer” more than good barbeque. Whether it be traditional pork ribs, beef brisket, chicken or hot links, I just can’t get enough of that grilled, smokey flavor. Although I love all barbeque (including tofu, which if prepared correctly, believe it or not, is pretty damn good), my favorite is pork ribs. I generally find pork ribs juicier and more tender than the other meats. Pork ribs can be fattier though, but l’m OK with that since the fat is where a lot of that good sweet flavor comes from! One of my recurring day dreams has me planted at a picnic table over a slab of ribs slathered in sweet BBQ sauce, which I slaush down with an amber ale, while listening to the ballgame on the radio. In my dream there are never flies, mosquitos or bees!

To many people, barbeque and beer just isn’t enough and they have to have “the sides”:

Cornbread: It is very hard to find someone who makes good cornbread. It’s either too dry or too much like cake rather than bread. But when you find someone who can make an moist, authentic cornbread, it is not an optional item, but a requirement!

Cole Slaw: I find that only 1 in 5 places that serve cole slaw make it well enough for me to finish my portion. Many places put way too much mayonaise in it and it turns into a kind of cabbage soup. Other places make it sickenly sweet. If you find a good slaw, it can be the perfect accompaniment to que served with hot sauce as it will help put out the fire.

BBQ Beans: I love the beans, but will only eat them if I’m eating outside, if you catch my drift (which I hope you don’t). My favorite kind of beans also have bacon, onions and bits of sausage links in them.

Potato Salad: If the cole slaw looks soupy, then I opt for the potato salad. Again too much mayo can ruin a good thing.

Sweet Potatoes: Some people love these. I normally reserve eating these for Thanksgiving.

So now that I’ve got you salivating, I bet you want to know where to go to get you some good que? Here are my favorites:

Campbells: 8701 SE Powell Blvd., Portland Their pork ribs are sublime and their sausage hot links are the best I’ve ever had.

Uncle Wally’s: 27501 SW 95th Ave., Wilsonville. Uncle Wally won 1st prize in last year’s Bones and Brew competition. The pork ribs are excellent and their BBQ beans have all the goodies in them! Location is very hard to find though as they are located in an office park.

Reo’s Ribs: 17385 SW TV Hwy, Aloha. These guys make a mean beef brisket. Great for take out since the eating area is pretty spartan.

Rendezvous BBQ: Somewhere in Memphis, TN. Best BBQ pulled pork sandwich I’ve ever eaten in my life. Incredibly moist and flavorful!

The Alternative OS

I have this old Compaq laptop that I really like because it is very thin and lightweight. The only problem is that it only has a P3 600Mhz CPU in it and Windows runs like a slug on it. It literally takes 7 minutes to boot up; I’m not joking or exagerating! I had heard that one way to breathe new life into your old hardware is to ditch Windows and install Linux on it. I had read good things about the Ubuntu distribution on the web, so I figured, what the hell, why not give it a try?

I downloaded the installation setup from the Ubuntu website and I had a choice of either making a dual boot setup or completely overwriting my Windows OS with Ubuntu. Since I don’t have a large enough hard drive to have both Windows and Linux on my machine simultaneously, the decision was simple… kill Windows! The installation process was very smooth with absolutely no glitches or warning messages. Once it found and configured all of the hardware (keyboard, mouse, etc.) it finished the install. I rebooted just to see how long it would take to boot up. I was very amazed that it finished booting in less than 2 minutes!

The Ubuntu distribution comes with Open Office. I fired up Office Write and Office Calc (the replacement for Word and Excel) and I was very pleased to find that it successfully opened all of my Word and Excel documents. Furthermore, since I’m not much of a “power user” in either Word or Excel, I found that I had no problems navigating, using commands/functions, changing fonts, etc. in Office Write or Office Calc. As far as I’m concerned, I never have to use Word or Excel again.

There are still many commercial applications that won’t run on the Linux platform. A couple of important ones for me are Adobe Photoshop and Quicken. I’ve heard people say that Gimp is a worthy replacement for Photoshop and that there is a suitable replacement for Quicken that will read Quicken files. I’ll have to give Gimp a try and do some research on the Quicken replacement. I will certainly keep my desktop machine running Windows just because I have a lot of time invested in Photoshop and I can’t see dropping Photoshop anytime soon. In fact a number of my “dyed-in-the-wool” Linux friends keep one Windows machine around just for this very reason. I’m guessing that Microsoft must be paying Adobe big bucks under the table not to port Photoshop to Linux!

I still have a number of things left to try out before I can safely say that I’m 100% sold on Linux. So far I’m very happy with Ubuntu running on my old laptop which I’m primarily using as my email and web surfing machine. It certainly boots and runs much faster than when I had Windows 2000 running on it. Let’s just say that I’m 99% sold on it!

Are Flower Photos Passe?

Have we gotten so jaded by photographs of flowers that when we see one we say "Oh no, not another flower picture"? I think we can all agree that flowers are beautiful, but is it cheating to take a photo of one and then call it art because they are inherently beautiful and the photographer is doing nothing but documenting that beauty? Is this any different than taking photos of kids or sunsets? Talk amongst yourselves….

10 Reasons Why…

… I won't give up using my 35mm film SLR (not in any particular order):

1. I love that loud distinct "click" when I depress the shutter button.

2. I love seeing the rewind knob rotate whenever I advance the film.

3. I love knowing that I can make an image (at 1/90 of a sec.) even if my battery is dead.

4. I love knowing that I can use 3200 ISO speed film when I photograph in very low light situations.

5. I love the look of my color prints after shooting with Velvia slide film.

6. I love the feel and the weight of an all metal camera body.

7. I love the permanence of negatives and slides (as long as you don't lose the shoe box!)

8. I love the look of my B&W prints after shooting with Kodak BN print film.

9. I love that gritty, grindy sound the self-timer makes before the shutter is automatically tripped.

10. I love how the film canister drops into mid-air and into my open palm after rewinding and popping open the camera back. I actually do this on purpose and say "Tada!" when it hits my hand.

Film is dead, long live film

If you are even the least bit into photography, you have probably heard the news that Canon recently announced that they are no longer going to manufacture film cameras. This follows on the heels of a near identical announcement that Nikon made a few months prior. Is this a clear signal that film based photography is on its way out? Is it only a matter of time before large conglomerate companies like Kodak and Fuji stop manufacturing film? If you are talking about consumer photography, in my opinion, the answer is yes to both questions. The time is fast approaching where less than 5% of the general public will use film cameras as their primary picture taking device. It is clear that John Q. Public likes the instant gratification and cost efficiency of digital cameras. Furthermore, manufacturing film is a highly intensive, high overhead process. It just won't make business sense for most companies to continue to manufacture it.

There are many people, like myself, who believe that film will always be available in the future. It will just be much more expensive to purchase and process. It will only be offered by specialty companies who are willing to fill a niche market; the retro, old school, film based, amateur photographer.   My guess is that the variety of film (film speed, color/B&W, slide/print, etc.) will diminish and there is a possibility that the quality of all remaining film on the market (taken as a whole) may go down.

I see a striking similarity to the digital revolution in the music industry. When the compact disc technology made it to the consumer market, the transition from vinyl records to CDs was quick and dramatic. It didn't take long before most music stores no longer carried vinyl records. However, many years later, there still is a small, but strong niche market of people who still prefer to hear their music on vinyl using their analog, tube amplifiers and their belt driven turntables. Believe it or not, new records of new releases are still being pressed today; just in very limited quantities and I would presume at very high prices.

In 10 – 20 years, film photography will not be same as it is today. But at least for those like myself who still enjoy using film, it will still be there, albiet in a somewhat limited capacity. It gives me a certain pleasure to know that my old Minolta SRT 102 35mm film camera will still continue to receive some sporatic use rather than live out the rest of its days in a dusty basement storage bin.

Barry ‘Big-Head’ Bonds

I'm sure by now you've heard that Barry Bonds passed Babe Ruth for the second most career homeruns and all of the constroversy of Barry Bonds' alledged steroid use. First of all, the record that really counts is Henry Aaron's mark of 755 career HR's. Why should we stand up and cheer when someone moves into second place?

So question #1 is: Did Barry Bonds take steroids? Answer: Hell yeah! Have you ever noticed how huge his head is and how his batting helmet barely fits him? It is common knowledge that taking steroids leads to what is called "roid head". Sports Illustrated did a great expose where they showed "before and after" photos of players (including Bonds) where it was obvious that not only do players bulk up to incredible size within a fairly short period of time, but their heads grow abnormally large as well. Add the strong circumstantial evidence from the book The Game of Shadows and my money is on him being guilty as charged.

Question #2: If Barry Bonds passes Aaron's mark, should it really "count"? Answer: Hell no it shouldn't count. Everyone knows that taking steroids will give you more muscle mass and therefore make you stronger. When it comes to hitting home runs a large component of whether the ball goes over the fence or not is bat speed. Stronger players (i.e., those who use steroids) can swing the bat faster and with more power. I agree that hand-eye coordination and pure athleticism are the main determiners as to whether you hit the ball in the first place.  However, it is impossible to determine how many of the homeruns Barry has hit in the past would really have been just fly-outs if Barry was his normal, non-steroid self.

Ben Johnson was disqualified from the gold medal in the 1988 summer olympics for steroid use. Why should Barry Bonds suffer any less fate?

Endless Snow-Summer

While most people around the country are pulling out their bicycles from storage, setting up the barbeque in the backyard, or planning their Memorial Day weekend camping trip, a good number of Oregonians (like myself) are heading up to the mountain for more epic snowboarding or skiing! Why fight the chilly, sand blasting winds on the coast, when you can get that coveted "racoon" tan after one day of skiing under the bright mountain sun?

Mt. Hood Meadows will be open the entire Memorial Day weekend with all major lifts running! They plan on closing the June 2-3 weekend. Timberline is open almost 12 months a year and will close Sept 4 for their annual 2-3 week maintenance period and then they reopen for the new season. Mt. Bachelor will be open the Memorial Day weekend and will then close for the season.

C A R V E I T U P ! ! !

Japanese Tea Garden

I took my Mom to the Portland Japanese Tea Garden this past weekend since she’s Japanese and she likes gardens. I figured it would be a slam dunk experience. The tea garden is well laid out in that there are many mini-gardens that are sheltered from one another and makes it seem like the overall garden is bigger than it really is. There is no one spot where you can see the entire garden in its entirety which I’m sure was planned. There are plenty of small waterfalls, stepping stones and benches for you to contemplate your navel.

If you are into photography, I think it would be a prime location to take portraits in that you can always find the perfect soft lighting and the grounds are so serene.

The only downside is the steep admission price ($8 regular admission, $6.50 for seniors). Thank God my Mom gets the senior discount! I figured for that kind of green, we should have at least gotten some free sushi!