PKA 2010 down, G2 to go

Last weekend was the Professional Knifemakers Show in Denver. It's a 3 day show, which seems a day too long for a show of its size. Show was full this year, or at least all the tables setup were sold. I heard there were seven new makers. Spyderco was a no show, as were the Drapers. Took time off on Saturday to go to the Spyderco factory store. I was tempted to buy a few knives, including the Bug, Honey Bee, Grasshopper, and the brand new Native 3.5 . However, I left with just the Bug.

If I have to give a reason, it was that I had a discussion with a collector back at the show who was pruning back his collection. He came to the conclusion that he had too many items just sitting in drawers doing nothing. This made me think about the above listed knives. Would I carry any of them (maybe the 3.5)? I have a group of knives I carry regularly, as I do with watches. Some rotate in and out, but there's a style I gravitate to: 3.5" blade, slim handle, any lock I can operate with one hand. The knife I carry the most is a Benchmade 940. I has all these qualities. I wish the handles had more grip, and wish there was something keeping my hand on the handle if I were to thrust at something hard and fast. The 940 sister knife, the Gaucho fixes these problems, but adds a weird recurve/tanto blade shape. I've heard you can swap the blades, but never tried.

Got off on a tangent there. It was a fun show, see a lot of knife friends, picked up 2 lefties: an Eddie Baca custom and a ProTech Doru. I should trim the collection, but it's hard.

three rails

none electrified. Two gauges of rolling stock.

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At Colorado Railroad Museum

Very nice layout. Lots of important stock

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the visible steam engine

@ colorado railroad museum

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a better ending to the weekend

Sunday was much better. Got out early to shoot the Glock Sport Shooting Association local match. I've never bought a Glock, so I borrowed a friend's Gen1 Glock 17 (9mm). It's a match designed for non shooters. The match is designed where accuracy is more important than speed, but I can't shoot that way well. I came in 50th out of 92. The friend I went with came in 24th, and shot twice as well as I did.

Sunday Evening went to a customers house and watched Summerslam. A great pay-per-view. A number of surprises, good matches.

These made up for the Mini disappointment.

The mini Minicross

Drove an hour down to Denver this morning to do a Minicross, the Mini (car) version of an autocross. They're having their national convention here this weekend, and this is one of the activities.
I looked at the Mini back in 04 when they first came to the US market as I wanted a car along side my F150. I left a deposit on a Cooper S, but when I finally got to drive one I asked for my deposit back. I loved the handling, but it was a little underpowered, and hard to see up out of (at traffic lights). I ended up buying a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, a better car.
I was in Denver at this event, as I was interested in the new 4 door all wheel drive Mini, the Countryman. I found out that they were only showing it to mini owners in private tonight. So, I registered for this minicross, and told to show up a half hour before my hour slot of 9-10am. I got there at 8:30... and had to wait a half hour for registration to begin. 9am comes around and registration is smooth and I cycle outside where the cars are waiting. Everyone wants a stick, so I volunteered for an auto. I'm with a guy in the passenger seat from Mini. We start off, make a right turn, do some zig-zag back and forth lane changes in the street between cones. We make a right at the corner and do some more, another right, and we're done. That was it. I didn't even begin to push the car, as I thought there would be more to it, like a second and third lap or a autocross area or something. I was majorly disappointed.

They did have two of the Mini E electric cars there, but in a static display, not even with the hood open.

Twisted Tea Mix Pack review

I've tried 4 of the 6 varieties in the Mix Pack, I only have to try Original, and Half & Half. The four I've tried are Light, Backyard, Midnight, and Raspberry.
I didn't like the Raspberry. The mix of tea and berry just didn't mesh here. I like other raspberry iced teas, so I assume it's something to do with the malt beverage part.
The other three are about the same- tea. The Midnight is stronger, while the Backyard is weaker (waterier?), and the Light (ONLY 115 calories) tasted like the Backyard, which is supposed to be sun tea (the Midnight is supposed to be black tea).
I expect the Half & Half to be slightly lemony, and not the half lemonade, half iced tea it should be.
I assume that Original will be like the triplets mentioned above.

In conclusion, they're all about the same, all good. I may not have the greatest taste buds, or may not have developed enough of a palate to differentiate the differences. I wonder if I could tell the differences between regular tea varieties?

Gnarly Barley 2010

Went to the 2nd annual Gnarly Barley Brew Fest on Sat 8/7/10 over at the Larimer County Fairgrounds. This is about 20 min from my home. Got there 15 min early and were about 5th in line. By the time the 'doors' opened, there were about 50 in line. $15 to get in, which got us a mug that held about 8oz, and 6 wooden tokens each worth $1 or 4oz of brew. They had about 15 breweries, each had 2 beers on tap (some more some less [cans]) all setup under their own small tents. When we went back before leaving, it was the most crowded, and many tents were out of beer. I ended up using 9 tokens ($3 extra) to try all the wheat beers that were new to me. Also had a taste of my friends beers, when he got something different.

Got to talk to two new NoCo breweries: Equinox and Grimm Bros.

Equinox is out of Old Town, Ft Collins and grew out of the owners homebrew store. Or, I should say, grew into. They have a tasting room.

Grimm Brothers Brewhouse are in East Loveland, near Walmart. Opened 2 weeks earlier, they're still feeling out their market for the hours of their tasting room.

I'm not sure if these are anything more than a different style of brew pub. If you don't bottle and distribute... Then again, if you don't serve food, what are you?

Back to the tasting. I used 9 tokens, and chose these:

1- Tommyknocker Jack Whacker a Wheat Ale Style: Herb and Spices 14IBU. A good beer.

2-Equinox Sunrise Golden Ale. Too hoppy. I'm not a fan of hop flavor, but don't mind IBU (see Guinness)

3- Durango Wheat Beer 12IBU. Again too hoppy, but better than #2

4-Ft Collins Brewing Major Tom's Pomegranate Wheat. Best wheat yet, still not there.

5-Bristol Brewing Beehive Honey Wheat 16IBU. Solid (A)!

6-Brothers Grimm Snow Drop, a Pale Wheat Ale. Too hoppy

7-Del Norte Cinco Mexican Style Lager. This is the Mexican Light style they make, and it's what I expected having drunk Corona, Sol, etc. Nothing exciting, but a light refreshing beer.

8-Sam Adams Coastal Wheat. I rated this a good+

9- Oskar Blues Old Chub, a Scotch Ale. I cheated here as this is a favorite, but we had reached the end of the tents, and I had one token left. I said I wanted to try something new from them, but the only beer I hadn't tried were all IPAs. Guess I could have tried the Mama's Little Yella Pils. OK, I SHOULD have tried something new from them.

Also tried the Brothers Grimm Fearless Youth, a Munich Dunkel Lager, and thought it was great.

Tried the Breckenridge Brewery Buddha's Hand Witbier at Old Chicago later. Horrible. Took two sips and left the rest. Strangely, the waitress never asked about why I wasn't drinking it.

My highlight (and showing what a wimp I am) was trying Twisted Tea at the Sam Adams booth, on ice. I couldn't (at the time) taste any alcohol in this, it just tasted like Iced Tea. I think my taste buds were dead, or at least confused by this time. However, I liked it so much I sought out the Mix Pack, that has six different flavors in it. Didn't find it at the first two (big) liquor stores, but found it at my local. The second place told me they had it on order, but it had been out of stock for a month. At home I crack open the box (no date markings on the outside), and see the bottles listing their 'best by' dates being months ago. They still seem to taste fine, and still enjoyable. But, that's the topic for a different post.

2nd charge

With the meter on the correct screen, I see it uses 450w while charging, and 5w at rest. That seemed low to me until I thought about fuses blowing. Except fuses are measured in amps. At work we have a refridgerator that is listed at 7.5amps. We have two of them. When we tried three, on a 20 amp fuse, it blew if all three tried running at the same time.
I wrote down amp usage for the scooter, but don't have it with me.