adventure – Page 5

The Spanish Inquistion

December 4, 2014 by Taco

A Victim of the Spanish Inquisition – I found multiple attributed artists, if you own the copyright don’t sue me, just tell me to take it down.

So I almost went with the Monty Python joke, but it was just too obvious, even for me.

Anyways, if you were expecting some big historical post about the Spanish Inquisition, then you will be disappointed. But my guess is that you weren’t, so you won’t, unless you are, then sorry-not-sorry. While the real inquisition has all sorts of fun nasty bits, I have my own fun nasty bit to share. I had to have another EMG. I’ll get to what that is in a moment, but for now I’ll say that is not something that you generally want to be having another one of.

Since moving out here I’ve continued seeking medical assistance for my legs (and also for the numb/painful spot on my upper back, an old symptom, but a recent addition to the medical pursuit). Due to some stupidity with obtaining my student ID before classes actually started it took me a bit to see my general doctor, who I ended up really liking. We talked for over an hour about things and she seemed genuinely interested. She wanted me to start with seeing one of the neurologists. So I went to schedule that, naturally the earliest I could get in was 2.5 months away. Fun. So I waited, like I have waited for 4 years. But the day finally came and I went to see Mr. Neurologist and… he turned out to be one of the biggest douchebags (if not the biggest) I have ever met in the medical profession. I absolutely cannot stand the guy. However, the flip side is that he actually did a few basic tests that no one had ever done in four years, not once. I’m talking stuff like testing my reflexes in my legs. Yeah, stuff that basic was never done. “SURE LETS CUT YOU OPEN AND TEAR YOUR MUSCLES IN HALF, BUT LETS NOT TEST YOUR REFLEXES FOR BASIC NERVE ISSUES, NOPE” To be fair, I don’t think I ever requested a basic reflex test, but I’m not the doctor. However, I did make the request for them to look at my spine, many, many times and no one ever would. It took me 1.5 years just to get them to do an MRI of my legs. And that only came after half a dozen other tests, some of them being done more than once. So anyways, this neurologist, who I’ve taken to calling Dr. Douchebag, has as Meem has put it, “No bedside manner,” but he seems medically competent. So he looked over my old EMG and didn’t like a few things about how the test was done, based on my specific symptoms. So he ordered another one, fun. However, he also agreed with me, by not agreeing with me, I know that doesn’t make much sense, but Dr. Douchebag has a way of being an asshole even when he is listening to you. Anyways, he thought a spinal MRI would be a good move. He also went even further and ordered a MRI of my brain as well. Uh, ok, I guess. I don’t have much objection since my cell phone poops radiation into me all day long anyways and MRIs don’t even use radiation, but the brain had never been mentioned before. So, end of appointment, Dr. Douchebad told me: “Go get this EMG on your legs, go get both these MRIs, each with contrast, also I have a tiny peen.”

So I was off to research my insurance. I have insurance through my school. My school pays for it because I am poor. When you pay 20,000$ a month for a 10×10 apartment with little income, you are poor. Point being, I really, really needed to know what my insurance would cover. The good news is that in-network, which was basically anything my school is a part of (which is a lot, like, a lot a lot), almost everything is covered 100%, including EMGs and MRIs. Out of network you are pretty much boned, but neither of the places I needed to go was out of network, so I kept the appointments.

The thing is, this is also my last week of classes before exams, and I had a myriad of other law school related appointments to deal with. I did NOT want to deal with this crap during exams, so I needed to bunch three tests into one week. The MRI came first. Turns out, I can’t do the MRIs all in one day. I have to have two different contrasts (The guy on the phone was oh-so-reassuring when he was like “I guess that shouldn’t be a problem, are you healthy?” – Why yes I am, I am just so healthy I like getting blasted with magnets and loud noises for 5 hours in a small tube). So I have to go sit in the machine for 2.5 hours, twice and get an IV each time. Those were scheduled for Thursday (the day of this post) and Friday consecutively, even at the same time. Next up was the EMG. This one would only work in the early morning and it was even further away than the MRI. Anyways, everything was scheduled and insurance was supposedly good (we’ll see, insurance companies are profoundly stupid).

EMG day arrives, more aptly titled “The Day Taco was a Moron and Returned to the Dungeon of Spanish Inquisition.” The good news was that SB took some time off from her placement to come with me. The last time I got this done I had some trouble walking afterwards. Which brings me to my next point. What is an EMG? While, it stands for Electromyography, but that doesn’t mean anything to you, or me. In plain English it means, 1. I will shock you with a taser 100+ times and then 2. After shocking you 100+ times I will stick electrified needles into your muscles and then smash them in deeper and ask you to flex that muscle. Oh yes dear friends, they move the needle around inside you.

So to recap: Electrocution, Needles with Electricity. Sign up sheet is on the table.

Now they don’t just do this on legs, they can do it on most areas of your body, including arms (as I would soon find out). But last time I had it done, it was just my legs.

But backing up a bit. We actually missed the first of the buses we were intending to take to the hospital, luckily the second bus was early, so while it didn’t move until it was on schedule, we at least got to sit in it instead of the cold, cold outdoor places. It was nice because the bus we took is actually the same bus I’ll take tomorrow and Friday, since it goes right by the MRI place. Anyways, we pushed it very close time wise, in fact we were just a little late, but late is still early for medical appointments.

That is not the actual part of the hospital I was in, but that is the original building that the rest of the hospital (which is massive) grew around. Anyways, once we got into the room (SB included). The test person, who I think was still in residency came in and we got started. She was very nice and willing to explain things a lot more clearly than my last EMG person. Of course she was also nice enough to tell me that EMGs are apparently way worse when you are young and healthy. The older you get the less and less they actually feel like torture. She also told me that Dr. Douchebag had requested an EMG on my right arm (for my back issue) as well.

Wat.

Yeah he never told me that, I never said “Ok, yeah lets shock my arm too!” It was not until I was half-naked in my stylish hospital gown that I was told that 3/4 of my appendages would be tazed repeatedly and then have a multitude of needless mashed in them. Sweet.

But I went with it. Because I was there, and I figured, why not. So the test gets underway and yeah, I really don’t need to go through the process. It should be fairly obvious it kind of sucks. I will say though, SB managed to not pass out during the needle part. But she was also burning holes in the stuff she was reading. She was actually planning on leaving when the attending doctor and the resident sort of just came in and started treating me like pin-cushion. But I survived and it turns out.. there is no big issue. Basically, there is some very mild slowing in my peroneal nerve on the left side. This is is sort of similar to what they found last time, except it was even less pronounced this time. They were pretty clear that this amount of slowing would likely not create symptoms, let alone symptoms of my level. Also, the right side was fine. My arm was also fine. In a nutshell, there is a little bitty issue in my left peroneal nerve, but there is no conceivable way that it would cause issues to my level. Plus, my right leg has no such issue. If this is a neural issue, its at the very least not something that an EMG is going to show.. or its coming from nerves that aren’t in my legs. My arm had no issues and she thought it (my back) sounded more like a muscular (myofascial) issue than a neural issue.

So another EMG down, similar results to last time, except even less pronounced. Answers: Nada – Story of my last four years.

After the EMG I ate a snack bar since I had foolishly not eaten a large enough breakfast. We then went and walked around the neighborhood (Mission Hill) towards the Longwood Medical Area.

..containing none other than Harvard’s Medical School (one of the University’s three Crown Jewels, any guesses on the other two?). I’ve been told its the best medical school in the world. A very quick look on Google seems to confirm that. Look at all that surprise no one has. In fact, the hospital I had just came from (which is literally right next to HMS) is one of the teaching hospitals for HMS. Speaking of the hospital, this is the back side of the old part of it, I thought the metal spiral staircases were really cool, made me think of my Pappy.

Immediately behind the back of the hospital.. confusing but that is the best way to say it. Was the back of the first (and oldest and most coo) building in the medical school complex. So in front of the back is the back of the front. Follow? Good. Its name is “Gordon Hall.”

Upon entry we realized there was a guard and you had to show a Harvard ID. My guess is because of the medical stuff, patients and things, and meeses. I had one, SB also sleekly used her Harvard library card (which also works to get Harvard student discounts – people don’t seem to notice the LIBRARY part written right on the front – good for us). I’m glad we went in, rather than going around. First it was a bajillion degrees warmer in there. Second, it was a gorgeous old building AND they had holiday decorations! (unlike the boring lawyers at the law school, which has equally nice facilities – if not nicer – but about as much spirit as a rock in a septic tank).

On the second floor next to some portraits of guys I don’t know they have a statue of Hermes who his rocking is naked self.

To be truthfully honest, I have no idea why they have a statute of Hermes.

[History Mode Engage]

Here is my guess. Hermes was a messenger for the Greek Gods. However, he also had the lesser known tasks of conducting souls into the afterlife, likely to Elysium (for awesome people), Asphodel (for normal mundane people) or maybe even the Blessed Isles (for ultra awesome people who were reborn three times and achieved Elysium all three times). Hermes was similar to Charon (or as you may know him “The Ferryman”, also from Greek Mythology but Charon is more associated with taking people across the Rivers Styx and Acheron to the Fields of Punishment (bad people) or possibly even Tartarus (think of it as a Hell within Hell, yeah it sucks that bad)). So, what I’m getting at, is that maybe they have a Hermes statute because he helped people cross over with John Edwards. But honestly that seems a little morbid for a medical school. It could also be that Hermes later came to be associated with Alchemy (and thus medicine), however, this is a tenuous connection at best since it involves Hermeticism which takes its name not from Hermes but rather Hermes Trismegistus, a loosely-defined ancient Greek dude-god-person who might have himself just have been based on an altered version of Hermes – thus bringing us to erroneous circular logic.

Also interesting, the statute did not have the Caduceus, which he is normally pictured with. Yes, the Caduceus is that “medical staff” you have seen before. Of course what great is that its not the right staff. Yeah, literally Caduceus represents trade, eloquence, trickery, and negotiation, things Hermes was known for, NOT medicine. So where does that staff come from? The Rod of Asclepius. This rod takes its name from Ascelpius, the Greek god of Medicine, and also the son of Apollo, the God of healing (among many other things). Yeah, see that makes a lot more sense. Thought to be fair, it is said that Apollo is the one who gave Caduceus to Hermes, so that might lend a tiny bit of credence to it being a healing item. You’ll notice that the two staffs/rods are fairly similar though, so you can’t fault people too much (aside from the fact that this mistake is hugely common in the United States, even among professionals). Oddly enough Motley Crew sort of combined them both, so in some ways they did a better job than a lot of hospitals.

Anyways, you’d think Harvard would know all this. My guess is that they do, since they didn’t order a Hermes with Caduceus, probably to avoid such misinterpretations. Or maybe they just didn’t want the staff and were fine with the peebob. Ultimately I have no idea, but if I had to guess, I’d rest on my “conductor of souls” theory (blended in a bit with Caduceus being given to Hermes by Apollo), since Hermes really had nothing to do with medicine, though he was known for helping mankind out in spite of what the other Gods (namely Zeus) said.

[History Mode Offline]

We then moved to the front of Gordon Hall, which is actually at the head of the complex.

Then the view looking back towards Gordon once we walked down towards the street.

It was a nice campus, I’m sure it looks better when everything isn’t dead. Except the grass, that must be some of that magical cold weather grass. Or maybe its Soylent Green grass style, I’d imagine HMS would have plenty of materials for that.

After seeing the main part of HMS, we decided we were hungry. We headed back down towards where we got off the bus to place called Penguin Pizza.

We had found it online the night before, and honestly we were drawn to it simply because of Valentino and his love of eating penguins. No really, that was pretty much the entire reason we went.

The problem was that it was still early for lunch and they hadn’t opened yet, additionally, around this time all my muscles decided it was time to start getting really stiff and sore. I guess that happens when you are repeatedly shocked and poked. But we were close enough to opening time that we just stuck it out in the cold, I’m glad we did.

As you can see the inside of the place was fairly eclectic. I loved all the beer signs that were all over the place, I mean literally, ALL over the place. Our table even had a nice view of the cold world outside.

We ended up going with some wraps instead of pizza, SB had the Turkey Club and I the Chicken Pesto, both were mighty fine.

About this time I really started to feel not well. My stomach was happy, but my legs and arms and really my whole body (my back was quite sore as well) decided it was time to not move. So we started the process of heading home, which involved waiting on the bus, but luckily the wait wasn’t terrible since my fingers and toes were starting to die as usual (in spite of my double socks and gloves).

After that we came home and pretty much ended up either being asleep, or half asleep on the couch for a large chunk of the afternoon. We still had stuff to do, of course, which made for a busy night, but by bedtime my body felt like I had been beaten up with crowbars. Today honestly wasn’t a whole lot better, I’m hoping tomorrow will see some improvement. I actually don’t remember hurting this much last time, but I also received more shocks and electrified pokes this time, and I also received them over a much larger surface area of my body. I’m also more stressed in general (exams are next week) which probably made my muscles tense up more which electrocuted (trust me, your limbs flail across like crazy during an EMG).

So anyways, that is all I have for now. This post ended up WAY longer than I was planning for it to be. When it gets posted tomorrow I should have (hopefully) just finished MRI one of two.

Until Next Time,
-Taco

P.S. On a lighter note, here is a decorated tree near the law school, the squirrels use the lights as quasi zip-lines, no really.

[Update 1: First MRI down. They did my Lower Spine and Brain today. Tomorrow is more spine and maybe more brain, I dunno, after four years you honestly stop caring as much about the details as long as you know the insurance and level-of-pain-involved situations. The worst part was that when they do your brain they lock your head into this little contraption so you can’t listen to music. That pretty much sucked. But the head lock did have a mirror to let you see out the tube, which was cool.The buses were also about 25 minutes behind schedule when I went to go home.

Update 2: Second MRI down. Today was Upper Spine and Neck. It was a bit more claustrophobic today because they used this thing that locks your neck in place but it does not have a mirror like the head lock. More importantly, I was on my stomach so I couldn’t really see anything. There was a bit of a panic attack during the first few minutes, but I calmed myself out of it and got it done. They placed the IV in the same arm and vein as yesterday since the machine is not setup for the other arm, so my left arm is now majorly sore, in addition to the rest of my body, which has been sore since the EMG. But I’m done. 1 EMG and 2 MRIs in 4 days, thanks you, (don’t) come again.]

5th Anniversary Festivities

November 16, 2014 by Taco

This post is going cover a few different things, all of which centered around SB and I’s 5th anniversary celebration.

When we were married five years ago it was on a Friday, and then we had a couple of years of it being on the weekend, but since then its been right in the middle of the week. Not only that, its fell on days that we were exceptionally busy for the past 2-3 years and thus we don’t actually get to see much of each of other on the actual day of our anniversary. Thus was the case this year, we probably saw each other for about 1.5 hours for the entirety of our anniversary. So, rather than focusing on that day in particular we sort of expanded it out over several days. Nothing wrong with that.

We actually jumped the gun just a teeny bit and started celebrating the day before our actual anniversary. It wasn’t anything too crazy though, just Starbucks.

But this wasn’t any ordinary Starbucks. Of course you have SB and her Pumpkin Frappuccino, but that green one is mine and it was even more special and limited than the pumpkin. It was the Franken Frappuccino and it was only available for 3 days. Its a green-tea-based drink made with peppermint syrup, white-chocolate sauce, java chips, whipped cream and mocha drizzle and it was AWESOME. Even SB who does not normally like mint-type things (with a few exceptions such as Girl Scout Thin Mint Obesity Cookies) really liked this. The pumpkin was also good, but pumpkin is always good. SB actually went out and got these pretty much right after we found out about them.

That was the day before our anniversary, the day of our anniversary was fairly uneventful. As already mentioned, we barely saw each other and my day was not so good. I actually have this weird curse with our anniversary where not-great things tend to happen to me. I’m somewhat reminded of how when I was younger and it was time to put up the Christmas tree at Meems we would almost always end up in an argument. I think maybe its a psychological thing. Anyways, my day was “meh” and SB’s was long. So I can’t comment a whole lot about the actual day of.

Things got better the next day though. This was our celebration day, which means that we get to go out to eat someplace fancy and that we can’t afford. Technically we really can’t afford anything out here, but we just wholly embraced the ideology behind that admission for our anniversary. Interestingly enough, we still didn’t spend that much comparatively speaking. Anyways, I digress. We went to a tapas bar not too far from us which had been recommended by a couple people I know.

It was Dali and when we first got there it was closed. Yep. However we needed to go to the store for the bread we were going to make, so we just went and did that first. Not a big deal. Once we got back to Dali it became very apparent that there was some sort of Halloween Costume contest going on among the employees (it wasn’t the first costumes of the evening though, tons of people of all ages were out and about in costume, it was awesome). We were led to our table by Violet Beauregarde (who if you have had some sort of cultureless existence and don’t know, is the girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who chews the experimental gum and basically turns into a blueberry.) Our actual server was.. well.. we don’t know. She had a dress with tons and tons of people’s pictures cut out and posted on it. I didn’t really get it. But the restaurant was quite nice and definitely had the Spanish/Salvador Dalí theme going on.

We started off with some alcohol and water (though the water never came, marking really the only bad part of the entire dining experience). SB went with their Cava Sangria, which she had to ask about. I don’t remember the exact specifics, but it was a wine white based sangria, rather than red wine and it had a myriad of more summery fruits in it. Essentially Cava Sangria seemed to be a more “refreshing” take on sangria which is itself meant to be refreshing and also intoxicating (literally). I know nothing about sangria though

1. Damm S.A. – Estrella Damm Daura

(Isn’t it fun getting to talk about all this Damm beer?)

Anyways, I liked this one a bit more than the Estrella Barcelona – I think. The qualifier is that I only had one of the Dauras and it was with a myriad of food and sangria. So my normally good beer palate might have been a bit mixed up. Either way, it wasn’t bad. So I’m two for two with the Damm S.A. beers. Neither have been exceptional, but neither really had any noticeably bad qualities either.

Next up was the food itself. In typical tapa bar fashion the tapas came out as they were made rather than all at once. Also typical for tapas bars, I had no idea what 3/4 of the stuff was. SB used to know a lot, but as her Spanish has deteriorated there are a few things that she doesn’t know either, but her knowledge-base is still far greater than my own. For cost purposes we cut out the super expensive tapas and then we decided we probably wanted to share four of them, which turned out to be a good number. Three would have not been enough and five would have probably been a little too much (depending on the tapa).

Here are the four tapas we went with. (Don’t ask for more descriptions as to what they are, because I can’t give them).

1. Patatas Ali-Oli | Potatoes in a Garlic/Caper Alioli
2. Croquetas de Bacalao | Deep-Fried Salt Cod Fritters w/Coriander Alioli
3. Gorditas | Bacon-wrapped Prunes filled w/Goat Cheese & Almonds
4. Empanada Vegetales | This was a special item so I can’t steal the menu description, but it was basically what it sounds like an empanada with vegetables, it was way good

Here are some visuals to go with the list (presented in the order they were served to us)

Here are the Patatas Ali-Oli and the Croquetas de Bacalao. The Patatas were our only “cold” tapa and it was sort of like a really cool and yummy Spanish version of an American Potato salad, just a lot better. The croquetas tasted like fish sticks rich people would eat. I don’t know what the green stuff was but it was good. Both of these tapas received high marks from SB and I, with the royal fish sticks being SB’s favorite of the bunch.

The Gorditas (which is roughly Spanish for “Little Fats” gehd lols). We ordered these to have something sweet but also because when SB, Meem and Daryl 1 , and I were in Chicago awhile back we went to a tapas bar (Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!) and had something similar called a “chorizo-wrapped medjool date & cheese.” These little fats from Chicago were A-FREAKING-MAZING. So we had to try their spiritual counterparts here at Dali. I have to say, the ones we had in Chicago were still better. HOWEVER, I am willing to qualify that by conceding that it is quite possible nostalgia has completely and irreversibly built the Chicago fats up into something that can never again be compared to, even by yet more Chicago fats. But these were definitely good and highly recommended.

And last but not least, the Empanada Vegetales. This was a bit of a surprise as I wasn’t expecting much. It came last, when we really wanted it first, but it was oh so good. It had a wonderful combination of vegetables inside and sort of tasted like a gourmet egg-roll. That is not a good way of describing it, but that is really all I’ve got.

All in all we both really liked all four of our tapas, SB’s favorite was the fish sticks and I’d say I probably leaned towards the patatas, but I dunno, I really liked them all.

As we were getting ready to leave a matador came up to us with a tiny toro toy that moved around. He was jockeying the customers to vote for him to win the contest. You actually vote on your way out. We both voted for the matador because of his torito (little bull). There were a lot of really good costumes, but they way they had it set up was a bit unfortunate. For instance several of the costumes you never got a chance to see because you were seated in an area away from them and the guys behind the bar, well, you really wouldn’t see them at all if you weren’t at the bar. So while it was fun and I liked the costumes we saw, I wish they would have made it easier to see everyone’s outfit, especially since they were so good (and it would have been more fair to the participants as well).

Overall Dali received high marks in our book and honestly if you pick your tapas right and don’t booze too hardcore its really not that expensive (we spent more on one of our anniversaries back in Indiana, for example).

After leaving Dali it was time for more booze. One because it was our anniversary and two because it was the weekend and weekends = beer. However, our normal spot for procuring the devil’s juice was a lot further away than we really wanted to walk (we had gone the complete opposite direction to eat, not to mention already having walked to the store). Luckily I remembered that there was another place to acquire alcohol and it just so happened to be literally right across the street from Dali.

The Wine and Cheese Cask

It was a quirky little place. We’d never been because wine and cheese tends to make me think that 1. They have no beer and 2. Its all extraordinarily expensive. Turns out I was wrong on both those points. They DO in fact have beer (a lot of it) and they are no more expensive than our usual haunt.

It had an eclectic sort of charm and their wine collection was quite extensive and they may well even have had more beer than where we normally get it. The above photo only shows a small part of the store (all the cheese is to the right, all the wine is back through that archway). The one thing they did that I don’t like, but that seems to be common here, is that most of the beer was not priced. In fact for the first five minutes I was left entirely wondering what anything cost. That is until I found a very, very small piece of people taped to the wall that listed most of the prices. I don’t know why they don’t like price tags out here, but its kind of annoying.

Since it was our anniversary I decided to up my beer quality a bit. I was drawn to the legendary Dogfish Head Brewery offerings. (Dogfish has been refered to by one than a few beer connoisseurs as the best beer produced in America) And I’ve never had it. Specifically their 90 and 120 Minute IPAs are supposed to be what God created Adam out of. However, this beer is DAMN EXPENSIVE. First off, their higher end offerings only come in 4 packs, yet for that 4 pack you will pay nearly 2x what you might pay for a six pack of your average middle of the road beer. Not to mention that it can be hard to find, plain and simple. But they had it here and it was my anniversary. I was really drawn to the 90 minute IPA but went with their Punkin Ale since its seasonal and the IPAs are always offered. SB found her some wine as well. (You’ll also notice that I got a 1 pint bottle of Newcastle, it had been a long time since I had had it)

2. Dogfish Head Brewery – Punkin Ale
3. The Caledonian Brewery Company Limited – Newcastle Brown Ale

So, for starters. The Newcastle was a Newcastle. Nothing too special there, its just a standard English Brown Ale. About 7 years ago I used to love this stuff (as well as Killian’s Irish Red) but I sort of just grew out of it I guess. Its not a bad beer, but nothing too special (their Werewolf is good though). The real excitement came from the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale. Technically the excitement had to wait until the next day, because I didn’t end up drinking anything the night we got back from Dali, but I’ll go ahead and talk about it here for subject purposes.

I was not worthy, I guess. I started with a Dogfish Head Punkin Ale, poured into a good, chilled, beer glass. And it was good, but holy crap dude, it was strong. I checked the bottle it was 7% ABV which is decently high for a beer (but nowhere near the 19% ABV of the 120 Minute IPA for instance). However, something was weird with this 7% ABV. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I was getting wasted. I don’t know if it has something to do with the pumpkin sugars, but yeah, this beer was kicking my ass. SO OF COURSE I DID THE SMART THING AND DRANK MORE. Not only did I drink more, I drank that entire pint of Newcastle, then ANOTHER Punkin Ale. Suddenly I was drunk. Go figure.

The next morning I woke up and I’m pretty sure I had a hangover. I have not had one of those in at least a few years. I tend to be a lot better with my drinking these days. But when you play with the big Dog(fish heads) you better be prepared to run with them. I was not.

So what did I think? I think its too strong for me. The taste is there, the spices are dead on, but being able to drink beers that strong is a ship that has sailed if I don’t want to fail law school. What I really can’t get over is that 7% is not that high, but something about the formulation of the beer made it stronger. That and drinking 40 ounces of beer. In fact, as I write this post I am slowly working (and I mean slowly) working on one of my two remaining Punkin Ales and I just don’t know if I will be able to finish it before I need to go to bed, which is a massive conflict of interest for me. I actually didn’t drink yesterday, beer sounds quite cross when you’ve had too much of it the night before.

So do I think Dogfish Head lives up to the hype? Yes, yes it does. However, I would stipulate that their beers are made for those drinkers who have mighty testicles and drink very slowly. I’m going to try more because they tasted so good, but I’ll approach my drinking strategy a little differently next time.

So backtracking away from beer and chronologically back to the same night as Dali, we also made pan de los muertos as both a celebration of Dia de los Muertos and our annivesary. We were originally trying to decide on a cake, but bread of the dead sounds so much more exotic and appealing. Props go to SB for suggesting it.

However, pretty much everything that could go wrong with the process of making the bread did. We halved the recipe lest we make a bread the size of a hippopotamus (and also we didn’t have enough flour). We also changed a few ingredients around. The result was that the yeast didn’t end up really making the bread rise too much. It tasted fine, it just didn’t poof up in the way pan de los muertos normally does. Also, the icing didn’t quite pan out either, it was way too runny. We had got our ingredients at whole foods and the food coloring they had absolutely sucked. It was made out of stuff that doesn’t cause cancer and so it was terrible. A lot of the icing ended up tasting like crap, in addition to being runny. However we salvaged what we could and decorated our pan with the traditional skull, we even added in some cacao nibs from Taza to make freckers. Most importantly, regardless of the difficulties, the final product tasted good and we had a lot of fun making it.

The next day we continued our anniversary fun by making some turkey pumpkin chili. This was especially relevant because 1. Fall 2. Pumpkin 3. Chili 4. It was a nasty day outside 5. Odd numbers. We didn’t skimp on the chili either, no canned pumpkin for us, we actually used the real deal. I could be wrong, but I think this was the first time I have ever personally cooked a pumpkin.

They actually smell and cook similar to sweet potatoes, it was fascinating really. We saved all the seeds and baked those with some spices and olive oil (absolutely awesome, by the way). The meat of the pumpkin we pureed and used as a base for our chili, which was also amazing. Here is the end product with some cheese and Greek yogurt.

Pretty much right after we were done eating it was time to head out to the last evening of our anniversary fun, a hockey game. I had gotten two tickets completely for free, so we had little reason not to go despite neither of us really knowing much about hockey aside from the basics. It was actually the season opener between Harvard and Dartmouth at the newly renovated and renamed The Bright-Landry Hockey Center. In fact there was a special presentation thanking the rich people for giving their money at the start of the game. There was also a no-plebs-allowed private party going on in the club.

As I mentioned, it was a cold rainy day. So pretty much the entire bus ride down there looked like this.

But, it was far better than the alternative which was walking. Right as we we got off the bus the wind was kind enough to invert our umbrellas, thanks wind. Once we figured out where to go (walking by the shadowy and imposing structure of the Harvard football stadium – no seriously, its like straight out of Rome) the walk wasn’t too long. Once we handed over our ticket stubs we walked up to the rink where both teams were still warming up.

We walked around the exterior of the arena, seeing the various concession stands, finding the bathrooms, entering some contests (we lost), and taking in some history. After we made our rounds we got situated in our seats. For free seats they weren’t bad. Of course there really weren’t any bad seats. This photo below shows roughly where we were at, it was taken right before the teams started beating each other to death while pretending to chase a black object.

During the first period (there are three, each 20 minutes) Dartmouth was defending on our end. This made it pretty clear that we were siting in the largely Dartmouth area of the arena (so that is why those tickets were free).

Dartmouth ended up scoring the first goal, much to all the green people in the audience’s joy. But Harvard was very quick to reply and we had a very good view of their first goal of the season, they were justifiably pleased.

One thing that constantly surprised me was just how crazy violent hockey is, and how quickly it got to that point (all of about 15 seconds). Sure, I’ve seen plenty of NHL games on TV but I have never seen a hockey game live and this close. These guys beat the ever loving shit out of each other. Suplexes straight into the ice, you name it, it happens. We didn’t actually get to see any full-blown fights (not that Tristen would have minded) but there were a couple of times that it was heading that direction when the referees intervened. Speaking of the referees, dang those guys are exceptionally good at staying out of the action (and puck’s) way, it mean they were crazy good skaters, even when next to the players.

Eventually the first period was over and some pint-sized hockey players came onto the ice. I can’t recall exactly who they were and why they were here, but I remember they were from someplace in New Jersey and that their jerseys looked a lot like the Boston Bruins. That wouldn’t make much sense, them being from New Jersey, but who knows.

After the wee-ones left the ice, the awesome-sauce ice polisher came to clean up everyone’s mess.

The ice polisher also returned after the second period, but not before they had another little event. This time instead of tiny hockey people they had one guy who was blindfolded in the middle of the rink. Someone then threw a pizza box somewhere out onto the ice and it was up to the audience to help him find it. I don’t remember the pizza company, nor do I remember the prize so their advertising failed, but it was fun and funny (and yes he found it).

The third period ended up seeing Harvard and Dartmouth tied 3-3, so they went into overtime which was especially intense since it is only five minutes.

At one point we really thought Harvard was going to make a last second goal, but it didn’t happen and the game ended in a tie. Not as bad as losing, but a bit anticlimactic regardless. However, its all about the process and SB and I really enjoyed ourselves (especially for free). If you know anything about me you know that generally speaking sports are not my thing, however this being a live event I was on the edge of my seat for pretty much the entire thing. Its funny how much more engaging something can be when you are seeing it live, the 3 20 minute periods and 2 15 minute breaks just flew by. We also got some pop and a hotdog, which never hurts, except your wallet.

After the game was over we lingered around for a bit to cut down on the time we would have to wait outside on the bus. While the rain had stopped, it had gotten very cold and windy so waiting on the bus wasn’t the most fun I’d had all day. But once we got home it made the heat all the more enjoyable (not to mention I made some hot chocolate).

So all in all, it was a fun anniversary celebration. There were few hiccups here and there as always happens in life, but on the whole it was very enjoyable and very cool. SB actually got us a sign, made of wood (since the 5th is the wood-based anniversary) but it hasn’t got here yet. Of course the only downside to having all that fun was having to go back to school, but c’est la vie. I just noticed its after midnight, I really need to get headed towards bed, Property doesn’t take kindly to me not paying attention.

Here’s to the next five years. 🙂

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. One cool thing at the hockey arena was that they had team photos of both the men and women’s Harvard Hockey teams. What made this interesting was that these photos went WAY back, I’m talking WAY back. To get an idea of just how “way back” I mean, check out the photo below. Each of those is a photo of the team for that year. And I should point out that this isn’t even taken from the very end, its already about 1/3 the way down the row of photos. Yeah. Way back.

Taza Chocolate and a Beer Blurb (10/24/14)

November 13, 2014 by Taco

So, you may have noticed that the Beer Blurb dates are ever so closely getting nearer and nearer to the actual date. That’s because my scheduled posts that I built up are slowly being depleted. Of course that was the plan all along, so its not an issue, it just means my posts will become increasingly less “after the fact” and will eventually be fairly real-time.

For our Friday Night date we ended up eating a place very close to where we live called Darwin’s. There was a place I was thinking about eating called S&S Deli, which is historical Jewish Deli (and now also restaurant) that had been extensively recommended to me, but it was about 15 minute walk from home and it was a bit late because we had to go to Target. I needed warm socks and also some inner wear for under my jeans, and when I say “need” I actually mean it. A good while ago I was diagnosed with Raynaud’s Phenomenon. Which basically means your extremities don’t get enough blood-flow and thus cold weather is a big concern. Well, recently I found out that my Raynaud’s Phenomenon has progressed into (or always was) Raynaud’s Syndrome, which is actually a more severe version of Raynaud’s Phenomenon. With the Syndrome, the symptoms are the same, they are just worse, as in, if ignored you can lose fingers and toes. Anyways, point being, I need to keep my toes warm (that is my problem area). So, we were off to Target to get me warm socks, inner wear and boots (and a belt, but that had nothing to do with warm, except to keep my britches from falling down in the middle of class). Target being Target, they didn’t have the most important thing I needed, boots. Well they did, but they offered a whopping two kinds of mens boots. Literally two. Next to the 15,000 styles for women. It was either bulky snow boots, or expensive leather boots. So I got no boots [Of course SB got boots, imagine that]. I’m going to look elsewhere. I did get everything else.

SO ANYWAYS, all that is to say that it was later than normal and so we ate close to home. We actually sat next to a person from my law school section, but he left us alone after a brief chat, which is nice. Ain’t nobody who likes people who decide to make your dinner theirs as well. After that we headed over to our usual market for some treats (Apple Crisp and Blackberry Crisp) and of course beer. I went south of the border (maybe keeping up last week’s theme), but much further south, all the way to Peru in fact:

1. Compania Cervecera Del Sur Del Peru S.A. – Cusqueña

I’m not positive, but I do not believe I have ever had a Peruvian beer before. The thing is, being the ignorant Murkan I am, I thought it was Mexican beer until literally just now. Being a history enthusiast you would think that I would realize it was from Peru, because, I dunno IT MENTIONS THE INCAS RIGHT ON THE FREAKING BOX. But nope, too Murkan. Anyways, I have to say I was a little.. eh.. not impressed with it. Beer Advocate users give it a 76 (No “Bro” review), I’d say its more of a 55-60. Not bad, but not amazing. The price was good though (which is what drew my attention to it in the first place). The cashier compared it to Dos Equis and yeah, that is wrong. Ok it was an opinion, but it was still wrong. To be fair, I’ve only had one so far and it was just out of the bottle, but I don’t see my opinion changing a ton (since I only drank one last night, that means I get three tonight, yay! – I normally drink 2 beers on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). I would say, however, that it is worth trying because it sort of has a unique taste and that’s not a bad unique taste, just unique. Its funny because its a pale lager.. brewed in the European style.. with Peruvian ingredients.. wat.

This weekend (today, so Saturday) also saw a bit of adventure in the ole’ squirrelly household. Credit goes to SB for part of it. She is a coupon type person, which is awesome because I am not. She also keeps an eye on Groupon, or monitors it through social media, or something, I dunno, but she finds things. Case in point, she recently found a Groupon for a reduced price tour of a local chocolate factory AND a free chocolate bar with said tour. We like chocolate, we also like chocolate factory tours, so she signed us right up. The cool thing was that the factory was only a short bus ride away.

It was the Taza Chocolate Factory. This wasn’t our first rodeo though, if you recall we have also been to the Theo Chocolate Factory in Seattle. The reason we decided to go (in addition to the Groupon) was because throughout October Taza hosts what is called “Choctoberfest.” Where in addition to the standard tours, they also host some beer and food from various venders.

I did some research and decided that the “Peak Organic” brewery was the one we should go for. I did not research Cedar Hollow Farms, but it was going to be cheese. We headed up for our tour, which was interesting because the factory is sort of in the middle of an industrial park and junkyards and doesn’t even have its own building (its shared). This was a lot different than Theo which was down by a canal in hipstervile, Fremont. It wasn’t a bad area, just different.

Upon entering, holy crap. People, people everywhere.

I have no idea if it is normally that busy, my guess is not, but sheesh it was sardine-like in there. Of course this was probably the reason:

Yep, that is Peak Organic. And yep, those are free beer samples. Yes they were tiny but there were free, so no craps are given. SB and I actually ended up sampling 4 out of five of the available beers. Two before the tour, two after. They were:

Peak Organic Brewing Company (They are from Maine!)

2. Fresh Cut (2nd Image, right side – after the tour)
3. Pomegranate Wheat Ale (1st image, right side – before the tour)
4. Nut Brown Ale (1st image, left side – before the tour)
5. Oak Aged Mocha Stout (2nd image, left side – after the tour)
[The one sample we didn’t try was their IPA]

All of them were good, the Mocha Stout was very stout, SB actually selected that one. I was proud of her. I think our favorites were: 1 – Pomegranate, 2 – Fresh Cut, 3 – Nut Brown, 4 – Mocha Stout. I think the Mocha Stout was a bit much after the 12lbs of chocolate samples we had ingested.

Speaking of chocolate, that was kind of the main point in going. The chocolate was good, but first let’s discuss the tour. Our tour guide was very energetic, despite apparently being “under the weather” and having to work on his day off (as SB said, we can only imagine what he is like normally). He wasn’t obnoxious, he just likes his job, or is good as faking that he likes his job, either way makes for a good tour guide.

Taza’s big thing is that their chocolate is stone-ground in the traditional South American style. And yes, I mean literally stone ground, he is holding one of the stones in the above photo. Here is a closer shot of one:

This makes for a very unique texture in the chocolate and it was quite amazing. I had never had chocolate like Taza’s before. Anywho, the first part of our tour was very similar to the Theo tour, learn about where the cacao comes from, how they buy it, direct and fair trade, all that good stuff. You then go on to see some of the machinery making the noms.

Beyond that door you have to wear hair-nets, stylin’ and profilin’

A lot of it was pretty similar to Theo, heck, even some of the machinery came from the same German company (see the red thing). Silly Germans and their chocolate and fast trains. We got to sample some cacao nibs (amazing) and even some chocolate covered nibs (also amazing) since chocolate covered chocolate is something that must be done.

My favorite part of that room was the way they weigh the batches of chocolate. They literally use a cattle weight (cleaned of course). Ignore my finger beast.

After that we got to see some of the chocolate which was less bean, more chocolate.

In fact, that whole room was full of chocolate plumbing and in the words of our tour guide “As close to Willy Wonka as you are going to get.”

Yes, there are delicious chocolate noms pumping all through that room. After that the tour was pretty much over, but not before our tour guide let us sample even more chocolate (this was like the 10th sample) which was a Toffee Sea Salt chocolate, which was amazing and scandy all at the same time.

Tristen and Valentino brought a hair net home.

After getting out of the factory we realized we were both hungry, the problem was that we still needed to go to the store. Well, it just so happened that we were only about a 6 minute walk from.. S&S Deli. Yep. The place we thought about going to last night, but didn’t due to the time. Funny how that works out. So we headed over there. It was true that we didn’t really have the room in our budget for it, but it was a close and we were hungry, so there.

When you first enter, you are actually in the deli portion.

Its actually an old Jewish deli, so they have a lot of cool stuff to choose from. You have to walk through the deli to get to the restaurant, which I am sure was intentional.

As you can see, they were celebrating their 95th anniversary. Also, as I mentioned above, this place had been suggested to me many times, I think it was even recommended to SB as well. So my expectations for the food were kind of high and I was not disappointed. SB went with a BLT on an egg-roll, while I went with smoked-turkey on pita bread. We also shared a potato Knish.

We weren’t really sure what Knish was and neither of us could remember ever having it. It was good though, as was the chicken soup they served it with. The sandwiches were also very tasty, especially since they use the meat from the deli. The only sketch thing is that they charge you 35 cents for lettuce and tomato (obviously not for the BLT though, however SB still asked for it, our server almost assuredly thought we were pertarded after that) and 50 cents for cheese. However, the sandwiches are a lot cheaper than everything else on the menu, so you are still doing alright price wise. Besides, its not like that is a Boston thing, Upland Brewery back in Indiana is happy to charge you 75 cents for a microscopic blob of sour cream or guacamole. Our server was attentive, but honestly a little crabby.

So we had nice mid-afternoon launch, we just had our dessert (in the form of 12 thousand pieces of chocolate) beforehand. Speaking of chocolate, we ending up choosing the “Coffee” bar as our free Groupon chocolate.

I thought it was cool that their bars are actually disks. Also, before they had a machine, they wrapped those by hand. He said it took one minute per disk, since wrapping round things is a PITA.

After S&S we headed to Whole Foods and then back home. Although we took the bus out to Taza, we walked back, but it was busted up into chunks. Once we got home, we were there all of five minutes and then turned around and left again, this time for Harvard Square (the above adventures were all near or in Inman Square). We have a couple of upcoming sporting events we are going to (blog posts will assuredly follow) and SB was wanting to get a Harvard sweatshirt. Well the COOP offers a 10% discount to members, with an additional 15% discount to Harvard or MIT students, and yes the discounts stack, so 25%. Which means if I don’t go, we pay 25% more than necessary. So I was the good people and went down there with SB, despite my legs not being happy, and she got her sweatshirt.

On the way back we passed by a bead store SB had mentioned wanting to go in, so I suggested we go check it out.

I’m still not entirely sure what she was looking for, other that it was something to do with a bracelet and Pinterest. I ate some beads, tasted like beads.

After that we headed home to enjoy a chill Saturday evening, which is where I am now. And that, dear friends, is all I have to say for now.

Until next time,
-Taco

Exploring a New Zoo

October 23, 2014 by Taco

So I like animals, that should sort have been fairly obvious by now. By extension I also like seeing animals, and when you live in a city one of the best places to see animals is a zoo. Its no secret that my all time favorite zoo so far is the Columbian Park Zoo. In fact I wrote pretty much an entire post about it. Columbian Park Zoo is not big, nor do they have a wide variety of animals, but there is just something special about it.

Boston has a zoo as well, the Franklin Park Zoo. However, like most things in Boston, its a little bit too steep for SB and I to afford (looking at you New England Aquarium). This time around I couldn’t cabbage onto some free tickets, but our tickets came from another source. Knowing our love of animals, MIL and FIL purchased our tickets for us. Pretty cool. It took us a bit to get out there, but I’m definitely happy that they purchased the tickets for us and that we went.

My overall opinions on the zoo were a bit mixed, but I’m going to walk you through our adventure before I talk about that.

As usual, I’ve omitted a lot of stuff for the sake of time and space.

—

We had been planing on going to the Zoo this past Saturday (9/13) for a little over a week. The weather was looking good so we were pretty stoked. As always happens the sunny sky forecast turns into rain right beforehand. I have never regretted how quickly I abandoned my plans to be a meteorologist. We had all but decided not to go, but SB decided to check the weather one more time (this is the day of) and it turns out they had pushed the rain back to the evening. Well, by this time were were about 2 hours behind where we should have been. But, not ones to miss animals, we took it upon ourselves to make it down to the zoo. It was gray skies, but animals are animals.

The trip itself was a bit of an adventure and took a fair chunk of time. There was no real straight shot to get there via public transportation, it was either a combination of bus/train or bus/bus. We opted for the bus/bus route and between waiting on the first bus, the layover at the bus station and then the second bus trip, it was a bit over 75 minutes before we got there. By this point it was almost 3pm and the zoo closes at 6pm. The good news is that it was not raining.

From where the bus dropped us off it was only a short walk to the zoo.

The main gate was sort of similar to the gate at the Berlin Zoo, I doubt that was intentional, but considering that they are both old zoos (Franklin: 1912, Berlin: 1844), who knows. This is actually the “Zebra Gate” entrance.

We went through, turned in our tickets then began looking for a place to eat. We had planned the day rather poorly I suppose and were both hungry. The plan was go eat, then explore, but we got pretty much instantaneously sidetracked by the animals.

The first up were some warthogs, which were running in big circles chasing each other, it was kind of funny. Next to them were some African Crested Porcupines, one of which was sleeping.

We pulled ourselves (read: me) away from those critters and took off for food. We thought we had found it, but ended up turning down the wrong path (or maybe I did it intentionally), which led us straight into a prairie dog kingdom.

I had never in my life seen so many prairie dogs in one place. It. Was. Awesome. I mean, I liked the prairie dogs at Columbian Park Zoo, but there were just so many here. I was getting all up and personal with them, then I noticed the sign that said to keep off the wall, whoops. Shortly after that we got back on track to find food, which took us through a barnyard area. Lots of zoos seem to have these, sure they aren’t very exotic, but I still like them. I especially liked the Nigerian Dwarf Goat, who was chilling out in the food bin.

After that we finally made it to the food place for noms. We didn’t stay long since time was ticking away and every once in awhile we felt a stray raindrop. One of our first stops as we made a big circle around the park was the tigers.

They also had a rare white tiger that wasn’t disfigured from inbreeding, but he (she?) was back towards the back and little difficult to see.

After that was the lion area. They had a cool thing one one wall where a safari jeep had “crashed” through the glass. You could go inside the jeep so that you were actually inside of the holding area, it was full of kids, but the lion wasn’t next to it anyways. It was a cool concept though. It reminded me of Jurassic Park for whatever reason.

The lion himself was sleeping, at least when we were there.

He definitely woke up later though, since we heard him roaring, which was pretty awesome (we were too far away to justify walking back though).

From the lion we went straight to the.. Camel?

Kind of an odd animal combo, except for the fact that this is a Bactrian Camel, which is from Asia. So his wooliness isn’t just because he is in cold ole’ Boston, in fact this is probably warm for him (Bactrians are primarily from Mongolia, for example). I always forget how huge camels are.

While watching the camel the train came by.

I’m honestly not sure if the train was free or cost money, but my guess is that it was free. The zoo covers a decent area and there is a large circular path (seen above) that sort of runs the gamut of the animals, the train takes you along the route if you are too lazy to walk (or unable).

We followed the train’s path which took us into one of the indoor areas. We actually came in the back door, which was totally fine and its even on the map, but it was not marked well. It looked like you were walking into a bunker or something. There were no soldiers inside the bunker though, just a big ole’ Tapir waiting for us.

There were a couple of birds in there with him and there was supposed to be a Capybara in there, but we seriously could not find it and oh did we try.

Near the Tapir was a Giant Anteater.

He did not cooperate and thus is sort of a giant blur. You can pretend he is Flash Anteater if you like. It was probably more to do with the low light and me not being good with cell phone cameras.

After this we came across a Potto, which I had never even heard of but was pretty awesome.

He apparently likes the dark too, which is why the pictures is hard to make out.

In the same building were some gorillas.

These are Western Lowland Gorillas. I learned something too. I always thought that “silverbacks” were an actual kind of gorilla, but it actually just refers to adult male gorillas of many different species. You can see what I mean in the above photo. They were playing with a stick, it was pretty funny.

Continuing on we found a Pygmy Hippopotamus, which are always awesome. He even had some duck friends.

In the next area was a Capybara.

That was about all I could see of him. Which is why I didn’t really explode with excitement when I mentioned it. He was just visible enough that you could tell he was a Capybara, but that was about it. This was actually the first of two disappointments I had. I won’t complain too much, though, since at least I did get to see one.

Near the elusive Capybara were some Tamarins, there was even a little bitty one that was just a couple of months old.

The baby is the one furthest right in the above photo.

About this time we crossed another viewing window for the gorillas, someone had decided it was sleepy time.

Just past the nap-nap gorilla was the Ring-Tailed Lemurs.

They are such cool creatures and they were really close to the glass. At one point a crowd of people with kids came in and the lemurs got very nervous, it was funny in its own kind of way.

We then excited the big building, through the main door this time. It was much nicer than the rear door.

Outside we saw one of my favorite creatures, which wasn’t actually an exhibit, the squirrel.

There were actually a ton of squirrels in the zoo, which isn’t really surprising since the zoo is park of the larger Franklin Park area, itself part of the (much) larger Emerald Necklace. Some of the squirrels were pulling ninja moves and running on walls and roofs.

By this time we had worked our way across the zoo and were near the “Giraffe Gate” entrance. There were supposed to be some Hyenas near that entrance, but they were either gone or not there yet, I’m not sure which (the map made it seem like they were there, but the sign said “Coming Soon.” The big “Bird World” was there and open though, they had a big dome you could walk through as the Condors and such flew around you.

Inside the Bird World building they had lots of little sections of birds, they seemed pretty happy, or maybe they were very angry and were screaming rather than singing.

They also had a Tawny Frogmouth. If you are like me, you have no idea what that is.

Its a bird, and yes, it looks like a frog. Its very, very weird. But I liked it regardless.

Outside were some Emus (SB’s ~~favorite~~ worst enemy), they had some Red Kangaroo buddies.

Near here was the COOLEST part of the entire day. They had a big netted hut-thing you could go in that was just FULL of Budgerigars (“Budgies”). It was AWESOME.

The zookeeper on duty gave us a little bit of food so that the Budgies (best name ever) swarmed us. It was cool because you normally have to pay 2$ to get the food, but since we the were only ones in there (the weather had kept the crowds away) I guess she decided to be extra nice. At one point I actually had 7-8 Budgies on my hand and arm, but neither SB or I had our phones accessible, so by the time I actually got my phone out several had left. The one furthest on my hand was my ULTRA BUDDY (Budgie) though, he stayed on there for a long time, best friends.

SB even got in the action and sometimes she is nervous about such things.

After exciting the Budgie house and seeing how far we could jump in comparison to an adult kangaroo (not far) the few pitter-patters of rain were increasing ever so slightly. We started making our way back towards the other side of the zoo, passing by the zebras.

And then the Masai Giraffes.

Technically it was “giraffe” only out of the three giraffes was actually out, I’m fairly sure it was due to the temperatures, which were unseasonably cold. One of their giraffes was massive (they had a sign up showing their height) and I mean massive, but it was one of the ones in their house.

We cut back through the barnyard area, there was a big cow in there that gave no cares about me sticking a camera up in its business.

Near here was the Red Panda house, but literally right as got there they were taking them in for the night. They have a camera where you can watch them inside, but with the door shut it was too dark (disappointment 2 of 2, Valentino was sad as well).

Things turned around quickly though, since after the Red Panda house we came to a building with sloths (two-toed). Commence SB freakout.

We then realized that the sloths had a baby, commence even bigger SB freakout.

Near the sloths was a turtle bro, getting him some noms.

Next to him was a smaller turtle bro, who was mad fascinated by SB and I, it was really cute.

Not everything was fun and games though, it was exercise times for the Degus.

The Skink wanted nothing to do with that though, he was chilling.

After that the rain was starting to come, but luckily we had pretty much made our rounds to we headed out. By this point I think we were one of like 5 visitors in the entire zoo, probably due to the weather and also they were closing (it was after 5:30). As soon as we left we found another squirrel.

We decided to take the bus to the train to get home this time, since it was a bit later. There was a bit of confusion about where the bus stop was (it was not marked) and I ended up having to sprint with my umbrella to make the bus, but I made it.

All in all, a good day with lots of animals buddies and Budgies.

—

So why the mixed opinion?

Well, it has to do with a few things.

First, while the zoo is in Boston, its in the neighborhood of Roxbury, which is a good ways down into south Boston. If you don’t know much about Boston geography, there are a lot of rough areas in south Boston. Granted, my ability to judge an area of a city as either “rough” or “not-rough” is rudimentary at best, but the “worst” areas of Boston are generally regarded as being in the south [I’m sure someone from Boston will read this and tear me to shreds, but I’m basing this on what I’ve heard so far]. Anyways, this is neither here nor there. My point is that the zoo was not in the best area of the city. This kind of diminished things as far as the trip as a whole goes. This was less important than the condition of the zoo itself though.

This is an old zoo, but more profoundly it is a zoo that has had a lot of financial trouble and has almost closed on more than one occasion. Back in the day and I mean way back (think 1910s and 1920s) when the zoo was free, it was quite popular, with over 2 million visitors per year. Its never recovered from becoming a pay zoo. In recent years admissions have been rising, but they are still only around 350,000. In light of this, the zoo apparently has a lot of financial issues, and it shows. The zoo as a whole seemed pretty worn down and some of the animal cages looked like they had not been updated in several decades. Only a few of the areas (namely the Flamingos) were what I would call full on bad, but I can’t say I was impressed with at least half of the areas. Some were pretty nice, it was pretty obvious which areas were new, or were at least renovated. But the zoo as a whole felt a bit dilapidated. The food was overpriced, limited, and just “meh” but you don’t really expect much from food at parks like that, so that isn’t much of an issue.

Tickets cost 17.95$ for adults, and similar to the New England Aquarium (which is 25$), I am not convinced that the zoo (or aquarium) justifies those prices. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy we went, but I’m not sure I could fully recommend the zoo at full price if someone asked. A reduced ticket or free admission (they have occasional free Fridays) would make it well worth the time though, and besides its not like the zoo can improve unless more people visit and spend money. The cool thing is that they give you a free admission if you fill out a survey, so both SB and I got two free tickets for filling out surveys, that is pretty cool. Additionally, all the employees (except for the food counter person, who was your typical apathetic food service person) were very friendly.

So, while Franklin Park Zoo did not supplant the Columbian Park Zoo for me, it was a fun day, even with the rather lackluster weather and the issues mentioned above. I’ll go back, especially since we have free tickets, but next time I’d like to go when the weather is a bit nicer and we can leave earlier in the day. I always loving seeing me some naminals.

Until next time,
-Taco

New England Aquarium

October 14, 2014 by Taco

[I’ve been meaning to write this post for literally one week, but just have not had the time thanks to school]

So I like animals, or naminals, or friends, whichever you prefer. This means I often go out of my way to see them.

In fact, just today [the day I write this post, 9/13] I actually got to pretend I was a chicken, of all things. There was a virtual reality thing at the law school where you go to be chicken, it was kind of neat. Of course it was put on by PETA so you got slaughtered at the end, but I still had fun. I think it was my first time ever doing virtual reality.

Anyways, I like naminals.

Here in Boston we have an aquarium, the New England Aquarium. While they get absolutely no points for originality of name, the aquarium itself was pretty boss.

However, its also very expensive. I’m talking, 25$ a person expensive. There is a small student discount, which brings the price down to 23$, but still, 46$ is just not something SB and I can really afford, even for friends. As such, we had pretty much written the aquarium off.

That is until my law school orientation came around. As part of orientation they were offering all sorts of little fun trips, all on the school’s dollar. These included things such as art museums, tours of Fenway park, trolley tours and most importantly, the aquarium. Heck, they even paid for your subway travel to and from the aquarium.

That is when Taco got an idea.

You see, orientation itself was four days long, and the trips were held on 2 of those four days, many of which were held on both days. So, I got a little sneaky. I went on the first day and got an aquarium ticket and a subway ticket. And then, you guessed it, didn’t go. After that.. you guessed it again, I came back the next day and did the exact same thing. This left me with 50$ worth of aquarium tickets, and 2 (there and back) trips into downtown Boston via the subway. A total value of about 60.60$ It might seem like I was being dastardly, but they never actually said you couldn’t go to a location more than once, nor did they say you actually had to go once you took the ticket. And since the tickets didn’t expire for over a year I figured SB and I could visit the aquarium when we had a chance. Lo’ and behold we went our very first Saturday.

(This was my first time using my new phone, which was my first ever smartphone, so some of the pictures aren’t all that great)

The building itself, which is rather odd looking, is located right down in Boston Harbor. In fact a lot of the water that the animals swim in (such as the penguins) is just filtered water straight out of the harbor, definitely efficient. Since we had special cool people tickets, SB and I got to avoid the MASSIVE line which was directly in the sweltering sun (it was about 90 degrees and humid that day). That was amazing, though I don’t think the people who watched us blow them by thought so.

Once you get inside you are pretty much immediately met with penguin friends (African Penguins).

The way the aquarium is laid out is actually pretty cool. The whole place is build around this large central column which is actually a huge tank. The penguins (all three varieties of them) surround the base of the big pillar. Pretty nifty.

Every once in awhile they turn on a sprinkler system for the penguins. I’m not sure if its just to keep the cool, wet, or to wash away the poop, but that guy above he was all about dat’ sprinkler.

They also had little itty bitty blue penguins (Little Blue Penguins), which I believe at the smallest kind of penguin (about 1/3 the size of an Emperor penguin).

SB was pretty much infatuated with them.

But so was I, so I can’t say much.

We also found Nemo.

And this guy…

..who was most definitely not Nemo, but I think he was awesome. I actually have no idea what kind of fish he was either, I couldn’t find him on the informational display.

This is one of the many angles you could look into that large central tank.

It was actually really pretty, especially since the top of the tank was open which allowed for some nice light rays to shine down through. There was also a diver in there cleaning things, but I didn’t get a good shot of him.

On the opposite side of the pillar was some crested (Rockhopper) penguins.

As we started to make our way up the spiral we encountered a gargantuan, straight out of hell lobster beast thing.

You can’t really tell it, but that thing was freaking huge.

As was this guy…

..because he was all up in my camera stealing my photo-space.

In the same tank was really cool polka-dot ray, I had never seen one of these before, not even on TV.

Near that tank were some sea dragons, which were really pretty and kind of like sea horses that have been mutated into super heroes/villains.

As we progressed higher we encountered an Eel.

He seemed buttmad about something, but the next person we saw:

Seemed very content with the world. I guess that happens when you are 120 years old.

Around this point we also encountered a dark room with some glowing jellyfish. I’ve always thought jellyfish were cool to look at, though I was horrified of being stung by them when I was younger.

Next up were some piranha buddies, who looked like they would have been more than happy to eat my face off for me.

Immediately adjacent to the piranhas were some jungle frogs, I actually played with one of them. Sadly I couldn’t touch them, but maybe they would have poisoned me and condemned me to a horrific death, so it might have been a good thing. But we played through the glass, he liked my finger.

Near the frogs was an electric Eel.

That sucker was huge. His tank was pretty cool. It had a meter hooked up to it that was measuring the voltage he was putting off and it changed from “Green” which was when he was just chilling and watching TV to “Red” where he was killing something. You could also put your hands on the panel and compare your output to his (Protip: You will lose).

Next up was the first of the “OMG YOU CAN TOUCH STUFF” rooms. Which allowed us to touch Star Fish, Urchins, a Flounder, and a small Horseshoe Crab.

They were all pretty nifty, (The Flounder was ultra slimy) but the urchins were weird. As soon as you got close to them they would grab your finger. They were sticky and poisonous. However, for whatever reason their poison doesn’t effect us at all. At least that is what the employee said. If I suddenly die, you know why. But yeah, they would grab you, since that is how they hunt fish. SB freaked out and scared a little kid next to her when she got grabbed, it was actually really funny.

We worked our way to the very top of the big central tank, which afforded us some good views looking down, including some sharks.

Of course by the time we made our way to the top, which took far far longer than it would for most people, it was time to go see the penguins get fed.

Of course the little blue penguins got fed as well, they were persnickety eaters though.

After that we headed outside for the Fur Seal, Sea Lion, and Harbor Seal training show.

By the time we got there it was really packed and we had a pretty distant seat. However the trainers made up for that by letting us get very up close and personal with the trainees.

Isac was a humongous guy (Northern Fur Seal).

The picture really doesn’t showcase how massive he was. I seriously thought it was a walrus at first, I am not joking. It was hilarious watching him waddle.

After the show everyone started getting a little sleepy.

Apparently this particular Sea Lion (I can’t remember her name, sadly) is known for sticking her tongue out when its nap-nap time.

As we made our way back inside for a snack (it was past lunchtime) we noticed one of the Rockhopper penguins had made himself King of the Hill, literally.

As we were eating lunch, we noticed a show being put on by the Harbor Seals. You can’t really tell it from this photo but they were painting pictures. I’m sure some rich animal activist in New York probably pays 20,000$ for them too. My phantom image hovers over the photo.

The last area of the aquarium was the larger “OMG YOU CAN TOUCH THINGS” area. It included rays and a few various kinds of sharks. Yep, sharks. There were even signs up warning you that you could get bitten, it was kind of funny. Of course I doubt people get bitten, at least not often. Naminals are more chill than most people realize if you go about existing with them in the proper ways.

As you can see from the photo above, it was pretty crowded. However SB and I were patient and managed to work our way up into a very good spot at the front of the line. You see what would happen is that the animals would start to swim towards you, then some kid (or adult) would start relentlessly thrashing and scare all of them away. So the key was to get in front of the plebs (as Tristen would say) so you could touch them before they got scared off.

That is me about to touch a ray.

And that is SB about to touch a little shark.

There were actually much bigger things in the tank, such as a massive whip-tail leopard ray which was just ginormous. There was also nurse sharks, full sized nurse sharks. We touched both things, but I didn’t get good pictures of them, so just believe me.

The rays felt like jelly blobs and the sharks felt like sand paper, it was pretty neat.

Under touchy room number two was another jellyfish exhibit. Some of them were really awesome, I got some cool pictures of them too.

And then some florescent ones:

And then some more glowing ones that were getting fed while we were watching them (all those particles are food):

They seemed very happy to get noms.

After that we had traversed the hole gamut. Like most of my posts I’ve left out several things, but it keeps the posts relatively short and also leaves some surprises should you ever go there yourself. (It also helps me go to bed earlier, since its about 1am as a I type this, haha.)

On our way back home it was still hot, which meant the subway stations were still hot, but overall I think it was actually a little better than it had been on the way down. In all, it was a really fun day, made even more so by the fact that my school had paid for literally everything except for lunch. I always love getting to see animals, especially when they are free (which is why I miss Columbian Park Zoo so much). On a similar note, MIL in FIL bought SB and I tickets to the Boston zoo, so you can expect a post on that sometime after we get a chance to go visit that bunch of friends. 🙂

Until next time,
-Taco

The Spanish Inquistion

5th Anniversary Festivities

Taza Chocolate and a Beer Blurb (10/24/14)

Exploring a New Zoo

New England Aquarium

Search all of Dinosaur Bear

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