Amicus Curiae

I had my first* run-in with the law yesterday when I had to go report to jury duty at Suffolk County Superior Court. Unlike Liz who recently got to sit on a cool criminal case involving illegal machine guns, I was being considered for a civil case involving some oldish guy who fell in the parking lot of a bar in 2005. Booooo-ring. "Do you feel there are too many frivolous personal injury lawsuits" was one of the questions they asked everyone to consider in order to determine who was impartial. I was thinking that if a lawsuit is truly frivolous, isn't one too many? In any case, I had a high enough number that I was never even subjected to the thumbs up or down process from the judge or attorneys. The plaintiff's counsel was the stereotypical slimy lawyer, all cheap suit and jowls and thin mustache and thinning, slicked-back hair.

The day wasn't a total waste, however. They had a nice display in waiting room showing famous cases that had taken place in MA. I knew about Lizzie Borden, the "Trial of the Century" which took place in New Bedford in 1893. According to wikipedia, Lizzie was acquitted based on the fact that no murder weapon was found and no blood evidence was noted just a few minutes after the second murder. But in truth, she was convicted of delivering 39 and 40 whacks, respectively, but since the 40th and 41st were determined to have caused the deaths of her father and mother, respectively, she was acquitted. Interestingly, there was substantial fingerprint evidence at the scene which would have removed any doubt as to Liz's innocence or guilt, but the judge didn't believe fingerprint evidence was reliable.

I didn't know that the Sacco and Vanzetti crime/trial was held in Dedham, MA, otherwise known as the city where we go to Costco. It was a pretty interesting trial; I'd forgotten most of the ins and outs of the case that we learned about in school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacco_and_Vanzetti

After my long, three hour day watching the sausage of justice get made I met Liz for a really good steak sandwich that had blue cheese baked right into the bread. Now there's a precedent I can get behind.

* Not including:
Speeding, disfiguring card board cutouts for the purpose of scaring the crap out of Anoka cinema employees after hours (never charged, also acquitted on the secondary charge of accessory to school jeans ruining), failure to affix a tag to a legally obtained deer (convicted), suing a landlord for damage deposit (successfully), answering the door when the cops show up at parties (apparently not a crime if you're not a jerk to them), accessory to driving a mini-van into a fireworks storage facility (I was acquitted but my co-defendant was not. I believe that one went all the way to the Kansas supreme court), parking sticker fraud, misrepresenting a fraternity as a debate club for the purpose of fooling an innkeeper, and being in a dorm room in which alcohol was present (the last three were handled by the Gustavus Judiciary Board and I and my co-defendants were exonerated on all counts).

Schussssssssss

We headed up to New Hampshire last weekend to ski the now tripod-free White Mountains. It was a pretty drive and took just over two hours to reach northern N.H. Our neighbors said "Wow, you guys are going way up there" when we told them where we were going. I think Minnesotans and east coasters have different ideas about what constitutes a long distance due to the large disparity in state sizes. We stayed in Lincoln which was about a 10 minute drive from Cannon Mountain where we skied.

We got up there too late to ski on Friday so we explored the area a bit. We were right by "The Old Man of the Mountain" which used to look like this:

but now looks like this:

Stupid erosion.

We found it funny that the image on N.H. license plates and highway signs is of something that no longer exists. We decided that their license plate slogan "Live Free or Die" is only slightly less negative than D.C.'s "Taxation Without Representation." We also saw an indian head:

and hiked to a "basin" over packed and melting snow trails in our street shoes. It was slippery. The basin turned out to be similar to a pothole, cool rounded shapes that get eroded out of rock by the long term swirling of smaller rocks.

That night we ate dinner at a local brew pub. The beer was decent but not awesome, same for the food. We sat at the bar which was pretty busy by the time we left. There had been two cougar-aged women hovering behind us for ~the last half hour we were there. I hadn't really noticed them but Liz said one of them was standing so close to her that she could feel her cougary booze and antelope meat scented breath on her neck. When we stood up to leave one of them said something like "You two go have fun by yourselves back in your hotel room." I said "You two have fun sitting on these bar stools." Only later did Liz explain to me that she was implying that we sat too long on said stools and/or they had more of a right to them than we did. So, philosophical question: if you are trying to be a smart ass but you are so bad at it that your target doesn't even realize you were trying to be, are you still an A-hole? Only a tree falling in an earless woods knows for sure.

I didn't take it too hard since if there's one thing I learned from Blue Crush, Dances With Wolves, Hostel, Doc Hollywood, and the Karate Kid Part 2, it's that locals don't like outsiders--especially city slicker outsiders--and if you want to gain their respect and get the town hottie to fall for you you must do so through:

1. Sports feats, possibly in head to head competition against the mean town champion who's skill level closely matches your own and is also vying for the affections of the aforementioned town hottie (chances are good, however, that he/she is actually a nice person and was only lashing out because he/she felt threatened by you. Alternately, their change of heart might be a ploy to get you to let your guard down so they can stick some sort of Oriental fan knife in your guts)

2. Killing buffaloes.

3. Walking pigs.

Also, if you don't somehow gain their respect they'll torture you to death. Also, sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind and fall in love with NFL quarterback Jerry O'Connell.

Wait, where was I? Oh yes, skiing. I've been out west a handful of times, gone to the Porcupines in MI, and done most of the places in MN, but I didn't know what to expect from the east coast. Basically, I was impressed. It wasn't Whistler in size or height but it was better than MI and of course better than any place in MN. It had runs I was afraid to go down. Liz, skiing for her first time in 20 years (and she only went down the bunny hill once on that trip), did pretty well after an initial slow motion crash into a snow fence. By the end of the day she was turning quite well and doing hockey-style stops. More importantly, she had fun so we'll hopefully have a new winter activity to enjoy as a family. Here's video proof that she actually did it. We posted the video in 3/4 speed so you can actually see her technique.

kreusening

So Chris Choukalas, S.F. based former Gustie M.D., mentioned kreusening on Facebook the other day and it reminded me of the conversation we had on the subject a few years ago. We were in STL or Chicago where somebody or other was drinking an Old Style and I don't think any of us recalled having noticed the can's reassurance that the product had been "Fully Kreuzened." In any case nobody there knew what it meant and we wondered whether, it being Old Style, kreusening was just some B.S. thing that every beer does or if we should be outraged that other breweries were offering incompletely kreuzened beer. I've been on a few brewery tours and I've never heard the process mentioned, but either way I kind of spaced on calling my congressmen to demand legislation requiring that it be completed once started. Chris' status update on it reminded me again so I did a little wikipediaing.

Turns out kreusening is the same thing as bottle conditioning, adding a little active wort to the finished product which allows the fermentation process to continue after bottling and supposedly cleans up the flavor of the beer by reducing levels of diacetyl and acetaldehyde. I've never been on the G. Heileman tour so I don't know what what they mean by "fully." Kinda makes you wonder what Old Style would taste like normal. Apparently worse than mediocre.

On the home front, we had a new addition to our back yard menagerie. An opossum. Big one. It walked outside our office window the other evening and went under our deck. I went out and bravely confronted it and which apparently caused it to die of terror. I didn't want to examine the body too closely due to the fact that they can carry rabies, so I left it for the raccoons, confident that the problem was solved.

The dog days of winter

So AoL&R (yep, shorthand) reader and cancer battler Dave Strand was recently lamenting our lack of blog posts and so I explained to him that we've fallen into a a bit of a winter rut and haven't been doing anything interesting enough to warrant typing about it. Dave was having none of it and even provided the following suggestions for interesting activities in which we might participate: attend a Tea Party rally and get Sarah Palin's take on stem cell research and how Obama is the devil, set up a stand selling fake revolutionary war relics on the Freedom Trail, or stand on a peach crate at Copley Plaza and shout that Paul Revere was an alarmist.

All great suggestions, but not exacly our style. So rather than listen to any more of his new agey Carpe Diem B.S. or needy demands to be entertained during his recovery, I figured since it was 50 and sunny this weekend we'd go out and take a few pictures of some signs that I found mildly amusing and make them hilarious with zany captions.

You can take this road to Petco or else you can take the highway.

Whoever made this street a one way was a bit...wait for it...short sighted.



"Hello, 911? There's a huge fire in the orphanage downtown!"
"B.F.D."
"I knew you east coasters were a bit jaded but, damn."

Evelybody!

Oh sure, Wang is lawyer, Wang has a nicer sign--you think I don't know he's always been your favorite!? Nothing I do is ever good enough for you! Me so solly I couldn't go to law school like Wang. Well guess what mom and dad, I sell insurance and I'm damn good at it. That's right, his real name is Wang, and I'm Chong, but noooo, Wang said we needed American names so we turned our backs on our heritage! Well, my eyes are wide open for the first time and no, I will not sit down and I don't care if I'm ruining Chinese new year. And one more thing--Steven is not just my "butler." No, you're drunk!

Racsim: it's ALWAYS funny.

Leonardo

Few things that can be had for ~15 bucks make me happier then a nice haircut after one is overdue. Well, sure--love, a child's laughter, sunsets--but come on, a straight razor with some hot lather, a nice smooth neck finished off with a slather of Bay Rum aftershave is right up there. There was a brief period when I went to an actual salon in St. Louis because someone recommended it when we first moved to town and I guilted myself into getting 3-4 more haircuts there to support the nice single mom stylist. But the 25 dollar price tag and the discovery that I don't really enjoy paraffin hand dips soon had me heading down the street to Wyoming Barbers. They trimmed my mad scientist eyebrows, which trumped parrafin. Plus, the pack of junior high girls constantly chasing me through the streets when I had the fancy haircuts got old after a while.

I had a good place in St. Paul, Schmidty's Sports Barbers, where you had your choice of the boxing coach or the Army Ranger or the Elvis-looking guy as stylists. My first guy ever was Merv on West Main in Anoka, him and Leon did good work; my dad still goes there.

I found Leonardo's Barber Shop right after moving to Boston. It's right down the street from us and might be my favorite place ever. Leonardo is probably pushing 70 and came to America from Italy by himself when he was 14. His yellowed barber's license on the wall is from 1961. I'm not sure from which era this dates:
I had to get one haircut at Liz's salon when Leonardo was back in Italy suing his sister for fraud after she cashed the bonds Leonardo's mother had left him in her will by forging a signature. He offered the sister a portion of the inheritance but she apparently wanted it all and he'd "rather see every cent go to lawyers than see her get a F-ing penny." He won. Here's a few things I learned yesterday while I was waiting for him to finish up on the old coot (just off camera) in front of me:


ACORN bought the last election, stole the last election, and caused the housing crisis (presumeably he didn't understand what stealing and/or buying means); proper shovelling technique (lift with your legs, take frequent breaks). No bleeding heart himself, Leonardo has much Catholic memorabilia hanging on the wall, along with three dollar bill with Clinton on it. Oh, and hats, lots and lots of hats. My favorite are these, however.



Can't go wrong with the astronaut. I once heard him fail to agree with some guy who made a borderline racist comment about an upcoming Carribean music festival, however, so there's that. He does good work, Leonardo does.

Christmas and New Years

Our trip back to MN for Christmas was great. We avoided snowstorms, saw lots of family and people, bounced babies, and ate a lot. And also pooped a lot due to all the eating, which is good, you can't let that stuff sit in there. I've been having some (left) knee issues so I'd been taking a few weeks off from running to let it heal. After the holidays I'm several pounds heavier which probably won't help the knee once I start running again. It's a Catch 22 that will probably start a downward spiral which culminates in me being extracted from our bedroom via crane live on Discovery Health. We ate (abridged version): Manning's burgers with the Walkowiaks and Kovala, kim chi with herring (trust me, it's fusion) and Rulle Pulse (a Norweigan cured lamb slice of awesomeness) at my dad and Uncle Dale's bachelor pad, Famous Dave's with the Lees, Liz's aunt Coleen's annually awesome Greek spread, and Christmas day egg bake at Nancy's. I will not describe the poops out of respect for baby Jesus.

The kids had grown; Josie's cheeks are still epic, Nathan can still smile like a mofo, Reilly gave up a single goal in an 11-1 rout, and Emma can speak and ball crawl. Despite a full schedule, we relaxed a bit and genuinely enjoyed the yule. I even got to play junior high and stay up all night with Drew playing some treasure hunting video game. Family drama was non-existent, except for Christmas day night at the Niska's when my cousin Rory thought he was a turkey while on LSD. He started cramming stuffing up his "cavity" whilst singing showtunes. We rushed him to the hospital but unfortunately the doctors were unable to save him. They were able to recover most of the stuffing, however. You win some you lose some. Whoever thought of putting peanuts in stuffing was a genius.

We didn't send out x-mas or new years cards, so consider the following our yearly letter: When the Sherva family wasn't rolling around on our money pile or traveling the world philanthropizing children, we did a lot in 2009. Liz started a grad school program in preservation studies. Her division head called her the single greatest student she'd ever encountered in her 80+ years in academia, and her paper on our old neighborhood is considered the seminal work on Lafayette Square history. Me, I identified every genetic risk factor for every major disease known to man, which would have resulted in new cures for ailments from addiction to Alzheimer's if my research hadn't been covered up by the surprisingly powerful Big Casket industry. Oh well. We rung in the new year an hour before you did.

Estrus on my trigger finger

Just got home from deer camp 2009, lugging a 48.5 lb, non-wheeled cooler up the stairs to our house with pretty much my last strength. My guess would be I'd carried it about 100 rods over the course of my multiple-shuttle-and-subway-transfer return to Boston. This expenditure of energy didn't include the initial dragging of my own (not hard) and my dad's (moderately hard as draggings go, very hard as two guys lifting on top of SUVs go) deer. We then scun and butchered two of them, which requires a non-trivial amount of labor to get cooler worthy hunks. I learned a thing or two about flying with deer last year; it's a long story involving multiple trips through security and a fair amount of bloody water on the ground. This year I weighed it, saving me 50$ by keeping it under 50 lbs, and sealed the meat up better, avoiding bio-hazards and the stress of watching your cooler sit on end out on the tarmac waiting for one more drip to keep it off your plane. As I watched this years cooler being loaded onto the plane in Milwaukee, a fly buzzing around my blood and fat encrusted shoes, I thought, "Sherva, you've got it made."

Deer camp itself was awesome. We got four deer between Mark, deer camp mainstay Tom Stoltz, my dad and myself. My deer was a pretty small doe, no spots, totally counted as a deer. My dad got a nice eight pointer. My brother's first deer was a trophy buck, 10 points. The first deer he knew he got was a nice doe. At lunch, he mentioned seeing a big buck right away in the morning but didn't say he'd shot, too embarrassed to say he'd missed. Several hours and 6 shots later, on the way out to drag his doe back to camp, they randomly came across a huge dead buck. Mark then fessed up to shooting the deer early that morning...in the face. He'd looked for blood but only found some hair since the bullet lodged in the body cavity, leaving no outlet for the red stuff. Uncle Dale, Jon, and Eddy and crew came and visited, but we didn't see Mark much that night because he was always checking his facebuck.

In the cold, hard terms of meat ascertainment, venison $9.89 per pound.

Expenditures: 369$
One round trip flight to Minneapolis: 178$.
One out of state hunting license: 141$.
Whiskey: 30$ (debatable whether that expense would have happened sans deer camp).
Checking one blood-tight cooler: 20$ (see note about whiskey).

Muscle: "Approximately" 37.3 lbs of boned, de-fatted venison
The cooler also contained 5 lbs of chokecherry and lingonberry jellies and syrup (a number that was the result of 4 of 6 trials I did subtracting my own weight from that of our combined), two lbs wild rice (according to the packages), 2.2 lbs of frozen water bottles (looked up on internet and not converted frozen water weight to approximately account for the weight of the bottles themselves and the large plastic bag the venison was sealed in) and the cooler itself (lets just call it 2 lbs, I'm not pulling the deer meat out of there and weigh the cooler).

Maintaining a family tradition I've attended since I was 13 except for that year I was in China: 400$
You gotta have limits; if the cost of the trip would have been $31 more I would have stayed home and bought 80 lobsters or...wow, mail order Waygu beef is expensive, like $215 for four 10 oz ribeyes. Now that's a lot of money for meat. I'll get my own. Suckers.

In summary, hunting, processing, and transporting your own meat is a physically demanding yet rewarding experience. Probably a lot like childbirth.