MattPie

I love Asheville. I spent a couple days there on a motorcycle wander a few years ago. I rode into town with no plan[0] and stumbled onto ABC. I asked the bartender if he knew of any cheap hotels or campgrounds, and he pointed me to a hotel right on the main strip for $70/night. The next two days and nights were: wake up, ride all day, and drink great beer at night. Man, now I want to go back. [0] I didn't plan anything on that 7-day trip, just ride until I get tired and find a place to set up my tent or a room. It was *awesome*.

In the past it was called "being polite", so not that hard.

The cold fusion part is just used to power the jump starter and A/C.

If I recall, Asheville Brewing Co. had a large covered outdoor space too, but in a city cement patio format. That's the on near downtown, apparently there are 3 now.

Agreed on the starter fluid and/or "match light" impregnated briquettes, they taste a little funky to me too. Gas/propane vs charcoal: I love charcoal. I love the process. I must be doing something wrong if it only takes 10 minutes to start with a chimney for you guys, it's more like 20-30 minutes between walking out into the garage and having a surface I can cook on. Nonetheless, a friend of my wife gave us a small propane grill and I cook far more often on that then I ever did on the charcoal. I've only used the charcoal a couple times since when making paella. I go out to the garage and light the propane grill, by time I go back inside and unwrap whatever I'm cooking and come back out it's ready to go.

I'd guess the Unions are on-board, but I'd bet on the insurance companies pushing it. Commercial driving insurance is bound to be more than a normal personal policy (which generally includes language about using your personal vehicle for livery use and "not covered" in the same sentence).

Southern Tier is similar on a smaller scale. Indoor/outdoor space, pic-i-nic tables and grass to spread out on, which is big thing for me these days so I can let RosePie crawl around.

Good post, and I think your assumptions are pretty reasonable. It'd be fun to come back in April and see how close these numbers turn out.

They're just getting back to their roots by showing ridiculous stuff late at night. :) Speaking of which, how does World's Strongest Man fit into this? Magnus Ver Magnusson is the man!

Given the course of this conversation, I feel the need to post something.

Heh, that's a Southern Maryland trick. There's no beer, wine, or liquor sales in grocery stores, but some stores will have a store next door as it's own business, sometimes with an interior door between the two. There's one that has the liquor store inside the grocery store just roped off with a separate register.

I think the extreme crime and poverty has an effect in those two places. If the model works for everywhere there isn't massive poverty you shouldn't dismiss it just understand the limits.

It becomes a ton more prevalent once you cross the Mason-Dixon line. Down there people are taught "right lane for local, left lane for travelling". There are far too many miles of interstate to do in Autobahn-quality construction. :( CREDIT UNION!

Once March rolls around and he fires Babcock and becomes head coach (again) he'll be rolling in funny-colored Canadian cash.

Is that a Bill and Ted reference?

If only there wasn't a baby in the equation; I'd so be there. My wife likes beer a lot too, she'd probably suffer the drive (and drunk me).

Engineering Research: "the physicists gave us a bunch of math that kind of makes sense, but assumes everything is a sphere in a vacuum; we have to do research on how make any of this useful in the real world."

True dat, it's one of the few careers left you can make a go of with a bachelors.

You have a point, until the moment he shuffled off his mortal coil, a lot of people would have been happy to see him sell the team and never be spoken of again. As it turns out, he did well by the city with the way he structured everything so no harm no foul.

I'm not sure I'd hire someone with a doctorate fresh out of school, unless they had a lot of real-world experience to go with those fancy letters.

Surely if we're talking about traffic and gun deaths, you have to include accidental deaths by guns in those numbers, right? But even with your numbers, you've proven my point: you're 2.5 times as likely to be killed with a gun than by a texting driver.

That's cool.

That's actually false. There are roughly the same number of gun deaths in the US per year as there are total automobile deaths. I doubt every automobile death is the result of texting. I'll agree that text should be put on a higher level of infraction, but you don't need hyperbole to get there.

Ick, especially if the lines are clear letting the light get to them. I like my local place, they have around 12 taps and seemingly only get a keg or two of each beer before they change to something else. Even when I went there a couple times a week it was rare that they'd have the same set of beers on the list as the last time.

The Pizza Plant up in Amhearst NY likes to argue that if you have that many taps, you're probably going to be serving some "dusty" beer since you won't be able to turn over enough volume to keep things fresh. Maybe they're using sixtels instead of full kegs for the oddball stuff or something.