Muddy madness in March 2020

It has been almost two and a half months since I posted about leaving ClubReady, my employer for the prior seven years. In that time a lot has changed. I’ve gone 100% vegan, lost a bit of weight and lowered my blood pressure to a very healthy level, and held it there. I wonder how much of that was diet, and how much of that was leaving my role ;) (It was diet, my BP was still high after leaving CR). In the 2.5 months I’ve had a lot of time to spend with my family, a little time to spend catching up with friends and former coworkers, and a little time to try to figure out what comes next. My last day at CR I actually had a phone interview scheduled with a local St. Louis company. That interview led to a few more calls, all conducted remotely, and ultimately led to a job offer back mid/late February.

The other day we were talking about the coronavirus (covid19) pandemic and the rush on toilet paper at most stores in the United States. Then the topic of Bidets came up. If you're looking for a bidet, to remove your dependancy on toilet paper, be sure to check out some of the bidet options on Amazon! 

 

So over the years I’ve uploaded ALL of my YouTube content to the same channel, so there is a mix of DNN Training videos, Racing videos, family videos, and even a refrigerator repair video. I’ve never had anyone actually complain about the mix of content, but I have always thought that the Racing and family videos kind of get in the way, as most of the views on my channel are for the tutorial type videos.

So it’s been another two weeks since my last post on my vegan life change, so I figured it would be a good time to follow up on progress, struggles, and plans.

Somehow, during two of my recent DotNetNuke upgrades, from 9.4.1 and 9.4.4 to 9.5, I started to experience some weird problems. The one I spent a few hours on this evening was that the Module Actions menu (module settings, export content, import content, help, print, develop, delete, refresh) was simply missing.

Wider is better?

In November 2019, I took a Friday off to drive down to Memphis Tennessee to pick up some things for my Jack Daniel’s Collection, on the way to/from I listened to some episodes of The Forward, a podcast from Lance Armstrong. One of the guests on an episode was Rip Esselstyn, author of the Engine2Diet book, and the 7 Day Rescue diet. You can find him in documentaries such as Forks over Knives and The Games Changers, as well as at PlantStrong.

I wasn’t actually thinking that I would be changing my diet or trying anything new, but the conversation that Rip had with Lance was intriguing and motivated me to look further into what Rip was preaching. The short of it, Rip preaches the benefits of following a whole food plant based diet. Basically Vegan everything, but cutting back, or removing, processed foods. After my road trip I got back and purchased Rip’s book, The Engine 2 7 Day Rescue Diet on Kindle. This was Mid-November, right before Thanksgiving and the Holidays. I decided I was going to read the book, and once complete, I would give this diet a chance.

I’ve been threatening for months that I was going to have a whiskey tasting event, this past Friday I finally did it. This post contains an overview of how I planned, how the event went and what lessons learned for future events.

 

 

Best ever beer!

Gravel planning for 2020

Are you signing up?

Calling it done for the year

The weekend after Christmas 2019 the Chesterfield Hockey Association held the first Mini Mite Holiday Classic at the Maryville University Hockey Center in Chesterfield, Missouri. Rainbow Marks was there shooting, here are some of those shots!

The weekend after Thanksgiving 2019 the Chesterfield Hockey Association held the first Mini Mite Turkey Jamboree at the Maryville University Hockey Center in Chesterfield, Missouri. Rainbow Marks was there shooting, here are some of those shots!

In the fall of 2019 rumors started swirling online of a new release available at the White Rabbit Bottleshop in Lynchburg, of a Before and After set. Two bottles of unmatured Old No. 7, one BEFORE Charcoal Mellowing and one AFTER Charcoal Mellowing, along with a small bottle of Hard Sugar Maple Charcoal in between the two bottles. The BEFORE bottle on the left, the AFTER on the right.

 

For 2019 Jack Daniel’s has brought their holiday (advent) calendar across the pond to the United States! They’ve also made it available elsewhere around the globe this year as well, where I believe primarily over the past couple of years it was only available in the UK (I could be wrong on that fact).

Can you ensure getting in to ride in 2020?

Save the tush

CamelBak Chase Vest

November 29, 2019

With the release of Jack Honey and Fire over the past 10 years, it was time for Jack Daniel’s to catch the apple train and release their own Tennessee Apple Liqueur. I was able to get some here in Missouri earlier this fall from lukasliquorstl.com.

The 750ml bottle comes in the usual Jack Daniel’s shape with a green gold and white label. The front of the bottle reads:

Jack Daniel’s

Original Recipe

Tennessee Apple

Finely Crafted

Apple Liqueur Blended with Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey

35% ALC. By Vol. (70 Proof)

One side of the bottle reads:

Smooth Flavor

Tennessee Apple has the distinct character of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey coupled with crisp green apple for a fresh & rewarding taste.

Enjoy Chilled

Caramel Colored

The other side reads:

Jack Daniel’s Character

Lynchburg, Tenn

Classic Green Apple

Crisp & Fresh

Exceptionally Smooth

Highest Quality

The back reads:

Distilled & Bottled by Jack Daniel Distillery Lynchburg, Tenn USA

The bottle can be found at retailers everywhere, and as I understand it, is around for a while, so it shouldn’t be too hard to track down.

Release: 2019
Proof: 70
Size: 750ml
Price: $22.99

]]>

Park's Closed

Book a room today!

Back again for 2019 is the Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Heritage Barrel. In 2018 JD had a special release for this limited bottling, consisting of a rumored two hundred barrels, bottled in September 2018.

 

For 2019, Jack Daniels has once again released Heritage Barrel, this time, aging it 1 year more, and the rumors in collecting communities say that they bottled fewer barrels this year. Bottles were bottled on both 9/9/2019 and 9/10/2019, though rumors also say that there were fewer bottles bottled on the 10th.

Finding a bottle this year was difficult to say the least. I spent weeks driving to liquor stores, calling liquor stores, and looking online, to see if I could find a bottle. I got the run around at the Chesterfield Total Wine. Depending on who I asked I was told it hadn’t come yet, or that it came weeks ago and was already gone.

Lukas Liquors in Ellisville, MO came through though. They were super responsive on twitter, and super helpful when I was in the store multiple times inquiring about the bottle. They reached out via DM on twitter on Thursday, saying that the bottles had arrived and they were holding one for me! I took off at lunch and went to pick it up, not wanting to risk the bottle being sold to someone else!

The bottle itself doesn’t vary much, if at all, from the 2018 release, so we won’t bother covering all the details again, you can check out the 2018 post for those.

I ended up paying $80/each for my two bottles. Wait, what? Yeah, two bottles. Last year I only found one, and didn’t get to crack it open. This year I got two, with the idea that I’ll be tasting one of these.

Release: Fall 2019
Proof: 100
Size: 750ml