6 - 2007 | ***Dave Does the Blog

Today’s Episcotrivia

Well, actually Episcoptrivia for the past week-plus, given my unexpected hiatus from posting. The Church of Uganda’s bishops will not be attending Lambeth (they say right now) because “American…

Well, actually Episcoptrivia for the past week-plus, given my unexpected hiatus from posting.

The Church of Uganda’s bishops will not be attending Lambeth (they say right now) because “American Bishops who consented to, participated in, and have continued to support the consecration as bishop of a man living in a homosexual relationship have been invited to the Lambeth Conference.” I.e, “If they’re coming, we’re not. Nyaah.”

It’s ironic that the conservatives in the Anglican Communion, who’ve previously accuse the Episcopal Church of “walking apart,” may themselves be the ones who explicitly break off. Was the Archbishop of Canterbury counting on that? Or am I attributing too much political acumen to +++Rowen?

And the various breakaway/realigned groups in the US are already planning their post-30 September meeting to try and figure out how (or if) they’re going to work together. 30 Sept. is the “deadline” the Tanzania Primates meeting set for the Episcopal Church to respond to various items. Interestingly, the “Common Cause” (isn’t that name already taken?) folks are actually meeting 25-28 Sept. — perhaps they simply want to be able to issue coordinated press releases about how those zany Episcopalian heretics have shown how they are walking apart. (“After you!” “No, no, after you!”)

So is the Episcopal Church “thumbing its nose” at the rest of the world? No, not really. “And the struggle makes it a great time to be an Episcopalian. You can’t avoid tough questions, you have to know what you believe, you have to delve into God’s embracing heart of love and justice. Frankly, as churches go, it is a really pretty good one (How’s that for a church sign? “The Really Pretty Good Church”). You just wouldn’t know that from the partisan blogosphere or from reading the New York Times.”

Meanwhile, Latin American and Caribbean Anglican bishops, referring to themselves as the “Global Center,” have called for the Anglican Communion to maintain its “participative nature, diverse, ample and inclusive, characteristics which we consider essential to Anglicanism and at the same time our contribution to the Christian tradition.” What a bunch of radicals.

On the other hand, here’s a reflection on the limits of tolerance in the Episcopal Church: “The truth is beginning to dawn on us, however: toleration has its limits. Unlimited tolerance will lead to the end of tolerance, for the tolerant will be stamped out, leaving only the extremists. A tolerance that is unlimited in scope and boundary-less in expression represents a fundamental error of judgment on our part..”

That said, it’s not all about the numbers (and, for the Episcopal Church, never will be or can be).

Meanwhile, the Church of Nigeria has its own spiffy new web site; Preludium walks us through some of the interesting FAQs they choose to address. “Q6. Why does the Church of Nigeria hate Gays? A. The Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion does not hate any human being. Rather the Church has been outspoken in attempts by some to undermine the importance of God’s word written as received by the fathers of the Church and accepted by the Creeds and Anglican Book of Common Prayer 1662. The Church maintains that God’s plan as evidenced in Genesis 2:18 – 25 and affirmed by Christ is for marriage between male and female. Efforts to bless same-sex unions are unscriptural and those in such dilemma are called to repentance as they pray for God’s love to lead them aright.” And if they don’t do that, then let’s have them and their supporters thrown in jail. That’ll teach ’em!

Father Jake notes a new study that indicates the major media tend to talk to a lot more conservative religious representatives than liberal ones. That’s not necessarily an Evil Plot — fire and brimstone is always more interesting to write about than calls for tolerance and understanding. “If it screeds, it leads,” as someone (maybe me) says. He offers this timeline (admittedly “professive”) as background for folks (including journalists) trying to understand the whole progression of the mess.

Potpourri

I’m not particularly thrilled with China’s human rights record, to say the last, and there’s certainly a degree of “show trial for the world” in this news — but…

I’m not particularly thrilled with China’s human rights record, to say the last, and there’s certainly a degree of “show trial for the world” in this news — but I must confess to a certain degree of admiration for the PRC sentencing their former FDA (equivalent) director to death for recent scandals in food and drug adulteration — which has been worse in China than in the exports that have made the news over here. It does make one wonder whether there would be a “deterrence effect” for American officials if faced with similar possibilities. (via DOF)
Oh, my. The Mach 5 for the pending live-action Wachowski Bros. Speed Racer movie. Be still my heart … (via BD)
Has the Miss Universe competition gone post-colonial?
Speaking of which — 500 years of women’s portraiture in Western Art. Gorgeous. (via Ginny)
Maybe it’s just as well that I didn’t have a blog back when Margie and I got married. The sorts of things that a number of these “wed sites” do are … a bizarre combination of tackiness and exhibitionism that exceed even the usual standards of the blogosphere. It’s Jerry Springer with hearts and cherubs and streaming video. Mercifully, Doyce and Kate seem to have a lot more taste than that.
For those who believe in the literal inerrancy of the Bible, and so pooh-pooh things like evil-ution and the Big Bang and similar anti-God so-called-“science” … do you really believe the universe looks like this? Or do you “pick and choose” your biblical metaphors?
Some common Japanese phrases — phonetically rendered, unfortunately, but still useful.
Book burning — it’s not just for fanatical ideologues any more. Is the used book market that bad? I guess so. (via Avo)
Synonyms for drinking/being drunk.

Plantings a-plenty, Part Deux

Got a late start on the day, largely because (a) our church has gone into its summer two-services-instead-of-three schedule (meaning church at 10, not 9), and (b) because we…

The flowers the bloom in spring, tra-la-la!

Got a late start on the day, largely because (a) our church has gone into its summer two-services-instead-of-three schedule (meaning church at 10, not 9), and (b) because we went to the Container Store, which is nigh-impossible to simply run and run out from.

While Jackie took Kitten and KK to the zoo, I finished our planting stuff. I ran out and got six 3-cu-ft bags of cedar mulch (and, um, a couple of ground-cover plants). I replaced the sprinker head, planted plants, planted the pots, killed three bags of mulch in the new bed, and killed two or three more bags of mulch in the back/side beds (which have never had it and desperately have needed it).

Took about three hours, and I am truly satisfied with the results. I didn’t get to the weeding, but there’s always next week, and in the meantime I am filled with a sense of Great Gardening Virtue, and feel like it was a day well-spent. Huzzah!

Restaurant review: Oscar’s Smokehouse

I’ve heard folks who’ve worked in the restaurant biz say the biggest kiss of death to a place is opening up in the location of a previously failed restaurant. If…

I’ve heard folks who’ve worked in the restaurant biz say the biggest kiss of death to a place is opening up in the location of a previously failed restaurant. If “location, location, location” is the universal business mantra, a location that has failed is going to be a huge barrier to overcome for a new place.

Oscar’s Smokehouse is the third tenant, by my count, of the building they occupy on Arapahoe just east of Quebec. The first, a tasty steakhouse, closed due to corporate problems, as I recall. The succesor, a southwestern-themed restaurant, was there for a number of years, but didn’t wow us the couple of times we visited. Alas, Oscar’s is unlikely to be “third time the charm.”

Overall
Food		Service
Ambience		Prices

Food: As the name implies, Oscar’s is a BBQ/Meat kind of place. There’s a menu page of steaks and ribs, another page of fish, another page of game meats.

Alas, the follow-through is mediocre. My New York Strip Steak was merely okay, not very flavorful at all. Margie said the ribs were quite good (and Kitten ate her kids ribs).

The sides were so-so — Kitten didn’t care for the saffron rice she usually enjoys, the steak fries were just a hair short of soggy, the side veggies were bland, and the special “Oscar butter” for the (tasty) bread needed salt.

Each table has a trio of BBQ sauces — a spicy Texas, a sweet St Louis, and a mustard-pepper South Carolina. The sauces were a necessity for the steak and the veggies.

It’s not that the food was bad or anything. It just wasn’t … much to write home about.

Service: Our server … didn’t speak the language very well. He didn’t understand my order for a margarita at first, and then didn’t get it right (no salt). I suspect the drink returned without salt was simply poured into a new glass (it had a slight salty tang to it).

(There’s a wine list in the menu, but no mention of other drinks. I’d seen margaritas listed on the chalkboard for the 3-6pm Happy Hour.)

The food came up quickly, though, plates were cleared in a timely fashion and our check appeared likewise.

Ambience: Here’s where the place shines. It’s a small but well-laid-out building. The dining room used to have a very nifty ceiling that cycled through daylight, into sunset, and then a fiber-optic starry sky, back to dawn. That’s no longer in action, though, replaced by the flags of the 50 states. Overall, though, the interior is quite nice (if mostly inherited from previous incarnations of the site).

There’s regularly live music in the attached bar. There was a sub playing tonight, but he did a very nice job with various country-western pop tunes.

There are a few false notes. The exterior signs can’t decide if it’s a “Saloon and Grill” or “Saloon and Grille,” and on some signs the name Oscar is huge vs Smokehouse, on others its reverse. Similarly, the menu has some odd typography, grammar errors, and capitalization quirks. It’s the same sort of oddities that show up in the web page design (which includes misaligned text and a misspelling of the city the restaurant resides in).

Prices: The prices are a scosh high for the quality of the food. Dinner for the three of us — two adults, one child, with one margarita for myself, no wine, no dessert, no dinner salads — came to about $70. That’s about $20 too much.

Overall: Though the place shows well from the inside, and is in a good location (Arapahoe between I-25 and Quebec is something of a restaurant row), there are enough little glitches — the food among them — to make it likely that Oscar’s Smokehouse will not be long for this world. The small crowd on a Saturday night at 7 p.m. seemed to confirm this. A shame, because with a bit of work, the place could be a real contender.

First impressions, though, are make-or-break in the restaurant biz. On that basis, I expect to (sadly) see another name over the door at that address far too soon.

Oscar’s Smokehouse, 7285 E. Arapahoe, Centennial, CO 80112

Plantings a-plenty

A word of advice for those who are installing their own sprinkler system: It is wise to put your pipes at least 4-5 inches below the surface of the…

A word of advice for those who are installing their own sprinkler system: It is wise to put your pipes at least 4-5 inches below the surface of the ground, if not more. Not only does this make them more resistant to freezing, but it makes it less likely that someone will sink a shovel into them.

In related news, I spent several hours today doing most of the planting of plants I bought from the church plant sale and the Denver Botanic Garden sale three weeks back. This included turning over a big swathe of grass that I’d killed with Round-Up to make a new bed, during which time I managed to pinpoint with unerring accuracy where the sprinkler line to the sprinklers along the sidewalk comes across the lawn.

Ahem.

All in all, it went well. Midafternoon I allowed to Margie as I may — may, mind you — have purchased a few too many plants. Actually, I purchased too many plants that will grow big. For that particular bed I wanted smaller plants, mostly, as I don’t want to interfere too much with the sprinklers.

All that said, I did manage to plant, um, many plants in back along the NE fenceline — doing quite a bit of weeding and chopping back of both raspberry vines and Volunteer Mystery Berry Vines in the process. That slowed things up enough so that by the time I was planting in the front bed, the clouds had moved in and it was a bit cooler. I had just enough smaller plants to fill the area around some roses I’d bought and way too many penstemons and hyssops. I wisely picked up a number of gazinias because they are hardy, colorful, and actually self-seed in our garden (they, and dianthus, are guaranteed to succeed in our front).

Didn’t have time to mulch the new beds, and I still have some plants to fill in the pots on the front porch and by the front cottonwood. I also need to replace the sprinkler head that’s now in the new bed — it’s a 4-inch popup, which means it actually misses much of the bed around it, so I need to replace it with a 2-inch.

But that’s for tomorrow. For now, a sense of work well done, confirmed by a nice thunderstorm that moved through the area and did a follow-up watering.

In general, the garden is going berserk this year — there’s a lot of weeding that needs to be done, as well as thinning out of things that are threatening to take over from other things. The irises are at end-of-blooming, but the roses have started up, so it’s still color everywhere. A great year for the garden, which means both extra work and extra enjoyment.

Would you like a lot of cheese with that wine?

So amidst visits and illnesses, one of the things I’ve been working on is cataloging our wine cellar. I’ve never actually tried it before, which sounds weird for an…

So amidst visits and illnesses, one of the things I’ve been working on is cataloging our wine cellar. I’ve never actually tried it before, which sounds weird for an inveterate organizer like me, but there it is.

I previously had a system of putting a little dangler in each bottle neck indicating if a wine was an A (faboo), B (quite nice), or C (generically drinkable), and the year that it should be drunk by. Sometimes I’d record the price I’d bought the wine for, and when. Then periodically I’d shift the bottles around so that the stuff nearest (or past) drink-by was at the top of the racks.

That really didn’t tell me much about what wine I had, and coming up with drink-by dates was often catch as catch can (some wineries are big into them, others shun them). As a result, I often had boxes of unclassified wine, and even if I didn’t, if I decided that what a special dinner required was a nice Cab, I still had to look at all the soon-to-expire bottles.

In doing some poking around after some drink-by dates, I ran across an online wine cellar system. Not the first time I had, but the first time it had piqued my interest. I gave it (ManageYourCellar) a whirl with some bottles I had upstairs.

Nice. Easy reports, easy data entry, and a nice way to keep track of what I had. I knew, though, that there were other systems out there similar to ManageYourCellar. So I did a bit of digging, and found some recommendations for CellarTracker. While the interface wasn’t quite as slick, it seems to have a larger community (which means more bottles of wine already listed, pricing/values from same, ratings, and drink-by dates). And it has nice reports, too, and it’s easy to put stuff into it.

And so I did. Put our wine cellar into it. Nearly all of it.

Came to some conclusions, too.

We have a lot of wine. Tiny collection compared to some, perhaps, But 142 bottles cataloged, totaling (an appalling amount of money) dollars.
And that doesn’t count the port/desserts, which I haven’t entered yet because I have the rack double/treble-stacked.
And that doesn’t count a couple of boxes of wine that I couldn’t catalog either because, again, I’m out of rack space.
And it doesn’t count the “C” wines. Those come in/out too fast to really track easily.
On the other side, I have plenty of opportunity to reduce my collection, because I have quite a number of bottles that are past their mature date. Eek!

And the ultimate conclusion: I need more help drinking wine. Hopefully there are some doughty volunteers in my immediate social circle willing to lend a hand.

I’m back!

Ya miss me? (Plowed under with office e-mail and other 3-day-deferred tasks, so don’t expect a huge flurry of blogging and, ah, home e-mail responses, at least until later in…

Ya miss me?

(Plowed under with office e-mail and other 3-day-deferred tasks, so don’t expect a huge flurry of blogging and, ah, home e-mail responses, at least until later in the day.)