There’s something about New England in the fall that is hard to explain to someone who has yet to experience it.  The weather slowly cools.  Different smells come into the air.  The atmosphere completely changes.  Although it marks the ending of the summer, It always stirs up new curiosities in me.  One thing i love about the fall is all of the local fairs. 

Most of the towns around me are all woods. At least a few times each fall one of them has a fair.  Farmers come to showcase their livestock and produce. Tractor pulls apparently are a real big thing.  Then you got the travelling carnies!!

I’m a sucker for rides. I know fairs happen all over America. I know that it is technically fall in every state. But fuck. Each year i am reminded as to why i still live here. It’s just fuckin special.

Ethiopian food is very simple but oh so tasty. The food is served all  together on this big sort of pita bread but more spongy than pita bread.  Everyone just digs their fingers in to eat. It really brings people together. I  wouldn’t recommend going there on a first date. You want to go with people that  you are comfortable eating off the same plate with. There is this place on Haight street in San Francisco. The staff is super nice and the food is great. I tried Ethiopian beer for the first time. It was so delicious. The beer has sweet undertones which reminds me of Red Stripe. I think they put honey in it or it is made with honey. It was a nice day in the city. It was about two weeks ago.

Last week was the Treasure Island Music Festival. I went on the Sept. 15^th, which was a Saturday. The place was packed and some of the music was great. I was terribly disappointed with M.I.A. I love her studio creations but man she sucked hard live. My favorite band of the night…..straight from Mexico….KINKY!!! Man they rocked. If anyone can make an accordion cool is the guy in this band that plays it.

9/20/07 – 2020
Chicago, IL
Undisclosed Location

The merry-go-round (MGR) awaits my decision on the surgical table, aka the island. MGR plug would perform his duty so much better if he had two cords running from his plug instead of one. I thought I was only going to have to give him stitches, not minor transplant surgery. But seeing as venues with replacement parts are generally not open at that hour, it was my only option. The MGR was needed and needed tonight. So I called up MGR 6-Echo to get what was needed. Though this MGR 6-Echo is not a direct clone, the spinner arm and attached cord to be transplanted are quite sufficient to my purposes.

MGR 6-Echo and the still functional pieces of MGR.

The transplant was completed successfully and MGR performed flawlessly. Luckily for MGR 6-Echo, he will most likely get his arm back and will not need to remain on the island permanently. But first I must find the land of the orange aprons so that I can acquire that which is needed to get MGR back up to standard levels of performance. Best of luck to you MGR 6-Echo.

9/9/07 – 0938
Green Bay, WI
Doc’s Lot – looking northeast

I wanted to post this earlier, but got kinda busy this week. Anyways, even though I have been, am and always will be a Chicago Bears fan, I will say that Lambeau Field (Home of the Green Bay Packers) is almost always a good time (not being a Packers fan can create issues). The location is wonderful. You’re driving through a medium size suburban town residential zone and there sits the stadium. So yes, lots of “lawn parking” is used to accomodate the ticket holders and generate some good cash for Lambeau’s neighbors. Thankfully, this does not create a damper on the tailgating. Mmmmmmmm, brats….. (in the voice of Homer Simpson) The bar scene is better than it used to be since they built up the Stadium View area a few years back. The younger crowd tends to drift that way as there’s way more bar space over there. Kroll’s is the classic venue, but always packed (no pun intended) to the brim. The Kroll’s lot always has a decent live band as well. So if I’m not tailgaiting, I tend to wander that way.

It’s about 3:15h in the car one way for me to get up there. So the Bears game was waiting for me when I got home. Anyways, I have access to a few tickets every year and went to this went to see the home opener against the Eagles. And since I am not a fan of either green-clad team, I may very sure to not wear anything that would indicate I may be cheering for either team. We can’t have that. Though, I was leaning towards the Eagles as I picked them over GB on Yahoo’s Pickem game. Way to muff your kick returns Philly… My Bears make the trip up here in October. More to come on that later…

9/8/07 – Dublin, CA

Yes folks, cars are FUN. Getting work done to your car when it is not absolutely done for upgrade reasons is not fun. Day two, night time already? Yeah. A weekend of no car and the emptying of your pockets only to watch for half a day while your car spits out green coolant from a system that will just not burp and let the air out of it’s lines is not my idea of fun. Test driving your car you owe too much money on still and having it instantly shoot to the red zone of death temperature-wise is even worse. Finally, when your mechanic realizes that the exact high pressure cap that is specificed with the all aluminum performance radiator you bought has been the cause of all the headaches during the final stages of a complete timing belt replacement and custom radiator conversion with separated tranny fluid cooling system….. you want to kill someone. The pictures you took of your car bellowing out steam and green goo make for a good laugh when you finally get around to that full throttle thrill ride to beat the hell out of your newly refreshed toy just to see if you can break what has just been done and it purrs like a tiger (or possibly a small snoring gnome that makes snoring sounds like a kitten). It’s good to have my wrx back. Time to get back out and get some pictures of this silly little place we call the San Francisco Bay Area. Vroom…motherfucking vroom.