the gRumpcAst

Ghost bike image from flickr user ( kurtz ) and is covered by a creative commons license.

I just received word that a young friend and neighbor was killed this evening in a accident while riding his bicycle. In my city, and most of the US, there is not a whole lot of transportation planning that focuses on bicycles. Instead, it’s all about the cars and trucks.

I was already pretty pissed off about how bikes are treated in my local transportation system. I have a brother and a son who commute on their bicycles every day. I commute on mine every now and then.

The death of this boy is a tragedy in my community and in my city. It’s a tragedy for his family and friends. We all handle grief in our own way. I’m planning to channel mine into being a pain-in-the-ass to the politicians and bureaucrats who claim they work for me on the issue of bicycle infrastructure in our transit system.

The instrument on the left is a euphonium.  The instrument on the right is a tuba.

A week ago, I wandered through one of the many salvage shops in Tallahassee and spotted what I thought was a small tuba.  I’ve been enamored with brass instruments after a visit to Festival International in Lafayette Louisiana a few years ago.  It’s a great festival and pulls in acts from around the French speaking world.  We thought we went there to hear Urban Trad (a great band from Belgium) perform, but it turned out that we went there to hear all sorts of wonderful musicians.  That year, for me, the theme was tubas.  There were tubas in at least 5 of the bands we heard.  In one amazing band from Quebec, there was  a sousaphone.

So when I saw the little “tuba” sitting on the shelf at the shop, I had to check out the price.   It was out of my comfort range so I forgot about it until today. I was back in that store and sure enough, it was still there.   The manager saw me checking it out and asked if I was going to buy it.  I said “not for that price” and made a counter offer a lot lower than I thought they’d go.  So now it’s mine, at least temporarily.

It turns out that it’s not actually a small tuba, but something called an euphonium.  Mine is a little dinged and two of the four valves need a bit of love.  It might be for sale or I might just keep it and toot on it.  Even with the dings and sticky valves, it’s making a very lovely noise when I blubber (is that the proper term?) on it.

I guess that the moral to this story is: “sometimes a good deal at the salvage shop is a lifestyle decision.”

This post is dedicated to furry fat boys of the 1999 James Madison University Marching Band tuba section.  Greece rocked.

It’s been a long week and I even went into work for a bit this morning. It’s time to loaf. My favorite kind of loaf is turkey loaf. In honor of my brother Steve, who’s going to be older next weekend while I’m out-of-town, I’m cooking a delicious turkey loaf. Here’s my recipe:

This image is by a flickr user with a trademarked user name. It’s covered under a Creative Commons license. Mine looked a bit different but I’m too lazy tonight to get my own photo together.

Start with ground turkey. The quantity is up to you. Put it in a mixing bowl and add bread crumbs (I like panko for the better texture), an egg, some hard grated cheese, some fresh herbs (today I used tarragon, rosemary and cilantro), chopped up green pepper, scallion, onion (I did a big Vidalia)

Chop everything up as big or as little as you want. Mix it up as much or as little as you want. Add salt and pepper but go easy. It’s not a good idea to taste raw turkey.

Put it into some sort of baking pan. For tonight, I’m using a French ceramic casserole pan with a cover. I checked two sources for the appropriate internal temperature. A professional cook told me 155 degrees F. A cooking web site told me 165. You should make your own decision about that.

It’s guaranteed to be yum.