Category Archives: Event

Cincy Burger1/2Week

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The first day of this year’s Cincinnati Burger Week was basically over before I got back into town and I spent the second day otherwise engaged. It was Wednesday before I made my first CBW 2021 stop but I still managed to equal last year’s number of new-to-me ‘burger joints (3) along with one repeat. 2020 saw my first visit to the lone repeat so it was an almost-new-to-me burger joint. The 2021 Cincinnati event is about a month earlier than the 2020 event and I found no mention of the statewide involvement that was touted a year ago. I have no idea what that means. It’s just something I noticed.

That first stop was at Blondie’s Sports Bar & Grill where I washed down their offering with a Fat Tire. That offering was a “Burger served in a toasted pretzel bun, bacon, sautéed onions, and beer cheese.” Good eating.

Stop number two was at a new-to-everybody place. Miamiville Trailyard has been open only a couple of months. The ‘burger is “a custom blend of fresh Chuck, Brisket, and Short Rib. Served on a toasted brioche bun with provolone, onion straws and a delicious bourbon Sriracha sauce.” I had mine with a Garage Beer from Braxton Brewing. The Trailyard is right next to the Little Miami Scenic Bike Trail and has a really big yard that I think I’d like to sip some more beer in before the summer is over.

On Friday, I joined friends Rick and Mary at Frenchie Fresh where ‘burgers and birthdays (Mary’s) collide. This was my repeat from last year. Even though the location was a repeat, the ‘burger was not. That’s a Triangle Bacon Black and Blue Burger (blackened with Triangle bacon, barbecue sauce and blue cheese) which was accompanied by a Guinness. Frenchie Fresh offered three choices this year and by pure coincidence, we tried them all. It was the TBBBB for me, Le Pig City for Rick, and Le Gene Kelly for Mary. Strange but true.

I had my final ‘burger of the week at that southeast outlier on the map. It’s the Ugly Goat Social Club which puts it near the edge of the alphabet as well as the edge of the map. They describe their hamburger as an “Unusual Spice Combo In Ground Beef & Pork, Topped With Cheese.” Quite good and I’m thinking that if all the patties I tried were served naked, this one would likely win the flavor contest. I chased this one with an event sponsor’s beer.

Cincinnati Burger week really is a week long, Monday through Sunday, which means it will still be going on when this blog entry is published. And that means you can read this and still down a few of these gems before closing time. ¡Arriba, arriba! ¡Ándale, ándale!

Live Music From Dead Man String Band

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I have experienced very little live music during the last fifteen months, and I miss it. I was looking forward to attending a Dead Man String Band performance on Fountain Square last month but it fell victim to some serious wind and rain. It was rescheduled for June 4 and this time the weather cooperated in wondrous fashion. It was not, however, the same show I would have seen on May 7 if the weather had not misbehaved so badly back then. The “band” underwent a major transformation that included a tripling in size. You’ll see.

A difference I don’t think had anything to do with the transformation of the headliner, was a change in openers and an increase from one to two. I apologize to Loop Man Dan for catching just a smidgen of his set as I walked through the square on the way to dinner. I returned in time to hear about half of Nick Baker’s performance. Both were new to me and everything I heard sounded good.

Wikipedia says that a string band is “an old-time music or jazz ensemble made up mainly or solely of string instruments”. The original Dead Man String Band was an ensemble of one. Rob McAllister played some pretty fancy bass and lead parts on an electric guitar while wearing a mask and playing bass and snare drums with his feet.

Rob is still at the heart of the band but, with the addition of John Castetter on bass and Eric Osborne on fiddle, it more closely fits the standard definition of a string band.

Rob calls this the acoustic version of the band and has written a ton of new music for it. That even includes some banjo tunes so that the instrumentation matches that of a traditional string band a little closer. Tonight there was no snare or hi-hat; just a tambourine for that left foot. His face is still partially hidden but now it’s by a beard instead of a mask.

As I circled the crowd on the way out, two different groups spotted my camera and volunteered as subjects. One was seated at a table at the back of the widely spaced crowd and the other was listening from the side of the stage. That’s something that has not happened in a long time and it felt pretty good. Actually, the whole evening felt good — and a little strange. The pandemic isn’t over and COVID has not been conquered but there are promising signs. A little string band music is one for sure.

 

The Wall That Heals

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I have seen the real Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, multiple times and a traveling version once. When I heard that a wall replica would be on display in Columbus over the Memorial Day weekend, I didn’t really feel an overwhelming need to see it. However, when I woke up Saturday morning, that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

The Columbus display is hosted by the National Veterans Memorial and Museum. I have long been annoyed by people confusing Veterans Day and Memorial Day, and arrangements such as this may inadvertently contribute to the blurring of the two. They are not, of course, completely separable. They are two sides of the same coin or two branches of the same path. Everyone who joins the military will someday be honored by one — but not both — of these holidays.

“The Moving Wall” is a half-sized replica that began touring in 1984. At some point, a second copy was created. It was one of these that I saw in 2008. The replica displayed in Columbus is a different one called “The Wall That Heals”. At 3/4 the size of the original, it provides a rather realistic experience. The openness of the museum grounds combined with the fact that I was there before much of a crowd appeared, allowed me to get the entire wall into a single photo. These pictures were taken a little before 9:00 AM. The museum opens at 10:00 and I’m sure the number of people on site picked up considerably then.

I visited the museum shortly after it first opened in 2018 and described the visit here. I did not enter the museum today. I did walk some of the paths and ramps that surround it. Although officially a place for and about veterans, even without the wall, the museum has several reminders that many who set out to become veterans never make it.

Any morning in Columbus is a good time for breakfast at Tommy’s Diner, but that seems especially true when the day’s destination is less than a mile away. 

Butterflies of Bali

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Like pretty much everything else, the annual butterfly show at Cincinnati’s Krohn Conservatory took a break in 2020. The show started in 1996, and for the first couple of years was called simply The Butterfly Show. Recent shows have featured butterflies from a specific country or region. The 2019 show, with a blog entry here, featured Butterflies of Ecuador. Nothing was featured in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The show has returned in 2021 with the Butterflies of Bali.

The pandemic is not, by any means, over. Vaccines have greatly reduced the rate of new cases in the United States and led to events like the butterfly show being allowed but things are hardly back to normal. Attendance is through time-stamped tickets which are limited to forty per hour. The Butterfly Showroom is completely cleared between groups. I happened to be the first of my group which gave me a chance to capture an essentially empty show area.

The showroom was decorated with items that I assume were Bali-inspired including a pair of rather trim-looking Buddhas. In verifying that these slender fellows were indeed Buddhas, I discovered that Bali is more than 85% Hindu and less than 1% Buddhist. I guess there were no Vishnu statues in the prop room.

The brochure I was given at the show contains names and photos of the various species in the exhibit but I did not try to identify them when I took these photos and my willful ignorance continues with this posting.

My ignorance extends to all of the flora pictured with the fauna and I don’t even have a brochure to aid in guessing. 

To support all of the flitting they do, the butterflies are provided with a number of free nectar buffets placed throughout the showroom.

Despite every timeslot being sold out, there were never anywhere near forty people in the showroom while I was there. Thirty to forty-five minutes seemed to be the typical amount of time spent in the showroom, and attendees somehow staggered their arrival and departure so that no more than twenty to twenty-five people were present at one time. 

I headed out after about forty-five minutes. The exit path passes right by the Butterfly Nursery. Butterflies come from neither eggs nor storks but from cocoons spun by caterpillars that are sometimes as colorful as the butterflies they become and sometimes not attractive in the least. The show runs through September 6 so there is plenty of times for these little guys to shed their cocoons and become part of the big show. 

Open House at Vent Haven

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On Saturday, right after I was welcomed at the Vent Haven Museum open house, I was asked if I’d been there before.  “Yes”, I answered. “Several years ago.” I later checked to see when that earlier visit was and discovered that apparently — in my mind, today — several equals ten.

My only previous visit to the “World’s Only Museum Dedicated to Ventriloquism” occurred way back in 2011. It was during that short period when Oddment pages had not yet been totally replaced by blog posts. There is an Oddment page here. I joined a guided tour on that 2011 visit which made the information I received and shared on that Oddment page noticeably more precise and organized than what I’m posting here. That’s not at all a knock of the open house, and I encourage everyone to partake if they can. They generally do two a year and the second one for 2021 is just a month away on Sunday, June 13.

Today I’ll just share a couple of photos from each of the three open buildings. My first stop was in the building directly behind the house. It was built in the 1960s by museum founder W.S. Berger, and is the first building constructed specifically for the museum. There are hundreds of ventriloquist dummies in the building but I’ve chosen pictures of the string of past presidents and another small grouping. It is the smallest member of that grouping that caught my eye. It’s a replica of “Bull” from the TV show Night Court.

This is the collection’s first home after it was booted from the residence by Mrs. Berger in 1947. It is the garage left empty when Mr. Berger retired and sold his car. The middle picture is of eight dummies donated in the last twelve months. The museum typically gets 10-15 donated each year. There are also a few hundred dummies in this building but none more realistic looking than Penn and Teller.

Construction of the third building was started by Berger but he died before it was completed. It and the garage will be taken down later this year to be replaced by a new building that will offer several enhancements (including restrooms!). Be aware that these are not the only wall-of-bodies or shelf-of-heads photo ops in the museum which now has about a thousand residents.

I actually took this picture soon after I arrived but saved it for a closer. It’s Mike Hemmelgarn who made absolutely everyone feel relaxed and welcome.

Big To Do at Wigwam 2

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The first night I stayed at a Wigwam Village of any vintage was April 22, 2004, when I pulled into Wigwam Village #2. There was no neon outlined tepee like the one at right to greet me. I had driven down after work which put me at the village a little after 10:00 PM. The office and gift shop were in use but weren’t open that late. I retrieved the key that had been left for me in the mailbox and let myself in.

There were lights in front of the office including a neon VACANCY, OFFICE, and arrow. I have no pictures from this visit that show the neon tepee lit and I believe it was completely non-functional but my memory isn’t good enough to swear to that. I got an external shot of the office tepee that included the sign and an internal photo with owner Ivan John.

John retired and sold the motel about a year later. Things had really deteriorated prior to his 1996 takeover and the deterioration commenced anew after his departure. It might not have been immediate. The picture at right of the lighted neon tepee was taken in 2007 and I don’t know if its resurrection came before or after John left. It is the image I used to represent the village in A Decade Driving the Dixie Highway. While John ran the place, a playground and picnic tables were added and the rooms refurbished while retaining most of the original wooden furniture. Since at least 2007, I don’t believe much effort or money has been invested in improving the village until new owners came along in November.

Even if I did not know what was planned for today, I might have seen the ladder at the sign as a clue. There really isn’t much on the outside of the tepees to indicate how much work Keith and Megan have done. The grounds look neater but that’s about it. Even inside there are no dramatic changes. Bathroom fixtures have been updated but the general deep cleaning and repainting may not be immediately obvious.  My habit of posting little collages of motel rooms had not yet been established when I stayed here in 2004 and 2007 so the oldest internal view I have to compare with today‘s is one from 2009.

Megan and Keith had begun accepting a few guests in March but today was a sort of grand-opening of Historic Wigwam Village No. 2 with nine wigwams revitalized and rented. A tepee-shaped cake and some very accurate cookies really added to the occasion.

Megan and Keith each spent a few minutes talking about their experiences during their fairly brief ownership and about their plans for the future. Then they threw the switch that illuminated the recently replaced neon on the sign. It looked good immediately and even better as the sky darkened. In his remarks, Keith noted that they thought bringing the sign to life was an important and highly visible indicator of their intentions to bring the whole village back to life. I think he’s right and it seems that a lot of others do too.

That’s All, Brother

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Lt. Col. John M. Donalson named his C‑47 “That’s All, Brother” as something of a declaration that the Nazi’s success in Europe was just about over. Then he used it to lead more than 800 aircraft loaded with paratroopers across the English Channel to confront those Nazis on the night of June 5, 1944. When I heard that the plane was coming to the National Museum of the United States Air Force on Tuesday, I thought I might be interested in seeing it. When I woke up a couple of hours ahead of its estimated arrival time, I decided that I was interested in seeing it land.

A one-hour window had been announced for the landing and the plane appeared just about in the middle of that window. It made one pass over the runway without landing. Maybe that was so the pilot could scope things out or maybe it was so people on the ground could take pictures like the one at the top of this article. It then circled the museum and dropped onto the runway without a hiccup. Even with a chainlink fence in front of me, I was able to get a shot of the big airplane slipping safely between a water tower and a tractor-trailer.

The museum’s announcement said that the plane would be available for up-close viewing, inside and out, once it was on the ground and parked. Inside viewing would be limited to two at a time. I figured there would be a long and — with the two viewer limit — slow-moving line to get inside the plane so I anticipated not doing that. I did walk out to the plane, however, to get a closer look and better photos. Next to the plane, T-shirts and other merchandise were being sold from a van. It’s a Mercedes. Maybe no one other than me saw the irony in that, and even I am unsure whether using a German vehicle with D-D stripes to support a U.S. WWII military plane is a major insult or simply cynical.

The line was not as long as I feared and the two-person limit was not in place although there was an effort to maintain social distancing and a mask requirement was being strictly enforced. The C-47 is a military version of the DC-3 so it isn’t completely unfamiliar. Of course, passengers seating in the DC-3s I’ve seen looked considerably more comfortable than this. Information on this plane’s history and future can be found at “That’s All, Brother”.

There was a lull in the boarding right after I exited the plane, and I was able to get a shot of the door. One of the operations “That’s All, Brother” was involved in after D-Day was dropping supplies in relief of the siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. With a touch of awe in his voice, the docent inside the plane pointed out that those supplies were thrown out this very door.

I could say that I took these pictures after checking out “That’s All, Brother”, but the truth is that there was a fair amount of time between the plane’s landing and it being available, and that’s when I went inside the museum. These pictures are, in fact, out of sequence. There are a few hundred aircraft displayed at the museum. Like “That’s All, Brother”, these are three with a WWII connection. The all-volunteer Flying Tigers, organized to fight in China before the U.S. entered the war used Curtiss P-40s. The C-47 in the middle picture was the last in routine USAF use. “Bockscar” is the name of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. A mockup of that bomb, named “Fat Man”, is displayed beside it.

I’ve visited the museum several times and actually spent less time inside it today than on almost any other visit. But, for some unknown reason, I was really struck today by the amount of money, energy, and intelligence that has been devoted to creating machines whose sole purpose is the destruction of other machines — and people.

A friend called on Friday evening to tell me about a related event. “That’s All, Brother” was helping with a celebration honoring a local veteran. The celebration started Friday and would continue on Saturday. The fellow being honored was Jim “Pee Wee” Martin who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and would be turning 100 on April 29. I decided I was interested in seeing that, too.

“That’s All, Brother” was joined by “Placid Lassie“, another C-47, and “D-Day Doll“, a C-53. All had participated in the D-Day invasion. As the three planes flew over Skydive Greene County, a couple dozen passengers exited. There were other jumpers, including the Army’s Golden Knights, and music, ceremonies, and fireworks were planned. Promised rain made an appearance about the time the Golden Knights finished their jump which prompted Terry, the friend who called Friday, and me to slip away while we were still mostly dry. 

These pictures are from Tuesday and are very out of sequence. When time permits, breakfast at the somewhat nearby (4 miles) Hasty Tasty is a nice prelude to an Air Force Museum visit. Hasty Tasty was a local chain that peaked at thirteen stores. This is the last and may also have been the first.

Big Bunnies and Lunisolar

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Two years ago, I decorated a post about determining the date of Easter with what was claimed to be a new flavor of Peeps. Last year, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I reused the post after augmenting it with another claimed new Peeps flavor. I once again see those two flavors, Root Beer and Hot Tamales, being touted as new. At best I think they might be called seasonal. So what, if anything, really is new? Maybe Peeps Giant Bunnies. Everything is relative, of course, and in the world of Peeps, I suppose it is legitimate to call something about five inches tall GIANT. Plus, at about two dollars each, they can be used in that old pirate joke about a buck an ear.

But, as I said up top, the original post was about determining the date of Easter and the Peeps picture was just decoration. The bunnies serve pretty much the same role in today’s post. The real purpose of today’s post is to reveal just how much ignorance was in the original.

I presented the formula for finding the date of Easter — first Sunday after first full moon after vernal equinox — as something that separated Christian Easter from Jewish Passover when it is simply calculating the date of Easter pretty much the same way that the date of Passover is calculated. At least that’s what I now think. Although I now know a lot more about the Jewish calendar than I did a few days ago, I am absolutely not an expert.

The Jewish calendar is lunisolar meaning it is based on both the sun and the moon. The more common Gregorian calendar is purely solar with no direct lunar involvement. All months of the Jewish calendar start with a new moon. A new moon occurs approximately every 29.5 days so that the Jewish calendar can keep the months pretty much in sync with the phases of the moon by alternating 29 and 30 day months. Of course, 12 X 29.5 is a little short of the 365.24 days that it takes the Earth to circle the sun so every now and then a thirteenth month is added to the year. The timing of these “leap months” is based on a nineteen-year cycle and there are other tweaks as well.

Passover begins on the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan which is the first month after the vernal equinox. Because every month starts with a new moon, the fifteenth of every month is a full moon. Ergo, Passover always begins on a full moon. Being a week long, it always contains a Sunday. Rather than moving Easter away from Passover in 325, the First Council of Nicaea kept the scheduling just the same as it had always been and simply stopped saying the word Passover out loud. Oh wah, tagoo, Siam.  

Chillin’ With Neon

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What would it take to get you to walk around outside in 28° weather? The subjects in the photo at right did it for me. As part of the ArtsWave Red Light Valentines Display, the American Sign Museum kept the outside signs illuminated for several hours on both Friday and Saturday nights, and I decided that was something I ought to see. I helped justify the trip downtown with one last drive across a favorite bridge just ahead of an extended closure.

The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge has had its share of brief closings over the last few years. Once it was closed until it could be inspected after being struck by a car. Then it was closed when pieces from one of its sandstone pillars started falling onto the roadway. A protective net, visible in the middle picture, allowed it to reopen. Recently, it was closed for its own protection when a fire closed the nearby Brent Spence Bridge carrying I-71/I-75, and the nineteenth-century suspension bridge was just too tempting to truckers with rigs far in excess of the bridge’s limits. It was reduced to a single lane a couple of weeks ago as crews prepare for a full closure on Monday. Repairs that include replacing deteriorated sandstone will keep it closed for nine months or so.

After crossing to Kentucky on the Roebling, I returned to Ohio on the now repaired Brent Spence, and headed to the Sign Museum where I was greeted by a brightly lit Holiday Inn sign.

I have seen these signs lit before, but only when some event was taking place in the museum. Having them all aglow with an empty parking lot and dark building was something new to me.

I was half expecting there to be a number of photographers flitting around the signs but I had the place all to myself. After twenty gloveless minutes of tripod toting and camera aiming, I had a pretty good idea why. As I drove back past the Holiday Inn sign, I found myself thinking that heated steering wheels might not be entirely frivolous.   

Have You Herd?

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Well, I have. Or at least I’m contributing. I got my first COVID-19 vaccination this week. I’m aware that not everyone can say this but for me the operation was smooth, the injection painless, and the side-effects non-existent. That actually seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Of the thirty or so people I know personally who have received at least one shot, three had a sore arm for a day and one of those sore arms was accompanied by a night of chills and fever. I’ve heard a higher percentage of these same people complain louder about the morning after effects of encounters with spicy foods or adult beverages.

I have seen some warnings about posting images of this card to social media. I’m sure they are well-intentioned and the warning is, in general, a reasonable one. However, it appears to me that the only personal information on the card is my name and birthdate, and those have been circulating on the World Wide Web for years. Even so, I don’t want to be totally irresponsible and completely ignore the warning so, inspired by Captain Yossarian’s censoring methods, I’ve blacked out the vowels and odd digits.

As you can see, this isn’t the first time I’ve willingly become part of the herd in an effort to avoid a devastating disease. The phrase “social distancing” had not yet been coined in the 1950s but, even without a catchy name, parents really worked hard at keeping their kids away from strangers during the frequent polio outbreaks. I suppose there were exceptions, but it seemed to me that pretty much everyone was ecstatic when vaccines became available, and there is no question that everyone was happy when those outbreaks stopped happening every year or so. It’s certainly unfortunate that not everyone sees the COVID-19 vaccines, or even the disease itself, in the same light that polio and associated vaccines were seen in the last century, but I have hope that we will all at least be happy when the outbreaks stop.

UPDATE 6-Mar-2021:

I got my second Moderna COVID vaccine injection yesterday. The operation was smooth, and the injection itself painless, but things got mildly unpleasant later. I don’t recall ever having any sort of reaction to a vaccination until last year. I received the first of two Shingrix (for shingles) shots in January and decided to get the second one at the proper time in March even though COVID had just hit. Getting that second shot was one of the very few times I was inside a pharmacy during the last year. I had a reaction to that shot that was unnervingly like COVID symptoms. For almost two days I had chills, a fever, a mild headache, and just generally felt like crap.

The cause of the COVID reaction was explained to me as follows and I imagine pretty
much the same thing applies to Shringrix.

Although none of the COVID vaccines being used contains any actual virus, either living or dead, they apparently resemble it quite a bit. Once injected, the first dose of vaccine runs around building defenses. When the second dose comes along, it’s pretty easy to mistake it for an attacking enemy. After all, the lighting isn’t very good in there. The two doses may do battle with each other until all the identities are worked out.

I got my shot a few minutes past 11:00 AM. When I went to bed around 10:00 PM, I noticed that my arm was sore where I got the injection. That in itself was kind of unusual. At almost precisely twelve hours after the shot I was hit with chills and aching joints. That lasted for an hour which I got through by piling on an extra blanket and putting my body in self-cuddling mode. The aching joints continue today along with a slightly elevated temperature (98.8 vs my normal 96.6). There have even been a few flashes of hot and cold but nothing like that first hour. I’m treating it with Girl Scout cookies.