Baltimore Notes
* It's really a pretty lame city. I e-hooked up with Kevin (not Kev) and he told me that basically Baltimore sucks and to leave it. I rode around Baltimore a bit, then got a flat literally less than a mile after a neighborhood where people probably get car jacked from time to time. I did not tell this to Andy at the time because I knew she would worry. But Kevin was right.
* I then went to a bike shop to get 3 tubes, which ran me $38. The guy yelled at me for leaving my bike outside the shop. In his bike rack. He told me not to leave my bike unattended for 1 minute and he literally stood at the door and watched until his wife rang me up. The tubes were steep but he may have saved me a stolen bike so it's a push.
* The next morning I found a large gash in my tire. Between this and the crappy weather, I gave up on the DC & back trip. Instead I ended up finding maybe 7 or 9 geocaches in the city. And I read a lot and slept in. It was a much needed few days of nothing.
* I ate 2 incredibly good meals. Monday with Eric O and his FIL who happened to be in town. We had escargot, raw oysters, and probably the best crab cakes I've ever had. Then Tuesday night I flew solo and had Lebanese food which was awesome.
* In the end, Baltimore isn't great but I got to spend a lot of time with Andy which makes it better. Unfortunately she was not able to join us for meals because like most work conferences, they don't allow you to actually enjoy the city you're in and feed you mediocre fare instead. We did get geocaches in both Delaware and Maryland.
Question
Do I boot the tire (well I already did) with a granola bar wrapper and hope for the best, boot it properly, or just scrap the tire and buy a new one?
Tea
* My tea supply is now gone. For obvious reasons, I will not be going back to Taiwan semi-regularly to buy tea in bulk. So now I need to find an online source to get it in bulk.
* Taiwanese tea is not cheap. Of course, we really paid through the nose since we had to buy plane tickets and such...
* You don't make good green nor Oolong tea at a semi-boil. Only black. Well, Oolong you can if you're doing it gongfu style. But that's not every-day material. Maybe someday you can come over and have some.
* I did find a Taiwan-based tea seller and bought something from them. Hopefully it's decent.
* My BIL's in-laws used to live across the street from some amazing tea in Taiwan. I asked several times if we could ask my BIL to send us some but the answer was always no. I wasn't even allowed to ask. This is the guy I carried butter across the world for. For real.
Other Stuff
* Jake never kissed me
* I'm going to New Orleans next
* Mooch Madness is going to be a ST elimination tournament. It's going to be GD awesome.
* Jake wants to take me for beers at Stone Street.
* I had hummus at the Lebanese place which was really good. I make my own hummus which Andy likes but I think this is better. I should have kidnapped the chef.
* Mandi liked my pic on FB. She's part Lebanese right?
* Eric & I designed the perfect wheel to use for travelling. It assembles itself while you sleep the first night you get there, has a stronger tensile strength than steel, and allows you to introduce new bugs and/or insects in another part of the world. We will be wealthy once we figure out the details of this.
* I learned a little bit about genetics on this trip. I have never taken a biology course in my life. Ever.