Lagavulin 16 Year: From Islay with Love, a very cheesy and smoky kind of love

While scrolling through my old scotch posts, I realized I had never written about Lagavulin 16 Year. I first tried this Scotch in St Andrews after taking a tour of the Glenfiddich distillery and after deciding I should become an expert on scotch. Lagavulin left quite an impression. Along with Ardberg, this is one of the smokiest scotches I've ever tasted. Whereas Ardberg is incredibly light and smoky, Lagavulin is rich and smoky. It is also one of the signature Islay scotches, which comes from a small island known for dredging up peat from the coastline in order to smoke it into the barley.

Along the west coast of Scotland, Lagavulin Bay in Argyll served as a key port for the island lords, who kept their war galleys here. Overlooking this bay, Dunyveg Castle ('Dunyveg' means 'fort of the small ships') was a major power base that protected this part of Scotland near Ireland against the Vikings and Norse for two centuries during the Medieval ages. By the eighteenth century, this bay protected several illegal distilleries, but the first legal one gained its license in 1815.

The distillery now uses peat from nearby Port Ellen along with dark water from Solum lochs. The water and peat makes Lagavulin the richest and most complex Islay scotch. There are hints of berries, tea, cherry, wax polish, and scented smoke in the nose (at least according to my book- I like that it mentions wax polish- I'll try to smell that next time I drink it). The big, rich flavor is sweet to start but quickly turns peaty with a long aftertaste.

Here are my notes: I smell smoked cheese every time I put it into a glass. There's also a lot of peat. Man- that's enough to knock a man off his feet. The flavor is very similar to the smell, cheesy and smoky. It's not a scotch for the faint of heart. It would go well with a beef-type stew in wintertime.

Here's an interview with Iain McArthur, who has worked at the Lagavulin distillery for 40 years:

Jameson: A Light Irish Sip

I'm pretty sure my friends who didn't like Johnnie Walker Red Label, because it was too peaty and smokey, would probably like Jameson. Though not a scotch but an Irish whiskey, it is a reasonably priced spirit that can be found just about everywhere for those on a budget. Unlike the bolder Red Label, I think the flavor is much lighter and easier for someone fairly new to whiskey. Jameson still has enough of that robust, burning whiskey flavor which I love so much. I need my alcohol to have a little bit of fire that reminds me that I'm still alive and life is still hard.

In this whiskey, I taste light fruits like pear and apple along with some a dash of nuts. There's also some oak, but not a whole lot. Some online reviews I've read said that there should be a honey and barley finish that sits in the mouth for a while. After reading that review, I guess I taste those flavors. There's definitely a long aftertaste that stays on the sides of my tongue and the top of my mouth for a long time. My favorite part of whiskey is that kind of aftertaste.

There are a few differences between Irish whiskey and Scotch whisky. For starters, notice that there isn't an 'e' in Scotch whisky while there is one in Irish whiskey. Also, the legal regulations in Scotland after 2009 have very specific definitions for different types of Scotch, such as 'single malt.' Ireland does not have these same type of definitions, so there can be a much larger variation between the whiskies under the same category, like "Single Grain Irish Whiskey." Most importantly, there are over 90 distilleries in Scotland, but Ireland only has four. Those four distilleries do produce a large variety of whiskey, though.

Fantasy Draft 2011: Why didn't I watch more Sports Center?

New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker (83) beats Miami Dolphins

defensive back Benny Sapp (27) for a touchdown during the second half

on Monday, September 12, 2011, in Miami.

AP Photo. J. Pat Carter.

Ah, September, the time of the year that fantasy football season starts back up- and I can stop pretending that I care about baseball.

I was afraid that I wouldn't be in any fantasy leagues this year. A lot of my friends have gotten married or are about to be married, and some of them seemed to be a tad bit too busy with their 'husbandly' duties to call or write me back whenever I tried to get the league together. But I'm unemployed and don't have a life (except for reading The Economist and applying to a few more jobs each day), so I needed them to get it together so that watching football day Sunday and Monday night has greater meaning.

Finally, after a number of phone calls and texts, the leagues came together at the last minute. I wanted to be in at least two leagues so that maybe one of my teams would do well. As it turns out, I'm now in three leagues, including two with the married or soon-to-be married fellows. My other leagues is with family members and friends from St Andrews. I'd still like to dominate in all three and run the tables.

During one of my drafts, I made a critical and embarrassing mistake. During the preseason games, I kept an eye out to see what the Colts did for QB. An announcer had said Indianapolis hadn't brought in an experienced player to replace the Peyton Manning's green backups, so surely the Colts thought Peyton would play this season. The night of the draft, I didn't bother to recheck my sources and thought everything was the same. Around the fourth of fifth round of the draft, I decided to draft Manning instead of Romo because I figured that Romo was more unreliable than Manning. My friends then mocked me for picking Manning. I was confused. I checked the latest news and found out that two hours before the draft started reports had come out that Manning would in fact not start in Week 1 and my need more surgery. If I had spent at least 30 minutes that day watching Sports Center, I would have known better. My #2 QB is Joe Flacco and my #3 is Colt McCoy. Hopefully, they can get me through the season.

On the bright side, I did draft Wes Welker as one of my WRs. He seems like an ok choice.

Watching college football with my good friend, Johnnie Walker

Everyone in the living room watching college football with me was of one accord: whatever bottle of scotch they had brought over the last time they got together must be the most disgusting liquid ever sold. One of my good college friends knew I liked to try different scotches, so he poured me a hearty glass. He warned, "If this makes you gag and you have to spit it out into the sink, I understand." "Well, what is it?" I figured it must have been a cheap bottle of the sludge some underpaid Scot had scrapped off the edges of a used oak barrel and then exported as 'authentic' scotch whiskey for $10 a bottle. Maybe something like Thousand Pipers. "It's Johnnie Walker Red Label." I was shocked that everyone in the living room was bad-mouthing this famous scotch. I asked before drinking, "What's wrong with it?" "It tastes like feet," one of the girls told me. "Oh, sometimes scotches are supposed to taste like peat. They'll take peat from the shore and smoke it into the barely before beginning the malting process." "No. I said it tastes like feet." As I took a sip, I thought, "If this is what your feet taste like, then something is wrong with your foot."

Even though I have tried a lot of scotches, I've never actually had Johnnie Walker. I've stayed away from the blended scotches, except for maybe Grants, which I haven't been able to find in America yet. Lately, I've decided to give the blended varieties a try, mostly because they're a hell of a lot cheaper than the single malts. A descent bottle of a blended scotch in Mississippi will cost around $20 to $25, which is the same as domestic bourbon. A low-end bottle of single malt will cost at least $40 but probably much more.

After drinking the Red Label, I understood why my friends didn't like it. It's not sweet and light like some other scotches like Glenfiddich 12 Year or Glenlivet 12 Year. Instead, there was a strong peaty and smoky flavor. I could taste smoked cheese. For someone who doesn't like scotch or isn't familiar with it, Johnnie Walker would be surprising. However, it was by far not even close to the smokiest or richest scotch I've had. Ardberg 10 year has a much stronger peat flavor. My favorite scotches have rich oaky flavors, so Red Label wouldn't be my favorite. However, since my friends who hated it but had bought a 1.5 liter bottle, I may drink it again if I go back to their house to watch college football later this fall.

Any viable alternatives for Libya?

A Libyan rebel fighter runs up a burning stairwell during an

effort to dislodge some ensconced government loyalist troops

who were firing on them from an upstairs room during

house-to-house fighting on Tripoli Street in downtown Misrata.

April 20, 2011. Chris Hondros/Getty Images.

The same day he took this photo, Chris Hondros died

during the fighting in Misrata.

The Libyan War has been an interesting international affair to follow, to say the least. There were so many different layers that combined at once. There was the so-called "Arab Spring," the military intervention, a dictator who had completely lost all sense or reality and sanity, the possible massacre of citizens, the a popular rebellion where citizens built their weapons out of whatever they could find, the lack of clear American leadership, the lack of overwhelming European military strength, and finally a rebel's victory that didn't end in house-to-house fighting in Tripoli. I look forward to reading future books using this war as a case study. Every side will have something to say. Every side in international relations will pick and choose which facts they will research in order to justify their political slants and predispositions, from the realists to the neo-liberals to the neo-marxists.

As the NATO-led military intervention started to bomb the Libyan military in order to stop a most-likely bloody attack on Benghazi, I read my former St Andrews professors decry any form of military intervention. Oddly, they mocked the United States for losing a fighter jet and mourned the death of Libyan soldiers who had driven tanks, even though these professors had said nothing beforehand about the Libyan citizens Qaddafi's military had killed. It seemed as though everyone in the Peace Studies community disapproved of NATO for its 'neo-colonial' actions, even though the Arab League had asked for the intervention. There was a black-and-white notion that dropping bombs on tanks moving towards Benghazi was the same as dropping bombs onto civilians. If the Arab League and NATO had followed the Peace Studies' advice, thousands upon thousands of Libyan citizens would have died. For me, these criticisms reminded me of everything I disliked most about Peace Studies.

What would the Peace Studies scholars have us do? Were there any viable alternatives for Libya when Qaddafi's tanks were on the outskirts of Benghazi? Most certainly, it would have been nice if before the war even began, perhaps several years ago, there had been an ongoing peace process that would have created a government that listened to the people. But once the bullets started killing civilians, it was too late for that type of slow, difficult peace process and nation building. Foreign governments needed to make decisions within hours that would have consequences immediately, even if that decision was to do nothing. I wholeheartedly reject the idea that peace workshops where each side sat together in a room and discussed their demands, hatreds, fears, and hopes for the future would have had any benefit when Qaddafi was fueling his jets and tanks for another offensive. If anything, these types of peace process workshops would have been a stall tactic for one side or the other as they prepared for another offensive. I am unconvinced that any peace workshop can have any significant impact on a society as long as a shooting war exists. Even Peace Studies' greatest achievement through workshops, a partial contribution to the Oslo Peace Accords, was ultimately a failure. I'll admit that stopping a war isn't enough to ensure a just peace, but stopping the shooting is a little bit more than just important.

Yes, I had multiple problems with the Libyan intervention. As a realist, I do not like the notion of using military action for humanitarian missions when there is no strategic objective. The United States was already in two wars with our personnel and resources spread across the globe, and I was concerned about a possible 'mission creep' that would suck our blood and treasure into another country's civil war. I was happy to see the British and French take the largest brunt of the air campaign, even if the United States provided a large number of cruise missiles in the beginning phase of the war. The war was in Europe's strategic interest, and France should have been afraid of a lingering civil war in the southern Mediterranean. At first I was concerned that once military action started that NATO wouldn't have made decisive moves the end the war quickly. I believe that a limited war will likely lead to more deaths and misery than a swift and decisive war. In particular, I was worried that the rebels wouldn't have proper arms, training, and guidance in order to overrun Qaddafi's military. Thankfully, the French gave the rebels fresh arms. Also, there were reports that Special Op personnel with British accents were training and leading the rebels. Most importantly, Tripoli fell swiftly without a bitter last stand. Overall, the military intervention went as well as it could have gone, considering that war is an inherently messy affair. Now the bigger problem will be building a government to replace Qaddafi. Now would be a good time to have peace workshops so that the local community can have more ownership in their government and society. It's up to the Libyans to build their own country and take responsibility for its success or failure.

World War Z: if you should read this book, you probably already have

If anyone claims to like the zombie genre of films or books, then he or she has already read World War Z by Max Brooks. I intended to read the book the summer I spent in St Andrews because some friends and I were going to film a faux-documentary about a post-apocalypse zombie outbreak with our friends acting as survivors. In order to do 'research' for this documentary, I was going to read this book. As it turned out, schoolwork got in the way so that we all forgot about it. Instead of reading The Economist or some detailed political science book before going to bed, I began reading World War Z because it has been on my bookshelf for too long.

The book's narrator has worked with the United Nations after a global zombie outbreak. Originally, his job was to write a report detailing the events of the outbreak for austerity, but the UN didn't want emotional stories detailing the horrors individuals endured. They just wanted raw, detached numbers about the collapse of civilization. The narrator believed that he had to gather the interviews he had collected over the years and write an 'oral history' that showed the human experience during the outbreak. Ergo, this book is a series of interviews going from the doctor who first discovered the outbreak in China, to a soldier who fought in Yonkers, NY in order to stop the outbreak from spreading out of the city, to a girl whose American family fled to Canada but became stuck there without enough food. The book as a whole is an interesting take on what society could do in order to survive a zombie outbreak and what difficulties civilization would have in order to survive. For instance, former movie makers created inspirational propaganda films about heroes surviving under a zombie siege and finally defeating the zombies so that others wouldn't lose hope.

Personally, I'm a little over the zombie genre for now, at least for books. I might enjoy a good zombie movie, though. After getting about 100 pages into this book I was ready for it to be over, but I persevered and finished it. I'm glad I read it so that I know what my friends are talking about when they mention it.

Rooster with my Coffee

The rooster that was determined to get inside the coffee shop.

Early one morning I went to a coffeehouse in Ocean Springs, Mississippi to meet an old friend I hadn't seen in about 8 or 9 years. While I was waiting for her to drive up, I noticed a rooster walking around the edge of the building. I looked around to see if there was some kind of farm or chicken coop nearby, but I was in downtown Ocean Springs surrounded by several restaurants and small, trendy shops. Granted, Ocean Springs is not a metropolis, and I'm sure there are people who raise their own animals in their back yards, though I'm not sure why anyone would want disgusting animals living in their back yards when they could just simply buy food at the grocery store. I walked inside the coffeehouse and sat down beside a window and waited for my friend. Then I saw the rooster again circling the building as if it wanted to get inside and couldn't find a way. Finally, the rooster got onto the front porch and then jumped into the window on the front door. It flapped it's wings furiously against the window to see if that would help it get inside. The animal was stunned and began to circle the coffeehouse again. I almost felt like I was in El Salvador or some other poorly developed country. But I was in Mississippi instead.

The Petrol Paradox

Marshall Ramsey. The Clarion Ledger.

When I read news articles about the economy and think about my current unemployment, I try to think of where future growth might come from. Even if I did get a job tomorrow, there would still be millions of other people who want a job. If there is supposed to be a sustained recovery within the next year or so, which sectors of the economy will grow? Housing and construction don't seem very likely. Housing prices are still around a third lower than they were before the Great Recession started, and there is still a glut of office space so that building more would be foolish. The United States could export more manufactured goods or services, but to where? The euro zone faces great uncertainty with its currency, and emerging markets like China are difficult to enter without the Chinese government meddling and preventing competition with their favored companies. Maybe American businesses could expand to Brazil and India, but how many jobs would that create in the US? However, even if certain sectors of the economy gained traction and began to expand and hire new workers, the price of gasoline could put the brakes on any growth.

An article in The Atlantic explained that the economic recovery earlier this year sputtered because high oil prices caused consumers to reduce their spending on other goods. Some politicians and economists blamed the higher oil price on the Arab Spring and the Libyan revolution, but that is only a small part of the bigger picture. Yes, because the world is consuming as much gas as it can produce, even a small drop of oil supply will increase prices dramatically. However, high demand from India and China are the main reasons why oil prices have remained high. When the economy began to recover, more people had more money so that they went to more places. They bought more products, which needed to be delivered, which required gas for the trucks. But once people had to spend more money filling their gas tanks, they didn't have enough money to then buy the products that caused the expensive gas. The economy sputtered and flirted with a double-dip recession. If the economy recovers again, we'll have the same problem unless the recovery is robust enough to handle gas prices higher than $4 per gallon.

This paradox makes me wonder how much more the world economy can grow with the current amount of natural resources that we produce. Can we really produce more oil or other types of energy in order to support emerging economies? There's natural gas, but it's not like we're putting it into our cars. Perhaps we should, but it'd be slow and expensive to convert our cars and transportation systems. In the meantime, the lack of cheap and efficient energy will hamper growth. If wealthy nations found ways to pay for the more expensive energy, the poorer nations would lose out because they wouldn't have enough money or resources to buy energy and other necessary products, such as food. There could be more revolutions, like the Arab Spring, or famines. Or there could just be quiet misery. Therefore, I suspect that the next couple decades will be more tumultuous and dangerous than the past decade.

Great-Grandmother Duff Scones

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbs Crisco

1 cup buttermilk (probably use only 1/2 to 3/4 cup)

Cut in flour, Crisco, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together until well blended ('cut in' means to distribute solid fat throughout the dry ingredients using a pastry blender, fork, or 2 knives in a scissors motion). Add buttermilk slowly. Once balled up, knead dough about 10 times. Roll and smooth into large, round pancake. Flatten to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 8 pie wedges. Heat griddle to 400º F. Brown wedges on all sides and edges.

Notes:

These are poor Scottish scones my great-grandmother and her family cooked on a pan because they didn't have a proper kitchen with an oven. When she emigrated to the United States in 1911, she brought the recipe with her and taught it to my grandmother and then my mother.

I've written about my Great-Grandmother Sarah Duff in other blog posts because my family has stayed in close contact with our Scottish family because she stayed in close contact with her family in Ayrshire.

My family pronounces them "sc-ahns."

Ingredients.

Cutting in the dry ingredients.

The kneading hook on the blender.

The ball of dough after kneading.

At this point my uncle will put the dough

into a bowl and place the bowl into warm

water so that the ingredients will activate.

He said my great-grandmother taught him that.

Spreading flour on the roller.

Cutting the flattened dough into wedges.

Flour sprinkled onto the griddle.

Scones on the grill before browning.

Scones lightly browned.

Browning scones on all sides.

Just Another Exciting Mississippi Night

While complaining about some coworkers, a dude I had just met told me, "They're really boring people. They'd rather stay home on a Saturday night and put a puzzle together than go out." I didn't really feel like I knew the guy well enough for him to throw his coworkers under the bus like that. Maybe we could have talked about football instead of badmouthing people I didn't know. It was an awkward moment. I've never been one to put a puzzle together, but after getting back to Mississippi, I decided I needed something to get my mind off the job hunt and all the other shit that has developed as of late. Perhaps my life is boring now because I put a puzzle together, but whatever. I went into my closet and found one that I'd be given as a Christmas gift a couple years ago. It's of Jacques-Louis David's "La Sacre de Napoléon" (The Coronation of Napoleon). This painting is one of my favorites. It's now in the Louvre, where I've seen it a few times while living in France. David originally wanted this painting to be the largest of its kind in the world, but it is just slightly too small. The largest painting is actually in an adjacent room only a couple dozen yards away. For me, the coolest part of this painting is how David painted Julius Caesar into the scene behind Napoleon. While drawing the first draft onto the canvas, David had Napoleon leaning back and crowning himself. But later, David decided to paint Napoleon crowning his wife, Josephine. Where Napoleon's head was, Caesar is watching the whole affair. When I saw the painting in person, I could stand very close to the canvas and see the faint outline of Napoleon's head faded into Caesar's face.

Day 1.

Day 2.

Putting the faces together was the easiest bit.

Day 15.

Once I got the faces together, I struggled putting all the

dark areas together, especially the curtains and carpets.

Day 19.

Here's a first- booze at a wedding

Seriously, though, I had never been to a wedding reception that served alcohol until Jack and Dea's wedding. Perhaps that's because most of the weddings I've been to have been the weddings for conservative Southern Baptists who didn't want to upset the deacons, elders, and grandparents. Even better than having alcohol, this reception had Amber Bock, one of my favorite American beers. I almost half expected there to be only light beers. After I got my first beer, one of my friends at the table asked, "Was it free?" "I don't know. I didn't stand around the bar long enough to find out whether or not the waitress expected me to pay." She didn't. It was free. I was excited.

Actually, now that I think about it, my cousin's wedding a couple years ago served alcohol. That's the only other example I can think of. I guess this is still the first Baptist wedding reception I'd attended that served alcohol. I really don't feel like rewriting this post and coming up with another title, though.

This wedding is the first time I've been able to attend a friend's wedding since graduating from undergrad (unless you count Kate and Branson's wedding in Scotland, but that wasn't their official wedding). After Mississippi College, every time a friend got married I was usually out of the country. I wasn't expecting to attend Jack's wedding because I was in DC and still couldn't get any work so that I could afford (and justify spending money on) flying back to Jackson for the weekend. As it turned out, I decided to give up on DC (more or less) and leave just before the wedding so that I could make it to the shindig just in time. I wish I had gainful employment, but it was nice to have the time to attend a friend's wedding.

The groom and yours truly.

The bride and groom dancing.

Brent's Drugs (Burgers & Ice Cream)

The morning of my friend's wedding in Jackson, I went along with another good friend to meet some new people at Brent's Drugs, a restaurant that specializes in burgers and ice cream in a strip mall dating to the Civil Rights Era in the Fondren neighborhood. The front part of the restaurant is a small gift shop that sells novelty books one might find in someone's bathroom (such as a small movie trivia book), cards, and local Jackson-related trinkets. The back 2/3rds of the old pharmacy is a restaurant reminiscent of a 1950s diner with dated furniture and signs that show their wear. The whole atmosphere is a throwback to a less-than-pleasant era in Mississippi history, which the recent novel and movie The Help has depicted. Yet Brent's Drugs is still a trendy and hip choice for residents living in or near Fondren, and the restaurant's atmosphere is its best selling point. The food, however, was disappointing. Though I did not eat the burger, some had warned me that it tasted like what a junior high school cafeteria would serve. Because of this warning, I chose to eat breakfast instead. My biscuit, sausage, and hash browns were bland and perhaps a little overcooked. The coffee was standard. I would not have chosen to eat here again, especially since a low-quality chain like Waffle House serves better food. It just seems to me that the chef should be able to do a better job creating unique and tasty meals that are better than Waffle House.

Restaurant in the back.

Store in the front.

They've got catfish on the table. They've got gospel in the air.

Whenever I go back to Jackson or Mississippi, fried catfish is always on the must-do list. Throughout college my favorite fried catfish joint was Jerry's on Highway 49 just south of Jackson. The two-story building is in the shape of an igloo, and the walls are nicotine-yellow inside. They have all-you-can-eat catfish filets along with unlimited fries, hush puppies, and cole slaw (oh, their coleslaw is the best I've ever had anywhere). It's the perfect place for an eating competition. I think the record our clique set was around 51 catfish filets (maybe 41, but that's still a lot). The first time we did it, one guy just barely lost, so he went back simply to eat just one more filet in one sitting than the other guy. Hence, the record is 51 instead of 50. I can only do around 25 before I start feeling a heart attack coming on.

However, the other big catfish joint in Jackson is Cock of the Walk on the north side of town next to the Reservoir. It's definitely not a classy place, but it does have a better atmosphere than Jerry's. They serve their food on tin plates. But they don't have an all-you-can-eat policy, which automatically makes them my least favorite option. The cole slaw and tartar sauce are also less spectacular, and the catfish tastes about the same. Since most of my friends in Jackson live on the north side of the Jackson, this place is much more convenient for everyone. It's hard to convince a large group to drive the 45 minutes to the other side of town to eat catfish when Cock of the Walk is about 10 minutes away.

If someone ever wants to say they like Cock of the Walk, he has to be careful. He might slip up and say, "I like Cock... of the Walk." Not that I've ever slipped up and said something awkward like that.

Catfish on the table.

The restaurant has its own pier on the Reservoir

so that boats stop by and order food.

Mr. Cock and his Walk.

The "cock" was the captain of a flatboat

before steamboats improved transportation

on the Mississippi. The "walk" was the

flatboat, which could only go downstream

to New Orleans so that boatmen had to

walk back up north via the Natchez Trace.

Several signs warned people not to feed the ducks.

The signs didn't say anything about the geese, though.

Bulleit Bourbon: a frontier whiskey that reeks of America

So that I wouldn't have to drink through my scotch whisky collection, which would be expensive to replace, I decided to drink cheaper American bourbon instead. This way I wouldn't feel bad for having an evening drink. I honestly don't know much about bourbon or how it is different from scotch. However, it's still whiskey, so I might as well give it a shot.

I chose Bulleit Bourbon. It seemed reasonably priced but not so cheap that it'd have a sickly taste. Most importantly, it came in a cool bottle that labeled it as "frontier whiskey." I could definitely see this bottle in an old saloon near the banks of the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers back in the early 1800s, when this heavily forested territory was the westernmost part of the United States. The whiskey has a high rye content and is aged for 6 years. According to the modern creator, Tom Bulleit, his great-great grandfather, Augustus Bulleit, created the first Bulleit bourbon in the 1830s. Tom resurrected the bourbon in the 1990s.

I'm still not very good at picking out flavors in whiskey, but here's my best attempt. I couldn't get much of anything from the nose. There is a strong caramel and oaky flavor. In the whisky tasting map, I'd place this bourbon close to the rich and delicate sides, away from the smoky and light sides. That would make it similar to Glenlivet 18 Year. Now, if only I had a bottle of that to confirm my hunch. It is a good late evening whisky to drink while reading a leather-bound book by a fireplace in winter. Then again, I think every whisky is good with a book and a fireplace.

Here's some tasting notes I read online. The nose has strong hint of vanilla, caramel, and spice (one taster said, "It will challenge you, especially if you are new to bourbon. It reeks of America!"). The taste had pear, rye, caramel, tobacco spice, and cinnamon (the same taster I just mentioned said, "This stuff is gasoline for the soul. While probably not for the faint of heart, it is not an uncivilized and wooly barbarian... though there must be one in the ancestry."). Personally, I'm not sure what rye tastes like so that I can know whether or not it is in this drink. Also, I didn't taste any tobacco, probably because I don't smoke. However, I could sense some cinnamon.

Overall, I would buy this bourbon again and recommend it to anyone who likes strong, rich, and oaky whisky.

4th of July in the District of Columbia

For the Fourth of July, a friend of mine invited to join her at a friend's barbecue in Virginia. Afterwards, we piled into one car and drove into the District where one of her friends had access to an office rooftop in Georgetown. From there we had a memorable view of the Washington Monument. Normally, getting into and out of DC is a nightmare on any day, but the Fourth always has more sluggish traffic than usual. But getting in and out of the city is mostly a problem for those trying to get close to the National Mall and the White House. Georgetown is on the Potomac with descent access to Arlington, so getting in was no more difficult than on any other day. Getting out of the city after the fireworks was a bit slower, but I suppose that's par for the course.

The building across the street reminded me of a scene from Forest Gump. I pointed to it and asked my friends, "What's the name of that building?" They confirmed my hunch, "That's Watergate." Funny how I recognized the building from a short scene in a movie that I haven't seen in years. Watching the fireworks explode over Watergate was kinda cool.

The photos I took this night are not my favorite photos ever, but I can now say that I've seen fireworks in the nation's capital on Independence Day.

View from the rooftop towards

the Washington Monument.

View from the other end of the rooftop

towards Rosslyn, Virginia and the Potomac.

Helicopters flew between us and

the fireworks a couple times.

Helicopters also flew low along the Potomac

and flew under the bridge by Georgetown.

Fireworks exploding over Watergate.

Video with some audio commentary.

Stroll Around Eastern Market

After having breakfast/lunch with a friend at Ted's Bulletin on Barracks Row, we walked pass the Eastern Market metro station entrance and across the street to the shopping stalls, which come out every Saturday. There is a wide variety of merchandise including framed or matted photographs, arts and crafts, posters, antique books, cigar boxes, jewelry, fresh fruits and vegetables, sausages, mustards, and clothing. I took a little bit of time to look at the booths selling photographs in order to see how much they were charging for matted prints. I also wanted to see if their photographs were any good. There was one stall that had some impressive prints, including one of car lights through a rain-covered window. Of course, most of the photographs were from DC, so I also wanted to see how they shot the different monuments around the city. After strolling around the market stalls, we went to Capitol Hill Books on a street leading away from the market stalls. This place reminded me of Shakespeare & Company in Paris because every wall was absolutely covered with books from floor to ceiling. It was hard to walk around the bookshelves without accidently bumping into the books and knocking them to the floor. The store clerk made certain everyone wearing a book bag would take it off and leave it by him because otherwise the bags would destroy every display as customers moved around the store. Because books covered even the windows, there was no natural light, and the store had a gloomy aura as if it was constantly raining outside. From the street the book-covered windows look like they're about to explode from the number of books in the store. I did buy one book here, Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. My friend highly suggested it, and buying it here was cheaper than buying it on Amazon.

Sidewalk in front of Capitol Hill Books.

Book-covered windows.

Clothing stall.

Mannequins hanging on a fence.

Ted's Bulletin: you serve pop tarts?

Ted's Bulletin near Eastern Market metro station.

Since I knew there was a high probability that I would leave DC if I did not have a stable job by July 4th, I made an effort to visit some friends in the area and say goodbye before leaving. One friend suggested we go to Eastern Market on a Saturday morning. After meeting her by the metro station, I suggested we walk down Barracks Row because I knew there were a bunch of cool-looking restaurants on this road. In early May I had dinner with a friend at one of these restaurants, the Banana Cafe, which has a piano bar inside, and I could probably spend a lot of money eating at all the other joints on this street while gaining weight. One of the places I wanted to try was Ted's Bulletin because my cousin's boyfriend said that this place has a great breakfast menu. The sign on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant said they were serving pop tarts. "Really?" I thought, "That sounds pretty lame. I could just get pop tarts for a lot cheaper at a grocery store. Why, oh why, would I spend DC restaurant prices for something as simple as Kellogg's brand pop tarts?" After a brief wait, which would normally have been much longer except that it was a slow Saturday, the two of us sat down at an enormous table large enough for six to eight people. There weren't enough small tables, and they weren't expecting any large groups for a while. From our seats we could see the chefs and servers preparing the food because there was only a counter separating the kitchen from the seating area. On the counter were several plates full of hand-made pop tarts they had just baked; the sugar glaze was still melted from oven heat. I was baffled and giddy that they made their own pop tarts. Considering they made them in-house, the pop tarts weren't very expensive, either. I ordered the bacon and brown sugar pop tart along with a bottomless cup of coffee, a stack of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and hash browns. On the wall opposite the kitchen, a huge screen played a Western movie from the 1970s. Don Knotts, who played Barney Fife in The Andy Griffith Show, was in this movie. He was dressed up as a woman with a shotgun most of the time. There weren't any subtitles or sound, but Don Knott's character made it obvious that it was a comedy. I wonder if they play the same movie over and over all day or if they have a bunch of old movies. It might actually be fun to watch the movie with someone while waiting for the food and make up the lines and story. It'd be like a game from Who's Line Is It Anyway. Anyhow, the food was delicious once it finally came out. I actually ordered so much that I couldn't finish my pancakes. I'm usually the type of guy who can push through the pain and eat everything I ordered so that I get my money's worth. Considering how much food I got, it was very reasonably priced. I think next time I'll just order pop tarts, coffee, and maybe hash browns.

My bacon and brown sugar pop tart is on the left.

My friend's blueberry pop tart is on the right.

It's not a diet-friendly kind of joint.

Lamppost in Narnia

The couch where I sit while looking for jobs online is next to a huge window overlooking the Virginian cul-de-sac. One late afternoon as the sun was beginning to set, I looked out the window and saw how the sunlight was filtering through the leaves and onto a street lamppost just outside the front door. This lighting reminded me of something a photography professor once asked me, "Which would make a more interesting subject for a photograph- the bark on a regular neighborhood tree, or a ruined castle?" The answer: it depends. If the lighting is right, the bark on the tree will make a much better subject than the ruined castle. It's all about the lighting. Without good lighting, a photograph will never look interesting, regardless of the subject.

Mississippi on the Mall

Mississippi on the Mall,

underneath the shadow of

the Lincoln Memorial.

The Mississippi Society, a nonprofit organization in DC that promotes Mississippi's interests in the capital, hosted the 21st annual "Mississippi on the Mall" next to the Lincoln Memorial in late June. I had heard from a friend that the states have their own societies that have special events during summer and that I should go to one. This particular event included fried catfish, hush puppies, cole slaw, and a blues/rock band. Another friend really wanted to go to this event, and I thought it might be a good opportunity for me to network with some people who might be able to get me a job. From what I was able to glean from the internet, it looked as though the event would be full of bigwigs from Mississippi who are working in DC, so maybe I could meet a lobbyist or something who could help me out. As it turned out, I didn't meet anyone new who was older than me. It was mostly a reunion for all the Ole Miss undergrads who were working this summer as unpaid interns around town. There were some non-college age folk, but they didn't stay around long once they ate their catfish and hush puppies. There were also some non-Ole-Miss college undergrads. Every Mississippi university, including my alma mater Mississippi College, had a table set up where we could get regalia for our schools and sign up for alumni network stuff. Therefore, I could see who came from Mississippi State or Southern Miss according to who was carrying which hand-fans. Still, it looked less like "Mississippi on the Mall" and more like "Oxford on the Mall." Every girl was wearing a summer sundress and at least an inch of makeup. Girls can be quite pretty in these dresses, assuming they are already naturally pretty, but I've never seen women dress like this on a regular basis outside of Oxford. A couple years ago I went to the Double Decker Festival, an art festival in Oxford just down the street from Ole Miss, and I distinctly remember thinking, "I have never seen this many 18-to-25-year-old girls in dresses on a Saturday summer afternoon." Just as St Andrews doesn't represent real Scotland, Oxford doesn't represent real Mississippi. There was fried catfish and hush puppies, which I always love, but the beer was so frothy that every time I poured a cup at least half of my drink was foam. Considering the cost of admission, there was very little bang for the buck. The only part of the event that might have been worth the price tag was a venue underneath the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, but even then I think the event was way overpriced.

George McConnell & the Nonchalants

Battle of the Beltway

As part of a new tradition that started after Washington got a new MLB team, the Nationals and Orioles have played in the "Battle of the Beltway" each year since 2006. Every season this series includes six games, with one series in Baltimore and the other in DC. Thus far there have been 31 games (including this season), and Baltimore leads the series 16-15. The Nats have won only one full series against the Orioles in 2007, but the teams have tied three times. This season the Orioles won the first series 2-1 at Camden Yards after an embarrassing first game loss where the Nats racked up 17 runs on 19 hits. The Nats won the second round 2-1 at Nationals Park in June.

A friend of mine in Alexandria, Virginia invited me to join her church for the Saturday afternoon game in this series. With such a large group, the church was able to get a discounted price on the tickets. This season I have been able to go to 4 games, but I have only paid full price for a ticket once.

Our seats had a view of the Washington Monument,

which is behind the lights in the upper right-hand corner.

Oriole pitching.

View of the scoreboard from our seats.

I think that's an important building

in the background- the one with the dome.

Empty stands after the Nats won.

The Washington Monument is

more visible in this photo.

After most everyone left the stands,

I walked around to take some more photos.