fatcatswag22

I did both Japan and Korea last May, visiting Seoul and Busan. If you have time, it is interesting to piggy back experiencing the cultural differences. Korea was part of a grad school trip that did not allow much personal time to really explore. Seems keakdasneak covers quite a bit of it.

If you do Seoul, I would suggest a visit to a KBO baseball league game (season is Mar-Oct). It's quite the unique baseball experience filled with cheap beer. I saw the Doosan Bears. I think the LG Twins are at the same stadium.

Both my parents are ex-Enron. I was pretty young when it all went down, but have pretty vivid memories visiting Enron summer camp and bring your kid to work days. Then remember my mom losing her job/retirement, but came out positive in the end.

My dad worked on the nat gas trade floor. He has some excellent stories of floor meetings and emails with execs, along with an all employees meeting on the backend of their fall.

Meat & Cheese Restaurant and Farm Shop. Solid food, meat and potatoes kinda place.

Also did White House Tavern as mentioned above. French dip was fantastic.

Also stopped at Unravel Coffee + Bar for coffee/breakfast. Great pastries and enjoyed the morning vibe.

Do you cry into your pillow every night?

Such a loaded topic, so I’ll just talk on what I have…

Gaggia Classic Pro with a Niche Zero grinder. To sum up, investing in a solid grinder like the Niche Zero made the rest of my process so much more fluid and easy.

Gaggia Classic Pro is a solid machine for the price, but took quite a learning curve with temperate surfing, etc. I don’t have any upgrades, but have learned how to make great espresso. As for steaming milk, it has some limitations there along eith a separate learning curve . For one, I suck a steaming milk, but have made strides improving. It gets the job done and I don’t need perfection. Overall, the espresso quality is great but there is a good bit of learning how to use the machine. You can’t just turn it on, let it heat up, and brew espresso. Edit…I did make two small upgrades buying a VST 18gram basket and Normcore spring loaded tamper. Both are pretty essential minor upgrades. I haven’t changed out the portafilter or performed any mods - maybe in the future…

For the grinder, the Niche Zero is a tank and I love this thing. Minimal fines and retention. It’s a breeze using. For home use, I don’t really need a large hopper as I weigh out coffee each grind. Highly highly recommend this grinder. I was remember hopping between this and the DF64 mentioned earlier. Very similar grinders, I think the DF64 is just more budget friendly with certain mods needed to even out with the Niche. Both good options but def recommend the Niche, even if it puts you over budget.

Serious Eats and Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen provide excellent reviews, recommendations, and testing of kitchen equipment. SE is free/Cooks is subscription. I recommend utilizing those resources to help figure out what you might need.

Here's what I find handy...
Infrared thermometer for surface temps
Thermapen
Bench scraper
Fish spatula
Offset spatula
Zester/grater
Spider strainer
Saucier - maybe my most used pan in the kitchen. I have 4qt at All Clad
Quarter sheet tray - I used the smaller pan for prepping meats or smaller veggie trays. Good balance with the large half sheets
Carbon steel pan

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mid to late October?

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Per a conversation with a ranger the other week, busiest time of the year for them...

I just visited over Memorial Day Weekend and have a few notes. Beautiful park, but the crowds are insane which we were admittedly unprepared for. Arrive and start the main attractions earlier than you think - ideally before 7-7:30. Early bird definitely gets the worm here. For hikes, use your discretion on what you are physically capable to do and bring WATER/FOOD. More than you think. Throw a small pack on your kids and have them be self sufficient.

- As an alternative hike I enjoyed.... we drove by the Alum Cave Trail lot around 8am and the nearest parking was about a half mile road side lot away. We passed on that and hiked the Charles Bunion Trail (about 8-9 miles), starting at the Newfound Gap parking lot. Hike was really nice with great views at the end, especially if you go quarter mile past the bunion to a beautiful valley opening (pic below). I'm pretty active and experienced hiker, and to me it was moderate, nothing too strenuous. Another person in our group hadn't hiked in her life and made it up, but is in pretty good shape. There were def other young kids out there. Interesting part is your hiking a piece of the AT and there were some thru hikers at a shelter resting 3 weeks into their AT journey. It was interesting talking with them sharing their journey. We also hiked Chimney Tops which was significantly more difficult because of the elevation gain.


- Cades Cove: To preface, I would say this place is really cool if you do your research, hit it at the buttcrack of dawn, and explore for a day at all the stops at your own leisure without cars. It's a one way loop road where you are purely at the mercy of people/traffic. There are roadside lots to pull off and explore areas. If you can rent bikes for a day, this would be the spot. I did not see bikes for rent at the entrance to the cove - do some research on this piece. Cades Cove also seems much more fulfilling and rewarding for your kids than a day at Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg. There's seemingly a lot of cool shite and history to see. So you don't make the same mistake we did, I'll lay out our experience due to traffic and our own faults/lack of planning.

We tried to hit this up lunchtime-ish as a last second stop before our way home. Traffic can be a disaster on the loop and it started 1-2 miles outside Cades Cove entrance. We toughed the traffic out thinking it'd open up. It didn't. Once we were in the cove, we were either going <5 mph or stopped. We cut back to the entrance at the first turnout, all in all traveled maybe 3 miles, and it took 2 hours in total, just in our car. If we had stayed all 11 miles, I'd guess 3-5 hours min just in the car.

The highlight was after all that hell, an obnoxiously slow driver in front of us who was holding up traffic, stopping for an extended period of time to take pictures from his drivers window in the middle of said one lane road, literally next to a empty pull out parking lot. I could not make that up. I felt this area could be better organized with shuttles or something, so you are not just sitting idle at the mercy of traffic, hours on end. It's hard to get on the NPS for the exceptional work they do and patience beyond measure.

That sounds miserable in so many ways, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. You only have 6 days. Commit your time to England, let life slow down, and enjoy your time there.

Paris is beautiful, yes, but running around like a chicken with your head cut off to see a couple sights in one day is not worth it. Also, those train tickets will be fricking expensive burning a hole in your pocket just for one day. Don’t overthink this. Those are my thoughts atleast.

Memorial Park just went/is going through a massive expansion. If weather is nice, walk the loop and do the land bridge. Also visit the eastern glades in Memorial Park.

Rent some E-bikes from Pedego and stroll the Heights and bayou. The new 11th street bike lanes could certainly see some actual use and traffic. Grab lunch, ice cream some where and stroll up/down Heights Blvd.