What could make this post even more nerdy? I could take the opportunity to polish up my feeble AJAX skills and write a T&T Character Creator. Nerdtastic.

Obviously I’m posting this mostly for my own use but if any other T&T players out there find it handy, that’s a bonus. There’s a surprisingly active community still producing content, including the author Ken St. Andre. I added support for two versions of the rules: version 5 (which was the first RPG I ever bought) and version 7.5.

If you’re doing something similar, I used the following tools:

• JQuery
• JQuery UI
• The TableSorter plugin
• Ajaxload for the loading icon

This is a simple word counter (and character counter). Sometimes online forms ask you to limit yourself to some number of words or characters. To see how big your text is, just paste it here below. In addition, this will "clean" the text for sites that say things like "don’t paste MS Word text, copy to notepad first", etc. Text entered below will automatically have smart tags and other common characters transformed into their plain text equivalents. If you’re trying to paste into an online form and getting strange characters (like question marks with diamonds around them), paste it into the box below and then copy it.

Note that JavaScript must be enabled (that’s how it cleans and counts).

1. If you’re going during flower season get there early. Arriving anytime after 10am is pretty risky if you’re aiming for the Palm Canyon Nature Trail. Your best bet: go the night before and either camp out or stay at a local motel! There are other trails, but this one is the most popular and really does have a lot of neat flowers.
2. Walking from the Visitor’s Center claims will add at least 3 miles to the trip. Totally worth it if the Borrego Palm Canyon Campground is full and you want to see the wildflowers (and the Visitor’s Center parking lot isn’t yet full), but that does make it a 6+ mile round trip.
3. Enough about wildflowers: see the slots. The trail to Palm Slot is easy to get to by any car, and The Slot needs just a bit of dirt road driving. They are both really, really cool hikes.
4. Bring lots and lots of water. Also sun protection, more water, proper clothes, etc.
5. Visitor’s guide: “Taken one way (downhill) it is a moderate hike, round-trip more difficult”. Translation: round-trip is straight up. Ride a mountain goat.
6. Visitor’s guide: “Dirt road”. Translation: talk to a ranger. This either means “something your Honda coup can access” or “when your brother-in-law takes you in his four-wheel-drive truck you will barely navigate through bolder-strewn, windy passes and will scrape the immaculate paint job in a few hundred different places from the advancing brush.” The Slot didn’t give us any trouble, the path to Wilson Trail still makes me wince when I think about it.
7. Visitor’s guide: “Some rock scrambling required.” Translation: the trail ends half a mile away from your destination. The rest requires crazy bush-whacking, boulder hopping and many reminders that desert shrub won’t just let you through without a fight. Maidenhair Falls, I’m looking at you.

Visiting Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the only time I ever wish we had a vehicle that handles really off-road driving, but the trails you can get to from a car are still amazing. Easily one of our favorite parks.

So what were the popular bourbons? The 3 clear winners were:

1. Woodford Reserve – this great bourbon (in a lovely bottle), was the clear favorite. At 90.4 proof it’s not as strong as some of the other contenders and the balance of flavors and sweetness appealed to every taster. It’s generally about $30/bottle at BevMo which is an great price for an excellent bourbon.
2. George T. Stagg – One of my favorite bourbons, this one split our tasters. Those who liked it, loved it. Those who thought drinking 140.6 proof (this is a 2006 bottling) bourbon was like being punched in the mouth (even with a bit of ice to open it up and cool it down), were less enthusiastic. The Stagg is just loaded with flavor, and even while you can feel it warming your body the conversation with your tongue and brain continue. It’s generally in the $75/bottle range (prices vary pretty widely), if you can find it.
3. Elijah Craig (18yr) – This is a single barrel bourbon that’s aged much longer than the average bourbon (bourbons have to specifically label how long they’ve aged in the barrel if it’s less than 4 years. As such, many bourbons are allowed to mature for only a bit over this magic number) but is still plenty spicy. This was one of the first bourbons tasted, so it’s hard to say how much it’s popularity was influenced by it being one of the few clearly remembered, but it’s always been a bourbon I enjoy. It’s age leads directly to it being more expensive, and I typically see it at BevMo for about $45/bottle.

Other bourbons tried (in no particular order):

• Bulleit – a debate opened up on how to pronounce this popular bourbon.
• Four Roses single barrel – Another of my personal favorite bourbons, the Four Roses was well received by some but the strong 100 proof turned other folks off of it.
• Elmer T. Lee – less remarkable than hoped, people generally liked it but couldn’t think of anything that set it apart.
• Eagle Rare single barrel – This one comes with a “hand selected by BevMo!” sticker on it, but none of us could figure out why.
• Russell’s Reserve (10 yr) – has a strong, almost smoky taste that a few of us enjoy but several tasters were put off by.
• Maker’s Mark – this is the bourbon that most folks tend to have in their cabinet, and it’s generally seen as a high caliber bourbon when compared to what else is hanging out on a drug store shelf. It was tried late in the tasting, and unanimously voted as the worst of the bunch. Not that it was bad, per se, but it had a more shallow, sweet taste when compared to the many other fine bourbons in the shootout.

So that’s the verdict, folks! The Four Roses and George T. Stagg remain my favorite, but I’m delighted that Woodford Reserve was so popular as I agree it’s a fine option. I’ll be sampling the Bulleit more in the near future, as that’s a recent acquisition, and continuing to slowly acquire other tasty bourbons as time goes on.

Other highlights of the evening include:

• Pam won “Hero of the Week” for deciding that a Negroni is actually intriguing and kind of tasty instead of just terrible. Pam may just be the first female of my personal acquaintance to feel this way.
• When we started the tasting who are the first over to get it moving? All women. Here I thought it was going to be a manly gathering! Some of the fella’s did meander over and a few joined us for the whole tour, but it was contrary to how I would have predicted the drinkin’ crowd to be.
• Speaking of heroic women: who pushed us to try every bourbon on the table? Amy. Peter and Mirko joined in to complete the Shootout with us but Amy totally wins Badass of the Party.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by, I had a blast and hope y’all did, too. Next in line is probably either a scotch tasting or another Tour of Gin.

This morning we hiked up Stonewall Peak which I totally recommend. It’s about two miles each way if you go straight up and back, and it’s an easy hike (almost all of the many hikers we saw involved small kids, which is rare for most of the hikes we take) with a fabulous view at the top. Naturally we took a side road back down which some random book had told us would only be half a mile longer although my glance at a map earlier had me suspecting that was a tad short. We ended up hiking a bit over 5 miles total, which is a great way to spend late morning and early afternoon.

While we were near the peak, we stopped for a bit and Christy took a few minutes to sketch out:

Yeah, she’s good.

In related news we’ve had a number of friends inquire about where we hike, so we’re thinking about getting together groups of people maybe once a month or so for a hike. Our first will probably be next Sunday, so if you’re in the area feel free to join us! Our downstairs neighbor will probably come along and maybe a few other friends and we’re actually thinking about doing this same hike again (probably straight up and back, without the bonus detour). Christy and I have really been enjoying exploring the greater San Diego area and it will be fun to hit some of our favorite hikes again with some of our favorite people!

This is from Let California Ring, one of the groups who support gay marriage. Ohio’s terrifyingly popular decision to ban gay marriage was one of the main reasons I was happy to leave. This is a human rights issue. If you’re a Californian, vote no on Proposition 8.

Laphroaig makes some of the loveliest scotches I’ve ever had the privilege to enjoy. Their 15 y/o continues to be my favorite, but the whole line is worth tasting.

Ok, time to turn off the laptop. Hope y’all are well!

As someone who just graduated from a rather intense MBA program, let me assure you that yes it is ok to drink during studying. In part because, depending on the program, you may not have any time where you’re not studying. Also, the professor is probably going to be drinking while grading your test or paper. Wine if you’re lucky, whiskey if you’re not. If you go to a larger university and there are TA’s grading your paper, well duh. They’re wasted. So it helps to be on the same wavelength.

Finally, might I also recommend bringing alcohol to class. Only to celebrate particular occasions, such as finishing your team project, completing the final or because it’s Wednesday, and don’t be all wussy about it. Buy a stack of disposable shot glasses and bring a bottle of something that can be served at room temperature (scotch, I’m looking at you). Then, preferably near the end of class, but earlier if you think it will fly, break it open. Don’t forget to invite the professor, depending on who it is they may or may not accept, but really it’s good form.

Also note that, if you’re an undergraduate student, you should probably ignore that last paragraph.

Good luck in your studies!