10X

Pretty good chance we'll be out of here by mid-summer! It's so close I can taste the freedom.

I finally got to put my BBQ judge certification to use, at the NJ KnoQ-Out BBQ competition in Blairstown April 20-21. https://campgroundbbq.com/nj-knoqout NJ is on the outer fringe of BBQ culture in the US, but the Team of the Year points chase brings the top competitors all the way out here. We had a couple of former national champions show up, hoping this is the year they repeat. We had 50 teams registered Saturday, almost 40 on Sunday, a mix of Masters Division (turning in chicken, pork ribs, pork shoulder, and brisket) and Backyard Division, judged to the same standards but cooking only chicken and ribs (no overnight cooking required). Judges are divided into teams of six, and each team judges six entries for each meat, scoring for appearance, tenderness, and taste. When the scores are tabulated, the taste score is weighted most heavily, appearance least heavily. Teams have to hit a narrow turn-in window every 30 minutes, chicken first, the ribs, pork, and brisket, followed by the Backyard division chicken, then ribs. So, for 3 hours, the judges are getting 6 portions of meat every 30 minutes. Even judging based on one bite (the norm, though a second bite is allowed if needed), it’s a lot of meat. BUT, at this level of competition, it’s really good. The best was extraordinary, and even the worst was just…ordinary. There wasn’t a bad bite during the entire competition, at least at the tables where I was judging. The judging is double-blind, so I’ll never know whose entries I judged, but I did get to eat some of the best BBQ I’ve ever had. (file photo, no cameras allowed in the judging area) Lotsa smokers

Not sure why your profile shows zero posts, but clicking through to 'activity' shows your your posting history on this forum goes back 13 months, and consists of over two dozen posts asking sellers to message you because you are too new to post.

Sorry, both are SPF. Being picked up this week. Win M22 22 LR SPF to Ringwoodfrank.

12 ga ammo SPF to Mr. Stu.

Bump, with some additions to the list, and price reductions.

Bump, and I've reduced the prices!

Don't mess with Idaho moms! Note that the perp had her handcuffed to a chair and she was still able to retrieve her .357 and shoot him twice.

Nice! I saw this on a door in Sodus Bay, NY when we were up there watching the overcast that had an eclipse behind it on Monday. Much of upstate NY feels the same way about the nonsense that comes out of Albany and NYC.

It was pretty good. Clever concept, I had to support the ingenuity of the brewers who came up with the idea of making a beer for the eclipse.

This is a late trip report, as I avoid posting trip plans to social media until after I'm home. We planned to drive to upstate NY. The forecast wasn't great, but it looked like the best odds were to get as far east as we had time for, on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. We ended up at the delightful town of Sodus Bay. In town we enjoyed a brewed-just-for-the-occasion black lager called Totality, then set up at a primo spot right on the beach. But, the overcast arrived well before the eclipse. We saw nothing of the sun, though of course it got much darker for 3 1/2 minutes. We hedged our bets by spending the day before in Ithaca; It had been 20 years since I had a chance to wander around my grad school alma mater, then the day after we had planned a trip to Niagara Falls--my wife had never been there. So the trip worked out ok, but if I were to post my best eclipse photo, it might be this, taken under blue skies the next day:

Not to be outdone, Sunny Hostin, co-host of The View, claimed on air that the eclipse, the earthquake, and the upcoming cicada emergence were ALL due to climate change https://www.foxnews.com/media/the-views-sunny-hostin-blames-eclipse-earthquake-cicadas-climate-change.amp

Warby Parker (their brick and mortar stores) advertised that they would be giving them away. I've no idea for how long. Some local libraries are also handing them out. We still had ours, along with a camera filter and cheap eclipse binoculars, from the 2017 total eclipse.

Felt it here! I thought it wasn't that much weaker than the first one, though it was shorter. Reportedly, there was a magnitude 2 aftershock at 12:20 today, and I didn't notice that one. I might have been in the car then.