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No Pull-Tabs No More
The last time I saw a pull-tab was in a package bar in Nisswa, Minnesota, as part of the gambling game played in dark lounges in the Upper Midwest, especially in the Land of 10,000 Lakes in 1992–at least in my memory. Never much of a gambler, me, even when consuming pitchers of cheap Milwaukee’s…
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Champagne In First
I can’t recall a time, when offered one of those plastic pearly flutes of sparkling wine (so rarely actual Champagne, unless it’s Air France or Emirates or maybe Cathay) …I can’t recall ever saying, “No, just a water, thanks.” And when they’ve truly upgraded you and served you the bubbly in a real glass, I…
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Colorado Native
Oh the bluebird-sky days of winter have returned as I sneak away to the slopes on a buddy pass and stolen time. The joy of living in Colorado versus traveling there to ski lies in choosing your mid-week day to escape, coming closer to the trifecta of good snow, light lift lines, and a wide open…
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Blue Moon & Mandarin
My plane was late landing in Nashville, and they couldn’t find me the right rental car. Gone midnight by the time I made it to the Gaylord Massif otherwise known as Opryland–a hotel so far bigger than necessary that it surely encompassed its own zip code–along with a strangely enormous human terranium inside. I’d had…
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Kölsch: The Beer That’s A Language Too
I took a late run in the day, when the train from Frankfurt dropped me off earlier than I expected in Köln (Cologne to the Francophiles and Englishmen). The rain had darkened the plaza and the Dom itself, not just the black soot of centuries tarnishing the cathedral’s façade and flying buttresses. Because the rain…