Five years ago today: We were at a hockey game.

The vineyards on Franklin Hill. Credit: Eliza.

Eliza, my mother-in-law Carla and I took a drive last week to visit a few wineries along the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail. Due to winter hours, a long lunch, and some shopping – we only got to two wineries along the trail.

The first winery was Amoré in Nazareth, Pa. Although having recently been through a fire that ripped through their tasting room – they were still open for business. One of the things I enjoyed the most about Amoré, besides their decent selection of wines, was that they offered crackers, pretzels, and even chocolate with some of them. During the summer months, we were told, they sometimes have cheese too. More wineries should do this. Although some do have crackers it is rare that they are of any quality or that they have other things available.

The second winery was Franklin Hill in Bangor, Pa. and my favorite of the day. Franklin Hill Winery sits far back off the road, nearly a half mile I’d say, and was recently renovated. This was my favorite of the day because we got a tour and got to meet the woman winemaker while she was working on some of their wines. Everyone there was very free with information when I asked questions about winemaking and the wines were good too.

We ended up coming home with a few bottles of wine. One thing I enjoy about buying wine directly from the wineries is that you have a chance to taste the wines before you purchase any. This way when you’re home and wondering what wine to have – you know exactly what each of them tastes like.

Hopefully we’ll find time this year to get to the other seven wineries along the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail.

We made our way to McDonald’s and, of course, I thought it would be a good idea to have a nugget eating challenge. This time, though, I would only attempt to eat 50 nuggets. As I said on Twitter, I was trying to eat 50 just so I could see how hard it would be to eat 100 at a later date. I thought I could eat 50 with little problem. Boy was I wrong.

About 12 nuggets into the challenge I knew that I would fail. I wasn’t full. I was disgusted. The grease on the nuggets is positively revolting after only a few nuggets. The few times that I’ve order McNuggets in my life I’ve only gotten 4 nuggets at a time. Obviously not enough to be prepared for a 50-nugget (let alone a 100-nugget) challenge. Yuck.

So, I quit at 28. I had 2 nuggets left in my third box of ten and, although I could have eaten those, I thought ‘what is the point?’. I gave up and I will now not eat McNuggets until at least 2020. I’m glad I tried and now know that eating 100 nuggets – at least by me – is impossible.

My two fellow nugget-challengers, Sam and Austin, did better than I did with 40 and 32 nuggets respectively.

Photo credit: Ben Wagner.

Saw this at 12:30 on Sunday afternoon at the intersection of Routes 106 and 247. Everyone seemed to get out OK though.

Left: bird seed mix, Right: suet.

Suet

Bird seed

The temperature has finally gotten above freezing. I took it as an opportunity to get two more bird feeders (in addition to the one we have on our deck) up.

As you may recall Bernie has a support control center on his desk. Today I came into Viddler HQ to discover that he’s pretty much a switcher.

Bernie’s ‘computer bank’ for Viddler support is pretty awesome.

Several birds have visited our bird feeder since we’ve moved into the new apartment. I have yet to get a really good capture of any of them though the opportunities have been there. I’m hoping to score a few before winter is over.

This particular bird, I think, is a Black Phoebe.

Well, my Graceland anyway.

Turn up your speakers for this one folks. My friend Eric Brophy and I (more him than me) have a chat about geocoding, mashups, Twitter, and the potential for other geocoded things to pop up in the future.

You can pretty much expect First initial, last name to be 85% geo in 2010.

No question this time around… simply sound off in the comments.

Waiting for the coffee to finish brewing with my buddy.

Taken with my iPhone while getting gas one morning and cross processed in Mill Colour (iTunes link).

Had breakfast here yesterday. It was pretty good but I wouldn’t add Cozy Corner Cafe to my favorite places within 2 hours of my home list. It would do in a pinch, though.

Something has to be said that they don’t come up, at all, in a Google Maps search though. Hmm.

Update: Since Google Maps doesn’t know where Cozy Corner Cafe is – I’ve decided to update this post, and to request that Google update the address and information for the Cozy Corner Cafe. I think the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce has the address wrong (they have North Main and it should be North Church) so I’ve corrected it below as well as on Google. Roxanne Miller (owner of Cozy Corner Cafe) you owe me a free coffee.

Cozy Corner Cafe
49 North Church St.
Carbondale, PA 18407

Dude knows how to eat a lemon… rind and all.

I made French Toast using this French Toast recipe on Simply Recipes (even with the optional Triple Sec). It was delicious. I recommend.

Shopping list

1. Milk
2. Eggs
3. Inexpensive wines from all over the world
4. Bread
5. Cheez-Its

This morning is when our new apartment started to feel like home.

We’re repurposing our wine rack into our new TV stand for the new apartment. By we, of course, I mean Eliza is doing all of the work and I’m taking photos of her and posting them on the Internet without her express permission.

Sometimes Eliza and I like to treat ourselves.

Need a few things for the new crib.

Came across this photo in my library and now I’m in the mood for hibachi.

Love playing in old beat-up gyms. Love seeing Chris get blocked even more.

Photo credit: Eliza Devroe.

After a friend and I were talking about fishing this weekend I noticed that I never posted a photo of my biggest catch this summer – a 5-pound bass.

As you can see from the photo I was soaking wet. Eliza, my friend Johnny, and myself walked to our fishing spot (about a mile off the road) only to have a downpour come at us about half-way there. We figured we’d continue even though we were soaked.

The rain brought out a lot of frogs and toads that were jumping back and forth on our path. Just before we got to our spot I grabbed a toad that I was going to use for a few minutes instead of our night crawlers that we brought with us. The toad was fairly big so I knew that they only fish I’d get to bite would be a whopper.

You see, the thing about bass is that they love to feed after a hard rain. Rain washes insects, worms, and other critters into the river and so bass just sort of swim up stream and gobble up pretty much whatever hits their mouths. Fishing right after a decent rain fall, when the water is all murky from the rush, is the best time to get a fair amount of hits.

It wasn’t too terribly long before my toad disappeared under the water. It was like a vacuum was turned on under the surface and the toad simply sunk straight down. But then the toad popped back up a few feet away, only it was no longer on my line. My line was being dragged away. The bass didn’t put up much of a fight and I brought it in pretty quick.

The bigger the fish the older the fish and some would say that a bass this size is probably not great for eating. But I wasn’t about to throw back my catch of the summer. Nummers!

On Wednesday my friend Chris and I ate dinner at Pete And Reenie’s in Eynon, PA – a 50s-style burger/shake joint. The food was delicious, the service was good (the owner was our waitress), and the place is altogether great.

I think Pete and Reenie’s is going to quickly become one of my favorite places within two hours of my home. Chris had a “Blue Moon” which was a grilled buffalo chicken “burger” that had hot sauce on it. I gobbled up a Pete’s Favorite, which was a delicious burger with onion rings on it (pictured right).

But, let me tell you about the sweet potato fries. I love sweet potato fries. All by themselves they are simply fantastic fries. However, at Pete and Reenie’s they are one-upped by some delicious apple sauce that they serve with it. I am not sure if this is done often and I’m the only person on the planet that had never heard of it, but I don’t think I ever want sweet potato fries any other way again.

Being a burger and shake joint of course I had to leave with a strawberry shake. I love shakes that are the real deal. Real fruit floating around inside, thick, and delicious.

So, needless to say I highly recommend Pete and Reenie’s (and I’m not alone). You can find it at 463 Main St. in Eynon, PA 18403 (map).

Delicious food, good service. Recommended.

Random 60: What time do you wake up?

I wake up every morning around 6:45a. I love it. Back in 2006 I was getting up at 7. As I get older, I’m getting up earlier. But really, I enjoy waking up early and getting things accomplished. It is when I work best.

What about you?

Note: No Jeffs were harmed in the making of this video.

Random 60: What is your favorite music genre?

Special guest Jeff Johns, a friend and fellow Viddler team member, has a particular taste in music so I put him on the spot to name his favorite music genre.

My favorite music genre would have to be Rock.

What is your favorite music genre? Let us know in the comments!

After climbing a tree at Lehigh University in an attempt to capture a cicada I ended up finding several skins left on a tree at about eye level. Go figure. There is tons of information on Cicadas on Wikipedia. Worth perusing.

A late lunch with a few friends on a hot Thursday.

As if we could hide from the Broph in a pub.

A few photos from fishing the other night with my friend Johnny. I posted a pretty wicked toothed Walleye on that night but we ended up with a pretty decent catch in a relatively short period of time. Huzzah.

This guy had some wicked teeth!

The Sambo Swag in his natural habitat.

Adding to my 2hourfavs list is Donovan’s Restaurant in Archbald, PA. Donovan’s serves breakfast and lunch and is your quintessential “hole in the wall” diner.

Although there is a much nicer, more welcoming side-entrance to Donovan’s the first time we visited the diner was through the less-than-welcome front door. If you saw it, and I will someday update this post with a photo of it, you would never think there was a diner inside. This is actually what attracted me to Donovan’s. It is the exact type of diner I’m most attracted to.

The owner is also the cook. And a good cook. I have never heard a single complaint about the food. Last Saturday we went there and, much to our surprise, they offered oatmeal pancakes with ingredients like bananas, strawberries, blueberries, and chocolate chips. I made the mistake of ordering regular banana pancakes (that isn’t to say they weren’t absolutely delicious, just that they weren’t nearly as good as the oatmeal pancakes that others got).

I could go on and on about this place but I think I’ve said enough to recommend that, if you’re ever anywhere near Archbald Pennsylvania – you should stop by at Donovan’s. Here is a map to its location.

Try saying that five times fast. Green Bell Pepper preview… Gree… Nevermind. Someday very soon I’ll be posting an update about our garden – for now, here is a preview of how well our bell peppers are doing.

Also of note: Chili peppers are, as the rumor was, very hot.

Leah, the curator at House Obsession, recently visited an early 1800s Stone Mill located in central Pennsylvania. You may file this under ‘could stare at all day’.

Since she doesn’t link to the full-sized photos from the images themselves, I’ve done so here. I hope this is ok Leah.

Full sized photos: Stone mill, stone bridge, bookshelves, kitchen, and bench.

Eating a Gombo at The Goose with Kyle, Jeff, and Rob. Incredisandwich.

Related: I’m adding “The Goose” to my favorite places less than 2 hours from home list.

Viddler all-star Kyle Slattery (right) is back from his semester in Germany. He’s already back at work and back to eating Gombos from The Goose. We’re happy to have him back and to feed him.

Oh yeah, Rob Sandie is in this photo too.

Eliza and I did a little fishing with my friend Johnny and his kids Kristopher, Micailyn, and Nicolas on Wednesday. Fishing with kids is always an adventure.

WANTS! A personal life goal is to go across country in one of these babies.

Not sure what Susan did or why she has a black eye but these are cool flowers nonetheless.

Chili peppers from our garden. Looking forward to melting my taste buds on these babies.

Last year, when Eliza and I picked strawberries at Pallman’s Poultry Farm, was my first time picking strawberries. So, obviously – this year was my second. This time we had company. Our friends Paul and Sherin joined us and not only did we have a good time – we picked a lot of berries.

At the end of my post from last year I said that this year we’d be determined to pick enough berries to make wine. And we did just that. Based on a recipe that I got from a friend that makes excellent wine (which I will share in a forthcoming post) – it takes 16 pounds of crushed strawberries to make 5-gallons of wine. So I spent two nights cutting and crushing the berries. I’m very optimistic about how it will turn out.

In our garden this year we only have two small strawberry bushes that we planted. Next year I’d like to extend it enough to harvest enough strawberries to make wine and for our general strawberry use. Now that is a goal.

This is the way he looks when he’s looking at pretty little girls. He loves the ladies.

They plan on taking full advantage of both Facebook and Twitter with their new venture to make announcements, share deals, and generally keep everyone up to date with new things going on at the restaurant.

If you want to see the type of talent that Dave has, here is an episode of Eat Weird that features his talents.

Several episodes of Eat Weird feature Dave’s dishes so be sure to check them out. Enjoy and see you at AuRants this summer.

Though our garden is getting over watered, there is life. Zucchini flowers, lettuce, strawberries, and green beans are starting to take off.

Yes! The Philadelphia 76ers, my favorite basketball team for better or worse, is going back to their old logo.

I will be purchasing new apparel soon.