[kom-buh-ney-shuhn]
-noun
1. the act of combining, or the state of being combined.
2. an alliance of persons or parties.
3. the spice of life
Think for a moment about your favorite thing to eat. Say, for example, it's spaghetti. What is it about spaghetti that makes it taste so good? Isn't it basically just pasta? It's not until you combine that pasta with sauce and maybe some cheese and/or meat that it really starts to become something special. And what about the sauce? It's basically just tomato paste until you combine it with all the other ingredients that go into the sauce. What's more, if you get sick of a particular sauce you just need to take the tomato paste and combine it with different ingredients. Moral of the story: somewhere along the line humans learned they could combine what had become boring and mundane tools and actions with other boring and mundane tools and actions, and add some much needed excitement back into their lives. After a quick and easy reflecting exercise the following examples came to mind:
Inhaling with exhaling was probably the first;
just in case you didn't have a handle on this already, the good folks at Breathing.com got your back...
and soon after, it was heat with dried wood.
a very sincere "sorry" to the owners of this cabin. not cool.
The basic art-form of combination was perfected somewhere along the way and our ancestors were then able to start coming up with the really important combinations.
Things like barley and hops with water;
yum
grapes with the bottoms of our feet;
double yum
two all beef patties with special sauce/lettuce/cheese/pickles/onions/on a sesame seed bun;
combine that with fries and Coke, and voila!
and socks with hopping.
Need one last example? Take the game of Rock/Paper/Scissors. A quick recap in case you've been living with a pack of wolves for the last 30 years: the game is based on the combination of 3 simple variables and the rules of how those variables interact. Simple (although somewhat intricate) and entertaining enough, but play it a few times and most people get bored pretty quick. Add a few more variable combinations into the mix, however, and it becomes something else entirely, as demonstrated in this clip by the boys from CBS's The Big Bang Theory (my thanks to the Spanish speaking individual who posted this clip - in English - to Youtube):
So, it is in this spirit of improving through combination that I've combined multiple EDM days into this post. I'll be doing this from time to time when I feel I have a few weeks in a row where my days to EDM aren't completely postworthy on their own. Here we go.
7/3/10 - Being Independence Day weekend, you might think this day to EDM would have been a big one. Not so much. My wife had to work the 3rd and the 5th, so we didn't have the chance to get away. More importantly, however, my EDM days the last 2 weeks were rather intense, and everyday life had caught up with me and kept me from making any progress on the blog. So after a light breakfast and my Saturday morning trip to the gym, I threw the computer in the car and headed off to the only place I knew I could get the right inspiration and a reliable wireless internet connection: The Londoner (web site still under construction - if interested check back later for completion).
My wife got off work at 6:00 and we went out to eat at our favorite Greek restaurant, The Vernon Inn. I had been craving their Gyro Pizza and my wife got her usual Aegean Salmon. We took our own bottle of wine (an '07 Pinot Noir we purchased on our last trip to Sonoma at the Nalle winery...very nice) and gladly paid the $15 corkage fee. For those unfamiliar with corkage fees, many restaurants will let you bring your own bottle of wine into their place of business for a fee. $15 is pretty good, but you can find lower ones if you're willing to ask around. The Italian restaurant chain Biaggi's, by the way, has a corkage fee of $0.
Food 4/5
Drink 4/5
Overall merriment 3/5.
7/10/10 - A few months ago, my wife won a night's stay at the Sheraton in downtown Iowa City, so we decided to combine that with a visit to a local vineyard (yes, local to Iowa City) and a night of bar hopping in and around the Ped Mall.
The vineyard is owned by one of the fill-in pharmacists at the pharmacy where my wife works. It is a small, family run vineyard, but they produce enough grapes to supply a few local winemakers of varying sizes and still make a few barrels of their on wines. Along with another couple we know through my wife's work, we helped them out a little with harvest last year so they invited us and the other couple back for a day of fun this year.
After a walk through the vineyard with the owner where he talked at length about the growing process and the challenges they've faced, we hopped on a few four wheelers and tore it up around the rest of the property. I'm not exactly experienced on one, but picked it up pretty quick. Dusty at times, muddy at others, and always extremely buggy (eye-ware and a closed mouth were a must), but a lot of fun.
After the ride he started opening bottles of his wines. While I'm not a huge fan of Iowa wines (they tend to be much sweeter than the major varietals you'll find in most wine shops, grocery stores, bars, and restaurants), they all tasted more than good enough to make for an enjoyable afternoon. The most interesting being a pear port that tasted dangerously light while still packing a huge wallop in the department of alcohol content. Burgers were grilled and plenty of other snacks were consumed, but eventually it was time to move on.
My wife and I got to the hotel in downtown Iowa City sometime around 10:00, got checked in and cleaned up, and headed down to the bars. My wife had been becoming a huge fan of Boddingtons Pub Ale. It's creamy in texture like Guinness Draught due to both being mixed with nitrogen when they're poured, but unlike its darker counterpart the taste is clean and crisp. We placed a friendly little wager as to whether or not we could find it on tap that night and went on our way. It was a bet I thought I could win because I knew Joe's Place had it. But it had been a while since I'd been at Joe's and they stopped serving it on tap about a year ago. I lost the bet, but we had quite a bit of fun looking for it. Near the end of the night we stopped at George's Best gyro stand for a late night snack and headed off to our room. The gyro wasn't quite as tasty as I remember from my college years...but still pretty damn good.
Food 3/5
Drink 3.5/5
Overall merriment 4/5
7/17/10 - another afternoon hanging out at The Londoner, but this time my wife kept me company and there was no blogging going on. We later met another couple at the Tic-Toc in Cedar Rapids for supper. The Tic-Toc isn't much to look at from the outside, but they have some of the best comfort food in town including mozzarella sticks the size of the old Nokia "brick" cell phones. No kidding:
They also do a really mean BBQ. I ordered the half rack of ribs for supper and loved every minute of it. Low key (but fun) day and we called it an early night.
Food 4/5
Drink 4/5
Overall merriment 3/5 (due to the low key nature of the day, not the company)
7/24/10 - return trip to Madison during the day to get an unhungover appreciation for the farmers market. Pretty sweet. The other high points of the day were mostly repeats of our last trip to Madison so I won't go into detail again. However, we did discover a bar we missed last time that I'm sure will be part of a future post.
Attended my aunt's 60th birthday party in Dubuque that night. The B-Day dinner was at the Star restaurant in Dubuque. As much as I wanted to hate it, I couldn't really find any reason to. The beer selection wasn't the greatest, but that was my only complaint. The Thai Chicken Pasta I had for dinner was a good mix of Thai spiciness and peanut buttery sweetness.
After supper we all headed back to my parents' house for cake and family fun. Another good time, but another early night.
Food 4/5
Drink 4/5
Overall merriment 4/5
That is going to be it for this post of combination. I'll be back soon with a recap of the vacation my wife and I recently took in Denver, Co.
Untill then, take a day to Eat, Drink, & be Merry.
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