Memories of good friend occupy my thoughts.

The revolution starts now

Tent city

Johnny Law

Simon

I make a habit of avoiding trouble. Always have.

I hung out with the neighbourhood kids only until they started being stupid and then I wandered on home. During my first year of high school, I quickly identified the Neanderthals who picked on the short and the pudgy and made studiously stayed out of their orbits.

My home life was more of the same, and I’m sure my parents were eternally grateful. When you have six kids to keep track of, knowing that one of them is reading copies of The Hockey News in the basement must have brought immeasurable peace of mind.

Which brings me to my recent family outing to Las Vegas and the return of Simon to my life.

Those of you who followed my Cook Islands blog (www.backtothebeach.wordpress.com) will remember Simon as one half of the duo I dubbed The Welsh. Simon and his girlfriend, Silent Sam, rented the bungalow one over from mine at Mount View Lodges and for several months we kept each other from becoming too homesick.

Simon and Sam eventually continued their journey – one that would take them to such places as New Zealand, Australia, China and Cambodia – before heading home to Cardiff.

While we remained Facebook friends, I really never expected to see Simon again.

And then he flies into Las Vegas to meet up with me. Heartbroken that his relationship with Sam had ended, he’d hit the road again, this time to America.

The plan was to fly to San Francisco, come see me in Las Vegas, check in with another friend in Atlanta, and then make his way to New York City before heading home.

But planning was never Simon’s (nor Sam’s, for that matter) strong suit and so a chance encounter with the Occupy San Francisco camp put a serious kink in his itinerary.

I have to admit to not fully understanding what, exactly, the assorted Occupy movements were demanding. “Share the wealth” was, I believe, one of the mantras. Personally, I would have gone for “Please help me find a job so I, too, can accumulate wealth,” but that’s just me.

But Simon is 28 and an impressionable young lad – as opposed to me, now far too old for revolution – and so the Occupy SF people fascinated him. Which is why he wanted to visit the Occupy Las Vegas location. With me.

Which is how I – Mr. Avoid Confrontation At All Cost Lest It Lead To Trouble – ended up at the camp.

Did that make me party to the demonstration? Hardly. Considering there were maybe 10 people present, and they all pretty much ignored me, I was consigned to the role of curious bystander.

Simon was right into it, as I suspected he might be. Plus, he had stories to share about the San Francisco movement. While he chatted, I hovered on the edges, trying not to look bored or, worse yet, content with my lot in life.

A policeman drove in at one point and, after eyeballing me as I snapped his photo, he drove away again, satisfied his services weren’t required. There was talk about conspiracy theories, how someone was spreading Chinese whispers about militia members infiltrating the ranks and wreaking havoc.

There were tents and signs and food and portable toilets – even a rudimentary antenna to provide access to the Internet. For the most part, people simply wandered about. No angry slogans, no pumping fists, no anarchy.

Simon and I parted ways soon after.

I went back to my family, to laugh loudly and eat too much and stare too long into the bright lights of commercialism.

Simon went back to San Francisco where he was beaten by the police and tear-gassed and only avoided being arrested by sheer luck and good timing.

He never did make it to Atlanta. He arrived in New York City mere hours before his flight departed for Cardiff and so never did mingle with the Occupy Wall Street people who initiated the entire protest.

He’s back in Wales now, looking at his photos, reviewing his video. He has a million stories to tell. Some day, if the universe is kind, he and I will sit down once more over coffee and he will tell them all to me.

If the universe is even kinder, Silent Sam will join us. She won’t say anything but, if only for a couple of hours, The Welsh and I will be reunited and life will feel right again.

If you need me, I’ll be the naked guy drinking coffee on the beach.

My entire existence has been reduced to 20 kilograms. Forty-four pounds. That’s it. That’s me.

A return to journalism means yet another move. The good news is I’ll be out of the seniors’ care home laundry and, fingers crossed, will no longer have to worry about shaking hands with a fresh turd.

The bad news is, well, 44 pounds.

That’s my baggage limit for the flight — everything I value needs to be crammed into one lousy suitcase. Where do I even start?

My first choice would be to take 44 pounds of coffee but that doesn’t leave any room for clothes. Of course, after consuming that much caffeine, I’d be moving so fast, no one would notice I was naked.

I don’t have to worry about electronics because those toys for boys will be safely stored in my carry-on. This whole not being permitted to lock your suitcase thing is a bit of a joke, really, because it’s less about security and more about making it easier for baggage handlers to go all garage sale on your stuff.

“Hey, does this digital camera look like a bomb to you? Yeah, me too. Think I’ll save lives by taking it home.”

My theory for packing is this: do not put anything in a suitcase you’re not willing to never see again.

If I was simply off to play tourist, the decisions would be much easier: clothes and toiletries. But I’m moving. I’ll need pens and notebooks and my scissors and my spare glasses and my favourite deodorant and a whole bunch of AA batteries. Because things will be expensive at my destination and I won’t be making a lot of money.

And then there’s the whole weight-to-bulk ratio. I look at my list of preferred items and realize the lighter objects take up a lot of room and the smaller ones are heavy. I’m not sure this is going to work. Even with my one allowed piece of carry-on and my man purse and every pocket crammed full, I have this sinking feeling I will have to jettison something I dearly want to take.

At that point, I will hand the entire operation over to Viking Woman, who is slated to follow me at a later date.

She is an expert at spatial relations. You know those tests where they show you different objects and ask which one matches the other except it’s turned inside out and backwards? And sideways. Underwater.

Viking Woman can answer those. She has filled the back of our hatchback so efficiently with a million things that you’d swear the car came that way straight from the factory’s assembly line.

I, on the other hand, am hopeless. I’m lucky if I can fit my foot into my shoe, never mind 44 pounds of my life into a suitcase.

The main difference between us is that I’m sentimental, which is why Orange Monkey, who has guarded my pillow for years, is on my list. I also tend to take three of everything, even though I know perfectly well I will only need one.

Viking Woman is — how shall I put this — pretty much ruthless. Which means Orange Monkey will not be leaving the house at this time. Which means the culling of precious objects will be methodical and logical and oh so cruel.

I will rant. I will stomp my tiny feet in rage and frustration. I will throw up my hands and flee the room, screaming. But, in the end, everything essential to my new life will fit in that suitcase and it will weigh exactly 44 pounds.

And it will have been packed with love.

The most important thing I could ever take with me, and it doesn’t weigh a single ounce.

Told you she was good.

Coffee makes my soul dance. And sing. Because black is the new gold.

It’s not often I wish this blog had a scratch’n’sniff app, but this is one of those times. That way, I could fully relive a recent visit to the warehouse where my good and kind friend Richard Corney roasts his own coffee beans.

This is the second location for Richard’s five-kilo Has Garanti barrel roaster. When he originally had the idea to put his own mark on the coffee being served at his cafe, the roaster was set up in his parents’ garage. It was rough, it was rudimentary, and it was all the space Richard really needed to turn green beans into magic elixir.

I first visited Richard’s roasting operation a year ago.  We’ve kept in contact since then — his café is my go-to destination when I need a caffeine fix — and so he invited me back on the weekend to show me his new setup.

While I took notes and photos and breathed in the scented smoke — smelling, surprisingly, not so much of coffee itself, but rather of potato skins cooking on a barbecue — Richard concentrated on putting together sample packages of the 10 different Fair Trade single-origin beans he has stored in a collection of burlap sacks slumped around the room.

I maintained my silence as Richard concentrated on the roasting, because listening to the process is just as important as watching.

Coffee beans crack under heat — producing a noise like that of corn popping — first to shed their husks and then again along the beans’ natural fault line. That’s why Richard’s first step was to monitor the roaster’s temperature.

“Temperatures vary, depending on which bean you’re roasting,” he said. “That is very much the secret of roasting coffee, and some of the intellectual property of the big companies. They roast their coffee at different temperatures than other people, and you get a different drinking experience.”

Asked what it takes to attain a perfect roast, Richard said, “lots and lots and lots of practice.”

“Roasters from the big coffee companies are masters of their art,” he said. “There are so many elements that are all involved in making a perfect cup of coffee, but it starts with a good roaster who knows what they’re doing. There’s an instinct to it.”

When I prepare to depart, Richard is still hunched over the roaster, peering at the machine’s dials, making verbal notes with his iPhone, carefully monitoring the darkness of the beans, looking very much the modern-day Dr. Frankenstein intent on his creation.

I leave bearing my own bag of beans, a parting gift that I plan to grind and brew at home so that I may salute Richard’s technique and expertise at least once a day. Oh, OK — maybe twice.

Daily Photo Project 2010 — Jan. 10

Coffee bean husks, Flight Coffee roasting shed, Napier, New Zealand, 5:40 p.m.

Daily Photo Project 2010 — Jan. 3

New logo, Flight Coffee, Napier, New Zealand, 4 p.m.

Because I ace taste tests, I get to keep the mermaid tattoo on my ass.

I knew just by the smell.

Years ago, I took the Pepsi Challenge and, after merely hovering my schnozz over the cup, I could discern which liquid offering was Pepsi and which was the Real Thing.

For one, Pepsi is more carbonated. So the fizz tickling my nostrils was a dead giveaway. For another, Coca-Cola tends to have a “heavier” smell, a “darker” smell, which is also reflected in its taste.

Coke makes me say, “Whoa!” Pepsi makes me say, “Sparkling excrement.”

I put those same senses to work yesterday while waiting in line at the Starbucks location within walking distance of my parents’ house. One of the employees was manning a table featuring two unmarked carafes and urging customers to take the “Starbucks Via Taste Challenge.”

My first thought: I can do this.

My second thought: I can ace this.

With my fellow Starbuckers looking on, I first smelled and then sipped. Actually, the taste part was redundant and the barista knew that the  instant I smiled.

But, kudos to him, he kept a straight face while asking me if I was sure. Not sure so much as absolutely sure. I assured him if I was mistaken, he could operate the laser while it removed the Starbucks mermaid tattoo from my ass.

Turns out I was correct. Either that or the threat of seeing my naked butt scared the poor fellow so badly he would have agreed to anything, even if I told him the sun was actually a large Frisbee.

Admittedly, the Via wasn’t terrible but that doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s still the end result of adding a pouch of powdered coffee to a cup of boiling water.

Which prompts this question to Starbucks is: Are you out of your f****ing mind?

You can call Via “ready brew” all you want (after, according to the barista, spending some 20 years developing the product), but all the PR-slash-astute marketing in the world can’t disguise the fact that what you’ve developed is still instant coffee.

And by instant coffee I mean a concoction that starts off as quality-challenged beans before being soaked in an open sewer, stored in someone’s armpit for several weeks and then run through whatever further processes are needed to guarantee it will survive a nuclear holocaust.

For Christ’s sake, if you’re going to waste all that time and resources reinventing the wheel, give us a rocket ship, not a frickin’ horse.

When I’m offered coffee by our New Zealand friends, I know for a fact they’re about to blow the dust off an old jar of Nescafe that’s been tucked in the back of the pantry for the better part of this century.

When I mention how my favorite coffee is the brewed variety, I draw blank stares, as if I’d just created my own language. This in a country where people regularly use the terms “away with the fairies” or “box of birds” to answer the question, “How are you?”

New Zealand, you see, went directly from instant coffee to espresso machines, skipping right past the filter stage in the process.

And now Starbucks wants to take us back to the bad old days of serving what is little more than cups of hot, black water?

The mermaid on my ass is grimacing at the mere thought of such blasphemy. And, believe me, that is not a pretty sight.

***

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***

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It tastes like someone poured heaven into your mouth. And then kissed your hot tongue.

Our friend Steve busted his cherry yesterday and I was there to witness the momentous occasion.

Before you get all sweaty, I am not talking about sex. I am, in fact, talking about something far more important than sex — coffee.

And by coffee I mean Starbucks. And by that I mean the best coffee on Planet Man, as opposed to the hot, brown water served up on other, less sophisticated worlds.

Steve was a fortysomething virgin when we crossed the threshold of the Napier Starbucks. I found that fact both intriguing and disturbing. This, after all, is a man who possesses a lengthy and fascinating CV: ex-Army, spent several years eating reindeer jerky while living in Norway where he learned to speak several Scandinavian languages, immigrated to New Zealand, became an IT dude, grew bored with that and now works for Customs, where he hunts down illegals, both human and pharmaceutical.

Steve knows coffee. After all, this is a man who owns a $2,500 Isomac Millennium, a technological marvel that does everything but transport the green beans out of South America. Given a burro, it might just do that as well.

Steve could charge good money for the liquid manna that flows from that machine’s grouphead and yet  . . . And yet he had never set foot in a Starbucks, the Mecca, the Valhalla, the Promised Land of all things caffeine.

Until yesterday, that is. And I sat right there beside him, nursing my tall mug of filtered coffee, while he sipped a tall black. And smiled.

Another convert!

Well — maybe. Somehow I think Steve went home today and hugged his Isomac and then turned it on and moonwalked around his kitchen as black gold brewed in the machine’s chromed guts and all thoughts of Starbucks hissed away like so much spent steam.

The thing is, other than the brief overview above, I don’t know that much about Steve. He’s more Viking Woman’s friend than mine. They met when Steve was an IT guru in the same hospital where Viking Woman worked. They met one day when she came storming into the building’s sub-basement demanding why her office’s Internet connection had been cut off.

“Because you did a search for ‘oral sex’,” Steve said.

“I work in Sexual Health,” Viking Woman said. “That wasn’t a search; that was research.”

“OK, fine,” said Steve.

“Wanna go for a coffee,” said Viking Woman.

Or something like that.

The thing is this: the three of us bonded over coffee.

Twenty years ago that wouldn’t have happened. Before Starbucks launched its goal of world domination, coffee was something you saw sitting in a stained glass carafe in a greasy-spoon cafe, fit not for drinking but rather for paving your driveway.

I didn’t touch the stuff until I met Viking Woman. She was in sales at the time and it was not uncommon for her to down 40 cups of the elixir — every day. Which would explain why she tended to bounce around rooms screaming, “Let’s go!!”

(Editor’s Note: Viking Woman is now on a cleansing regimen, which includes eliminating caffeine from her diet. That headache? It’s real now. And, oh yeah, “go” has been replaced by “go away.”)

We dated at the Starbucks in Peninsula Village, gazing through the mist issuing from our cups, kissing bagel crumbs from each other’s lips. Coffee tasted like love in those days.

I guess, in a way, it still does.

Except now I drink mine while wrapped in my housecoat, hunched over a computer in the spare room, while Viking Woman sips hers between layers of makeup as she dons her Woman Warpaint before blowing air kisses at the back of me as she heads out the door to work.

Some days, after she’s gone and the caffeine hasn’t quite flushed sleep from my system, I close my eyes and take a hot slurp of coffee. It tastes of new relationships and shy glances and holding hands and the shivery quiver of anticipation. It tastes of past lives and promises made and vows kept.

It tastes of all the bright todays and brilliant tomorrows.

Right there in my mouth.

You touch, you die. No exceptions. No mercy.

Other than the obvious (dangly bits + vise grips + blowtorch = pain), there are not too many ways to hurt those of us who inhabit Planet Man.

For the most part, we’re quite adept at shrugging off the roadblocks life throws at us. For example:

Wife: “Honey, I ran over the family dog.” Planet Man resident: “No problem. I saw a cute St. Bernard puppy at the pet store.”

Wife: “Honey, I put the vacuum cleaner nozzle through the 42-inch TV.” Planet Man resident: “No problem. Super-Duper Electronics Emporium has a sale on 100-inch models.”

Wife: “Honey, I forgot to buy coffee at the store.” Planet Man resident: “No problem. We’ll sell your grandmother’s jewelry that survived the Titanic sinking and buy a coffee plantation so we’ll always have a steady supply.”

However . . .

As even-tempered and understanding and patient and caring and loving as all men tend to be, there is a short list of things we will not tolerate. And by short, I mean one thing: Do. Not. Touch. Our. Stuff.

This is one of those unwritten rules that should be included in all marriage vows. Right there with all the crap stuff about love, honour, obey, blah-blah-blah.

“Back away from the Man Stuff” should be in the Constitution. And the Bill of Rights. I believe it’s already in the Magna Carta and will soon be added to the Geneva Convention. It’s even in the Bible, right there with all those covet commandments.

Dear Wife: You can boss me around, force me to watch Grey’s Anatomy, coerce me into giving you a back massage, elbow me into conversing with your mother and admiring your manicure without surrendering to the gag reflex, but my Stuff is out of bounds. Verboten. Yes, that does mean you. I have my lawyer on speed dial. Or I will as soon as I figure out how to work this damn cellphone. You haven’t seen the instructions around here anywhere, have you? No? Now, where was I? Oh yeah . . .

Each inhabitant of Planet Man has his own particular Stuff (also referred to as Invaluable Treasures). I, for example, possess books and magazines, Orange Monkey (don’t ask), my MacBook (love you!), the coffee machine and several items tucked under my side of the mattress. These are not to be touched by Viking Woman under any circumstances (unless, of course, she is standing inside our burning house and passing them out to me through an open window).

However, lest you think I’m being childish unreasonable, please note that she is allowed to touch my clothes, but only to remind herself there is actually carpet in the bedroom.

Due to a recent interest in food preparation, my Eternal List of Wonders (as it’s also sometimes known) has expanded to include certain items in the kitchen and pretty much everything in the pantry. The latter is also a perfect example of my organizational skills. Everything I need at that very moment is right at the front. Everything I don’t need right now is jammed into a dark corner somewhere.

It’s chaos but it’s MY chaos and I relish its wild, untamed nature. Or I did. Because, over a recent rainy weekend, Viking Woman and a visiting friend decided the pantry could use a bit of a tidy.

While I sulked read in the bedroom, they proceeded to pull everything out, rubbish those items whose best-by dates were achieved in the 20th century, and then place the purge survivors back on the shelves. They used a method they like to call “alphabetical.” Yeah, right. As if that’s real. Nice try. You can’t fool Planet Man with fancy words.

I look in the pantry now and feel violated. All the bottles and containers are upright or stacked. The cereal boxes stand at attention side-by-each. The baking supplies nestle together on one shelf, eagerly awaiting the spatula and a pre-heated oven. There are storage boxes filled with satchels of tea and hot chocolate, with tubes of sugar and envelopes of salt and pepper. The food wraps are all here. The sandwich spreads are all there.

It’s all so . . . so . . . neat.

And by neat I mean prissy. And by prissy I mean, oh, there’s the Smoked Paprika I haven’t seen since 2004. Hello, old friend. Meet potato salad.

Thanks honey! Um, I mean, don’t ever touch my Stuff again!

At least not until the next time I can’t find the Cajun Seasoning. I’m serious!

There is no Internet in Hell. There are, however, buses.

* I’m passing through downtown Tawa and — damn! — I blinked and missed it. Fifteen minutes north of Wellington. If nearby Porirua is a bedroom community, then Tawa is a Murphy bed.

* Two cafes in town. Both close at 3:30. You want coffee after that, you’d better have your own plantation, roaster and espresso machine. Unless you’re content to drink instant coffee. In which case, you pretty much deserve Tawa. And don’t ever speak to me again.

* A room in the Bucket Tree Motor Lodge. Smells musty. Redolent of mildew. Open a window every 10 years, people. No soap or shampoo. I used to run a B&B. I know those little packages are cheap as chips. $125 a night and you have to bring your own basic toiletries? In a civilized country, that would be known as highway robbery.

No Internet. Can’t blog. Can’t check NHL scores. Can’t write home. If I’ve suddenly been transported back in time, why don’t I have more hair?

Place gets its name from the humungous tree out front. And, yes, if you stand on your head, it does look just like a bucket. At least until the blood floods your brain and you pass out.

Built on some sort of historical site. I’m going to assume the train tracks passing within feet of the building came later.

* Said train is of the commuter variety, linking these dinky backwaters with the Big Smoke that is Wellington, capital of New Zealand, home to political sorts and other undesirables. I’ve never ridden a commuter train. Sounds like fun. Oh, except it’s closed this weekend for maintenance. Instead, I have to take a bus to Wellington. I’ve ridden buses before. There is no fun factor involved.

By the time the bus pulls into Tawa, it’s full. I’m standing for 20 minutes, pretty much swinging from the suppot rail by one hand every time the bus leans into corners. Trying not to drop either my camera or my laptop on some granny’s blue-tinged head.

* Wellington in the spring = sun/clouds/sun/clouds/sun. Sunglasses on, off, on, off. I’m freezing. I’m wearing too many clothes. Hey, you build a city surrounded by water (hello, San Francisco), Mother Nature is going to take you up the ass for being such a cheeky bastard.

* Conversation in Starbucks with Asian girl behind the counter:

Me: A tall Anniversary blend, please.

Her: Are you Irish?

Me: No, I’m Canadian.

Translation of conversation in Starbucks:

Me: A tall Anniversary blend, please.

Her: We’ve switched over to Estima.

Me: No, I’m Canadian.

They say your hearing is the first to go. Well, after your hair, that is. And about the same time as your waistline.

* The library. Thank you, Jesus. I have a Telecom New Zealand wireless account. Telecom has dotted the country with hotspots. The library has to contain one of them. But, oh dear, my computer can’t “see” any of them. However, should I care to enter my credit card number, I have two sites to choose from. Uh, no. The NHL scores will still be there when I return to Napier.

* The trains are supposed to be operating again by the time I arrive at the station at 2. They’re not. Back on the bus. The lady ahead of me in line is 4-foot-11 and 300 pounds. The steps into the bus are high and steep. She manages to heave one massive leg onto the first step. She stops. She’s stuck. She doesn’t have the strength to pull herself any higher.

“Help me,” she bleats.

The bus driver grabs one of the woman’s arms and begins to pull. The woman shifts maybe three inches. I glance at the teenage girl behind me. I raise an eyebrow as if to say, “Should we be helping here?” She flashes me one of those “Whatever” expressions and looks away. I’m on my own with this one.

From what I understand of physics and gravity, the ideal location for me to put my hands to achieve optimum heft would be under the woman’s butt. However, painful experience has taught me that — and you might want to write this one down — some women do not appreciate having strange men touching their posteriors.

In the end, as it were, I let the driver do most of the heavy lifting and simply put one ineffectual hand in the woman’s arm pit and push gingerly. If this were one of those Good Samaritan tests to see who is worthy enough to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, I failed miserably.

It’s pretty much straight to Hell for me. Well, either there or Tawa.

The Bean Bang Theory explained. Finally.

A sharp knock. An unexpected visitor. A man looming in my doorway, paper bags clutched in his hand.

He tells me he wants to make my head explode. He wants to stop my heart.

“What? Again?”

Richard Corney had read my blog about his new company, Flight Coffee. He was disappointed the beans he gave me earlier hadn’t induced the BANG! effect I’ve received (and enjoyed — I call it a Brain Orgasm) from other filter/drip brews. He’s come to my home, bearing three more samples, fresh out of his roaster. He is determined to shock my system, as all good coffee should.

I like Richard. He’s a mate. We share a passion for coffee. And by passion, I actually mean PASSION. Last wish before the firing squad? Coffee, please. Oh, and hold the milk. I’m not dying with a foam mustache, thanking you.

We also share a history.

His Espresso Garden Cafe was the second company I featured when I started as a freelance writer for the Hawke’s Bay Today newspaper in Napier, New Zealand. The story on Flight Coffee will be my final story before I move on to greener pastures (read full-time employment).

I want to say nice things about Richard Corney. I want to say nice things about Flight Coffee. After all, I’ve seen him at work, watched him fuss over his roaster like Dr. Frankenstein tinkering with his creature. Timing, adjusting, fretting, hoping, muttering, pacing — all in the quest for the perfect cup of joe.

And then I had the gall to say I’ve had better.

I try to explain to Richard that my “better” involved Starbucks, where they have all this fancy, expensive equipment, none of which currently resides in my kitchen. Starbucks built its reputation on coffee — filter and espresso. It lives and dies by the bean. I cannot possibly hope to duplicate their filtering process in my humble abode. Well, not until I win Lotto, that is.

But I try. And I hope. And I cross my fingers and hold my breath and brew. The very next morning.

But I can already tell by the colour of the stream pouring from the carafe that I have failed. Richard put his heart and soul into roasting this batch of Mandling Sumatra beans and I’m about to go all Rome on him and turn my thumb down.

Maybe it’s my coffee machine. Or its mesh filter. Maybe my grinder is old. And dull. Or I’m grinding it too fine. Maybe it’s actually a dark roast that clenches my heart like a sphincter and Richard has supplied me with light and medium.

Maybe it’s simply a matter of taste. After all, Viking Woman loves spicy food, but I find it burns all the way down and all the way out. Blisters on my tongue, blisters on my colon — not a pretty sight.

There are a million reasons for the no-BANG! theory and not one of them has anything to do with Flight Coffee. Or that crazed mad scientist of a Richard Corney.

Later, in the dead zone that is the afternoon — when any sane freelance writer should be napping to conserve his energy for the big night of TV viewing ahead — I decide to try again.

This time I use the French press. This time I grind for only 10 John Seconds (measured in rhythmic nods of my great pumpkin of a head), thus making for a coarser grind.

And this time there is something. Not quite a BANG! perhaps, but most definitely a WTF!

I smile. I smack my lips. My fingers tremble from the caffeine high and my bladder screams as it spasms and I know sleep will not come easy to me tonight. And I do not care.

Richard, you little beauty, you legend, you have fed my jones and my jones liked it.

Liked it a lot.

Now my jones, my NEED, my habit, requires more. I may very well be addicted to Flight Coffee. I’m going to assume that’s a good thing.

We must, however, never discount what I like to call the Free Factor. To date, Richard has been kind enough to give me samples. And, as my brother Jerry likes to say (albeit in reference to beer), free just tastes better. I’m assuming the same holds true for coffee . . .

. . . Nah! This is just good shit. End. Of. Story.

Now stand back. If this cranium of mine goes off, it’s going to get awfully messy in here.