Afternoon sunshine

[Water Warrior 2]

Went for a nice ride today in sunshine and +12 C temps(54 F). Stopped at a viewpoint just North of Horseshoe Bay where the ferries come in. Hope the pics come through.
http://s4.postimage.org/rW6US.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aVrW6US)

http://s4.postimage.org/rWgTr.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aVrWgTr)

http://s2.postimage.org/EbUr.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=TsEbUr)

http://s4.postimage.org/rWvRi.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aVrWvRi)

Hmm, pics don't look near as nice as I had hoped. Operator error with the camera no doubt.

[burkbuilds]

Wow, that's some beautiful scenery, thanks for sharing!

[BusyWeb]

Hi, Mr. WW.
Congrats that you could have good riding finally.
Photos look O.K. for me.
It's typical Digital Camera Photos; facing bright light.

I try to adjust some details using MS Photo Gallery.
Add shadow brightness, add contrast...little bit.. ha ha ha (still not good..^^;)

[Water Warrior 2]

Usually my pics are better than these. As handy as a digital is, I would still like to be using my 1975 Pentax SLR. It is in perfect condition but batteries are no longer available. No idea why I keep it.

[bonehead]

Usually my pics are better than these. As handy as a digital is, I would still like to be using my 1975 Pentax SLR. It is in perfect condition but batteries are no longer available. No idea why I keep it.
Have you tried "batteries +". I'm sure they're online and they say they carry rare and hard to find batteries.

[dhgeyer]

Looks like a nice day for a ride. Better weather than we had. I did 55 miles yesterday in temps from 26 F to 32 F. I didn't take any pictures. It was too cold.

Digital has its advantages. Here's what can be done with Adobe Photoshop in 3 minutes or less. A really serious editing effort would yield better results, I'm sure.

http://s2.postimage.org/28Fni.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts28Fni)

[alantf]

I would still like to be using my 1975 Pentax SLR.

Did Pentax fit a special battery? I've still got my Olympus from the same era, & it just uses the "aspirin" type batteries that you can still get everywhere. :??: :)

[Water Warrior 2]

I would still like to be using my 1975 Pentax SLR.

Did Pentax fit a special battery? I've still got my Olympus from the same era, & it just uses the "aspirin" type batteries that you can still get everywhere. :??: :)
My Pentax must use an odd battery. Just a little coin shaped thing but haven't found one in years. Maybe this is a good time to go on a search to keep me busy and out of trouble.

[burkbuilds]

You could search by getting on your bike and going from one battery store to another until you find one. At least it would be a good excuse to go riding.

[Water Warrior 2]

You could search by getting on your bike and going from one battery store to another until you find one. At least it would be a good excuse to go riding.
Starbucks, battery store, Starbucks, battery store, Starbucks, battery store..............lol.

[alantf]

My Pentax must use an odd battery. Just a little coin shaped thing but haven't found one in years.

Yes, that's what we call "aspirin" batteries. Some are small & thick (like an aspirin!) & some are wider & thinner, like a coin. I get a card with around 40 batteries (5 or 6 different sizes) from the £1.00 store in England, & the Kodak store, over here, seems to carry any others that I may need. Just like there's stuff that you can get that we can't,it may be that we can get them here. Why not post some details, such as code number, & size. If I can find some, it should be cheap enough to send a few to Canada. :2tup:

[alantf]

Starbucks, battery store, Starbucks, battery store, Starbucks, battery store

Hope the North American Starbucks is cheaper then in England. Over there they charge the equivalent of $8 for a cup of coffee, & the American idea of free free refills is totally unheard of in England. :cry:

[dhgeyer]

When I started riding motorcycles, there was still a little storefront restaurant in Belfast, NY where I could get a good cup of coffee for a nickle! That's a 16,000% increase. I'm sure glad inflation generally hasn't kept up. Yet.

[Water Warrior 2]

My Pentax must use an odd battery. Just a little coin shaped thing but haven't found one in years.

Yes, that's what we call "aspirin" batteries. Some are small & thick (like an aspirin!) & some are wider & thinner, like a coin. I get a card with around 40 batteries (5 or 6 different sizes) from the £1.00 store in England, & the Kodak store, over here, seems to carry any others that I may need. Just like there's stuff that you can get that we can't,it may be that we can get them here. Why not post some details, such as code number, & size. If I can find some, it should be cheap enough to send a few to Canada. :2tup:

First I have to locate the camera bag and contents. Last time I saw it was April/05 when moved here and unpacked. Must be someplace safe and sound.

[Water Warrior 2]

Starbucks, battery store, Starbucks, battery store, Starbucks, battery store

Hope the North American Starbucks is cheaper then in England. Over there they charge the equivalent of $8 for a cup of coffee, & the American idea of free free refills is totally unheard of in England. :cry:
:cry: :cry: Yipes, that is a lot for coffee no matter how good it might taste. I pay 3.79 Can for a tall coffee and a slice of banana loaf when I drop in to visit other old guys and pass the time of day. No refills though even if they were free. I really don't like their coffee all that much. And I refuse to pay for the specialty coffees that are 3 or 4 times as much. My fav coffee on the road is 7-11 coffee. Just their regular grind with a little added Irish Cream flavoring and my life is great.

[BusyWeb]

My fav coffee on the road is 7-11 coffee.

That's my coffee too. ^^;
Just to save little cents, I bring my stainless mug (flask) and fill the coffee in. ha ha ha
I can have alot more coffee and save money each time I buy coffee at the 7-11.
I only pay re-fill coffee price, >> and it saves little bit of green too (no intentional but it would) ha ha ha

[burkbuilds]

Yeah, I think all that expensive coffee must be one of those "acquired taste" things because I think they all taste terrible! I'm with you guys, the coffee at the local gas station tastes better than anything they serve at Starbucks and it's usually about 1/3 or less the cost of Starbucks. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of Starbucks are closing, what surprises me is that people were willing to pay that much for a cup of coffee in the first place!

[mrlmd1]

It's all marketing and hype. What about bottled water? The stupid public will buy anything just to be cool or try to impress someone else.

[alanmcorcoran]

We should move the coffee discussion to the flamey thread area, but for my two cents, it's different strokes for different folks. Starbucks, Caribou, Peets, Seattle's Best and the like generally serve much stronger coffee than McDonald's, 7-11, or Duncan Donuts. In many non-coffee shops, the coffee is drip brewed into a glass carafe that sits on a burner that slowly turns the coffee into brown tar. When I was unemployed in the last "Great Recession" (think 77ish, Iran hostages, gas shock/lines, etc.) one of the jobs I interviewed for was selling coffee "extender" (burnt cereal) to restaurants to help them make more money on their crappy coffee. (I didn't get it.)

I like my coffee strong and actually like to drink espresso straight. It ain't for everyone, but most restaurant coffee tastes like crap to me. I also do not like adding the artificial lighteners and flavors (hazelnut, french vanilla, Irish cream, etc.) I do go for real half and half cream but I can't drink anything with the "non-dairy" whiteners.

For the record, a pretty damn large cup of Starbucks costs about $1.60 out here, and they will fill your traveling thermos cup for you if that floats your boat (and your bladder.) Some do re-fills, some don't. I suspect it depends if the barristas know you. When you look at the price of a typical fountain drink in a McDonald's, I don't think $1.60 a cup is outrageous. (alantf, eight bucks IS outrageous, even by euro standards but, c'mon, Spain has great "regular" coffee for cheap.)

Starbucks coffee is not sitting on a burner getting distilled down to hot mud either. I was a little disappointed when they changed their espresso machines over to "not really espresso" but I got over it. I am solidly pro Starbucks but I'm aware that there are plenty of folks that love AM/PM coffee. (Perhaps the same folks that keep A1-steak sauce in business.) Don't take my Starbucks away! When it comes to riding the brown train, let's keep America pro-choice!

[mrlmd1]

Whatever floats your boat, whatever turns you on. No argument here, just voicing a different opinion.

I don't know what kind of Starbucks you buy, maybe a plain black coffee for $1.60, but most cups of Starbucks that I see sold go for $5 and up and are filled with all kinds of crap and flavoring that add up to 500 calories or more. And that $1.60 coffee probably costs them less than10 cents, including cup, to produce. That whole company was built on hype and marketing, not that the coffee is bad, to me it's just not worth the extra expense because there are many better tasting coffees for much less money without the hype. You are paying for the advertising, not the product, IMO. You are paying for the cup that says Starbucks, not Dunkin Donuts, the image more than the taste, IMO.

[burkbuilds]

Alan, you make a great point, what one person likes another can't abide. I'll have to agree with mrlmd1 about the price though, the Starbucks around here don't seem to offer a $1.60 cup of coffee, but again, if the money is not an issue and you prefer the flavor, go for it! I can't bring myself to pay for fountain drinks from Mickey D's either. For that matter, unless there's a little kid bugging the living daylights out of me to go there so they can get a "happy meal" I don't really want anything from the Mickey D lineup.

[dhgeyer]

We recently bought a Keurig coffee maker. Now I can easily make such good coffee at home, I don't bother buying it anywhere else. I would just be disappointed. Did you know that they fill those individual K-cups with nitrogen to prevent the coffee inside from going stale? Wonderful invention! And there's a huge variety of coffee available for it, from the very strong to the mild. And you can brew tea and hot chocolate with it, too! About 50 cents a cup, except Sue and I usually make two cups from each K-cup, because she likes hers weaker anyway, so that's more like 25 cents a cup most of the time.

[alanmcorcoran]

This is a debate that could probably go on for a while, but let me digress on a side argument. I feel I have been fairly (unfairly?) provoked with the "you are paying for image, not taste" comment which implies that I think Starbucks coffee (which as I've already pointed out costs only slightly more than crap coffee) is superior because:

1) I have no ability to tell what tastes good.
2) I have a need to look cool holding a Starbucks cup. (I guess... I wasn't aware this was a "cool" look.)

Taken together, I translate these two "IMO's" into, "Alan, you are an idiot and I am an informed consumer cutting through the bogus, the BS and fraudulent." Well, sir, IMO, I beg to differ!

I hear all the time from business geniuses, such as yourself, about how little things cost to produce (10 cents! Including cup!) and how a company is built on "hype and marketing!" (and advertising!) I do not have cost information on what it costs to prepare a $1.60 cup of Starbucks coffee, but these kinds of smug observations annoy me like bad grammar annoys a school teacher. First of all, the idea that a product costs less than what you have to pay for it is one of the basics of a capitalistic society (it's true! Look it up [See Marx's Manifesto also]), a standard business principle. If no one paid more than what an item costs to produce, our economy would be much smaller, if not non-existent. Secondly, the raw cost of materials (like the cup, the water and the coffee) are generally meaningless from a business perspective. The real estate and the person handing it to you are likely to be majority of the "cost." Perhaps the "advertising" too, but, seriously, can you name a Starbucks ad? As opposed to, say, one for Taco Bell? And the stuff at Taco Bell is hardly expensive.

With regard to companies built on hype and marketing, it's another observation from Dr. Obvious, Chairman of the Duh! School of Business and Sports Commentary. Many companies (and nearly all successful ones) are built and grown using hype and marketing. (Think three million a pop for Super Bowl ads - in the 44th such event - maybe it's just a fluke?) The relative quality of their products may or may not be superior, but promotion and marketing does not automatically equate to bad quality or value. Walmart is one of the biggest advertisers out here and from where I sit, they do a whole lot of hyping and marketing and always have. Friggin' posers! I don't shop at Walmart but I'm gonna guess their coffee is reasonably priced.

As it happens, most of the coffee I drink I prepare at home (or, the wife does.) I use fresh whole roasted beans, that I grind just for the cups I am going to consume. They are ground to a specific grain size. I use home filtered or bottled water (yes it costs a little more but the water that comes directly from the California taps has chlorine, assorted chewable bits and just does not taste good.) I make it with significantly more grinds (2 TBSP per 6 oz) than is used by most restaurants, in a french press, where it is steeped, squeezed and poured in a prescribed amount of time. And, guess what? It tastes better than a package of Taster's choice mixed with hot tap water!

If I said something like, "all doctors are the same, those people paying through the nose to see the ones that went to medical school are just going to their fancy offices and paying for the image... 'Look at me! I can afford a specialist!' They'd save a bundle if they stayed at home and chewed on some tree bark!" you'd think I was an idiot. (Good bark, BTW, is awesome.)

Starbucks ain't saving sick children but they do what they do very well and, although the difference may not be apparent to you, you'd make a stronger argument if you gave an informed critique of the coffee (which you apparently have never tasted!) rather than blanket labelling of its fans a bunch of saps that will drink anything in a fancy container. There are people that find fault with their roasting process and have called them out on Vietnamese vs Arabica beans and so on, but that doesn't seem to be the argument here.

(PS. Happy to provide some fodder for flamage - site was getting a little tame lately...)
(PPS. 2-4 TBSP's of decent coffee beans cost more than ten cents. More on that if anyone cares.)

[BusyWeb]

:popcorn:

:hide:

ha ha ha...

[alantf]

(alantf, eight bucks IS outrageous, even by euro standards but, c'mon, Spain has great "regular" coffee for cheap.)



I totally agree............. because what I said was that in ENGLAND it's $8 a cup. I like my coffee black, so in a bar, over here, I ask for cafè Alemagne (German coffee). You get a large cup of strong black coffee for €1 ($1.50?) At home I use Colombian coffee (arabica beans) in an electric coffee maker that drips boiling water onto the coffee that is in a conical filter.

I've heard that in America you don't have many electric kettles, or electric coffee makers, because your mains voltage is only half of ours, so the cables would have to be twice as thick to carry the required current (power in watts equals voltage times current!)

The Spaniards drink "cafè sólo". That's an egg cup sized cup of coffee' so thick that the spoon could stand up in it, & with so much sugar it's unbelievable. I drink it out of politeness, in friends' houses, but to me it's revolting. :cry:

[mrlmd1]

Jeez AC, how many cups of coffee did you have today? Caffeine overdose? Bad day? Bad cup of Starbucks? Bad server?
I wasn't attacking YOU in any way, I said that from the start, and "IMO" is just that, and should not make you paranoid and set you off on a tirade implying I demeaned YOU, and there's no reason to get nasty about this. "YOU" meant generic you, the public, not specifically you, Alan Corcoran. Ease up.
I also brew my own cups of coffee in the morning, grinding my own beans to my liking. ( Your specific grain size - do you measure it every time to make sure it's right?) And it's MY liking, which may not necessarily be yours, but I'd still invite you over for a cup. And I have tasted Starbucks, for what that's worth.
Some of what you said is true, the same applies to me, it's an opinion, and they don't always agree, so let's end this here before ER jumps in (lol).


By the way, nice pics WW, but it does look cold outside looking at them and I could just about feel the wind up there. Nothing wrong with the quality of the pictures, it reflects the weather and the mood. Very nice.

[Sarris]

I piss in my coffee just so it doesn't taste like shit.

:poke2: :lol:

[alanmcorcoran]

When I was in Barcelona, the default coffee was what we would call "espresso" (they just call it Coffee in Spanish) and it was cheap (maybe not even one Euro - and when I was there a Euro = 75 cents or so) and very good. (I stopped putting sugar in mine about ten years and ten weight loss pushes ago. Got used to it and prefer it without sugar now. Still can suck down a Dr. Pepper though - go figure.) I think you could ask for blanco (w/milk?) or italiano or even americano for variations. The French also have good coffee, but it costs a lot more. The English are known for tea (and pints, of course) but, as you've noted, they have Starbucks!

[alanmcorcoran]

Mrlmd,

I am having some delicious coffee right now, as a matter of fact. Although I drink somewhat less than I used to, I wouldn't mind be characterized as a bit of an addict and somewhat of a fanatic. I don't think I am paranoid though, and although I get you weren't atttacking me personally, I *was* counterattacking you (or maybe, more precisely, your arguments.)

My problem is not paranoia, nor too much coffee. More like avoiding doing my real work. It's easier to get on here and have ones points of view than to do the stuff I'm supposed to be doing (which I'd better get back to.) Also, I guess I feel more comfortable debating coffee than I do debating motorcycle maintenance intervals. And, I'm a little more passionate about my caffeine fix than I am about the weather, which seemed to be a default topic for the last few weeks.

Sarris,

Took me about five minutes before I got it. To be fair, the coffee had not kicked in yet.

Water, my apologies for highjacking your thread, (but I didn't start it! I will cease my digression here.)

To get back on topic - I think the photos have nice composition but the colors look washed out and overall the focus is very soft. In general, cheaper digital cameras don't take as good pictures in low light.

[burkbuilds]

Well, I am not a very good photographer, or a very experienced coffee drinker either for that matter. I liked your pics WW, and I respect alan's choice to choose the coffee he likes to drink, whatever the cost. Me, I drink JFG brewed in a Mr. Coffee maker every morning and I'm fine with it. If I have to buy it on the road, I prefer the stuff they serve at most gas stations. I have had a brew at Starbucks, and there wasn't enough stuff in the add in's to make it palatable for my tastes, but as Alan pointed out we all have different tastes. As for price, I am a broke college student and price does matter, so anything over about 99 cents is just out of my league anyway, but that doesn't mean it's not worth what you pay for it, just not in my budget. Sorry if I came off as attacking you Alan, not my intention, some men like beer some like whiskey, some like champagne. It was not my intention to be insulting in any way to anyones preferences. I am glad we all like different things, it would be a really boring world if everybody was the same! Here's to you and everyone, for their individuality, Cheers!

[Water Warrior 2]

Wow, this turned into a neat subject. Europeans have been lead astray, we all have at least one Coffee maker per household. With the exception of non coffee drinkers of course but that is assuming they never have company come visit.

Starbucks may seem a bit high priced but part of their profits go into world wide projects like providing clean drinking water to kids in 3rd world countries. A lot of their expensive nik naks for sale are produced in 3rd world countries with the idea of providing jobs and a better life for the folks. A lot of said sales profits are pumped right back into the emerging economy to brighten the future. This was told to me by the local manager who seems on the up an up.

[alantf]

(1) When I was in Barcelona, the default coffee was what we would call "espresso" (2) I think you could ask for blanco

(1) We think of Barcelona as being in Cataluña, not Spain. They have their own culture, language etc.

(2) Nearly, but not quite! It's "café con leche" (coffee with milk), & it's usually only foreigners who would want it that way.

:2tup:

[alanmcorcoran]

That's right. It's been a few years. The language is deceiving - sort of half french half spanish - I sort of know french but sometimes I ordered stuff that wasn't what I thought it was. A very beautiful place.