Author: Joe White

Due to popular demand, we are once again featuring Roast Suckling Pig!
Not to fret, those of you keeping kosher, halal, or vegetarian: there’ll be alternatives available.

There will be a moonwalk, so bring the kids. (Will try to limit the time that Glenn and David spend in there.)

Details –

Date: Saturday, June 19, 2004
Time: 6pm until we’re done
Place: Casa Blanca (directions can be found at http://joewhite.com/findit.html)
How it works: We’ll provide the meat and drinks. We ask that you bring your appetite, and maybe a side or dessert.

RSVP party@joewhite.com so we have some idea of the quantities to procure…but show up anyway!

If I you think someone should be invited, invite them! No doubt I’ve failed to notify some folks….

Brought to you once again by:
Hauptchef – David White
Biermeister – Shelton Alsup
Chef des Unternehmens – Ed Benyon, Scott Peacock and Joe White

No, nothing to do with the rock group (although the Melobourne City Council is considering renaming a street after them; I’m instead referring to my destinations for my birthday trip this year, Atlantic City and Washington, DC. Flew up there Thursday and met Greg at his condo, dropped off my bags and grabbed some lunch. Spent the afternoon with Melissa (who had just returned from Russia the day before), then we went to a dim sum place in Bethesda for dinner. Friday futzed around with Greg’s laptop, got it working and wireless, then had dinner at Melissa’s (very cool house built in the ’20s) with a bunch of her coworkers from Baker & Botts…nice folks all around.

Saturday had to wait for my replacement Visa card (mine was stolen earlier in the week), then drove to Atlantic City through storms the whole way. Got there around 4, played poker at Bally’s and discovered I liked it, played through nonstop (save for the 2.5 minutes of the Belmont, when everything stopped) until Eb showed up around 8, then we all played for another hour, then off to the buffet…I lost the rochambeau. 🙁 40 minutes later and we’re all back at the tables, and don’t leave until 3:30 or so, but all of us winners! No rooms to be had for love nor money in AC, so we drive out the expressway and find a spot around 4.

Up at 9:30 for the free breakfast, then drop Eb off at the train station around noon, but decide that we can just take him to a line closer in, so go back and get him, and then go play at the Borgata…very nice, no smoking poker room. Tread water most of the afternoon, but win three pots in a row at the end! Walking out, see a roulette wheel that has had 7 ‘low’ numbers in a row, plop down $20 on the ‘high’ numbers, and hit it!

I fall asleep in the car, but wake up when we stop at a diner somewhere in NJ. You know it’s going to be good when the bread basket has Challah and banana nut bread. Despite Eb’s directions, we get him to a train station, then head back to DC, where we meet Melissa for a quick coffee.

Monday sleep in late, then meet Greg & Melissa for Mongolian BBQ, then museums until I realize my flight is in 90 minutes, subway back to Greg’s, grab my stuff, subway out to Ronald Reagan National, and make it there just as they start boarding. I love cutting it close. 🙂
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In bicycling, a one-hundred mile ride is commonly referred to as a century. I’ve done several in the past, including twice on the MS150, my ride from Bratislava to Esztergom, and until yesterday most recently from Oak Grove to New Iberia, LA, on my ill-fated attempted ride to DC. All these previous rides, though, had been point A to point B rides. Yesterday was my first circuit century (route in blue).

Ride notes:


  • I hate flats. Puncture through the middle of the tread at Jensen just inside the loop. So much for these vaunted tires.

  • While failing to find a short cut through a subdivision, I did stumble upon the house of the guy from whom I bought the hovercraft.
  • I like tail winds.
  • Stopped for lunch in New Caney.
  • Oddest street name: Lawsuit Lane, in New Caney.
  • I don’t like headwinds.
  • To avoid the above, cut through on Grogan’s Mill and rode by JP’s old apartment.
  • Rested underneath the overpass at I-45 and Steubner Airline, and again at Pershing MS on Hardy.
  • Seven and a half hours of biking to do 109 miles…not too bad…would like to get it to avg. 15mph.