Myrtle Beach Bike Week 2014

Anyone that's ever visited or lived in Myrtle Beach knows that May means one thing - BIKE WEEK.  The second week of May, thousands of bikers (as in motorcycles, not bicycles) crowd into Myrtle Beach to... well... I never really knew what.  I lived in Myrtle for five years, but all I really ever knew of Bike Week is that the traffic is horrific.

Funnily enough, now that I've moved out of Myrtle Beach, I got the chance to actually experience it.  Patrick had friends come down from Maine to stay with us for the week, and I rode down to Myrtle with everyone for one day to see what Bike Week is actually all about.  Turns out, Bike Week is some of the best people watching ever... I loved it!  I didn't take a whole lot of pictures (and, most annoyingly, I never got a picture of me on a bike for the first time, ugh!), but I had a blast.  We started with The Beaver Bar in Murrell's Inlet,  and then moved on to spend most of our time at Suck Bank Blow (where these many many pictures were taken).

Helmet hair, anyone?  Should've taken a cue from Patrick and brought a hat!

 The bar has a dirty name, I admit, but we just posted up on the balcony and watched everyone below.  My impression of Bike Week was always along the lines of "So you ride your bike from bar to bar... where you get drunk... and then ride again?  Real smart." and while I'm sure there were (unfortunately) some bikers doing that, there's really plenty else to see and do.

We got to SBB at maybe four o'clock?  but we stayed until the sun went down for one thing - a burnout contest.  Don't know what a burnout is?  Never fear, neither did I, so allow me to educate you: a burnout is when you lock the front tire of your bike while letting the back wheel spin as you take the bike through gears.  Eventually, the back tire will blow. Suck Bang Blow's big claim to fame is a "burnout pit" for exactly this purpose. 

The big clear box at the bottom of the screen is the burnout pit, with an exhaust fan at the top to try to help clear the inevitable smoke.

This last photo is right before the contest started.  Once again, I forgot to take a picture of the contest itself (in my defense, my phone was dead, so I had to ask Patrick to take the few photos we do have).  The exhaust fan didn't really do its job very well, anyway, so you really wouldn't have been able to see anything besides the smoke anyway.  We went on Monday, which is really the first official day of Bike Week, and you can see how crowded it is even as the sun isn't quite down.  I can't imagine how packed it gets by Friday.

I didn't know what to expect from Bike Week, and, I admit, most of my expectations were negative, but I truly had a great time.  Riding motorcycles has always been a huge part of Patrick's life, and while I've a long way to go before I love it the way he does, it was nice to be able to share in his favorite hobby even in a little way.  Next time?  More pictures of me on the bike!

Anyone else ever been in the thick of Bike Week, in Myrtle or elsewhere?  Were you as pleasantly surprised as I was?

Patrick's Birthday Card

I love a good greeting card, and every holiday, I try to outdo myself making Patrick a homemade card.  This year, Patrick's birthday fell on Easter Sunday, and, since I worked late Saturday night, I decided to put his "cards" up on the bathroom mirror for him to see when he woke up.  Here's what the final product looked like:

A bit mean for birthday cards, eh?  Look a bit closer...

I know some of those are still a bit hard to read, so here's the full text:

without YOU life would SUCK.

YOU'RE the only thing that can brighten my UGLY day.

I HATE that YOU have to work today.

I WILL END anyone who tries to eff with YOU on your birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU!

(The red "I WILL END YOU" card is a reference to this Aziz Ansari joke, which is from his stand-up special Buried Alive, which you should totally watch.)

It was all I could do to not crack up as I watched Patrick squinting at the mirror in the morning.  Not your conventional greeting cards, but I love it! And in case you're interested in recreating a similar lovefest, I made some digital versions, too!

Anyone else love to make homemade greeting cards?

Mise en Place

If you are a fan of Top Chef or any other cooking show, you've probably heard the French phrase "mise en place."  Essentially, I believe it means "everything in its place," but, just for you, I will Google it to see if that's right.

... ... ... Hm, I'm pretty close!  It means "putting in place."

Anyway, from what I can gather, this means that when you cook, instead of having to scramble to chop garlic when you reach "Step 4: Add garlic to skillet," you have all your food prepped and ready to go.  I don't know anyone who is organized enough to actually cook this way all of the time, unless you count the Pioneer Woman.  But you know what, she looks pretty B.A. as she just adds all of her ingredients out of cute little bowls, so I decided to give it a go tonight while I made Potato Skins Mac & Cheese for dinner.

Not pictured: macaroni noodles, crumbled bacon, and ground beef (all still in their pots).

The verdict?  It certainly made it a bit easier to cook in the moment, but, honestly, I'm not so sure that the extra dirty dishes are worth it most of the time.  I already feel that I dirty 80% of the dishes we own when I cook, and doing this just adds to the problem.  Definitely prepping some stuff is helpful (like veg that need chopping, cheese that needs grating), but doing so for everything (especially for stuff that just needs opening and measuring directly) seems like a waste of time/dishes.

How about you - when you cook, do you prep all your mise en place in advance, wing it as you go, or are you somewhere in the middle, like me?