Things I Learned This Weekend About Ice Cream and Other Stuff

I'm writing this while I'm on the phone and it reads that way.

The gay beach in Rehobeth, Delaware starts at Queen Street.

My girlfriend in Montana spent a day with an 81-year-old female rancher, who is not only a medical doc and a vet, but a carries a shotgun in the back of her recently purchased 1970 station wagon for spooking grizzlies. She also gave $600,000 to the Gallatin County fairgrounds for a new arena. This woman still rides on the yearly 55 mile cattle drive from one of her family's ranches up north to another one down south. It takes three days. Apparently, she uses a stun gun on snake bites.  Zap the area just above the bite -- or, more accurately, between the bite and the heart -- three or four times.  This changes the chemistry of the poison and renders it harmless.

Ranchers keep them handy to use on their horses and cattle.

The reason that some salt walter taffy has a stripe is because that's the only way they can tell what flavor it is when they're making it.  Different colors stand for different flavors.  

Horsehoe crabs have blue blood instead of red, because it contains copper instead of iron.

The oldest sailboat in continuous use on Lake Michigan is FAME, a wooden sloop formerly owned by a guy named Dunlop who was the Michael Jordan of Chicago sailing. It's been in the water for 85 years. Dunlop bought it from the builder who took all the knowledge he gained building speedy 80 to 100 foot fishing sloops out east and created a 40 foot sprinter for his personal use.

Apparently the fishing boats that made it back into the harbor first got the best prices for their fish.  So there was always a race home at the end of the day.

I had a long, leisurely breakfast with my older daughter this morning. She's driving back home from a vacation with her fiance's family in Michigan. We got to talking about the fact that my injuries have left me unable to play sports and limited my workouts. She said I should do Pilates because it was originally developed to help people with issues like mine.  So it's not just for Minnie Driver and Daisy Fuentes, huh?

By the way, it's sherBET, nor sherBERT.

Penn State has a course in making ice cream.  

The reason DVD's are coming out so soon after the movie has been in theaters, in many cases, is because the studios are trying to make their marketing dollars go farther.  If they wait a year, they have to ratchet up the cost of advertising again.

There is a traffic school in California that holds class at a gourmet ice cream store and serves ice cream and chocolates.

I'm going to post a link [posted] to Homer's Ice Cream. They can deliver fresh, homemade ice cream overnight almost anywhere in the country.

Their fresh peach is out of this world and they have real red peppermint too. With big chunks.

Haagen-Daz is a made up name.  It just sounds foreign.  

The Lava Lamp, the Oscar, and Roger Ebert are all Chicagoans.

Chicago hot dogs are all about the toppings. New York dogs are all about the kraut. Chicago is celery salt and no catsup. New York is all about the kraut.  

Hot Doug's here in Chicago serves fries made in duck fat on the weekends.