Postless

Lack of posting recently because last week I went and visited my college roommate in Wilmington, N.C. It was a very relaxing four days that included all the things I have to get when I go to N.C./The beach.

1) N.C.-style Bar-B-Que – vinegar-based, spicy and tangy with hush puppies, fried okra and red slaw (I didn’t get any red slaw this trip but subbed in some excellent potato salad) We went to a place called Jackson’s Big Oak. I highly recommend it. It’s exactly what I look for in a BBQ joint. 

2) Bojangles – If I really really want to I can get Jenna to drive me to Maryland for some Bojos, but it’s a must any time I head back. For any of you who don’t know, Bojangles is a southern chicken and biscuits chain restaurant. 

3)Flaming Amy’s - This one is Wilmington-specific. Best burrito joint I’ve ever had the pleasure of patronizing. Yes, it’s better than Chipotle.  Carrburritos in Carrboro, N.C., is way up there as well, but Carrburritos only has Mexican-style offerings, whereas Flaming Amy’s has any kind of combination you can imagine and a salsa bar. The pineapple-jalepeno salsa is a personal favorite. If I were getting Mexican-style, it would be a much tougher decision. 

4) Cheerwine – A cherry-flavored soft drink that’s available lots of places in the south, but mainly N.C. and S.C. It also originated in my hometown, Salisbury, and is still based there. I worked for those guys for a couple  of summers.  

5) A “real” beach – That’s what I call the beach in Carolina. It’s one where you can walk for miles if you want and not have to worry about running into private sections of coastline. Also one where everyone in town is wearing shorts and flip flops and the “shirt and shoes required” sign isn’t enforced. You can drive your boat to a restaurant and your bike anywhere because it’s so flat. There aren’t attractions like mini-golf and water parks, just the beach, and that’s all you need. 

Didn’t mean to get all preachy on that one. There’s just nothing like going to the beach for me. 

If I had gone home to “tha Bury” I would have gone to Hap’s Grill. It’s another one of those “best” places that no place on Earth will ever compare to for me. It’s solely hot dogs and hamburgers, and the way to get them is “all the way,” which include chili, onions and mustard. I get cheese as well. 

………..great. Now all I can think about is how much I want to get back.

Paulus playing football?

Duke Blue Devils coach says Greg Paulus could try out at receiver – ESPN.

One phrase pretty much sums up this story to me:

Classic Coach K PR move

Here’s my 100 percent raw speculation on the subject. K has a coaching friend or two in football — I’m guessing in state of Michigan. K calls them up and says:

“Hey, man. My boy down here used to play football. Why don’t you come down and give him a look, no pressure. You don’t have to sign him, hell, you don’t even have to watch him closely in the workout as long as I can say you did. We’ll make a weekend of it. I know you like that North Carolina Bar-B-Que!“

K’s friend, who does in fact love N.C. BBQ, is tired of the current frigid Michigan spring and decides that might not be a bad idea. Friend looks at Paulus, friend eats Q and friend goes home. 

Coach K is happy as a clam. The story is all over ESPN and drawing attention to Duke. This attention is somewhat positive and draws attention away from his Blue Devils bowing out in the Sweet 16 yet AGAIN. 

Once again, Coach K makes it seem he is running a national contender, after all his kids can play football, too. Isn’t that what matters when you’re recruiting basketball players?

Puhleez. 

Do something impressive like bolding words in a blog post for emphasis……or winning two national championships in five years, maybe?

More UNC Celebrating

I’ve basically spent at least two hours per day since Monday reading every story I can find about the Heel’s championship. Here’s an awesome timelapse done by the DTH and even better video of the celebrations. 

Franklin Street Pictures

I went back to Chapel Hill to watch the Final Four. Needless to say, debauchery ensued.

Check out more here.

Beer Madness Finale

So I never updated the WaPo’s beer madness after I initially posted it a few weeks ago. And if you were really dying to know I’m sure you already checked it on its Web site. 

The Final Four proved to be some good competition: Ommegang Hennepin, Troeg’s HopBack Amber, The Raven and Brooklyn Brown Ale. But it turns out Troegs’ HopBack won it all.

I found it really surprising at some of the comments from the judging panel, whom the writer claims are “not beer geeks.” 

One said they preferred the “simple flavor of hops” compared to the subtle, lighter  – and in my opinion more drinkable to a non hop aficionado — Hennepin. I’ve always found within my circle of friends that hops are more of an acquired taste than most other flavors in beer, so I’m not convinced this panel didn’t include at least a few folks who drink their fair share of brew. I guess just because you drink IPAs it doesn’t necessarily make you a “beer geek,” but hey it’s just an observation. 

Regardless, the HopBack won it and I have never tried it, even though they sell it in my usual store, Cairo Liquor. Add that to my bucket list.

My brother — who is in college back in Chapel Hill, to where I am departing today for the Final Four! — recently attended a similar “tourney” at a local beer shop in Carrboro, N.C. I can’t recall the name of the store, but it’s attached to Tyler’s Tap Room, and is probably one of the best beer stores in the area. He said a bunch of people showed up, they tasted every matchup for the 32 beers and then divided the room for the consensus opinion. Sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon. Wonder if I can convince them to do an NIT while I’m back this weekend?

Speaking of which, congrats to Penn State (my dad’s alma mater) on their championship last night!

Seth Curry Transfers to Duke

Tragic, but Seth Curry, younger brother of Stephen Curry, will transfer to Duke. He will have to sit out a year, but will be eligible for the 2010-’11 season. The younger Curry led the nation is scoring by a freshman. 

One thing I’d like to know, after Stephen blew up the tourney last year as a sophomore, how did so many people miss on recruiting little bro? They definitely win the title of most under-recruited family. And that’s even with the NBA-pedigree of dad, Dell. 

I’m a big fan of the Curry family. Stephen was amazing last year in the Big Dance, and Dell played for the Hornets when they were in Charlotte and actually were good. OK so they’re good now again, but I’m talking about when they had Alonzo Mourning, Larry Johnson and Mugsy Bouges. But this awful decision by Seth has forced me to make him the black sheep. Sorry, Seth. Once a dookie, always a dookie. 

Seth’s goal was to play for an ACC school in N.C., and Coach K is probably licking his weaselish chops right now back in Durham, but I’d like to point out one thing: He’s doing it back in Durham. Roy isn’t too worried about playing against Curry right now and probably didn’t have the time to try and woo the guy because he’s in Detroit focusing on other things.

Tar Heels Outlast Hokies

 79-76

WHEW!

UNC’s opening round ACC tournament game was not the type to try and sit quietly and watch on your computer at work. But thanks to Raycom, the local N.C. sports netowrk, I was able to do so for this close one.

Playing without Lawson, it was easy for many to predict this would be a tough game. Va. Tech ain’t bad. And anytime you play without the conference playerof the year it’s going to be a different ballgame

I was fighting urges to slam my monitor into the cubicle wall for the first half and decided it’d be better to go out for my lunch break for the second. I went to Timberlake’s, a bar on Conn. Ave. near work, and was thwarted in my attempts by the odd fact that they did not get ESPN2. On channel 8 instead was ESPN News. Strange, but nonetheless unacceptable. A coworker and I moved to Buca di Beppo ,which is a chain Italian restaurant in the same building as my office.

Finally the cheers could fly, and it turned out the only other people eating at the bar at 1 p.m. were Hokies fans. Excellent.

Psycho’s back, baby! Hansbrough played tough and got really into the game, pumping his fists on that last jumpball call and cheering hard on his way to the locker room. If the team starts to feed off his energy it will be really fun to watch.

I havent’ yet checked in on the Ty Law situation, but I can see him sitting out another game. Of course I’d be much happier if he were back to the floor tomorrow, but there is a bigger prize than the ACC tournament on the horizon after all.

Overall, today was a gutsy, great win against a tough team that was fighting for its postseason life. If Maryland wins again today, they would probably have a better change of making the Big Dance than Va. Tech, but strange things always seem to happen so the Hokies should probably at least watch the selection show — albeit with low expectations.

Considering Carolina never led by more than three, I thought it showed that the team is ready to be challenged on the road to the Final Four. At times this season I’ve questioned their motivation and hussle, but today was different. They never lost sight of the win, even in this game that was not a must win for the NCAA title. Having probably safely secured a No. 1 seed, UNC could have let this one go, rested up and gotten healthy for next weekend, but where would the fun in that be?

Let’s Go HEELS!

Stomping Grounds

Went back to Chapel Hill over the weekend for an awesome time with some family and friends. I stayed with my brother, who’s a junior at UNC, and my parents came up for the game and some dinner Saturday.

Hansbrough set the NCAA record for free throws made. People think he goes to the line too much, and they’re jealous, but it’s still impressive to have actually made that many charity tosses. Just because you go to the line doesn’t mean you’re given those two points.

 After that rousing 30-point win – making my record 1-1 in games attended this year (CURSES!) – dinner was at the famous Mama Dip’s. Typically our family doesn’t go crazy when it comes to eating out, but the parents were so happy to see us that we went for it. I don’t think we’d ever ordered three appetizers before Saturday night. We got sweet potato biscuits and fries, and some hush puppies. For entree, I got my favorite thing that Mama’s serves up, fried chicken “smothered” (as they say there) in gravy. Desert was chocolate pecan pie.

It took some time to recover from that one, but it didn’t stop me from making sure I went out on Franklin St. both nights I was there. Went out with some buddies who still live there and even some that don’t. We went to Bub O’Malley’s (my first time there even after four years) and were kicked out – not for drunkeness – but for our unorthodox method of foosball playing. (long story) We also went to a new bar that wasn’t there when I attended UNC that was in the old Hector’s space. It made me wish Hector’s was still there. I was notorious for going there late night even if I went by myself. Also made it to Deep End.

Work’s kind of busy so I really should get back to it. That will spare ye readers the hellish story of my return trip to Washington on the Amtrak. Let’s just say it involved an unfortunate car accident, a subsequent three-hour delay, multiple delays from being given second priority to the tracks, about five loud children under the age of three  and a total of about 12 hours of ordeal.

At least it’s snowing today.

New N.C. Brewery

So I’m not exactly plugged into the N.C. beer scene anymore, so this is probably a bit late, but I was reading Dan Bradford’s blog and discovered that a new brewery will be opening in Durham probably sometime this year.

I wrote a story on the now-almost-two-year-old Triangle Brewery  - Durham’s first brewery as far as I know – for the Daily Tar Heel when I was in school. Rick and Andy are good guys and even let a college kid hang out and drink beer with them after a tour one day. That college kid – staying true to his roots – eventually drank too much and made a bit of a fool of himself. But he learned alot about drinking in public and not being an ass in front of people in whose company he might want to someday appear professional.

But I digress. The new Durham brewery is called Fullsteam.

From a scan of their Web site it looks like Fullsteam’s mission is to develop a truly “southern beer.” If necessary they look to create a new style and it appears they are calling at least one of their batches “Carolina Common.”

I’ve often thought of this idea and I’m really excited someone with more  brewing knowledge than I have has taken it up! When you read Michael Jackson’s beer books or other beer books that weave in historical significance, the older brewing traditions and styles were usually very regionalized even down to specific cities. Why not keep it that way. It doesn’t mean I’m going to be a Carolina beer snob and only drink beer made in N.C., it’s just a way that new styles can develop and be enjoyed. I’ll still love my West Coast IPAs.

The West Coast may have been the first beer region of the U.S. to develop an identity with its high-hopping rates and citrusy American strains, and the South should follow. Using ingredients that are local and creating a unique style would be a great accomplishment. Here’s to hoping they can pull it off!