Jumpin' At The Woodside

Happy Fall Friday! I chose a Black & Tan this evening in honor of Arthur Guinness ! I also decided to dust off the Halloween selections yet again and added them into regular rotation on the Woodside jukebox . Funny though, only two have come up so far, but I guess it's not that funny considering there are 1,735 songs in the current Woodside playlist and only 123 of them are " Halloweeny ." Woot had a "woot-off" the last couple days, but missed out on the "bag of crap." Not too upset since the last couple "bags of crap" I got were pretty much "crap." I did get a Woot screaming monkey just before the "woot-off" ended - woop, woop! Speaking of monkeys and Halloween, The Monkey and I got to see Jerry Seinfeld live on Broadway shortly after "Seinfeld" ended its run back in 1998. We even met the real "Kramer" (aka Kenny Kramer ) outside the theater. I'm looking forward to seeing U2 on SNL tomorrow...

Happy Friday! It was gloomy all day here, but warm almost 80. Seemed to get dark very early, well before sunset, but it's getting to be that time of year. I believe I saw Halloween lights on a neighbor's house a couple doors down. The seasonal brews are hitting the shelves as well. This evening I tried New Holland's seasonal brew, Ichabod , and what may be the first pumpkin ale from a bottle I've ever enjoyed. I found it smooth, and without too much spice, very drinkable. Previously, the only other pumpkin ale I ever liked was served on tap at Salem Beer Works . If you're a fan of the fall season and Halloween, get yourself to Salem, Mass. , for a long weekend and soak everything in . And if you're really into the Halloween spirit, the annual Halloween party at Salem's Hawthorne Hotel is the place to be. Keeping in the spirit of the fall season, which kicks off next week, I also tried Easton, Pa's own Weyerbacher Brewery Imperial Pumpkin Ale . Oh my, I ...

We packed up and left Saturday morning (9/5) around 7:30. We made our way up to Scranton and then up through New York, going through Binghamton, Syracuse and Watertown. We had heard there wasn’t a long line at the Canadian border, but after we crossed the first Thousand Islands Bridge we got in a huge line waiting to gain entrance to the Great White North. Part of the problem was a broken down car, but that didn’t account for the volume of traffic and our 1.5-hour wait. Once across the border, traffic was much smoother and we crossed the second Thousand Islands Bridge with ease. We also picked up our fishing licenses at a spot just over the border. As we made our way on back roads through small towns, I noticed lots of Canadian flags in front of the homes. Funny, even though I knew I was in Canada, I still expected to see the old Red, White and Blue. We drove to the tiny town of Delta, Ontario on Upper Beverley Lake; I don’t even think they had a traffic light. The downtown, if you ca...