Charlie’s Haus

OK, not much time to write this, but I will squeeze as much as I can in before I have to go.  Europe was pretty awesome.  Of course there were some highs and lows, but overall, it was great.  We were in Ireland, France and Germany for a total of 3 weeks.  It got to be a little long at the end, but I think we spent a good amount of time in each city (except Munich, we only stayed a day there and another day or two would have been nice).  This post is going to be about Ireland…one of my favorite places.

Ireland has always been very attractive to me with both Guinness and Whiskey.  The pictures you always see of the scenery are fantastic, and after seeing these things first hand, I can honestly say it doesnt disappoint.  We started our trip in Dublin.  Dublin is an interesting city.  It almost seems as if its growing/getting more tourists faster than it can keep up.  There is plenty to do in the city besides drink too!  (and there is plenty of that let me tell you) 

I think the worst part about Dublin was the bus system.  The buses themselves were fine, its just that as someone who doesnt live there, its impossible to figure out what stop is which, and which bus to take.  They dont have a typical spider map of the stops/busses.  We had to go to the bus station and get the bus schedule for all the buses, then find a street near where we wanted to go and see if it had a stop, then find out the route for that bus and if it connected anywhere.  A giant pain.  Then, the stops arent labeled, and the drivers only stop if someone flags them down or someone pushes the stop button.  So you never know if you went by the stop or not.  On our last day we had it down mostly and found out they are working on a spider map for the busses. That should help out a ton.

One of the best things we did in Ireland was the Musical Pub Crawl.  There were two musicians and they took us to a couple of bars.  At each bar they would play some songs and tell about them….the meaning of the song, the type of song, etc.  It was a lot of fun and very interesting.  The Guinness “tour” was really neat too.  You walked through how they make Guinness and the history.  Then at the end you get to have a free pint at the bar on the top floor.  Its a glass room with a panoramic view of Dublin….its by far the best look at the city. 

I was slightly disappointed by the Jameson tour.  It was good, but since all of the distilling is now done down in Midleton, it was just a preserved tourist attraction.  I did however acquire my bottle of Old Midletons Reserve.  Best. Whiskey. Ever.  The kind of cool thing is that I got a free tour with the purchase of the bottle.  So Mandi and I took the tour down in Midletons.  It was some of the same stuff, but when you put the two tours together it was good information.  Still disappointing that you didnt get to actually see the distilling process for real.

One of the best less touristy places we went was Dingle.  Its on the west coast above the extremely touristy Ring of Kerry.  Since we had rented a car we drove the scenic drive around the penninsula.  The views were amazing.  Pictures just dont do it justice.  The town was a sleepy little town with plenty of little shops.  At night the pubs were packed with tourists and bands playing the same songs over and over again.  We did manage to find a nice put with some more traditional music, but they were jamming more than playing, so the music was far and few between.  We also had to make a stop to a “towny” pub.  Picture this.  By day, an unassuming small hardware store.  By night, packed wall to wall with locals chatting about the latest news (mostly in Gaelic).

On our way to the ferry crossing to France we stayed a night in Waterford so we could check out the crystal factory.  Mandi makes fun of me, but it was one of the coolest tours I have ever been on.  You walk through the factory as men are actually doing their work.  You stand 10 feet away as they blow glass, shape and sand glass, etc.  You can see the entire process from beginning to end.  In the begining they do a little horse and pony show and make a fancy pitcher…amazing what these guys can do with some melty glass.

Thats a very brief summary of Ireland.  Too much happened to fit it all on the page.  If anyone has specific questions, I would be happy to answer them.  For everyone that has to sit and listen to me talk about our trip…sorry   Pictures will follow in a few weeks after I am done with them all.  I am about half way through processing Ireland.  The ones I have so far are pretty amazing though.

There is good reason that I havent posted in a while, Mandi and I were in Europe for 3 weeks!  We just got home on Saturday.  We went to Ireland, France and Germany.  It was a great time, and we saw so many cool things.  The time really flew by.  I will be making a few posts about it in the next week here, there is way too much stuff for 1 post, that is for sure. 

I will also eventually be posting pics, but I need to go through them first.  We ended up with around 1500 of them…yikes! 

Something else I wanted to talk about was E85 gas.  I have seen some discussion on a few car forums about it, and I heard people mention it a few times recently.  There seems to be some bad information going around about it, and I thought I would inform people of a few dangers.

First is that only cars that are “Flex fuel” can run it.  Sure any engine can use it and burn it and work fine with it (for now), but if you use it in a car that it isnt meant for, you are going to be running into problems down the road.  First a few tidbits of info.  Ethanol (or E85 as its called since its 85% ethanol and 15% petroleum gas) has a lower potential energy than regular gas.  What does this mean in english?  1 gallon of regular gas will get you further down the road than 1 gallon of ethanol.  In other words, ethanol will give you worse mpg.  There is no possible way for it to give you more.  Its called physics =D  Second is that corn based ethanol really isnt better for the environment.  In fact its typically worse!  Corn ethanol has 1.3x as much energy as it takes to create it.  Gasoline on the other hand has 5x as much energy.  Most people dont realize exactly how much diesel fuel it takes to create corn based ethanol. 

The problems that can be had by running E85 in an engine that isnt made to run it are fairly severe.  Most of the time, people wont have trouble with it until many years later.  E85 is MUCH more corrosive than gasoline.  Flex fuel cars are made with more stainless steel parts in the fuel system (like the injectors…kind of need those) to resist the corrosion.  The same goes for the rubber parts such as o-rings.  E85 will eat them away much faster.  If that alone hasnt made you keep away from it (those can be mighty expensive to fix), then the next one really should.  I mentioned before that E85 doesnt have the same amount of potential energy as gasoline.  So in order to push a car 1 mile, you will use more E85 than traditional gasoline.  So that means that the injectors arent going to be big enough to handle the fuel demands of the car at high rpms and at full throttle (or really at points below that).  Also, the computer in non flex fuel vehicles doesnt have the A/F ratio mappings for E85.  So that means you are running the car lean.  What happens to an engine when its runs lean?  Usually you will eat the pistons.  When you are running an engine lean, you produce a lot more heat.  Once the cylinder gets too hot, you start predetonating.   Once you do that, you melt rings, crack heads, crack pistons, etc.  In otherwords, you fry the engine.  People that are easy on the pedal will probably never have those problems, however they will eventually have fuel system/line problems.

So what is the lesson in this?  Dont use E85 unless the vehicle is made for it.  Even then, it costs just as much as running regular gasoline since you use more of it to go the same distance.  Lastly, the corn used in 1 gallon of E85 can feed a family for a year…really makes you think.

So 2 weekends ago, I spent 4 hours detailing my car.  Mostly the outside.  I started with a wash, then clay barred it, then put some Meguires NXT generation wax on it, and finally finished with some Meguires Hi-tech yellow wax.  Lets just say the results are astonishing.  I used the NXT wax last year and was amazed at how long it lasted.  Over the winter I try to wash my car every week.  It lasted the entire winter on the car except the hood.  That lasted only about 5 months…only.  LOL!   The stuff is amazing, and I am using the first version of it.  The reason for 2 waxes is that the NXT wax provides a chemical barrier which is great, but it doesnt give much depth to the paint.  The Yellow wax is a traditional carnuba wax that really brings out the depth.  Together they give a great result.

Last weekend we through my Mom a surprise 50th bday party.  She was really surprised (amazing she never found out), and she had a good time.  We had way too much food, but thats better than not enough I guess.  I just wish people could RSVP…its only takes a few minutes!  Mandi ran into the same problem with our brewer game trip for her parents 35th anniversary.  We finally just decided that if they didnt let us know, they arent going.  We couldnt wait any longer for tickets, as it is, we are split into 3 sections.  Oh well, it will be fun anyways.

Hope everyone has a good 4th of July!