This weekend I improved my bike hipster cred with this new-to-me vintage belt buckle. I’d prefer that it was blue or orange or red, but the green will, I’m sure, grow on me.
I haven’t spent a lot of time looking, but I hadn’t run across a buckle like that before, rear derailleur looking all abstract, looking ready to climb. And when you know, you know, you know? So I bought it, and now it’s daily wear.
I have three daily wear belt buckles, which means I’m dangerously close to starting a collection. If I add three or four more I’d have a complete biographical collection. But I probably shouldn’t do that.
We went over the river on Friday night. A friend of almost 20 years from back home was in town. He used to live up here, too. And he was back for a conference, and heading up to New York to see his family. So we ventured over to pick him up for dinner.
And before we got there, we saw this sign.
Hmmmm …
We drove right beneath city hall. Built using brick, white marble and limestone, it is the world’s largest free-standing masonry building and was the world’s tallest habitable building when it opened in 1894.
Designed to be the world’s tallest building, it was surpassed during the phase of construction by the Washington Monument, the Eiffel Tower, and Turin, Italy’s Mole Antonelliana. The Mole Antonelliana, a few feet taller, suffered a spire collapse in a storm, and so this building stands a bit taller.
I’m sure we’ll discover more about it at some point in the future.
Our friend, Andre, suggested we try a Malaysian restaurant, Kampar, which has been shortlisted for a James Beard Award. While we waited the hostess gave me a new way to ask restaurant staff about their favorite dishes. She said the rendang daging was the reason she worked there. So we ordered that, and several other family-style dishes. And I’d work there for the rendang daging, too. It was a sweet, tender, slow-cooked meat. It offset the pickled vegetables well. Then, opposite that was a fried chicken done in a style that, by rights, I should not have enjoyed as much as I did. (But I want some more, even now, just thinking about it.)
So everything was great. We had about three bites before my lovely bride and I looked at each other and said, almost simultaneously, that my mother would like to try this place. So we’ll bring her when she comes up.
The weather is holding up. I got in 65 miles of riding this weekend, all of it just around the familiar neighborhoods. I’m trying to squeeze in every mile possible. You know the feeling, I’m sure, chasing the thing to forestall the thing.
That made sense right about here.
Now if this mild weather will just last until spring …
