Mike Vachow
@mikevachow
Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? STL
post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains.
This peach pie is delicious, but texturally a bummer bc I overworked the dough = tough crust. I’m in a baking slump—too hot to turn on the oven, so I’m just not baking much, making stupid, rookie mistakes.
A few yrs ago, my daughter and I made the better part of a day out of a Gardner visit followed by watching the This is a Heist documentary. Some good laughs about Velazquez’s King Philip and His CVS Receipt. Excellent day.
Similarly, we saw Top Gun Maverick with a packed Sunday Funday crowd, not so much bad as predictable in a completely delightful way bc the first Top Gun had been iconic for 35 years. Crowd cheered as the film checked off the allusions one by one, drunk-teary when Kilmer appeared.
Looking for the person at my gym who fits in the Venn diagram of belt squat machine and Hallmark channel.
Excellent conversation this evening with @devintoshea.bsky.social about his new book, The Veiled Prophet, already in a second pressing. Go get a copy at a local, independent bookseller!
Appeared at the grocery across the street from my gym one miserable early spring day. Best part was kids’ excitement, plus free dogs.
Unsettled weather isn’t keeping Pride celebrants away. Gramophone slammed this afternoon. Always get the special. This one is unreal.
In Austin a few yrs ago—at a day drinking, live music venue packed with families
Heat Dome 2026 pro move: Cathead Bay, Leelanau State Park, Michigan. Perfect beach, surrounded by dunes, always quiet as it’s a mile hike in. This may be my favorite place in the world. Equally stunning in the winter.
My STL mutuals are a crafty lot, so I’m hoping they can help me find a homebrewer interested in upgrading to all grain brewing in 10 gallon batches, keg packaging. After 30 yrs, I’m getting out of the homebrewing game.
Not sure about this stuff. I like regular Cholula, but I use too much in an effort l to achieve my desire Scoville dose.
Kennedy Center reno site was the perfect set up for a sadly now-gone Chicago theater troupe, 500 Clown, which took physical theater to its limits often with sets that included scaffolding and rickety looking wooden structures.
New Orleans, near City Park, lot of places like this in NOLA that collect a cross-section of the city: families, Uptown ladies, tradesmen, Creepy Steve. We stopped at the Parkview for poboys with our kids many times after going to puppet shows in Story Land, one of City Park's features.
Tangent: most would agree that Steely Dan is the band whose lyrics feature the greatest number of “original guys,” and god love the cats who wrote and illustrated this book full of them.
Chicken pot pies: home smoked chicken and stock, veggies, buttermilk biscuit top, geometry fail.
The Schmenge Brothers and the Kenosha Kickers have withdrawn from the Freedom 250 celebration.
As a cheapskate, I’m a sitting duck for haunted hotels, usually left-behind, deferred maintenance palaces like this sprawling 80s PNW coke dream next to SeaTac.