the goat farmer's almanac

The Miracle Drug Baking Soda

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:30:00 +0000

Kidding season ended late this year when Zillah's 3-year old, Tsilah, kidded 2 does on June2. One was stillborn with an oddly cork-screwed neck, the other one perfectly normal. I left the kid on her dam as we had neither the time nor inclination to bottle raise a single kid this late in the year.

An August-like heat wave settled in the following Thursday. Fortunately, we'd just installed a new waterer for the does before it hit so I wasn't too concerned about keeping them hydrated. All the same, hot weather is hard on goats as it is for any other livestock.

Sunday, Tsilah's now six day old kid wandered into the metal sided shed we use for the bucks and from which I'd removed Eleazar the day before because of the heat. I don't know how long she'd been in there but she was barely able to stand when we found her and her temp was 108. We put her in front of a fan and spritzed her with water until her temperature was down to a near normal 102. She drank water and suckled her dam. We left her for the night.

Monday morning, the kid was totally wasted -- limp as a dishrag. I was able to hold her up to Tsilah's teat and she drank a little. I left for work figuring for sure she'd be dead when I returned. I left work early dreading the whole trip home the thought of finding a dead kid. Turns out, the kid was still alive when I arrived home. So, I brought her in out of the heat and into our air-conditioned kitchen and called Doc Carmen. He told me to mix up 2 teaspoons of baking soda in about a half cup of water and drench her with about 20 cc then call him back in 15 minutes. Sure enough, within 15 minutes the kid stood up and even managed to stumble out of the box I'd put her in!

Turns out she had a case of heat-induced "floppy kid syndrome" which is a severe case of acidosis easily remedied by soda bicarbonate. After a couple of days in the house and a course of oral antiobiotics the kid was back to 100% by the end of week.

This is the first case of FKS in my nearly 14 years as a goatherd. Thankfully, we have Doc Carmen!

Microlending Sounds Like a Good Idea But ....

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:16:00 +0000

A recent Business Week features another special report on how big financial institutions mine gold from those in poverty. The Ugly Side of Microlending details how Mexican banks are busting peasants' kneecaps over loans averaging $257 at interest rates upwards of 100%. It's a nice companion piece to their report on the poverty business from a few months back.

ADGA Convention 2007

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 21:48:00 +0000

For a week every October a nice hotel in a nice American city is overrun by 300 or so dairy goat farmers and a few of the industry's choicest animals. This year's site of the 2007 American Dairy Association Convention was the Marriot in Fort Collins Colorado.

In terms of boosting the local economy, an ADGA gathering is not on par with, say, a Shriner's convention but hotel staffs always seem to get a kick out of having their grand ball room turned into a stable for the Spotlight Sale -- an auction of some of the finest dairy goat kids in the country. My favorite this year was a little buck named South Fork Chalupa Bravo who carries some of the same bloodlines that are in our herd and would have make a super addtion. He went for $2,000. If I could have afforded the 1st class airplane ticket for him back to Maryland, I would have bid him up.

I'm always impressed with the tireless efforts of ADGA people toward improving the dairy goat industry on all levels -- from the educational sessions on veterninary care to the dawn-to-dusk Board and Committee meetings. My first ADGA convention was in Syracuse, New York in 1995 and the one this year was my sixth. Next year's convention is in Sonoma County California, the epicenter of goat dairy-dom. I can hardly wait!

War: It's a Job

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:49:00 +0000

I refuse to celebrate them as "the greatest generation" because in doing so we are celebrating courage and sacrifice in the cause of war. And we are miseducating the young to believe that military heroism is the noblest form of heroism, when it should be remembered only as the tragic accompaniment of horrendous policies driven by power and profit. Indeed, the current infatuation with World War II prepares us-innocently on the part of some, deliberately on the part of others-for more war, more military adventures, more attempts to emulate the military heroes of the past.
Howard Zinn, The Greatest Generation?

As Zinn points out, the “greatest generation” is a dangerous cultural construct . For me, it's also personal having experienced firsthand the greatest generation in the personage of my Dad; a sullen, festering boil of resentment whose main avocation was falling off his bar stool at the American Legion Hall. Who knows, Dad and his greatest generation buddies at the Legion might have been the same emotional cripples without their war experiences but I'm pretty sure it didn't help. At his mother's funeral, my Dad's twin brother felt obliged -- probably out of embarrassment -- to explain to me why he couldn't cry: he'd seen "too many dead people in the war."

I watched an episode of The War the other night expecting a big dose of Greatest Generation hagiography but got instead some surprising glimpses of the real deal. Many of those interviewed about their war experiences expressed a disconcerting moral numbness typified by the reminisces of a bomber pilot who confessed to feeling sick before each bombing run knowing he was off to kill innocents. But, once he was in his plane and off the ground it became a job, a job he had to do.

People of my parents' generation were not a whole lot different than any other generation: most of them ordinary folks helpless, powerless or unwilling to buck the rules of life's big game. So, they end up doing their jobs as though firebombing Hamburg was no different than bolting fenders on the assembly line. Dad never considered himself a hero and treating him and his buddies as if they were marble war statues was the last thing they needed or wanted. Helping them regain and maintain their humanity might have helped.

Iron City Artificers

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:05:00 +0000

From our trip to Anne's last weekend, here's a few shots of Fallingwater and the Chiluly installation at the Phipps Conservatory . And, a few brief words on each ....

"Does this seem like a house built in 1936?" was the first question our guide asked as we entered the living room at Fallingwater. "Well, yes, it does" was my immediate thought although most of our tour group didn't agree. Two questions kept coming to mind as we walked in and around this magnificant building. Did Wright -- or his engineers -- make the most of currently available technology? And, what would the house look like if built today? I've not a real clue as to the first except for a notion that there must have been better alternatives to the heavily reinforced concrete used in the cantilevered terraces. There's no doubt Wright's ideas could be more completely realized with today's construction technologies. For example, current plastics eliminate the need for the heavy metal framing used in the window framing thus better enabling the sightlines Wright desired in his "cornerless" window framing schemes.

I enjoy botanical gardens such as the Phipps because as with any biosphere they are places of infinite and sublime discovery. Chiluly's pieces at the Phipps worked best for me when I had to discover them buried in the ecospace such as this Ikebana or when they stood on their own, such as the float boat, as if in a retail display. What didn't work were those rooms where the plants were overwhelmed by the glass. Witness the Cobalt Fiori room where the lovely and subtle Bismark palms and curry plants are mere back drop for a kitschy display of alien shapes and colors reminiscent of a fifties sci-fi movie set.

On another level, judging from the number of them he's done, these Chiluly installations must be a windfall for botanical gardens. The Phipps was packed on our Saturday afternoon visit as if it were a Matisse exhibit at the Modern. More power to them all!

Peaches at Pipe Creek

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:02:00 +0000

Here's some photos from yesterday's annual Peach Festival at Pipe Creek Church of the Brethren. The Peach Festival was started over 20 years ago by Johnny Arbaugh to raise money to remodel the Church fellowship hall. This was the first festival without Johnny who passed away a couple of months ago.

Jen and I were married at Pipe Creek and members there until last year when we transferred to the Westminster church. Pipe Creek was founded 250 years ago as the first Church of the Brethren in Maryland. Besides the good people and friends, I miss the sense of history that permeates Pipe Creek. Worshiping there often left me longing for that time in the 19th century when Brethren were known as a "peculiar people." I understand the Church founders' line of thinking that said one lives closest to the teachings of Jesus when one lives set apart from secular society.

The challenges facing Pipe Creek are emblematic of those facing the Brethren since the middle of the last century and which are the subject of Carl Bowman's book referenced above. How does a small congregation steeped in rural values survive in an urbanized, globalized world? I sometimes foolishly wish that returning to a more peculiar life was a viable option.

Civic Minded

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:45:00 +0000

Jen and I decided we needed a new commuter car. Easy choice I figure: we hop over to the Toyota dealer in Frederick and pick-up a Corolla. After all, for the past 20 years my rulebook for buying a car has been simple: "I'll have to buy a bad Toyota before I stop buying Toyotas".

I order up a price report on the Corolla from Consumer Reports so as to have some clue as to how to dicker with the dealer. The report contains a link to the Honda Civic under the "Other Models Similar to This" heading. I follow the link and discover the Civic is their top pick for small sedans. I read a bit more and decide it's probably worth checking out.

We go to the Honda place in Westminster fully expecting to come away impressed but not impressed enough to toss out the rulebook. After all, before we bought the Camry three years ago we checked out the Accord. Nice car but not nice enough to make us toss out the rulebook. This time, we test drive a Civic EX and the rulebook flew out the window -- I'd say, oh, a couple blocks from the dealership. We left thinking the Corolla is going to have to be one sweet ride to top this.

As it turns out the Corolla was one sweet ride -- if it were still 2004. That's not to bad mouth the car but as the Civic proves, a lot can change in 3 or 4 years. For example, ABS ought to be standard equipment on any model but for the Corolla it's an option and, according to the dealer, a fairly difficult one to find.

So, we order a Consumer Reports price report on the Civic. I figure we can get an LX for about the same price as a Corolla. But then, I start thinking, at my age why should I wait for a GPS ( or XM radio)? One thing led to another and before we know it, we're driving away in a nice little EX, fully loaded. Honda has done a great job upselling this model is all I can say. On top of it all, the dealership and our salesman, Rob Mason, made this the easiest car purchase I've experienced.

I'm not sure what the rulebook should say now.

The Words

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:30:00 +0000

I downloaded Ricki Lee Jones' Sermon on Exposition Boulevard last winter ignorant of her friend Lee Cantelon's The Words project of which the album is a part. It turned out to be one of those “where have these people been all my life moments“.

Here's the blurb from the project web site which describes the goings on:

The Words website was begun in the winter of 1999, publishing the words of Jesus in a new translation by Lee Cantelon that groups Christ's words thematically. The idea was to provide access for readers to discover the ideas that are the foundations of Christianity, and to do this outside of the traditional New Testament setting, allowing access to the words of Jesus in a non-historical manner, and in a less religious context. The Words website has gone on to publish translations of the English manuscript in more than two dozen languages and generated a following among scholars and those in pursuit of spiritual insights. This site contains the results of this work, as well as many informative studies, exploring the basic idea of Christianity in art, classic and contemporary writing, and in Jewish literature that searches for meaning and revelation in a post modern world.

It's difficult to describe the new power which Cantelon's unmooring from the traditional chapter and verse gospel context brings to the Word . English speakers can begin reading ( or listening) here.

Implicit Sex, Race and Open Source Software

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 01:15:00 +0000

Any time a hapless public figure claims they're not a racist after making statements that would have made Bull Conner blush should be made to reveal the results of their Implicit Association Test on racial attitudes. Developed by researchers at Harvard several years back and now spun off into a web project called Project Implicit, the IAT is designed to “assess your conscious and unconscious preferences for over 90 different topics ranging from pets to political issues, ethnic groups to sports teams, and entertainers”. The methodology developed for the test is fascinating. I would also love to get my hands on the mother lode of data amassed by these researchers.

I've taken several IAT's over the past couple of years and always found them insightful and accurate. YMMV, of course. For example, on the test for racial (Black/White) preferences, I show a slight automatic preference for White people compared to Black people. The graphic to the right shows the percentage breakdowns for racial preferences for the over 750,000 people who've taken this particular IAT. I don't have a problem admitting that I harbor racial preferences. I suspect the first step in overcoming racism is to acknowledge the extent to which it exists in your own heart. Judging others solely on the basis of their color, of course, is a sin worthy of working hard to overcome.

On the IAT for sexuality, I show a moderate automatic preference for straight people compared to gay people. As the graphic below shows, this puts me in with 25% of the over 250,000 people who've taken this IAT. This is a little surprising to me since I strongly support equal rights including marriage and ordination for gay people. Too many Christians don't see how judging a person solely on the basis of his or her sexual orientation is every bit as wrong as racism.

Again, the value of knowing your own implicit biases is in knowing they exist and then overcoming them the next time you hire a person or invite someone into your church or home. Now, I would be very concerned if my scores showed no preference for either White over Black or gay over straight as this would indicate either a disturbing propensity to lie to myself, or given my intensely racist and sexist upbringing, proof that I am the Second Coming.

On the two latest tests I've taken I show a slight preference for open source software over Microsoft software and a slight preference for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. The first is no surprise. The implications of the second are too complicated to even begin unraveling at this point .....

Who Visits Florida in the Summer?

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:16:00 +0000

Jen, Anne and I made a quick trip to Tampa last week to visit Jen's parents, Marge and Tom. They are trying to decide whether to give up their golf community home of 20 some years for a continuing care community. Such communties require a fairly hefty, non-refundable entrance fee upfront -- at least $100K . Residents then pay a monthly fee which covers all maintenance and upkeep, utilities, and taxes. Sometimes meals are included in the monthly fee. As age and health require, residents may move from independent living to assisted living to nursing home care. Hence, the "continuing care" concept.

Florida in June

We visited St. Mark Village in Palm Harbor, founded in 1980 by a local Lutheran minister. His son, Doug, gave us the tour. As the photos in the gallery show, it's a nice enough place. Unlike many continuing care communities, St. Mark offers guaranteed care meaning if you run out of money they'll pick up the tab as long as a you live.

If you want to go the continuing care route, it's best to decide early on, i.e. when you have a few good "active" years left otherwise that upfront fee is going to be difficult to recover. If you're in failing health and well on in years then it would seem to make more sense to begin spending that entrance fee on in-home assistance and, perhaps eventually, an assisted living and/or nursing care facility.

Other odds and ends

I've never been to Florida in summer. I've heard it's hot. It is, but no more so than Maryland.
I finally saw my first alligator in the "wild" -- an 8 or 9 footer crawled out of the pond behind Tom and Marge's house and saundered across the lawn to the pond next door.
Why do politicians allow developers to develop without adequate, safe access to their developments. ( I think we all know the answer to that one.) It's frightening watching 90 year old drivers making left turns onto four lane highways without benefit of a stop light.
The round-trip airfare from Dulles to Tampa was $356 for the 3 of us on Southwest. If you can't go first class then you can't beat Southwest. The seats are relatively comfortable and clean and the crews are great.

Overcharged?

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:07:00 +0000

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore

-We Can't Make It Here, James McMurtry,

The righteous know the rights of the poor; the wicked have no such understanding.

- Proverbs 29:7-7

Need a loan to tide you over 'till payday? Well, you no longer have to deal with the likes of Tony Soprano, just hop on down to your Wells Fargo bank. The vig is competitive with Tony's -- 120% APR -- with less potential wear on your kneecaps.

We used to call it loansharking and it was illegal. Now, it's called "sub-prime lending" and its legal. And, it's an increasingly sophisticated big business according to a Business Week special report.

Outfits named in the report that are on the frontlines of the "alternative financial services" sector include J.Y Byrider, Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, Baltimore-based Bluehippo Funding and Compucredit. If you've never heard of these guys, then how about Bank of America, U.S. Bancorp, Merill Lynch, GMAC Financial, Sallie Mae, or HSBC Finance? These are some of the mainstream financial institutions playing an increasing role in this arena. For example, the report notes that Merrill Lynch works with CompuCredit to "package credit-card receivables as securities which are bought by hedge funds and other big investors."

Kevin Phillips does an excellent job in American Theocracy explaining the cultural big picture on the "financialization" of the U.S. economy which Phillips views as a sign of "late-stage debilitation, marked by excessive debt, great disparity between rich and poor, and unfolding economic decline" (p.268). He also notes that ordinary citizens "suffer most, but they usually lack the expertise to fully comprehend the changes under way." The Business Week report stories the lives of such ordinary citizens caught in the debt trap set by the "alternative financial services" providers.

For those of us calling ourselves Christians, these stories should inspire not only heartbreak but moral outrage that we've allowed this to happen -- "this" being the abandonment of Biblical principle in the pursuit of financial gain.

One question the report doesn't address is whether or not those who belong to a church community are less susceptible to financial predation. Surely, even a passing familiarity with the Great Commandment makes us less likely to exploit our brothers or sisters? I grew up "working poor". My parents were forced to buy on installment back when such an act was a sure sign of moral desuetude to many. Our church, however, was a leveler -- a place where every Sunday we sat next to S.T Kelly, the town banker who owned the mortgage on our house. We knew his character was subject to no judgement other than his Maker's. S.T. knew the same about ours.

Granted, this memory is nothing more than a pleasant vignette from my increasingly distant childhood -- I doubt there are any "town bankers" left whose hands aren't tied by forces larger than the local economy. Still, I am pretty sure Jesus' teachings have not changed -- at least not in my lifetime. I am also fairly certain that good church people might still be able to help each other find the larger truths about life. The ones that don't require a plasma screen television to discover.

At Last -- Dairy Goat Gadgets on Google!

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:07:00 +0000

I've been looking for useful goat related Google Gadgets to add to the Almanac. I can't imagine why but, apparently, no one has bothered writing any. So, as you can see, I've written a couple of fun ones and added them to the "Almanac".

The first is a "tips" generator which operates kind of like the old Unix "fortune" program.. Each time you load the page, a random seasonally adjusted dairy goat management tip is displayed. These are mostly items which I've found over the years in the American Dairy Goat Association's News and Events newsletter. I'm hoping to add more so please pass on any brief "tips" you'd like to see.

The second is my goat "gestamater" due date calculator which was on the old littlebunch.com site for years. I've updated it by adding a nice little date picker calendar courtesy of Julian Robichaux.

You can add one or both these gadgets to your own web page. You can grab the code for the "Gestamater" by following the instructions here while code for the tips generator is here.

Hometown Edge

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Sun, 27 May 2007 12:08:00 +0000

Jen and I picked up brother Bob in Baltimore and headed down to Rockville to catch Mamajama at the Hometown Holiday festival yesterday.

Rockville Hometown Holidays

If Rockville were my hometown, I'd probably have a hard time recognizing it. Old growth suburbia has been eradicated. In its place is a "town center" of multi-use mid-rise buildings so new as to be largely vacant. The overall effect is a vaguely Continental street scape patrolled by Segway mounted police officers.

It's often easier creating a future than covering up a past which helps explain why edge city development has a vitality often absent in traditional urban renewal projects.

Creating a future, at least in the United States, also seems necessarily cosmopolitan. For a bumpkin like me, yesterday was something akin to a trip to Manhattan. Granted, you'd be hardpressed to find a "Hometown Holiday" festival in, say, Union Square but much as I do while negotiating the polyglot streets of New York I caught myself playing "name that language" while people watching in Rockville. This clearly ain't Cheever territory.

Maybe it was just Mamajama karma but there was a good vibe in Rockville yesterday. Fifteen or so years ago I could never imagine living in the 'burbs. Even 'tho I still can't, I'm coming to better appreciate why so many people do.

Making Our Taxes Real

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Sun, 20 May 2007 11:30:00 +0000

The "Cost of the War in Iraq" counter running under the Almanac comes courtesy of the National Priorities Project. The amount of tax dollars this figure represents is nearly incomprehensible to most of us. But, the good folks at NPP are doing a brilliant job making it real.

For example, check out the "How your Taxes are Spent" tool where you can plug in the amount of Federal taxes you've paid and receive a breakdown of where those dollars are being spent in actual dollar amounts as well as in a lovely pie chart like you see here

There's also a "Trade-offs" tool which allows you to see the opportunity costs of our "investing" in certain forms of spending like the Iraq War. For example, taxpayers in our own Congressional District 6 (Bartlett) will pay $1.1 billion for the cost of the Iraq War through 2007. For the same amount of money, we coulda had the following:

1,874 People with Health Care or
17,016 Elementary School Teachers or
139,892 Head Start Places for Children or
376,448 Children with Health Care or
5,643 Affordable Housing Units or
94 New Elementary Schools or
134,537 Scholarships for University Students or
17,960 Music and Arts Teachers or
22,671 Public Safety Officers or
976,839 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
19,891 Port Container Inspectors

Play with the NPP tools long enough and you might start wondering if it's not time for some sort of budget plebiscite on the Iraq War in particular and the way Federal budget priorities are skewed in general. At the very least you might want to consider a tax deductible donation to the National Priorites Project.

Depot Day on the Edge of Edge City

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:53:00 +0000

Here are a few snapshots from Depot Day in Union Bridge where there's an interesting dynamic bulding over what it means to be a small town. At one end of Main Street, we have the Lehigh cement plant, the employer in town for as far back as anyone remembers. At the other end, we have the "Villages at Union Bridge" a soon to be built housing development which could introduce 1,500 strangers to "small town" living.

Town burghers talk about the housing development in terms of preserving the "small town" atmosphere of Union Bridge. Everyone seems to agree this is a worthy goal but there's clear differences of opinion not only in how to achieve it but what the concept means. For some of the local merchants "small town" means more customers on main street instead of in the aisles at the Walmart in Frederick, our nearby "edge city." Housing development proponents use the small town concept as a selling point for people seeking whatever it is the traditional surburbs no longer offer -- space, community, safety, apple pie and motherhood or ...[name your need]. The former harkens a past that can never again be while the latter promises a future built on elusive ideals.

There remains, of course, the small town which Union Bridge has been for the past hundred years or so: a company town. And, down at their end of town, the company seems settled in for a lengthy stay. About five years ago Lehigh built a huge kiln, the largest in North America. It's difficult to overstate the scale of the thing -- a 30 story erector set looming over the town and surrounding countryside like the Cathedral at Chartre -- only with lots of lights and loud whirring noises. As with Pittsburgh, things are a lot cleaner in Union Bridge than they used to be. Most long timers appreciate this fact but it's one sometimes lost on newcomers who regularly voice their complaints about the noise and dust, polluted wells, and cavernous sinkholes. A source of recent concerns is Lehigh's plans to burn biosolids -- human wastes.

The implicit deal struck in all company towns is one where the company provides the jobs and in return the residents pretty much take life on the company's terms especially when it comes to the environment. I'm not so sure folks chasing some ill-defined small town idyll will notice that big erector set looming over the backyard patio in the "Villages" before they buy. I'm pretty sure some of them will notice after they buy. And, that's when things will start getting interesting in Union Bridge.

"Authentic Mexican" Comes to Town

noreply@blogger.com (The Goat Farmer) — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:21:00 +0000

Papa Joe's Deli and Dogs just moved from the Westminster Antiques Mall to Main Street rechristening themselves as just "Papa Joe's" and advertisting the "best authentic" Mexican" food in the area. I should know better after 30 years living on the East Coast, but I'm still a sucker for those words: "authentic Mexican". So, Jen and I clipped a 10% off coupon from the Carroll County Times and headed on down to Papa's new digs the other evening.

I'm not trying to set myself up as the arbiter of utlimate authenticity here. I don't speak Spanish and the closest I've been to Mexico is a short gig in the first grade in Tuscon back when my vagabond parents were running a step ahead of the truant officer. That said, spending a good part of my youth hanging out in Kansas City's barrio eateries at least qualifies me to express an opinion on the matter.

Ok. Some benchmarks. If menudo isn't on the menu, then you're probably not in an authentic Mexican restaurant. Further, if it's on the menu and it's not spicy enough to blow off your head like a steam whistle, then you're probably not in an authentic Mexican restaurant. The enchiladas are made with corn tortillas dipped in lard, filled with pork or white cheese or potato and served swimming in gravy. If you want lettuce you order a tostado and pick it out of the beans. The beer you fetch yourself out of a cooler with flip top doors like an ice cream parlor freezer. The chips are greasy enough to add flavor and light enough to dissolve in your mouth -- the only crunch being the first bite. Anyway, anyone who's ever been to an authentic Mexican restaurant gets the picture. Pardon my Calvin Trillin moment, but to my way of thinking Las Chiquitas in Kansas City is an authentic Mexican restaurant.

Now, back to Papa Joe's as I think we all know where this is heading. The good part is the place was packed which tells me there are a lot of people in these parts hungry for authentic Mexican food. For the not so good part we need go no further than the enchilada platters we ordered at $12.99 a pop -- about double the price you'd pay for an enchilada combo in most Mexican restaurants. Delusional to the end, I told Jen that at these prices those enchiladas must really be something special. And they were! They just weren't enchiladas unless Chipotle's now has enough market clout to make us believe that huge, overstuffed "burritos" (read: bland, flour tortilla "wraps" ) are enchiladas.

I could go on but the point is not to trash Papa Joe's as it is what it is. It's just that "authentic Mexican" is not part of the is. If you would like a Chipotle's or Salsarita's with table service and a full bar then Papa Joe's is probably not a bad spot to hang on Friday evening. As it is, Jen and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo, that ultimate American holiday, at Taco Bell trying to decide if we have time for a trip back to Kansas City this summer.