Paul Ryburn's Journal

Interesting article on the Memphis Business Journal’s site this morning about a possible CCC proposal to return vehicle traffic to Main Street.  The Main Street Mall has been a pedestrian mall from Exchange to Peabody Place since the 1970s.

My first reaction was “No!  Don’t mess with my street!”, since Main literally is my street – I live at 10 South Main.  However, after thinking about it for a little while, I can actually see advantages to letting cars once again travel down Main – it would not only bring more vehicle traffic to the area, but more foot traffic as well.  That would encourage new retail businesses to open up in the Downtown core, and I think it would also help curb the activities of the bums who frequent the area.

My only concern if they do it is that they get it done quickly, and not take a year and destroy the sales of all the businesses on Main.  Since the trolley tracks are on Main, that worries me a bit, since MATA would be involved and they somehow manage to screw up every construction project they do.

Check back later today for a cool links page, and information on THE place to be tomorrow night for Thursday night parties.  My patio/mojito plans got cancelled – my friend got a last-minute work appointment – so I’ll revert to my usual plan of Downtown Night at Itta Bena at 5:30.  It’s a good time, come join.  Complimentary appetizers, and 5 bucks for well drinks that are better than call drinks at most bars.  After that I’ll move on to the Saucer and decide whether I want to buy their 4:20 glass for “buy the beer, keep the glass” night.  I need another glass like I need a hole in the head, but it’s hard not to want a glass that has “shiznit” printed on it.

I started last night at Itta Bena, where bartender Sam was working.  Hang on, let’s post a pic of Sam:

There ya go.  That’s Sam.  You may remember that Sam started a trivia team last year called “Suck My Blog” in an attempt to take down the greatest team in the history of trivia, the Rapscallions.  He failed miserably.  Then a couple of weeks ago he and a partner lost a pool game to Best Pool Partner Ever Lauren and me.  Well, last night Sam got to lose to me yet again.  He was playing with my phone and found a game called Bubble Breaker he’s played before.  I haven’t played it in more than a year.  So he challenged me.  Final score:

Paul 954
Sam 292

After leaving Itta Bena, I had safety patrol run a few bums off, then headed to the Saucer where I had to scan my UFO card one last time to see this on the screen:

Yep.  It’s confirmed.  I’m done.  They gave me a form to fill out to plan my plate party.  Here’s what the form looks like:

I requested a special slogan on my plate instead of a city, and the manager said no problem.  If you’ve ever read this blog you’ve seen the slogan.  If you can’t figure out what it is, I’ll post a pic of the new plate within the next 7 days after I have my plate party.

So I have a $100 bar tab to spend on the plate party, right?  Wrong.  The Rapscallions came into last night with $275 in trivia winnings, to be spent that night too.  So we have $375 to spend, right?  Wrong.  We added even more last night, as the Rapscallions dominated the third round and picked up yet another victory and $50 first-place gift certificate.  So our tab for the party is an enormous $425.

After trivia I rolled on to Calhoun’s.  They sell cans of Old Style for $1 a can during Cubs games, and after the game some of the people there decided to shotgun beers.  Here are some pics of that:

And here are some pics of what happened after the shotgunning was done:

Plans for today:  For the first time in over two months, I do NOT have to go to the Saucer.  Meeting a friend for mojitos on Sauces’ patio today after work.

Weird not to have a beer report to type.  Possibly another post around lunchtime.

New info on the Memphis Zombie Attack, where you can be transformed into a zombie on Beale Street or at the South Main Trolley Art Tour on Friday, April 25.  (What an appropriate day; lots of scary creatures have been born on 4/25.)  HauntedWeb is offering $50 to the best male and female zombie.  More info on that here.

You can either show up as a zombie, or you can show up wearing clothes you don’t mind being ruined with a piece of duct tape prominently displayed, and the existing zombie horde will zombify you as they pass by.

Another option is to show up at the parking lot adjacent to the Plush Club at 5 PM that day, and professional makeup artists will transform you into a zombie.

March starts around 7, down Beale to Main, then down Main to Earnestine & Hazel’s.  There will be an after-party at E&H’s back from featuring the Creeping Cruds, a Nashville horror rock band.

I won’t be among the zombies that night, but I will be out taking pics for a 2008 photo album.  Should be fun.

It’s Tuesday night, which means it’s movie night at EP Delta Kitchen.  This week they’ve picked two movies with disco themes – Boogie Nights and 54.  Movies are shown on their big screen and start at 7.

There’s also a crawfish boil on the patio (although, I wonder if they’ll move it inside because it’s so blasted cold).  If you can’t wait ’til Sunday’s Rajun Cajun fest to get your crawfish, you can show up at 6 and get all you can eat for $16.95.

I hate to miss the disco movies, but it’s trivia night and my team’s last chance to earn gift certificates before Rapscallion Party VII/Plate Party 2.  After trivia ends I will stop by EP’s, though, for an engagement party for two of my friends.

Feeling better today… time to put some clothes on and head to work.

Just checked the tracker… the blog set a new record for number of hits in one day yesterday – 960.  Otto installed a WordPress plugin on my blog which is supposed to make it more friendly to search engines… guess it’s working.

Now that I know how much it costs to get a plate on the wall at the Flying Saucer ($1,263.75), it’s time to crunch some numbers and see what that means.

I drank 207 beers en route to getting my plate.  That’s because the Saucer lost 10 (5%) of the beer tickets I handed in to record that I drank each beer.  I got 3 of the beers credited back.  The other 7 I didn’t bother with, looking at them as part of the true cost of getting a plate (because most people wouldn’t go to a manager and get them credited; heck, most people probably wouldn’t even realize they lost beers).

Dividing $1,263.75 by 207, I get a cost of $6.11 per beer, including tip.

The $1,263.75 total includes a consistent tip of 30% throughout the 207 beers.  Want to know what the per-beer cost without the tip?  $1,263.75/1.30 = $972.12, which would be an average of $4.86 per beer.  The average beer at the Saucer costs more than $4.86, but I held the total done by drinking Fire Sales and Pint Nite beers wherever possible.  Also, because there are slightly more than 200 beers on the menu, I was able to avoid the two $30 bottles, as well as a lot of the Samuel Smith and Lindeman’s beers in the $10-14 range.

If you think I should only count 200 beers, I can do that too:  $1,263.75 / 207 * 200 = $1,221.01.

If you think the count should be 210 because I got 3 credited back, it would be $1,263.75 / 207 * 210 = $1,282.07.

If you tip some other amount than I do, you can multiply $972.12 by 1.15 to get a total of $1,117.94 if you’re a 15% tipper, or $972.12 * 1.20 to get $1,166.54 if you’re a 20% tipper.

At an average cost of $4.86/beer, if I had not gotten any of the 10 tickets the Saucer lost credited back, I would’ve spent an extra $48.60 on the plate ($68.13 including tip).

In the 2 months and 10 days it took to do my plate, 8 Saucer girls either quit or got fired.

And those are the stats.  It’s all over but the plate party.  Tonight I’ll show up for trivia and go back to drinking $2.75 Fire Sales.  Hope the Fire Sale beer isn’t something disgusting like Turbo Dog.  I wonder if I’ll be able to maintain my record 960 hit count without daily beer reports.  They were the most interesting part of the blog, after all.  With the beers all done and with the new safety patrol having run all the bums off, what do I have left to write about?

I guess I’ve recovered from being sick.  There was nothing to eat in the apartment so a little after midday, I had to go out to keep from dying of starvation.  Went to Big Foot, where my BFF was bartending.  Ordered food.  She walked back to the kitchen to get it.  She had tight khaki shorts on.  “You need to walk to the kitchen more often,” I told her.

“Why, so you can look at my butt?” she responded.  “Paul, that’s kind of creepy.”

How is that creepy?  I’m a straight guy.  I will admit, despite all the trash-talking I do on the blog, I love my BFF and truly enjoy her company.  But I’m still a guy.  I look.  We’re hard-wired to look.  It’s just that I’m not afraid to admit it.  It’s been my experience (my own in earlier days, and watching other people) that when a guy and a girl are friends, and the guy claims he never, ever looks at the girl that way when he obviously does, that the result is a distrustful, screwed-up friendship.  I refuse to do that anymore.  I love my female friends but I don’t apologize for being a guy.  Heck, I do Tube Top Month in this blog, how much more could I put it out there.  You either get me or you don’t.

Okay.  Off the soapbox.  After I ate I went to the Saucer to get my final 3 plate beers out of the way.  Beer report:

Previous total:  $1,252.50

Beers 205, 206, and 207 (but 198, 199, and 200 according to the Saucer):
Anchor Steam $2.75
Rogue Shakespeare Stout $2.75
Spaten Oktoberfest $2.75
Tip: $8.25 x 3 beers = $11.25

Grand total:  $1,263.75

…and the quest for the second plate is over.  I’ll fill out my form for my plate tomorrow night (assuming my beer tickets get scanned, which I know they will because Jamie was the bartender) and have my plate party sometime in the days to come.

My BFF’s mini-me quit the Saucer yesterday.

Okay.  The only thing resembling actual news in this post:  Onix on South Main has 2-for-1 happy hour according to people I talked to tonight.  It lasts from 5 to 7.

Off to bed.

Wasn’t feeling all that hot this morning, so I called in.  I’m lying here in bed typing this post.  Yay for laptops and wireless Internet.  My team just wrapped up two major projects at work, so it’s a good day to take off.

Yesterday I heard one of the most touching pleas for assistance ever spoken by a panhandler in Downtown Memphis.  Better get some Kleenex handy before you read on – this story is going to bring tears to your eyes.

My friend Air Traffic Mike was walking down Second Street with one of his buddies this past weekend, when a female panhandler in her late 30s approached him.  She asked for money using the following line:  “Look here, I ain’t no goddamn addict, I just smoke a little crack once in a while.”

Doesn’t that just tug on your heartstrings?  How could you not open your wallet and donate generously after hearing a story like that?

I haven’t mentioned Pearl’s Oyster House on the blog in a while… between working on my plate at the Saucer and going to new places that have opened Downtown, I hate to say it but I’ve been ignoring Pearl’s lately.  I’ve been told that the owner of the place hired a new GM, and he hired him away from Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.  The owner wants the quality of the food and the service to be impeccable, and he knows that bringing over a GM from Ruth’s Chris is a good way to ensure that.  “If anything is not right,” the owner told a friend of mine who was in there this weekend, “the new GM will be here 24/7.  Find him and let him know and it will be taken care of.  If he’s not here, I will be here, and you can tell me.”  It’s been too long since I’ve been to Pearl’s… I need to have a meal there soon.

Yesterday we did brunch at the Majestic, then moved on to the Saucer where “The Rev” preached to us for a couple of hours.  See, I do get my church time in on Sunday after all.  For those of you who play pool at the Saucer, you’ll be happy to learn that a set of new cues were delivered yesterday while we were there.

Time for the beer report.  As planned, I only drank 2 plate beers yesterday in order to save the final 3 for Pint Nite:

Previous total:  $1,238.00

Beers 203 and 204 by my count (196 and 197 by the Saucer’s count):
Lucifer $7.00
Belhaven Scottish Ale $4.50
Tip:  $11.50 x ~30% = $3.00
Total:  $14.50

Grand total:  $1,252.50

Since my final three beers will be Pint Nite drafts, that means I already know the grand total for my plate.  Three Pint Nite drafts will cost $8.25, and after tipping $1 per beer that will bring today’s total to $11.25, and the grand total to $1,263.75.  Later in the week I’ll do some statistical analysis on that total.

My plate party will be very soon, although I’m not publishing the exact date and time on my blog because I don’t want the general public to show up and attempt to drink on my tab.  My $100 plate party tab will be combined with $275 Rapscallion money plus whatever we win Tuesday night.

A little before 5:00 yesterday I got hungry, and walked down the street to Big Foot where my BFF was working.  She was taking the final test to be a bartender.  I took a look at the test and thought to myself, I know the answers to about 70% of the questions on here.  Maybe I should be a bartender.  Maybe I should convince Shawn and Lana to fire my BFF and hire me instead.  Wouldn’t be a bad move – I would draw a regular crowd, I have good working knowledge of drinks, and former bartenders at Big Foot have told me how much they make and it’s in the same ballpark as what I make as a software developer at VP.  And I could stay out drinking super-late at night like service industry people do.

The test may have been easy, but my BFF still cheated on it.  She asked the evening bartender who came on at 5:00 for several of the answers.  Sample question:  How much alcohol is in their $9.99 signature drinks?  Answer:  4 ounces.  See, this blog contains lots of valuable information.  Now you can get a job at Big Foot and be that much closer to passing the test.  I wonder when my BFF’s mini-me is going to quit the Saucer and get a job at Big Foot?  I’m sure it will be soon.

I also wonder what is considered a passing score on that bartender test… probably 90 or 95.  I’m sure it’s not like the University of Memphis where you can be a total dumbass and still get passing grades.

At one point while my BFF was taking the test, she stopped and looked at me for a minute.  I wondered what the look was for, then I saw that she was answering “List three signs of an intoxicated person.”

Yesterday I learned where former Saucer waitress Zebra Hair is now working.  It’s out in East Bumblefuck so I doubt I’ll ever have her as my waitress again.  It’s a good move for her to work out there though – she has more of a Cordova personality than a Downtown personality.

Even with Dos Equis Lager on Fire Sale yesterday, I still found time to make stops at Itta Bena and Calhoun’s.  I’m determined to start doing more of that – hopping from one place to another instead of doing extended stays at the Saucer.  After today my plate beers will be done so there will be nothing dictating that I HAVE to be there every day.

People were writing on each other with markers at Calhoun’s.  It gave me an idea for a new business – a strip club where there are Sharpie markers on the tables, and you can write on the dancers.  That would be awesome.  I’m not a big-time patron of strip clubs, but I might be if they had markers.

Reminds me, someone gave me a stack of passes to The Pony this weekend.  I’ll probably never use them, so if anyone wants some, let me know.

The temperature on my WeatherBug reads 40 degrees.  In the middle of the day in April.  This weather sucks.  Normal high for today is 72.

I checked the weather for next Sunday’s Rajun Cajun Crawfish Fest – they’re calling for a high of 73 and a low of 55, with only a 20% chance of rain.  Sounds perfect.  I’ve decided not to get the Swamp pass because I don’t want to be segregated off in a private tent.  I want to be out in the open.  My plan is to arrive at the festival at noon sharp, get a bucket of crawfish before the lines get long, and find a spot on the grass that is ideal for people-watching.

And now it’s time for a photo.  The girl kissing me on the cheek in the photo below is Kelly, who had her bachelorette party at the Saucer.

Kelly’s friends e-mailed me to tell me that she’s not allowed to get married unless I post the picture.  Wow, I have the power to destroy a marriage!  I can’t do that though.  Her friend tells me that Kelly would be interested in being my new BFF if I decide to kick my current one to the curb.

Also got e-mail from a chef at a Downtown restaurant, who told me he caught Jumper Cable Guy scamming two people yesterday.  So, as I suspected, JCG was lying to me when he told me he wasn’t scamming people anymore.  I’ve been calling the new safety patrol a lot this week to run off bums, but if I see JCG I may bypass the safety patrol and call the police.

All right.  Going to hit Publish and roll over and fall back asleep for a while and hopefully get to feeling better.

I had a reader e-mail last night and ask where to go besides Huey’s for late-night dining Downtown.  It reminded me that late-night dining is one of the categories that I’ve been meaning to add to my Downtown info pages for a while now.  So I went ahead and created the page and you can find it here:  Late-night dining in Downtown Memphis

As I compiled the list, I realized something:  If you want to eat late at night, I hope you like burgers.  They’re the featured menu item at nearly all the places that stay open late, and the only menu item at one place (Earnestine & Hazel’s).

The Saturday night recap isn’t very interesting.  Got to the Saucer at 7:00 and thanks to a good Fire Sale (Spaten Bock) and a good band (FreeWorld), I didn’t leave until 1 AM.  Played the Window Game and counted over 130 hooptys between 7:00 and 9:30 – Caprice Classics and Devilles and ’80s Monte Carlos and various other cars cruising around with 26″ spinner rims.  A friend of mine told me that there’s a hoopty convention in town this weekend.

The good news is that I only saw 6 bums between 7 and 9:30.  Before the security patrol, I would’ve seen close to 20 in that time frame.

Beer report:

Previous total:  $1,221.00

Beers 200, 201, and 202 by my count (193, 194, and 195 by the Saucer’s count):
Newcastle (hey, didn’t I already drink that?) $4.50
Anchor Liberty IPA $4.50
RedHook ESB (hey, didn’t I already drink that?) $4.00
Tip:  $13.00 x ~30% = $4.00
Total:  $17.00

Grand total:  $1,238.00

I confronted Saucer waitress Mini-me about all my beer tickets that she’s lost.  “Paul!  I haven’t lost any of your tickets!  I just forget to hand them in sometimes.  I hand them in the next day, and they get scanned.”

“Yeah, but what happens is, I come in the next day and drink 3 more beers,” I explained. “So the computer sees your 3 beer tickets that you scanned a day late, and my 3 beer tickets from that day, and it thinks I drank 6 beers.  So it rejects 3 of them for being over the 3-beer-per-day limit.”

“Ohhhhh,” said the mini-me.

Brunch today at the Majestic (week 1 of 2, although with next Sunday being Rajun Cajun Crawfish Fest I’ll probably skip week 2).  After that, on to the Saucer for a very long day of drinking Fire Sales and plate beers 196 (203) and 197 (204).

Back from the Midtown crawfish fest.  It was all right, not the greatest festival ever but not the worst either.  I didn’t get crawfish, because they were charging $10 for the same size Styrofoam box of crawfish that the Flying Fish sells for $4.99.  I’ll wait for Rajun Cajun to get my crawfish.

Started out last night at the Saucer, and here’s the beer report.

Previous total:  $1,197.75

Beers 197, 198, and 199 by my count (but 190, 191, and 192 by the Saucer’s count):
Blanche de Bruxelles draft $4.75
Mendocino Red Tail Ale $6.00
(*)Irish Car Bomb $7.50
Tip:  $18.25 x ~30% = $5.00
Total:  $23.25

Grand total:  $1,221.00

Blanche de Bruxelles was a particularly good value for the money.  The (*) is to note that I didn’t actually pay for the car bomb – Air Traffic Mike bought it for me.  The $7.50 is for recording purposes only.

Today I start my “bonus beers” – bonuses for the Saucer, that is.  The second and third beers will begin the beers I should not have to drink because I should already be to 200, but will have to drink because the Saucer lost so damn many of my beer tickets.  I guess that’s what the managers refer to as “profit.”  They should give my BFF’s mini-me the Employee of the Month Award for losing as many of my tickets as all the other waitresses combined.  With 8 beers left to go by their count, that means I’ll finish number 200 on Monday, and on one day between now and then I only need to drink 2 plate beers.  My plan is to only do 2 tomorrow, as Dos Equis Special Lager is rumored to be the Fire Sale, and that’ll allow me to enjoy more Special Lager on Sunday and push an additional plate beer back to Monday for Pint Nite prices.

I also need to find out if my BFF really is banned for life from the Saucer, and if so see if I can get her un-banned so she can attend my plate party.  Usually “banned for life” lasts about a week in the case of former employees, so I doubt it’ll be a big deal.

After doing my 3 at the Saucer (plus a couple of Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat Fire Sales), I hopped the trolley, took it all the way north, and walked across the Auction bridge to the River Inn on Mud Island.  It really wasn’t a long walk at all.  Not counting the trolley ride it was probably no more of a walk than it is from my front door to the Saucer.  I also noticed Tug’s, the casual restaurant/neighborhood bar across the street on Harbor Town Drive.  I’ve been meaning to try that place for a while.  I would’ve stopped in, but all the bar seats were taken and and I was already running late besides.

So I headed up to the rooftop of the River Inn for my friend Kacy’s birthday party.  It was a little chilly but an elegant affair nonetheless.  Everyone was dressed well, but thank goodness, no ties.  I posed for a pic with Kacy and her friend Christina, both of whom were wearing tube top dresses.  As soon as she sends it to me, I’ll post it, and it will probably make a second appearance during Tube Top Month.

Hung out there until 10:30, met several people who read the blog.  Then Kacy announced a venue change to Swig.  I told her I’d catch up in a little while.  With Tug’s so close, I couldn’t resist the chance to check it out.

This time I got a seat at the bar.  They have two long bars, with every bar seat in view of a large HDTV.  The bartender was someone I knew (she used to work at McGuinness), so things were off to a good start.  I counted the bar seats – there were 22 of them, lots of room to camp out.  The decor reminded me a little of Fox and Hound, and while that may sound like a slam on the place it’s not – it’s the crowd at the Cordova Fox and Hound that sucks, not the place itself.  Bar menu was reasonably priced.  Didn’t get a look at their full food menu.  I had a pint of Blue Moon, which was $4.75, slightly high but still acceptable.  At least they don’t charge $5.50 for a pint of Blue Moon like the Westin does.

Overall I liked the place and will go back.  Probably won’t go back much, though, since there are so many places I like in the Downtown core that are more convenient to get to.  But if someone who lived on the Island wanted me to meet them for a drink there, I’d have no problem with it.  Mud Island now has a locals’ bar, which is one of the things I always thought it was missing.

Walked back across the Auction bridge, and as I did I realized I really wasn’t feeling a late night of partying, not after staying up extremely late several weeknights.  So I decided to head home.  There was no trolley in sight going my way (it figures), so I started walking.  Stopped in Westy’s for Paul’s Drunkass Food (one of the wild rice dishes, with shrimp and mushrooms), then went home and went to bed.  Hated not to be there to party with Kacy, but I knew if I stayed out late I’d wake up cranky and put off doing my taxes.

…and that’s the Friday recap.  Time to go out and start gathering information for the Saturday recap.

Tuesday is April 15, an important date for two reasons:

1. It means there is only a month and a half remaining until Tube Top Month; and
2. It’s the 2007 income tax filing deadline.

So, it’s time to do my taxes.  This year I’m really not messing around.  I worked as a self-employed consultant for part of 2007, and even when I was a full-time employee I spent a significant amount of my free time doing affiliate marketing sites that produced income.  That means I’m entitled to write off a number of business expenses, including my Internet access, a portion of my cell phone bill, my hosting bills, books I bought that were related to my profession, and a portion of my rent for the months when I worked from home.  In past years I haven’t done that and it was just plain stupid of me.  It was like handing the U.S. Government a multi-thousand-dollar check.  This year, I’ve decided that it’s my money and I want it back.  People often don’t claim everything they could because they’re afraid of being audited.  But you know what?  I have a receipt for everything I plan to claim, and if the IRS wants to audit me, fine.  They’re in the same building as my office, so I won’t have far to travel if it happens.

Gmail is great for finding business expenses.  I use my paul@paulryburn.com address as my main e-mail address, but for the past year it’s been nothing but a forward to my Gmail account.  Gmail is so superior to Outlook, Thunderbird, or any other stand-alone e-mail client that I’ve seen that I’d rather just funnel my domain e-mail there.  So this morning I got on the search feature and searched for “receipt,” “order confirmation,” and “payment,” and found about $1,500 worth of business expenses I would have otherwise missed.

I’m going to pay for TurboTax’s online home and business edition, and get this thing filed and over with.  Then I’m going to head to Midtown for the Overton Square crawfish fest.  People have e-mailed me asking for details, so here ya go:  It’s noon to 6 today, in that huge parking lot behind the old TGI Friday’s building.  Take Cooper to Monroe and you’ll see it.

Last night I was talking to a blog reader who brought up an interesting point:  Maybe I should pay for a Swamp pass for Rajun Cajun Crawfish fest, the other (and better) crawfish fest which will be held Downtown next Sunday, April 20.  The Swamp is a VIP area with all-you-can-eat crawfish and other cajun food, and all-you-can-drink beer, soft drinks, and water.  I’m glad to mention it on the blog, but at $45 I never seriously considered buying a pass to the Swamp.

But thinking about my expenses at the festival, maybe I should.  I’m not going to use last year as a guideline, because I made a lot of side trips to a nearby rooftop and to the Saucer.  At the 2006 festival, I ate a bucket of crawfish and drank 7 beers.  At $15 a bucket and $4 a beer, that’s $43, nearly the cost of a Swamp pass.  Also, there are no lines in the Swamp, and not having to stand in the long, long, long lines at Rajun Cajun is easily worth $2 more.  Hmmm maybe I should do it.  I’ll think about it this weekend, and decide Monday.  Rajun Cajun is my third favorite festival of the year, behind Cooper-Young and BBQ Fest.

Hmmm… another reason why maybe I should get the Swamp pass… there will be people from Porter-Leath there, one of the most worthy charities in town.  I’d like the chance to get to talk to them and find out more about what they do and how Memphians can help.  I’d probably get a good blog post out of it.

Back later today, with a recap of last night (got to hang out on the rooftop of the River Inn at Harbor Town, and I finally got to try Tug’s, the new bar on Mud Island.  I’ll have a beer report as well.  Right now though, it’s time to pay Uncle Sam, or rather, it’s time for Uncle Sam to pay me.