17 thoughts on “October 14, 2018: Adiós, Ese.”

  1. I had completely Battey'd the song "Hurricane J," but as soon as The Hold Steady started it yesterday, I had flashbacks to some classic Crainwrecks. The human mind is a mysterious thing with the way it makes connections.

  2. SA being rebranded does not surprise me. We have a couple up here and for one of them, the printers at the pumps have not worked for at least 4 years. It is a convenient stop for me, but I refuse to get gas there. I want a receipt just in case there is a mix up and they call in a pump and dash on me. I have had several friends who pay at the pump and then the cops show up later to ask why they didn't pay. I think they have been deferring maintenance for quite a while anticipating a remodel or closure. They other reason it makes sense, is the color schemes of Holiday and SA are similar. I find the whole convenience store/gas station thing interesting. They all ebb and flow. Kwik Trip totally took over the St. Cloud market and Casey's is building like crazy. I would love to sit down with an executive of one of these companies to learn more about site selection. For some reason I think about it a lot. Yes, I am weird.

    1. Just googled "Speedway Gas" as I have never seen one of their stations. Every story is either an "SA" story, or a story about a robbery or assault at a Speedway. I wondered if it was company specific, but it appears that gas stations are frequent hosts for crime activities.

    2. Here besides the oil company's stations we have QuikTrip (QT), Casey's, and some Circle K showing up, but QT has always been the go-to - clean, good food selection, free air, and easy to navigate. Back home growing up it was always Cenex.

    3. I live in a small city of about 3500, but even still all the locally owned stations are dying while there's Kwik Trip and construction just started on a Casey's. I don't know that any of it means.

      I always get receipts as well because of a story I read in a comments section somewhere where a guy took his TDI to fill it up but the diesel tank at that station was mistakenly filled with gasoline. The owner of the station tried to say the guy used the wrong pump, but the receipt shows which one is used. I was more concerned about it when I drove a TDI, but I still do it these days just in case.

    4. In my current work (we'll see how long that lasts because I might be on a certain candidate's McCarthyist list and get purged if he wins), I've gotten to work with these various competitors and learn a little bit about the business models. I currently have cases pending with Casey's and a Tesoro a county south of you. Very interesting stuff from the tip of the iceberg to which I get exposed.

      1. My family laughed about Kum & Go during a trip to Iowa. It’s the teenager in me that can’t believe that name has taken hold in the market.

        Speedway was the common ‘cheap gas’ place growing up in Indiana. Always a cent or two cheaper than the nearby Amoco or Shell. It threw me off to hear the same jingle end with “...the convenient stores of Super America” instead of Speedway when I first moved up here.

    6. I'm going to slightly miss how "SA" is pronounced like the Spanish "ese".
      As in Cypress Hill's "What's the matter ese, don't you know I'm loco?"

  3. On The Grill In the All-Clad Cooking Pan - Veal Saltimbocca

    Use the edge of a small plate to pound thin veal fillets into flat cutlets - both sides. Remove as much moisture as you can (for better browning), and top each fillet with French-style prosciutto (not sure why it's called French-style but easier to handle, has the plastic sheets between the prosciutto cuts), and then again with fresh sage leaves. Either fold the veal over or cover with another piece, then use small skewers to sew the veal shut. Oh yeah, salt and pepper.

    Saute in olive oil with 1 tbsp butter (about 2 min on each side), then put into covered warm platter. Add some white wine (Pinot Gris) to the pan, cook down scraping bits off the pan, and add lemon juice, and some more butter. Let reduce a bit, then serve warm on cutlets. Haricots verts and steamed asparagus spears work nicely here. Remove the skewers so that no one swallows them accidentally.

    Pro-tip: take the rest of the fresh sage that will probably go bad in the fridge and throw them into de-hydrator, along with the rest of the pineapple that has been in the fridge for a week...

  4. No game log today?

    Price with the give-back runs after Cole has a verrrry shakey first (including an error by someone; I missed that part).

    1. I dislike Darlings accent, but holy crap are buck and smoltz bad, especially after smoltz going all in on that awful chop.

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