FWIW, and YMMV, I find that American lamb is much lambier than New Zealand lamb which is harvested younger and therefore (I find) much milder. That’s all I will buy. TJ a good source.
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I adore lamb and cilantro is the devil’s work for my tastebuds. LOL
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I just finally checked out the basement gym in our building 
Could kick myself for not having done so sooner, but my boxing gloves are def coming back down with me next week! 
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Temporarily, anyway. There’s a $0.40 cent resistor on the main brain board that appears to have a problem(*). I tapped on it a bit and got it to work again (when not working, the washer is just a total dead stick, won’t power up).
But it’s sure to die its final death soon. I need to hit up an electrical supply store and also get a soldering iron. I can’t find mine, and it’s been decades since I played around with a board. Unfortunately the resistor is nestled tight between several taller components and very tight down on the conformal coating, so it’s going to be a bit of a pain to replace between my sausage fingers and presbyopia.
(*) Kudo’s to the Ozzie repair tech who posted a YT video very exactly diagnosing this problem - if you spin the drum hard and the panel comes alive, it’s either this resistor or the encased fuse sitting near it, and given I got it to work by jiggling the resistor, that’s my guy.
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Maybe, just maybe there is such a thing as karma.
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Muchas gracias.
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Those weather people are really starting to p*ss me off Over and out.
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Our group went to lunch the other day and at the table next to us sat two women and a child, about 4 y.o. The child was on a handheld device, playing a game or some kind of interactive program at full volume blast. The two women were totally involved in their conversation and/or just ignoring the child. They were not eating a meal, no dishes, just talking. Our group kept shooting a glance next to us, trying to get eye contact with one of the women. No luck. We didn’t feel comfortable mentioning this to the occupants or the area server; what could they say? We just agreed to talk as loud as needed (one hasn’t felt the need to get badly needed hearing aids, anyway) to be heard. As soon as we let go of the ‘nuisance’, we could proceed with our visit and our meal. When we were done and got up after our leisurely lunch, we were surprised to see that table still occupied. After thought: it may have been family member(s) of the establishment sitting there. 
As Queen Elsa said, "Let it go."
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Rather than start a new thread (which, for numerous reasons, I’ve never done and likely never will), I thought I’d post this here that United Airlines is going to start new service to some rather unusual and basically unserved (from the US) destinations in the world.
The two that are surely the most unusual/unserved are Nuuk, Greenland (
) and Ulaanbataar (previously Anglicized as “Ulan Bator”), Mongolia (）
I was a travel agent for 20 years and though I think I MIGHT have sent a select few people to Mongolia, I’m absolutely positive that I NEVER sent anyone to Greenland! Some people are interested in out-of-the-way or undiscovered destinations and Greenland is certainly undiscovered and Mongolia is out-of-the-way!
Here’s a list of all the new destinations.
First from Newark:
- Bilbao, Spain (3x weekly from May 31)
- Faro, Portugal (4x weekly from May 16)
- Madeira in Portugal’s Azores Islands (3x weekly from June 7)
- Nuuk, Greenland (2x weekly from June 14)
- Palermo, Italy (Sicily) (3x weekly from May 21)
and from Narita Int’l Airport outside of Tokyo:
- Kaohsiung, Taiwan (1x daily year-round from July 11)
- Palau daily year-round
- Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (3x weekly seasonal from May 1)
Please be aware that even if not listed as being so, some of the above destinations are surely seasonal or will become so.
Bon voyage to anyone interested❣️
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And a UFO on the right with running lights! 
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B and I went to Palau in 2011—twas an awesome trip and we’ve talked about it to our almost 10-year old Spring Onion. We transited through Munich and Seoul (few days layover in Seoul) from Boston. Transiting through Narita is mighty attractive. Thanks for the heads up @TokushimaCook.
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3 days! We’re having quite the number of celestial events this month:
Northern lights, Full Blood Moon coming up and the comet!
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You’re welcome! Seeing your posts about traveling was one of the reasons I chose to post the article. Delta Airlines flew Narita to Koror, Palau up until 2018. With those having been canceled, the only way to fly there from Japan was via Guam.
Palau is popular with Japanese tourists…especially divers. And as a former Japanese colony, Palau has a lot of influence from Japanese culture and many older residents speak the language and it is even an official language. Modern Palauan has many words that were originally Japanese,such as “daijobu” (“no problem”) “okyaku” (“guest/customer”), “denki” (“electricity”) and “senkyo” (“election”).
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Interesting. NJ has a relatively large population of folks with Portuguese heritage, especially around Newark. Maybe there’s a need to go back and forth?
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October’s Hunter’s Moon is going to be the biggest and brightest of the four Supermoons in 2024. Due on the 17th, around 7:30 p.m. EDT. Looks like the weather in New England will cooperate to see it.
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Well, speaking as a former travel agent, I can guarantee that the reason for the flight(s) being from Newark is that it is United’s biggest East Coast hub. Their other East Coast hub is Washington/Dulles, but it became dwarfed by Newark once the integration of Continental Airlines was complete as Newark was their big and only East Coast hub.
And it appears that New Jersey has the 4th biggest population of Portuguese people or people of Portuguese descent. New York has the 5th biggest and as Newark is officially one of New York’s airports, if you combine the 2 states’ populations of those people, they would be #3 in size.
Though California is #1, that likely has a lot to do with the sheer size of the state in terms of population and land. I know it’ll seem odd to most people here, but something I’ve known for a long time is that the Portuguese population in Massachusetts (#2) and Rhode Island (#4) is mostly people from the Azores Islands. I don’t know where the majority of Portuguese in California emanated from, but I do know that many of California’s Portuguese people live in the Oakland area and are of Azorean descent. So much so that there are non-stop flights from Oakland to the Azores’ Ponta Delgada airport.
However, before someone else corrects my egregious error, I misstated that Madeira is in the Azores. As a former travel agent and self-professed geography buff, that’s entirely inexcusable because though both the Azores and Madeira are part of Portugal, they are entirely separate. The Azores are much further west (and appreciably north as well) in the Atlantic and Madeira is off the coast of Africa.
Madeira is comprised of 4 islands: Madeira, Porto Santo, Desertas, and Selvagens, only two of which are inhabited (Madeira and Porto Santo.).
The are 9 islands in the Azores: Flores, Corvo, Graciosa, Terceira, São Jorge, Pico, Faial, São Miguel and Santa Maria.
I believe that the United Airlines flight to Madeira is based on tourism while the flights from Boston, JFK, Oakland (sometimes there are flights from Providence as well) to the Azores by Azores Airlines and the other Azorean airline known as “SATA” are based on what is called “VFR” (Visiting Friends and Relatives). I base this belief on the fact that the Azoreas are not nearly as touristic as Madeira.
I’m very sorry for my error and as always unnecessarily long comment. And no, I’m a former not current travel agent because of such errors, but because the Internet made being a travel agent a job that was no longer financially viable for me.
Thank you
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Where I got my population figures (and these photos) from:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/portuguese-population-by-state
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I’ll be back in the boonz and my bet is it’ll be cloudy. It’s always cloudy there for any celestial events of note 
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