A twice former co-worker of mine, Sean Wilson, founded an organization called Pop The Cap, whose purpose was to lobby for changes to North Carolina's antiquated restrictions on alcoholic content of malt beverages.

Thanks to the organization's efforts, the state assembly passed a bill which was signed in August, 2005 that raises the allowable percentage of alcohol from 6% to 15% - allowing the "craft beer" industry to find it's way into North Carolina.

If you ask me, it was a silly restriction anyway, limiting the alcoholic content to 6%.  I mean, why?  Wine has 10-15% alcohol, and of course liquor is 25-50% alcohol (unless you live in Indiana, where we used to get something called Everclear that was 190 proof!)

At any rate, I look forward to seeing some good brew pubs pop up around the area.

I was at the Bass Lake Draft House in Holly Springs this Sunday and I noticed their "featured beer" had 8% alcohol.

Sean Wilson worked with me both here at Duke and back in the KOZ days.

This article in the New York Times basically says cycling on a typical saddle-style seat causes erectile dysfunction.

No wonder Lance Armstrong rides ALL the time!  He's got nothing better to do!  Even with his hot wife.

My wife and I took our daughter and my parents to the Peak City Grill for dinner Friday night, and I was extremely disappointed in the menu, the food, and the service.

First of all, I was disappointed at how "fancy" the menu was.  Bar and Grill restaurants (or Grill and Bar restaurants) should have burgers, at the very least.  Obviously, this place wants your money so you can't go in there and spend $10-$15 on dinner.

We ordered an appetizer - the Bruchetta.  3 small pieces of bread with toppings.  It was an extremely small appetizer for $7.  My wife ordered the crab cake appetizer for her meal and it was very small too.  Perhaps they should put "Feeds 2" on the menu.  Most restaurants I've been to have appetizer plates suitable for 4 people.

I had a T-Bone steak with fries.  The steak was tolerable, but not great.  It wasn't very thick (I like a good thick steak).  The steak on top of a bowl of french fries.  In order to cut my steak, I had to figure out what to do with the french fries.  Many of them ended up spilling onto the table.  My dad had a similar problem with his ribeye served in a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Get some plates, darn it.  Big ones.  Bowls are for soup.

The service was horrendous.  Word to the waitress - straws belong in your apron.

We had a water spill (thanks to my daughter), and we asked our waitress for a towel.  She said she'd go get one.  About a minute goes by and we decide to use the napkins to wipe up the spill.  Cheap polyster napkins don't absorb much.  About 5 minutes go by and we spot a bus person and ask to borrow his towel to wipe our table off.  Our waitress finally shows up with a towell after we've wiped the table clean.  We ask her for fresh napkins since we used ours to attempt to wipe up the spill.  She says she'll get some.  5 minutes later, we have a Sprite spill (again, thanks to my daughter).  We have no napkins still and we grab another towell from another bus person.  Meanwhile, we see our waitress again delivering drinks an taking o rders and we ask her again for Napkins.  She tells us how she has to go back and get all new silverware sets.  Fine, just go get us some napkins!   A bus person finally comes back with napkins and we get the table cleaned off.  The waitress doesn't bother to offer us refills or fresh glases - we had to ask for them.

Oh, the glorified saltines they serve as "cracker bread" seem exceptionally cheapl.  I do like the pepper jelly and cream cheese they give you but still.  Some restaurants serve nice warm bread that makes you want to come in to have dinner.  Saltines don't do much for me.

On top of all this, they had no homemade salad dressings I was interested in.  Mix up some thousand island or honey mustard dressing.

I couldn't have been more disappointed by my experience with the Peak City Grill.

We may go there again in a year or so to figure out if they've gotten any better, but even if the service improved, I still wouldn't want to go there because of the menu.

We spent $55 on our dinner.  Bruchetta, T-Bone w/Fries, Crabcake appetizer, chicken tenders w/fries, 1 glass of wine, 1 glass of beer, and a kids sprite.  I could've gotten a much better dinner at any number of places for less money.