Dine on swine

By Joe McAdory

I was afforded the luxury of judging ribs Saturday afternoon at the Boda Getta BBQ competition at the Ag Heritage Park on the campus of AU. Not a bad gig. Each judge was given ribs from six different cooks (I call them BBQ artists) and scored the ribs on tenderness and taste.

I believe Saturday’s big winners were the teams Jiggy Piggy from Auburn and the Opelika Porker Tour. The judges were winners too. Once we finished scoring our sample bites, we ate all the rest of the ribs. It was like a rib buffet, with each rib different from the other. It’s by far the most cholesterol I’ve consumed since January when I ate a double chili cheeseburger and onion rings at The Varsity, but I don’t care.

Picture perfect golf

By Joe McAdory

I’m not a member at our area’s private golf country clubs, so I can’t judge those courses against the public ones I frequent. Anyway, I had the chance to play at a very swanky place last week, LPGA International, in Daytona Beach, Fla. As much as I enjoy the RTJ Golf Trail and Grand National (the barometer by which I judge all courses), I must say LPGA International was a step above. Not much above, but a little anyway.

First, the greens and fairways were flawless. No dead grass anywhere. Every hole was a perfect painting.

Second, the carts featured electronic scoring. Who needs a pencil and scorecard when you can press your numbers into a computer? Yardage and hole displays on carts’ monitors are much more sightly than the depth-finder looking grids on the RTJ.

Also, I’ve never seen so much sand in my life. What LPGA lacks in water, it more than makes up for in sand. I somehow shot a 97 there, which is an accomplishment for me.

Greens fees range from $90 to $50, depending on the time of day. I played for $50. I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

No love for Britney, bin Laden

By Joe McAdory

I’ve had too many energy drinks today and it’s made me edgy. That said, my irritable self will publicly name his five-worst people in the world in no particular order.

Hugo Chavez

Osama bin Laden

Britney Spears

Rosie O’Donnell

The person at the drive-thru that didn’t give me a straw

No Christmas cards for you guys!

Tastes like chicken

By Joe McAdory

I ate python for lunch the other day. No, really. I’d never seen snake on a restaurant’s menu until I went to Clark’s Fish Camp south of Jacksonville, Fla., and I couldn’t help but wonder what in the world it tasted like.

And as you can imagine, it tasted like chicken. Doesn’t everything? The snake was kind of rubbery, so I guess it tasted like a rubber chicken. Unlike the snake pictured above, the one I ate was thoroughly cooked. Fried, in fact. I wouldn’t eat it any other way. I thought the place served rattlesnake, but it doesn’t anymore. That’s too bad. I’ve always wanted to bite back. I also had some alligator tail to complement my bizarre reptilian appetite.

Here’s the Web site to the restaurant: http://www.clarksfishcamp.com/ Check out the menu. I believe kangaroo is available too.

Pinewood season never ends

By Joe McAdory

Back from my Daytona Beach vacation and the first thing at hand Sunday was my son’s Pinewood Derby race at Philadelphia Baptist in Smiths Station.

Our Richard Petty car performed well, which is pleasing when you spend lots of time drilling holes for weights, inserting the weights, testing, painting, then adding the final decals. To watch the 43 car zoom past a good bit of the competition, and even beat the overall champ in one heat, gives a bit of satisfaction in knowing we did a good job.

But Joseph’s STP machine finished fourth overall out of about 15 cars or so. Que sera. There was some incredible competition. Gotta tip the hat to those guys. The overall winner was Peyton Burton in a sleek gold car. It’s the one in the photo next to our Petty car.

My “research and development” car, a wooden replica of Sir Malcolm Campbell’s famed Bluebird, brought a smile to my face. Actually, the sucker (pictured on my cool leopard-skin bed sheets) burned up the track in pre-race warm-ups and whipped anything it raced. Funny thing, I didn’t even put graphite on the axles. I’m amazed that I’ve never had a car win so easily. Then again, I’ve never had a car so illegal. Yeah, I put Razor wheels on it for less friction, fully-knowing it wasn’t within the rules. Heck, I was only racing it for fun, just to see what it could do. I had my fun, and put it away.

I’m not quite finished with it. I’ve still got to re-paint it with a glossy shade of blue, then add decals sent to me from a buddy in England. The Bluebird was made in England and Campbell’s a British hero. The car set a land speed record of 276 mph in 1935 on the beach in Daytona. It later exceeded 300 mph out on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. For further information, check out http://www.sirmalcolmcampbell.com

Last week, I even drilled a smidgen of sand from Daytona into my Bluebird, for nostaglia’s sake. I look forward to finishing the car’s exterior, then putting it on the shelf ... until an ‘anything goes’ race comes along.

That said, is Pinewood Derby season now finished? I’m not sure. Regardless, I’ve got a couple of other prototypes in the works. Development began on one last week in a Daytona Beach garage of all places. Yes, I believe another historic stock car is coming. The other? Nostalgia is not important. Speed, however, is.