Show Notes - Week of November 8 and 15, 2021

Greetings from 53.5° north latitude after taking a week off from posting. Life has been mostly consumed by work in the past fortnight, leaving little time for anything else. I do not have much to talk about but thought I would post a brief update just to not completely lose momentum from my forced habit of regular writing. 

All that is on the agenda is a quick virtual tour update, a handful of new beers, and a few words. Even so, time to get to it. 

Cross-Canada Virtual Tour:
The cycling is picking back up, albeit very slowly. Most of the progress I am making on the cross-Canada virtual tour is via walking, which is good but awfully boring. I was able to close off the Ignace-Upsala segment, so I am now homing in on the final segment of this leg towards Thunder Bay.

Upsala was named after Uppsala in Sweden. Note the difference in spelling. Upsala, Ontario was an important fur trade settlement, and was eventually connected via road with the TransCanada connection from the twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, which coincidentally, are now a single city named Thunder Bay. The Wikipedia page does not provide any more information, so it appears that Upsala is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it location on the highway. 

​Here is the updated progress chart.

New Beers:
Seven new beers to report, bringing the total unique check-ins on Untappd to 834. Karlovačko Lager (2.0 / 5), Cabin Luminosity (3.0), Collective Arts IPA No. 17 (3.5), Collective Arts Mai Tai Sour (3.25), Delirium Red (3.75), Delirium Nocturnum (4.0), and Dandy in the Underworld (3.75)

The winner this week was the Delirium Nocturnum, which was a treat to drink. On the opposite end of the scale was the Karlovačko which was so disappointing after the really good lagers I have had lately. Plus, I learned that orgeat (pronounced \"or-zat\"), which is highlighted on the Collective Arts Mai Tai Sour can, is a non-alcoholic almond-flavored syrup that is commonly used in tiki and classic cocktails, most notably in the Mai Tai. 

New Words:
Three new words this week. Can you pick which one came out of COVID research?

maven
[ˈmāvən]
NOUN

1. (informal) (North American) an expert or connoisseur.

fomites
[ˈfōməˌtēz]
NOUN

1. objects or materials which are likely to carry infection, such as clothes, utensils, and furniture.

explicate
[ˈekspləˌkāt]
VERB

1. analyze and develop (an idea or principle) in detail.
   
2. analyze (a literary work) in order to reveal its meaning.