2008 - Year of the Beard & Year of the Clam

The Beard is still going strong (being kept at a either a 6 or a 7 on the trimmer) and as summer fast approaches phase two of 2008 is coming to realization.

Living in New England is also living in Clamtown. Not sure if you knew that. My specialfellow friend has lived in New England all his life and doesn't like seafood. He is not well. It's like living in Arizona and not liking heat. I don't know how he does it--he gets by I guess. Eating a fried clam, is like eating a piece of New England. At its best it's a crispy yet tender, salty salute. At its worst it's a rubbery, uneatable, bitter mess. It's either the best of foods or the worst of foods. Anyway, viva la clam!


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Now this, for the most part, is an exploration of the fried clam. There are one or two places on the map that may not have fried clams per se, but do offer a clam dish and look interesting enough or have enough insanely positive word of mouth that they make it on the list.

I'm not going to even attempt to make it to all of these places or even most of the places. I don't have the money or the time. I'll be trying to hit three or four a month every other weekend probably. Some trips might be exclusives -- like the Martha's Vineyard one, some might be trying to hit two or three in one swing. By and large this is going to be a playing-it-by-ear endeavor.

If you have any hot tips please pass them along. I will be updating the map constantly. This will also be coinciding with me picking up the remnants of last years botched Summer of Putt Putt -- only hit three courses... Sad. I promise this summer will not fail in such a manner. So if you know of any superior coastal mini-golf courses please pass the word along. I really haven't begun to work on the Putt Putt Map (the lack of a good Google Map was a problem to last years failure to launch) but here it is in it's infancy:


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The excitement should begin this weekend with Mike's Clam Shack in Wells, ME and THE Clam Shack in Kennebunk.

The Beard Pt. 5 (Day 60 something)

About two months old. I've been keeping tabs on it with a pair of barber scissors on a semi-daily basis. It's had one professional trim about a week or two ago. I don't know if I'm going to keep it up in the summer. a few weeks back we had some warm, close to 60 degree days and I was not enjoying the thing. But on winter days like today where the wind is blowing damp snow around -- it's perfect.