Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Word of the day

Here's a word I had not run across before :

Falernum

Despite appearances, it does not belong in a periodic table and was not discovered by an Italian.

If someone asked me if I wanted to try a falernum, I'd probably get really nervous and avoid eye contact.

Sounds tasty, makes me wish I was somewhere in the Islands, even though I've never been (except courtesy of Hollywood ). . .

Falernum

Sure, make us look it up.

Learning is never easy, Peter.

Hey I used to drink Suffering Bastards back in the day. Now I finally know what made them taste so good. Falernum!

Falernum? I barely knew 'em!

It can be. Perhaps even effortless. Have you tried Google?

What did we know in college? What is fun is fun (Fun = Fun), that was my motto.

What the Falernum is going on here.

There is apparently a huge debate going on in the Falernum world, not unlike what you might find on a speaker forum about "speakers with a flat frequency response" vs "speakers with a frequency response which matches the somewhat un-flat behaviour of the monitors used for the original recording and mix).

There are two commonly available brands of Falernum available : J D Taylor's Velvet Falernum (a light, rum-based liqueur) and Fees Brothers Falernum (a thick, sweet syrup). Where it gets interesting is that Velvet Falernum (VF) is generally accepted to be much more true to "the original", while Fees Bros Falernum (FBF) is felt to be more like the brand (Sazerac) that was common when most of the drink recipes were being created.

Falernum is sufficiently difficult to find outside of the islands that most discussion was moot, but (a) a number of folks are starting to blend their own, and (b) availability seems to have improved recently. I found both brands available in Austin TX last week.

So, John.....
Is your obsession with this stuff the reason we don't see much of you anymore?

Actually no. Haven't even had a chance to taste it yet.

Went off deer hunting a couple of weeks ago, all came down with bad salmonella poisoning from an undercooked ham. Couldn't get consensus to go home so lay rotting in a tent for most of a week tossing & turning on canvas cots, punctuated by frequent sprints to the latrine (or as far as we could make it anyways). After 5 days we finally got consensus to head home.

Tossing & turning on abrasive canvas cots led to big raw sores on back & shoulders, which promptly got badly infected with infection spreading under the skin and creating new really painful rash (like a very bad sunburn; much worse than the original scrapes & resultant scabbing). Had to travel down to Austin last week so no time to really diagnose properly. Got back to doctor on Monday, now on high doses of antibiotics and things seem to be improving, at least fever is going down and starting to be able to think clearly. Yesterday I got the first real sleep in almost 3 weeks. Anyways, that's why you haven't seen much of me.

Falernum came up because I was supposed to go up north to a friends birthday party last weekend and was volunteered as the official tiki drink mixer. Wasn't hard to find most of the recipes and ingredients but this one (Falernum) totally stumped me. Apparently not available in Canada at all. I thought I would see if anyone else had heard of this stuff...

Must have sucked weaving your way through the leavings of the others on your way to the latrine.

Mmm, great mental imagery, just in time for lunch.

Holy crap...ummm....Gee Whillickers!

That's a horrible story. I feel bad that I commented on the Falernu, stuff....

I feel like a tool now. I'm in a training class this week so I don't have much time to read posts. I didn't even catch the last part of John's post. Sorry to hear about your ordeal. Glad you're on the mend, though.

Man, that's a horrible story... nothing worse than getting sick and not being at home. Glad you're feeling better.

Getting home involved a 25km 4x4 run down a rocky trail to get back to the (dirt) road (followed by a 4 hour drive from there), and nobody felt like they would survive that part of the trip.

The absolute worst part was having to go back up last weekend to get the rest of our gear. I had to beg out at the last minute so Rob and Mark went up.

We left the "ham of death" up there and were surprised to find it completely untouched after almost two weeks. Animals must be smarter than us.

Wow, that last comment is interesting about the animals leaving it alone.

Jason

Having just seen "Into the Wild" again last night, I'm picturing John as a substitute for Christopher McCandless.

Somehow, I have to introduce a bus into John's story or a ham into the movie....

My younger brother was in a similar situation last year, but nowhere near as bad as yours. He went offshore fishing for marlins with a few buddies of his. The plan was to go several hundred miles south onto the Caribbean sea and fish for about two to three days. My brother got really sea sick pretty much the entire trip. He didn't have the stomach(pun intended) to ruin everyone else fishing trip so he had to suck it up and stay on the boat quarters throwing up; it was a nice yacht so it wasn't that bad. Nevertheless, he says it was the three most miserable days he's ever had.
Being sea sick is not life threatening provided that you drink enough water, but a salmonella poisoning may be pretty dangerous, you're a brave man for staying. ...Man, doing that trip twice must have sucked big time :-)

Sorry to hear about your ordeal there John, great to see that you're feeling somewhat better ... wishing you a full and quick recovery.

Jaime that reminds me from a couple of months ago whenever the non-fishing guy in back of us wanted to go offshore fishing with my son and me, I had a feeling it wasn't going to be good and it wasn't. The guy started getting sick just as we put the trolling lines out some 18 miles offshore and he stayed sick until we got back to the dock, about three hours later. He'd been bugging me for the last year to take him fishing, he hasn't since.

Rick....
Did you tell your wife that you needed a bigger boat?

I don't believe the largest of ships would have made any difference Mark, it was something like this...

+ + =

Poor ol John

Yep, how did you guess?

See you are old........................you told me

Fight nice old dudes

My limited experience on a boat tells me gravol (or similar) is my friend. Riding 25 foot waves on the upper deck of a 70' boat in the bright sunshine is an absolute blast. Riding swells in the dark with no horizon to look at without proper preparation is not fun at all.

Things that make you go............ Hurl.

Damn near. I spent 2 hours looking for anything like lights on the horizon until the meds kicked in.

My only other experience with sea sickness was in a 16' sailboat in 3 foot swells... tied up to a warf. I lasted 45 seconds in the cabin.

I don't think I'm pirate material.

Wow, what an ordeal! Sorry to hear about it, John, but I'm glad you're okay. I can't imagine going through that.

What I found most disturbing was how much worse it could have been. We had ideal weather -- even rain would have made the latrine trips totally miserable (think of frequent slips and falls on the hill between tent and latrine), while heavy snow would have closed the trail home *and* burned through our firewood stash while we were too weak to gather and cut more. The flip side, I guess, is that we have a good air ambulance system up there and we were probably just a phone call away from having paramedics drop in if we had felt like loading down the ol' health care system.

Then again, since none of us are willing to even ask for directions unless someone is spurting blood, I guess the chances of actually using a medevac were pretty slim

Raises a toast for manly-men.

Plus, if any of you had wanted to go ice-blocking, you wouldn't have needed ice, as long as you went pantsless.


Ok, I'm done making light of your ordeal now. Glad you're back.

That would be a waste of all of their experience.

Bad show indeed, John! Now, who was responsible for the ham?

I feel for you, my friend... I've had bad food poisoning twice in my life.

After the second time I don't seem to have the iron gut I used to... thinking I may have done some serious damage... now I can't drink picante salsa as a beverage anymore.

Bren R.

Man, I'll count myself lucky that I haven't had food poisoning yet. It does not sound fun at all.

Yeah, my buddy's had it a few times. Once, so bad he had to take a suppository. I almost never wanted to eat food after hearing about that.

The first time was when I was working fast food, the coolers had gone off overnight and my manager had myself and one other guy cook and taste a patty out of each box to see if they were still good... the blood running off was black, when you're 16 and don't know any better, you figure your employer's never going to steer you wrong. I got off "easy" with a 16 hour marathon on the throne. The other guy spent 3 days out of commission, actually slept on the pot in his family's guest bathroom with his head propped over the tub with a pillow.

The second time my brother made some spaghetti sauce with some iffy ground beef... wouldn't have been so bad, but it hit me while I was on a bus making sure my GF at the time got home safe. One ring of muscle versus the Hoover Dam... and the muscle won.

Bren R.

Well John, If I hadn't already sworn off hunting, your story would've made the decision an easy one. So sorry you had to go through all that. Hope the antibiotics solve the problem and your recovery is swift and complete.

>>Bad show indeed, John! Now, who was responsible for the ham?

Not me. I was responsible for tent, 4x4 and whiskey. In fairness, Rob has a much better "instinct" for smoking and bbq-ing than I do, and was the one who introduced us to smokers. The only mistake was not using a thermometer to confirm internal temperature.

The antibiotics seem to be working, keeping fingers crossed for another few days. It is nice to be able to sleep for a change though...

As someone who has spent time suffering from sickness and not being able to head home because I wasn't well enough to paddle in the challenging winds, I feel for ya. I didn't have the skin related side effects and my friends were experienced outdoorsmen who made sure I was as comfortable as I could be, but my memories share your pain.

Although we didn't use it, a portable VHF radio is your friend.

Geez, that would be even worse... you paddle until you're exhausted, then gently drift back to where you started. I can't think of many things more depressing than that...

Sorry to hear about your ordeal John. Glad to hear you are recovering.