United States Lines Pallet Pattern Selector and Cocktail Wheel Report!

I hope you like the site's new look. I'm still tweaking it, but this app doesn't allow me to tweak it very much. I'll keep at it.

Today's knowledge chart is not a wheel, which should be obvious. Nonetheless, it is certainly interesting and is, no doubt, a handy thing for the pallet pattern configuration industry to use. This measures 6 by 11 inches and is in reasonably good shape. It was developed by the U.S. Navy and holds a copyright date of 1965.

It makes perfect sense that someone out there needs to figure out the best way to stack cartons onto pallets on a wharf without wasting space. There are a lot of things to consider. Not all cartons are the same size, so it can get confusing to figure out the best pattern. That's no problem for the United States Lines Pallet Pattern Selector!

And now it's time to report the results of the cocktail experiment. You will recall, I hope, that I chose a recipe from the old cocktail wheel I posted recently. I chose the Gin Daisy. This is made of gin, lemon juice and raspberry syrup. The instructions don't specify whether you strain it into a martini glass or serve it over ice. I went the martini glass route because that's more fun.

Well, the results are mixed. At first, I thought it was okay. John thought it had too much raspberry. I added a bit more lemon, but things didn't improve. I can't really describe the taste as cough-mediciney, but it's something like that. Maybe "sugar-free candy" is more like it. I squeezed in a bit of the required lime garnish, with no real success.

I think the best I can say is that it's a nice enough drink to share with your sorority sisters. The worst thing I can say is that it's the type of drink you'd order on a whim, but wouldn't order another at that time or any other. It rates a solid "meh". However, as I predicted, it's a pretty drink. I hope you appreciate the effort I took to style a photo of it and that you'll forgive the in-camera cropping that occurred. Fixing it would require that I mix another, and I'm not so inclined. If you'd like the recipe for the Gin Daisy, here it is:

1 part gin
1/2 part lemon juice
1/2 part raspberry
ice
slice of lime