#flat landers

[grtastetalk-blog]

Flat Landers Bar

You guys… Last night at Flat Landers Bar ( www.flatlandersbar.com ) I ate something that I never thought I would..I had a fried egg ON MY FRENCH FRIES! Yes, a FRIED EGG on my fries. I still can’t believe it! It’s called Hillbilly Poutine- it’s crinkle cut fries covered (and when they say covered..they aren’t joking..)in cheese sauce and topped with smoked bacon, jalapeno slices, a FRIED EGG, and chopped green onion. I should have just had that as my dinner, it was so good!! ( no worries, I took a picture..see below!!) We also got the fish tacos, which I was told, while the taste was pretty good.. the shells looked a little limp and greasy, we thought they were in flour shells, but the website says corn. The you build it burger was done PERFECTLY. Definitely cooked it to my liking, and it was HUGE. I could only eat half! They had a ton of drink selections too! There was only one “Featured Tap” that I hadn’t tried yet, the Farm Hand from Brewery Vivant. ( I love love love that all of their taps were local, Founders, Bells, and Perrin!) The Farm Hand was great. Nice and light with a great taste. I’d like to go back and try a can of Oval Beach Blonde from Saugatuck soon! Our server was beyond friendly and super attentive. I love that. She wasn’t overly in our faces, but always made sure our waters were full and that we didn’t need anything else. I’m super lucky to have someone who likes trying new places with me, and who takes me places just DAYS after their grand opening! Their grand opening was last weekend, Friday the 14th, and here it was just the 19th last night when we went! The atmosphere of Flat Landers Bar was so nice! SUPER industrial feel to the whole place, until you get to the chairs, VERY modern (very comfortable too!), but in a way, they just worked with everything! The whole place has a great relaxed feel. I also think its great that Flat Landers is on Michigan St., besides the lot being almost full, it was a nice quick walk to the door. It’ll be great to have a place to grab a bite to eat with a beer and head over to one of the other bars on Michigan! I just love the way Grand Rapids is growing!

[alxndrasplace]

(Space.com)  Incredible Technology: How Fleets of ‘Flat Landers’ Could Explore Other Planets

Future space missions may send dozens of rug-like robots fluttering down to the surface of alien worlds, taking much of the risk out of planetary exploration.

Researchers are developing flat, blanket-size landers that could be delivered en masse to worlds such as Mars or the Jupiter moon Europa. The approach represents a radical departure from the surface-exploration status quo, which generally launches single-shot, big-ticket landers or rovers that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to design and build. (…)

Recent advances in thin, flexible electronics would allow these solar-powered sheets to gather a great deal of data on the surface of an alien world. For example, each one could carry tiny cameras, spectrometers and environmental monitoring gear.

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