In an attempt to make amends for forgetting to talk about hanging out with my best friend Matt on our vacation, I will dive into dives.
Hometown bars. They are the greatest thing ever. Especially if you come from a small town or city. There is just something about being back there in those dark dingy disgusting smokey public houses. The one thing I love about the bars that I go to down here in Wichita is that they are smoke free (mostly). You can go out for the night and wake up in the morning able to breathe. I can handle going out for a few nights and deal with smelling like smoke, but to do so on a constant basis is difficult now. So when we were home, Matt and I went out to the bars a couple of times. It was great. We went out on my birthday and just hung out and caught up.
We hit up Maloney's, the Bomb Shelter, and the Downtowner in the two trips out for the evenings. The Bomb Shelter and the Downtowner are the quint essential small town bars. When we were at the Bomber, there were six people there. Total. That included the bartender. It was quite and just a little smokey, not too bad. A few hours later we went to the Downtowner and it was starting to get busy. The smoke lingered in the air and great music pumped from the jute box.
Maloney's is a nice place to drink and get some food. If you are ever up in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan on your birthday, find Maloney's Irish Pub and you can get a free dinner. Just show them a picture i.d. with your birthday date and you get free food! I didn't get to indulge in the free food this year because we had dinner at home, but you can get stuff like a fish dinner or a steak. There are three or four things items on the menu you can choose from.
28 February 2010
26 February 2010
Vacation recap thus far
I always like to take a little time near the end of our vacations to put up a quick little recap of the important events. The biggest event of all, of course, happened on our flight out. It was my birthday! Not exactly how you want to spend the majority of the day, flying and driving, but in the end it was all worth it. We were up at four in the morning and flying out at six. A quick little layover in Chicago and a forty five minute puddle jump over to Flint and we were on the ground rolling after four hours of travel from Kansas to Michigan (sure as hell beats the twenty four hours it takes to drive it). Hopped in the car with the in-laws and drove for another five hours. It sounds awful having to drive that long, but it gives us time to catch up on everything that is going on, so it is a fair trade off. I got to see my family at the end of it and enjoy a nice birthday dinner followed up by the world famous chocolate chip cheesecake prepared by Mom.
Our nieces and nephew have grown so much in the six months since we were home last. Every time we come home that is always the same response. But it is great to see. The day after my birthday is Zoie's. For whatever reason she didn't want to have the greatest day for a birthday so she settled for second best I suppose. Andrea made her a princess dress for her birthday and she loves it (I'll post a few pictures when we get home). The three years since her birth have flown by. That's what happens when you only see them a few times a year. So we hung out at home for the day and had scrambled eggs for dinner (what the birthday kid wants, the birthday kid gets). She is like her Papa that way, loves her eggs. I got to skate on the ice with Garrett at his hockey practice. One might think that four and five year olds shouldn't be on the ice with sticks and pucks, but on the contrary, it is great for them. They pick up wonderful motor skills and hand eye coordination. Give it a year and a half and he will be skating better than me, which doesn't take much. We also got to watch him take part in a hockey jamboree. An ice rink was broken down into four smaller rinks and they played different teams from the area. It is by no means skilled hockey, but it gives the kids a chance to play the game. It is just like watching kids play soccer in that they all follow the puck, clump up together, fall, and whack away at it. In the end, every player got a participation medal (which was the coolest thing EVER!) and a hat for coming down and playing.
As the weekend rolled around, we headed out to the cabin. We attended the Red Wings Alumni game in St. Ignace of Friday and had a great time. Spent some time with the grandparents afterwards and spent the next day around the cabin. I got to play with the kids outside and pushed and pulled them around on their sled. We got the snowmobile and four wheeler out and putzed around the property for a while. Andrea got the four wheeler stuck in a snow bank, so that was funny. Dad and I took the machines out on the lake and marked some cribs for the summer time fishing. Cribs are designed to encourage a habitat for fish and algae to grow in the lake. They take some timber and bind it together and attach some cinder blocks to them so as the ice melts the cribs break through the ice and sink to the bottom. It is nice to have ice thick enough to run a truck out there if you wanted to mark the area for the upcoming summer.
The kids are fun but extremely exhausting to keep up with. I don't know how my sister and brother-in-law do it (props Shel and Al!). As the first part of the vacation wound down, we headed out to Andrea's parents house for the remainder of the trip. It is very relaxing in comparison to the energy we put forth keeping up with three kids. We've done quite a bit of visiting with family members and just overall hanging out. It is exactly what a vacation should be. It is good to go out and do stuff, but it is also great to have those days where you read a book for a while, watch some tv, eat, and then go to bed.
We head down to Detroit to fly back to Kansas tomorrow morning. The days go by quickly when you have nothing to do and the job and 'real life' await you back home. But that is what vacations are all about.
Escaping the real world, if only for a short time.
Our nieces and nephew have grown so much in the six months since we were home last. Every time we come home that is always the same response. But it is great to see. The day after my birthday is Zoie's. For whatever reason she didn't want to have the greatest day for a birthday so she settled for second best I suppose. Andrea made her a princess dress for her birthday and she loves it (I'll post a few pictures when we get home). The three years since her birth have flown by. That's what happens when you only see them a few times a year. So we hung out at home for the day and had scrambled eggs for dinner (what the birthday kid wants, the birthday kid gets). She is like her Papa that way, loves her eggs. I got to skate on the ice with Garrett at his hockey practice. One might think that four and five year olds shouldn't be on the ice with sticks and pucks, but on the contrary, it is great for them. They pick up wonderful motor skills and hand eye coordination. Give it a year and a half and he will be skating better than me, which doesn't take much. We also got to watch him take part in a hockey jamboree. An ice rink was broken down into four smaller rinks and they played different teams from the area. It is by no means skilled hockey, but it gives the kids a chance to play the game. It is just like watching kids play soccer in that they all follow the puck, clump up together, fall, and whack away at it. In the end, every player got a participation medal (which was the coolest thing EVER!) and a hat for coming down and playing.
As the weekend rolled around, we headed out to the cabin. We attended the Red Wings Alumni game in St. Ignace of Friday and had a great time. Spent some time with the grandparents afterwards and spent the next day around the cabin. I got to play with the kids outside and pushed and pulled them around on their sled. We got the snowmobile and four wheeler out and putzed around the property for a while. Andrea got the four wheeler stuck in a snow bank, so that was funny. Dad and I took the machines out on the lake and marked some cribs for the summer time fishing. Cribs are designed to encourage a habitat for fish and algae to grow in the lake. They take some timber and bind it together and attach some cinder blocks to them so as the ice melts the cribs break through the ice and sink to the bottom. It is nice to have ice thick enough to run a truck out there if you wanted to mark the area for the upcoming summer.
The kids are fun but extremely exhausting to keep up with. I don't know how my sister and brother-in-law do it (props Shel and Al!). As the first part of the vacation wound down, we headed out to Andrea's parents house for the remainder of the trip. It is very relaxing in comparison to the energy we put forth keeping up with three kids. We've done quite a bit of visiting with family members and just overall hanging out. It is exactly what a vacation should be. It is good to go out and do stuff, but it is also great to have those days where you read a book for a while, watch some tv, eat, and then go to bed.
We head down to Detroit to fly back to Kansas tomorrow morning. The days go by quickly when you have nothing to do and the job and 'real life' await you back home. But that is what vacations are all about.
Escaping the real world, if only for a short time.
13 February 2010
day in, day out
I am taking a little bit of time out of this relaxing morning to play a little catch up with all of you out there. From my family and friends who frequently read, to my facebook friends who read this as it is imported to that site, to those who find this randomly.
We are prepping for our vacation home. We'll be gone for eleven days. One of our longer trips, but it'll be worth it. It will be a great break from Kansas. We have had snow on and off since December, but I want to see real snow. I know that it has been a little warmer back home and some of the snow has been melting, but I cannot wait. Last year, we spent Valentine's Day on a plane and in a car. Not the most romantic situation. This year we are spending my birthday on a plane and in a car. Not the best way to spend your birthday, a day meant for celebrating and eating cake. mmmmm.....cake.
I have taken over the grocery department at work. It is a lateral move within the store and gives me an opportunity to work in a larger department, so it'll be interesting to say the least. It has been two weeks of training which has flown by. I am looking forward to the challenges that this department brings with it. I will be dealing with vendors on a daily basis, which equates to dealing with spoiled children. They all want everything to go their way, and it is my job to keep them in line.
Who knew that at the age of twenty seven I would have my first baby sitting job.
We are prepping for our vacation home. We'll be gone for eleven days. One of our longer trips, but it'll be worth it. It will be a great break from Kansas. We have had snow on and off since December, but I want to see real snow. I know that it has been a little warmer back home and some of the snow has been melting, but I cannot wait. Last year, we spent Valentine's Day on a plane and in a car. Not the most romantic situation. This year we are spending my birthday on a plane and in a car. Not the best way to spend your birthday, a day meant for celebrating and eating cake. mmmmm.....cake.
I have taken over the grocery department at work. It is a lateral move within the store and gives me an opportunity to work in a larger department, so it'll be interesting to say the least. It has been two weeks of training which has flown by. I am looking forward to the challenges that this department brings with it. I will be dealing with vendors on a daily basis, which equates to dealing with spoiled children. They all want everything to go their way, and it is my job to keep them in line.
Who knew that at the age of twenty seven I would have my first baby sitting job.
10 February 2010
Sentimental movies
As I was out 'Norming it up' (new term for hitting the bars, just came up with it....I like it) we got on the topic of movies. Movies that are good, movies that suck, award ceremonies that suck (Academy Awards?), etc. It's what you do when drinking. We started talking about sad movies and emotional movies. I came up with three movies that have made me shed a tear, or more. I am sure that every guy has shed at least one tear in one movie, if they say they haven't they are lying. Okay, my three movies....
1.) The Perfect Storm. I could have cared less about the guys on the boat. Yeah, big wave. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Boat sinks. I dealt with it. And then Diane Lane gets up and makes her eulogy. I have seen the movie on many occasions, but that still gets to me.
2.) Joyeux Noel. Bagpipes are the one instrument that when played right and proper, sends shivers up and down my spine. Every time. No matter what the circumstances. Include those pipes with some heart felt lyrics, and I come close to losing it. Scotsmen in the trenches singing the song 'I'm Dreaming of Home' with those pipes just ripped my heart out.
3.) Bloody Sunday. I don't really see myself as a political activist, but feel close to the strife in Northern Ireland in the 1970s (and today still, just not as prominent). What right does one country have to influence and occupy another? After the incident involving the marchers and the paratroopers, the character Ivan Cooper reads off the name of the thirteen slain. The way that the director shoots this scene with the families reactions, the actual events that occured afterwards and the fact that majority of the people that were killed that day were younger than twenty can just catch you off guard, just like it did to me.
There you have it. Me at the most vulnerable.
1.) The Perfect Storm. I could have cared less about the guys on the boat. Yeah, big wave. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Boat sinks. I dealt with it. And then Diane Lane gets up and makes her eulogy. I have seen the movie on many occasions, but that still gets to me.
2.) Joyeux Noel. Bagpipes are the one instrument that when played right and proper, sends shivers up and down my spine. Every time. No matter what the circumstances. Include those pipes with some heart felt lyrics, and I come close to losing it. Scotsmen in the trenches singing the song 'I'm Dreaming of Home' with those pipes just ripped my heart out.
3.) Bloody Sunday. I don't really see myself as a political activist, but feel close to the strife in Northern Ireland in the 1970s (and today still, just not as prominent). What right does one country have to influence and occupy another? After the incident involving the marchers and the paratroopers, the character Ivan Cooper reads off the name of the thirteen slain. The way that the director shoots this scene with the families reactions, the actual events that occured afterwards and the fact that majority of the people that were killed that day were younger than twenty can just catch you off guard, just like it did to me.
There you have it. Me at the most vulnerable.
07 February 2010
Bowling
Super Bowl forty one is tonight. Saints. Colts. Brees. Manning. And Dwight Freeny's gimpy ankle. In all honesty, that is pretty much everything sports people talked about. Well, that and how New Orleans needs to win this because of hurricane Katrina...which happened four and a half years ago. Again, FOUR years ago. You can only hold onto tragic events for so long. Move on people. (I know, heartless me). But what about players like Pierre Garcon who is from Haiti? Something more recent to think about it.
I had to dig up what I wrote last year before the Super Bowl. I picked Arizona to win (oops), but I was close on the score. That was a fantastic game and that is all I really wants. A good game. For years, the super bowl sucked because the teams were lopsided. It wasn't worth watching. Teams would win by twenty points or so. In the past ten years, however, the games have been getting better. Anyone remember St. Louis v. Tennessee? Or Giants v. Patriots? Close games, very exciting. And for someone like me who roots for a team that will never ever see the super bowl, it is great.
This games has the potential to be entertaining because of the high scoring offenses. The defenses are going to get carved just like everyone thinks they will, but there will be big plays. I have chosen the Colts to win today's game. The one thing that New Orleans prided themselves on was their home field advantage. They play in a dome where the noise bounces off the walls. So what is going to happen in an open air stadium? The noise level won't be as loud and the defense can't feed off of it as much. Manning will take a few series to figure out the defense and go to town. Like he does. Because he is Peyton Manning. He is a mad genius.
Colts-41
Saints-37
Sorry Saints fans, nothing personal.
I had to dig up what I wrote last year before the Super Bowl. I picked Arizona to win (oops), but I was close on the score. That was a fantastic game and that is all I really wants. A good game. For years, the super bowl sucked because the teams were lopsided. It wasn't worth watching. Teams would win by twenty points or so. In the past ten years, however, the games have been getting better. Anyone remember St. Louis v. Tennessee? Or Giants v. Patriots? Close games, very exciting. And for someone like me who roots for a team that will never ever see the super bowl, it is great.
This games has the potential to be entertaining because of the high scoring offenses. The defenses are going to get carved just like everyone thinks they will, but there will be big plays. I have chosen the Colts to win today's game. The one thing that New Orleans prided themselves on was their home field advantage. They play in a dome where the noise bounces off the walls. So what is going to happen in an open air stadium? The noise level won't be as loud and the defense can't feed off of it as much. Manning will take a few series to figure out the defense and go to town. Like he does. Because he is Peyton Manning. He is a mad genius.
Colts-41
Saints-37
Sorry Saints fans, nothing personal.
06 February 2010
Second beer choice of 2010
In January I chose to buy PBR for my beer of the month. It was tasty as always and the reason I bought it was because it was cheap and I could get quite a bit for the month. It's not that I got sick of it, it's just that if I know I am only buying one case or twelve pack for the month, I can ration it all out. With that in mind, why not go with a better beer?
For the month of February, I have gone with Leinenkugel's Red Lager. For the longest time, this beer was the end all be all for me. From the first time I had it I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it more than Killians, and anyone that knows me knows I went through my Killians phase. You can't always say that about the beers you drink. There are beers that I have needed to get use to and some beers I have never enjoyed. IPAs, for example, have never been my favorite. I have tried several different kinds including IPAs that have been crafted at breweries. I have never developed a taste for them. Which is okay. There are many different types of beers I have found that I enjoy, so having one that I don't like doesn't break my heart.
I don't know if this is much of a problem, but the Leinie's only comes in twelve pack form down here. So there is going to be some uber rationing going on. Twelve beers in one month. Of course it can be done.
For the month of February, I have gone with Leinenkugel's Red Lager. For the longest time, this beer was the end all be all for me. From the first time I had it I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it more than Killians, and anyone that knows me knows I went through my Killians phase. You can't always say that about the beers you drink. There are beers that I have needed to get use to and some beers I have never enjoyed. IPAs, for example, have never been my favorite. I have tried several different kinds including IPAs that have been crafted at breweries. I have never developed a taste for them. Which is okay. There are many different types of beers I have found that I enjoy, so having one that I don't like doesn't break my heart.
I don't know if this is much of a problem, but the Leinie's only comes in twelve pack form down here. So there is going to be some uber rationing going on. Twelve beers in one month. Of course it can be done.
04 February 2010
Work anniversary
Yesterday I had my four year work anniversary. Four years! Of course all the cliches come with working somewhere for any length of time. 'Time flies, huh?' 'Bet you lost track of time.' Etc. Etc. Etc. I never really thought about it. I don't think you should really count your anniversary at work until you get past five years. Not to say people job hop once they get out of college or high school, just that anything under five years doesn't seem to warrant a bench mark.
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