****heads

Open letter to the ****heads that stole my bike.

Thanks a lot. Luckily I can ride my creaky, awkward 20 year bike until I get a replacement. Thanks for taking all the mounts for accessories that I might have used on that replacement. Oh, and thank for leaving me with a number of items that are now useless without their respective parts. Thanks for needlessly inconveniencing me. But on that note...

Good luck parting that worn out bike you just stole. Good luck selling the worn out fork, the over-stressed rims, the on-it's-last-legs derailers, and the flattened-out unmoving seat. And good luck doing anything with usless half accessories on the bike. I think you might get something for the pedals.

****heads.

UPDATE: Thanks to the MPD guys for taking their time out to check out my case!

New Stuff

We've been working on the interior front door since Memorial Day weekend. It's done! Bill did most of the work and it looks great. It was a lot work with lots of layers of paint to remove. He replaced the glass, added trim over it instead of the glazing that was on it previously. It has a new lock too.

Also this weekend...

Hall's Jewel Autumn Leaf Pattern.
I found this at an estate sale. $60 for the lot. Oh, I forgot the coffee server that came with it. No lid on a couple pieces. None of the dishes/bowls are complete. I recently started collecting this. The lot is average condition, over all. Some pieces look hardly used, others have cracks (unusable) or some with lots of nicks in them. After researching prices, giving the lowest prices, I came up with $407. So even if I over-estimated by $100, I still got a steal!

Summer, Summer, Summer

Well, here it is July 11th, summer is almost 1/2 over and what do I have to show for it?

We've done a ton of good stuff this summer. We've ridden our bikes and the bus a ton more than in the past. We've tried several new restaurants and bars (one with beer tastings, don't tell Comet). There's the Brewers, of course, more games to come, hopefully the playoffs, too.

Our yard looks pretty good, it hasn't been too hot, so the grass is still green. I almost have enough plants in the garden that take care of themselves. We've been working on an interior door since Memorial Day weekend. Not everyday of course, but we both thought it should have been done by now. We should have takes pics as we went, it's been quite the challenge to turn it into something we can be proud of, but I think we're almost there.

The cats have been enjoying themselves outside this sumer, as usual. Pollack found a baby mouse, but luckily Bill caught her and it ran off. Otherwise, they've been leaving the wildlife alone.

I don't think we've grilled enough this year yet. We've been going out with our friends from Philly (and Milw.) quite a bit. We've also been hitting the festivals more than usual. We found Chill on the Hill in Bay View. Blows Jazz in the Park out of the water. Good thing no one reads this blog, or it would be all crowded the next time we go. :-)

We have a beer tasting in Madison planned for August and probably a trip in October, but that's about it for travel plans. Madison doesn't really count as 'travel.'

I just thought I would drop a note since I hadn't posted in a while, I'm still here!

Blitz Build

This last week, Marcia and I worked on the the Blitz Build for Habitat for Humanity here in Milwaukee. Our group started with the foundation on the job site and took it all the way up to a full house. It was an amazing experience with a great group of people. Our usual leader Mike, was of course, great and we gained the expertise of a second leader in Bob, a trained carpenter. Learned a lot from him and his upbeat attitude was always encouraging in the beating heat. Did I mention it was hot? We had a heat index of 103° one day.... makes hammering on the second floor of an unfinished house very sweaty. We kept cool thanks to the helpful Habitat volunteers bringing water and Fla-Vor-Ices, and also to the people at Vitamin10 water!

The owners were there helping out (they were very nice) and everyone worked hard and had a good time! We are looking forward to finishing off this house in the coming months... at least we know who to blame if the studs aren't straight for the drywall!

More photos here.

Honeypie

So the geniuses behind our favorite hangout have opened another place down the 15 line in Bayview. Honeypie is it's name and the food is terrific! An excellent beer list, of course, is provided by the infamous Drew and Sam... but only in bottles at this place. The food of course it's more of the slow-food Comet is famous for, but differs from the Comet in that it has a more meal-like feeling to them. The decor is very comfortable and relaxing, not too loud when full. There are plenty of nooks and crannies to hide away in if you choose to go the more private route. Of course eating at the bar is still an option, where the staff is always great for conversation and the patio is a welcome place now that summer is here. We're looking forward to spending more time down in Bayview (the Southern Eastside)... just have to pry ourselves away from the Comet once in a while!

5 Crusties!

British and Irish... all the ishes

Pretty photo to come

Recently stopped by two new bars in the last month... Dogs Bullocks and The Black Rose. Dogs Bullock is and English bar, very open and airy with all the usual English suspects on tap. Good selection, but nothing too adventurous. They are supposedly going to offer food, so it should be interesting what they interpret English style food to be, so definitely will be stopping by to try that. Should be a good place for a patio beer in the summer. Overall it's a comfortable spot.  

The Black Rose is where Oakland Trattoria's bar used to be. There's no food, but it looked like you could get food from the still-connected Trattoria. The beers here were definitely not at all adventurous and not a place to stop for any kind of taste on the ends of the scales. Since it's and R.C. Schmidt restaurant, Water Street Brewery beers were on tap, tho unfortunately not any of their more adventuresome styles. The bar was very cozy, which could get a bit crowded at busy times. A decent neighborhood addition but not a destination bar for us at all.