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.

14 years of coffee and beer... 10 years of Doc

The Comet "celebrated" 14 years of business last night... turns out it was actually a celebration of 10 years of everyones favorite barkeep... "Doc". A talent show was provided as well as a roast of the guest of honor. We missed the pie and cake, but it was a fun evening!

My Second Porsche

photo from GlennNuijen.be

Whew! So today I test drove my second Porsche. Admittedly, I am much closer to being able to afford it than the last time, tho that's not really saying much and  I won't be buying one very soon. The first Porsche test drive was the large and in-charge Cayenne. I seem to continuing the Cajun theme this time with a short test drive of the Cayman. And like the Cayenne, this is a Porsche I could definitely enjoy owning!

I had no interest in driving the Boxster or the 911 for some reason... I think the fact that there was some practicality to the Cayman appealed to me... it did have a roof rack option after all! Thanks to a lack of a spare tire, and a mid-engine layout, it had generous luggage space in the front trunk and some space in rear, generous in sports car terms at least. The cockpit was fairly spartan and very German, nothing more than you need, nothing less. It was very comfortable and roomy, which was very unexpected, much better than other small sports cars I've sat in. 

Driving, I was surprised how quickly I got comfortable with the controls and how controlled the car felt. On a bumpy road there was some jostling, but honestly no more than the MINI has, so this could be a very nice daily driver. I obviously wasn't on a track, so I didn't get a full performance experience... but there was definitely a fun little beasty lurking underneath just itching for a curvy road. The Cayman is definitely a good edition to my dream car garage! Thanks to Jerry at Concours!

Excellent Opening Day

Didn't get tickets to the game, but that didn't stop us from having a great time tailgating with friends. The wind was cold, but it was a great day otherwise! We watched the dramatic Brewers win against the Cubbies down the block at the Comet!