Adventurous catch-up

As some may or may not know I had the fortune to have a quite adventurous month back in November. What for some was another day on the job , I got elected to climb almost 300 feet in the air. I honestly didn't think I would make it, thankfully the experienced people had some good advice going up. Thankfully, there were multiple platforms on the tower going up to stop on to rest, which were needed due to lack of me moving my arms more than a few inches on any giving day. One of my colleagues dropped out of the climb before the first platform! It was amazing to be up there and have a new found respect for the guys who do that kind of stuff everyday without flinching.

****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.

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! 

MINIs in bloom

Spring in the air... that means only one thing... the MINIs come out! The Milwaukee Minis club met up with people from Chicago for a relaxing spring drive in Southern Wisconsin. I took along my friend Joe who enjoyed the ride... it was a fairly leisure ride thru the country, at least for the MINIs!

Anniversary Stimulus

In our continuing effort to stimulate the economy, we had a lovely dinner at Bacchus downtown. I had eaten there for a seminar, but never for dinner, so we thought we would give it a try since we didn't do our B&B this year. I had the Roasted Chicken marinated in garlic and herbs with Brown Butter Polenta (even though I wanted the Red Wine Braised Shortrib with sweet potato puree, parsnips and pearl onions! Darn tomato based recipes!). It was pretty tasty and filling... was not able to finish it. Of course that could have been all the bread I ate also. Marcia had the Halibut special, which was "pretty good", the fish being much better than the side that came with it. I thought I would be nibbling on Marcia's dessert, but our waiter surprised us with some sorbet... coconut, lemon and some kind of berry. Very much appreciated, despite the spelling error. Not our favorite restaurant, but nice staff and good food! Afterwards we stopped by Buckleys Kiskeam Inn for a couple beers and got to speak with one of the family that own the place, Taylor.... Nice guy and friendly people, will have to try the fish fry there sometime!

Run Down

Had a good trip to Phoenix a few weeks ago. Of course, we visited a few breweries:

Sonora *** Good german beer styles, nothing over the top or incredibly memorable, but good!

Four Peaks **** Some nice tasty brews, such as their Kiltlifter, Hop Knot IPA and Kölsh. Food was good, but the brewery location is the place with the atmosphere. Gotta try the Edamame appetizer!

Oak Creek Brewing *** Excellent Pale ale! Their strong seasonal ales were pretty good too... worth a visit!

Papago Brewing ** Had an Orange Blossom Wheat beer that tasted like fruit loops. Their seasonal Abbey beer was good tho. But you definitely can't beat the bottled beer selection... one of the best!

BJ's Restaurant & Brewery ** Good place for a chain! Had the sampler and most of the beers were easy drinking, no standouts tho.

Other excellent places of note: The Rooselvelt, and the The Lost Leaf are great homey taverns to visit. Matt's Big Breakfast is great diner breakfast food if you can stand the wait (was worth it!).

Of course the was the baseball! Brewer's beat the Cubs, which is always nice... they looked good and hopefully they'll carry that into the season. Maryvale Park was a great time... all the fun from Miller Park but in a much smaller and more intimate, relaxed setting. Everything was there... the Klement's, the tailgating, the Miller, and of course.... the Sausages:

Thanks to Rick and Jeanie for being tour guides!

Milwaukee Winter

Just wanted to share this great video I ran across... use tilt-shift photography of a Milwaukee winter day. Enjoy!

Fire (Jimmy Edgar Remix) from Erik West on Vimeo.

Ski!

Finally got some great skiing in the last two weekends, this last with my sister Cheryl. Both times were at Lapham Peak State Park... en excelelnt place for skiing. Great people, great trails and a great workout (if you choose).