Category Archives: Ed

Happy Birthday Melissa!

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Melissa_BDay_Sundae_taken_with_InstagramToday is a very special day, it’s Melissa’s 31st birthday! So today we decided to do what ever she wanted to, and it started with breakfast at Ihop. Of course while we were there I took the liberty of letting our waitress know that it was her birthday. Of course when she gave us the option of a Sundae and a song I agreed and requested it, because I thought it would be funny to have the staff serenade her (read: embarrass her), and I was right! She did enjoy the sundae though, as you can see. 🙂 After breakfast we went over to Target to do some random shopping and pick up a few items Melissa wanted. Later after spending the day relaxing after shopping, she decided she wanted to go to the Quarter Bistro for dinner. Dinner and dessert were delicious, just as we have come to expect from the Quarter Bistro. All in all it was a very nice day.

Happy Birthday Melissa, I Love You!

Leather Levers

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Earlier this week I realized the chrome on my levers is flaking off again! I say again because this happened before, though I apparently didn’t write about it. Back in 2009 the levers were replaced as part of a larger overhaul do to some damage and they were replaced with a set of Kuryakyn’s that were supposed to be very good. My 2009 riding season was rather short (due to said service) and everything seemed fine, then came the 2010 riding season and all seemed well. Until mid way through the season, when I swear the levers felt odd. Every time I checked, and others checked for me, they looked fine, so I let it go. But then in the beginning of August while out for a ride it felt like I got a splinter in my finger, when I stopped to check I did have a splinter, a chrome flake splinter! The chrome plating on the lever was indeed peeling off. I ordered some replacement levers from Nicholson’s and waited for them to come in and in the mean time I just rode wearing my full finger gloves. By the time the levers came in the riding season was just about over so I decided to wait to put them on until the 2011 season. Chuck was nice enough to install the new levers for me during the off season and they felt and looked great all season. Now this year I get the motorcycle out, the earliest ever I might add, and after riding it home for the first time I once again feel like the levers are pitting and flaking! When I checked it turns out they are. At this point I am thinking that maybe I just have a high acidic level to the oil in my skin. Maybe? In any event I have decided not to order a third set of levers, instead I have ordered these leather lever covers. I purposely chose these because there are no long tassels, I am personally not a fan of them. So now I need to wait for them to arrive and hopefully they look good when I put them on.

Early Ride and Some Disapointment

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Today marks the earliest I have ever been able to get the motorcycle out for the season! Today and the rest of the week are supposed to be beautiful and I am looking forward to being able to ride again. After picking the bike up from Chuck’s and riding home, Melissa and I decided to ride down to Sidetracks for dinner. When we got down there I also did something that I had never done before, I backed the motorcycle into a spot that was part of a line of motorcycles. It was a pretty neat experience to be part of that brotherhood, to look back and see my bike in a line with others. Of course this is also when I had a chance to verify something that I was dreading, the chrome on my levers is flaking and pitting again! I am beginning to suspect that I may just have a high acid level in the oils in my skin. It’s the only sane conclusion I can come to. Not sure what I am going to do at this point, but I really don’t want to replace them again if they are just going to flake again!

Power Outage Means Bonding

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Tonight we had our first real power outage in quit some time. We lost power at about 5pm from high winds. We had no way to know just how long the power was going to be out, but considering it typically comes back on within minutes we continued to watch TV for a few minutes as everything was running off of the APC. After about 30 minutes though we decided that the power wasn’t going to come  back so we turned off the TV to conserve power on the APC. Thankfully we had already eaten dinner before the power went out, so we didn’t have to worry about food. So Kylie and I found other ways to pass the time. We talked about everything and anything that came to our minds, from Kylie’s classes and her friends, to her ballet and violin lessons and even Daddy’s job. While we still had some natural light we also read some books to each other and played games. When the light started to diminish we lit a number of candles through out the apartment, and then took some pictures of them. Bedtime came and we still had no power, so I turned Kylie’s night light to on and told her that as soon as the power came back it would turn on but until then I was going to leave a candle lit on her dresser for light. Then I lied down next to her so we could talk a little more before she drifted off to sleep. After about 30 minutes of us laying down and talking, the power came back on! So I was able to turn on Kylie’s radio and blow out all of the candles. It was a lot of fun not having power and I think that maybe we will make a point of “losing power” in the future to allow us to spend some uninterrupted quality time together.

Gamer Score Milestone

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My gamer score hit 10,000 tonight! Just under two years to hit it. Not to shabby I think. Something tells me I won’t double this in just under two years though.

Red Wings Set NHL Record

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Thanks to my job and a pretty awesome vendor I was able to go to my first real professional hockey game tonight. I say “first real” professional hockey game because I have been to a Red Wings alumni game, but that was so slow paced and laid back that it wasn’t a normal game, many of the players didn’t even wear helmets it was so laid back. Anyway tonight I got to watch the Red Wings set an NHL record by winning their 21st straight home game. Their unfortunate victims tonight were the Dallas Stars. The game was excellent and the seats were probably the best seats I will ever have, thanks to my vendor, we had seats up in the suites and this was my view for the night:

The suite itself was pretty nice and the food was very delectable. The drinks were available from an in suite fridge and staff came in periodically to refill it and the food. A dessert cart even came around gave us our pick of anything off the cart. I had a delicious chocolate cake shaped like a hockey puck with the Red Wings logo on top and filled with raspberry mousse. Yes, it was as good as it sounds! I think this night may have spoiled any further hockey games, or any sporting event for that matter. I mean for starters it was in a suite where we were basically catered to and pampered all night, and then not only do the Red Wings win but they also set an NHL record. How is another game going to top that? 🙂

Dads & Dolls

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Today was an awesome day! Kylie and I went to our first (hopefully of many) Daddy Daughter Dance. It was held at the Southgate YMCA and was about 2 hours long. They had light refreshments and craft activities and some structured dances. There were a number of slow songs but there were also some fun upbeat songs that kept us all moving. Kylie really seemed to enjoy the locomotion that turned into a limbo line. She thought it was funny watching Daddy go under the limbo stick, we also learned how to do a minuet. It was more fun than i would have thought it would be. I could see doing some type of ballroom dance lessons when she gets older and possibly doing something like that with her. The organizers told us there were about 60 girls at the dance, which was twice what they had last year! We did not know about the dance last year and we only found out about it this year because Tiffany now has Kylie going to the YMCA for latchkey on days that Kylie has a half day or no school, also Kylie will be spending her summer week days here this year when school is out. I really hope we can do this again next year! If not at the YMCA then maybe there will be one at her school.

A Wicked Good Night

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Since I have lived in Michigan I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have gone in to Detroit, and of those occasions almost all of them have been to go see an event (a play or musical, sporting event, or concert) and tonight was no different. As part of Melissa’s Christmas present, and as a gift to myself, I bought us tickets to go and see Wicked at the Detroit Opera House. In addition Melissa also received another piece of her Christmas present tonight because it looked beautiful with her dress. She received the lovely necklace and matching earrings that she is wearing in the picture (clicking the image will open the full image if you want a closer look), which she likes very much. 🙂

The evening of theater was preceded by a wonderful dinner at Mario’s Italian Restaurant. Mario’s is a great place and we were impressed from the moment we walked in. Neither of us are used to a place this…upscale for a lack of a better term. For instance no other place I know of brings you a vegetable and relish tray the moment you sit down. But then again Mario’s has been around since 1948, so they are a hold over from a much classier time. Because it was our first time the waiter was kind enough to give us a few tips for dinning at Mario’s, one of which was to skip the appetizer because there was only two of us and the meal portions are rather large. All of their entrees include an antipasto salad, soup, and pasta (if you’re getting a non-pasta entree) in addition to the already served relish dish. So we took this bit of advice and ordered just the entrees. I ordered the Manicotti and Canelloni combination which is a half portion of each of these two delectable dishes, and let me assure you they were indeed delicious! I am partial to manicotti to begin with and get it almost every time I am at an Italian restaurant so believe me when I say that Mario’s manicotti is superb. Melissa ordered the Spaghetti Marinara with mushrooms, and while she enjoyed the meal as far as pasta goes she was not all that impressed with their marinara sauce. She felt, and from the looks of it I agreed, that it was too thin and watery for her liking. Holding true to our recent obsession we ordered their Crème Brulee for dessert, and like our other encounters with this delicious dessert we were completely satisfied! I think that Mario’s is definitely a place we would come back to again if we were in this part of Detroit again.

Once done with our fine dinning we retrieved the truck from valet (oh did I mention that Mario’s has free valet parking? No? Well they do.) and headed down the road to the Detroit Opera House. There was a valet parking lot directly across the street from the Opera House that we took full advantage of and headed in. The Opera House itself is very beautiful on the inside, though we only looked around the first floor. After purchasing a few keepsakes from the show (a shirt for Melissa and a magnet) we headed in to the actual theater to find our seats. It turned out that the seats were a little more off to the right of the stage than I had originally thought, but they were still excellent seats. The musical itself was very well performed and the singing was great, and once I got over my disappointment (I’ll explain in a minute) the show was very good and I would recommend it to anyone. The set designs were amazing and beautiful, and the large Dragon over the stage representing the Clock of the Time Dragon was really cool,  particularly when the eyes lit up! Also the way the tik-tok machines were represented in the moving set pieces were very intriguing.  Now for my disappointment…. I have actually read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West that this musical is based off of, twice. The second time I read the book was to read it with Melissa so that we would be familiar with the book before seeing the play, big mistake. The musical deviates, a lot, from the book and for me that took a large effort to get over. For those who have not seen the musical but have read the book, the musical basically starts with the girls going to Shiz, nothing before. That in itself is fine, but they changed the complete background of Elphaba’s parents, her sister’s disability, and the very nature of Fiyero’s character! Amongst other smaller changes this really made it difficult for me to truly enjoy the show in the beginning because I kept finding myself thinking “that’s not how it was in the book.” I do understand that they would need to change things in order to make it all fit into a 2 hour play, though I wish the changes hadn’t been so drastic. I think if I had not gone into the show with the expectation that it would be closer to the book that I would have been fine from the beginning. That is my advice to other’s if they have read the book, don’t expect the book and the musical will be fantastic from the start!

This was really a very lovely night and hopefully we will continue seeing plays and going out occasionally in 2012! Hopefully not all at the end of the year like this year, but it is a nice beginning.

One Empty Shell

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I had the good fortune to be able to get back out in the woods today for what will be my last day of hunting this season. For those of you keeping count this is my second day out during the two week firearm season. Not the best number, but seeing as the last few years I didn’t get out at all I am more than happy to be able to get out even once. So today was my first time ever hunting from a tree stand, and now that I reflect back on it I think I rather enjoyed it. Getting up into the stand was an interesting experience, mainly because I was not familiar with getting into one and I was doing it in the dark. Once I was up and settled it was rather comfortable in comparison to sitting on a bucket or a folding seat on the ground. However I felt that my visibility was slightly limited because I didn’t have the ability to fully turn and see behind me. The overall dynamic of hunting from a tree stand is different and I am not a huge fan of, what I call, mid-heights (15 to 20 feet above the ground). So when I felt like the ground was spinning I assumed for a second that it was some sort of vertigo, but then I realized that the tree was swaying due to the wind. 🙂 The morning passed by peacefully and quiet, though I did hear a few shots way off in the distance. Then about 8am I watched as 5 deer (one of which looked like it might have had spikes) jumped the road and came running toward me through the field I was sitting next to. They were running about 30 yards away parallel and to the left of the stand I was in. I knew this would be the only opportunity I had to take a shot this morning, so I lead the first deer in the pack and when I got to the opening of my shooting lane I fired…and missed. The deer never slowed and I watched them bound down the field and up around a small finger of trees. I knew before I took the shot that the likelihood of connecting was very low for a number of reasons: the distance, the speed of their run, and the fact that I only had slugs to name a few. However, I also knew this would be my only opportunity of the morning so I took the chance. It was great to see them even though I didn’t get to fill a tag. At that point I had thought that I would be able to go back out in the afternoon, but as it turned out I was not feeling well and missed that opportunity. So my hunting season has come to an end and all I have to show is one empty shell. Better luck next year.

A bad day in the woods…

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For the first time in a couple of years to day I was able to go out hunting. It’s opening day here fro firearms and it was nice to be back out in the woods, even if they weren’t productive. The morning started out nice and early, heading out in to the darkness and finding a nice spot to sit and wait. I was on top of a small hill looking down into two recently cut corn fields hidden in a little copse. The predawn air was crisp but the sky was clear and I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about rain like we had yesterday. As I sat patiently and quietly waiting on dawns light, listening to the sounds around me, I soon realized that today was not going to be a good day for hunting. Right around dawn a think fog began to roll in, slowly at first and then all of a sudden. It was very thick and heavy and dropped visibility, even from my hill, to mere feet. A few times through out the morning I thought I heard a deer grunt, but I could not tell where it was coming from and had no hope of seeing. The fog finally lifted around 10:30am, but by that time I could see Adam and Ryan (the guys i was with) heading out of their respective blinds and stands and making their way back to Adam’s truck. Even though we heard a lot of gun shots in other fields around us, none of saw any deer today. Unfortunately they both had to work the afternoon so we only had the morning hunt to try and get something. It is passable that this will be the only time I get to go out this year, and even though I didn’t even see a deer it was still great to be back out in the woods. You know what they say “A bad day in the woods beats a good day in the office.”