Tag Archives: milwaukee

The Return of the Monday

I said to Michelle last night that it would be nice to get Mondays back after the conclusion of my basketball season. Like I mentioned to her, when you typically only spend 4 nights a week at home, getting a 33% boost in time to do stuff is pretty huge. I think I’ll work on… well I don’t quite know what I’ll work on tonight yet, but I know that it’ll be at my house.

Had a somewhat non-descript yet enjoyable weekend. Got a gradual start to my Saturday, wherein I made it to Milwaukee eventually, and spent a little time reading a Ron Rindo story while I drank some coffee in Red Arrow Park. Michelle was looking at an apartment someplace up Prospect with her mom, then met me there afterward. It was a really nice afternoon.

We took a walk around downtown for a bit, but when the wind picked up it got sort of chilly. It was right about then that the fog rolled in off the lake, and it was IMPOSSIBLE to drive near the water. We swung over to Grandma’s house to drop off her other 2 dollar coins, but nobody was home. Christy’s phone was there, though, so we changed her wallpaper.

Had dinner rather early (about 5:30) at Louise’s. We ate a pizza. It was good. The booth was a little cramped, though. We were thinking of going out and maybe bowling or throwing darts after that, but we didn’t want to get started right away. We didn’t want to drive all the way back to waukesha, either, so we stopped over at the Mundschau’s and watched a DVD for a while. Michelle had been up really early on Saturday in order to get to a meeting for work at about 7:30, so she zonked out pretty quick. We watched 1 disc worth of The Office, then called it a night. Pretty low-key.

Made it to St. William’s for 10:45 mass on Sunday morning, and it was a pretty full house. I noted that the deacon was a very, very young guy. He had a well-constructed homily that started to drift at one point, but I was impressed when he tied it all back together and made some sense.

Michelle has been stalking Girl Scouts for about 5 or 6 weeks now (ever since the cookies went on sale), and after church she made what I imagine will be her final purchase of the year– a dozen boxes of Thin Mints. Yes, that’s correct– TWELVE BOXES. I hope she can make them last. When I have treats around the house, I can’t help but eat them, so that’s why I usually don’t. Michelle has a lot more self-control…

We took a ride into Pewaukee and had lunch with Michelle’s mom @ The Chocolate Factory. They were woefully understaffed, but I think that had more to do with the uncharacteristically warm weather than anything else. I imagine that they can usually get by with 2 people working there on a Sunday. Anyway, the sandwiches and ice cream were good.

We did stop over to visit Grandma and ate another sandwich a little later in the afternoon. The drive up to Vegas was quick, and there was no need to eat anything else.

Now that the kids are back from spring break, I could go for a week or two of vacation.

Hope you had a nice weekend. I’m back on the job…

I'll Give You Some Blarney– In the Face

I can’t believe I didn’t blog ANYTHING on Friday, given that I had a very slow work day and a lot cooking for the weekend. Ah, what the hell, tho– here’s a little recap…

Friday night, Michelle, Jen, Christy and I took Grandma out for dinner at The Packing House. They have a fine southside fish fry over there, and we all enjoyed it. After dinner, we hung out with at Grandma’s house a while playing 31. Jen won once, and Grandma won the other. I had some of the worst 31 hands of my life and got knocked out very quickly both times.

On Saturday, I got up (relatively) early and after breakfast and coffee, met Jen, Joe, Raul and Katie at Mo’s Irish Pub on Wisconsin & Plankington. They had been out since 7:30 at Murph’s, where they were alleged to have Lucky Charms for those early-morning St. Patty’s patrons. I enjoyed my first Guinness of the day at around 11, as can be seen in this photo. There is also a short video on Joe’s phone of my 2nd Guinness of the day, which I finished in 15 seconds (sometimes I amaze even myself).

I couldn’t stay out too long with the revelers, because I had to meet Michelle at Miller Park around 3 for a Guardian Credit Union meet-n-greet with Gorman Thomas. That was pretty cool, but I didn’t have much of a chance to talk with him– there was still a long line of people with stuff to get signed behind me. I did get my bobblehead autographed. I milled around the store downstairs for a bit waiting for Michelle to be done “working” at the event. I think we were out of there around 10 to 4. I wonder how much Gorman gets paid for an event like that?

After we were done at the ballpark, we shuttled Jen and Joe back to Mo’s and had a drink with them. I was a little perturbed that we had to pay a $5 cover to get in there. It was EXTREMELY crowded, and there were a lot of old people looking a little annoyed about the service and the breathing room, but what do you expect when 3/17 falls on a Saturday?

We made it to Erika and Patrick’s house by 6 and had a really good time with an authentic Irish dinner and a good game of Sheepshead. We thought we would need to leave earlier to meet some of Michelle’s peeps out for the ‘holiday,’ but never got the call we were expecting…

Michelle had her car parked over at Jen & Joe’s house Saturday night, so we just crashed there and eventually made it back to Oshkosh on Sunday afternoon, following a late brunch at the Original Pancake House. Michael Redd was nowhere to be seen on this visit…

I was a little bummed as I listened to the Badgers game on the trip home– enough so that I had to switch over to the Brewers when Bucky was down by 7 with about 3 minutes to go. It was a nice season, but too bad to see it end so quickly.

Speaking of basketball, my team has its first “playoff game” this evening at 6:15. My understanding is that we, being the #5 team in the league, play the #4 team for a chance to meet #1 next week. For the first time this morning, that didn’t make a lot of sense to me– seems more like we should be playing the #2 team, and the #4 should play #3. But I guess that would mean you’d have to ‘re-seed’ after the first round, and… well, who gives a crap, really?

How was your weekend?

The Continuing Downtown Renaissance

From a news brief on the Urinal-Sentinel:

The building also will have an Aloft Hotel. The new Aloft brand, owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., markets itself as a stylish hotel with a “hip, urban attitude.”

Oooh! Snap! What I love about it is that it’s “fresh” and “in-your-face,” kind of like Poochie.

Maybe they could get Poochie to do some hip and trendy advertising..!