This past week we've had a few really nice dinners out.

Firstly, on Thursday night we went to the fabulous international tapas restaurant, La Merenda. This is a regular favourite of mine because the food is always really flavourful and the service is great. This night was different because it was their Oktoberfest dinner and beer night. The chef, Peter, cooked up 6 courses of food and then Lakefront Brewery paired them with beers. Here's what we had (along with my commentary)...

• Course 1: Wisconsin Artisanal Cheese Plate Paired with Cat Tail Ale. The cheeses were really nice, especially the 'menage' which was a mix of various cheeses. The Cat Tail Ale was really yummy and we were happy to have tried it - bought some the next day.
• Course 2: Patatas y Chorizo Paired with Oktoberfest Lager. The chorizo was fantastic - really rich and nicely spiced. The potatoes (patatas) were disappointing; he did them as a cold potato salad and it didn't have enough flavour to hold up to the chorizo. The beer was a pleasant surprise...usually we don't like oktoberfest beers, but this wasn't too bitter.
• Course 3: Shrimp and Pumpkin Risotto Paired with Pumpkin Lager. Definitely the fave course...The risotto was fabulous and the shrimp and pumpkin in it were perfect together. The pumpkin beer wasn't too spicy so it was also perfect.
• Course 4: Beer Braised Baby Back Ribs Paired with Riverwest Stein. I didn't try the ribs because I'm not a big pork fan (other than bacon!) but Kip said the outside was well spiced, but the interior rib wasn't fantastic. The spice rub had cumin and great other aromatics. The beer was good, but not my favourite.
• Course 5: Braised Lamb Shanks with Garlic Mashed Potatoes Paired with National Avenue Ale. I also didn't eat this course (ok, not a big red-meat eater) but Kip was pleasantly surprised with them, considering he's not a big lamb fan. The potatoes were a bit too salty for my liking. The beer was good, but definitely more hoppy than I prefer.
• Course 6: Pumpkin Creme Brulee Paired with Eastside Dark. Loved the dessert - it wasn't overly pumkin-spiced, and the beer was the perfect 'coffee' style balance with the sweetness. Also to note, throughout the meal we munched on bread that was served with orange-rind butter, which was fantastic.

Next up was Saturday, where, although not as culinarily proper, was equally tasty.
We started out spending the afternoon at the Racine Art Museum with our friends Abby & Bill. We went to see the "Icons of Elegance" exhibit about shoes. It was cool because it was a travelling exhibit from the Toronto Bata Shoe Museum, which embarassingly, I've never been to.

After the museum we had about an hour to kill before dinner, so we stopped at an Asian place called Monsoon, out in Brookfield. We were really just stopping in for a drink, although I have eaten there before and it's not bad. The drinks were well made, but the best was Bill's martini - It was vodka and sake infused with honeydew, cataloupe, pineapple and some other fruits. Super yummy. And to top it off, they served it in a martini glass with a chunk of dry ice at the bottom, so the martini smoked and bubbled the whole time. How fun.

Then dinner was at the Melting Pot. It's a fondue place, and we went with the 4 course dinner. Started with cheddar fondue with breads, veggies and apples. Then salads...Then main course, which consisted of filet, balsamic steak, lobster tail, shrimp, chicken, pork tenderloin along with some pastas and veggies. We had all the requisite sauces too. We chose to do it in the Coq Au Vin broth which was great. Dessert was a baileys and chocolate fondue but by then we were all pretty full.

After dinner we headed back to town and went to Cuvee. It's a new champagne bar that just opened in the 3rd Ward. Really cool concept of all champagnes. I tried a sparking Shiraz (red Australian) which was so nice, along with a glass of Prosecco (Italy). The boys split a bottle of Fragolino; a Swiss-made fizzy red.

After Cuvee, Abby & Bill headed home and Kip and I topped the night off with a few pints at the Palm. Great Belgian beers. I favoured the sour ale (Rodenbach), while Kip tried a variety.

So, a great few nights out in the food world. Now I think it's time for lunch...

So, I spent a week in Poland for work. The first 2 days in Krakow, which was beautiful, and then the majority of the week in Katowice, which was more of an industrial town. Various pics follow... Enjoy!

Photobucket Album

On September 29th, 10 of us set out to complete the 2007 Bayview Pub Crawl. 17 Bars...6.5 Hours...1 beer per location. The good news is, we completed with about 20 minutes to spare, and we only lost 3 people along the way! Unfortunately the album below somehow posted in backwards order, so start at the end and work backwards.

Photobucket Album

It's been a long, long time since I've posted. How boring. Erin says Facebook killed the Messenger star but I think it also killed LJ (for me anyway).

Anyway, for lack of more interesting posting, here's a recap of my last few summer trips, and an overview of some upcoming ones!

July
I'll pick up where my last "Canada Day" post left off...After all the festivities died down I headed to Canada for a big SAP project launch that I'd been leading. Stayed there for two weeks and in addition to work, had a good time with family and friends. cyberkip's grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary (wow!) and he flew in for the festivities. It was a good time with a fabulous dinner, cute guitarist and SUV limo.

August
Started off with a fabulous time hanging with Erin, aka cybercrevice, but she never posts (except on facebook). She came for a long weekend, and a great time was had at various eating/drinking establishments. As well we hung out, played trivia, had drinks, and Erin almost lost her bathing suit at Matt's lake house. It all ended with bacon...of course.
The end of August was also fab, with a visit back to Canada for 10 days. Spent the first week at my dad's place, hanging out and visiting great friends (my brother and themusesbitch in Toronto. Also got to spend some time with my bestest friend, Paul. Ended the last half of the week relaxing at the cottage (lake house) with a surprise visit from cyberkip's family. Thus ended August, Labour Day and summer.

September
On Friday I head to Poland for a week. I'm going for work, but heading there a few days early for some tourist time. I get into Krakow around noon on Saturday and I'm staying right downtown in the old city. Will probably walk around a lot and eat good food. Sunday is a toss-up; depending how I'm feeling I may head over to Auschwitz, but if I'm not in the right mood I won't. It's something I feel like I should do, but I also can't be thoroughly depressed all week. Monday - Thursday I'm working, and during that time will be in Katowice. I fly back next Friday. Fingers crossed that my Alitalia flights (and Milan) don't totally suck.

October
No travel planned for Oct...Just having fun for Halloween / My Birthday!

November
This is the month of fun trips...
November 1st I head to Wales to visit my mum. Haven't seen her in 2.5 years so it's about time to go. I get there Friday noon and come back Tuesday am. It's the perfect length of visit considering she lives way out in the country so there's not a lot to do. I managed to get a flight right into Cardiff, so at least I don't have to fly through London.
Then, for US Thanksgiving, we head to Cancun for an all-inclusive, all-eating/drinking, relax-a-thon. Friends Matt & Larsen are joining us, so it should be a blast. We're staying at the Royal Resort which is a totally luxurious place, so it should be fun. Our room includes a 1 hr. mini cooper rental too!

December
The year wraps up with the usual visit home to visit both families for Christmas, but we'll definitely be back for the combined birthday bash on Dec. 29th. And....New Years fun, of course.

Time to pack my suitcase...

On July 1st we had some fantastic Canada Day festivities here in good 'ol Milwaukee. Since it was a Sunday, the plan was a brunch party... so we had mimosas, bloodys, sangria and Sleeman beer on tap! Along with that was all kinds of breakfast foods, brats, poutine and mousse (moose). The first guests arrived at 10:30am and the last guests left at 9:30pm!! Long party I must say. I believe a good time was had by all, and we even had some new people show up too. The Sleeman went over fabulously (a new bacon-beer drink was even invented) and the rep had given us all kinds of goodies to make it fun (I really love the beer tap, and the shirt he gave me).

I also have to say we have the best friends ever...so many people dressed Canadian-ish, the neighbours totally rocked, all the beer got drunk - what more can one ask for! Here are a few key pics from the party, and the rest are available here.

Crew with the Sleeman beer

Happy Canada Day Peeps

Lots of Red & White

spigotkitty getting fishnet sunburn

So a few fun things have happened recently...

Wii
First off, we got a Nintendo Wii! For those that know me, it is a strange phenomenon. I absolutely hate video games. Not even just hate, detest is probably a better word. So how is it that I decided to race to Toys R Us one evening and get the last Wii in stock (that was on hold for Chad - sorry Chad - but, that's another story).
Well, it all started with my last business trip to Cambridge and a foray to Toronto to catch up with themusesbitch whom I haven't seen in a far-to-long time. After a fun dinner of Margaritas and Sangria, we decided to go back to pipesdreams place to play some Wii. I was hooked. It's so active, and I actually got a injur-wii when first playing from getting so into it. Boxing is great, and a good workout. Bowling is my favourite, and I've made pro level. I think this is completely revolutionizing video game play, because it's active, interactive, and group-orientated. Definitely worth it.

NASCAR
I've been known to like sports, quite a few sports actually, and although I hate to admit it, there was a time when I watched NASCAR 500 races on Sunday (yes, I know who Bobby Labonte, Rusty Wallace, the Earnharts and Dale Jarrett are). But, in recent times I've stayed away from watching NASCAR and that's ok with me.

Well, my company (Rockwell Automation) sponsors a car in the 250 series (Driven by Denny Hammill and Eric Arriola) and this is the last year we'll be sponsoring them. So, I got 2 free tickets to the Milwaukee race this weekend, which also included access to the super-fun/yummy hospitality suite. The seats were in a great grandstand locale too. We started off just enoying the hospitality suite, and didn't want to venture out to the race grounds, but we did anyway...and I'm glad we did! Not too many mullets within view, and most people around us worked with me.

"Our" car started off in pole, which was kinda cool...and then we led for quite a few laps. The backup driver, Eric, raced, because Denny was late and the helicopter bringing him to the grounds couldn't land because people had parked on the helipad (!). We knew all this because we had scanners so we could hear all team broadcasts, etc. So, finally Denny arrived and during one caution they hit the pit to change drivers. Alas, Denny wasn't fast enough, so he lost a lap during that change... but he is the comeback kid! He came from the back of the pack (I really started paying attention when he was around 27th place) to pass ALL of the cars and be leading by the 180 lap mark. And further to that, he won!!! The great thing is Eric actually gets the race win, becaus he started. That's cool, because he's new.

Who'da thunk both cyberkip and I would have so much fun at a NASCAR event. Free beer didn't hurt either. Here are some pics:

Fellow Rockwell peeps watching the race (note the red headsets attached to scanners)...

cyberkip enjoying the race...

All of the cars lining up...

Rockwell Automation #20 at pole position...

Eric being introduced before race time...

It's been a while. I feel like that's how I always start off my posts, because they're far between. Oh well. Deal with it.

Summer is actually starting up nicely. We've done lots of work on the back yard and it's a little piece of Shangri-la in the middle of Milwuakee. We also got a great patio coffee-table set that has a middle piece that comes out and can either be a cooler (to put ice in - hooray!) or a fire pit. We've had a few fires so far and I love it. We will definitely have a few BBQs this year and I'm thinking the first one will be for Canada Day. I'll make all my American friends celebrate on July 1st :)

I spent this past week in Austin, Texas and cyberkip came too. I was a little apprehensive, because Texas isn't on my top list of places to go, but I actually quite liked it there. We spent a ton of time walking around and most of our wandering was spent in the warhouse, historic 6th street and 'soco' areas. I ended up buying a Che finger puppet - that makes me happy.

We ate lots of good food too...everything from a great Irish pub, to Mexican, to Cuban to good 'ol southern BBQ to Vietnamese. For anyone who goes to Austin, check out Mekong Delta - awesomely authentic Vietnamese food.

And now it's the long weekend here, and I'm looking forward to being a vegetable. Will do a bit of house clean-up and yard work and then on Sunday will head to a friend's cottage for some fun and partying.

Happy birthday to Erin by the way - she turned 30 on the 25th. Hehehe, now she's old like the rest of us.

I'm so happy. Got my bike back from the bike shop today (bicycle - not motorcycle). I feel like it's been forever since I've been riding; I guess it's been about 2 years. So, my chain and drivetrain are overhauled, I've got new awesome Crank Brothers Smarty pedals, and new shoes & helmet to go with it. Fun, fun, fun. I went for a quick ride (5 kms) just to try to break myself into my first ride. My plan is about 10 km 3 times per week, and then at least one big 20 km or larger ride on the weekends. It's too bad there aren't any trails where we live - everything is concrete. Need to find some good off-road single track to get back into the groove of technical riding.

Today we also go tickets to the Tool show that is on July 4th at Summerfest (thanks Jess!). The seats are pretty good and it should be fun. I like them enough, but they are one of Kip's fave bands so it'll be great for him.

Today is Cinco de Mayo, so shortly it's off to Abby's for Margaritas and then on "Johnny's" Restaurant for Mexican food and fun.

Tomorrow is our 7 year wedding anniversary (gosh, that's a long time), so we're heading up for an overnight stay at the Sundara Spa. We have a Shaanta room with a fireplace and Kohler soaker tub. And, we are booked in for a double massage (both of us in the same room), which will be super lovely.

So Saturday started out as a lazy day... Sleeping in, hanging out for beers at Barnacle Bud's and then dinner with good friends.

Then it all went downhill ... haha.

Around 9:30pm we were just hanging out watching TV and Abby called us. Some friends were out at a silly dive bar nearby. So we went out and joined them.

It turned into the Dive Bar Crawl! There were 6 of us, so we hit 6 dive bayview bars:

• The Haymaker (Clement & Potter) - total biker place that only had canned beer - eeew.
• Diamond Tap on Bay St - $1 PBR and some fun playing crazy 8s
• Planet Marky (Howell) - what a trashy wannabe hip hop bar. ick.
• Chasers (KK) - it was just sad. They have figurines for sale in glass cases. Pitcher for $6.50
• Tony's Moody Blues (Howell) - Very clean dive bar. Some random guy bought us a round.
• The Stone (Howell) - Actually not a dive bar ... great place! Will be back.

So, needless to say that by 2:30am we were wiped. Can't wait to do it again!