Right, it's time for the weekend wrap-up! After working Saturday morning, takaza and I met up with linnaeus at the Massage Envy in Palatine (which is conveniently owned by Dan's brother). Dan and Paul each got one-hour massages; I went for a 90-minutes massage, choosing a deep tissue massage this time (I usually just stick with relaxation). It was...effective. But wow - she found some trigger points in my back that I didn't know I had!

Following a quick lunch, we all headed back up to our stomping grounds, stopping by the game shop in downtown Grayslake to browse a bit. Then it was back to our place to play a little Wii Sports and hang out for a bit. After that we decided it was time to get a new game, so it was off to Gamestop to pick up Mario Kart Wii. Dan cooked up some tasty turkey burgers and we spent the rest of the evening driving like madmen around itty bitty tracks. Oh, and since people have asked, our Wii console number is 0640 0380 8682 3927, Takaza's Mario Kart ID is 3523-2801-2341, and mine is 2578-3899-6783.

Sunday Dan and I were off to Milwaukee to spend the afternoon touring the area with tozier_wah and jet_der_hund (sadly, little_wolf had to work). We started out with an incredibly yummy lunch at Kopp's Frozen Custard. When they say "jumbo burgers", they mean it! Wow, those were good though, as was the frozen custard (Quote of the day: "Someone call Culver's and tell them I want a divorce!").

After that, we took the short drive down to the Sprecher Brewery for their brewery tour. The tour was fun, and the tasting afterwards was great. For $3, you (normally) get four 8 oz. samples of their beers or unlimited pours of their sodas. It pretty much confirmed that, for me, while their beers aren't bad, I much prefer their sodas. Just a few weeks ago they introduced a cherry cola; while their regular Puma Cola doesn't do much for me, this cherry cola was really, really good! Dan bought a case of it for us to take home :-)

From there it was on to The Spice House (where Toz learned not to inhale the Latino spices) and then we finished off the day with a visit to Alterra At The Lake, my favorite coffee shop in Milwaukee. We had a lot of fun making the circuit of the town, and I look forward to going back again soon!

As for this week, work is keeping me busy on various projects. I've also got a few things that I need to take care of before this weekend's Midwest FurFest staff meeting. OK, and maybe play a little Mario Kart in the meantime...

Two great things go great together!

Yesterday, after a long day spent running back and forth across campus working on various projects, I got out from work just a little late and headed north to Milwaukee. I met up with tozier_wah and little_wolf near their place, then we carpooled in to downtown Milwaukee, taking the scenic route up I-794 along the lakefront. We had a few wrong turns along the way - did you know the Marquette Interchange is partially open now? Neither did I! We inadvertently drove through it twice. Finally we arrived at our destination, Milwaukee Public Market.

We were the for Mooo & Brew, a beer and cheese tasting to benefit the Hunger Task Force. Predictably, the place was a mob scene, but we had a lot of fun. We were joined at the last minute by jet_der_hund, and we had a great time critiquing the various cheese (yum!) and beers (mostly yum, though there were a few clunkers). My favorite was (of course) the Unibroue lineup, which featured a wheat beer (Blanche de Chambly), then the same beer flavored with apples (Éphémère Apple) and cranberries (Éphémère Cranberry). Best of all was the Don de Dieu triple wheat ale, which just knocked my socks off (easy to do, at 9% alcohol!).

After we had enjoyed all the beers and decided that it was probably really a good time to get some dinner, we wandered around the Market a bit and I introduced everyone to The Spice House and we hit a couple of other places. We visited the small wine shop there, which was doing great business selling the beers which were being tasted upstairs. I hadn't intended to buy anything, but when they mentioned a free Unibroue glass with every Unibroue beer, I had to pick up a bottle of the Don de Dieu! The guys working the shop were very friendly and we had a lot of fun joking around with them. We asked for recommendations on places fro dinner and they steered us away from our original choice and recommended a couple of others instead.

So off we went into the rapidly-gentrifying Third Ward, admiring the art shops and oh-so-trendy bars. We stopped by Hinterlands Gastropub, but were scared off by the entrees that started at $30. We wound up taking the wine shop guys' advice and settled on Water Buffalo. Dinner was delightful, with great conversation and very tasty food. I had a blast and I think everyone else did as well. And I learned all about IML! :-) Afterwards, we walked down to the Foundry location of Alterra, but alas they closed a half hour before we go there. So we walked back to our cars and said our good-nights.

What a great evening! My only regret is that I didn't get home until 11, so I'm dragging a bit today. It was worth it, though! I look forward to getting up to Milwaukee more and exploring with friends.

All work and no play blah blah blah. You know the drill.

Work has definitely picked up over the last few weeks, which is a good thing. There's several large manufacturing expansions going on that bode well for plenty of work to do through 2010 and beyond, too - always a Good Thing!

Last weekend was quite lovely. takaza and I drove up to Milwaukee and did some shopping at Milwaukee Public Market, Alterra Coffee, and The Spice House. I had thought about stopping by the new brewpub near the Public Market, but that will have to wait for another day. We had a great time refilling our spice cabinet, and picked up some wonderful burgers (including some bacon and provolone burgers) and sausages from Ceriello's. On the way home we did our weekly shopping at Woodman's in Kenosha; we got some great deals on pork loin and something labeled "fresh pork" with no further explanation (it turns out it was boneless meat from the ribs).

On Sunday, we did gloriously nothing. Well, we did watch a couple of football games and the finale to The Amazing Race 12 (which ended like I expected it would, though not necessarily how I'd hoped it would). We also took the 8 pounds of "fresh pork" and, after a bit of butchering (and Dan shortening his finger by a sixteenth of an inch - he's healing nicely, thank you :-) we ground it up and put it into one-pound packets and froze them. Now, when we want Italian sausage for pasta, we pull out of the packets, defrost it in a sink full of cold water (which takes all of 20 minutes) and mix it with Italian sausage seasoning. I still have a 9-pound pork loin to break down into pork chops and maybe a pork roast.

While most everyone is planning for other conventions (we'll make it out there someday...) I've been spending a lot of time working on Midwest FurFest stuff, mainly writing content for the website, the new version of which went live earlier this week. I have a package to send off to one of our Guests of Honor this afternoon, as well, and I'm working on a decision for our third Guest of Honor too; I'm still waiting to hear from a few folks on that {poke, poke}.

While I'm out running errands after work today, I'll need to stop by Garden Fresh Market - they have a sale on boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.49 a pound. Yeah, I'll be picking up a whole bunch of those, because that's a fantastic price (hey linnaeus, I see that they have a store coming down your way, too - come to think of it, that's not far from daveqat and jimcyl's new place, either). It looks like this weekend will be a bit more social than the last, which is kind of nice. With luck, we'll be spending Saturday afternoon with good friends, good food, and good beer.

Oh, and because I missed it twelve days ago: happy birthday to this journal, which turned six years old on January 11th. Man, there's been a lot of ups and downs documented here, but I'm really glad that I've stuck with it.