Weekend Update #38: Eat the Worm

Wow....I need to get caught up a little. I downloaded some pictures from my camera this weekend...and realized there are at least two previous weeks lurking on the memory card.

I'm such a slacker!!!

Alright, first up....two weekends ago (Nov 14-15 ish).

Thursday (the 12th) was my nephew's birthday.

He's a teenager now.

I'm officially old.

(sigh)

He wanted to go to Famous Dave's, so Famous Dave's it was!!!!


Inny and Bug.


The adults all took turns playing with the remote control R2D50 or something like that.

(no, not D2....this guy was black)


The flaming birthday dessert.


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Friday night after work.....HOCKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!! We bought season tickets again this year, and were FINALLY able to go see a game!!

We met some friends of ours for Mexican food before the game.

The game was great. They won 5 to 1. Woot woot!!!!

Saturday's game was another story. They lost. Oh boy did they lose. It was a completely different team the second night.

Not sure what happened.

It was sad and pathetic.

(sigh)

The final score was 3 to 1...one of the team members was removed from the game for introducing their opponent's face to the ice.

Blood on the ice...now THAT'S hockey!!!
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Sunday was a day of bowling. We had to post bowl from missing the previous week while in Kentucky...and then we bowled Sunday's actual games. 5 to 6 hours at the bowling alley! :-)

Mot and Danny had a couple buckets of beers and were feeling no pain by the last game.

And then, Danny decided we need to go find the new tequila bar downtown.

Tequila? Who am I to argue??

Quote of the night....
"Danny, Tom has Steve's bone."


It's a pillow, it's bone shaped, and it's Steve's. 'Nuff said.


The place was awesome!! We all ordered some chicken tacos, and then we had to start picking which tequilas we were going to try.


I'm not sure the owner of the bar knew what to think of us at first. :-)


These were the four we tried during our first (of many to come) visits.

We ended our visit to Eat the Worm with some WONDERFUL margaritas.


Good to the last drop.

From there, we wandered around the Old Market...going from bar, to bar.


The entertainment at the first place was.....well...it left a little to be desired. Danny had to hide in a corner to keep the performers from seeing his giggles.


If I remember correctly, Danny may or may not have just slapped Mot across the face right before this picture was taken.

Don't ask...none of us remember why.


Steve and I found an empty couch, and waited for them to bring us our drinks.


This is the stairway down into the basement.....where the bathrooms were located.

Mot took my camera with him and went to investigate....after I came upstairs laughing from my trip down below.

I'm a short person, and I had to duck, the ceilings were so low. And the bathrooms, once you got down there, were a bit creepy.

Horror movie, "girl dies while her friends sit upstairs clueless" kind of movie.

After we finished our Sunday night tour of the Old Market, we all decided that breakfast was in order.

At 10 pm.

Thank you Village Inn!!!





2nd quote of the night
"It's not a ding ding, it's a dong dong."

Monday morning came really quick. :-)

Taming of the Shoes: It's not easy being green.

Our quartet performed as a guest group for the Omaha Chorus of Sweet Adeline's annual show.

The story line to their show was what happened after the shoe fit. The happenings of Cinderline and Prince Charling, the evil stepmother, etc, etc.

We were instructed to dress in black, with touches of green.

I wore black slacks, black long sleeved button up shirt, a bright green tie, neon green finger and toe nails, and these shoes.......



The picture is a little dark, but the stitching on the shoes is bright green. Some days the fun things I find in my closet amazes me. :-)

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: 100 bottles of bourbon on the wall.....

Part of our tour at Buffalo Trace took us into the bottling building for Blanton's single barrel bourbon.

Post-It Note Therapy: This is a paperless society??

Short weeks are always good.

Long weekends are awesome!!!

But....the amount of work that crosses our path doesn't decrease...we merely have a shorter time to get it done.

Life just isn't fair, is it??? :-)

Taming of the Shoes: Wherever I go....

Now I have that commercial stuck in my head....

My buddy, my buddy. Wherever I go, he goes.



Sorry about that. :-)

(ahem)

I noticed today that the shoes I'm wearing, I wear allot. Spring, summer, fall.....and probably even a few winter days they are with me. When we go on vacation, they are in my bag....when I go on a business trip, they go along. They're casual, they're not casual, they're quick to put on, and they don't have a heel.

I wear them so much, I'm surprised I haven't posted a pic of them before.

(Or maybe I have, and just forgot?)

ORANGE you glad I didn't say banana?

It's Friday.

I can't tell you how nice it is to FINALLY be able to say that.

It seems the sun going down at noon (OK, OK....5:00 in the afternoon) is wearing on me a little worse than usual this year. It's wearing on me so much, that I think I'm going to get up tomorrow morning, grab a blanket to lay on, and just find a spot in the middle of my yard. I'll lay there as long as I can...soaking up as much (50 degree) sunlight as humanly possible.

I thought I'd roll with the outdoors frame of mind, and use it as the afflatus for this weeks Thematic Photographic entry. Thanks to Carmi for providing the inspiration!!!

"...theme, orange. To be a part of the fun, simply post an orange-themed pic on your site, then leave a comment here so everyone can find it. Repeat as often as you wish. Click here if you'd like to learn more about Thematic Photographic."




Taken one evening during a kayak trip on the Upper Iowa River. We finished paddling for the day, went back to the cabin, made some smores and hung out around the campfire.

The sun is going down in this picture at around 9:00 pm or so. I hate summer. The heat, the humidity, the bugs....... But this is one thing about the season I love!!! :-)

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: Team Spirit

Poor Danny broke his foot....about 7 months ago.

OK, so 7 months might be a bit of an exaggeration.

Just a bit.

He broke it in September.

3 bones, 4 breaks. Ugh!!!

This week, he shows up to hockey wearing this stylish piece of footwear.



Notice the Maverick logo sticker? Now THAT'S team spirit!!!!

The Mavs won Friday night....5 to 0. It was a fun game to watch.

The Friday night team didn't show up Saturday. Instead they had their blind cousins and 9 year old little brothers play in their places. They were beat, 3 to 1. It was awful!

Was that last sentence a little harsh?

(sigh)

Sorry guys, if any of you are reading this. We still love you, but Saturday was horrible.

You have to admit it.......yes??

Did you celebrate too hard after the game the night before?

Were you all suffering from food poisoning?

Carbon monoxide gas leak in the locker room??

Our Kentucky Vacation, Day 4: Horses, bourbon.....are you seeing a trend here?

Mot talked to a random stranger at the track the day before (go figure...Mot talking to random strangers!). Anyway, the nice man told us to come back to the track in the morning. Between sun up and about 10 am, you can watch them exercises the horses on the track.

Well...you didn't have to tell us twice. We loaded up the car with all our luggage (today was our last day there), grabbed the sweet treats we'd purchased at a distillery the day before (lemon bars, cheesecake, brownies), got a 1/2 gallon of milk, and headed out.


There was still some fall color on the trees lining the entrance to the track.

We sat up in the boxes to eat our sweets...but eventually moved back down and stood along the rail.






The riders (trainers, jockeys....?) would ride up to us while resting the animals to talk and answer questions. This gentlemen had a rockin' accent of some kind. Norway, Sweden, Finland....something like that.....yah.






Beautiful creatures.

After we were done eating, and done watching, we headed off to two final distilleries before leaving town for good and heading home.

First stop, Wild Turkey.



Compared to the other distilleries, we weren't impressed. In fact, besides going in the gift shop to look around, and taking one or two pictures from the parking lot, we didn't go anywhere else.


It was very...well...industrial. Grey metal buildings....hard lines....very Joe vs The Volcano.

Second stop, Four Roses. I'd never heard of it....but during the tour, I found out why. A number of years ago, the business was purchased by a large corporation (to be left unnamed), and their product was made and shipped overseas only. It was unavailable in the states until 5 years ago.

They are slowly spreading their product back into the US market.





















Sadly, after this stop, we had to hit the road for home.

It was a great long weekend, road trip!!!!!! Life is all about the journey.

(you can see all the pics I took on my Webshots page)

Our Kentucky Vacation, Day 3 (part 2): Bourbon and horses - may as well...we ARE in Kentucky after all.

After leaving Buffalo Trace, we drove down to Woodford Reserve. Because of time, we didn't take an official tour, but I bet it would have been cool. This place was gorgeous. The grounds were much more remote. Buffalo Trace was in town, but the road to Woodford was wonderful.

Mot was trying hard not to salivate all over himself. (Those roads were built for motorcycles!!)






(my two gargoyles)









We walked to the end of the lake, to the spillway. Over the spillway was a rickety rusted metal grate. I assumed it was for walking over the spillway, so I did.

Did I mention it was rickety and rusted. (gulp)




(taken from the metal walkway)

We ate lunch (chili and potato soup), sipped some bourbon, bought a tshirt, then headed out. We weren't going to any other distilleries that day, tours usually only lasted until 3:00 or so.

On our way along another twisty, gorgeous road, Steve spotted a small family cemetery on the corner of the road.


Again, the boys got frustrated with me when I asked them to stop so I could take a picture or two. "Nej, we're on a blind corner."

(sigh)


We saw this place while driving. It appeared to be a new home. As cool as it may seem to build your own castle, I would recommend NOT doing it in the middle of civilization. The cheese factor was just too much. :-)

Since all the distillery tours were shutting down for the day, we decided to go do some "horsey." I mean, we're in Kentucky. In Nebraska and Iowa where we live, there are pastures full of cows. You don't notice the cows, because they are so common place.

Here, there are pastures full of horses. Horses everywhere!!!!

Doing something "horsey" only made sense.

We ended up here......


...not knowing what Keenland really was. I mean, yeah, it's a racetrack. Big deal.

Holy smokes....we didn't know what we were approaching.

The place was magnificent! There are no words, and I'd have to post a million pics to get a good sense of it all!!!






Keenland is one of three major tracks to have "artificial turf" on their track. Apparently it's a special mixture geared towards the safety of the horses and riders. You'd never know it just looking at it.








Danny placed a $2 dollar bet, and won $9. :-)

The track wasn't being raced, but it was open for people to watch the Breeder's Cup on the big screens on the track.

There were stables as far as the eye could see. Mot and I wandered down into them....but didn't stay too long.



And....the thing that cracked us all up....

...drive thru betting.

These people are REALLY into their horse racing!!

For dinner that night, we felt like pizza. The young man at the hotel front desk suggested we go to Joe Bologna's.

Unbeknownst to us, the University of Kentucky had a home basketball game that night.

UK whomped Clarion, 117-52.

Clarion was staying at our hotel. (small world, eh?) The team didn't look too happy when we saw them later.

So, what does pizza and UK basketball have in common?

Location, location, location.

It took us FOREVER to get to the pizza place....THROUGH the basketball arena traffic. :-)


Joe Bologna's was housed in an old church. Stained glass, wood floors, and pews to sit on when you waited to be seated.

We ordered a small pizza for an appetizer, and everyone got a different pasta dish for dinner. The pizza was amazing!!


The bread sticks were.....ummm.....well endowed??


The place was packed, so while sitting in wait for our table, we started feeding quarters into the gumball machine in front of us. Fake mustaches all around. :-)

After dinner we headed back to the hotel....got in some hot tub time, played some cards, and went to bed.

(to be cont)