Saturday night my wife and I headed out to a soon-to-be neighborhood restaurant for us, Bangkok Bistro. Our friend Amy (who badly needs to update her blog) was having a birthday celebration at the Hyde Park Thai restaurant. My wife called in a reservation for our group earlier in the day and upon our arrival we found that the group had grown by two and the restaurant easily accommodated that. Service for our table of ten was good, not particularly fast, but we weren’t in a hurry anyway. Our server asked right away if we were going to have separate checks, which made everything so much easier, so that gets a huge plus in my book.

Thai Spicy Chicken

The group started with two plates of edamame as an appetizer along with a bottle of wine and various other drinks. I skipped the edamame since I am allergic to soybeans, but I’m told it was good, though steamed soybeans can’t be that hard to prepare. My wife decided to split some sushi rolls with Amy while I opted for the Thai Spicy Chicken from the “General Fare” selections. Most meals can be ordered on a spiciness scale from 1-10. After reading some reviews of people ordering 11’s and 12’s, I decided that 8 would be suitable for me. I do love spicy food after-all! The decision ended up being perfect for me as the dish was definitely spicy but not so powerful that you couldn’t taste anything else on the plate.

My Plate

This dish is prepared with a mix of vegetables including onions, green peppers, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, baby corn, and peas. The serving size is large and I would have easily been able to take some home if my wife hadn’t helped me with it. The price was also right at only $10.95. Many of the other dishes in the noodles and rice section of the menu were closer to $15 each, which seemed a little high. I’m comparing this to our favorite Thai restaurants in Denver where most dishes were under $10. Typically we have found that most things are little cheaper here in Cincinnati, so Bangkok Bistro would definitely be a little expensive overall. Fortunately the taste of the food was easily on par with our favorite Thai restaurants.  I’m sure with the relatively close location to our future house, we will be back many times in the future.

Ustream has a 24/7 live feed of a pair of Bald Eagles and their three eaglets. I’ve had the stream on in the background of one of my monitors since earlier this morning and have been fascinated with it. I’ve seen the eaglets all eat pieces of fish that the parents have brought and fed to them. Currently the three are all laying down for naps, but both parents are still full of action, though usually it is just one of them in the nest at a time.

According to an article on TechCrunch, this stream is nearing 100 million views and is Ustream’s most-watched live stream in their five-year history. Within the last month the stream has tallied over 70 million views! I expect that number to increase even more as news of this spreads and especially with the upcoming first flights of the eaglets, which is expected to be late June or early July.  I’m sure I’ll be tuning in from time to time.

It wasn’t until a buddy of mine from high school mentioned it, that I realized my new office is very close to Galbreath Field, or what is left of it anyway. Galbreath Field was the home of the Moeller Crusaders football team before and during all my years in high school. In fact, the team played all of its home games there for twenty-one years before moving to various stadiums. The owner of the land wanted to sell it, but since 2003 it has sat empty and unsold.

What is left of Galbreath Field

The other day I took a walk over to the former site of the stadium to see what was left. The College Football Hall of Fame building is long gone, as is all the other structures on the property, including the bleachers. The only things left are the scoreboard, chain-link fence surrounding the playing surface, and a couple of water fountains. Even so I couldn’t help but reminisce back to the numerous days I spent here leading up to, and especially during, high school.

Old Scoreboard

I recalled all the good times had in surrounding parking lots, tailgating and waiting for the Friday night games to begin. I also remembered the times I was out on the field as one of our school’s “yellmen” and even the couple of times I watched a game in the stands as an alumni. The hill behind the scoreboard is still there, where boys in junior high would hang out during the games. It was nice to be reminded of such wonderful times growing up.

After our stroll on the bike trail Sunday we met up at The Works Brick Oven Restaurant in downtown Loveland. I’ve eaten at The Works many times in the past, and my parents seem to visit nearly weekly. It, along with the nearby Paxton’s, are reason enough to visit Loveland. For me it’s always a hard decision to choose between the two, but this time the patio at The Works won out.

The Works Brick Oven Restaurant

The Works resides in a building that was built in 1905 and served originally as a water filling station for steam locomotives. Later on, the building served as the firehouse and public works building for Loveland. One of the old garage doors opens up to allow the fresh air to enter the main dining room of the restaurant. Often the wait for a table can be long, but we were lucky to find no wait upon our arrival a little before 4pm, even on the patio with nice weather outside.

Patio at The Works

To start things off, we all enjoyed a Mount Carmel Amber Ale and the sunshine. Later in the evening we ordered a large California Rose Pizza with Rosé sauce, red and green peppers, onions, banana peppers and pineapple. This is one of my favorites on the menu! My dad also loves the very similar California Rose Pasta, which I will have to try sometime. Other pizzas I’ve enjoyed in the past include the BBQ Chicken, Mediterranean, and Chicken Bianca.

California Rose Pizza

On this visit we were also treated to a free order of cinnamon bites in honor of mother’s day! The large bowl of bite sized pieces of dough were drizzled with a chocolate sauce and plenty of cinnamon and sugar. All of the food I’ve tasted over multiple visits has been very good. If I had one complaint it would be the beer list. I like that they support the local Mount Carmel Brewing Company, but I wish they had a few other options on tap. They usually seem to have Bell’s Oberon on tap too, but I prefer other Bell’s beers. Other than those two, I don’t recall any other craft beers on tap.

Sunday afternoon I headed down to the Little Miami Scenic Trail which I still call the Loveland Bike Trail. My dad was going to the trail for some triathlon training so my mom, wife, son, and I went down as well to walk along the trail. It was a beautiful day out, and though it started a bit cloudy, it was clear and sunny when we finished our three-mile walk.

If you never heard of the trail, or never been on it, it stretches 78 miles from Springfield to Newtown, and has plans to expand even farther. This distance makes it one of the longest continuously paved trails in the U.S. I was just reading yesterday of plans for the trail to meet up with the Ohio River Trail, which would allow it to connect to downtown.

Cincinnati really appears to be trying to improve things for bicyclists and I hope that continues. I loved riding my bike in Denver and hope to continue to enjoy doing so here in my home town.

This past Saturday my parents threw a welcome home party for us, which also allowed many of my extended family members to meet Trey. That evening was also the Kentucky Derby. To get everyone involved and interested in the race we allowed partiers to place as many $1 bets on as many horses as they wanted. Whoever had tickets for the winning horse would split the pot of money.

The eventual winner of the race was Animal Kingdom, at 20-1 odds. At our party Animal Kingdom was the second favorite horse to win the race. Either our party was full of horse betting experts or we got extremely lucky. Actually of the seven winners at our party over half of them were children, so I guess we were just lucky. These seven winners got to split the $77 pot.

Another interesting thing was that Pants On Fire was also tied for our second favorite, despite starting the day at nearly 30-1. This was also true with the official odds as at race time it was closer to 6-1 odds. At our party I attributed the popularity due to the horses name. At the derby I’d say the fact that the horse was ridden by a female jockey increased the popularity of females spectators.

Eventually my mom should have some pictures from the party on her Flickr page.

For anyone looking for something to do tonight in Cincinnati, meet us at the Rock On for Autism Speaks fundraiser at St. William’s Church Undercroft (4108 West 8th Street) from 8pm to midnight. All proceeds support Walk Now for Autism Speaks: Cincinnati through team PAWS. Entry is just $15 per person of $25 per couple.

Despite the rainy weather in Cincinnati the last couple of weeks, I’ve still managed to go outside for a run a few times. And when the weather is bad, Kim’s parents have a treadmill setup that I can use while working from their home. I’m trying to get three workouts in each week and have been able to do it so far. Today I took advantage of the great weather outside for a nice lunchtime jog around a nearby neighborhood. It felt great to be outside again!

After watching my dad run the Flying Pig Marathon on Sunday, a group of us headed for the Buckhead Mountain Grill for lunch. I’m no stranger to Buckhead as I have eaten there numerous times before moving away from Cincinnati. Their location in Northern Kentucky, right on the Ohio River, offers great views of the city and obviously the river. It was a little rainy and cool during our visit so we couldn’t take advantage of their great deck, but I have used it before and the views are even better out there.

One thing that really surprised me was that they actually have a pretty good selection of craft beer. I don’t recall that from prior visits, but that may be due to a non well-defined palate in my younger years. One thing I did remember was their delicious rolls and cinnamon butter that are served at the start of every meal. These were just as wonderful as I remembered them to be.

Buffalo Chicken Sandwich

I ordered the buffalo chicken sandwich with 911 sauce and a side of fried green tomatoes. The chicken sandwich was served covered in jalapeños in addition to the spicier sauce, but I didn’t find it to be overbearing. I would say it was definitely one of the better buffalo chicken sandwiches I have had in recent memory and at $7.99 it is probably one of the cheapest too. The fried green tomatoes were also quite good, though I have had better. Others in our group had the Durango wrap and the bruschetta turkey burger to name a few, and I didn’t hear any complaints on the food.

Fried Green Tomato

Another thing that was great was our service! We had eight adults, 1 child, and 3 babies in our group. Our server was very quick with all orders (and refills when needed) especially considering the size of our party. And at the end of the meal he offered to split up the check for us before we had to ask. I love when that happens!

As of today Kim and I are no longer home owners. The closing on our house in Denver was yesterday and everything went exactly as planned. We have movers in the house today and tomorrow packing up all of our stuff and moving it out to Cincinnati, where it will sit in storage for a couple of months. I’ll miss our old house in Denver, not only because it was a great second house (really our first house since we only owned the one in Kansas City for around six months), but also because so many exciting things happened while we owned it. Kim and I were married and our son being born are obviously at the top of the list. I hope the new owners enjoy their time in the house as much as we did. We actually got to meet one of the new owners at the house to show him a few things about the place, and he reminded me a lot of myself four or five years ago. I’m sure they will love it and take good care of it.