You still have a few more hours left to go vote (for Barack Obama). I walked over to my polling location around 10 AM this morning to find absolutely no line whatsoever. I wasn’t sure what to expect with all the long lines I’ve heard about at early voting locations. Plus this was my first time voting in a presidential election year while a Cincinnati resident. Fortunately it really couldn’t have gone any smoother. There were a couple of issues on my ballot that were missing from my research, but I was able to make a decision rather quickly and be on my way. From all indications, tonight is going to be an interesting night to follow along as the results come in.

Friday night I had my first experience with indoor high-speed go karting at Competition Racing in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Kim’s family has always loved racing go karts and this track was on their list to try so I headed out there with them to enjoy the fun.

Suit Up

These high-speed karts really fly down the track, reaching speeds of up to 40 mph! The track isn’t very long but there are enough hairpin turns to keep it interesting. Eventually we were able to cover the 900 foot track in just over 20 seconds per lap. Each race was 8 minutes long, so there was plenty of time for a little bumping and passing.

On the Track

Kim’s brother Jason won each of our 3 races. I had a bad first race, which I blamed mostly on my car, and steadily improved in the second and third races. When it was all said and done I posted the third fastest lap in our group (20:466). Not too bad for an old guy.

Winners Stand

Champs

Runner Ups

We all had a great time and I know that I would love to race these karts again in the future.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to travel up to Miami University’s Millett Hall to see O.A.R. play. Though I have seen the band many times over the years I hadn’t seen them perform since the summer of 2011. That stretch of well over a year is definitely the longest time between shows since I started following them in 2000. Various things prevented me from attending one of their concerts this past summer, but I’m hoping it doesn’t happen again.

O.A.R. on Stage

Truthfully I wasn’t sure if I was going to go up to this show until a few days before. Liam, one of my roommates from college, and I had talked about it briefly, but when he offered an extra spot in his car for a ride to the show I knew I had to make it happen. We all had a great time at the show despite it being in a dry venue. The band was all dressed in costumes as characters from Revenge of the Nerds and some of those in the audience were dressed up as well.

NERDS!

One of my favorite things from the night was dusting off my old concert taping gear and putting it to good use. I think the tape sounds great. You can take a listen below.

Trey has been busy this Halloween season, but that’s perfectly fine with him as he is figuring out more and more what Halloween is all about. We took him to Hyde Park Square this past Saturday for their annual event. I didn’t realize that there is a costume contest as part of it, so we will have to try harder next year. We attempted to dress him up as Bob the Builder, but he refused to wear the overalls and plaid shirt. He did keep the yellow construction hat as long as he was receiving candy. He quickly learned that trick-or-treating means a near endless supply of candy.

Bob the Builder

It’s perfectly okay if he doesn’t want to be Bob the Builder again tonight. My mother has purchased so many different costumes that he has enough for the rest of the week. She dressed him up in a skeleton sweatsuit for their weekly trip to the library on Monday. She also has a monster costume and a rock-star costume.

Skeleton

It doesn’t look like the weather is going to be very nice this evening, so we will probably just take him around to a few of the neighbors houses and then spend the rest of the evening passing out candy with my family, who are joining us again this year. In what is becoming my new favorite Halloween tradition, we will be dining on the “Bearcat” pizza from Adriatico’s. Yum!

Carved Pumpkin

We are now halfway through the NFL season and my fantasy football teams are performing pretty well overall. My first team is currently in 1st of 12 teams with a 6-2 record after winning five games in a row. My second team has also won five in a row and is also sitting at 6-2, good enough for 2nd of 10 teams. My last team is stuck with a 4-4 record and 6th of 10 teams. Last year I was in one additional league, but I guess after I won the championship in my rookie season they decided to disband the entire league. That or maybe I wasn’t invited back.

I am also playing a couple of other games for fun, meaning no money on the line, which is a shame since I’m doing well in these too. I’m in 1st place of 10 teams in my salary cap game, 2nd of 11 in college pick’em, and 6th of 12 in NFL pick’em. I also played in one survivor league, but lost in the second week when Arizona upset New England. I wasn’t alone though as that game alone eliminated 8 of 14 players. Our entire survivor league was over in week 3 when the remaining 5 players picks all lost.

This past Friday night my wife and I ventured out to do something we hadn’t done in a while, enjoy dinner out by ourselves, meaning without our year old son. My sister-in-law offered to take him to Disney On Ice, so we took full advantage of her offer. Since we have accumulated a large number of Groupon style certificates, I choose from them and picked the place I thought our son would least enjoy. That’s not to say that Strong’s Brick Oven Pizzeria isn’t kid friendly as we saw numerous families with children during our visit.

Mural Outside Strong’s

Strong’s is in Newport, Kentucky just a block down Monmouth Street from Newport on the Levee. Though I’ve likely driven past their location in the past, I have never noticed the restaurant before. I think that is partly due to the fact that they are relatively new in town. From my very brief research it looks like they opened in early April of this year.

Entry To Strong’s

Strong’s is built into an old house and has a bit of a funky layout because of this. Upon opening the front door there is a hallway to the back where the restrooms are. Turning right and through a narrow doorway lies the entry to the restaurant itself. The first thing you will see in the restaurant space is the large brick oven as well as most of the food prep area. We were greeted by one of the employees who took our name for the wait-list and offered us a bottled beer. There is no bar and only bottled beer is available, along with wine. There are not many areas to sit while waiting, but fortunately it was only a ten minute wait for us.

Back Dining Room At Strong’s

There are two dining rooms off of the main room described above. Each has just four or five small tables. There is also an outdoor patio with picnic bench seating. The brick walls are covered in memorabilia of New York and other Americana styled items. We sat in the back room and while all the tables were close together and conversation often bled from table to table, it didn’t feel overly cramped. With that said I don’t think large parties would enjoy the space.

Bruschetta

We started with the bruschetta – six slices of fresh bread baked in the brick oven covered with marinated diced tomato, onion, herbs and garlic ($7.45). The bread was wonderful and the imported tomatoes were very good. Easily enough for the two of us to share, and larger parties would have had enough too.

Pizza Alla Vodka

Just as we had finished the bruschetta, our 16″ pizza alla vodka was delivered to our table. This specialty pizza combines fresh mozzarella, Strong’s famous cream vodka sauce, seasoned fresh mushrooms, spinach and Prosciutto Di Parma ($16.95). The pizza looked and smelled great. The toppings were all placed on top of a generous amount of mozzarella. The dough was very soft and chewy, with just a hint of crispness on the outer edges. The taste was great and I really enjoyed the vodka sauce as it wasn’t overpowering and it let the other ingredients really shine through. This definitely ranks high on my list of Cincinnati pizzas.

I know, you are probably just as sick of politics these days as I am, but I’m trying something new this year. With the help of my Facebook friends I’m trying to predict the results of the election. Since I have lived in two of the so-called battleground states, I feel that my friend distribution in these states gives an interesting insight into the election.

Since I announced what I am trying to do nearly two weeks ago, I have seen over one friend per day cast their Facebook vote for one candidate or the other. Votes are cast by “liking” either the Facebook page of Barack Obama or the one for Mitt Romney. Though the number of votes has increased nearly 15%, I was still hoping for even more votes being cast. Of my 669 Facebook friends only 141 have endorsed a candidate, just over 20%. If you are afraid that your Facebook feed will be taken over by the candidate of your choice, you can easily remove all of their posts from your timeline, so there is no reason not to.

Currently Barack Obama leads the popular vote 71 to 70. However things get quite a bit more decisive when you look at electoral college votes, as a few of my friends have suggested. Taking those into account Obama is up big with 241 votes versus Romney’s 60 with 237 still undecided. With that said, my Facebook poll still says it is anyone’s game. What are you waiting for? Cast your vote today!

Though I have yet to have any Oskar Blues beer in Ohio, I’m super excited to have one of my favorite Colorado Breweries regularly available to me again. As of Monday, cans and kegs of Dale’s Pale Ale (along with their other offerings) are available throughout Ohio. Take a look at all the events in the Cincinnati area alone. Be sure to pickup some of their stuff and let me know what you think.

Sunday afternoon we headed down to Big Bone Lick State Park in Kentucky. Go ahead and laugh at the name if you’d like, I’m guilty of doing so on occasion. With that out-of-the-way understand that the area was named after the big bones, including mammoths and mastodons, found in the swamps around the nearby salt lick.

The Birthplace of American Paleontology

This was actually my first visit to the park, despite it being just over a half hour drive from Cincinnati. The attraction that drew us in was the annual Salt Festival, which celebrates American pioneer life. It was sort of life a small Renaissance festival but geared much more toward explorers like Lewis and Clark. I saw demonstrations on fire building, musket shooting, and even a shotgun wedding.

Festival Site

Fire Building

The Critters in the Classroom group were also present with a variety of birds on display.

Critters in the Classroom

We finished off our day at the festival by eating kettle corn, drinking root beer fresh from a keg, and listening to some traditional Kentucky bluegrass music.

Bluegrass Band

After our time at the Salt Festival, we drove further back into the park to see the bison herd. I’ve seen plenty of bison before, but these were very close to the fence line and didn’t seem bothered by us at all.

Bison Herd

I think this was the 27th annual Salt Festival, so be on the lookout for it next October.

Saturday morning I ran my first half marathon at the third annual Cincinnati Half Marathon. Prior to the race I said that I was shooting for an 8:30 pace and I hit it pretty much dead on. According to the results I finished in 1:50:39.3, which is an 8:27 pace. I was the 235th overall finished out of 1,260. Also finishing 33 out of 96 in my age group (male 30-34).

Running Group

Despite running nearly every other race in town, my dad had never done the Cincinnati Half. He decided to join in and run the race with me. We also ran with my neighbors, who originally told me about the race a few months ago.

On The Course

Overall the course was nice. The first five miles weaved through downtown, with the only real hill coming at about mile 4. The rest of the course was an out and back on Riverside Drive, which is very flat and pretty easy to run. The last mile was through Friendship Park and Sawyer Point, which provided a nice spot for spectators and finishers to gather.

Finish Line

My legs were completely dead at the end of the race but are pretty well back to normal today. I don’t have any future race plans at this point, but I’ll probably return to my shorter three and four milers starting tomorrow.