After work on Friday, Kim and I met up with a group of friends at the Uptown Brothers Brewing Company.   The name would lead you to believe that the restaurant was also a microbrewery, but that is not yet true.   According to their website blog, they’ve applied  for a    license and are waiting for it all to come through.   In the meantime, they do offer a fantastic selection of beers from other breweries across the country.   Just take a quick look at their current beer list, and you are nearly guaranteed to see something you love or would love to try.

To complement  their excellent selection  of beers, they also have a pretty long food menu with lots of variety.     I went with the Fried Green Tomato BLT served with jalapeno blue cheese coleslaw.   Kim had a chicken sandwich covered with green chiles and cheese, served with fries.   My BLT was great, and just as it sounds.   Fried green tomatoes were used  in the sandwich rather than  the standard red tomato.   Kim’s sandwich was also very good, as were her fries.   The only thing I was disappointed  with was the jalapeno blue cheese coleslaw, which I expected to be packed with flavor.   Instead it was rather bland and very similar to a relatively dry traditional coleslaw.

Consulting the weekly stats for our bowling league that were sent out earlier this week, I had a great week last week.

I now have the highest handicap series for the league at 766, along with the highest single game handicap score.   I also have the second highest scratch series at 406, a teammate of mine has the high at 428 from the week that I missed.   I also have third in single game scratch score, 151.   In addition, my team has moved into first place in the league!

Unfortunately, last night was not one of my best.   The floors seemed to be  better than last week, but I couldn’t get into a good rhythm.   My score in the first game was 109, which became 211 with my new 102 pin handicap.   Second game was 103, and third was 95.   I continued to get worse and worse as the night went on.   We played against our rival team, the only other team that has a member from our project.   My team is made up completely from members of our current project.   We squeezed out two wins out of the three games, and remain in first place.

I had a terrible showing in fantasy football this week, with loses in all three leagues.   I lost one 95-92, another 113-87, and finally 89-58.   I am currently  in third place of twelve in the first league, six of ten in the second, and second of four in the last, which is actually just my standing in my division.   I had a couple of key guys out on byes last week, so this week I should definitely return to some winning.   I’ve moved up to eighth in pro pick’em, and second in college pick’em.   Also, I’m still alive in the survivor game, still playing with five others.

We woke up early again on the third day in Yellowstone to get a start on a long car ride out to the Lamar Valley, one of the park’s premier wildlife viewing areas.   Normally it wouldn’t be a long drive from the Canyon Lodge, but the Grand Loop Road was closed  between Canyon and […]

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After waking up at the Old Faithful Inn on our second day inside of Yellowstone, we quickly grabbed breakfast at the Old Faithful Dining Room.   We rushed through eating so we could run outside and catch an early daylight eruption of the Old Faithful Geyser.   Unfortunately, the predicting clock inside the Inn was […]

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Saturday evening Kim and I drove up to Louisville, Colorado, a town that neither of us had ever been to before.   SoundRabbit  was playing a little gig at the Art Underground for the Louisville Arts Hub event.   We hadn’t seen the band play in awhile, so it was nice to hear their familiar sound again.   The show itself was a bit odd being in a small room that usually serves as a church but for the day was a studio for various artists and their works.   The band tried to quiet down their sound for the intimate performance, but maybe it would have been better as an acoustic duo show.   Regardless, I enjoyed hearing them play, as did the dozen or so children in attendance.   I hope our son enjoys music as much as these kids did.

Afterward, Kim and I met up with one of the band members at a local restaurant and bar called Waterloo.   The band had takeout from here earlier in the day, which they enjoyed thoroughly, so we thought we would give it a try.   Kim went with the pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw and ranchero  beans, while I ordered the grilled chicken with pepper jack, bacon, and avocado along with a side of fries.   The chicken sandwich was standard, but very delicious thanks to my selections of toppings.   The fries were perfectly  hand-cut and flash fried, delicious!   The pulled pork was also very good along with the beans.   The band raved about the hamburgers, so those must be good as well.   If I were to ever make it back, I’d definitely want to try the gorgonzola cream sauce for fry dipping, which I am reading great things about now.   We had a great meal and would definitely go back if we ever find ourselves in Louisville again.

Last night was my second night in our work bowling league.   The league played last week, but I missed it due to our vacation.   Anyway, the night started off really bad for me.   During warm-ups, I noticed that the floor wasn’t very slick and my front foot wasn’t sliding like normal.   I threw gutter ball after gutter ball.   And then to make it worse, on one throw I tried to slide my lead foot but it stopped suddenly.   To catch my balance my other foot swung forward and landed past the foul line.   Though the front of the floor isn’t waxed, the lanes are very slick, so my second foot immediately slipped on the lane, which sent my body falling out  on to  the lane.   It was pretty embarrassing, but I tried to get up and off the lane as quick as possible.

Fortunately, the rest of the night went really well for me.   My first week  average was 100, making my handicap 120 (not 130 like I had guessed earlier).   My first game last night I shattered my previous average with a scratch score of 151, including a turkey!   With my handicap that score became 271, and I think might have been the high for the night.   Another guy bowled a 172 in the last game, but I don’t think his handicap is as high as mine.   Anyway, the second game was mostly back to normal with a score of 115.   Just like my first week, the second game was my worst, which is opposite of what I thought was normal.   My third game last night ended at 140, taking my three game  total to 406, which I’m pretty sure was the highest of the night for the entire league.   I hope this progress continues into future weeks.

Another session of adult hockey started up last night.   I am back on the same team as last time, Santoro’s.   Only a handful of guys returned for this session from last, so we have a lot of newcomers.   Fortunately many of the new guys are really good hockey players.    Our opponents were a  new team in this league, Sports Authority.   They seemed to match up with us really well and definitely had some good players on their team, including one guy who appeared to have played for the club team at Ohio University at one time.

One of our new players scored the first two goals for our team, and the other team quickly added two goals of their own.   I didn’t have any points last night, but did have a penalty (questionable call) that led to another goal for our opponents.   Toward the end of the game it was looking good for Sports Authority as they were clinging  on to a 4-2 lead.   My team managed to add a goal with a couple of minutes to play.   Though we dominated play toward the end of the game, we had trouble equaling the score.   That was until 4.6 seconds left.   Our opponents were down a man, we had our goalie pulled.   So with six skaters versus four, a faceoff down in their end, our team won a quick draw back followed by a shot from the top of the circle.   The shot was tipped  by another one of our players in front of the net sending the puck between the goalies legs.   The game was tied with 1.2 seconds left!

After the exciting finish to regulation play, the momentum was all ours.   Sports Authority started off the shootout, missing their first chance.   We missed our first chance as well, and they again missed their second with a great splits save from our goalie.   Our second skater flew down the ice at full speed, and quickly buried the puck in the back of the net.   This was the same skater who scored our first two goals.   Finally our opponents had their chance to score, otherwise the game would be over, and they once again missed the opportunity.   We had won a very exciting and fun game, hopefully the first of many to come.

We woke up early two Sundays ago to start the drive north to Yellowstone.   On the way up we decided to take I-25 to Casper and then US-20 all the way into the park through Thermopolis and Cody.   We had lunch at the Thermopolis Cafe, which was a nice little home cooking place. […]

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Since starting the season 1-2 in my fantasy football leagues, I’ve gone on to win back to back games in all three leagues!   That takes me into third place of twelve, fifth place of ten, and second of four in my one league that has divisions.   Things have definitely improved since a very rough start in week one.   I’m also happy to report that I am still alive in the survivor game, along with five others.   I’m amazed that twelve others have already lost by picking a losing team, six were actually eliminated in the first week.   I am in third place in college pick’em but doing poorly in pro pick’em sitting at twelfth of fourteen.