Endless Winter

Had a fun weekend in Michigan. Met up with some friends from college, here's the recap: The night started out with a private viewing of an art gallery at DePree. One of Steve's art professors had his works on display so we got to meet him and he told us all about his art. Seemed like a very cool guy. If you are in the area go check out the exhibit, there is some cool stuff there. Sorry I didn't take any pictures wasn't sure if that was acceptable and didn't want to embarrass Steve with my lack of art etiquette.
We then headed to the Brewery for Dinner, didn't have to wait long for a table which was nice. Enjoyed dinner in the company of Steve and Tom, Darren joined us later, also a cameo appearance by DWhite. Overheard at dinner : "Steve you still can't grow facial hair can you?" We were sitting upstairs, where we noticed a Little Devo award perched up on a ledge:
After dinner we stopped by Butch's where we ran into the second cameo by DWhite, this time accompanied by Sumo and their dates. We also ran into Betka (or Boss if that's your style)who was getting off her shift. She joined us for a drink and for the rest of the night. Elizabeth also joined up with us at this point. Again no pictures at Butch's. Tom did his best Bos impression by knowing and talking to just about everyone there.

While at Butch's we heard about a new hotel/restaurant/bar in the downtown Holland area that served wine on tap, so we had to check it out. That became our next stop.
The place was pretty swanky for Holland standards a cool looking bar on the main floor but we heard all the action was on a different floor. Tom put on his best anti-game and asked the front desk chick what was the quickest way to get to the second floor. She was puzzled, it turns out it was the elevator, oh and we didn't want the second floor all the action was on the fifth.
We got a table and checked out their impressive wine on tap collection, we ordered up some food while enjoying the magical Holland city view from the fifth floor of the building. Food and atmosphere was good, they also have the longest silverwear I've seen, very good for stealing food off a neighboring plate.We then returned to the Brewpub where we met up with Dunn and his cousin Jonas. We spent the rest of the night there enjoying some good conversation. The only thing that would have made this night better (besides a large cast of characters that was missing) would be a good game of photo hunt.
I went light on pictures for the rest of the weekend so I'll do a quick recap. Saturday Steve, Darren and I met up after lunch and did a little hiking at the dunes. Darren brought his dog Grizz, to the dunes for the first time, it was fun to see him run around, he has a lot of energy. We tried our luck on the dunes with a snow skate, but there was just too much snow, I went overboard many times, landing right on my face. Fun times. When we got back from our hike we went to Fricano's for some pizza with a few other guys, again good conversation and good food. After dinner we ended up a the brewery again where we played some pool and enjoyed each other's company.
Spent the rest of the time with Elizabeth's family, we tried out a new restaurant on sunday for lunch, very good food, and cool location right on the water. All in all it was a very fun weekend.

Sun

Yesterday was the first time in a long time when it was sunny when I left work, not just light out but really sunny. It sure felt nice - well it was still 9 degrees out but felt nice just the same.

Record Player

IMG_1595, originally uploaded by 9nineteen.

Last time we were in Michigan, my in-laws gave me all their old records, three boxes of them. There was a handful of good stuff and the rest was older bands and artists that I really didn't know. I still have to go through them all and select which ones I will keep. So I had these cool records that I know I wanted to listen to but nothing to play them on. So I hit up ebay. Found some cool old record players, most going for around $20, but another $20 for shipping so I could expect to pay around $40 but a cool, old record player. I decided to stop by a local thrift store on the way home from work, to see if they had anything and I did find one of those portables I had been looking at on ebay for $3. I was pretty pumped about the find, the problem was that I only had $3 in my wallet and I would have to cover the tax as well. I walked up to the front to check if they accepted credit cards, they did so I was back on track. When I went to retrieve the record player it was gone. I could not believe someone grabbed it in the the 2 minutes I had made my way to the front of the store. I spent about 20 minutes walking around the store to see if I could see someone with it or if someone had set it down somewhere else - but to no avail. Defeated, I made my way towards the front again and towards the exit, and then I saw the box behind the counter. I guess they keep their nicer items up there, a lot of electronics and such. The box said Crosley, I recognized the name only because I had seen so many of those one ebay earlier. There are a lot of these on ebay because they are modern record players, with cd players, radio, and tape decks, some of them even have cd burners so you can transfer your vinyl to a digital format - pretty cool stuff, anyway these were selling on ebay anywhere from $120 - $250. The thrift store had it for $50. That was more than I expected to spend at a thrift store for sure, but it happened to be brand new. It had all the packaging and tape in the right places. Not sure why it was returned, but I tested it there and everything worked fine. I bought it and have enjoyed it very much so far. We've used it everyday and we've been listening to records while we cook dinner, and clean up afterwards. Now I need to work on my collection. You can see it there on the picture above, tags still on it, and yes that is the Beatles White Album spinning on there.