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My Almost-daily Journal |
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| About I love trying out new things, especially when it comes to internet technology. I never really kept a journal, but it's something that I've always wanted to do. Now, everybody will get a chance to look inside my twisted, and somewhat-warped mind.
I've also subscribed to Audio Blog, so a few times a week, I'll leave actual voice blogs. Very cool!XML Newsfeed  |
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
The Shower Wow. Danielle and I had out shower a few days ago at Andiamo Lakefront Bistro in St. Clair Shores. We were both a mental wreck leading up to the days of the big event. Think about it: old-country Greeks, hard-core Americans, Danielle's friends from work, her childhood friends and family, and her closest friends-- all in one room. Danielle was a superstar publically, and a glamour model physically. She was hot! I think she captured the hearts and souls of all the women there. Now they all know, first-hand, the woman I'll be marrying. The restaurant was set right on the water, with a plethora of docked boats and yachts in the background. It felt like we were on the grounds of some Polo Boat Club. It was eye candy. The hen festivities started before lunch, where the ladies were given a "Dino and Danielle" Quiz. They had to answer questions like, "What's Dino and Danielle's pet names?", or "Where are Dino and Danielle going on their honeymoon?", "How long have Dino and Danielle been dating?", and etc. The highest scored at each table won the centerpiece. It was fun. The hen clucking was almost deafening. :) Lunch followed the quiz, and each guest was given a choice of three entrees that Danielle named: Chicken Caesar Salad (Tying The Knot), Sicilian Lasagna (Happily Ever After), or Lemon Chicken w/Artichokes (Saying I Do). They were all preceded with soup or salad and a small plate of pasta. Succulence and awe are the only words I can think of to describe the food. I wish I could have eaten one of each. The food was so good, I want to go back and eat there again. The service was equally impressive. The waitresses catered to our every need. I couldn't believe the attention they gave us, and how they made us feel like royalty. We really felt special. "Baklava, ladies!" Oh my gosh. Death by rich, buttery sweets! I can't recall the names, but a few of our guests brought their homemade dessert specialties to fill our dessert table. Almost every Greek dessert you could think of filled up one table. One piece of baklava probably consists of 1000 calories and 120 grams of fat. If Polish paczkis are sinful, then Greek baklava is murderous. In addition to the Greek desserts, our parents also provided a dessert that originated from a country a few hundred miles to the West-- an Italian Cassada Cake: a layer of vanilla cake, a layer of chocolate cake, brushed with Amaretto and filled with vanilla pastry buttercream, and iced with creamy frosting. My mouth is water right now just thinking of that memory. Do your taste buds a favor! Try a Cassada cake from Minnino's Bakery on 17 Mile and Ryan. After lunch/dinner, Danielle had a few more prizes to give away: nice stationary sets of Thank You cards. Prizes were given to "Longest married couple", "First to respond to shower", etc. It's funny how some Greeks considered themselves "married" for 53 yrs to date, even though their husbands died 20 yrs ago. We didn't have the heart to say, "huh?" Finally, the pinnacle of the shower (at least for the future bride and groom) is the gift opening. This daunting project is feared by most people and is the worst to sit through and watch. But let me tell you... the girls operated like an ant colony. Starting from one end of the table, the gifts went through an assembly line where the wrapper was removed and disposed of, box opened, and then discussed. On the other end of the table, one bridesmaid recorded the gift in the accompanied card, another listed the gifts in a notepad (gotta love the redundancy check... that's benchmark), Kristen created a "ribbon bouquet" consisting of a majority of the present ribbons. Danielle sincerely commented about each and every gift, and made everybody feel like their presents were the best thing that ever happened to us. The hard part to understand is that Danielle actually felt that the presents were the best thing that happened to us and that she was, indeed, sincerely delighted by each and every gift. The ant colony didn't stop with the queen ants. Then there were the drones! Peter, Mitch, Demo and Rob, worked with ant-like telepathy, moving each and every gift down the stairs and into our escape vehicles. Before I had a chance to look up, all the gifts had been moved. Did it end there? No! When I got home, all the cars were unloaded and our living room looked like a Bed Bath & Beyond Commercial. It was one of the nicest gestures I have ever received. It made me feel like royalty, and I was sincerely humbled by their selfless contribution to our shower. It was a very exciting day, and was the perfect primer for the wedding. It exceeded even my wildest expectations. Thanks to all that made that day possible! posted by Dino at 9:42 AM (permanent link) (1) comments Saturday, August 07, 2004
Houghton Vacation - Day 3 The third day of vacation had a late start due to a longer-than-expected night out on the town... Some of the folks got up early and went to downtown Houghton to get some breakfast a place that was once called Maria's Deli. I ended up just going to the local Citgo and buying some lame, prepackaged sandwiches. Today's main trek was a day trip to Copper Harbor. I love that place! Jon and I both drove, splitting up three people per vehicle. We got stuck in a traffic jam on the way up, due to Michigan's on-going campaign to set out as many orange barells as possible. Once we got going, things were pretty smooth sailing. When we reached Copper Harbor, we made a pit stop at a scenic outlook that overlooks the Copper Harbor lighthouse. We took plenty of pictures of the scenery, and then headed toward our destination: Brockway Mountain. It took us about 25 minutes to get up, and 12 minutes to get down in our vehicles. Once up top, the rest of the crew grabbed a Mountain Dew, donned their Trek shorts and Klein underwear, slapped on their Red Hot Chili Pepper mountain biking socks, as well as their Speedo moisture-wicking sport shirts, and strapped themselves onto their $3000 mountain bikes. I was the support vehicle and could not keep up with them. Jon reached speeds of 47 mph on the way down, which to me was nothing more than a managed, out-of-control decent. At the bottom of the summit, everybody's brakes were 50% worn down to the nubs, and everybody's rims weighed 20% less. Steve and Peter went down again, and Steve reached speeds of 43 mph. It looked fun, and if there were no uphill climbs, I may have done the same, but I'd rather be a support vehicle than a rager. We all have our place and our priorities... I'm on vacation, I don't want to work. On the way back from Copper Harbor, we stopped in Eagle River at a famous restaurant called Fitzgeralds. I've never had shittier service in my life. The entire dinner took almost three hours. No silverware, no water, nothing. The waiter sucked. The service sucked. On top of the shitty service, we were treated like 2nd class citizens and thown outside in the sun. No umbrella. If they only knew that our combined networth was over $5 million and that our combined annual salaries were over $500,000, we may have been treated better. But we were wearing shorts and t-shirts, and we definitely looked that we were from out of town. I've always been a proponent of tipping, and tipping extremely well. My normal tip is 20% for standard service. I'll usually give a little more if the waiter goes out of his way. I think I've only left 15% twice in my life. Yesterday, I left 10%. Note to the world: if you're ever in the Iron River area, do not eat at Fitzgeralds unless you want to eat with your hands and cook the food yourself. Conversely, if you have three hours to kill, and don't mind asking five times for silverware or water, then Fitzgeralds is for you. When we returned to the hotel, we unwinded, then headed up to the Sig Tau house to meet the Friday night arrivals. We met few more people, put back a couple beers, and listened to some live music by some local folk singer. The night was short, and we headed back for a long summer sleep. Right now, I'm at the DJ booth in the Sig Tau house after finishing up our Alumni meeting. A motion was made for Peter and I that we are now lifetime dues paying members to compensate us for webhosting and our web services. It's a pretty token amount compared to the amount of work put into the site, plus the resources required by our server, but it was nice to get the recognition. That's all for now. If I have time, there may be one more update, but it'll probably happen when I get home. Ain't Skeered. posted by Dino at 11:31 AM (permanent link) (0) comments Thursday, August 05, 2004
The Houghton Vacation - Day 1 We got off to a pretty decent start to leave for Houghton. I had to still pack in the morning, as well as take some packages to UPS. Once we got on the road, it was smooth sailing to exit 131 - Montrose/Clio exit. We stopped there to pick up Steve. Drive up was pretty non-eventful. We only saw a few cops, which was good since we were speeding most of the way up. The Valentine1 didn't really save us from any radar traps, but it was nice to have just to be aware. Once we got into the U.P., I really didn't feel like speeding too much, especially since the roads were pretty barren, and they were only two lane roads... no chance to catch radar from vehicles ahead of you. We checked in our hotel, and by bad luck, Jon and Josh got the better room I had originally reserved three months ago, which was a lake view. Steve and I got stuck in a smoking room which happened to be pointing out into the parking lot. Funny how the president of Dino Filias Travel Services (the one who made sure everybody had a place to stay) gets the shaft. Oh well. Live and learn... next time I'll reserve ten rooms in my name. After unpacking, we headed over to the sig tau house, met some young blood, had a brewskie, and then headed to the Ambassador for some fishbowls and bad pizza. Steve was happy with his traditional chips-n-salsa. After one fish bowl (I got the Pirate's Cove), I was ready to fall asleep standing. We were back to the hotel by 11:30pm, and I was sawing logs (Zzzzz Zzzzz Zzzzz) by 11:33pm. The Houghton Vacation - Day 2 The whole crew got up fairly early. I think Peter got up at 4:30am to get his Dunkin Doughnut's coffee, then go for his 5.7 mile run, followed with Gatoraid Megaman Runner's Energy Paste. A few of the resident Mountain Dew mountain bikers went for a morning mountain bike ride. I stayed back and did a little touring on my own with my Jeep. For some reason, I feel that I can cover a little more real estate in my Jeep. To each their own. I drove up to the lookout and snapped some pics of campus and the bridge, then drove around a little toward Calumet, turning around, knowing that I'd be heading up there later to visit Jim Jackman. I tooled around a little down by the water, a little around campus, and a little around Hancock. Pretty nice. Peaceful. When everybody got back from raging, we went to Kukkonen's Suomi Bakery. We all had some eggs and Finish-type foods, except Steve (he doesn't eat anything white or gooey). We looked at the real estate ads and noticed that you can buy 70 acres on the water with a 3500 sq ft mansion for a little over $59,000. Our waitress lived in a 3000 sq ft house that she paid $15,000 for about eight years ago and pays $296 in taxes per year. She complained that in Houghton, her taxes would be $2600. Damn... we really did a great deal more... We drove around and found the entrance to the top of Mt. Ripley. We did a little urban 4x4'ing with my new Jeep. Steve navigated us, and we ended up front and center at one of the chairlifts. The view was incredible. Only in Houghton can you drive your Jeep to the top of a ski hill... and only in Houghton can you drive by a major federal communications antenna controlled by the FCC. We then ventured to Quincy Mine and did our own external tour, snapping pictures at everything from blades of grass to 100 yr old rusted out industrial water pumps and other miscellaneous mining equipment. We trekked north, past Calumet, and tried visiting my old friend, Jim Jackman. Jim is the owner of Narcosis Corner Divers. If it weren't for him, I never would have been a scuba diver, since he was the one that supplied all the gear and air for the Keweenaw Peninsula. When we got to his house today, there was a For Sale sign in the front. Oh no. We then called the realtor, and he told us that Jim was living with his girlfriend down the street (Jim is about 70 yrs old). We looked around, then asked the postman and he pointed us in the right direction. What a treat. I love that guy. He greeted me with open arms, and like usual, made me feel extremely welcome, as if I've been an integral part of his life for the last ten years. He still talks about my website (it was the very first one I ever made), and about the guy that wanted to sue us for putting confidential USGCC Mesquite footage on his website. He remembers so much... he asked about my dad and whether or not I ended up going to Cologne, Germany a few years back. Wow. Now we're at the Sig Tau house, meeting with young blood and old, and reliving our youth. Very fun. More later... Steve is playing fooseball right now and it's calling my name. posted by Dino at 3:00 PM (permanent link) (0) comments |