This Friday after work I got together with Kondo, Chappy and Katie and went to the Hollar House. It was in Esquire magazine as one of the must visit bars when visiting Milwaukee. We drove to the joint and it ended up being in a pretty shady region of Milwaukee. When we went inside it was your typical living room bar. It was being run by a little old Polish lady that had been running the joint forever. The big selling point of the Hollar House is the basement which consists of the first two bowling alleys ever installed in the US. The place was old and full of history but the best part was the old lady bartender/proprietor. She was sharp as a whip and funny as all get out. She told us stories and jokes and showed us pictures when Joe Walsh of the Eagles showed up. She was funny so we sat around and drank some Polish beers and talked for an hour or so and then headed downtown. Once downtown the group went to the Ardor for some dinner and beers. From there we went to Kenadee’s. Then after that Chappy and I split from the group and went to My Office. We stayed there the rest of the night BSing, shooting darts and plugging the jukebox. We left and hit Myk’s on the way home and called it a night.

Didn’t do much on Friday. We ate at a Chinese buffet down the street that we’ve been meaning to try for three years. After that we stayed in and watched some episodes of Lost so we can get caught up before the new season starts.

Saturday we went for a bike ride in the morning. We biked to the Bayshore area to put an offer in on a house. After we put our offer in we biked down Lakeshore Drive checking out all the mansions. We got showered up and headed to South Milwaukee for the Wians’ house warming party. They have a really nice house in nice subdivision. We spent the day playing nut toss and a new dice game that Adam played the previous week. We watched a bit of the Packers game and headed home just before the street lights came on.

We went for another bike ride on Sunday, a long one. We biked to Miller Park via Canal St., then to Whitefish Bay and back to the apartment via Chipotle. Lots of miles on the bike this weekend but we have to take advantage of the good weather while can.

Start spreading the news. Jocelyn surprised me for my birthday and booked a trip to New York for the weekend. I have to admit I wasn’t too excited when she first told me, which was really stupid of me, but there were a lot of things I was already planning on doing during the up coming weekend. We were going to go to the State Fair, my family reunion and another party Evraets was having. But once I started thinking about it I got really exited and felt bad for my initial reaction. So I spent my 29th weekend in NY. If I were a NY street I would be about the Chelsea. If I could only be a village steet again.

We left on Thursday after work and as our luck would have we woke up Thursday morning to terrorists being arrested in London who were planning to blow up planes with “liquids and gels”. If I never hear that phrase again in my life I’ll be happy. We were going to carry everything on but we had to check our bags with our toiletries for safety concerns. Security wasn’t bad in Milwaukee but the security in NY and some storms had all flights running late. We had a couple push delay announcements but finally after a flight transfer to a different airport, and 40 minutes sitting on the runway, we made it three hours late. We took a cab to the Upper East Side to meet Leigh Anne at George Keeley’s. Her boyfriend is a bartender there and we were staying with them for the weekend. We spent the night there drinking beers and hanging out until four. We got a ride to Brooklyn from James. The women went to bed and James and I ended up staying up until almost six talking and drinking martinis. Once I saw the sun come up I told James I had to get to sleep.

Friday we woke up about ten and headed to Jersey City to say hello to my old boss. We stopped into HCI and talked to Israel for about an hour. It was good to see him again and reminisce about some of my time in JC. We left HCI and headed down to Oddfellow’s to get some jambalaya. We got to the doors of OFs only to discover it had been shut down. What a HUGE disappointment because I was looking forward to reliving one of the many many meals we had eaten there. Instead we ended up eating at the Mexican place next door. We had some good burritos and headed to the village. We started by stopping at Chumley’s which was an old speakeasy. There was no one there but the cleaning crew and they were very nice and let us stop for a beer even though they weren’t open. We sat there and absorbed the history of the joint while watching the cleaners’ little girl run around the place. After Chumley’s we went to the White Horse for a beer. More history. After the White Horse we were going to go to the Greenwich Brewing Co. but that too was closed. Two places full of memories claimed by the city. This doesn’t take into account the closing of our beloved Blind Tiger. Since GBC was closed we continued on to our friend Chris’s bar Professor Thom’s. He met us there for a beer. After that we took the subway back to Brooklyn and got ready for dinner. We were planning on taking a nap but the train ride took longer than expected. We got ready and headed back into the city. We ate at the always amazing Blue Water Grill in Union Square. J had made reservations for the jazz room. We had a meal of seafood galore. I had a shellfish sampler and a shrimp and scallop entree. Everything was great and we were surprisingly stuffed after dinner. We headed over to Union Square and grabbed a park bench to soak in the city and do some people watching while we waited for Chris. Chris showed up and we walked to the Stoned Crow. There were a couple old Tiger guys there. We sat and had some beers but I was running on fumes at this point. Once we finished a couple at the Crow we drove to Chris’s new apartment in the heart of Little Italy. We were going to have some beers but instead we got a slice and took a cab back to Brooklyn too get some sleep.

We started pretty late on Saturday morning but we needed the sleep. We took the train to Central Park to meet J’s sister. We got to the park and it was a perfect day. We started in Columbus Circle and made our way to the fountain via Strawberry Fields. We waited for J’s sister at the stage by all the roller skaters. We waited some time but I didn’t want to wait any longer so I took off and trekked through the city and snapped some pictures of all the landmarks in the Time Square vicinity. After seeing everything again I headed to Scruffy Duffy’s to get some of their amazingly delicious chicken wings. I met J, her sister and her friend there we had a couple pints and some wings. After we finished eating we went to the financial district. We checked out Battery Park and South Street Seaport. After that we went to Marissa’s friend’s apartment. It was right in the heart of the financial district and had an amazing rooftop area. There were nice tables and chairs and amazing views. We hung out there until about nine and then left to get showered up in Brooklyn. We got ready and took the train to the village to get a couple slices at Rivoli’s and then we met Marissa and her friend at Positively 4th in the village. It was one of the places we used to frequent but this night it was packed with birthday parties. From there we went to a place called the Duplex and then ended up next door at the Packer bar Kettle of Fish. We spent the rest of the night there and then cabbed it back to Brooklyn and called it a night.

Sunday we met Marissa and her friend in Little Italy to get some pizza at America’s first pizza parlor, Lombardi’s. We’d been to Lombardi’s a bunch of times and there pizza is great. We devoured a couple pies and walked around Little Italy. After a bit of walking we went back to Brooklyn and Leigh Anne drove us LaGuardia. The flight back home was smooth and uneventful. What a great time and a great surprise! A mega thanks to J for planning an unexpected kick ass trip to NY, thanks!

I got my wisdom teeth yanked out on Thursday so I really wasn’t really in the mood to do anything. Friday after work I laid on the couch for the night.

Saturday we weren’t really sure if we were going to do anything because my teeth were still pretty tender. It was Brat Days in Sheboygan though so we made the game time decision to head up. I still had my nephew Garrett’s birthday present so I dropped that off by Randy. We stayed there for a half hour or so and got caught up on things. We were going to see the brat eating competition which we thought was at three but it turned out it was at noon and on ESPN at three so we missed that. Since we had a lot of time to burn we went to Rich’s to sneak in a nap and watch some tube. About five we headed to the park and parked before it got crazy busy at the grounds. We walked to Hops Haven and had some beers and watched the Brewer’s game. At eight we went down to the grounds to watch the Violent Femmes. They put on another great show and we stayed for the entire concert. After the show was over J and I did a Sheboygan bar crawl. We played some pool at Vreke’s, had one at 1002 and finally had one after the long walk to Water Street. It was just the two of us all night and we had a good time. We spent the night by Rich’s and drove back in the morning after a stop at the Sheboygan Taco Bell.