Breakfast smoothies all week and find a place for lunch salads
The family and I headed down to Orlando to spend some time at Disney World and get some good extended family time in before the holiday gauntlet comes barreling down. Having two families within driving distance means that every Holiday equals 2 holidays. 2 Thanksgiving in one weekend is fun but a lot of time spent in the car when all you want to do is sit on the couch and digest lol
It’s nice we can get together before all that starts and enjoy our time together without being time-crunched in a natural spot where everybody can chillax and have a relaxing time without the usual hosting pressures.
The highlight of the trip was Brunch with Mickey and Friends. Tons of great photo ops with the OG Disney crew, they all came by one by one once the table had finished their 2nd plate of the buffet. The actors did a great job handling all the little children and the varying age of the groups. They mad sure every guest that wanted a picture got one and we’re very aware that I had the Sony A7II camera and not iPhone and the charterers made sure to give me the majority of the poses so my camera could do all the hard work and send off the pictures to everyone after the brunch.
I was pretty happy with how most of the pictures came out. I can tell that I am getting better at composing my pictures. I am starting to see how a picture should be framed before I raise the eyepiece to my eyes. In turn, I’m becoming a lot more efficient at taking pictures. I use to take 1000 pictures and the only handful would be worth editing or post right out of the camera. Where now am constantly moving to be in the best shooting position resulting in a better sample of pictures without having to wade through 95% to find the better-looking pictures. Now it’s about 20% decent looking pictures with about 1/2 the number of total pictures taken.
There happened to be a coffee shop that masqueraded itself as a full-service Starbucks when I did my trip due diligence to figure out my food, drink and golf options for the trip. I was very stoked to see there was a full-fledged Starbucks on a property within walking distance to get my Mocha fix all week. As soon as we walked up the first time I knew something was up as there were no building architecture ques of the usual Starbucks look. Then I saw it, the sign that put me in a 5 min depression “Starbucks Coffee Proudly Served Here” I didn’t have any hope for the Mochas after that, but since I’m a glutton for punishment I went ahead and got a Mocha each morning I was there. The mochas scored 5 to 6 out of ten on my scale with major points being deducted due to the overuse of nasty chocolate syrup. The other major factor was the expresso tased like it was over roasted burnt and gave some off-flavors that I didn’t enjoy. I was happy to get back to the airport to have a decent Mocha at a real Starbucks.
The weather did not want to cooperate while I was in Orlando. It just happened to be record-breaking cold weather while we were in Florida, seriously it was low 50s and high 40s on one of the evenings. There was one night when it wasn’t freezing, but still pretty chilly I was able to sneak away and hit the hot tub and smoke a cigar.
It was a fun night to smoke one on vacation but it was most certainly against the rules to be having one in the hot tub. I was on edge the whole time, all nervous that I was going to get busted and ruin the family vacation. Looking back what were they going to do? Lock me up and kick my family out of the Villa?? 99% sure they would have just told me to put it out and leave the hot tub.
Overall this was a great trip and something I look forward to all year. Yea the weather could have been better but if you need nice weather to have a good time- change your fun parameters and start having even more fun.
Goals for next week: Get my diet back on track ASAP!
What a fun 4 day trip to NYC. The weather was just gorgeous for an early fall wedding in the heart of Manhattan. The wedding started promptly at 7:30 pm on Saturday, which gave us almost 3 full days to enjoy the sights and sounds of both the workweek and a sun-filled 73-degree day to have brunch and lunch in the park before it was time to get settled and all gussied up for the wedding at the library. I won’t bore you with all the details of the event except for 2 facts.
1) I was handed a glass of champagne as I walked into the ceremony and my glass was refilled a few times before the entrances started #score
2) Caviar was served – this was my first experience with caviar. It was served on top of a thin slice of butter which was then spread on a thin slice of a hard roll.
I thoroughly enjoyed the caviar and did not expect to like it as much as I did. I will be looking to try this again when I’m back in Chicago and not in the heat of the moment and taste it again with a fresh pallet. I will need to do some research and homework to make sure my second try won’t be tainted with sub-par Caviar (I’m sure that’s a thing, right?)
We had a few warm-up dinners before the reception on Saturday night and the wife and I ordered the 46oz 45-day dry-aged Bone-in Ribeye steak. This thing was massive and took a long time time to eat. It was cooked very well at Medium. With having to cut and chew so much meat the meat cooled off just a bit too much for my liking. The steak was accompanied by fingerling potatoes and cooked radishes, I could have done with something else other than the radishes. It was cool because all the vegetables from dinner were grown in the garden just outside of the restaurant which was a pretty cool garden to table freshness. I also treated my self to a couple of Old Fashioneds that were pretty decent.
Old Fashioned Cocktails with Average Ice Cubes
It was a banger of a weekend and there was not a moment that wasn’t spent withs friends or family with tons of drinks and delicious food. Coming home from this trip I could feel the difference the 4-day gluttony fest had on my body. I fell so heavy and have lost some energy. I am looking forward to getting back to my morning smoothies and lunch salads and feeling lighter on my feet.
This was the biggest week of golf I’ve ever had outside of some of my past golf exurions during the offseason here in Chicago. In total I played 3 Rounds and had a total of 5 hours of instruction. I came of my best round of the year on Tuesday and was invited to a very last minute golf clinic here in the Chicago area.
The first day was at the Mistwood Golf Club. Mistwood heavlies advertise this golf course and I kinda found tht to be a little off putting and had stayed away from playing there and it turns out this clubs is nice with a pretty challenging course that really put me through the ringer. I really enjoyed their practice area that is integrated with a full bar. Gotta think if I was a suburburb guy this is where I would spend quite a bit of my free time. It looks like they do have the ablity to offer all grass range, but on the day I was there it was hittng off a permanate mat.
Driving range at Mistwood Golf Club
The first day was dedicated to chipping. They basically reworked my whole chipping style and moved to me to use the “bounce” of the club when hitting the ball. This took an about 10 attempts at a 10-foot shot but after that this new move really clicked and then gave me a quick run d down of when to use my PW,52,56(SW) and my 58 degree wedge and where to land the ball in relation to the hole and pick a landing spot and use the rollout of the ball to get within 5 feet of the hole.
I did not hit the ball off the tee well at all(I know the same story different week) for the whole round and found myself hitting three on my second shot for 10 or 11 holes. I posted a score over 100 but I chalk this up to all the adjustments to my seeing that were made to my swing right before our tee time. I did gain a lot of knowledge during the playing lesson. My course management skills continue to increase which has been the main factor in my league scores as well as some improvements in my seeing that have taken away really bad misses and have limited them to just bad misses. to put that in easier terms, instead of being two fairways over I’m only one over.
The second day was at Harborside, a course I’ve played over 20 times. Ball striking improved off the first day and I actually starting hitting my driver down the fairway for more than a few holes in a row. This was a successful day. even though on the back 9 I think I found every bunker. It always seems that once I hit one bunker I’m going into the bunker the rest of the day. Come to think of it maybe I am focusing on those bunkers to much and not at the playable landing spot that I should be aiming at.
Quick League Recap
I also shot a 98 in the league this week, and this was also the best round of the season for me. Pretty jacked up to play again but I will take this weekend off to spend some time at home and chill a little bit and string dong the golf drills at home to really ingrain the new movements into my muscle memory and continued
A long weekend at the Lake
Had a last-minute opportunity to drive up to Holland Michigan and spend some time with all of my Aunts and Uncles plus cousins at Lake Macatawa. The weather turned out to be great on Saturday and Sunday. Lots of time in the sun and on the beach and actually got to bogey bord on Friday afternoon with the winds kicking up 2.5-4 foot swells. The waves weren’t exactly great for bogey boarding but we got the job done and caught 4 really good rides.
Also tried to track down a good iced mocha spot in the downtown area while we were picking up some ice and few incidentals. We googled a place and looked for a place with cool-looking photos and chose the 205 Coffee Bar.
Iced Mocha at the 205 Coffee Bar in downtown Holland Michigan
Website: https://205coffee.com/
We got home very late Sunday night to be able to squeeze in as much time at the beach before the work week came upon us. This was one of the best weeks of the Summer for me and I’m ready for more.
The workweek felt like an eternity waiting for the clock to hit quitting time on Friday so we could head up to the lake and take advantage of this summer heat that finally had come. The usual 90 min drive took almost 3 hours with a baby pit stop and heavy traffic because I think everybody else had the same idea as us.
Fell asleep on the couch way before bedtime and after I finally made it to the bedroom I got a pretty decent amount of sleep compared to the nights earlier in the week. While breakfast was being cooked some of the fams and I decided to try out the new coffee shop in town.
Coffee @ the Lake
I ordered my usual Iced Mocha and see how it would compare to my favorite Mocha back in Chicago. It was a decent drink that I would give 3.5 stars out of 5, It did taste a little watery and which lead to a lack of flavor profile in the chocolate and expresso departments. But at the end of the day, this is review with only 1 drink tasted and due to its proximity to the house I will be going back here for my Mochas so it passes will I drink here again test and that s the one that really matters.
Iced Mocha from the Coffee Mill
On to the golf portion of the weekend. My brother was able to bring his clubs up so we found a tee time that would fit with our schedule at the Grand Geneva (Highlands) I might do a full course review in another post, which hopefully I will put a link here in the future.
It was fun to play with my brother this weekend vacation. It was 8 AM tee time to help us deal with the heat and humidity and not play when it was the hottest. My only real knock on this place was that the recent rain had made the driving range so muddy that they had to limit shots to 150 yards and less.
Grand Geneva Driving Range To wet to hit balls over 150 yards.
Bummer because that is my 9i and wedges. Not giving me a chance to swing my driver and long irons, luckily we chose to play the Highlands course which has the larger fairways of the 2 course st this golf resort. I needed every square inch of those fairways as I sprayed my drives all over the place, mostly out of bounds. Hot some nice long Iron shoots and put ok to score a 100+ scorecard Beers were drunk and bogeys were plentiful to make it a usual fun round of golf.
This was my second year for this annual ski trip with a large group of friends from college. I flew into Salt Lake City on Monday and came back to Chicago on early evening Saturday night. It was an action packed trip and was sad to have to come home but was very glad to get home back to my shower and my bed.
Trip Break Down:
Monday was a travel day that turned into quite a ride, to say the least. I’ve traveled quite a bit for work in my career so I have my timeline just right of how to get to the airport. An easy estimate would be over 550 flights, with most of those originating out of O’Hare airport. What I’ve never encountered on my way to the airport was a Level 2 Hazmat situation that locked me in the Loop of Chicago for over 20 minutes. I was stuck in my Uber and was not allowed to leave due the traffic situations and the emergency vehicles blocking the intersections. I was for real stuck in my Uber with now way out except to ride it out.
After what seems like for ever I was able to exit the Uber and make my way down to the Blue line all the way to O’Hare. I made it there with 20 minutes before boarding but, it was to late to check my bag 🙁 I conceded and check my bag for the next in 4 hours. I was on standby with 14 open seats I was pretty confident that I would make the next flight to SLC. I slipped through security with no problem(Thanks TSA Pre-check) and began to walk down the gate to go grab some breakfast since i had all this time to kill.
That’s when I saw my original flight start to board. This was a sad sight and I really debated just jumping on this flight and having one of my buddies grab my bag that was on of the later flights.
In a quick bout of depression, I came up with a great idea! The American Airlines Lounge was a clutch idea. For not a small fee ($59) you have an open bar, what I continental plus breakfast and lunch and all the brownies and cookies you can eat. Trust me the brownies are awesome and I probably have put down a whole tray of them on many a layover. #cuethestomachache
Miller Lite in the American Club at O’Hare Airport
After more than a few beers and 3 or 4 handfuls of brownies, it was time for me to move to the gate to board. Flight time was a lot longer than expected, we were in the air for over 3.5 hours and my butt fell asleep hard. With the delay of getting into SLC, I had to find my own ride to my friend’s house who thankfully loved a quick Uber ride from the airport. With a fast pit stop, we packed our gear up in the truck and headed to the mountains for what was sure to be a wild week.
This trip in an annual event with a mixed group of friends from college and some girlfriends. Our housing was two conjoined condos that were mirrored and most importantly had 2 separate hot tubs to help relax those muscles after the slopes along with a bunch of beer.
Our condos were a 6 min bus ride (free) from the base of Park City which is a huge mountain that has something like 370 runs. The two days that we skied here I was only able to hit about 27 of them. I will need to come back and get a few more days here to really have a complete scope the mountain, but I would definitely recommend it.
We split the 2 days a Park City with active rest day of Snowmobiling at Thousand Peaks. This was insane experience, I highly recommend the three hour tour with a private group if you have enough people with you. I took the chance to rent the upgraded to the faster snowmobile. The 300cc sled was blazing fast and well worth the price, it had no problem charging up the hills/mountains.
Snowmobiled to to the top of the world!
The $20 dollars for insurance was an easy purchase, gave the confidence to be able go full throttle and get a little reckless on the sled. Turns out it’s a lot easier to roll one these things than you think especially when your 250 feet up a mountain and your trying to turn back down hill.
Skiing on Thursday got intense, a small group of us got together and skied our asses off for the whole day. At the end of the day, my slopes app totaled just over 18,500 feet over 16 runs. The legs were burning on the way home. I ran into some trouble after trying to slide down a double black diamond run. I was feeling pretty confident after hitting a bunch of black diamonds threw out the day. The giant moguls on almost vertical terrain way above my skill level. I had to bail on the run 1/2 way through, it just got too hard trying to surge the moguls so I took a cat track to get back to one of the bigger “easier” runs. This where one bad decision turned into a very bad situation, turns out that cat track was not really a cat track. It was an access road to my dismay, so I had to cross country ski in 6 inches of snow for about 40 min to get back civilization.
When I finally popped out of the woods it was magically next a small chair lift. I was greeted by an awestruck lift operator that said: “Where did you just come from?” I responded with “don’t ask” as I plopped on the 2 seaters and caught my breath on the slow ride back to the top of the mountain.
Thursday night was a blast and it snowed quite a bit which got us even more pumped for Powder Mountain the next day. Powder Mountain is a 90 min drive from Park City so we ha dot gets up a little early to try and make the first chair. The ride to the mountain took what felt like forever as all we could see was the deep freshly fallen snow.
As a local Mountain, they only offer 1500 lift tickets a day and at the time of when we got there was still 1100 tickets left. Except for the first lift the runs were empty. IT really felt like our group was the only ones on the mountain. The legs were sore to start the last day of our ski trip, it was only a Green run but my legs felt zapped. It took the next two runs to get my legs firing on all cylinders.
The highlight of the day was the recent deposit of 8 inches of fresh powder the night before our day at Powder Mountain. That much pow pow with on a local mountain with only 500 people in attendance gave us fresh runs all day.
For something like $25 dollars, you can purchase a one way Cat Trek ride to some backcountry lines. Half of our group participated in the Cat lift, it was a packed ride up to the top of the mountain with all the other skiers and snowboarders not in our group.
It was a funny sight having the group stumble out of the back of the Cat with our ski boots on. After we all got kitted up the guide gave the three different subgroups of abilities instructions of what routes to take and what to avoid. I paid extra special attention of what to avoid because there were some real threats in the Back Country. Hidden drop-offs and cliffs trees and rock formations that were really hidden by all the recent snowfall.
I placed myself in the intermediate subgroup and followed them down the little trail to our suggested run. We stopped at the top of the run to plan our attack with began to get daunting. Trees, bushes, rocks/boulders, and a “don’t go left there is a cliff” I was as ready as I was ever gonna be. The snow was so deep it was really hard to turn, took a few slow turns to get the jump turn that everybody talks about. In about 25 seconds it was time to negotiate some trees mixed in with rock formation. As I made it past those obstacles with way to much speed I tired another jump turn which turned into a few head over heels tumbles. Falling in that deep of snow was surrea.l. You fall down but you just sink into the powder. Everything was cushioned so there’s was zero impact with any hard surface. The closest thing I could compare it do if you fell into a ball pit with nerf bullets that were coasted in baby hair lol.
that nice powder did make it hard to get back up on my skis though which I would say is the only downside of being a crap skier on a whole mountain full of powder. That is a great motivation to learn and develop my technique before my next trip.
All in all, this is one of my favorite weeks of the year. The group of people combined with the house the activities and the mountain make for a very exciting action packed week that takes me more than a week to recover from. So worth it though, Hoping to get in at least one smaller ski trips next year to take some lessons and see how wrong I’ve been skiing this whole time lol. Can’t wait till next season!
Decided to have a last minute NFL AFC/ NFC championship party at my condo. As standard, I invited some fraternity brothers over that I had not seen in a while. Figured it would be a fun time to get back together and catch up and meet all the new girlfriends they had. As the first game ended and all the food was just coming off the grill, my phone(that was playing all the music for the party) suddenly rang eight times in a row.
3 more text message tones ring out as I carried the 2 slabs of ribs from the grill to the kitchen counter. I finally got my phone to see that 3 of my college Rugby buddies had called and texted me that they were at the neighborhood tap and wanted me to make an appearance for some beers.
I quickly texted them back a picture of the food spread we already had for the party. In twenty minutes they stormed in with a case of beer and a healthy appetite from a long day at the Boat show at McCormick Place. Some quick hellos and introductions that party was now in full swing. Not long into the general conversations of what was new in everybody’s life, their annual ski trip quickly dominated my attention. “Dude, you need to come,” blurted out and I instantly said yes. As fast as I said yes, I remembered that I had not skied in 6 years and that was only for 1 day and last time before that was 12 years prior! Mind you all those times I had only skied on what amounted to as a ski hill that was built on top of an old garbage dump with 100% fake snow. I thought to myself what the heck did I get myself into? As usual, that thought left my mind as I filed that as a future me problem. When has that guy ever let me down? lol.
Emails got sent over and my share of the house got paid and plane tickets purchased asap, as the Ski week date was only 4 weeks away. As a last minute addition, I was regulated to only at couch share of the ski lodge. No problem by me as it brought down my overall cost of the trip, plus we were going skiing by day and partying by night. So sleep was less of a priority for me.
I got on the early flight with an hour layover in Denver, CO. Met another member of the group and had a beer for breakfast (7:45 AM) as we hopped on the second leg of the flight. The three of us got to sit in a row to keep the party going. The stewardess walked by and took our drink orders for the first round:
Budlight
Bloody Mary (that seemed to be missing the bloody part)
MillerLite
She was pretty busy at this point in the flight so she didn’t ask for payment yet, and we had another 80 min left before we touched down in Reno, NV. We all finished our drinks and decide that it was time for another round, but this time it was “double trouble”:
(2) Budlights
(2) Bloody Mary’s
(2) Millerites
As the plane started on its decent, the announcement came that it was time for the tray tables to be locked into their upright position. The constant jokes about free beer started to feel like it could really happen, but to much dismay, the stewardess stopped by with her little blue credit card machine. I offered to pay cash to settle the bill, but only credit cards were accepted at 40,000 feet in the air. One swipe, two swipes, three swipes she tried as the free beer jokes really started to get funny to everybody but her. After a couple more attempts charge the card she gave up and smiled and said, “they really are free today.” As we cheered for the free beers prize, we gathered our things and packed everything away as the flight had just a few minutes till touch down. After we landed and reached our gates suddenly all that free beer was not feeling so great burning a hole in my bladder.
There is nothing more infuriating than watching people deplane in what seems to be the most inefficient way possible, as you have to go pee. By mere seconds I made it to the bathroom with my row mates as I’m sure they were all in the same boat I was. After the most reliving bathroom break of all time, we met up with another member of the group and got in line at the Squaw Valley mountain resort desk underneath a big sign stating free lift ticket with a same-day boarding pass #freestuff.com
We all got our free lift tickets and walked over to the baggage carousel to pick up our bags and Skis/Snowboards and headed out to load up the rental truck. It was a short drive to Sqaw with fast food pit stop at Subway along the way. It was super impressive to see the sheer physical size of the mountain I was about to ski down. I suddenly felt unprepared as I saw how steep all the runs looked from the parking lot. I made my way over to the ski rental house and filed out the death wavier and lied out my ass at how experienced I am as a skier and signed up for the Demo Ski Package. If was gonna tumble down this hill I was going to do it in style.
I somehow made it on to the chairlift with zero problems, then halfway through the seemingly endless chairlift, I realize that I cannot remember how to get off a chairlift. As the top of the mountain inches closer and closer my anxiety rises higher and higher. When the moment comes to exit the chair I just ride the mini hill down to the snowboarder’s benches. “how anticlimactic” I said to myself, then the boarders got all strapped in and we shuffled over to the edge of the world.
I starred down the mountain and glanced over to see the sign that had a single black diamond. Fuck, my first time skiing in 12 years and first time ever on a real mountain and it’s a Black freaking diamond. There’s only one thing to do #sendit Sending it only last about 5 seconds, and half of that was the time it took for me hit the ground. Wasn’t a bad fall, just a washout. The snow was very icy, not like all the Instagram clips I had seen in the past of the everybody skiing in 2-5 feet of powder having the time of their life. I was 95% up against a full ice sheet under complete shade. Took me a few minutes to pop back up on my skis, but I kept slipping before I could get my center of gravity above my feet. I finally was able to stand up, turned my tips and started to slide down the hill faster and faster. I realized I now had to turn before I was going to start flailing out of control down the icy mountain face. One small turn right, another quick turn left with an immediate longer right turn, speed was still increasing. Time to get the skis perpendicular and get the speed in control. Nope, catch an edge make a complete tumble and start sliding down the hill on my back with my skis swings in the air. As I’m now effectively sledding down the hill on my back I’m actually making some pretty good progress down the hill lol. After what feels like 200 feet, I swing my feet downhill and effortlessly pop up with my skis pointing downhill with only a quarter left of the run. I speed my way down, no way I’m attempting to turn again. Somehow make it all the way to the chairlift line where my three buddies have been watching my exhibition of how NOT to ski.
The rest of the day (3.5 hours, 11 runs) my skiing improves and I’m able to keep a good pace with the group. No worries, I still fell multiple times, but after I shot through all my nerves in the first run there was nothing for me to freak out about. It took me 2 more runs before I started to feel athletic with my skis on. I use the word athletic loosely here because nothing I did proactively looked good, but only how I reacted and saved myself from falling the 100 times in the later runs is where the “athleticism” comes in to play.
Battle wounds from that day were my lower back getting cheese grated by the ice when I was sliding down the hill on my back.
Hat tip to my winter jacket. I’ve had it for 12 years and took all the abuse I could give it and never ripped, tore or disappointed. #Northface
Part 2: The “Jet 2 life” is upcoming and will summarize the next part of the trip.
