Becca is a Mommy!

You heard that right, Becca is a mommy! Now, normally if I said that statement, all you'd see is a trail of dust and I'd be writing this from a warm, tropical, non-extradition country. In this case, I'm confident that the DNA test will prove I'm not the father, but I have a feeling I'm still going to be stuck paying child support regardless how the test comes back.

Our Black Molly was looking especially bloated and also developed a few white spots, so to be safe Becca moved her to a quarantine tank. She spent a few days there, her spots seemed to go away and also seemed to lose some weight. She then was put back in the big tank and it wasn't until Becca started cleaning the quarantine tank that she discovered little babies. Only two survived and now Becca is playing mommy to them. I'm going to take the typical (adopted) father approach of not caring until they reach the age they can actual do something.

Even though I'm not going to win Father of the Year, it will still be kind of cool if we can raise them.

I setup a Fish Cam to view the tank. At this point, it's not possible to see the babies, but at least it's possible to check out some of the action. When the page first loads, it only shows a still picture, so click on the Video/Java button.
Fish Cam Link

Wine-ing is Fun

Did this summer have a goal? I have a vague memory of hoping to mountain bike thousands of miles this summer. Priorities change and it may of had something to do with constantly tipping over in the new clipless pedals, so I'm changing this summer's goal to get out and visit some of the local wineries. I know it's now officially Fall, tough, stop wine-ing!

Our first visit this year was to St. Julian's over in Paw Paw. Both Becca and I really enjoy a couple of their wines before we even visited, so we figured this was the best place to start. We had a good tour of the facility and enjoyed tasting a number of their wines. The most memorable wines for me were a couple of brandies. A couple of them were so potent, Becca decided she wanted no part of them and forced me to finish them off. But there were two that reminded me of drinking Smucker's jam, they were that sweet. Now, I've never been one to drink jam, so I can't imagine doing that, but it was a very unique taste that's for sure.

Our second visit was to a local place in Kalamazoo called Tempo Vino. Last year we received a gift certificate for them and hadn't used it. Turns out it's downtown Kalamazoo and very easy to get to provided you are already down there to see a movie, which is what we did. For the record, I can't tell the difference between a $10 bottle of wine and a $40 bottle other then one makes my wallet lighter. For this hole in the wall place in downtown Kazoo, I'm shocked at how many wines I liked. I was equally impressed with the woman conducting the tasting for us who spoke perfect English, answered the phone and switched to Greek, and also knew Italian. All there wines are in my price range and I thought all were wonderful. They have some fruit wines that are out of this world.

That tasting at Tempo Vino went so well, that we decided to do another tasting that same day and go back to Paw Paw and try the other winery there called Warner's. I'm not even sure if they do tours or not, but for the tasting, I really liked the atmosphere. It felt as if we were in a 1800 dungeon as we tasted. I was expecting to see a head roll out from a guillotine at any moment. It never happened, so that's a strike against Warner's, but they had what is now my current all time favorite wine, Peaches and Honey. That sounds strange, I admit, but it was outstanding!

The last place we visited was Natural Wines from Peterson and Sons. I'm going to start with this tour was by far the most memorable of the bunch. First, it's run out of the basement of his house. Walking up, I could hear the banjos playing the Deliverance tune. My gut feeling was right because once inside we were actually given a set of rules to follow when wine tasting! The two that stick with me is never touch the glass as he's pouring the wine and you must drink the water he pours in your glass between tastings (which I think there were a total of ten rules). I honestly thought the guy had a shotgun pointed at my head from under the bar, it was interesting to say the least. In the end, we walked out alive and with a certificate that we survived the Wine Notsee. I'm not sure if the wine didn't leave an overall impression on me, or if it was his character that overpowered everything else. Either way, this was definitely an experience to remember!

So, I didn't tip over stuck to my bike this summer. But, I may need a tip-over as in a nap from all our wine tasting. It's been an adventure!

Chicago

I didn't win the 350 Mega Millions lotto, but I did get a taste of the good life and I must say that I enjoyed it! It would be a struggle, but I think I could adjust to that lifestyle very quickly. The hardest part would be trying to stay in shape, I think I lost three arteries this trip alone, but it was totally worth it. This weekend consisted of eating vast amounts of food, an aquarium visit, an art museum, a gorgeous city skyscraper night scene and an oh by the way wedding (No, not mine...do you think I'm crazy?)!

This weekend was a huge weekend for me. It was the start of the new Michigan football season. It's not every day a relative gets married either. Even with that said, I'm pretty sure I'd miss my own wedding for a Michigan game (Before you judge me, it would have to be a big game). It took some convincing from my Dad to give up my opening season football game, but the promise of visiting my favorite restaurant in the world helped (Don't tell him, but I probably would have also done it for my second favorite too).

The Hotel was gorgeous. The wedding was beautiful. The reception was amazing (and my favorite part). Any reception that starts with the wedding party introduced with "Welcome to the Jungle", it's going to a memorable night. What made the reception awesome? It would be the nine different food stations each run by a different chef. Wow.



The next day was exploring the tourist traps of Chicago. First, was Shedd Aquarium and then we finished with Chicago's Art Museum. I decided that I like Shedd more when there aren't very many people around. Being an aquarium, Shedd likes to give the customer the full fish experience and enjoys packing people like sardines, which really detracts from their amazing exhibits. My impression of the Art Museum, I'm convinced the only thing that makes that art good is that it survived. There were very few paintings that I'd even show off on my walls. I don't know much about art, but I know what I like and I liked leaving the Art Museum!

The last experience of Chicago was the eating. Now, my Dad was very impressed with the lobster omelette and the chocolate waffle I had was damn good. The highlight of the trip was a visit to Harry Carey's, which I'm convinced is the best steakhouse on the planet. My Dad isn't normally a steak eater and once he heard that the 23 ounce porterhouse is what I always get, he wasn't sure he could eat that much. My shining moment of the weekend was watching him surgically shave every ounce of meat off the bone. I'm sure he would have used his hands and chewed on the bone if he could have, but Harry Carey's is a classy place and he had to be on his best behavior. I believe this was my fifth visit and I swear every time I walk out thinking that was the best steak I've ever had. I don't know where they get their cows from or maybe they really are Holy Cows, but they are delicious!

We had such a good time on this visit, we are already planning on future visits, so watch out Chicago!

Epic Fail

Wow...I changed all my permissions on my Flickr pictures only to find that it changed the links. Well, it's going to take me forever to fix all the pictures in my blog. Hope you enjoy all the white pictures in my blog! This isn't exactly the housecleaning I had in mind.

Get out of Jail Free Card

In my internet travels, I found the site Kiva.org. I can't even remember how I stumbled on it, but the concept intrigued me enough that I had to give it a try. The object is helping people. Okay, now I really know what you are thinking, "how on earth did Ace find this site?". Seriously, I don't know, the point is I found it and that's all that matters! The concept is donating a small amount to somebody, typically in a third world nation, to help fund a business venture. I consider it a donation, but if all goes well, the individual who asked for the loan, plays it back and ultimately the money you gave for the loan comes back to you. So, in a perfect world, it's loan and not a donation where it's possible for the same money to be used to help people over and over again.

I picked four individuals who I thought were worthy of my funding, actually one looks like a small village, but I'll pretend it's only one person. Hopefully, the small loan I made will help make their business dreams come true or at the very least makes their lives a little better. Now, don't think for a second that I have a big heart, there's always evil plotting with everything I do. This is really just my master plan for the day I stand before a judge, my defense lawyer can use to show my high moral character!

Here's a link to track my loan progress

The internet never ceases to amaze me.

Traverse (Moomers) City

Our new friend Cori imposed on us enough! Becca and I finally decided enough was enough and it was time to turn the tables and invite ourselves to her city for a change. She graciously accepted on a moments notice and we drove up for the weekend.

Friday night, I was taught how to make S'mores over the small bon fire in Cori's back yard. It's not like I didn't know how to make them, but apparently my idea was different then theirs. With two girls, sometimes it's best to to pick and chose your battles and I decided this was one not worth fighting over. For the record, when making a S'more, it's half a Hershey's bar, one gram and two marshmallows. The girls, for some reason wanted to only use small pieces of the Hershey's bar, which seemed silly to me.

Saturday was a full day. Our first adventure was climbing the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Due to a tactical navigation error, we didn't reach the top of the dune to overlook Lake Michigan. Instead we came to the top of the dune only to see another steeper dune, then after climbing to the top of that dune was a great view...of more dunes. By that point Becca had enough of the sand of this adventure and we headed back to increase our chances of finding water. The next stop was the scenic tour (by car) where we were able to stop and walk to a lookout. The view is incredible and the water color is amazing (hence the picture). We then headed north and grabbed lunch, continued further north to visit a lighthouse and then stopped at our first official winery. On any given day, that seems like a full day, but we weren't done yet. The next stop was what Good Morning America declared as the best ice cream in America at a place called Moomers. That's a tall tail and I'm not disagreeing with the claim, but I need to do much more "testing" before I'll agree with that claim, but I have to admit, it's pretty damn good.

I don't even remember what we did on Sunday, but we did visit Moomers again. Hmmm, it's growing on me. Oh yeah, we did some geocaching. It just so happened that there was an underwater cache not to far from Cori's place, so we all suited up and did that. I really should admit something here, but I'm not! Cori was right and we'll just leave it at that.

We had a blast and I look forward to crashing at Cori's place unannounced for the ice cream again!

Dive, Dive, Dive

June 13th and June 14th

This Dive weekend was a special treat because it brought me home to the area I grew up and it also added a new dive buddy. Turns out that an old high school buddy also got hooked by the dive bug and is just as addicted to the sport as I am. We were able to plan a weekend to meet, visit, and get some diving in. It almost felt like we were Jacque Cousteau because our first dive had real purpose. There was rumor that a small plane crashed in Sunrise Lake and even though it had been found, it hadn't been found by us! There were a number of times I got excited thinking we found it, but it only turned out to be a large log. In the end, we didn't find it, but it was still a fun dive. The bottom of the lake had what I can only describe has huge rolling dunes for the bottom, which made for an interesting dive. By the way, it turns out the plane went down in the 60's and there's probably nothing left but the engine block and the local dive shop owner hadn't heard of anyone finding it in twenty years. That just means next time we get together to dive this lake, it will make it that much better when we find it!

The second lake we dove was Wells Lake. We spent an hour and half underwater and still had air to spare! Of course that means we stayed shallow, but we had a blast chasing the local fish population around. The highlight of the day was when Brent found a school of baby fish that had just hatched. They were so small and so hard to see, I don't know how he even noticed them! It took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at and Becca thought both of us had lost our minds as we had stopped and laid on the bottom to watch.

Hopefully, the three of us can get together again because it was a blast. It was good to find somebody as hooked to the point of almost wanting to dive a mud puddle (that makes me feel better that Becca and I aren't crazy).

June 17th

The day started with the goal of diving the South Haven Pier, it ended diving our normal dive spot of Gull Lake. We got up and drove over to South Haven only to find that the waves were smashing in far more then we wanted, but also a brand new "No Swimming within 50ft of Pier" sign. Discouraged by the weather and the sign but not willing to give up diving for the day, we joked about diving the first lake with public access on the drive back. We ended up deciding to play around with Gull Lake. The point of the dive was to get Becca some practice towing the dive flag around and she got a workout because it was almost as windy as it was in South Haven and she was getting bounced around pretty good. We had great fun with the marine life, I got attacked by a blue gill, which I'm sure was protecting her young. But the best adventure was Becca spotted a crayfish. We startled it a couple times and it scooted backwards to avoid confrontation with us. Twice was enough though, at that point it decided we weren't going to leave it alone, so it stood as tall as it could, opened it's pincers and basically said "Bring it on, I'll take both of monsters on!".

Here's video of the encounter:


July 20th

We typically dive a quarry in Ohio. It's a good quarry, but frankly I dislike everything that's in Ohio. For that reason, I jumped at the chance to give another quarry in a different state, Illinois, a try. A small group of local divers were going to visit and check it out to see if it was worthwhile to send future dive classes there. It's called Haigh Quarry and it turned into a very nice place to dive. It didn't have as many cool objects on the bottom as "the other" quarry, but location, parking, and layout were all advantages. Becca and I ended the day with three very nice dives. Our first major discovery was the mysterious paddlefish that we had never witnessed before. Becca also fished a PADI divers mask off the bottom for him (a NAUI diver knows to never rest the mask on their head!). We also swam away with some decent pictures which is where the blog picture came from. Becca saw a plastic hammerhead shark and decided to give me the signal for shark!