Week 15 - April 8-14

Fancy Dinner

We had a great time going to Ruth Chris Steakhouse in Grand Rapids on Saturday night to celebrate Steve & Cathy's and Brennan & Shannon's wedding anniversaries.  We went to Ruth Chris as the Amway Grand.  This is the first time I have been there since it opened. 

This is a pretty nice steakhouse.  The food was delicious.  The appetizers and sides are served family style, so it is fun to order a few a try them.  Jen & I are calimari fans and try it almost everywhere we go.  Brennan, not so much, but I think he enjoyed it here. 

Jen and I have had the chance to eat at the comperable steakhouses in downtown GR.  They are all good, but here is how I rate them. 

1. Chop House - Right accross the street from the Ruth Chris.  I like the atmoshere as being smaller, modern, darker....it reminds me of Chicago.  I would say it is as pricy as Ruth Chris, if not a little more.

2. Ruth Chris - Right accross from the Chop House....(duh).  Anyway, again, it's a nice fancy place.  The staff was really nice and made the experience the best it could be.  The only drawback, personally, is that Ruth Chris is a chain, which makes it seem more commericial, at least for me.  Tops though, again, I would eat here all I could, but it is expensive.

3. Louis Benton - This is the best value.  It is also more casual than both of the above two.  The steaks are just as good.  In fact, they have a nice butter sauce to dip your steak in as you eat it.  Everything is better dipped in butter!

Jen & I really enjoy going to Grand Rapids for a nice dinner event.  I do, however, experience buyers remorse in the morning, just thinking about how we could buy the same meats at the Meat Shack and make the same dinner at home, but its not about the food so much as it is the experience.

Week 14, April 1st - 7th

APES!

So I finally got my bike back with the new apehangers on it!  It took quite a while because they were working on Jen's bike too, and we were planning on getting them both at the same time.  Just getting it back this weekend, we missed all the great warm weather, and are back to typically spring riding in Michigan....aka "snowmobiling".

I have to admit, it was sort of weird to get used to, especially for the first ride of the year.  It was a bit intimidating.  You really need to think about how you are operating the bike, and letting the machine do the work and not try to wrestle the bike with the handlebars.  It is, though pretty comfortable for me.





Jenny thought it was a bit rediculous, but after she sat on it, she could understand how comfortable it was.  Plus, I think it's cool.  I am nervous however because after I had them put on, I learned they were "illegal",  so that's nice.  But they repealed the helmet law recently, so I am hopeful, this too won't be an issue.

Week 13 - March 25-31st

Low Bid on a Project in Washington!

Most of my career, I have been a Construction Estimator.  A lot of the bids I work on are public bids, whereas General Contractors prepare and submit bids for various projects at a specific time and locatation of the owner of the project.  Usually, these bids are opened and read aloud, so you have instant feedback on where you stand.

I have pursued these types of project outside of Michigan now, on and off, for the past couple years.  I worked on bidding a couple of projects in Lousianna and more recently in Olympia, Washington.  Other estimators at my company have been working on other projects in other vairous states.  None of us have had any success until this week.  We were the low bid on the Nisqually Public Safety Complex near Olympia. 

It is very exciting for me be involved in the varying strategies to win bids out of state and finally see some positive results.  It is not a done deal though, we will have to pass a series of qualification steps before we would be awarded the contract.

There were a number of other firsts this week, including having smoked Corn Beef, traveling to Portland, Oregon, and having some Crown Royal Black, but the bid success was by far the best part about this trip.