Flashback Friday: The Big Finn's Finger, Chapter 2
Ah, Rome! The Eternal City! City of antiquity, romance, beauty and one Big Finn with his middle finger extended.
This picture was taken on March 3rd of this year in Rome. My wife and I traveled to Rome with the
TBFs, and my mother, the last time we visited the TBFs in Switzerland. On this particular day, we toured the
Coliseum. After spending a couple of hours inside the Coliseum, we decided to stop at a sidewalk cafe down the street from the Coliseum for some pizza and libations. I decided to take a picture of the TBFs enjoying their snack.
TBF saw me aim the camera his way and I got this picture instead.
Flashback Friday: The Big Finn's Finger, Chapter 1
I was looking through past vacation photos to find some topics to blog on, especially for Flashback Friday, and found this picture. In fact, I noticed that I have more than one photo of
TBF flipping off the camera. So at least for this Friday and the following one, the theme will be pictures of TBF and his middle finger.
This particular picture was taken at the top of Mount Pilatus in Switzerland on July 23, 2004. To see some great pictures taken of the Mount Pilatus region by a fellow blogger, visit
Canadian-Swiss's blog and go to her September 10, 2006 entry regarding her recent visit to Mount Pilatus.
The story behind this picture is that when we got to the top of Mount Pilatus, we all visited the gift shop. TBF, my wife and I all bought Swiss winter hats. Of course, TBF and I bought the same hat. This is not the first time TBF and I have bought the same hat. I think it is hysterical for both of us to walk around with the same hat on given our difference in stature. By doing that, I end up looking like a miniature version of TBF.
Stay tuned for next week's picture of TBF's finger out and about in another international location!
Happy Birthday to me!
Yesterday, September 18th was my birthday!
I did not do too much to celebrate on my actual birthday, but this past Saturday my wife and I went to a very expensive restaurant that I have been wanting to try for quite awhile. It is located in Highland Park, a suburb that is about 30 minutes north of Chicago. The name of the restaurant is
Carlos'.
Carlos' is one of those restaurants in which the portions are small, the presentation of the food is spectacular and the quality of the food is superb. What distinguishes Carlos' from other high end restaurants is their unique service . While the service is as attentive as any other restaurant in that price range, the staff was very personable, friendly and at times very entertaining. Carlos himself is very involved in the service throughout the dinner and even participated in singing Happy Birthday to me with our waiter.
After dinner, we walked a couple of doors down to another restaurant called
Miramar for an after dinner cocktail. While Carlos' offers contemporary French cuisine, Miramar sells itself as a French bistro. Miramar is very busy, loud and casual.
We found a place to sit at the bar and after a few minutes I got up to look for the restroom. A man in about his late twenties or early thirties sitting next to my wife noticed I was looking where to go and pointed me in the right direction. After I walked away from them the following conversation took place between Mrs Colon Blow and who I found out soon later was named Bartholomew:
Bartholomew: "He's a lion".
Mrs. CB: "Actually, his birthday is this Monday, so he is a Virgo".
Bartholomew: "No, I don't believe in any of that astrological crap. What I mean is I can tell by the way he walks, his strut, that he is a lion. You are lucky to have him."
Mrs. CB: "No, he is lucky to have me!"
It should be no surprise to any of you reading this that Bartholomew was already somewhat drunk by the time we encountered him. As most drunks you meet in a bar, he was somewhat obnoxious. However, I sometimes find that some drunks I meet in bars, although obnoxious, can be entertaining if handled the right way. After all, if you don't mind doing the work ( listening and agreeing to inane statements) they can be quite entertaining. Also, after experiencing a very civilized, cultured dining experience, it was like going from class to crass in 60 seconds flat...what an existential rush!
Bartholomew insisted that I have a shot with him. He really did not seem to care about buying my wife a drink or did he seem interested in talking to her...another charming and interesting feature about his personality! He bought me a drink that I never had before, a Jager Bomb. A Jager Bomb is a basically a shot of
Jagermeister dropped into a glass of
Red Bull. Quite a difference from the $80 bottle of wine we were drinking at dinner about an hour earlier. Anyway, after a few more stories from Bartholomew and after buying him a drink, we left Miramar and made our way home.
All in all, it was a great night way to celebrate my birthday. I got to experience fine dining, meet an interesting personality, went home with the best looking woman in the bar ( my wife made me write that) and learned how to rid myself of that half empty bottle of Jagermeister sitting in my freezer... all in one night! What more could a guy ask for?
Flashback Friday: 22 Years Ago Today...
...my wife and I got married. How's that for a Flashback Friday,
Mr. TBF?
Those of you that know what my wife and I look like now will notice that she got better looking over the years while I went in the other direction. I thought the men were supposed to get better looking as they got older?
When my wife and I got married, my sister was dating
Mr. TBF and brought him to our wedding. I thought you all might enjoy taking a look at how both of them looked on that day.
Interesting. After looking at this picture, I guess
Mr. TBF would voice the same complaint that I raised above.
Anyway, Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Colon Blow. Thanks for putting up with me for all these years...I love you!
TV Nirvana!
Yesterday it was delivered and installed; a 40 inch Sony LCD flat screen TV, a two zone receiver, a DVD player and surround sound speaker system.
But what an ordeal it was to have it installed! When we bought this system and set up the delivery date, the salesman walked us over to the woman that schedules this and told us that they had not even opened up the schedule for September and that we were first on the list for the installation. Given what we were looking for them to do during the installation, it was definitely going to be an all day job for the installation crew, so I assumed they would be there first thing in the morning and they agreed that would be the case.
However, the first thing that happened yesterday was that they called to say that they would be arriving between 10:00AM and 12:00PM. My wife took the call and informed me of this. I immediately made good use of the caller id history on our phone and called the installer back. After some complaining by me, he promised to be at our house closer to 10:00AM then to 12:00PM. Two of them arrived at our home at approximately 10:00AM.
They did not leave our house until after 10:00PM that night.
And guess what? I found some speaker wire, that they ran out of our crawl space to the outside to get into the siding, that is still not tucked into the siding and is laying on the ground outside our house. Needless to say, I am not happy with the way the installation went on this. Especially when you consider that
ABT charged us $1000 to install this system.
Anyway, it looks and sounds great and we are finally enjoying our family room the way it was intended to be enjoyed.
Only a few more hours....
What good is a new family room without a kickass, flat panel, HDTV with surround sound? No good, says I! Tomorrow it is finally scheduled to arrive and be installed.
Until then I shall patiently wait. Check back tomorrow; same time, same channel!
