Ann Arbor/Detroit Trip Report

You may recall a few posts back that I mentioned going to Detroit to catch a Tiger’s game. Well, that happened this weekend.

I headed up to my friend’s house after work Friday afternoon. I had planned on stopping for sushi along the way because I was probably going to have time to kill before my friend got home from work, but he called me just as I was leaving town saying that we would be going for sushi upon my arrival and that he was buying. Awesome indeed.

The trip up was uneventful, as most solo road trips are, and I arrived at my friend’s house promptly at 6:30. I dropped my bag and said something along the lines of, “Bring on the sushi”, but my friend informed me that while googling directions, he found out that the sushi bar we had planned on going to had recently closed. I was immensely sad for about 5 seconds until he suggested we go for Indian instead. I had never had Indian before and I was stoked to try something new. My friend, his wife, and I pile into his brand new Scion and roll into Ann Arbor and the campus area is totally packed with people. Apparently UM had a graduation that evening and there was hardly anywhere to park and all of the storefronts had lines of people halfway around the block.

Eventually we found a nice parking spot and started walking towards our destination, Raja Rani. Raja Rani is located in an old house on a corner lot in downtown Ann Arbor. The wait was brief and the food was phenomenal. After we were seated we received a complimentary appetizer of vegetable pakora, which is basically deep-fried vegetables, served with three different dipping sauces, all delicious and all spicy. For my entree I decided to go with chicken karahi, which seemed like a good introductory dish for my first Indian dining experience. Chicken kahari is simply chicken sauteed in a wok with tomato, ginger, herbs, and spices. It came topped with cilantro and was served with rice. I loved it. We also had some type of spicy flat-bread and mango milk shakes. I wanted to take a picture of my meal to post here, but didn’t want to look like a tourist. I will certainly be researching my options locally as far as Indian food is concerned.

After dinner we walked around downtown and stopped at a local coffee shop and grabbed a latte for our meandering stroll through the city. Nothing too exciting was happening so we finished our drinks and headed home.

We were up bright and early Saturday and decided to head into Detroit to check out the pre-game city scene. On the way we stopped at a Greek restaurant and had breakfast. I had an omelet with lamb, spinach, tomato, onion, and feta cheese. It was pretty tasty. Anyway, I digress. Once we made our way into the city we found some cheap parking and headed directly to Cheli’s Chili Bar which is directly across the street from Comerica Park. We had a few drinks and then decided to head into the stadium and find our seats.

During the pre-game warm-ups, my friend did manage to snag Justin Weaver’s autograph, which was pretty sweet.  The game itself was pretty uneventful, although the 2nd year pitcher, Armando Galarraga did pitch a no-hitter through 5 2/3 innings. We bounced a little early with Detroit leading 6-4 hoping to beat traffic. The score stuck and Detroit came away with a win and we got out of the city well before the sell-out crowd of 42,000 even left the ball park.

The greatest neighbors in the world

The greatest neighbors in the world:

*Allow their cats to go potty in your flower bed.

*Allow their dogs to bark all night/weekend long.

*Allow their children to pee in your garden.

*Allow their children to throw apples at your garage.

*Drive their 4-wheel drive through your backyard.

*Talk on a juiced up cb radio all hours of the day/night even when it comes across your tv and pc speakers.

*Burn plastic and rubber in huge fires in their back yard.

*Let their friends hang out with crappy music blaring from their car speakers all day/night.

*Let me watch their kids for them while they play outside.

*Let their kids play in the busy street.

*Do burnouts up and down the same street their kids are playing in.

Ugh, can you tell I’m really annoyed with my neighbors right now?  I’m sure there are 10 things I’m forgetting.

Wondergarden

So tonight I skipped class so I could get started on my garden. Each year the scale is a little bigger than the previous incarnation. It started out a few years back with 2 tomato plants. Then last year we added a few green pepper and banana pepper plants and some cherry tomato plants that grew to be some 15 feet long.

Anyway, tonight I started digging. I must say that this years garden is going to be pretty big and I’m going to try something a little different with more than one plant. I’ve always heard about upside down tomato plants and I think this year I’m going to try one out.  I’ll probably put one plant in the ground and put another one in a hanging bucket.  Hopefully it works well that way it can free up precious space for next year.  I’m also goign to grow some green onions in containers, just to see how that works.  Also, this fall I’ll be trying my hand at growing garlic.

Look for more gardening posts from me in the future.

Amazing nascar crash

So, I’m not really a fan of NASCAR.  I used to be hooked on it like it was crack, but that interest died around the same time Dale Earnhardt did.  Anyway, my brother sent me this link earlier from a crash that happened yesterday afternoon at qualifying.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crash impact like this and for a moment I really thought the guy was dead, because he hit the wall way harder than Earnhardt did at Daytona.  I guess this is a testament to the new car and various other safety precautions NASCAR is taking these days.

blah

I was going to write a little post about the generational differences, specifically between baby boomers and gen y’ers, and how it relates to employment.  Most boomers worked only a handful of jobs in their entire careers, were fiercely loyal to their company, regardless of how much they disliked their jobs, and gen y’ers are changing jobs at the fastest rate in history, about once every 2 years.  Anyway, like I said, I was going to write about this, job loyalty, and corporations taking a somewhat new approach in viewing employees as assets as opposed to liabilities, but right now, I’m just too tired.

Coincidentally, I’m being recruited by one of my customers who also happens to be in direct competition with my company in a different aspect of our business.

So yea, that’s all I’ve got for you.

Happy birthday to me

Yes, this was my dinner. No, I did not eat it all. I shared, I promise.

*2 Shrimp Tempura Rolls

*1 Spicy Tuna Roll

*1 Dynamite Roll

*1 Mr. Sushi Roll

*1 California Roll (not pictured)

* Octopus Nigiri

* Yellowtail Nigiri

Summer of Baseball update: Going to Detroit in 3 weeks to see the Tigers host the Dodgers in inter-league play.  I can’t wait.