Holy Toledo: Recap

When Kelli and I heard from our friend Carolyn that she was moving up to Michigan to live in July, we immediately started scheming to go up and visit. Well, we didn't make it up there until the first week of November. We drove up to the Pittsburgh area on Thursday night, stayed literally 500 feet from I-76 (noisy ol' road), and drove up to Cleveland the next day.
As we got to the Cleveland Suburbs, we ended up in the express lane, and by the time we realized what we did, the next exit was Kirtland. Kirtland Ohio wasn't even on our radar, but we decided we might as well stop since we had to get off that exit anyway. We found the Kirtland Temple and did the Community of Christ tour. The tour guide did an amazing job and was very knowledgeable about the history of that grand old building. We also ate at a great restaurant and had pierogies and paprikash. Good meal.
As we both were planning to go to the Rock and Roll Museum we headed on down the road. We made it to the Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland two or three hours before it closed and stayed until closing. The building takes advantage of natural lighting and is pretty good sized. We spent most of our time on the ground floor. As you walk into the museum, the first picture is an Annie Liebowitz of Chuck Berry. On the other side was a Beach Boys exhibit, including film of Brian Wilson performing with the Boys. There was costumes, a great music influences section, early drawings by Lennon, exhibits of the music scene in various cities, Janis Joplin's Porsche and I could go on. We then went up and watched the Hall of Fame inductees video and spent a couple of minutes in an exhibit on the early years of Rock and then it was closing time. After a quick tour of the Gift show we were on the road.
We drove through Toledo and made it to Detroit a little after nine where Carolyn was waiting for us. We talked for a bit and then went to bed.
The next morning we got up, Carolyn made fabulous cinnamon rolls and we decided to go into Detroit since Carolyn hadn't been yet. We first went to Detroit's Eastern Market, which frankly is incomparable to DC's. It was extensive, the produce was cheap and we had a great time. We stopped in a few shops, bought a few things and then ate at one of the many Coney Restaurants that populate Detroit.
After lunch we headed over to the Motown Museum after a bit of a detour in one of Detroit's "finer" neighborhoods. And by neighborhoods I mean, extensive abandoned warehouses. We arrived at the Motown Museum which is actually two houses linked together. We took a tour of the buildings and were awed by the history. We spent a few minutes in the original recording studio and well, wow.
After that we went to Downtown Detroit, saw where the Fox theater was, gawked at the baseball field and then went down to the riverfront. We gazed over at "Canada," and wished we had our passports since Carolyn had never been. We spent some time at the Underground Railroad Memorial and then headed back to Carolyn's. We ordered pizza and then watched Rocky Balboa(Carolyn loves Rocky). I only watched about 30 minutes before I crashed.
The next morning we got up, hugged and thanked Carolyn and headed out. We stopped at Lake Erie, bought a ton of cheese and sandwiches at the "Cheese house," somewhere in Ohio and drove the rest of the way back to DC arriving home about 7:00. Anyway, great trip and thanks Carolyn!

Carolyn or Bust!

From Google, with Love

Someone typed in the following and landed on this blog.

how did the element rhenium (re) get its name
nclex, 75, failed

Holy Toledo !!!

Here's a post to share information about the Carolyn roadtrip. I've dubbed it rustbelt '07, but another name would work too. I also thought about using a line from the White Stripe song about Detroit (since we're basically going to Detroit Suburbs), but I'm totally open. Anyway, my first blurb:

Excerpt about Toledo:

Tony Packo’s Cafe –1902 Front Street. This cafe gained national recognition
through the frequent references made by cross-dressing Corporal Max Klinger in
the M*A*S*H TV series. The signature item on the menu is the Hungarian hot dog,
which is made with sausage and a secret sauce.
http://www.travel-library.com/holidays/north_america/usa/ohio/toledo/

Apples Are Amazing

Roadtrip! Stribling Orchards is home to amazing apples, cinnamon apple scones, and fresh apple cider. Located in Markham, VA they are also a gateway to a scenic byway. It was a pretty cool trip - the leaves were changing, the cows and horses were out in the fields, and there were plenty of rolling hills to make it picturesque. We also stopped at a little 19th century church and walked through their graveyard. Overall, western Virginia is a recommended puddlejump if you're ever in the area.

How to Lose the Yankee Vote Or my note to Giuliani

So, you're a mayor of one of the biggest baseball cities in the world. You are from that city, you claim to be a life-long fan of the baseball team, you wear their gear and love to tell the story that you got beat up for wearing a Yankees cap in Brooklyn, you go to their games even after you're out of office, and you claim you're rooting for their biggest rival in the World Series because you're an AL fan? That's the lamest excuse since Sen. Craig went prowling at the Minnesota Airport.

Even if you narrowly escaped the big sleep by a 3-2 vote(which somehow ups your cool factor), you're dead to me, and many, many other Yankee fans. I cut Mitt some slack for changing his views on certain issues, but this? Even if New Hampshire primaries are coming up, this is unforgiveable flip-flopping!!! Oh why do I care? I'm more or less a Democrat.

75 And Counting Down the Minutes

The NCLEX is finished - for better or for worse. I was photographed, fingerprinted, shook down, and escorted to my testing station (by very nice Pearson Center employees) for 75 questions to determine whether or not I can practice as a nurse. I spent last night looking up stuff on the internet from people that failed the test as a way to pre-emptively console myself that it was going to be okay if I sucked it up a little.

So with 75 questions, I either passed with flying colors or failed miserably. The beauty of the test design is that you can't tell which you did because everyone finishes only answering 50% of the questions correctly. The key is that you finish at 50% on a higher difficulty level. For more on that you can read about the test here. Surprisingly, reading about other people that had failed was comforting.

With 24 hours until I find out if I passed, I decided to list a few things that involve the prodigious number 75:

1) 75% - a Gentleman's C. Good enough to get you out of Yale and elected to high national office.

2) 75 years ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest level in the Great Depression (you can only go up from here!)

3) In '75, Jaws debuted (and most of the characters survived).

4) Rhenium the 75th element is one of the 10 most expensive metals on earth (if Wikipedia is to be believed).

5) Mona Shaw is a 75 year-old retired nurse from Virginia that smashed up her local Comcast office with a hammer. While we don't condone violence, we commend Mona for her sitcom-esque flourish. Double points if she told the customer service rep "Fo' Shizzle My Nizzle!"