Ben Benner’s Blog

We arrived home at approx 8pm last night, this was about two and a half hours earlier than my original estimate. My original estimate was off for two reasons.

1. I didn’t know exactly how far away Memphis was from Little Rock.

2. Gina is speedy.

We got to Memphis at a decent time the other night and stayed in a swanky La Quinta. The decor was much more modern and had a mix of carpet and what appeared to be hardwood floors in the room.

I was very proud of Emma Lou, this entire trip she managed not to have any accidents in the hotel rooms. In the past she would immediately christen the room.

We made pretty decent time along the way from Lansing to Memphis. There was this one stop for gas where I thought we might not make it out. The area was a backdrop for an ’80s slasher film. We pull up and there is a seedy, run-down looking motel (a couple of the doors had plywood over it). There was only one other car getting gas and there were some crazy looking clerks in the gas-station store.

Also, I have to mention that the bathroom was possibly the WORST I have ever had the unfortunate pleasure of using. I mean, when I first walked in the stench hit me in the face. I wonder if the place has ever really been cleaned, let alone just a quick cleaning recently.

There were flies, mind you no windows in this restroom. I mean we have stopped at highway rest stops that have flies (or bees) due to the fact that they don’t have A/C and the windows are open. No windows in this bathroom.

Anyway, I got out of there after scrubbing my hands very well (luckily the soap dispenser was completely full). I used my foot to open the door (which had a level handle instead of a round one).

“What about the ‘Burrs within 60 seconds’ ?” you ask.

We got home, let the dogs out into the backyard, unpacked the car. And when we let the dogs back in, they had burrs in their fur. Which means that they immediately managed to run though the few burr plants that have cropped up in the backyard while we have been gone (one or two were likely there before we left, behind the shed).

Emma, Buddy and Curly all have burrs. I will be mowing the backyard today and weed wacking behind the shed. I am also going to powerwash the deck, its a bit dirty.

As long as I don’t have to go into the office on Monday (pretty sure I won’t have to), I will be taking some time that day to replace some fence boards.

I need to get my bag unpacked and get settled in a little.

Laterz

bdbenner Dogs, travel, vacation la quinta, summer 2008, summer vacation, travel, vacation 2008

Now, some of you may or may not know this term. I just learned it myself, from my father-in-law.

It is the hole or break in the bad weather (or clouds) that gets folks to think that the weather is finally shaping up and is going to be just fabulous, therefore they get their swimsuits on, they load up the boats or jet-skis and head out onto the lake. Then it hits you, the clouds roll in and most likely the rain starts.

Ummm, so we were all packed up (I mean the car was completely loaded and we were like five minutes from loading dogs) and then it got sunny and the weather turned nice, so very nice.

You guessed it, we stayed another day. I even got the silver floating lounging blow up thing and was in the water, I borrowed the anchor and tied to the lounging thing (don’t worry Tom I returned it to the boat when I was done, right were I found it).

However, the weather was only nice for about an hour or so, then it started to get cloudy and about five minutes after that, it started to rain, about 10 minutes after that it started with the thunder and lightning.

Major suck.

The storms blew threw after about two hours, resulting in only a mostly cloudy situation. We went back out onto the dock and hung out for a bit. I was too cold (seeing as my shirt and shorts were still wet from lounging in the lake earlier. Gina on the other hand stayed out there for several hours.

We had dinner at The Club in Central Lake, they have by far the best burger I have had in Michigan (there are a couple of contenders down in Texas for Best Burger Ever).

I woke up and let the dogs out and found the lake covered in a pea-soup like fog. An hour later the fog had burned off, the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky, the lake was crystal clear and calm. Gina jumped in and had a quick swim and began the debate on whether or not we were going to stay up north just one more day.

I told her we should probably head down state today and remember the lake being beautiful rather than staying and possibly being sucker holed again, though I am sure with our luck it was gorgeous all day long.

Well, we are back in the Lansing area. We have done our shopping for MSU gear and had the chance to  hang out with Joe Kursch at Buddies in Okemos (or whatever town is out near the Meridian Mall).

Tomorrow morning we are having breakfast with my mom and then lunch with my pops down in Pleasant Ridge (near Detroit).

I need to wrap this up and get to bed, morning is going to come too early and breakfast is at 8:30.

Laterz

bdbenner travel, vacation summer 2008, travel, vacation, vacation 2008, weather

I only sort of wish I had a kite. It would be interesting to try to fly a kite off the end of the dock. It certainly has been windy the last couple of days.

I think the temperature on the thermostat here never read over 69F yesterday, today It hasn’t broken 65F.

Gina made breakfast this morning. I have to do the dishes, right after I finish this post.

We are pretty sure that we are going to head down state later today instead of Wednesday. I think we will be heading back to Texas on Friday morning.

The sun is peaking out from behind the clouds here and there while I am posting this, but the temp is just not hot enough to sit out and get a tan. Bummer.

We saw Hancock on Friday, it was pretty good. I really liked the first half of the movie, it felt very original but just as the storyline was getting good they started wrapping it up, they managed to keep the movie to an hour and a half, but in doing so the whole ending felt rushed.

The little theatre in Bellaire is really great. It has two screens. They had just done a fresh batch of popcorn so I had to get some. I have gotten into the habit of buying the kid’s packs, that way you get a little bit of popcorn, a small drink and some candy. Normally the candy is something really small and not always that great. However, the Bellaire theatre offered you a selection of candy from the bottom row, which was cool. They had a good assortment to choose from. I got peanut M&Ms.

I found out that the family that owns the Bellaire theatre, also owns the theatres in Gaylord and Petoskey.

The BBQ on Friday turned out really well, everyone really enjoyed the pork, coleslaw and chicken. Mary Wight brought over her famous spaghetti salad, it was very, very good.

Well, I better get the dishes cleaned up.

Laterz

bdbenner bbq, food, travel, vacation bbq, movies, summer 2008, summer vacation, vacation, vacation 2008

I am waiting for my brine to cool down enough to put it with my pork shoulder (also known as a Boston Butt).

I made a nice spinach salad tonight, consisting of spinach, carrot, celery, green bell pepper, onion, and cherry tomatoes. The salad went nicely with the chicken thighs that I grilled. After dinner Father Anthony asked me to make some stove-top popcorn. I burned the first batch just a little, like prolly 15 seconds too long. The second batch was pretty much perfect.

I made the coleslaw for tomorrow right after eating dinner and before I made the popcorn. The coleslaw is from this Texas BBQ book Gina bought her dad a while back, the slaw is pretty much the same as the slaw you get at the Salt Lick. Only difference I think is that the Salt Lick uses more vinegar in theirs.

I am going to be smoking pulled pork, chicken and some sausage (which reminds me, we need to buy some sausage).

All for now.

Laterz

bdbenner bbq, food, vacation bbq, summer 2008, travel, vacation, vacation 2008

I just woke up from a short nap to the discussion about how Emma snagged an M&M laced cookie off of someone’s plate up here at the cottage a couple of hours ago.

There was a brief discussion as to whether or not Emma should be forced to return the cookie, you know following the same path it went down. That procedure requires you to feed the dog some hydrogen peroxide.

But given that she is acting perfectly fine and that one time she wolfed down an entire sleeve of those coconut and chocolate cookies (I think they are sometimes called Somoas) and this is just one little Keebler elf cookie, there isn’t really a worry.

I fed her some canned pumpkin, along with everyone else just to make sure that her stomach (and everyone else’s) is OK.

Well, I need to go run some water through my hair and get ready to go to the dinner party.

Laterz

bdbenner Dogs, Emma, travel, vacation cookies, Dogs, pumpkin, summer 2008, travel, vacation, vacation 2008

I slept until just past 1pm (mind you I woke up at about 7AM to let the dogs out), it is 10:30pm and I am drinking a PBR and playing around on the Internets (via my leeched WiFi).

Yesterday was a pretty good day, Father Camilleri came along with Gina and I to Traverse City. We stocked up on provisions for the week at Meijers after having a good lunch at BD Riley’s Mongolian Grill. I bought meat and a couple of BBQ supplies.

I am going to smoke some Pork Shoulder and Chicken on Friday. I am also going to make some coleslaw as well.

We bought some sweet corn, which looks really good. But my father-in-law cooked some last night and it didn’t turn out too great. I am thinking it was underdone, but there was a leftover piece I had at lunch today and it looked completely done, but just didn’t taste right. Suck.

We also stopped at Folgarelli’s Imported Food Market in Traverse as well. All three of us commented almost instantly that it didn’t look nearly the same as last year. We had heard some rumor that some changes had taken place recently, but no one had a definite answer as to what the change was.

Well, apparently three years ago Folgarelli’s was sold, then some time in the last few months it went bankrupt. Seven weeks ago the original owners bought it back.

The three of us all speculated about what caused the bankruptcy. Gina took me to Folgarelli’s about 4 years ago (ie original owners) and the place was very cool. It had some good looking fresh bread, a great deli counter, a small but good wine selection, some Italian foodstuffs and a small freezer (pretty sure I remember a freezer) of stuff. They were known for their sandwiches.

The following year, things had changed up a little. It appeared as if they had expanded the foodstuffs and were carrying more than just Italian foodstuffs, there was Indian, Greek, and what I think was supposed to be a Mexican or Latin food section. There were more freezers. The deli case was still great and they were making sandwiches. They also started carrying some fancy olive oils, notably this FANTASTIC olive oil from Spain. It was in a 55 gallon drum to which they had hooked a pump. They had it bottled  and ready to go. They had taken over the small building next door and expanded the wine selection.

Last year, everything was the same as the year before. We bought some more Spanish olive oil and had sandwiches, we  also bought some deli meats and cheeses.

This year however, things were different. We walked in and the olive oil was missing, there appeared to be less foodstuffs available than the year before. The deli case looked a bit barren (there were less meats available than previous years). And the Boarshead logo was missing. The same number of freezer cases appeared to be there, but there was no bread in the window (they still offer it, but they were sold out).

While waiting for my deli meat I heard one of the clerks mention that they were waiting to get their liqour license back and that is why the little wine room was closed. The wheels were already turning once we entered the store, given the change in extremely visable items not being available (ie no 55 gallon drum), and the earlier rumor about some changes occuring.

We began to speculate about what happened. The best thing I could figure out was that a change in ownership had occurred, it seemed like the only logical reason why they would be re-applying for a liqour license, given that they were not a bar so the idea that they would lose it for selling to a minor seemed HIGHLY unlikely.

I inquired with the clerk about what happened while checking out, she informed me that they original owners had bought the place out of bankruptcy 7 weeks ago. That the original owners had sold the place three years ago. That filled in the blanks on why the inventory had changed up that one year.

Well, we LOVE Folgarelli’s and want to see it thrive again.

On a side note, there have been a couple businesses close here in Central Lake and Bellaire, MI. We speculate that they closed due to BAD management. However, there is an issue that all businesses in Northern Michigan are facing. The gas prices are forcing more and more families to forego spending their vacations and weekends up here. And those that do spend their time up here are also forced to spend less money.

I remember the conversation I had with the owner of the Bed-and-Breakfast where Gina and I spent out honeymoon, The Grand Victorian. Back in 2005, he was commenting on how the price of gas was hurting the B&B busines (and tourism in general), that was back when gas was in the $2.25 a gallon range.

Well, it is late here and I need to get to bed. 1pm is going to come to quickly.

Oh yeah, I got PHP, Apache and MySQL installed. So maybe tomorrow I will finally make some progress on one of my personal projects.

Laterz

bdbenner travel, vacation gas prices, summer, summer vacation 2008, tourism, travel, traverse city, vacation, vacation 2008

So last year up at the cottage I found two wireless networks.

One was secured and one was not. Neither signal was strong enough to connect to from within the walls of the cottage. The unsecured network was strong enough from the edge of the driveway.

This led me to think about a ‘Pringles can range extender‘, however that typically only works well with a point-to-point network, where both sides are using the same range extending gear (ie Pringles cans).

Then I found some instructions for a uni-directional range extender that uses a “Steamer Basket”.

My DIY project worked and I am able to get onto the unsecured network just fine from the dining room table here. My father-in-law, Tom is already talking about mounting it to the outside of the cottage as to make the signal better.

My mother-in-law, Brenda has made breakfast so I better quit blogging and get eating.

Laterz

bdbenner Technology, diy, travel, vacation diy, diy range extender, summer, travel, vacation 2008, wifi

I booted up the laptop to check a couple of last minute things and post that we have not left yet.

Gina wants me to finish getting ready, so I better go.

We should be on the road by 9AM.

Laterz

bdbenner travel summer 2008, summer vacation, travel, vacation 2008

“All my bags are packed, Im ready to go …” — Leaving on a Jet Plane

My bag is packed, Gina has started loading the car with dog stuff.

Oh yeah, I can’t remember if I posted it up here (and I am too lazy to check) but I made a pet barrier for the cargo area of the Vibe. I found some plans on the Internet for one made from copper, I made this one out of PVC. Since I took a bunch of pictures of the construction, I think I am going to post it up here and also post it back up to the forum site that I found the plans on.

I am currently ripping some CDs to my personal laptop’s iTunes library. I also ripped a DVD of stuff from my work laptop, being the data that I would need, should the need arise for me to work on something while I am away on vacation.

I am about to print out the directions from Google Maps for our trip, including our stop-over in Elizabethtown, KY. (done printing out the directions)

I am also installing PHP, Apache, and MySQL on my personal laptop. I hope to do a little bit of work on a side project that I have been wanting to do for a while, but without ready access to the Internet, that will mean that I need to be able to work on it locally.

Well, I have about 3 more CDs to rip, then I am going to pass out. We originally were talking about leaving at 5AM. It will be interesting to see if we still do, on the off chance that we will be doing that I really should get to bed.

Laterz

bdbenner travel summer 2008, summer vacation, travel, vacation 2008