Pictures of Cincinnati

I will now share with you the pictures that I took on our tour last Thursday.

 Here's the beautiful barn. 

 This is the horse that played Seabiscuit in the movie.

 This is the statue in the middle of the "cemetery".

 And to follow the somber moment, here's Kentucky Hot Brown.

 Dumplin Jean's, where we ate lunch.

Looking back at one side of the town of Midway. 

I took some pictures at the vineyard, but had my ISO set too high so it's sort of washed out. It was a field of grapevines. Google them if you want to see a picture.

I also didn't take any pictures of the hotel. The one night I walked around with Brenda, I didn't have my camera with me. It was after we had gotten ice cream. Here's the link to the hotel, you can at least read the history and see a few pictures. It was amazing!

In a bun or on a stick

Welcome to 2014 where it costs money in fancy, ritzy hotels to use wifi. Except in the lobby. But because you're in a fancy, ritzy hotel everyone stares at you in disgust because you're blatantly using the free wifi in the lobby.

I got over it, but didn't have time to write. Convention ended with our Installation Banquet which was a lovely event as always. Our new president is Karen Murphy from Australia. Convention 2016 is in Brisbane. I'm going to start saving my pennies so I can go.

Speaking of pennies, I found a nickel on the street in Cincinnati. Yes, I still stop and pick up any change I see.

Did you know today is National Hot Dog day? I heard that on the radio today (although for all I know it was a playback from yesterday). Bill and I celebrated by eating hot dogs for dinner. The more important part of the story is that I grilled them. And they weren't burnt. They were also hot all the way through.

I'm not known for my grilling. The one other time I grilled anything it was burgers (at a friend's house) and I cooked them until they were leather. That has been the extent of my grilling experience. This is the reason why I'm so ecstatic that I cooked hot dogs successfully.

I don't think I'll continue grilling regularly, I'll leave that in Bill's hands. But I do feel as though I accomplished something.

Saturday at Conference

Technically it's called Convention. Conferences are annual events within our new regions. Don't worry, you don't have to remember it. It's all the hierarchal system within Quota.

The wi-fi in the lobby is not nearly as good as Panera.

We're on our lunch break. But I was working on something else and now it's almost time to go back into session.

I just wanted to write something really quick so you knew I was still here and still a part of the 21st century.

I will have to figure out how to link my Twitter and Instagram to my blog so you can see pictures faster! That will be something I'll work on when I get back home.

A Kentucky Tour

Like I said in my post earlier, Kim and I took a tour yesterday. Quota set it up and we were on a bus with about forty other Quotarians (and a few spouses).

We went an hour south to Old Friends, where former race horses go to retire. We got a tour of the facility and got to see many of the ninety plus horses they house there. We also got to pet and feed carrots to the horses.

I took pictures, so I'll have to post those once I get back home.

From Old Friends, we went to Midway. A small town full of southern charm along with train tracks that run straight down the middle of town.

We ate lunch there, I forget the name of the restaurant but I know it's in a picture, where we had Kentucky Hot Brown. If you don't know what that is I'll tell you. It's a piece of toast/bread (we never did figure out if it was actually toasted), covered with shredded turkey, diced ham, bacon, a rue with cheddar, mozzarella, and provolone, topped with a tomato and baked in the oven. It was delicious. This restaurant is also known for it's cobbler and we were all treated to apple cobbler a la mode.

From Midway we went to a vineyard called, Equus Run Vineyards. We got to sample a couple of their wines and then walk around and shop. The owner talked to us about her wines and her grapes. It was great; she was down to earth (she retired from IBM after thirty years to open the vineyard) and hospitable.

From there we came back to our hotel where we met up with other Quotarians to have dinner and ice cream. The local place to go for ice cream is called Graeters. I tried their Buckeye flavor.

In case you didn't know; there is a long running joke that between Michigan and any other state (in my case Indiana) the one thing we can agree on when it comes to sports and our universities is that Ohio State sucks, pardon my language. We have several friends who have lived in Ohio and have gone to schools in Ohio including my in-laws. But we are specifically talking about the Ohio State.

We also refer to Ohio as, "Land of Land". Have you ever driven through Ohio? You might agree. Especially after Kim and my drive down here Wednesday. We did not drive through the pretty side of Ohio.

So Ohio is the butt of jokes, at least around our house.

Which is why I surprised myself by trying the Buckeye flavored ice cream and then was shocked when I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that it may be my new favorite ice cream flavor of all time.

I know.

Okay, it could be my second because that Jersey Express with the chocolate fudge and peppermint that Hudsonville ice cream made a few years ago does take the #1 spot in my taste.

But still, second place. An Ohio named ice cream. Huh.

I told Shannon that statement because she had asked (or told me to) check out Graeter's. Her response is  very appropriate, "That is a statement with lots of research backing it!!!" How true!

My time is running short here at Panera where the lunch hour has arrived making it a busy place. Plus my laptop is going to die because I didn't bring my charger. I'll see if I can blog again while I'm in the expensive fancy hotel (wi-fi is free in the lobby I discovered). If not, you'll hear from me when I get back home.

Saturday in the 'Zoo

Day 4 of Sandwich week

We had sandwiches for lunch! I had a ham and cheese. Perfect. It's like they knew it was sandwich week.

We made it through our "business" portion of the meeting. We're sitting around enjoying each others company before the semi-formal banquet tonight.

So while I had a minute, I thought I'd just write a quick post. Nothing too exciting to report. I hope you're having a lovely weekend!

in the 'Zoo

I am in the city of Kalamazoo (you must pronounce it with emphasis on the "zoo") for a Quota Conference. You may recall I've been to exotic places in the name of Quota. Dubuque, Iowa most recently. Vancouver, Canada in the summer of 2010. Traverse City, Frankenmuth and East Tawas are a few of the other places (oh, I almost forgot St. Louis, Missouri).

I took the long forty-five minute drive down here earlier today. I was able to meet up with a former youth group student, Maria. She is attending Kalamazoo College and since they're on tri-mesters, she's still in school until June 6th. We had ice cream. I'm guessing I walked a total of three miles. 


Our Conference began with Spa night which was perfect since I did all that walking. Now it's time to get some rest because tomorrow will be a long day full of bylaws, policies, procedures and all that other Conference stuff.

pork, potatoes, beef, salad and ice cream

Last night for dinner we had grilled pork tenderloin and french fries. Then we watched "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" before bed (it's a very bad habit of ours) and saw a new way to make a salad dressing. They smoked the tomatoes and onions before adding them to a food processor with mayo and some spices (it was a bbq episode, Mmmm bbq). That sounded simple enough, we just don't have a smoker. So Bill and I discussed what we would have for dinner tonight and it included a salad with this new dressing. And a side of beef.

So while Bill grilled the beef and a red onion, I pulled out some frozen tomatoes and put them in a sauce pan to simmer. Once the water had boiled off, for the most part, I pulled them off the heat. The onion (we only used half of one) was done and had been cooling on the counter. I put all of this in the food processor with an eyeball measurement of mayo (probably about half a cup, I didn't skimp), some garlic cloves, ground sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Next time I think I would let the tomatoes cool longer (but the beef was done, so time was not on my side) and use fresh tomatoes and maybe grill the garlic, but even so this dressing was delicious. As in, we dipped the beef in it too (this was the last of the grass-fed cow raised by my uncle).

Conference is over. We ended with an ice cream social, which meant the local ice cream manufacturer (Hudsonville) came with a truck and we each got our own pint!!! I was thrilled! A lovely way to end the Conference. That will go on my evaluation.

It's Friday, one more day of Conference

I told you yesterday that I'm waiting until Conference is over to give you a brief overview (don't worry it will be uber brief because I have not been taking notes). If you care to watch tomorrow you can find it live, online at the West Michigan Conference's website. If you are that bored, instead come to my house and clean it since I will be sitting at Conference. Trust me, you'd rather wait for my overview (or you can read the minutes which I think are also available online, if you're into that kind of thing).

A lot has been going on at Conferences all around the world. We will have to wait to see the outcome of some petitions at General Conference next April. It could be church changing (in a good, forward thinking way) or it could keep us stuck where we are. Not moving forward, losing more members and standing around scratching our heads wondering why.

Since I am literally minutes away from the place where our Conference is being held (at Calvin College, if you're a UM, you might find that amusing) I am not staying for dinners.This also means I'm saving our church money! Bill had dinner waiting for me tonight, and after we ate we took a ride in the 'Vette. I'm guessing he blogged about it, but since I don't know I will go ahead and tell you that he got it fixed today. We had broken the shocks (again, if he blogged about it, he'll have more detail/info) driving down our lovely downtown streets. It has sat in the garage for at least a month. Bill took matters into his own hands and took it in today. It was nice to go back out for a drive. Even if that meant I had to skip a walk. I think I'll survive because I've been parking in the furthest lot from the Arena and have logged a minimum of 2 miles every day. Now we just have to go watch the sunset one night this summer...

Please listen carefully

The title has two meanings.

The first one has to do with calling people and leaving messages. Someone called our house today and left a message. We don't know who they were and the person they told to call them back doesn't have this phone number. I'm fairly certain our message (which is currently my voice) says our number. And Bill and I have discussed people with fat fingers who don't even realize they dialed the wrong number. So the person just didn't listen. I always listen and I also panic when it's the generic automated message. Did I get the number right? Is this who I am trying to call? Often, I leave a message that goes like this, "Hello, this message is for ___..." Just to make sure that the message gets passed along. Instead of having a rogue child (or spouse) delete the message because they do not know who I am. Hey, it has happened.

The second meaning has to do with the theme at the United Methodist Church West Michigan Annual Conference. I am a last minute stand-in for a long-time church member and Conference attendee. His wife has been diagnosed with cancer and has started treatment. They made the decision to move into the local UMC retirement housing (a townhouse), and moving day was the first day of Conference. I have attended Conference before, so when I was asked if I could take his place, I had no qualms about my decision.

I digress, the theme at Conference today was "Listen".

I thought it was pretty funny that when I got home and listened to the answering machine, the message was from someone who didn't listen to our message.

I have some pretty interesting facts about our West Michigan Conference, but I think I'll save them all for one post, a post-Conference... post.