Cast No Shadow

Special thanks to all who made our 5 Year Anniversary such a special event! Dad & Jenny got us a gift certificate to The Famous , a wonderful steakhouse downtown Colorado Springs. Gorgeous high backed booths, great service, and perfect steaks! We both opted for the smaller 10 oz filet (can you believe they have a 14 oz??) along with a side of asparagus. To help us celebrate, they brought out a nice little cake with our champagne. It was really a great dinner and evening. Grandma & Grandpa Petty sent us flowers all the way from Oklahoma, where we were married: And thanks to all our friends and neighbors who dropped by for our little Open House, not to mention the cards from Florida! Merrily baked a lemon cake, we had little smokies in Gates BBQ sauce, a veggie tray, cream cheese with jalapeno jelly, Columbia Sangria, and I made Dick & I my first Manhattan with the new Basil Hayden bourbon I got in Louisville. Teri and MaryElle who live behin...

I get home and I just quit blogging, don't I? Finally, after pacing ourselves so it wasn't a last minute rush, LA and I finished all our write-ups from the Louisville market, coming in around 65 surveys. The deadline is tomorrow, so we rushed when the winter's last blizzard let up to FedEx the box, but DIA is shut down completely, so who knows when those surveys will leave and arrive in Schaumburg. It is such a relief to have those surveys done! Now I can move on to more important matters, like figuring out all the IRS stuff for our S-Corp. Wrapping up on Louisville, our last weekend in town, despite cold weather, was a good one. LA found a neat little area off Bardstown and we stumbled upon Lynn's Paradise Cafe , a wonderful little gem on a rainy Sunday afternoon with bright colors, fun wait-staff, a full bar, and the best breakfast since Memphis. Several of the menu items had been featured on a Food Network show, including LA's stuffed French Toast, to...

“What is required is a commander in chief that's looked at like a commander in chief in a time of war”--Warren Buffett “We're in a big war, and we're going to use money to fight it,” he said. We are currently in an economic war and the Republicans who complain about and try to stop the stimulus are unpatriotic . Could you imagine at the time of the Iraq war, if all the Democrats--save 3--wouldn't vote to go to war (especially based on its monetary cost)? There would've been a nationwide uproar. The stimulus IS expensive, but don't forget that the Iraq war is nearing the $700 billion mark . Its easy to pot hole the stimulus when you've got a cushy job on Capitol Hill. Not so easy when a hard working husband and wife are being laid off in June. Spend some of that Obama-bashing energy and find us jobs and then I might listen to your point of view.

Wouldn't you know it, after months of waiting (we obtained the Golden Ticket while in KC), when we got home from our last outing, on our doorstep was waiting the Supakitch / Koralie Le Billet Cache Dunny! And it is all sorts of awesome. Its a great collaboration and the colors can't be beat! Its currently going for $300+ on ebay, but I just don't think we can part with it. We may sell EasyHey to make up for the cost difference, but anyway, here it is, next to the French Series Koralie:

Would you believe that 1.5 hours out of Louisville, I blew a tire? One flat on the way out here in LA's car, and one on the way back. The spare is full-size, but a different size than the other 3 by like 1". Doesn't seem to make a difference. The current tires had a few miles on them when we got them a year ago, so its probably time to get a new set. Yay. There is also the matter of a slight 'hitch' at about 55-60 mph. Really I think its tied to 2500 rpms. At low speeds, that's the shift limit, I can't notice it. And while in Park, I can hold it at 2500rpm and the engine runs fine, but at high speeds, something just seems to 'bump.' I'm hoping A) its not the transmission B) somehow the Memphis Honda warranty extends to Colorado. Otherwise, I think I'm just about done with the Honda, as sad as it is to say, and about to look into trading it in. I'm starting to rethink dropping a used engine into it, but buying a car cross-count...

Another reason why Louisville is better than Memphis: 7% sales tax versus Memphis' whopping 9.25%! No wonder why the whole city seems like its in squalor. An extra 2%? Are you serious? Rush Limbaugh is still a big fat idiot, still claiming he wants Obama to fail. Doesn't he realize if Obama's plan fails, then America fails? You can disagree all you want with the President. I didn't agree with many of the Bush admin's policies, but I never wanted him to fail as a president. The whole Iraq war has been a disaster, costing many lives and dollars, but I didn't want his plan for war to fail, putting us in this mess. You know you're in a rough neighborhood when above the Neighborhood Watch sign, someone has scrawled "F*** the Police" above it. Thankfully it was early morning and below freezing, keeping most of the residents indoors.

So far, Louisville is a pretty great little city. And when compared to Memphis, wow! We took a few days last week to catch up on write ups (we finally finished on Sunday) and do a little exploring. We found a great little designer toy store, Ultra Pop , over on Bardstown. They carry a great selection of Kaiju, lots of which I've seen on sites like Super 7, but never in person. The owner was very helpful in tracking down a hard-to-find piece, even it meant we bought online and not from his store. Not to say we didn't buy from him....we got 2 UK series Dunnys, including the Triclops clear head with the umbrella, the green Ox 3" vinyl Ugly Doll, and Mini Pegura . I was initially unsold on it, but after seeing that Japanese GID, I was sold. Its like a lightbulb! We saw The Wrestler over the weekend and both really liked it. It was so gritty and raw, it felt more like a documentary instead of a movie. Rourke deserved his Golden Globe for sure. The Watchmen comes out th...