Birthday Celebrations 1 Year and a World Apart!

Last night we helped celebrate the birthday of my good friend, and ex-boss, Joia. It was a fun evening at a little trendy restaurant in northern Kentucky. The food and wine were both good, and the conversation hilarious at times!



It was an interesting group of folks who had all overlapped at one time or another during travels and the connection with our mutual friend!



This was 1 year ago in Beijing!



And here we are in the US today! Me being 40lbs lighter and a bit raccoon looking from riding the bike with proper safety eye wear, and Joia not looking a day older!



Ta shi wo de yong yuan de peng yo!

Spring is Here!

This weekend was definitely spring like, with 80F temperatures on Friday afternoon, then rain on Friday night and Saturday morning, and finishing with a low last night of 45F.
It was a great weekend for brewing beer and motorcycle riding (sorry no photos today)and we took full advantage of this and did both!
Now this week it's supposed to be sunny and get progressively hotter each day. Yep a sure sign that spring has sprung and summer is on it's way!

Small Town Life

Every now and again Lightnin and I get asked: "Why do you guys live so far out of the city and drive so far to work each day?"

Well there are several answers:
1) Most days we drive across traffic instead of getting caught in it, because the main work week traffic heads north and south, not east and west.
2) Everything we need is located about 10 minutes from home.
3) The airport is about 20 minutes away.
4) It's usually quiet out our way.
5) Well because you just don't see this type of stuff if you live too close to the city! ;-)




You just gotta love small town life!

Mother's Day, Motorcycles, and uuumm Lobster?

Yesterday of course was Mother's Day and since our sons all live away from home, and we live too far from home to just pop over, I decided to cook up something special for Lightnin(I bet you think it's lobster, but that's later).

I whipped up two of her favorite dishes from over in Beijing. XinJian style orange beef, and SiChuan style green beans. They came out fantastic, even if I say so myself! ;-)

After lunch we decided to get the bike out a run around on it for awhile. the weather was beautiful and we had a good ride.

At one of the stops that we made we ran into three young men who were having entirely too much fun celebrating one of their birthday's. Now to go on any further I have to explain that this restaurant has the little arcade crane game that is usually filled with stuffed animals, but this tank is filled with live lobsters. Well as luck would have it one of these three friends won the game, and this is the result of too much fun celebrating a birthday with your friends, and a lobster!

WARNING: If you're squeamish don't go any further!




And to think this is some lucky mother's son! ;-)


I hope all you mother's out there had a Happy Mother's Day!

The Blessing of the Bikes

Yesterday started out a bit iffy, looking like it was going to rain once again, but it cleared up and became a perfect day for the bike blessing event!
There were hundreds, if not thousands of bikes there and I tried to capture a few shots to give you a feel for what we experienced.

Our baby parked with some good company

Just some random bikes to give an idea of the size of the event



Friends and more friends


It was an all day event, starting at about 9AM with a semi-organized ride (scramble format), which we decided to pass on because I just didn't feel comfortable riding in a group of several hundred riders that I didn't know. There was a live band and also food, and drink available for purchase. At 3:00PM we were given the instructions of how we were to line up and ride through the long procession to have the rider(s) and the bike(s) blessed by a Catholic priest. It all went pretty smooth and much quicker than I expected, a big thumbs up to the quality of the organizers of the event.

Afterwards a few of us went out for a ride and to grab a bite to eat before putting the bike away until the next clear day comes along.

Now That's A Wrench!

I was working at another site yesterday and couldn't resist posing with this thing.

It's actually a 3-1/8" wrench and I'm guessing it would take at least 3 people to actually use it!