Welcome Back

Thanks its great to be here! 

I am sorry its been awhile since my last post. I've been busy. Get off my back already. 

But I'm here now so that is what matters, and boy do I have one awesome post for you today! So the last week or so I have been busy trying to do nothing. The reason for my attempt at laziness is due to an intensive religion class that I just finished last Friday. (well I technically didn't hand in the final paper until Monday... so let's say the class was over Monday as well.) The class was short (only three weeks) but it met every weekday 8:30-12 and we covered all of the letters of Paul in the bible. Lots of information in a little time tends to fry the brain a bit and that's how I felt by the end.  So! now that class is over all I wanted to do was to sleep in, laze about, and enjoy the summer the way it should be.  To some extent I suppose I have slept in (later then 7:30 am everyday at least) and I have done some summery things, but its been busy as well. 

One reason for that is attributed to a summer ceramics tutorial I am currently taking. I have a quota of thrown ceramic pots that I need to produce by the end of this week and (as a result of a busy last week in religion class) I am a bit behind in meeting my desired amount. So the last few days I have been trying my best to be in the studio making work and tomorrow, after a morning latte at madcap, I plan on getting an early start and working through the day to try to make the amount I need to have. Oh yeah! the reason I am trying to finish my work by tomorrow is because tomorrow night Alex and I will be driving to Ohio to visit the Alex's sister, brother-in-law, and two beautiful nieces. They recently moved to Ohio about a month ago so this will be the first time we visit them in their new home. 

Anyway, the last post I put on here had little to do about the going ons of my day-to-days and more about some conceptual, thought-provoking information. That being said it is the only post that did not receive any comments.  Well,  I want to make my readers happy so here are some insights into my last few days. The people want what the people want I guess. This is for you. 

So I've been walking around the blocks near my apartment to explore the neighborhood and boy have I found some gems. Literal gems, just laying on the sidewalk. Like rubies and crap! 

This last Saturday I was on such a walk and I decided to go down an alley that I have seen people in before. What would you know but in the middle of this alley there was a bar that I have heard a lot about. Stella's lounge is the name, and it is a whiskey bar (200 types of whisk(e)y) that also serves all sorts of good vegan dishes. 

So I continued walking (I planned on getting a coffee so I headed downtown) and I began to hear music. Naturally when you are somewhere and you hear music in the air, you should always follow the sound and see where it takes you. And that what I did. Well the music was this outdoors, bike, founders, fest sort of thing. I was not able to figure out the name exactly but there was lots of beer and nice bikes and people riding bikes and what not. here are some pictures. 

As I started leaving the area where everything was going on, I hear someone call out my name. I turned around and my friend Kristen was there! She was working at the GRAM (grand rapids art museum) and had just got off work. We talked and I told her how I discovered Stella's, so we decided to head back that way I eat some lunch. We shared a vegan Philly cheese 'steak' and some vegan beer-battered onion rings to eat and we both ordered Edmund Fitzgerald by Great lakes brewing to drink. I highly recommend the Edmund although usually I am not a huge fan of Great lakes brewing. Both the food and drinks were awesome. I will definitely go back to Stella's especially since it is only like 200 hundred feet from my front door. That night Alex and I made fish cakes for dinner at my apartment because her apartment was too hot. Fish cakes were awesome as well. 

Then I guess some days went by, and then I went on a picnic. Alex, Emily and I planned a picnic in the park. We ate our famous veggie-black bean burgers courtesy of Alex, fresh salad picked that day from the garden by Emily, along with home-made dressing, nuts, and Emily's home-made pickles. I made shortbread cookies for dessert. They were and still are very good (almost a pound of butter). I just ate one in fact. 

My soundtrack lately has been two albums I recently found. Serge Gainsbourg, who was a french singer popular in the 70's. I downloaded Histoire de Melody Nelson. Check it out, its really good. It is only seven songs and some of them are short but it is basically a story about Gainsbourg hitting a 15 year old Melody with his rolls Royce and then seducing her. 

The second album I got is by the dream-pop group, Beach house. The album is called Teen Dream and I highly recommend it. Apparently it is one of the top albums from last year.   

So that's basically it, and its 12:37 so I'm going to take that as a sign and say goodnight.