Fondue, music, and a little bit of sausage dancing.

Greetings readers! It's a beautiful sunny day again here in Madison, WI. We have been here for three whole days now and are loving it. It has been a mixture of work and play for both of us; e-learning conference and Cisco interspersed with play time in the streets of Madison.

Wednesday was a beautiful day here in the land of cows and sunshine!  Having met up with Nancy and Ann, two other professors from the University of Cincinnati, we decided that a mini-road trip was in order. So we piled into the car and headed off to the Swiss style town of New Glarus.  Home to the oldest Swiss settlement in Wisconsin, and to our favourite brewery, it is somewhat of an annual pilgrimage. I had already done a 2 hour business development call with some people in Norway and California so was totally ready to get out of the hotel.  The open road beckoned so off we went.

Arriving at New Glarus we spent a very pleasant hour wandering the shops and generally having a lazy day.  We finally decided that it was time for lunch around 1pm  so headed to the local Swiss restaurant. There we indulged in Rueben sandwiches, Cheese fondue, and bratwursts.  There was mirth, merriment, and laughter all with a Swedish accent.  I should mention that there was no polka dancing or clogs in evidence despite rumours to the contrary.  The afternoon was spent at the New Glarus brewery home of our favourite beers before heading home for a much needed nap.  Oh afternoon naps I will miss you when this vacation is over!

Wednesday evening was an opportunity for more culture. Throughout the summer Madison has classical music concerts that take place on the green around the state capitol building. The music was obviously important, but the opportunity to sit on the grass with a bottle of wine and friends was perhaps more appealing.  So with plastic glasses in hand we settled in for an hour or two of Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Chardonnay, that well known oakey composer.  The music was good, the wine better, and as you can see from the picture above everybody had fun. The most fun though was had by a group of people sitting a short way away from us.  A squirrel ran down a tree and straight into the middle of a group of picnickers.  The squirrel proceeded to then run around, no doubt scared out of its fur, while all the picnickers screamed and ran around in circles.  After a while the squirrel ran back up the tree, it's job done, and all the people sat down sheepishly.

The whole evening then sped by with a visit to The Old Fashioned, a Madison institution and one of our favorite places to hang out (such a strange turn of phrase). Fueled by the cocktail of the same name, we indulged in walleye sandwiches, bratwursts in buns, and gourmet mac and cheese.  All six of us seemed very happy and James did declare later that he had felt a little silly at dinner, presumably code for being hammered. However everyone was well behaved, even though James did contemplate trotting out his Jimmy the Hula impression for the table. Alas, it was not to be, despite many requests.  Neither did he agree to perform "The Koschoreck", a special kind of polka danced while wearing lederhosen backwards and upside down and involving six pounds of bratwurst together with a large bag of cucumbers.  Ah the stuff of legend....

Thursday bought more work duties for us: James spent time in the conference discussing the finer points of e-learning retention while I chaired some meetings with people in the Cisco Hong Kong office.  Gripping stuff!  In the afternoon I headed out for a walk and a visit to the Madison Contemporary Art Museum, a terrific place that was showing an exhibition on technology and its impact through the ages. I spent a pleasant two hours there before returning to the hotel for a few more meetings and dinner in The Capitol Chophouse, a very splendid affair indeed. For those who like such details, dinner revolved around steak, scallops, crab cakes, and was accompanied by a Panther Creek pinot noir and a Frogs Leap Merlot.  All jolly nice indeed. It was good to spend time with a group of friends and marked a definite high point of the week so far!

Friday was a lazy day.  I had spent the morning recording some presentations for Cisco from our hotel room while James took to the floor in the conference to present his paper along with his colleague Jim.  I'd like to say that the afternoon was filled with our usual kind of craziness and mayhem, but it was actually spent wandering Madison, looking around the university, eating ice cream on the shores of the lake, and popping in and out of various shops.  It was all quite restful and very welcome.  Friday also ushered in my last day of working for Cisco as well. I have been very fortunate to be able to return to my old job, now as a contractor, in the summer and to work with my (mostly) fabulous colleagues there.  It went very well this year again, and I look forward to the possibility of doing it all again next year! Now it is time to try and return to being an artist once more.....

Friday brought a quieter evening at The Old Fashioned as two of our party had already departed. Still, we acquitted ourselves well and retired to the hotel room for a reasonably early night (11.30pm) as we all had early starts. Nancy and Ann were heading back to Cincinnati and James and I had a date with a car for the next part of the "Homos on the Road" extravaganza.

So there you have it, dear readers. I'll be posting tomorrow as we head onwards and upwards....literally.  We are heading to Minnesota!  Yes, I am wondering why as well.  But all will be revealed soon. Keep your eye on the blog!

Big love to all!

D&J

Hot Dogs, Curry, and the road to Madison

Hola blogpickers!

We are in the car and on the way north once more.  Having picked up the car in Naperville, we are now heading to Madison, Wisconsin.  We also just stopped off in Milwaukee to have coffee with Alina, one of my co-workers at Cisco. Not having seen her for over a year it was nice to have a face to face catchup that didn't involve a WebEx meeting!  We met at Alterra Coffee on the Lake where cakes, coffee, and caffeine ruled the moment!

But a few quick words about Monday. Monday saw us do a boat trip on Lake Michigan and around the Chicago waterways. It was a historical and architectural tour (more culture, Bones), followed by work. James had some university work to do, and I also had an hour or so of Cisco work to handle. So after our boat trip we retreated to the hotel room and typed, emailed, and organized.  Then it was time for lunch.  And what a lunch it was.

We went back to the Four Seasons for their Hot Dog special.  Yes, dear reader, you heard correctly.  But these are no ordinary hot dogs.  Hand chopped, smoked, and seasoned beef, handstuffed into Hot Dog casings, all served up on a steamed poppy seed bun, together with chilies, onion, tomatoes, and three hand made condiments. All washed down with a glass of local beer. You can see the picture in the mobile uploads section of my Facebook page. It was scrumplicious (or delumptious if you wish).

Next stop was the Art Institute of Chicago museum for some much needed art therapy.  I had never had the opportunity to visit before so was looking forward to the chance to see a museum that I had heard so much about. I was especially keen to see the Uta Barth exhibition of "blurry photos" on display.  As someone whose work I admire it was great to see the actual pieces  in the flesh. I still need to think more about the work but I found it invigorating to see.  There was also an exhibition by Meatyard, one of my professors favourite photographers. James and I spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering around the museum and viewing a remarkable collection of works.

Food is never far from our thoughts as you know, so we were shortly faced with the question of where to go to eat. A quick posting on Facebook revealed some awesome suggestions. We were particularly excited at the idea of Topolobambo or Frontier suggested by a number of you, but were dismayed to find that they were both closed on Mondays. The same also went for the suggestion of Girl and Goat.  Still after some cogitation and deliberation, James selected the Gaylord India restaurant for some curry.  So of we trotted and dined on Rogan Josh, Tandoori Chicken, and Chicken Tikka Masala.  Ah the smells and the tastes! It was very good and seemed an excellent end to our gastronomic odyssey in Chicago.  A big thank you to all who suggested locations to us.

And that brings us up to date. As mentioned, we are now in the car and on the way to Madison. We'll be attending a conference on e-learning for the next few days and I'll be putting my Cisco hat back on with a few meetings to hand over my projects to some folks in Hong Kong and Belgium.  Of course we will also be having fun as well!  We will be sharing the time with some other professors in the education field so I am sure there will be lots of stimulating conversation and wine.

So with that, dear reader, I will sign off once more.  Keep an eye on the blog as we will be back shortly! But in the mean while, keep your pecker up and big love to all!

D&J

Pizza, shopping, and vaginas.

Morning all!. Blogmeister David here again.  It is Tuesday morning and we are now safely on the train to Naperville to pick up our car and head onto the next portion of our trip.  We had a super 4 days in Chicago and as I am a little behind in the blogging I thought I would use the train ride to catch up.

After Saturdays gastronomic extravaganza, Sunday dawned to find a tired David and James peeking out from under the covers of the lovely bed in the Swissotel.  Coffee was definitely needed so after a shower we headed off to Buckies in search of breakfast and caffeine. Safely esconced in the corner of a Michigan Avenue Buckies armed with french press of Decaf Sumatra, bagels, and oatmeal, we plotted our assault on the world.  That assault involved shopping.  Are we not fearless and intrepid, dear readers? I'd like to say that we went shopping just for you so that we could blog about it, but I suspect that you wouldn't believe it. So I'll admit...it was all about us!  We spent a fabulous 2 hours wandering the shops, nipping in to Nordstrom, sidling into Saks, browsing in Brooks Brothers, and flitting in to the Four Seasons to buy baseball caps.  It was really tiring. In the words of Posh Spice...."Being this fabulous is really hard work"...thanks Victoria!  We think that relaxing with your hubby would be a work out too, but moving swiftly on....

It was, of course, getting close to lunch time.  We had reservations at the Walnut Room in the old Marshall Fields store on State Street.  James has always wanted to eat there and seeing that this vacation is all about James' nostalgia kick, we took the opportunity to do so.  The restaurant is very very lovely inside, in a kind of faded glamour Norma Desmond way (can you picture us there now?) The food was good, the view over the street lovely, the Sauvignon Blanc crisp and delightful, and the portrait light by the windows was perfect. I took some shots of James that I'll post later.  It was a lovely way to spend lunch and for James to remember all the times he went there in his youth.

While sitting there and looking out the window I noticed Nordstrom Rack across the street. Lunch came to a screeching halt and we gathered ourselves up and swept off to bargain hunt.  Nordstrom Rack is such a funny experience: high end clothes and bargain hunters. Still, all those years of shopping at El Cort Ingles in Spain paid off, so with elbows firmly pointed out we joined the throngs.  I secured a nice Burma Bibs blue check shirt (coz I need another blue check shirt to go with the other fourth three) and James found nothing.  Score for David!

By now it was about 4pm so a retreat to the hotel room for a nap was in order.  Dinner was not too far in the distance and we needed to make sure we had enough strength to make it though the evening after such an arduous day. 

And so the evening arrived.  This was to be a special evening, though one I was a little concerned about. Those of you who know James well will know that he is a creature of habit (as am I to an extent).  Nowhere does this manifest itself more than in eating pizza.  Being from Chicago James is convinced that they invented the stuff and will happily duke it out with anyone else on the planet over who has the best crust and sauce (yawn...).  Accordingly we have always only ever been allowed to eat Pizza at Giordano's on Rush Street when we go to Chicago, a place that meets His Lordship's strict criteria.  I, on the other hand, like the pizza at Giordano's but hate the place with a passion. I do, however, know how to put up and shut up (sometimes...) so have meekly acquiesced to eat there for the last ten years. Tonight, though, was to be different. James had decided (with no reason given) that he wanted to try a different pizza joint.  Fine by me!  So off we went to Lou Malnatis new pizza place on North State street.

To cut a pizza story short, we had a great time. They make great martinis and the pizza was fantastic. For those who wish to know James ordered the Lou Malnati's Chicago classic. He loved it and was so effusive about the experience to our waitress that she went and fetched the owner, Mark Malnati.  There then ensued a love fest between James and Mark over the pizza. When James explained that he would only ever eat pizza at Giordano's and I mentioned that I had been frog-marched there for 10 years, his response was "10 years? That's an awful lot of wasted time".  Classic.   I should also add that the venue is great too and they have much cuter staff.  These things are important.  Would you eat pizza that has been delivered by someone with face like a slapped ass?  No, dear reader, I agree. I know what my reasons for choosing a pizza are

After pizza it was definitely time for a glass of wine.  After prying James out of the pizza joint we headed to They Westin for a quick glass of wine.  It was on our way back, at 12.30am, that looking down I saw the object in the photograph.  I have no idea what it was all about.  But I thought that I would share it with you.  Thus ended a day of Pizza, Walnuts, Nordstroms, and vaginas.

"Homos on the road" is proving to be constantly amazing....and with regard to vaginas, educational too.

Big love to all,

D&J  

The Four Seasons

Greetings all,

Well it is now Monday morning and I thought I would take the time to update the blog from the weekend. James is doing a few hours of work in the hotel room and I have just finished an hour of work for Cisco as well. So now seems to be the perfect time to put my feet up, have a cup of coffee and to write to all of you!

I promised you an update on Saturday night, and so, dear readers, you shall have it.  I should point out that the reason for my addiction to the Four Seasons can be blamed entirely on my good friend Ilona with whom I spent a week at the Four Seasons Hualalai resort in Hawaii back in 2001. Since then it has become a place that I love to go to for drinks and cocktails when possible. The last time was in Las Vegas with Ilona during Cisco Live! However this time was to be for dinner, an experience I have been looking forward to for a very long time.

After the graduation party, we checked into the Swissotel and started to get ready. A quick shower and a change of clothes later, James and I were off and out the door on our way. The Four Seasons is down the opposite end of Michigan Avenue to the Swissotel so we took a leisurely stroll along the road, gazing as always at the fabulous shops on the way. Michigan Avenue really is one of my favorite streets in the whole world to walk. The shops are great, the tree lined foot paths are gorgeous, and the atmosphere always seems to be special.  Watching all of the other people on their way somewhere is also a delight. I like to try and guess where people are heading. The person in front of be at one point must have been going home for a bath as he smelt a little fragrant....

But enough of such frippery.  Before long we had arrived  at the entrance.  The Four Seasons in Chicago is a little unusual in that the entrance is at street level but the hotel lobby is actually on the 7th floor. So you are quickly whisked up in the elevators (I like to think of it as being raptured, as I am sure that Heaven is going to be run by The Four Seasons) and deposited in the lobby. The photo attached is of the large display of flowers. The bunches are all just perched at an angle in the vases so that the stems are barely underwater. The effect is very artistic and quite fascinating.  Flower arranging as art....something new to try at school maybe?

Quickly, as it was 9.30pm, we headed into the restaurant and were seated by the window. There were about 12 other people there for dinner, but no celebrities. Knowing that the Spice Girls have all stayed there on multiple occasions did make me excited, but there was nary a single platform boot or union jack dress to be seen. So I busied myself with the menu instead.  And oh what a treat it was. In the mobile uploads album on my Facebook page you will find a picture of James perusing his menu.  Martinis arrived (Tanquery), wine was ordered (Stags Leap Merlot, 2006, tasted and decanted at the table), and heapings of fresh bread rolls and cheese snaps were delivered, devoured, and digested.  The wait staff were divine, the atmosphere sophisticated and elegant, and James and I looked fabulous in our Dunhill and Brooks Brothers combination outfits. This, dear readers, is why we will never be able to retire.

And then the food arrived. Many of you have asked what  we had, so here goes.

James - 63 degree Farmers Egg & Petite Greens, Artichokes, Serrano Ham, Lucques Olives, Piparra Chilies, Aged Sherry Vinaigrette,and Green Goddess Dressing.

Wild sockeye salmon, suckling pig sausage, candy striped beets, Yukon gold potato gnocchi, watercress, and champagne and order caviar sauce.

David - Bison carpaccio, bay scallop ceviche, black garlic, Daikin tempura squash blossom, frozen violet mustard.

Dietzler Farm 35 day aged strip steak, porcini mushrooms, garlic scapes, roasted Vidalia onion pomme puree, Australian winter truffle, and a bourbon bordelaise.

All this was followed by a fabulous dessert tray of chocolate, foams, fruits, and creams.  Marvelous is all I can say....but of course I can, and will, say more!  Dinner dispensed, we were then delivered (I seem to be stuck on an alliteration streak) to the lounge, along with the rest of the wine to listen to jazz. The jazz was great, although it is my least favorite kind of music (I find the whole solo thing like watching musical masturbation - fun for the person doing it, but a little dull for everyone else) and the company of course was excellent.  All in all a super evening. It was everything I had hoped for and a fitting start to our trip! The only thing that would have made it better was if Ilona had been there with us as I felt a little guilty going there without her...

And that, dear reader, takes you back to the blog post of the gorgeous James fast asleep in bed at the hotel.  Sunday, the next day in our odyssey, will be documented tomorrow, as will Monday. Suffice to say we are having a super time!

So with that, I'll bid you adios! It is lunch time, and guess where we are going....yes, back to The Four Seasons, but for something a little different! They are participating in National Hot Dog month and they make their own hot dogs! I can't wait!

Big love to all!

D&J

And that's a wrap.....

Dinner at The Four Seasons is done.   I'll post more tomorrow about the evening but for now, all that is left to say is goodnight and God bless to you all.  James is already out for the count and it won't be long before I am too.  Sweet dreams to all....

Big love,

D&J

The graduation party.

Greetings all,

The party was a great success. Although we were only able to be there for a few hours it was great to see everyone there! The picture above shows a couple of James' aunts with him.  There are four aunts (although only two were here) and we don't get to see them nearly enough.  Three sisters and a brother in law were also in attendance so a good time was has by all

So now we are on the train to downtown Chicago having left the car at Kelly and Robs house for a few days.  Next stop is Union Station and then a short taxi ride to the Swissotel!

I'll be posting more later!

Big love to all!

D&J

"Homos on the road"...vacation time is here!

Greetings Blogpickers!

Yes, it is summer and that means vacation/holiday times.  Hooray for us!  Today, Saturday 30th July, is the first day of our vacation that we have titled "Homos on the Road". Yes folks, this year we are doing something a little different! After spending far to much money getting married in the UK last year we have decided to stay in the USA and roll around the country on a road trip.  It will be a little shorter than usual too as I have to attend a surely gripping and stupendous orientation session at the University a week and a half before school starts....but I digress.

So, dear reader, where are we and what are we doing? Well, in the traditional spirit of the road trip, we are eating chips, drinking fizzy drinks and farting in the car.  That's James...I, of course, am writing to all of you.  We are currently en route to Chicago for the first stretch of the journey. This afternoon we will be attending a graduation party for Nicole, James' niece, in Naperville.  After that we will be heading to downtown Chicago till Tuesday morning.

We'll be staying in the Swissotel this time, a new hotel for both of us.  I am still debating whether to wear pigtails and a Heidi dress, but I did remember to bring clogs for James.  I shall of course being yelling out "Grandpa" in the lobby as well whenever I get the opportunity.  I am hoping for lots of chocolate and cowbells as well.  Failing that I'll settle for some mid range sophistication and a couple of martinis.  Forgive the zany humor....i think it is because we are listening to a European Lounge album, courtesy of Zune pass in the car....it is slowly frying my brain with all the bontempi keyboards and jazz drums.

As for this evening what else is there to do while in Chicago than to eat and drink! I am terribly excited because we have dinner reservations at my most favorite hotel chain ever, The Four Seasons. We'll be in the "Seasons" restaurant and I just can't wait.  Here's to hoping that they accidentally give us a bottle of Krug to drink instead of Evian.  But if they don't I'll settle for Cristal instead.  :-)

Then we'll be just rolling around Chicago for a few more days. Shopping, Snogging (hopefully), and Sunshine.  Of course I will endeavour to capture the trip (except the snogging) and share it all with you here.  We don't have too many firm plans, but I gather there is a rather plain and dowdy art museum somewhere that we may go to if we can't find anything better to do.  Suggestions are always welcome....

On Tuesday we head to Madison, Wisconsin for a few days. We'll be at an e-learning conference and Cisco have also persuaded me to work a few extra hours this week too.  So it will be a mix of work and play for both of us.  For those of you who have never visited, Madison is a super place. The people are nice, the cows are pretty, the food and beer is awesome, and the lake is just dolly (to use a Louise-ism from a few years ago).

We'll be leaving Madison on Saturday for Minnesota.  I'll leave you all guessing as to what we will be doing there, but be assured, dear readers, that you, if you wish, can happily travel alongside us on our road trip through the wonders of this blog.  All I will tell you is that it involves the outdoors and rubbing two sticks together...make of that what you will.

So adios to all and I'll post more a little later!

Big love,

D&J