Tim and Steve's (not so) Excellent Adventure

After a wonderful trip to Mix08 in Vegas (update coming soon), Mr. Harman and myself were to have flown to home last night. However, the White Death didn't allow that, but thankfully Jeff had room for us. So, an extra night in Vegas, and rebooked plane rides for the next morning which would at least get us to Chicago. We left Chicago, with the lovely Mrs. Wingfield providing updates from home, hoping that we had a flight waiting for us at Midway that would take us home.

We got to Midway, I fired up my phone, text message from Wendy: "Your flight has been cancelled." So, a quick call to her with confirmation numbers and a hope that she could get through before we got off the plane. She did, but we had to go to the counter anyway. There our options were presented as: Stay in Chicago until Monday, or go somewhere else and try and get home. As much fun as two nights in Chicago sounded after four days in Vegas, we were ready to come home...so off to Indy!

Once in Indy, we got a rental car (a Grand Prix for you scoring at home) and have made it to a Holiday Inn about 30 miles east of Indianapolis. The hope is tomorrow the snow is cleared off I-70 and we can get back to Columbus.

If not, we have our very own version of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles..."THOSE AREN'T TWO PILLOWS!!!"

UPDATE: Tim and Steve's excellent adventure came to an end yesterday (Sunday the 10th) around noon. We made the drive in from Indy pretty easily. There were a number of cars in the ditch, mostly four wheel drives. Theory was the driver thought he/she was invincible and learned four wheel drive does not mean four wheel stop. The hairiest part of the journey was navigating German Village streets.

Off to meeeeeshigan...

I'm in Plymouth, MI at the moment watching Men in Black and listening to the Sabres and Rangers (currently tied at 1 in the first OT). Originally I was to come up tonight with three of my co-workers to go to Day of .Net in Ann Arbor tomorrow. However, my company has been doing some consulting with the MAIS department at the University of Michigan, so I came up to bill U of M for 8 hours of consulting today prior to the code camp tomorrow.

As a drop-out of THE Ohio State University, the irony of consulting at the University of Michigan is not lost on me. I got a chuckle out of it...especially when adding in my cohort from Quick is a Purdue grad, and one of the lead developers on the dev team graduated from Michigan State. I mean, come on Michigan, produce some IT talent already...

Now comes the part that will make Buckeye Fan shudder...I love Ann Arbor. This is one of the coolest little towns I've been to in a long time. It's basically the U of M surrounded by a few houses, restaurants, and banks, but it's a great little town.

Highlights of the visit will revolve around the food and beer consumed. For food, we'll start at the top. On the direction of Billy - U of M alum - I headed straight to Blimpy Burger for the best burger in Ann Arbor. That wasn't a stretch, it was a great burger. Kind of like the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld, you order in a very structured manner (number of patties, bun type, any grilled add-ons, and lastly cheese), but the cook coaches you through it. Don't mumble, though, he'll throw something at you. Actually Brian mentioned the Soup Nazi thing, and the cook shot back with, "No, more like a burger Pinochet. Come to Blimpy, get a burger and a dictator." The cook was also sporting a mohawk, and making it work...not something everybody can do. But, I digress...the burger, which was more grease than meat, was outstanding. The steak fries that were included, also solid. All in all, it made for a great stomach ache for the afternoon.

[Hockey Update: Sabres just put away the Rags for the evening...Slugs now up 3-2 in the series.]

Beyond the burgers, we took in two brew pubs, the Grizzly Peak Brewing Company and the Arbor Brewing Company. They're located about two blocks apart on opposite sides of Main St. The folks at Grizzly get the nod in the food department, the brewers at Arbor do a better job with the beer. Grizzly has a great pulled pork appetizer and I followed it up with a great steak. The steak had some kind of red pepper glaze that was great. The beer at the Arbor Brewing Co...mmmmm, Mai Bock. End of story.

Tomorrow is all day code camp...hotel breakfast, Dominos pizza for lunch, and hopefully something slightly better than those two combined for dinner...