Hittin' the books!

I worked from SF last monday, and decided I would finally get off my butt and hit the SF City Library. The place is huge, and the architecture is beautiful. I decided to be bold and ride my bike there. Unfortunately, the hills are unavoidable, and I found myself in low gear for what felt like most of the trek. My biggest surprise, was once I got there. I had no idea I would be seeing security guards everywhere. A slight change from Troy's public library... There were college students studying, a fair share of old creepy dudes, and little kids running around the children's wing.

The Pork Store

No, it's not a porno restaurant... but rather, the home of the best breakfast I've had yet in san francisco! who knew I could find good biscuits and gravy in such a health conscious city? Pork store offers it up well, and it's just a couple blocks away from my apartment. Here's a view of the outside of two guys discussing some books they're reading. The plae is usually it's pretty busy, and people often bring dogs. (The Mission has less lap dogs than the Marina district, but maybe just as many dogs!)

Safeway Fiasco

Here I am screwing around at Safeway, just in case there's extra insurance money to be gotten from defective shopping carts. Anyway, I tried to make it look like an accident and thought it would be hillarious. Anyhow, in the 2 days Bethany had to park her car in SF, she got pretty lucky (relatively)... no one used it's open trunk as a restroom or worse. It could always be worse. Let;s just hope she gets the car back in one piece from the shop. My car just recently came back with no fuse panel cover. nice.

Bethany's trunk doesn't close anymore!

Here's the damage.. her poor car had 13,000 miles on it. She was parking to drop me off at my apartment on a saturday night on my street, and a guy drilled us from behind with his Ford Ranger. She should be getting back her car soon though! Let's hope it drives straight and the trunk closes.

Dan is still the man..

After rolling for 7 seasons with Park and I, Dan bowls a 300 game! I guess Park is still on his team, so that much hasn't changed. Anyhow, I swear... I leave detroit for 5 minutes and it's nothing but 300 games and the Tigers going to the world series... Jeesh! Here he is with a watch that proclaims the 300 game in style. We drank beers at Dan's apartment until about 6am playing PS3 that night.. it was great to catch up and felt like college all over again.. ;) My flight left at 9am, and saying goodbye sucked... At least I was ready to sleep on the plane.

the lineup

Outside the bar, we made like a lineup... from left we gots... Davin, Josh, Chrissy, Jake, Abbie, Brian, Me, and Aaron ... Katie's taking the picture.... again, no sign for the place, so I still don't remember what it was called. doh!

Still at the bar of unknown name... was it the Royal?

Josh... pushing the domestic brew as usual. It's true what they say... a "real" bar closes on new year's eve at 5:30pm. I dug this place.

The Royal

Katie (sitting left), Ociepka (looking cool), Chad and Chrissy (looking away), and Jake (looking right at us) all hanging out at a bar on 14 and rochester in madison heights. 2 miles from where I grew up, and I've never even heard of this place. It was nice to catch up with the gang, I just wish I remembered the name of this place!

Olivia is cute

My niece may be the happiest baby I've ever seen. I can only assume it's because she knows how good looking she is. (it runs in the family) Here we are at the Royal Oak Brew Pub, and she's already showing off that smile!

White Christmas at the Fox

Mom and Dad at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. Mom got our whole family tickets to see White Christmas together. The show was great and it was a nice way to spend time together as a family. I had seen "Chicago" there once before, but I never noticed how beautiful the place was.. though it may have been specially decorated for christmas this time.

The same but different

This time visiting home felt a bit different... I'm not in grad school anymore, and settling on a life out in California... people back home seem like they are still the same, yet things have changed so incredibly since Mike and I drove across the country. Anyway, it's good to know some things don't change... After the bar, we headed over to National Coney Island for some good ol' detroit chili fries... Here's chris piling on the ketchup on some unsuspecting onion rings... He may have used the entire pepper jar for his plate. Just like the old times.. although, they were out of fries and out of coke! a first at national. The place was full of drunks as usual on a holiday weeknight @ 2am.

Chillin' at the WAB

Hanging out with the gang back at the Woodward Avenue Brewery... It was great to catch up, and I actually met a girl named Dolly who lives just a few blocks from me in the Mission District in San Francisco... apparently a lot of us SF transplants are from the midwest originally. All in all, it was a chill time visiting everyone.... until Chris brought in a round of Irish Car Bombs just as I was about to leave... good times!

Christmas in Michigan!

I decided to head home for Christmas and got to see a few friends and spend some quality time with the family. Here's my friend Matt at Great Lakes Crossing Mall with a million $8 pleather jackets for Naval Academy Athletics. Matt is a Naval Academy grad so I had to take a picture with all the untouched jackets... at first glance we thought they might be UCLA colors... anyhow, we had a good time catching up over break.