31 December 2008

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

It was a great holiday season! Wifey and I were able to spend a lot of quality time together and were able to visit each side of the family for Christmas. There was a lot of snow! Then it rained a lot and froze, leaving a big ice rink in our main driveway - but that made it more fun to back out and swing our car around like in the movies. ;)

Tonight we'll be spending time with friends while ringing in the New Year. Let's hear it for 2009! =)

20 December 2008

Swarm of Meat

Earlier this month my wife and I celebrated our third anniversary. We decided to go out for dinner at someplace new for a change (usually that's reserved for Valentine's Day) and ended up going to Fogo de Chao. It's a Brazilian steakhouse and is the place to go if you're a carnivore.

We had reservations for 6pm on a weeknight and the restaurant wasn't busy at all. This usually would be a good thing, but when there are a dozen or so anxious servers it's a little overwhelming. If you're not familiar with this restaurant, upon your signal they bring meat to your table - a pretty neat concept. However, we were literally swarmed with meat within a 2-minute time span. Yikes!!! Once more people arrived a little later, things got a lot more manageable and we would have one person stop by every so often.

It was a great experience overall with superb customer service. I'd recommend it to anyone that likes a variety of meats - there are 15 of them, after all - and they have a great salad bar as well. You won't leave hungry!

05 December 2008

Unbelievable

I paid only $1.54/gallon for gas last week. Unbelievable, considering that earlier this year I unloaded my Jeep Liberty in favor of a Jetta 2.0T just before fuel spiked up to $4+. Who would have thought that this was possible? Too bad it's not something to really celebrate considering the global economy and all. I checked GasBuddy and it ranges from $1.58 to $1.64 today in my neighborhood.

Back in August 2005 when I bought the Jeep it was at around $1.82 (we had months worth of constant reminders as a gas station in Brooklyn Park had closed with that amount still on the sign). Two weeks afterward, it leaped to $2.39. When I was a teen I could fill up my 20 gallon tank for less than $16 (when it was $.84/gal). Will we see that again? Who knows...but I doubt it. Of course, I never expected to see these kind of prices again either!