Great Lakes Cider & Perry Tasting

That's right, cider and perry tasting. But you might be asking, "Ed, what's a perry?" Let me explain, it's like hard cider (made from apples) except it's made from pears. So solves that mystery.

Saturday, Jason and myself volunteered at the tasting which was located at Uncle John's Cider Mill just north of St. Johns Michigan. It was a fun day, we helped pour ciders and perrys at different tables and we were encouraged to taste what we were serving. Well, we did not want to go against what we were instructed to do...so we sampled...a lot.

We didn't get belligerent or anything like that, but we did get a nice little shine going. The night ended with a feast provided by Uncle Johns and we were able to bring some bottles home with us. All-in-all, a great way to spend a Saturday.

Sunday night I held and little dinner get together and we ate some pasta and had some ciders and perrys. A nice way to end the weekend. Until next post...

Labor Day Weekend

What a weekend. It was awesome. To start off the weekend, I went down to the International Detroit Jazz Festival on Saturday. It was so much fun. Saw some great groups,
- Bonerama (one of my favorites)
- The Latin Jazz Allstars
- Sonny Fortune Quartet
- Robin Eubanks & EB3 (crazy awesome)
- Christian McBride Band
- Godfathers of Groove
Good times were had by all. I also tried catfish for the first time... not bad. Also, on our way back from Detroit, we stopped by a gas station in Holly (exit 101 off of I-75) which was amazing. The nicest gas station mart I have ever been to. It has one of the best beer, wine and liquor sections that could rival any party store. They also had gourmet food. It was crazy.

In movie news, I went to see Step Brothers Sunday night. I feel that this could be in my top 3 favorite Will Ferrel movies of all time. Pretty much laughed the entire movie.

In other news, did the ol' bar-be-que thing yesterday, along with millions of other americans. It was good, had a brat, some potato salad, a sunset wheat w/fresh orange slice...you know, all pretty standard issue labor day essentials.

I should be getting my GRE book from amazon today. I've got about 3 weeks to study for that little gem. Not really looking forward to it, but maybe i'll learn some new words. That's about it for now. Hope everyone reading this had a good weekend also. Cheers.

Big Weekend

So here we are again. The weekend before another year of school. I'm pretty excited. Sunday is mainstage and for those of you who don't know what that is, it is free food and a free concert that CMU puts on. This year, Eve 6 will be performing...awesome. You'll probably see me there with video camera in hand.

In other news, I have began my search for a PhD school. I have a list of about 5-6 schools that I think I will apply to. The ones I am looking at are:

1. New York University
2. University of Chicago
3. University of Michigan
4. Yale
5. Wayne State University (maybe)
   
6. Northwestern University

But before I can think of that I need to take the GRE (not too excited about that).

In other other news, I picked up my text books for class and I have 8 books for 3 classes. Luckily they were fairly inexpensive. Yesterday I met with the new grad students coming in and they seem like a cool bunch of kids. There are a good handful that are from around the U.S. including UCLA and one kid who went to school in Texas. Other than that, not much else is going on. I'm going to hit that dusty trail, check back for new posts.

Numero Uno

I hope I spelled the title right. That's right. This is my first blog. I don't have much to say other than hello to all my fellow bloggers and non-bloggers (i think that covers everybody).

Today kicked off meetings week. We had a riveting, three hour long department meeting this morning. The payoff was a lunch paid for by Dr. O. (thanks Dr.O).

I am in the process of finishing my prospectus and it should hopefully be accepted within the next couple of weeks. I think the title I am going to run with is "The Journey of Michael Corleone: An Analysis of The Godfather. Pretty awesome title, I know. What I am doing is analyzing The Godfather Trilogy using the structure of the monomyth developed by Joseph Campbell.

In other news, Batman in IMAX is pretty much the coolest thing I have ever seen. If you've never been I would highly recommend it.

Well, I think its time to hit the dusty trail. Keep checking back for new posts.