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Sir Edmund Haley's Pub

Sir Edmund Haley's Pub is located in the Park Road Shopping center. It is pretty well hidden behind the crook in the middle. The pub had a pretty good write up in South Park Living Magazine so I thought we would give it a try.

On first inspection it looked pretty good. The menu wasn't the largest, but it did have a pretty unique selection for pub fare. It is not often that you see ostrich on the menu at a pub. I had a rueben sandwich with french fries. Marlene had fish and chips. The sandwich was Ok. It was what a rueben was supposed to be, just like every other rueben in Charlotte-nothing special. Marlene wasn't too impressed with the fish in the fish and chips. Let's face it, you need to be able to do good fish and chips at a British pub. I will say that the fries are probably the best I have had for quite some time.

The thing that got me the most was the service. I should actually say lack of service. It ranks as the worst service I have seen in a restaurant since Dakota's last year. It took almost 25 minutes just to get a drink order into the waiter.

I was really looking forward to a good experience after the review. I have to say that I couldn't recommend anything here. There are just too many other good pubs in Charlotte that serve same stuff with better service.

48 Oz Steak

I had a business-training seminar in Miami, FL in March of 1995. The company decided to put us up at Don Shula's Hotel and Golf resort. On these trips they used to put together nice book which told you all the details of the trip and made suggestions of things to do on your off time.

One of the Items on the list was eating at Don Shula's Steak House. At the time, it was one of the top 10 steak houses in the US. This is a typical big steak type house like Ruth Kriss or Mortons. Everything is a la carte. This means your steak comes by itself with nothing else. One of the features they had was a 48 OZ Porterhouse steak. A person eating it got their name on a plaque on the wall of the restaurant. Well I ate one. I tell this story every few years when the subject of big steaks comes out. Sometimes I don't think people believe me when I tell the story.

Well now I have proof. In the wonders of today's technical age a search for Sean Rivinus will eventually take you a to a link at Don Shula's webpage where they have recorded all the names of the people who have succeeded in eating that monstrous steak.

It's nice to be vindicated to all of those doubters.

Spring?

Well we're just shy of Easter and the signs of spring are finally starting to make their appearances. We had some early blooms in February, but then it got cold and the poor pansies planted by enterprising landscapers froze.
The trees are blooming, the daffodils are coming up in bunches and those we know with allergies are starting to suffer.

Sean and I spent the weekend starting the prep for the market-season. We wanted to get a few new photos into the inventory. It's kind of fun trying to find everyday objects to take photos of to show them in a different perspective. I made up some bubbles for my rubber duckie for some new kid-friendly greeting cards. We set a piece of plexiglass over a cardboard box and lit it from the underside to get some translucent photos of orange slices (didn't turn out to well) and of an old-fashioned lollipop (turned out rather niftily).

We plan to be out at the Charlotte Farmer's Market the first Saturday in April -- April 2nd.
Sean has also re-tooled the photography site and I think it's fantastic. It's fully e-commerce enabled and we are more than happy to ship to both the US and Canada (I know some of you might be concerned about that ... :-) )
The newer pics will be up soon.

We are planning to be up in Winston-Salem celebrating Easter with Sean's aunts, cousins and Grandmother, so I promise to get our personal gallery updated with some photos from that expedition as well.

Art in the Park

I received my acceptance letter today for the 43rd Annual Art in the Park in Blowing Rock, NC. This is a juried art show with about 120 artists. Marlene and I checked it out last year while celebrating our anniversary. Unlike some of the other shows in the area, Art in the Park is only for artists. There are 120 artists in every kind of media you can imagine. When we went last year there were 5 photographers. They had beautiful work to show and I will have some good competition for sales. However, I did notice that their work is much different than mine. I am more into close-up pictures of things I like vs. all landscapes. It should make for an interesting year.

Happy Birthday Papi!!

It's my Dad's 75th birthday today. He is presently recuperating at GF Strong hospital from his recent hip-replacement surgery. He's being kept busy by Theresa his "physioterrorist". We're not sure he will make it home this weekend, since he needs to be able to navigate the stairs into the house, but we are hoping he will make it home soon.

This picture of my parents was taken at Christmas.

Oil Jar

Tonight we had hamburgers and french fries. After dinner I ran out to Coscto to pick up the test bed prints. This is what I saw on the counter when I got back home. At first I thought it might be for some weird HPT (Home Pregancy test). I mean it does look like pee in a jar and, well you know, we do plan on having children at some point. Of course it isn't pee in a jar. It is the leftover oil from the fries. Oh well better luck next time