Soup Sunday 2010: This Sunday!

Soup Sunday is this Sunday, should be great! For more information:
http://support.youthvillages.org/site/PageNavigator/SoupSunday

Time Flies Catchup 2

After a busy four days, I decided to take a break to stay in and watch the Olympics and other reality TV Wednesday and Thursday nights. I had hoped to make it poker at Calhouns, but it has become quite popular, so all the spots had been filled. But… it gave me the opportunity to rest up for my awesome Friday night.

My apartment building does events for residents from time to time and recently has really stepped in up to plan some great fun things. The first was a wine tasting Friday night! With NINE wines, cheese & crackers, mini sandwiches, and some hot hors d’oeuvres, it was a perfect way to mingle with neighbors and start a weekend.

After meeting some new friends and catching up with old neighbors (and feeling a bit tipst from the tasting), I headed to the Primetime bowling alley… with my pink bowling ball!! It was surprisingly not full, so that gave us the opportunity to get two lanes next to each other. What a night! 8 people, $4 per game, $5 beer pitchers…. For a three hour evening of bowling with constant beer pours – we ended up paying about $30 a person. Not bad considering we bowled four games and went through about 14 pitchers of beer!! Well, I will also say some of us spent a bit more with our bets on the games. It started with $1 per game, but quickly evolved into side bets on full games, singles frames, and even one ball tries.

Pictures: Everyone is gearing up to bowl, Betting pool, feeling happy after an evening of bowling!

Saturday night was a birthday celebration for Stephanie at the Flying Saucer. I helped by sneaking the cake in! After a low start to the night, the bar got crowded and the beer was freely flowing by the time the basketball game was over and the Forum crowd made their way out. I think the birthday girl had a great time!

Time Flies Catchup 1

Wow! How time flies when there is SO much going on. If you follow Downtown Memphis on Facebook and Twitter, I am sure you have seen all the places we go and what we have been up to. But going to all these things keeps us so busy! I apologize for not having the time to actually blog about it. I will do my best to catch up now and stay more up-to-date in the future :-)

I guess when I left you last, I had just seen Jersey Boys. The next weekend I decided to stay home Friday night to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies. I must say I have a bit of an obsession with the Games. My DVR is hating me right now with 4 hour blocks being recorded every night. However that Saturday ended up being a BIG night. We started off at the Flying Saucer celebrating our trivia team wins. With over $400 to spend, it certainly got a little crazy. Once the tab was spent (we must have been drinking FAST), a bunch of us headed to Calhoun’s for their annual Mardi Gras party. Not only did they have a bunch of beads and such to hand out, there was also the gumbo contest! Four local downtownians had each made a huge pot, and for $5 you got to taste all of them and vote on your favorites! Delicious night! No pictures from Saturday? Oops, I plead the fifth J

Sunday I spent the day grocery shopping and cooking. I decided to host a dinner party at my apartment for many of us without dates on Valentine’s Day. And what a dinner party it was. I may live in an 11^th floor apartment, but there is still plenty of room for an 8 person dinner table! After two kinds of hors d’oeuvres dips, a homemade red bell pepper soup, baked catfish with spinach and mushrooms, cauliflower mash, sautéed green beans, a savory sweet potato dessert cakes, panna cotta with blueberries, several bottles of wine, and half bottle of rum, everyone was full and feeling good. We continued the evening watching Sunday night TV shows and the Olympics.

Monday and Tuesday were trivia nights – first at Local Gastropub, then at the Flying Saucer. With only two on our team Monday, we placed (a close) fourth but still had fun. Also, as much as some of their food is a bit underwhelming, I will say they make amazing French fries! I forgot how we placed Tuesday, but I think that may have been the week we finished out of the money. With a big party just past, I figure its ok to take one week off from dominance and give someone else a chance! LOL! At least we had some King Cake, it being Mardi Gras and all. A big thanks to my mom for bringing back a real one from New Orleans!

More residential offerings as abandoned warehouses are demolished (or renovated)

They are finally demolishing the old, abandoned Merchants Warehouse Company building (South Front and Georgia Ave) and appear to be going back to plans I saw in 2006/2007 where some new and exciting things were planned for the South End of Downtown Memphis. This of course was before the economy took a nose dive.

Original plans were partially completed with new residences such as City House and State Place having completed construction. Both filled up fast with City House being sold out in late 2008/early 2009 and I believe State Place still has some condos available.

Merchants Warehouse Company


Other exciting things I'm seeing are this vacant lot next to the train station, and just south of the large, public parking lot, which is also the site of the Memphis Farmers Market. They've been bringing in large amounts of sand and dirt to shore up the land, which has been pretty muddy and swampy, along with a lot of construction machinery leveling out the land, etc. Also they've added concrete curbs and one or two driveways (or the beginnings of driveways anyway). Rumor has it that it will become a nice park for all the South End residents to enjoy. I really hope so! A park like that will be a great touch to an already growing area!

New Park? I really hope so!

YOU can help make Downtown Memphis better

Even though I've not experienced much panhandling of late and definitely haven't had any aggressive ones, I wanted to let you know about a move to help stop all panhandlers.

Help support legislation to stop aggressive panhandling and disorderly street behavior.

Get the information, sign the petition, etc. here:
http://www.downtownmemphis.com/legislation.asp

Valentine's Day 2010

After a night of partying with friends at Calhoun's for their 2nd Annual Mardi Gras Party, I woke up early and prepped for a wonderful day with the wife on Valentine's Day. We started the day by handing off the baby to the grandmother and jumping on a trolley. We did see a dead squirrel at the trolley stop at No. 10 Main, but that only woke us up for the day ahead (scary site though, was like he jumped 16 stories to his death... yikes).

We had a great brunch at Grill 83 and afterwards, walked to The Orpheum where we had tickets to see the final matinee of "Jersey Boys". Great show, great day, even made it home in time to watch the final 52 laps of the Daytona 500. I call that a win all around!

Jersey Boys

After waiting for weeks, I finally went to the Orpheum last night to see Jersey Boys. Part Four Seasons concert, part story-line play, part flashback video – it all combines for one great show!! Telling the story of how the Four Seasons came together and evolved, the musical is a linking together of all their songs – with inspirations, meanings, double entendres… The acting is excellent, the staging is simple and effective, and the singing is outstanding! Surprisingly, I recognized almost all of the songs. You will definitely come away singing from this one.

You still have a chance to see it, too! It is playing through Sunday, February 14. I heard the best seats left are for tonight (Thursday) and the Sunday matinee.

The Saints win the Super Bowl and Memphis freezes over!

W HO DAT!?!? Band wagon fan I admit, but that was truly a great win for a great city! I mean, I've been to Mardi Gras four times so far and even met my future wife in New Orleans so not too much of a band wagon fan. :-)

I woke up this morning to a text message from my carpool girl saying simply, "Working from home". No clue, went back to sleep. Saw an email about someone else working from home... got suspicious... so I got out of bed and looked out the window and saw a 3-4 inch blanket of snow covering, well... everything! Where did this come from? I went to bed around 4:30am after watching the final nighttime Space Shuttle launch and didn't see anything... didn't really look though.

Anyway, great day for a snow day as I really wanted a post-Super Bowl day off (though I did have to work from home today)... I took a few pics during a lunchtime outing with the wife and baby at the Arcade Restaurant (Travelocity Gnome and all), followed by warm beverages at Bluff City Coffee. Snow days rule!

4 8 15 16 23 42

Locke?
Oceanic 815?
So... if you're a fan of the show "LOST" you'll understand immediately what this blog is about just from the title. If not, do what a friend and fellow blogger is doing, watching all 5 seasons of LOST from the very beginning on http://www.hulu.com/lost and catching up for this 6th and final season!
Tuesday night we hosted a small Downtown Memphis "LOST: Season 6 Premiere" party and invited our die hard "LOST" friends to watch. My friends Kelly and Edison came up with the idea for this party and it went from an idea to the very unique and creative party you see in the pics below. We truly had a blast!

Flying Saucer Beer Dinner, Thurs Feb. 11

The Flying Saucer Downtown is having a beer dinner! Four courses and EIGHT beers!

Call or stop by to get your tickets.

Thursday Feb. 11^th, 7:00pm

Hosted by Drew Barton

Master Brewer, French Broad Brewery

1^st Course:

Bacon Potato Soup

Paired with Yazoo Dos Perros & Unibroue Trois Pistoles

2^nd Course:

Stilton Cheese Salad

Paired with: Dogfish Head 60min IPA & Orval Trappist Ale

3^rd Course:

Pork Tenderloin with homemade apple glaze

Paired with Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan & Ommegang Hennipen

4^th Course:

Strawberry Short Cake

Paired with Yazoo Sly Rye Porter & Unibroue La Fin du Mond

Ice Storm 2010

So, I know a lot of people from the north, and they just don't understand what the fuss is all about when it comes to "winter weather advisories and warnings" in the South. Some say, "It's just snow, hah, can't believe they shut schools down for this!" Well I'm here to tell you that it's not just snow, it's ice, lots and lots of ice all over the place. It's so bad that the humidity of the south freezes in mid-air on mailboxes, streets, etc. Here's a few pics from a "we're stir crazy, must leave the house and grab lunch" type of afternoon.