Happy Saturday morning; I am sooooo happy we had two amazing technicians put up our kitchen in three short days.

“Building Ikea Furniture Is Probably Satan’s Favorite Hobby” ~ Anonymous

If Marcia and I had done this using these directions:

Then, months from now, we’d be sitting on the kitchen floor drinking bottles of cheap wine, and looking at a pile of bit-and-pieces. Probably be no longer speaking to each other – and babbling incoherently to anyone else.

As it stands now, our new condo kitchen looks like it actually came from an Ikea catalog. It’s worth an extra mug of coffee this morning.

Communications – Hey, it’s been a slow week, especially since I basically ‘hung’ at the condo watching the install. Every so often there’d be a; “dirk, how would you…….”, and I’d spring into action then to revert back to my reading and watching.

But, you know me. I just love to communicate with folk. So, while working, the team and I bantered about this and that, and mostly everything.

I have no clue how, but at some point the subject of Pinball machines came up.

As many of you know, we have a great early-eighties Bally Speak Easy machine.  Everyone has played it. It’s even registered on the “Internet Pinball Serial Number Database.” But, a while back it broke.

I had the name for a repair guy; it was no longer valid. I did get busy and found that all electronics on the main board appeared to be fine. The problem is somewhere on the head-board. And so it sat, broken and unused.

Mid way during our talk, Sean, one of the two technicians came out with these magic words; “my buddy Josh has a pinball repair business.” Turns out the guy has a sign-repair business and loves Pinball machines, hence that involvement.

I now have a contact and since the machine needs to be moved anyway, the timing could not be more perfect. I am smiling. Broadly!

A visit – Last Monday nephew Nick was in town for some meetings, too good an opportunity to not grab a dinner with him. So, Monday evening Marcia and I joined Nick at (a favorite) Sung Korean Bistro.

Now, when you’re in town for meetings dealing with the city’s infrastructure would you not think it important to explore said infrastructure?

After dinner we dropped Marcia off at home and raced straight for the, newer, Rhinegeist micro-brewery. Its located in the historic Over the Rhine district in the, formerly, vacant cavernous facilities of the Moerlein Brewery.

Aside from enjoying some great Porter beer we watched co-ed teams playing a rousing game of Wiffle ball – inside the brewery. What fun.

Continuing our infrastructure tour we somehow ended up on Mount Adams where the city’s skyline shows up as good as it gets – then it was off to the ‘gemütlichkeit’ (German for my Dutch term; gezelligheit – since, after all, this is historically a German town) of one of our old pubs; The Blind Lemon. Aside from the place being warm on a cool evening, the Blind lemon has low ceilings, a burning fireplace, soft live music, and the glitter of all sorts of copper hanging about. Their Guinness tasted great.

What a fabulous evening we had!

Fini – Make it a great week everyone, Happy Hanukkah. I hope that the Christmas celebration planning goes without a hitch. Then on Thursday I wish you all a Merry and Blessed Christmas. Stay safe.

Cheers.

Dirk