Last Saturday (July 4th) while we were staying in Northport, Lauren and I drove around to some of the local wineries. Leelanau Peninsula is very proud of their wine and a few of the wineries like to point out that they're located along the 45th parallel (north), which is the same parallel as some of the finest wine producing regions of Italy and France. Presumably that implies that they have the ability to grow the same grapes as those regions and thus produce comparable wines. I think there is more to it than that but its not like I would know the differene one way or another.

The last stop we made for the day was at 45 North Winery in Lake Leelanau. I believe this winery is relatively new (less than 10 years old), but they are certainly on their way to becoming an outfit like Black Star Farms. They are in the process of building a tasting room, but for now have things set up on the floor of a bottling building. We tried another 8-10 wines here, but were rushed because of a large crowd and a small bar. In the end we bought three bottles from this winery, but I don't know what they were. It was here that we discovered northern Michigan wineries seem to buy into the idea that corked wine bottles have outlived their usefulness. Everything was a screw top cap. We found that to be very disappointing. I understand the technological argument that says screw caps work as well or better, but it still feels cheap and childish. When we got back in the car we checked out earlier purchases and noticed that all but one or two were also screw tops. Oh well. By the way, 45 North has won awards at some pretty impressive sounding wine competitions, but at the moment they aren't in stores outside of northern Michigan. One of the employees gave me information about how to get in touch with their distributors that have Grand Rapids area connections, but it didn't sound like the type of thing you would go through to get just one bottle or two.

I didn't take a whole lot of photos while we were out. I'm not sure why, but it just didn't occur to me to take photos of anything we saw while we were out wine tasting except for this. This was in Suttons Bay, outside an art gallery. I don't believe this was for sale, but a similarly constructed pig about 1/6th of the size cost $725.

I'll leave the wine tour to a separate post, but it was a really great time. We only hit three of a possible 9-12 wineries in the area, but I am pretty sure they were three of the best. Although I don't know anything about wine, couldn't tell you which are my favorite styles or why and that I get buyer's remorse every time we leave a winery, wine tasting is still one of my favorite things to do.

The remainder of the weekend was spent with this wet rat on the shores of Lake Michigan. Nothing can satisfy her urge to go swimming. She swam so much that at the end of the first day Lauren threw a ball out, Joss went to get and I though I was going to have to swim out and get her before she went under. She was so tired that she fell asleep standing up on the 5 minute car ride from the beach back to the cottage.
But it was a great weekend. We also went strawberry picking on the way up, where I also did not take any pictures. Strawberries seem slightly less delicious after seeing the way that they're grown. I always pictured them hanging high off the ground from a majestic bush, not directly on the ground inside of a plant that looks like a lawn weed.

Last weekend I went to weddings on back to back nights. Or at least I tried to. I didn't feel so great after a few hours at the second wedding and went home to take a shower and hug an air conditioner. Last week was so disgustingly hot it ruined everything. I didn't really cook anything because the last thing I wanted was the oven heating the house and I didn't want too much time tending to a 500 degree grill outside in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity. So last week was burgers, cold sandwiches, grilled chicken and pizza.

And just to give you an idea of the scale of this map. That natural triangular loop between Northport, Suttons Bay and Leland takes 20 mins per side to drive. So in an hour's drive time we could hit 6 or 7 wineries no problem. Madonna's family has a winery in that area, I think its the B balloon or in that area on this map.

If things slow down a bit on the blog this summer, its because of Lauren's dog Jocelyn. She is relentless in her desire to play outside, and if you don't play often enough Lauren will come home to find shoes, the garbage can, a remote control (whatever she can reach), strewn about her bedroom. So in order to keep that from happening we take her to the dog park or out into the backyard to as often as possible. Then, while we're outside playing we usually fire up the grill and make simple foods and things I've already blogged about. The video above is from Sunday afternoon in the backyard. Lauren shot the video, while I'm off camera to the right throwing the ball.

I spent Saturday afternoon attempting to give Lauren's old bicycle a tuneup. About a month ago she got a brand new hybrid road bike and on weekends she usually takes it out for a ride. Prior to this weekend I had no idea she had an old bike in the basement, so we took it out, dusted it off and planned to take it for a ride. I went to the store, got some CLR (Calcium, Lime, Rust remover), WD-40 and an allen wrench set.

You know these Rubbermaid/Gladware kitchen storage containers? I recently, as in just a few minutes ago, discovered they were microwave safe. For at least two years now I've been using these to save all sorts of leftovers and every time I would empty the food onto a plate before I reheated it in the microwave.

Some years ago there was a disaster at my parents house with a bowl from the old, expensive kind of tupperware. It melted, the whole house stunk and the microwave was nearly ruined. I think ever since then I've assume that plastic + microwave = bad.

However today I had some leftover Shepherd's Pie that Lauren and I made last night. This morning I put some into a Rubbermaid container and (as I tend to do with food items in the winter) rather than take it home and stick it in the refrigerator I figured I'd just throw it in my car, leave it there (since its 10 degrees outside) and eat it when I drove home for lunch. By the time noon rolled around the thought of braving the cold walk to the car and cold drive home (its barely far enough for my car to warm up completely) just wasn't doing anything for me. So it finally dawned on me that the Rubbermaid container I had packed my food in might be microwave safe. I looked it up online and then checked the container, both of which said "microwave reheatable".

And thats the story of how I ate a warm lunch in my warm office today.

The more I think about it I am pretty sure I've seen Lauren put those things in the microwave, but I always assumed she was just extremely foolish and willing to risk a plastic in the microwave meltdown for the sake of convenience.

I spent the past week in South Carolina attending Lauren's various family Christmases. Good times. We left on the 21st in the midst of whiteout. Getting from home to the Battle Creek area was a nightmare, and in retrospect we took a HUGE risk driving that morning. At the same time I understand that the weather got worse the next few days and we never would have made it out had we not left then. All in all the roads were terrible for 90 miles and then dry and windy for the last 900. If you're wondering what kind of toll driving 16 hours and 1,000 miles twice in just over a week takes on your spirit, check out Lauren's dog:

Each bag contains: a hat & mitten set, Crayola crayons and markers, construction paper drawing book, a Dr. Seuss book, 2 canisters of Play-Doh and a wooden Christmas ornament with the student's name inside.

So every night in the past 7 days have been spent doing some part of this project. If it wasn't going from Meijer to Costco in search of better pricing it was going to the fabric store to pick up some odds and ends or simply spending 15 hours on the weekend marking, cutting and sewing fabric. Last night however was especially brutal because Lauren and I tried to get Christmas cookies (for a separate project) baked at the same time we were finishing threading the drawstrings on these gift bags.

Long story short, we finally went to sleep about 4am with the bags finally finished and about 150 cookies baked and decorated.

It was worth it though. I may revisit this post in the near future, but I am dead tired right now and I go on vacation to 72 degree Charleston South Carolina in 2 days. My mind and body are limping to the finish line.

If you have a laptop, do yourself a favor and don't eat anything near it. Its an easy rule to follow when you first get a laptop and the pain of paying $800-$1200 on something that can easily be knocked over or dropped is still fresh in your mind. But as the years go on you tend to take your laptop for granted. Well I made the mistake of eating next to my laptop this morning, as I do many mornings in an attempt to stave off hunger until lunchtime. Stupid trail mix. I was typing an email when I noticed that the H and J keys were awfully firm. So I took a peek and noticed a tiny peanut shard resting underneath them. I figured it would be easy enough to pop the keys off, remove the obstruction and move on. After all I've done it on my desktop computer many times. Wrong.

Fearing that I had broken something I decided to pop off two of the lesser used keys Q and Z so I could examine the assembly of the key's undercarriage and put my H and J keys back together. This worked for a little while, and for a brief moment I considered leaving everything intact and sliding the Q and Z coverings into the H and J slots, since I don't look down while I type anyways. But I quickly found out that in popping the keys off like a desktop computer, rather than gently sliding them off I managed to damage the metal lock that keeps the key in place. There are four tiny little clasps, thin as a than safety pin with the durability of a wet noodle. With these broken I really had no hope. So I (barely) managed to get Q and Z back where they belong, J was damaged only to the point that the back of the key sticks up when you press the key. The H is gone forever.

While I was tying this entry I got the bright idea of again using a less important key to put in the space of the H, since the bottom clasp of the H is only damaged, not broken. I figured at best it would give the H the exact opposite problem I am having with the J key. Amazingly it worked. So now I have no - key, and a - where my H should be. Its confusing when I do look down.

Of course replacement keyboards for laptop computers aren't something you can ever find locally. So I have to order myself a new keyboard. Its going to put me out about 3 days and anywhere from $12-$50. The local repair shops need the same three days to order the same keyboards I've found, but they're going to charge me $75-$100. Its good to be your own computer guy.

Lesson learned: Don't eat peanuts or trail mix near your computer. And if you do, please me more cautious in removing the keys on your keyboard when you spill.