Oliver!

Last night while in Nashville, I attended the Circle Players' production of Oliver! The Musical. My friend, Deb, had a part in the play which always makes it more interesting to see a performance of any kind if you know someone who is performing. It was held at the Looby Center Theatre, which is a small theatre in Metro Center. Of course a few performers stood out: Fagin's, Nancy's and Artful Dodger's characters were amongst the best. Deb's singing also stood out as she has such a beautiful voice. This was Deb's Nashville debut on stage and plans to do a lot more plays in the future. If I am in town when she performs again I will definitely attend and as Janna says, get more culture in our lives! Great job Deb!

I VOTED

I officially voted today! I mailed my absentee ballot to Tennessee. Didn't have a lot to vote for (President, House of Rep, 2 city amendments). It was very easy so I think I will vote absentee every year now. Now I await the outcome on Nov. 4.

ISSF

is the abbreviation for International Stainless Steel Forum. I was chosen in April to become one of the lucky people from our organization to become certified in stainless steel. What does this mean? It means I get to spend lots of hours reading information on SS and then take about 100 tests with about 50-100 questions on each test. And after I complete and pass all of the tests, I get a nice certificate and of course another line on my resume. I have completed about 80% of the tests and the deadline is 10/31. Since most of my steel background is in carbon steel, I am finding the information on SS to be interesting and SS is derived from carbon steel so I already know more than I thought I would. I will be glad when I am done!

Never Forget

those men, women and children who lost their lives, those brave people who gave their lives, and the Heroes that responded to the emergency.

Ah, Kwame!

I spent this past week on business in Montreal and it seemed every French-Canadian I ran into or dealt with in meetings wanted to talk about Kwame Kilpatrick. News about Kwame has traveled all the way to Montreal and those folks cannot believe he has not either resigned as mayor or been removed from office. And frankly neither can I. We all know Kwame won't step down on his own, but he has been so detrimental to the city that someone should step in and help Kwame with his decision. And they found it humorous that Kwame violated the conditions of his bond in a perjury case by going to Canada for a business meeting without clearing the trip with the court beforehand and this is why he was sentenced to jail.

And the saga continues...

Another Trip to Nashville

Travelling to Nashville has now become my monthly routine. I take 2 large empty suitcase and bring them back completely full (up to 50 lbs each). Then when I get back to my parents' house the question always is "where to put all this stuff". Pretty soon there won't be much left in Nashville except for large furniture.

My condo is officially off the market until after Labor Day. Not a great market in Nashville either. I will re-list in September for 3 months and if my condo doesn't sell during those 3 months, I will not re-list until March. I've contacted a new real estate agent, one closer to my area, and I hope that will make a difference.

It was great seeing a lot of my southern friends again; some that I don't get to see on my regular trips down either because I don't have time to see everyone or they have left the Nashville area and are not in town when I am in town. A lot of my friends from Nashville have taken other jobs around the country and those that have not sold their houses make trips back to Nashville to check on their homes, just like me. We try to plan our trips back around the same time, but sometimes it doesn't work out as we planned.

And I also have business to conduct while I am in Nashville. I have customers in Nashville and the area so I spend a lot of time in meetings. My trips to Nashville are very busy with business meetings, meeting with friends, cleaning the inside and outside of my condo, and packing up stuff to take back to Michigan. It will be nice when I sell my condo and just make trips to Nashville for business or pleasure.

Weekend Getaway

I took a vacation day on Friday and Mom and I headed north to the lake and spent Saturday with the Cross family in Interlochen. This was my first trip to the lake since August 2007 when my brother and his family were there. My childhood best friend, Kathy, came up from Charlotte for the week. Her Dad, Bob, past away in January and the family reunited for the burial. It was so great seeing the Cross family again which I don't get to see very often since Kathy lives so far away. All the sisters, husbands, and kids were there when we arrived on Saturday morning. We enjoyed lots of laughs, story telling, and great food. We took 2 Achatz's pies from Armada (four berry, my favorite, and dutch apple) which were a big hit. Since Bob and Linnie moved from Romeo many years ago to Interlochen (via Pennsylvania and Dearborn) they always appreciate when I take them some food from the Romeo area.

I spent Friday afternoon with my cousin Angie and her kids while Mom got her hair done. Preston (4 months) has such a great personality already and is already rolling over. Logan, Kamber and I played many card games (which I didn't win any) and had a good time.

Saturday night , on our way back from Interlochen, Mom and I stopped by Uncle Ed and Aunt Debbie's house for a short visit. It was good to see them since it had been a while. When we got back to the lake, Uncle Kelvin and my cousin Lee were fishing on the lake. Spent some time talking to them after they caught lots of fish (they said they left you some, Dad).

It was great seeing so many people I haven't seen in such a long time. A great, short weekend.

We headed back to Romeo on Sunday late morning because we were not sure about the traffic situation due to all of the construction. Of course, we couldn't pass by Birch Run without stopping at the outlet mall to do some shopping.

Nashville Visit

I spent most of last week in Nashville visiting a customer and checking on my home. Got a lot of work done at the house especially the landscaping. Lots of overgrown plants that needed to be pruned and dead flowers that needed to be taken out. And it was hot - mid to high 90's. I got to spend time with some friends - thanks Janna and Leah for the laughs!

Vacation at Lake Chelan

Looking forward to a week at Lake Chelan.

Go Get 'Em Tigers

Another series sweep by the Tigers and my parents and I were at Sunday's game to cheer them on. I got tickets from one of my suppliers and sat in excellent seats behind the backstop to the left of the Rockies dugout. And to top it off, about 20 members of our family also attended the same game because some are relatives of Clint Hurdle, the Rockies Manager. It was good to see the family and watch the Tigers win on a cool, somewhat rainy day. Now let's see if the Tigers can gain some ground on the White Sox and Twins. Glad they finally crossed over the 500 mark!

Whirlpool Visit

I've spent many years traveling to different manufacturing plants (automotive and appliance) and each time I enter one of them I am amazed by something, whether it's the technology or the way parts are formed out of my steel. But my recent visit to Oxford, Mississippi, to the Whirlpool Cooking Plant shocked me even more. We are in an age of computers, advanced technology, automated machines, presses, robots, etc. At WP Oxford, 95% of their production is still done by hand which means a lot of manual labor and this takes a lot of time. However, what was impressive was their detail to quality and by doing production manually does give them the ability to tightly monitor quality. Their employees look and inspect every part that is made in the plant as well as every unit after it is assembled. I have yet to see this much detail at other appliance plants and maybe this is why the Whirlpool name is highly renowned.


The city of Oxford is home to University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) and is a beautiful town with rolling hills and large homes. Older brick buildings line the streets in downtown with small, quaint restaurants where everyone knows your name. We ate a local restaurant and immediately the hostess knew it was our first time eating there and then we spoke and she got a kick out of our northern accents. We had us some good eats!!

Great Day for a Baseball Game

My company got a suite at Comerica Park on Saturday afternoon. My Dad and I were part of the second largest crowd at Comerica (45k). We had a good time even though the Tigers got beat by the Yankees for this first time this year.

How Sweep It Is!!

What a great night for Detroit sports teams. The Wings swept the Avs and move onto the next round in the playoffs; the Tigers swept their series with the Yankees in the Bronx (Tigers hadn't done that since 1966) and the Pistons clobbered the 76ers and move onto the next round of the playoffs. Let's keep this momentum going, Boys!

Trip to Nashville

I was able to spend 4 days at my house in Nashville this past week/weekend. I had some meetings at one of my customers in the Nashville area and took some extra days to check on my house. I was amazed how much my flowers grew in 1 month. There has been lots of sunshine with some rain so everything was green and growing. My tulips and daffodils were as high as my thigh. My ivy and myrtle had grown onto my porch, sidewalk and driveway. I spent several hours cutting back the flowers and sprucing up the flowerbeds. My hostas plants were not out when I left at the end of March and they were big and beautiful.

I was able to see lots of my friends and neighbors. It was nice sleeping in my bed!

GO HABS GO!

During a business trip to Montreal, Canada last week, I attended game 5 of the Canadiens/Bruins series. It was a great game up until the 3rd period, tied 1-1 with about 14 minutes to go in the game. Boston scored a short-handed goal to go up 2-1 and it went downhill from there. With about 9 minutes to go, Boston was up 4-1 and the place cleared out! The fans in Montreal take their hockey very seriously and they let the team know if they are disappointed in their performance. Boston ended up winning 5-1 and set the series at 3-2, Canadiens. To top off the night, some Canadien fans starting burning Bruins jerseys outside the arena and the police on horseback just sat and watched! All in all, it was a great time and a great experience to see a hockey game in Canada. If the Wings play the Canadiens in the playoffs, I will be back in Montreal to watch another game!

Back in the North


As all of you are aware by now, I am back in Michigan. I accepted another sales position with a steel company in the Detroit area. I am very excited about being back home with my friends and family. I still travel a lot with this job, but instead of just going to Mexico, I also get to travel to Canada and other cities in the USA. I am looking forward to this new experience and see where it may take me in the next year or two.

An Extraordinary Night

of deadly tornado weather here in Tennessee. The Nashville area was very lucky as 8 severe storm cells passed either north or south of us and these cells contained tornados at some point during their travel. One major storm cell did manage to hit Nashville with 100 mph winds and hail the size of golf balls. As this storm passed downtown Nashville and headed towards my house the winds died down to 55 mph and not a lot of hail. There was still a threat of a tornado but thankfully it passed the Nashville area without one. Kentucky, again, wasn't as lucky. As soon as this storm cell hit the KY/TN border a tornado touched down. The worst area hit in TN was Memphis and Jackson. Jackson is home to Union University and the college was hit by 2 tornados. And there was a 60 semi pile-up on I-40 that shut down the interstate. The National Weather Service is still trying to count how many tornados actually touched down in those areas (one report I heard was 8). As soon as one storm cell left the area another one was right behind it and this lasted for 9 hours yesterday evening. And these same storms are heading towards the Midwest and East Coast and will produce snow and ice storms.

I have never seen such major storms and so many of them at once. And the majority of southern homes do not have basements so finding a safe place isn't easy. I became quite familiar with my jacuzzi bathtub last night and realized it is much larger than I thought!

Brrrr, It's Cold!

If it is going to be this cold in the south then it should just snow! It is cold - yesterday was 36 degrees with a wind chill that made it feel like 17. Today will be even colder - 32 with a wind chill of 14! But by Sunday we will be back in the mid 60's!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

My parents and I celebrated New Year's Eve watching the Red Wings play in their traditional New Year's Eve game but losing to the Blues 2-0. We also watched some Bowl games and then topped the night off by eating barbecue ribs and garlic green beans!