Martini Madness

We went to an event that had the words "martini" and "madness" in its description/title. It was a fundraiser for the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. It was a given that the mystery lady and I would go given our passion for proper martinis. We usually don't stray from our Beefeater Gin Martinis.The foo foo or designer concoctions are just too campy.

I stuck to my guns save for the fact that you could not find a bottle of Beefeaters in the house. The locally made Gin from the nice folks at Clearheart Distillery was the heartof many of the potions. My formula was the same at each tasting station.....Gin with a lemon twist. Actually one of the martinis featured was titled "Straight from the (Clear) Heart-tini"

The mystery lady was more outgoing and tried some of the others. At one time I caught her with one in each hand. Of course I would expect no less from her. Some of the names of these were....Green Benzini, Tek-tini, Citrus Smile (From Gehring Orthodontics) [note one of the pics with me and Mrs. Gehring....looks like I had reached my limit], Scottaroo-tini, Blue Screen of Death...and the list goes on....for a total of 19 different recipes.

There was some fancy finger food and there was an offering of Beer and Wine which did not get as much play as the martinis and there was even bottled water.....I think WC Fields just made another revolution in his grave.

We were treated to some great tunes and a live and silent auction. There was a bona fide princess amongst us......but thats the subject of another blog.

At the end of the evening two of the blokes present tried out the express elevator to the ground floor. I think this is just before it broke.

A good time way had by all....Thank God for martinis.

Billy has a "Schatzi"

Sorry if I have been neglect in my duties reporting about the trial and tribulations of my friend Billy, but its been hectic around here.

You see Billy likes ice cream and all the trappings that go with it and has been missing the Schatzi's place since it closed two years ago. Hardly a week goes bye when we don't get a query from him about why the Schatzi's store is sitting idle. He has suggested that I reopen it...."No way" has always been the response....."What do I know about ice cream, fast food and all that" Well you know its not what you know, but more importantly who you know. So the idea was to partner with someone who did. Enter Dr. Phil.

Phil has been successful in the restaurant game and during a recent conversation, I asked him if he was ready for a new challenge. In about one weeks time the new Schatzi emerged from the rubble. Phil barks out instructions faster than the average brain can record and works at cyberspeed in making things happen.

Phil, the mystery lady and I partnered in the venture. We were open Maifest weekend and it seems that all who visited were pleasantly surprised. The menu is varied, the food is quality and the ice cream is yummy. Sounds like the right formula.

Notables who were there to experience the opening, were the likes of Billy's Godparents, Billy's
hero...The Hopper and his misses, and my niece Nicole, to mention a few.

Of course Billy was there too....ice cream all over his face most of the time and a bonus synergy was discovered. You can hook the iron lung in parallel to the ice cream machine and eliminate that portable power supply. So Billy was behind the scenes most of the time....the only reminder was an occasional screech of the belt pulley when both kicked in at the same time.

Stop in sometime.

Billy meets the big guy......

The pope has a real neat form of transportation....its called oddly enuff...a Popemobile.......How do I know this? Its because we got to see it close up. You see it turns out the Pope follows the Billy blog and he emailed us about Billy and said he was coming to America.

Could we come to New York while he was visiting? I felt it was not that much of an imposition since he came all the way across the pond and all. In fact Billy was honored...it was his first pope visitation and will most likely be his only popeathon.

We had to choose between venturing to NYC or being present for the autograph session for the Final Season DVD premiere. We opted for the pope gig and are glad we did. We were treated quite nicely and never had a crowd issue like we would have had at the Best Buy Store with the Final Season Event.

Billy got a chance to sort of sit in the Popemobile...of course not while the Pope was occupying it. But you know, it just doesn't matter. He later had a discussion regarding the Pope's carbon footprint and recommended the Mercedes Smart Car be used as the new Popemobile. Lets see what developes.

While we were in the big apple, we had to do some touristy things and we ran into a celebrity. Borat was hanging with some fans and I snapped the picture shown here.

Billy is Smiling again.....

We'll it has finally happened. There is now a public smoking ban in Iowa and Billy practically jumped out of his lung in glee. You see it was the second hand smoke that actually forced him into the lung. Ironically the coupons from the Raleigh cigarette paid for the iron lung. Now Billy can breathe easier albeit with the help of the lung. Billy wants to be a "poster child" for the new campaign.

Hawaii Chair

Billy watches a lot of Fox News and when he doesn't watch Fox News ...he likes to watch Oprah....but when Oprah was crying about her lost puppy he switched over to Ellen and caught this episode. Now he wants one of these. What a guy confined to an iron lung wants with a chair has me puzzled. Maybe I need to ask the Puzzler.

Check it out here: