Fred and Valerie

U.Va. Alumni Hall

We can bring in our own alcohol. YIPEEE!!! A finalist for me.

GreenCroft Club

• No Sparklers
• No Rose Petals
• No Birdseed
• No Rice
• No Fred and Valerie

Fairfax Hall

• Beautiful Old Building
• Reminded me of The Shining
• Smells like an old school.
• “Residents” live there and we were told they like to come out of their rooms to look at everyone in their pretty dresses. (picture nursing home residents…. and scooters)
• One of us was freaked out by the large amount of ladybugs in the building…
• It is in a sketchy neighborhood….and you have to park in the grass.

“The Abraham Lincoln Hotel”

• We still love this site.
• We toured a suite and a guest room. They aren’t large…but they are comfortable and very clean.
• We also saw the carpet in the large ballroom. I think we can work with it.
• As an added bonus we ran into the catering director who happened to be tap dancing with her Granddaughter in the smaller ball room. Cute Cute!

Mill Street Grill
Very Yummy…and we may hold our rehearsal dinner there if we get married in Staunton. It is located across the street from The Abraham Lincoln Hotel

Places we are touring in the next 10 days: Crowne Plaza Richmond Downtown, Cavalier Hotel, Colonial Heritage, Williamsburg Hospitality House, Williamsburg Inn, Ford’s Colony, Manor House, Monticello Event Center, and Barclay Villa.

I managed to take advantage of the Spring-like weather this weekend and did a little gardening. On Saturday, I spent some time getting rid of the weeds (particularly the onions!), but things weren’t too bad so it was a quick chore.

On Sunday, we bought some mulch from Wal-Mart and managed to cover the front half of the garden. I’ll need to drop by Wal-Mart again sometime this week to polish off the back half of the garden, but I’m not too concerned about that part because that’s just the Spiderwort, “test” Irises, and former vegetable garden. Still, it needs to be mulched, so I’ll get it taken care of.

To borrow from Greeneseale…

What’s Bloomin’?
Stella d’Oro Daylilies: Not blooming, but the foliage is breaking through the ground/mulch on all six.

Garden Phlox: Not blooming, but the foliage is breaking through the ground/mulch on all four.

Amsonia: No sign of anything, yet.

Lamb’s Ear: Foliage is breaking through the ground/mulch on all six.

Front Irises: BARELY a sign of something green, but no real sign of anything, yet.

Spiderwort: Not blooming, but the foliage has broken through the ground/mulch on all three.

Back (“Test”) Irises: No sign of anything, yet.

We may have found our reception venue.   I don’t particularly care for the name of the facility but the building is beautiful, it is not $175 a person, and the staff is very accommodating.  I still want to check out the guest rooms and the carpet pattern in the large ballroom.  They were not available for viewing during our tour because the Miss Virginia Pageant had taken over much of the hotel.

We have appointments at the Cavalier Hotel, Manor House, and U.Va’s Alumni Hall later this week.

As for the ceremony, we haven’t yet decided if we’ll have the wedding in Virginia or if we’ll go to Vegas with some of our close friends and get married at the Wynn or Bellagio. 

D-Day, as in Decision Day. April 15th, or Tax Day, is Valerie’s deadline to pick a wedding and reception site. We’re publicizing it to hold her to the deadline.

Thanks to John and Kris for their Mexican Intervention!

The latest storm to pass through our area was accompanied by a drop in temperatures and ended up giving us an inch or so of snow on the ground. March 16th and we’re getting snow? Weird.

When we came back from our trip to New Orleans, a small portion of a roof vent was lying in our yard. Turns out, the piece was ripped off the roof over our garage, apparently in the massive rain storm we had while we were away.

Intending to get the vent fixed by a professional, I called for some estimates. Keep in mind that we’re just talking about a piece of formed metal that is nailed along the ridge of the roof. Not exactly rocket science.

Imagine my surprise when the first estimate came back at $750-1000! I asked the secretary how they arrived at that estimate and she said that the contractor estimated two men working four hours each, for a total of 8 hours of labor. 8 hours to nail a piece of formed metal in place. I explained to the woman how ridiculous of an idea that was and how the guys could likely eat lunch, play some chess, take a nap, and countless other things in the four hours they were working to nail a piece of formed metal in place.

I decided to call some other places and, thankfully, one of them came back with a much more reasonable estimate. When I initially saw the damage, I figured no more than 2 hours of labor for one person, plus materials. Figure $200 total.  The new contractor I called not only came back with an estimate of $150, but was ready to do the job on the spot. “Hired!”

And now the vent is fixed and looks like normal and, according to Valerie, it took the guy all of about 15 minutes to do everything. Valerie thinks the initial contractor saw our neighborhood and thought we were much more “well off” than we actually are and inflated the costs. Too bad for him because he missed out on a nice little $600/hour payoff for 15 minutes of work and materials.

We just returned from a 4-day trip to New Orleans and we’re a bit tired. Valerie had to go to NOLA (New Orleans, LA) for a business conference and I tagged along for a mini-vacation.

Our trip started off on a bit of a funny note when we arrived at our hotel in Richmond Tuesday night. The check-in clerk was a bit confused as to what day it was and thought we had missed our reservation the night before. Then, she put us in a room that was already occupied. Finally, they gave us a room we could actually stay in and it ended up being a huge suite. We certainly didn’t complain, but it was still quite funny.

We, and Buddy, arrived in New Orleans Wednesday morning and checked into our hotel. We then went for a bit of a walk towards the French Quarter. On the way, we got to see a Hurricane Katrina Memorial, the Canal Street streetcar, and a few interesting statues. We also happened upon St. Louis Cathedral as the ceremony began to ordain the auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

From there, we wandered around the French Quarter some more and ended up stopping at Cafe Du Monde for some beignets. They tell you not to eat them if you’re wearing dark colored clothes and you can see why. There was a nice little band playing while we ate and after we were finished, we followed the Frommer’s guide on a walking tour around the French Quarter.

On the walking tour, we got to see the Supreme Court of Louisiana and a bunch of other interesting sights. We also saw a number of courtyards, interesting ironwork, and strange covers. Lastly, we came across a shotgun house, a statue of Joan of Arc, and bought a book about the Mississippi River at the famous Faulkner House Books. Buddy made an appearance at the end of the tour at the house where Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

While we were hard-pressed to find the kind of destruction in the French Quarter that was displayed on TV screens after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, it must be said that the area reeks something awful. You can smell the activities (all of them!) that occurred on the streets during the late-night and early-morning hours and it’s not pretty. There are also a number of panhandlers that just won’t leave you alone. They’ll seriously follow you for blocks on end, pestering you the entire way, despite telling them that you’re there for business and only have credit cards. After our tour through the French Quarter on Wednesday, we spent most of the rest of the trip towards the outskirts.

On the other hand, there’s plenty of good food to be found in New Orleans. Wednesday night, we happened upon the wonderful Cochon and had the meal of a lifetime. The next night we dined at Acme Oyster House and had delicious Po’ Boy sandwiches. Friday night was the unbelievable Palace Cafe, while Saturday was breakfast at Mother’s (a New Orleans institution) and dinner at Cafe Adelaide. All of the restaurants were great for various reasons, but if I only had one day in New Orleans, I’d be sure to return to Cochon and Palace Cafe.

Also, we had a good time at Harrah’s on Thursday night. Their craps table limit was $15, which was a bit too steep for my wallet, so Valerie and I played penny slots for a good portion of the evening. We ended up on a 2-cent Powerball (yes, like the lottery) slot and while I doubled my money on that slot machine to break even overall, Valerie made seven times her money on that particular machine to more than triple her initial money. She’s good like that on the cheap slots.

Lastly, we had wonderful accomodations while in New Orleans at Le Pavillon. Not only was it a beautiful place to stay, but they even had interesting quirks like their Peanut Butter and Jelly hour from 10 pm to 11 pm nightly, complete with hot chocolate. Out of the three nights we stayed at Le Pavillon, I managed to get a PB&J twice.

It was a good enough trip visiting New Orleans, but neither of us is sure it’s quite our kind of town. The best thing, to both of us, was the food and we’d certainly be up for more cajun/creole dining. We’re just not sure it’d warrant a second trip.