I have received all of this mail from State Farm over the past 5 weeks. 10 total pieces from four separate reps. What's best is the different offers they are selling. John A. Smith tells me I can save $489 on auto coverage, but his competitor (in the same company) down the street, Brad Busch, states that I can save $696 on auto and home! Brad then followed up with another letter re-emphasizing the $696 with a Discount Double Check Certificate. Good thing I have that certificate now.
Ken Kaid LUTCF tells me that "Together we'll make it happen.". He is also touting the $489 savings on auto insurance along with the Discount Double Check. Sorry Ken. Only one piece of unsolicited mail and an offer that doesn't beat John or Brad's. I think you are out of the running.
Nobody, but nobody, is as persistent as Beth Travis Ins Agcy Inc. Beth cranked out a staggering 6 letters and post cards to me in this 5 week period. Two of the letters are identical. Pushing their homeowners insurance, but there is a tear-off reply at the bottom for me to get more info on Auto, Life, Health, Financial Review, Financial Services and other. I think I might just fill this out and return it marking other. I think my other will be "I'd like more information about:" direct mail strategies. I wonder if I would get a response? Might be worth it. She and her Agcy seem quite good at pumping out mail. At least someone is keeping the USPS afloat.
The best is that the continue to tout their "Good Neighbor service". Sorry, my best neighbors don't flood my mailbox with random junk mail. How about making those $489 and $696 offers a little better by not spending thousands on direct mail campaigns. To all of you insured by State Farm, I am sure you are glad to know that your insurance money is going towards multiple mailings for more business as opposed to keeping your rates down.
I have kept my optimistic view of the Cardinals all along this season. When in conversations I have steered the conversation to "remember 2006". In that year the Cards were unable to string anything together all season of any significance. They limped, actually backed into the playoffs, then caught fire.
I believed the "remember 2006" mantra until last night. This team is flat. And the flatness is killing their spirit (as best as I can see from my seat at Busch or in front of my TV at home). There is almost nothing I would like to see less than the bases loaded for this team. I just know that means that the rally is over. They can't get a big hit when they need it. They are the kings of meaningless hits and homers. Pujols has been padding his stats of late. Raising his average from the uncharacteristically low sub-.300 spot to over .315 in just over a week has looked great, but it has not led to any wins. The Cardinals have lost 5 in a row to the Cubs, Brewers and Giants. Then you look at AB with runners in scoring position and every time there is a groundball to short. Maybe it scores a run, many times it is a double play. The rally killer.
I tried to drink the Kool Aid earlier this season. I saw the need for a Duncan-esqe starting pitcher and knew the financial reasoning behind trading Ludwick. But that was all with the understanding that there was something else up their sleeves. A proven hitter they were close to trading for that would fill this void in the lineup. Now I am to believe that that hitter is Pedro Feliz? The Cardinals have a line up of 7-8-9 hitters along with two boppers. One of which can't seem to produce in the clean-up spot. Can you seriously win a championship with this band of .250 hitters; Lopez, Ryan, Feliz & Molina. Last year 3 of them were closer to .300 hitters. Why did they all go south at once? Why can't Holliday hit in the clutch anymore. In my opinion it all points to one person, Mr. Mark McGwire.
Let's face it, the team is seriously under performing at the plate and typically the hitting coach is to blame for that. For some reason, McGwire is off-limits this year. I know he is "Tony's Boy" and I am glad that LaRussa wanted to give him a chance. After all, McGwire did seem to show over his career that he had learned how to hit. Though he was a HR guy, he did have his .290 seasons and knew the strike zone like no one else at the time. What he didn't know, what is still obvious, is that he does not know situational hitting. He seems to be teaching his hitters his approach which worked often for a large man bulked up on steroids. It doesn't work for smaller guys like Lopez and Ryan. They ground out to short.
It's time for McGwire to go. Now, before the season is up. It was the wrong move for the club. Swallow your pride, make the right decision and move on. Mike "Enough" Aldrete is waiting in the wings as an assistant let him take over the reigns for the remainder of the season and then find a hitting coach that better melds with this teams size and ability.
But, since we know that is not going to happen, here is my plan B. Shuffle the lineup to a formula that has worked before, bat Holliday before Pujols. My lineup for the remainder of the season looks like this (or at least until my faith is restored and they score a bat for this lineup).
Jay Feliz Holliday Pujols Rasmus Molina Lopez Schumaker/Ryan Pitcher
Jay has speed, Feliz needs a boost, perfect guys to hit 1-2 before the big guys. Holliday jump started his season in front of Pujols, no one else can carry the weight of cleanup - that's your 3-4. Rasmus is the only guy left who can protect Pujols, by default he is #5. Molina can hit when he taking the ball to the opposite field, then Lopez' bat moves into a run producing spot at 6-7. Put your light hitting middle infielder before the pitcher.
Here's a classic example of government hard-at-work.
In August of 2008 I received a $5 parking ticket in the city of Columbia, MO. I mailed them a check for the $5 and forgot about the entire thing. About a month ago I received a notice from the City of Columbia that I owed $10 for an Aug 2008 parking fine. I photocopied the check receipt in my register that I had paid the original ticket in Oct 2008, mailed that to them and asked them to please let me know they had received this and that the matter was taken care of and off the records.
I received a note back promptly that I "failed to pay within 15 days of receiving" my ticket and an additional fine of $10 had been added. It had been nearly 2 years since this additional $10 had been assessed, but this was the first time I had heard about it. I thought about sending something smart-assed back like, "it only took me 30 days to pay it, but it took you nearly 700 to alert me that I had not paid on time", or something to that effect. I thought better of it and just mailed the $10 to the City of Columbia. I don't need no trouble from the government. This was on July 10.
Today, July 14, I received another letter in the mail from the City of Columbia stating the following: "Recently all 2008 tickets have been removed from our database, therefore this ticket no longer exists. Sorry about the confusion." Enclosed was my check for $10 which I just wrote 4 days ago.
So let me get this straight, you put a parking ticket on my car in Aug of '08, I pay you for it (relatively promptly, but not within what they considered to be prompt). You cared so little about collecting my $10 that you sat on this fee for nearly 2 years. You make me go through my old checks to prove to myself that I did pay your parking fee. I take the time to photocopy and mail that to you. You reply that this is an ADDITIONAL fee because I was late. I mail you the flippin' $10 and you promptly mail it back to me saying that 2008 has been deleted from the database!
I wonder how many $10s have been written off now? How many of those over-priced government hammers would that have paid for? Thanks Columbia, I am glad to have the $10 back in my pocket. I will gladly pay that to some other merchant who is not paying taxes to the great city of Columbia.
Misty and I spent 6 nights on the island of Antigua. An interesting British Isle in the West Indies. As we toured the island in our 10 year old Toyota RAV4 we saw many of the neighborhoods and locals of the island. One thing that became evident quickly was that Antiguans love to put sayings on their cars. Usually they were simple sayings with a little bit of attitude thrown in - either in the words or in the font they used.
But none were as phenomenal as this one...Classy!!!
Here it was Memorial Day. Misty and I didn’t have a concrete plans for the day, but the weather was supposed to be nice and we didn’t want to “work” on anything. So after disposing of Boyd in three games of racquetball at the courts in the center of Forest Park I headed home to see what Misty was in the mood for. What we landed on was a few things around town that we wanted to see – they were all linked by the rail in St. Louis, the MetroLink.
First stop after buying our all-day passes was out west on the parking lot of UMSL. The Gypsy Caravan was in town and Misty told me this was “a big artisan festival”. We have taken in a few of the “artisan festivals” in several towns including our own and while they are not my first choice of things to do, they are tolerable and sometimes I will find something to make it worthwhile. If you have never been to the Gypsy Caravan let me tell you, it is NOT just another artisan festival. It is closer to what the name implies…Gypsy style. Never have I seen so much stuff that is not suitable for the average garage sale. Booth after booth of (I use the word very loosely) antiques and many things that I would just say are old. Beyond that there are countless tents of knockoff purses and sunglasses. I am not sure how this selling of clearly fake merchandise is legal in the US, but there it was, proudly on display. Misty could tell within minutes that I was not enjoying the Caravan. While she was able to find the few artisans in the bunch and check out their jewelry I was left standing there on the hot pavement under the hot St. Louis Memorial Day sun. It was a festival however, and that means festival food…and festival lines for said food. I wanted about 20 minutes for a corn dog that would make ordinary hotdogs jealous. Wash that down with about 32oz of soda and I was officially part of the festivities. Fattening and clogging my arteries just like the rest of them. We wandered aimlessly for awhile until I found this ol’ boy. I don’t recall ever seeing an organ grinder before. And Kudos to this guy for dressing the part. I am assuming that it may not be legal to have a live monkey on your organ anymore, so this guy replicated the sidekick with a stuffed one. Nice try… From there we jumped back on the Metrolink to head downtown. It was about an hour before the Cards 3:15 game and the train was already packed. Quite a crowd getting on the train at Lambert or North Hanley. Whenever I hear that the Metrolink is not doing well I just try to add up what they must be raking in on game days. I ride the train down from U-City quite often and it is always a full train before the games. And not just one or two trains, it is crowded for an hour or so before the game. Don’t even get me started about how packed it is coming home. Let’s just say it is worth your sanity to find a post game beer or two somewhere before trying to catch a train.
We departed with the mob at Stadium Station and walked over to the Old Courthouse. For anyone wondering if advertising on the trains works, I am living proof that it does. I had seen ads for an art exhibit at the Old Courthouse that depicted what the St. Louis riverfront looked like a hundred-plus years ago. Before the Westward Expansion Monument was erected and surrounded by a park. These ads were adorning the walls of the Metrolink and after countless rides, convinced me to check it out. Ironically on the day we were to go to the exhibit, there was no ad to be found.
While the exhibit was small it was well done and told an interesting story. St. Louis was once a very vital city to this country. Much trading happened here of all sorts and these original paintings did a nice job of taking you back in time. Interesting fact #1: Did you know that the arch grounds were once bluffs and later grated for the city that took shape in that space? Interesting fact #2: The Old Rock House that now stands south of downtown and is a great place to hear live music once stood near where the north leg of the arch now stands? It is one of the few buildings to link us back to the old St. Louis. The Old Courthouse is a beautiful space and would be a great place to rent out for a speech or other gathering. It had been years since I was in there (I think the last time was a grade school field trip) and it was Misty’s first visit. Very glad we stopped and let me offer up this…it is a good place to drop in if you have parked north of the stadium on a hot day. It has AC and a water fountain.
After learning about what the old arch grounds looked like before it was determined that it should be a park…we headed over to the arch. There was another exhibit going on there that chronicled the Westward expansion of baseball. Focusing more on the story than the artifacts this small exhibit tucked into the corner of the Westward Expansion museum was an educational find. Did you know that the song take me out to the ballgame is only the chorus of a longer (and much worse) song? Something about Katie Casey seeing a game. Not memorable…thus the reason the chorus was the only part to stick.
We were downtown, and there was a day Cards game going on, so that was always in our consideration. We waited out the brief rainstorm with a visit to the Over / Under on Washington Ave. then decided to see how low the scalpers would go on ticket prices. It was the top of the 4th inning and the Cards were down by 2. We were able to talk a guy down on tickets from $88 face value (for 2) to $25 for both – and these tickets were 4 rows off the field down the rightfield line.
We got to witness all of the excitement of the games (from a Cards fan’s perspective). The Cards scored 3 in the 4th and 5th and a five spot in the 6th. Ah…a beautiful day at the ballpark.
It was Memorial Day and the Cardinals asked all Military to stand and be acknowledged. Misty, not listening, saw several people standing up and she decided to do the same. I should have let her stand, but I couldn’t do it. This was about the veterans and it was there moment. A nice moment orchestrated by the Cardinals…classy.
The guy to my right was a veteran and he was quite opinionated about the Cardinals, oh and about the gulf coast oil spill as well. I did learn that he was a Cards fan who needs to complain about something – typical if you read the comments on stltoday.com. First he did not like our bullpen. I needed to remind him that the ‘pen was actually one of the strong parts of the team. He especially did not like Motte, McClellan, Franklin or Boggs. Since that is about the entire ‘pen, at least he was consistent. He wanted the Cards to sign Oswalt, though when I mentioned that it would cost them about $15M a year he said “maybe Houston will pick it up”…right!
We talked baseball a while longer. Most conversations resulting in him having a very grim impression of this 1st place team. Ah hell, he is entitled to his opinion.
After waiting out the crowd home on the Metro at Broadway Oyster Bar we finally headed home. About 9 hours after we started our rail venture. The train was quiet now. It was about 9pm on a holiday evening and most fans had left downtown for home for dinner. A decent crowd still gathered at Rib American festival listening to Blue Oyster Cult wrap up the weekend’s concert series. There would be another surge of riders still that night.
If nothing else, it gave me something to write about and something to laugh about as the day progressed. We were able to salvage a day of looking at stolen goods and make a memorable Memorial Day out of it. Every once in a while it is good to see what lies in your own city. What hidden treasures or tourist traps you have forgotten about that need to be experienced again. When you decide to see what is out there, think about taking the Metrolink to show you around town. No parking hassles and you actually feel like a tourist in your own town. I just challenge you to find an organ grinder…and if you do, ask him why he doesn’t have a live monkey.
It's a long season, everyone knows it and says it at some point during the 162 games. Each team has its ups and downs over the summer and what is nice about 162 games is that typically the cream rises to the top and the true good teams make it to the playoffs.
Let's just say this is one of the "down" times for the Cardinals. Over the past week the Cards have been dealt an interesting hand. First there was last Friday night. Against the Angels the teams were trading runs early, then Brad Penny launches a Grand Slam off ex-Cardinal, Joel Piniero to open the game up...Penny is the lifted due to injury that he may have aggravated with his monster swing. The next day Kyle Lohse takes the hill and just cannot control his stuff. While watching on TV you can tell that he has no control of what his pitches are going to do. He was never too wild, just right off the plate with a fastball that had some odd movement at the end. It reminded me of throwing a wiffle ball in the backyard and trying to throw a straight pitch - too hard to predict what made it straight.
The Angels were patient and hit the few that didn't move to chase Lohse from the game, to the medical specialist on Monday and then to another on Wed in CA. Lohse is found to have a condition that is unusual to baseball players. They say he can either go for surgery and miss a minimum of 2 months or become a right-handed relief specialist. How many right-handed specialists do you know of that are not called closers? And I think we can agree that Lohse is not closer material.
The Cardinals were able to score runs over the weekend though many times they were doing so in a catch-up fashion. The worry began to set in that the strong starting pitching for the Cards may be the trouble spot, and soon. Then comes this years' two aces; Waiwright and Garcia. They take the mound in back to back starts in SD and allow one run combined over 13 innings. In that span the high-priced hitters score 0. The Cards are forced to use their bullpen to the tune of 8 innings over 2 games. Weakening their pen for the upcoming 3-game stretch when they will need to march out two new comers to the rotation.
PJ Walters will get the start on Thursday and just last week he was being touted as the #6 starter in the Post-Dispatch, little did they know how soon he would fill that roll. He has earned the start with his spring training and minor league performance this year. But who will start in Chicago on Saturday? Though the season is long, this stretch that is coming up is important. As important to the final wins and loses as any 9-game stretch will be. The Cards go to Chicago for 3, then Cincinnati and Milwaukee come to town for 3 each. An off day is sprinkled in, which might save the Cards from needing a 5th starter once, but it will be a tough stretch for the team.
So, who gets the nod on Sat? Or beyond if Lohse is out for 2+ months? Here's a Free Agent list from mlbtraderumors.com. I am sure discussions are already going on with the Braden Looper camp. What about Smoltz? He never officially retired...though he is in the broadcast booth now for Atlanta. Can the Cards find lightening in a bottle again at Memphis and have the rookies perform similar to Garcia? I think the name of the game is finding an "innings guy" who won't hurt you. Get a good 6 a game from this slot and you are in good shape.
But none of that even touches on the real issue in St. Louis, and that is the lack of hitting. This team is under-achieving up and down the order. The only guy who you could say is over-achieving would be Freese and that's not good. When will Pujols and Holliday find a clutch hit? When will Yadi cut down on his strikeouts? When will Rasmus develop into a solid hitter? When will Ryan find his .290 stroke again? I hate to point to McGwire as the culprit, but I am leaning that way. If it was one or two guys I would say it was on them, when it is the team it sounds more like a system - set up by the hitting coaches. I believe that McGwire can teach more than just how to hit HR. But does he know how to hit behind runners? How to hit with a runner on first? How to get a rally going and put crooked numbers on the board? I am not convinced he does.
So, keep an eye on the NL Central over the next 11 days. There is a chance this could get interesting. The Cards have the talent to prevail on top on June 6 and again on Oct 3, but can they string it all together when the going is tough? It's time to find out. It's been a rough week for the Redbirds, let's see how they respond.
The only thing I would have done differently while an under grad and active of AKL is reached out to those who graduated. Now, here's the interesting part. Since I am a founder of our chapter, those people were not going to be our Alumni, but Alumni of other chapters who were in the area of Springfield. We did try a few times to reach out to those on a list provided to us by our National Fraternity, but we gave it an attempt or two, with a bland letter then let it go.
As we approach Alumni weekend 2010 I want to start to pay back to our actives. Give the young guys something that many of us never had the opportunity to experience. What's great about these weekends is that there is as much take as there is give. What I take from these weekends is an opportunity to rehash some great stories from my youth. Some great memories with some great friends. I am also able to take with me the energy and exuberance of those who have not let their 9-5 beat them down yet. There is so much promise, so much joy, so little responsibility.
What I hope to give is some promise to the guys. Promise that the friends they have made while at MSU (still odd, it will always be SMSU to me) will be with them for years to come. Promise that the memories don't end at graduation. Promise that a "regular guy" like them was able to make it and be successful in a career of my choosing through good times and bad. Promise that the network they have built in college will continue to grow and prosper.
While my trip to Springfield will be brief (one night), I cannot wait to be there and share some stories with these young guys. I get the opportunity to be that "old guy" who came back to relive and pass along. Old Wise Man I may not be, but I will impart as much wisdom as I can...and take with me some much needed boost of energy.
Sometimes a little poor customer service is enough to ruin your day. Sometimes that poor customer service seems to compound like everyone is ganging up on you. That’s what happened yesterday.
The airline industry does not have the best reputation for their customer service to begin with. However, you would think with some of the larger gaffes of late and those being shared via blogs and microblogs that the airlines would start singing a different tune.
Misty and I were headed to Phoenix to stay with some friends for a long weekend and take in some Spring Training baseball. We purposefully chose an afternoon flight so that we could work the better part of the day before departing. Our flight was scheduled for 5:30pm departure on US Airways. We live relatively close to the airport and we had not only checked in online, but we also purchased to check a bag online. Our first stop was the off-site parking lot. The bus picked us up, then circled the parking lot two more times waiting for others to shuttle to the airport. It was about 10 minutes of circling and picking up other passengers. As luck would have it, one of the passengers was flying on Southwest Airlines, so the first stop was going to be the East Terminal. Finally we made it to the main terminal. We still had to physically check in our luggage and wile in line for that the US Airways computers went down.
As we found out, this is crippling for the airlines. There is no backup plan. There is nothing that they can do. They can’t check in passengers, they can’t check in baggage…nothing. And Judy S., the US Airways representative there was quick to tell anyone on our Phoenix flight that there was nothing she could do for us. By this time we were about 45 minutes before departure. Judy’s main message was telling the Phoenix passengers, “this is why we tell you to arrive 2 hours before your flight”. If you have flown through STL lately you know what a ghost town that airport has been. Who knew that there was a rush of people leaving this city at the end of the workday on a Thursday. We figured arriving, at what we expected to be, an hour before the flight would allow us ample time to make our flight. It always had in the past.
Suddenly at 5:02 the computers started working again. Judy grabbed our boarding passes and IDs and printed off baggage claims. Of course in STL you still have to take your luggage elsewhere to be scanned and sent on to your plane. Heaven forbid they use that conveyor belt behind the ticketing counter!
We thought we were in the clear. 30 minutes to get from ticketing to the plane seemed like plenty of time in this typically-deserted airport. We made our way downstairs and turned the corner headed towards TSA and were amazed to see a line that stretched halfway down the hall. “Shit!”, there is no way we are getting through this line in time. There is a policy in STL that we learned, they will not move people up in the line if there is a flight about to depart. I know that other airports will do this, because I have been on both sides of it. If a flight is about to depart someone excercises some superior customer service and trolls the line looking for poor travelers who are stuck in line. A quick check of the boarding pass confirms the passenger indeed needs some intervention to make their flight and for the most part the passengers who are being “jumped in line” understand. Not the case in STL! We stood in the line for nearly 30 minutes. Once finally through the line we grabbed our belongings, didn’t even bother to put our shoes on and tore through the A Concourse.
All for not.
The door to the plane had just been closed and there was no way that the gate agent was going to open that door. Let me interject here that it was not just the two of us who missed our flights. There were six of us in all in the same circumstance. So that means that there were likely 6 seats open on that flight now.
We stood there staring at our plane, still connected to the gate bridge, just a short throw from where we stood. No sympathy, no desire to help us feel better about the situation, just “I am busy right now, I’ll be with you in a few minutes” from Reginald the gate attendant.
I understand that there are rules and regulations that are set in place for a reason. But we all know that there are ways to accommodate the consumer, to make the travel experience better and neither US Airways or TSA had any interest in making our experience any better.
Here’s what burns me the most. It was crab-ass Judy at ticketing. She spent her time standing in front of the passengers while we waited for their crippling computer shut-down to reboot telling us what we did wrong. It was our responsibility to plan for “things like this to happen”. You know what she should have been doing? Calling down to the gate agent at A16 and letting them know “there are 6 passengers in line that are trying to make that flight. The computers were down, we just got their luggage checked and they are on their way. Is there any way to hold the flight for them?” We all know that airlines are also not known for their on-time arrivals. Waiting an additional 5 minutes to accommodate their paying customers (time which is easy to make up in the air) would have been a much better solution. A solution I would expect (or at least the attempt) by a company that invests in customer service.
Instead this is now public. I started with a couple microblog posts on twitter while this was transpiring. First booing Judy and her poor attitude, then reaching out to US Airways asking for them to delay flight 244. I don’t think they were listening. In this “new” social world you had better be on your best behavior as you represent a company. It is easy to be heard as a disgruntled customer. US Airways did more harm than good yesterday by employing someone with a horrible attitude and letting her be the face and voice of their company. My money is hard-earned. I have choices on where I will spend it. Bad experiences make my decisions easier by eliminating choices.
There are so many restaurants in a city the size of St. Louis. It would be difficult (and expensive) to hit them all and know what is truly available around town. Luckily there are friend networks and restaurant reviewers out there helping pare down the daunting list. Today I throw myself into those categories.
For the month of February Misty and I decided to go to a different restaurant on The Hill each weekend. The idea came to me one Saturday morning when I was at Viviano's on The Hill picking up some fresh meat for a home cooked meal. As I drove down Shaw and Edwards I kept saying to myself, "I need to try that place", or "it has been way too long since I was last there". With that, it was set. A Hill dine around.
We are 3 weeks into the 4 week tour and we have had some amazing meals. Week 1 was Gian-Tony's. This place came highly recommended. Nice atmosphere and good food were the billing. It did not disappoint. It was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night at 7:30. The bar was hopping, but the tables were not all full. We were able to be seated quickly near the back of the restaurant. The portions were huge as most people took home a "doggy bag". If you are looking for a good meal on The Hill with large servings and a fair price put Gian-Tony's on your list. Everyone at our table was more than satisfied with their meal. Plus it appears that you can make last minute reservations.
Week 2 we went to Favazza's. This restaurant was quite a bit more lively. While it did not have the ambiance of Gian-Tony's the food was equally good. We also put in reservations here, and there appeared to be a wait for a walk up table. Perhaps their location on Southwest helps their traffic, or maybe it was the relaxed atmosphere; either way I would recommend a reservation. Their white sauce was particularly rich and again everyone left full and several had plenty left over to take with them.
Last night was Week 3. Mama Campisi's had been mentioned, and no one I knew had been there. This was an amazing find. The place was packed. Good thing we had reservations! It is one of the smaller restaurants and add to that a singer roaming the joint with his wireless microphone and there was not much room to stand and wait. Even with our reservation we waited about 15 minutes. While at the bar before dinner they poured generous glasses of wine for a fair price. Our table was near the door, but never was cold. The singer paid quite a bit of attention to us as we were seated near his karaoke set up. At one time he handed Misty his CD of covers, only to take it back later. I don't think we would have had much use for his CD, but it was odd how he took it back. The food was even better than it smelled, and the place smelled like a true Italian restaurant.
I would highly recommend this place. They were supposed to have a dish on the 3rd weekend of each month, Chicken Lasagna. Someone had come in that morning and bought all of it. So the special was not available this time. The chef told us that he will most likely have it next weekend. Everything that we ate was so flavorful, I can only imagine how good the chicken lasagna would be as a special.
So now we head into Week 4. Our last meal on The Hill. We have the list narrowed down to a few potential restaurants; Zia's (just reopened after their fire 6 months ago), LoRusso's or Giovanni's. Have you ate at any of these? Do you recommend one over the others? If so, please share. Also, if you care to join us we always welcome others to come along. It will be this Friday Feb 26th around 7:30. I hope you can join us.
We are thinking of doing something similar again in a few months either in another area of town or maybe another theme. We'll keep you posted.
