David's Job Search

Hi Everyone. We're settled in here in Shawano, WI and are very busy doing wedding planning stuff. We now have both food and cake, and I'm going to brew the beer this Thursday. I'm trying to immerse myself in the culture of Shawano during the short time we're here so I can really understand where Abby comes from.

Yesterday, we went to the sturgeon parade downtown. It was a children's parade, so it was pretty much just a bunch of kids in paper sturgeon hats and one scrawny high school aged boy in a black sturgeon costume running around saying, "I'm a sturgeon, it's all about me!" The whole shebang was over in about 3 minutes, but the kids were very cute in their hats. We're keeping tabs on the dam near our condo so we can go see the sturgeon when they begin spawning. It should be any day now...

On the job search front, I've been watching a few brewing websites online and I've been in contact with a friend who lives in Portland, OR and knows about the brewing scene there. I've got resumes out in response to 5 job postings in Portland, ME; Lake Placid, NY; Nashville, TN; San Luis Obispo, CA; and a mysterious northern CA brewery. I'm also sending resumes to breweries I admire (Deschutes, New Belgium, etc.) and applying to some brewpub chains (McMenamin's, Rock Bottom, etc.) Frankly, I'll take whatever I can get to gain experience brewing.

I was thinking about changing the blog title to "David's adventures in small town Wisconsin" but I figured that would just confuse all our adoring fans.

David

A fond farewell to the Mother road

So since we last talked we drove through Missouri, stopped at the St. Louis Arch and the museum of westward expansion. We drove to Springfield IL and ate at the Cozy Drive In, which was founded by the man who invented the corn dog I'll have you know! We spent the night in Springfield for the sole reason of eating at the Charlie Parker diner. We saw it on Diners, Drive ins, and Dives (a food tv show) and they make this thing called a horse shoe which is two slices of toast, eggs, breakfast meat, and cheese sauce or sausage gravy. It was voted David's "best meal of the trip" Mine was still the texmex dinner from Grants NM of a taco, enchilada, and chimichanga with green sauce, and sopapillas with honey for dessert. Im such a sucker for Mexican food! After Springfield we diverge from the Mother road, bidding it a fond farewell.

Today after our horse shoe breakfast we went on a wild bread chase, in search of the elusive Rosen's Rye, no seeds, not sliced. After 4 different grocery stores, in two different IL cities, we found seeded sliced rye but Don, who is a connoisseur of bread and toast, does not like the caraway variety. We sadly bought one loaf of the seeded sliced rye and sulked away to drown our sorrows in lots of beer at lunch. We drove to Kenosha WI for a relaxing night at the Country Inn and Suites to rest up for our big moving in / unloading the crap from our car day tomorrow in Shawano.

Our whole Napa adventure ends tomorrow, when we drive into Shawano. Dave and I are excited to get home and plan the wedding that my mom has been working soo hard on, and see our friends and family that we have missed over the past nine months. I hear some of them have even managed to add to their family's numbers since we left. We can't wait to see everyone and meet the new ones (little Ali!!!!).

See you soon Shawano Green Bay folks, and the MN folk soon I promise.
Lots of love and we'll keep you posted on David job search and our wedding plans.
Abby and David