A Saturday afternoon in OtR.

This afternoon we caught an Uber down into Over-the-Rhine. Our friend Chris just had a birthday and his wife, Tayler was throwing him a bar-hopping surprise party that started at Rhinegeist

Decisions, decisions…

We got down to Rehinegeist a little bit early so we could finally check out their rooftop…

The Rhinegeist rooftop patio…

It’s super nice up there. But we went back downstairs to get some food. Rhinegiest’s taproom is on something like the third or fourth floor of the building. On the first floor is Sartre, the hottest restaurant & bar according to Zagat. Two things on a side note, the hottest restaurant and bar just sounds really uncomfortable and sweaty. And Zagat also said Steak ‘n Shake had the #1 rated milkshake. Steak ‘n Shake. So I think you should really take their recommendations with a grain of salt. But I digress, Sartre. In addition to having a restaurant and bar on the first floor, Sartre also has a kiosk in Rhinegeist’s taproom that I should have taken a photo of but didn’t. They take your order at the kiosk and Sartre sends your food up to the taproom in oversized banking tubes, and they call it tube food. That’s awesome! And I’m so mad that I didn’t take any photos of the kiosk or the tubes. But Genifer ordered a pretzel and I got a burger. And here it is…

And that was one really terrific burger…

So, sooo good. Rhinegeist really fills up on a Saturday afternoon…

On May 15th, National Dinosaur Day was Jurassic Geist at the Rhinegiest Taproom…

According to a tweet I saw in celebration of World Dinosaur Day, Cincy Museum Center teamed with Rhinegeist to display their 50-foot Galeamopus dinosaur in public for the first time! This YouTube video shows the process of putting together a 150-million-year-old dinosaur! We’ll definitely have to get back down to Rhinegeist to see the dinosaur and get some photos of tube food…

From Rhinegeist, we walked over to Taft’s Ale House

Then we swung through Sundry and Vice before heading to Mecca OtR

Chunkers!

From there, we made our way to 16-bit

And they had Slush Puppie drinks…

And then we stopped into Longfellow

And then it was onto Rhinehaus to watch the end of FC Cincinnati’s 4-1 loss away to Charlotte Independence. Everyone headed to 4EG’s newest bar, Rosedale. Rosedale was stupid packed. And somewhere between point A and point B, we got separated from our group. We tried to track them down but to no avail. So we hopped in an Uber and headed back to Northside where we stopped at Higher Gravity for a nightcap. It was a really fun afternoon and evening of bar hopping in Over-the-Rhine. 😀🍺🍻🥃🍸🍹❤️

 

Northside nubs.

I was planning on taking a half day this morning when Cincinnati Bell was installing our new Fioptics. But it took so long to get us up and running that I decided just to take the whole day off. Eventually, we decided to walk down to Melt to have a late lunch…

Genifer had a half Cobb Salad with chips and hummus and buffalo mac&cheese…

I had the Hoffner with classic mac&cheese…

Their sammiches are so outstanding, as is their mac&cheese. After we were done eating, we celebrated no longer having cable by sharing a Morning Glory cocktail…

And after we were done with lunch, we stopped into Higher Gravity for a flight…

It was a great way to celebrate no longer having cable and spend my first vacation day of the year. 😀🥪🍺🥃❤️

We cut the cord. Finally.

This morning we made it official. We cut the cord. We finally pulled the plug on our cable and ditched Spectrum/Time Warner. This morning a service technician hooked us up to Cincinnati Bell Fioptics in an installation process that was not nearly as simple as I thought it would be. But after watching him work all morning to get us up and running, we’re experiencing Fioptics and it’s so far so good. Everything works just fine. We didn’t really watch our cable all that much. We usually watched Netflix or Hulu (free with Sprint!) or Amazon Prime Video in the evenings while we also streamed whatever sports were on that evening on a tablet. We’ve also been testing Sling TV for the last couple of weeks and found that Sling has almost everything we watched on cable and then some.

This isn’t a comprehensive review of Sling TV. Just a declaration of independence from Spectrum that feels incredibly liberating. Sling works great through our Amazon Fire TV sticks or our Google Chromecasts. We can also stream all of our channels anywhere we go through our mobile devices. We get all of my soccer and all of Reds games. And we have 50 hours of DVR space. The only downside so far is a lack of local channels. We didn’t really watch local tv at all except for weekend sporting events. And I figure that won’t really be much of a problem until around football season. But there seems to be a pretty easy fix to that problem though with the AirTV Player that is said to integrate seamlessly with Sling TV. We’ll look into adding that option soonish.

The best part of cutting the cord and ditching cable is that we’ll save about $70 a month. You can’t beat that. Getting to say, Bye Felicia to Spectrum isn’t bad either.
😀📺✂️❤️

Cheers!

Tonight, we enjoyed our growler of Urban Artifact’s Jalapeno Margarita Keypunch from Higher Gravity in glasses from Braxton on our back patio

And it was really good. That’s all. 😀🍺❤️

It’s what’s for dinner.

Genifer made another one of Kroger’s Prep+Pared meal kits for dinner tonight. This one was BBQ Chicken Flatbreads with tangy slaw…

This was one of my favorite Prep+Pared dinners yet. What’s not to like here? They were little cheesy BBQ chicken flatbreads. And we each got two of them. The flatbreads got a little bit crispy on the edges in the oven and they were really delicious. Kroger is always changing their Prep+Pared meal offering as the season’s change. Genifer says it’s kind of difficult to find the same meal twice. That’s good for variety and trying new meals. But it’s not so good when you find a meal that you really like. And I really hope we get to have this meal again. 😀🐔❤️

Thunderstorms.

Thunderstorms started to roll in as we were beginning to walk the dogs this evening…

Bummer. 😐☁️🌧️❤️

I ❤️ Swarm.

We stopped for coffee at Sidewinder this morning and checked on Swarm…

You guys. That’s adorable. And later, I made my 63,000th check-in…

I love my Swarm. 😀⭐❤

It’s what’s for dinner.

Last time Genifer went to the grocery, she got two more of the Kroger Prep+Pared meal kits. Tonight she made Corn&Black Bean Chilaquiles with roasted salsa…

It was another outstanding meal, particularly impressive because it was vegetarian. The best part was the crunchy tortilla strips that topped the dish. Those Kroger Prep+Pared meals are so good. We love them! 😀🌮❤️

Beau Brummell Face Wash.

For Christmas, Genifer got me a subscription to Birchbox. Every month, I get a box full of little samples of different men’s grooming products. There have been a lot of new brands that I’ve been turned on to, especially different colognes and hair products. But the one thing Birchbox hasn’t found me yet was a face wash that I really loved. Lucky for me, I got the chance to check out The Gentlemen’s Face Wash by Beau Brummell…

George Bryan Brummell, better known as Beau Brummell, was one of England’s most refined gentlemen from the late 18th to early 19th centuries. Born to a middle-class London family, Beau Brummell became a testament that elegance is a product of style and personality, as opposed to class and money. His fame began when he attained the rank of lieutenant in a prestigious cavalry regiment, where he became a close confidant of the future King, George IV.

His ambition was to revolutionize men’s fashion of the day and he is now credited with inventing the modern men’s suit, worn with a necktie. Beau simplified the custom of men wearing large, ornate clothing and ushered in the era of men wearing finely tailored fitted garments. This new age of men’s fashion became known as “dandyism.” Fast-forward to the twenty-first century and Brummell’s contributions to men’s style and modern elegance are still as relevant now as they were back then.

In addition to his timeless innovations in fashion, Beau famously spent nearly 5 hours a day on his grooming regimen. Following his lead, men throughout England (and later Europe) began the practice of shaving daily, bathing daily, and wearing fragrances. I don’t have five hours a day to spend on my grooming. But we’ll definitely give this a try and see how we like it…

For the Beau Brummell website:

The Gentlemen’s Face Wash offers an effective way to keep your skin clean and free of dirt and oils. Cleansing your face twice daily ensures your skin will maintain its youthful appearance. Rosemary oil and caffeine leave your skin feeling fresh and smooth, so you can stay handsome.

I was very excited to give this product a try. The fragrance is wonderful and it’s a deep green-grey color when it first comes out of the pump, which is surprisingly hard to photograph. When you lather it on your face, it gets very foaming and there a slight tingly sensation. Another added benefit of Beau Brummell’s Face Wash is it contains activated charcoal powder. They claim their face wash contains a heaping amount of the stuff, it’s why their product has that wonderful dark color. I’m no scientist but apparently, the charcoal absorbs and traps impurities from the surface of your skin and washes them away as you rinse your face. To read more about the benefits of activated charcoal, check out Beau Brummell’s blog post about why they use charcoal.

At the end of the day, I’ve found my new face wash. My search for a face wash is finally over. Some of these face washes I’ve seen on Birchbox have been pretty ridiculously priced. But at just $25 for an 8oz bottle, this is definitely a product that I’ll be ordering, over and over, to stay #BrummellFresh. And if you enter the code, MEETBEAU at checkout you can save $5 on your order. Thanks, Beau Brummell! 😀🚿❤️ 

Check out all the grooming and skin care products Beau Brummell has to offer.

Good morning from Northside.

Good morning from Northside. Taken with Instagram. 😀🌄❤️

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