Standard Bar/Grill

Standard Bar/Grill opened in May, just in time for us to go and watch some Bulls playoff games. The space inside is huge, including a second level, and decorated with gorgeous dark wood. The guys at the door were kind of weird to every person in our group who came in, asking if they were meeting someone or they had a reservation… which was odd.. bc hello… you’re a sports bar. There are TVs everywhere in there. Well, later on we realized they were probably just trying to manage the chaos because it was SO packed during the game. Still, they could have probably gone about it better.

Drink specials were good. You could get all the cheap beers in buckets. Actually, some friends even got buckets of locally brewed, Daisy Cutter. And I thought the food was good too. I got a veggie burger (portobello, black beans, lentils, brown rice, tomato, beet, avocado, red pepper mayo, whole grain bun) with a side salad. Nothing crazy, but the veggie burger was delicious. You could tell they made it in-house. It wasn’t some frozen Boca burger that they microwaved

I would not go back unless I was going to watch some sports, probably. It seems to be the main focus of the place, with all of the TVs. But I did like it and would go back again.

Radiators are not cheap

So, back to that Jeep thing. On my drive to Milwaukee for the UPAF Ride for the Arts, the dash started dinging and lit up saying “check gauges.” I looked at all the gauges and noticed that the temperature gauge was all the way to the right, indicating as hot as it can be. I pulled over at the next exit that I could and pulled into a parking lot in an office park. As soon as I stopped the car smoke came billowing out of the hood area. I got out of the Jeep and looked down. Green fluid was flowing out. Lots of it. My parents were already at my brother’s house when I called up there and so my dad and my brother agreed to come down. I checked Google Maps on my phone and saw that there was an auto parts store nearby. I called them and they were open til 10 p.m. My hope was that my dad would come down, realize it was a hose or something easy, go to the parts store and fix it and we’d be on our way.

So, I camped out in the parking lot of this building.

And waited for my dad and my brother to drive down from Milwaukee. I realized that I wasn’t even out of the city of Chicago! I was at Cicero and Peterson, quite a ways north and west in the city, but still, in the city. So, I realized it would take them a while to come down. Luckily, I was not alone. I had this to keep me company:

I was bringing these Half Acre beers for my dad and my brother to try. They were still ice-cold and it was in the high 70s that evening, so I cracked one open and waited.

Then after a while I oriented myself using the web browser and maps on my phone. I realized I was right next to a Whole Foods, so I walked over to the store and killed some time there.

When my dad and brother arrived they took a look at the car. We realized that the leak was not in a hose, but was actually a leak from the radiator. I needed a tow. Well, little did we know that it would be SO HARD to get a tow. Some said they couldn’t get to me for hours, some said they’d call me back and didn’t, some said they were closed (!?), some didn’t answer their phone, some said they didn’t have a flatbed tow truck, which a few told me I needed. I was basically just going down lists of tow companies on Yelp and Google just trying to get anyone to come out.

Finally, I called a guy who said he didn’t have a flatbed but knew someone who did. I was rolling my eyes at this. I’d heard it before that night and it didn’t pan out, but when he gave me the number I called it and a guy said they could come out within 20 minutes and he actually did. I got my tow! For future reference, this was S&M Towing. They were great to work with did what they said, charged what they estimated, right to the dollar. Nothing shady. Also for future reference, the tow was $85 to hook up the car and $3.50 (I think) per mile after that. It came to about $103. Also, while we were waiting for the tow truck to arrive, I ran into that Whole Foods and bought us all slices of pizza and drinks. It was getting late, I’d been sitting in a hot parking lot forever, and we needed to eat.

My dad rode in the tow truck and chatted it up with the driver. My brother and I followed in my brother’s truck. We towed the Jeep to our regular service station, Nal’s. Dallas’s uncles are good friends with the owner, Al. Dallas has golfed with him before and stuff, but I’ve never met him. I should mention I also spent about a half hour or more calling all of Dallas’s uncles and Dallas, who was in Las Vegas, trying to get Al’s number and find out if I could tow to his shop and leave it. By then the shop was closed so I couldn’t ask them. Anyway, long story short, no one was answering their phone on a Saturday night. We ended up leaving the Jeep on a residential street just south of the shop, where there was no parking restrictions.

After leaving the Jeep, my dad and brother and I drove up to my brother’s house. We pulled in at about 11 p.m., about 5 hours later than I’d planned to arrive. By the time we went to bed it was almost midnight. So, yeh. Late night. And we had to get up at 6 a.m. to get ready for the bike ride! But it all worked out..

When Dallas got back from Las Vegas he brought the keys up to the shop and worked everything out with them. The repairs will end up costing a lot more than I’d have liked – about $600. Stinks! But hopefully nothing will go wrong again and we can stretch out the life of this car. It’s old, but still generally runs good. And $600 is less than a new car. If the Jeep keeps acting up, though, we may have to think about doing a trade in.

Cubs vs. Brewers @ Miller Park

Last season my brother took my dad to a Cubs vs. Brewers game at Miller Park and I gave him a hard time because I wanted to go. I’m kind of a Cubs fan by default. When we were young our family never watched baseball. When I got older I went to watch some Brewers games at County Stadium, but only a couple years later I moved to San Diego. I went to some Padres games there. I moved to New York. I went to some Mets and Yankees games there. Now I’ve been in Chicago attending Cubs games for 5 years. It’s the longest I’ve watched any one team. So, I wanted to go up to watch the Cubs play, but also, I’ve never been to Miller Park so I wanted to check out the new ballpark.

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Lakefront Brewery, Milwaukee

Saturday I went up to Milwaukee for the game. My brother had 4 tickets and his friends Brian and Eric went along too. First we went to Lakefront Brewery. We’d planned to go on a brewery tour, but we got there too late for one and the next was sold out. Since we were there, we just drank some beer. I had the Riverwest Stein Lager, an amber lager, and really liked it. I’m going to try to find it at our liquor store here next time I go.

There were a ton of Cubs fans at the brewery. My brother and his friends said that Cubs games are a lot different experience in Milwaukee than any other team they play. Because Chicago is not that far away, the city is overrun with Cubs fans. I had worn what I thought was a sort of neutral blue shirt, but everyone decided it was more Cubby blue than Brew Crew blue. The Brewers old school blue is very much like the Cubs blue, though.

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Richard :: Miller Park, Milwaukee

At about 3:30, we decided to just head over to Miller Park and tailgate until that game started (at 6:00 p.m. I brought up some Half Acre lager and Fat Tire, neither of which you can get in Wisconsin. There was a ton of other beer and chips. And Brian brought burgers made from the beef raised on his family’s farm. My brother’s friends Michael and Julie also met up with us. They were going to the game but sitting in another section. Julie made and brought the most riche, decadent brownies to share, which was perfect because we didn’t have any dessert. The weather was crisp and chilly, but the sun was blazing. By game time I was pretty cold, but I still managed to sun/wind burn my face.

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Miller Park, Milwaukee

Walking up to the park we were finishing off our beers. I couldn’t finish mine before we got to the gate so I set it in the garbage can. .. and then I got yelled at by everyone I was with and even some strangers. I had to take my beer out of the garbage and finish it! Garbage beer! Classy.

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Richard & Rachelle :: Miller Park, Milwaukee

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Miller Park, Milwaukee

Inside the stadium everything was so nice and new compared to what I’m used to. I guess it’s like 9 years old, but compared to Wrigley Field, which is going on 100 years old, it’s brand new. Also, because of the weather, the roof was not retracted. It was like watching a baseball game indoors, which felt kind of weird.. especially when they lit the fireworks off. Inside. During the game we only had a few beers. I think because we had drank so many outside! Made for a pretty inexpensive game.

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Miller Park, Milwaukee

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Chorizo :: Miller Park, Milwaukee

The fans in the park were almost 50/50, Cubs/Brewers. Fans yelled at each other and tried to out-chant each other, but for the most part they were friendly to each other. I’m sure it happened, but I didn’t see any fans on either side getting really nasty or anything. I bet on chorizo to win the Sausage Race. Hotdog won, then we ate chorizo . I found out that at Brewers games they always sing Roll Out the Barrel after singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game. And the Cubs won!

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Drunk Dancing Idiots :: Miller Park, Milwaukee

Before going home a lot of people started tailgating more. We decided just to head out, since we were all pretty tired. Eric drove because he only had a couple beers earlier in the day and the rest of us had many more up til the time we left. He said he didn’t mind because he doesn’t drink much. Perfect. On the way out these two guys and a girl were all dancing for the cars as they were backed up trying to leave. We talked to them for a while. We even gave them a dollar for their entertainment.. which the girl thought we meant we wanted to see her boobs, but luckily we were able to stop her before she did anything stupid in 30 degree weather in front of loads of people!

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Stephanie’s Bedroom :: Oak Creek, WI

That night I stayed over in Milwaukee. My nieces were staying at my parent’s house for the long weekend, so I slept in Stephanie’s room. Looks just like my old room when I was her age!

I had a good time at the game and hanging out with my brother and his friends. My only complaint would be that it could have been like 10 degrees warmer to make the tailgating a bit more tolerable. We did ok huddling around the grill and drinking more beer, though. I’ll definitely have to go back to MIller Park again. If not this season then next!