One of the things that kind of sucks about my job with the public school system is that I have to work when most of the other employees get time off. The teachers have it written in their contract that they get certain times off from work. Summer vacation, Christmas break, Spring break, you get the idea. It's all negotiated by their union and it is unlikely to ever change unless we were to move to year round school.
The administrators also have a union and despite that fact, they still have to work over break, but they get a bit more liberties than bargaining groups like custodians. Finally, we have people like myself and my wife. We are "non-affiliated" employees. It basically means we aren't in a union and we have our own separate contracts. Although I am considered an administrator, I a not in their union, which honestly is fine with me. Given my operational knowledge of the technology here, I think my job is fairly secure at least until I retire.
As I said, my wife and I have separate contracts and while hers gives her those same days off that the teachers get, mine does not. It's fine really because I have a lot of stuff I can get done while teachers and students are gone, but it also means that @mrsbozz has to keep herself occupied at home all day while I am at work.
Which sadly is a little harder for her than it used to be now that our dog Jovi is no longer with us. As I said in this post, this past week was a bit harder than usual given the fact that it was the one year anniversary that we said goodbye to our beloved dog.
With that in mind, I decided to take the day off work on Friday and head out on a road trip with @mrsbozz just to have some fun and take our minds off the pain and emptiness.
We ended up making the two hour drive over to Grand Rapids, MI. We had thought about driving down to Detroit, but it was the Tigers baseball team home opener, so we knew traffic would be nuts down there. Grand Rapids is a cool city in Michigan that has a ton of breweries and great food. It's got a couple skyscrapers, but it's mostly walkable and the downtown area is really vibrant and still gives you that big city feel. I've written about it several times in my blog.
This time however, we stayed away from the downtown area and hit a couple places on the outskirts of Grand Rapids.
The first stop was Trader Joe's since we don't have one close to where we live. We picked up some groceries and then headed to T.J.Maxx and Marshalls to do some bargain shopping. Next, we hit City BBQ to get some of the low calorie BBQ sauce that my wife likes. Finally, we stopped at Schuler Books because @mrsbozz had finished her book while we were taking the backroads over to Grand Rapids.
Finally, it was time to grab a bite to eat and head home, that's what lead us to HopCat Taproom.
Cerveza Delray is the beer I got from Brew Detroit. It was very tasty and refreshing.As you saw from the opening photo, I got an early start (sorry @detlev) on #beersaturday by having a nice Mexican style lager from a brewery out of Detroit, MI.
The interior of HopCat is about what you would expect from a taproom. Beer branded mirrors and paraphernalia all over the place, high top tables, booths, an outdoor beer garden, tap handles all over the place. I'm sure you have been to a place like this before. Since our day trip was a bit of a vacation, we decided to splurge a little bit and get an appetizer before our meal.
We decided to get the "space curds" which were actually just chunks of Vermont cheese lightly breaded and then deep fried. These were quite unlike any we had had in the past. Usually they are fully breaded and encapsulated, but these were a bit more rustic and honestly, I was digging them. What really made them special was the bloody mary aioli that they gave you to dip them in. The combination of flavors was fantastic!
When I saw they had an Ancho Chicken bowl, I had a feeling that was the direction my wife would take and it turns out I was right. After 16 years together, I guess I know her a bit by now. She was a bit confused by the french fried onions on the top of it, but she said it was pretty good. She also wished there had been a bit more sauce for it. It wasn't the best bowl like this she has ever had, but she said it was good.
I'd been craving a burger for a while, so I decided to go with their signature tavern burger. It was quite good and the flavors worked together really well. I think the real star of the dish was the fries and the seasoning they put on them paired with the cheese sauce they gave me to dip them in.
Like most burgers at places like this, they give you way too much bread, so about halfway through I pulled everything off the bun and just ate that. I also wasn't able to finish all my fries which honestly, I think is an accomplishment. When I was younger I would have demolished this whole dish. That's probably part of the reason I am considered obese now, but baby steps right?
As far s shopping was concerned our day didn't work out quite as productively as we had planned, but with full bellies, some great memories, and a day away from the worries and stress of work and real life, we turned the car East and headed home.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:u37t33dyaufvrqujwmvm54ln/post/3lmevc5asyc2l
The rewards earned on this comment will go to the author of the blog post.https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:u37t33dyaufvrqujwmvm54ln/post/3lmevc5asyc2l
Sounds like the place I'd enjoy :) Cheers!
I think you definitely would!
I’m glad you got to carve out some time to spend with the wife! That’s really important and doing some traveling is quite enjoyable.
The burger looked good for sure! I love breweries and tap rooms because they almost always have great burgers to devour!
Yeah, we have a ton of really unique places here in Michigan. The craft brewing scene is pretty impressive.
Over here.. it's TK Maxx. Same stuff probably.. 😃
For real? That is hilarious! It's mostly just homegoods and clothes, but name brand stuff that is highly discounted because it was an odd size or it didn't sell like they expected it to. I picked up a really nice Michigan State sweatshirt for like $17 vs. the $60 they usually sell for.
Same here, its very popular but not odd sizes, regular stuff.
Congratulations @bozz! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 61000 comments.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out our last posts:
This is a relatable post! The inequities in time off between unionized and non-unionized school employees are frustrating. It's interesting to hear about the differences between your contract and your wife's. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
No problem, it was my pleasure! Plus I got to share some food photos, so that is awesome too!