June's restaurant--Cafe LULU

A new favorite spot. Cafe LuLu is located in the new hip and trendy Bay View area. This place was fabulous. I have been back twice since this first stop with the nail group.

If you'd like something with a little more kick, Cafe Lu Lu has a nice bar. The menu consists of appetizers, pizzas, sandwiches, and salads. We had one pizza order and the rest were melts. Delicious!! Cafe LuLu also offers breakfast entrees on the weekend. I just might have to check that out, too!!

SMART Board Jeopardy

Here is my class in action. We are playing Jeopardy on our SMART Board

International Exports, Ltd (a.k.a The Safe House)

So this month our five "operatives" headed to the Safe House. Two members arrived ahead of the other three and had to do jumping jacks to gain entrance. So naturally they were watching the television monitor expecting to be entertained as the remaining three of us were asked to make fools of ourselves. As Laura and I waited for Gloria to find downtown parking and meet us in the entry area, we received a phone call informing us that several Milwaukee Public Schools were closing down due to swine flu precautions. You can imagine how exciting that was. Never in our careers in MPS had schools been closed for health issues.

Gloria arrived, we pushed the bookcase open and walked right inside. No password, no shenanigans! The first two "spies", Lori and Michelle, were not pleased with our lack of public humiliation.

The restaurant has a very interesting atmosphere. Lots of nooks and crannies. Bathroom doors that don't lead to bathrooms. Several levels of bars and seating areas. The food was just mediocre. Basic salads and sandwiches, nothing too exciting.

We ate our dinners and then of course sat around to chat. We were somewhat turned off when, after having been told by our waitress to stay as long as we liked, we were asked to leave because our table was in demand. We would have been more sympathetic if the restaurant was crowded. But that not being the case, the request left us with a "bad taste" in our mouths.

A new Web 2.0 application to try--Voki

Get a Voki now!

I attended the WEMTA conference in Madison today. What an amazing day! I came home with so many great ideas, I cannot wait to try them all out. Here is the first one. Voki's. Kids create an avatar. They can then narrate it with up to one minute of audio. You can even make the audio portion with a free phone call! It only took a few minutes to do, although I will admit that you could spend a lot more time just designing your avatar. Give it a try. It is a lot of fun!!

Best Pizza in Milwaukee--Hands down!!

My nail group decided to complete the Pizza Man vs. Balistreri's comparison this month. Unfortunately we were done one member due to illness. I am personally a Balistreri's fan. Just to be clear, this is Balistreri's Italian American Ristorante on 68th St., not their Bluemound Inn. If you like a super thin cracker crust pizza, it is the place for you, too! My son, however, loves Pizza Man. So you have to let people decide for themselves. We ordered the largest pizza with cheese, sausage, and fresh mushrooms. You have to specify fresh mushrooms or you end up with the canned version. I am not a fan of canned mushrooms. I think there might be a small extra charge for fresh.

We also had an order of garlic bread. Their garlic bread is just okay. (As a side note, an interesting thing happened to the remainder of our garlic bread when the women at the table beside us vacated. One of the remaining pieces of bread in the basket decided to attach itself to this woman's rear end, and leave with her.) Needless to say, we were finished with the bread basket. This is an indication of the proximity of the tables. It's a pretty tight squeeze.

The vote was unanimous. Four votes for Balistreri's. This was reinforced when our bill came. Splitting a total tab of $31.00 four ways is pretty economical. Especially when everyone took home their own doggie bag. One lucky person received two extra pieces. Anyone want to fess up?

Riding the Pepper

January's stop was La Perla, a well known Milwaukee Mexican restaurant. It is located on the corner of 5th and National. There are many great Mexican restaurants in that area, but only one where you can ride the chili pepper.

The meals were good, most of us opting for some combination plate. You know how that goes. As Laura says, it all pretty much tastes the same, it just comes in different shapes. When the dinners arrived, it was difficult to figure out which was which. Hopefully everyone got what they ordered. The biggest concern was the guacamole. When Michelle's plate came without it, she was very disappointed. After all, what is Mexican food without guacamole? She was planning to ask the waiter when he came back with my dinner, which was called tequila shrimp, but was basically shrimp fajitas. (I'm not sure where the tequila fit in all of this.) But to everyone's delight, the waiter carried not only my plate, but plates filled with sour cream and the missing guacamole!!!

But of course the highlight of the night came when Lori climbed on the infamous pepper for her highly anticipated ride. We were unsure how the process worked, but rather quickly saw the coin box. So we all dug in our purses for quarters. Upon asking the waiter how much it cost imagine our surprise when his answer, "one" was not "one dollar" but only "one quarter"! We had gathered enough quarters for Lori to ride the pepper all the way home!! We laughed so hard that our cheeks hurt. Of course the other patrons looked at us strangely, but, hey when is the last time you were so entertained for just one small quarter?