Month: March 2021

2021 Week 13 – Sweet 16

So we’re down to 16 teams in the NCAA March Madness Tournament. It’s been a year of upsets as some of the top teams (including ALL of the Big-10) are knocked out. It’s going to be an exciting weekend along with an even more exciting round next week!

YOU get a Shot, and YOU get a shot. Ads of March 31 anyone 16 years old and above is eligible for a COVID vaccine. I’ve been trying to get one for a while now but the demand far outweighs the supply. Governor Holcomb just announced there will be a mass vaccination clinic at the Indianapolis motor Speedway starting on 4/1. I’m scheduled to go on 4/2 for the J&J shot which I’m assuming will knock me on my butt the following day. Good thing there’s basketball to watch!

If you know me you know I have a few hobbies. Camping, Hiking, Cycling, Kayaking, Photography, Cooking (and eating)… I have a new interest this year and it’s Disc Golf. I’ve only just started but I’m very intrigued with it and have a few trips coming up that I plan to play while out and about. I like that it’s an inexpensive sport to get into and the courses are 95% free or only $5-6 where there is a fee. That makes it very accessible to people and easy to walk away if it becomes boring. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Speaking of Disc Golf I found an app called UDisc that makes finding courses and leagues, scoring games, and tracking your stats possible (and fun). All that for only $5 a year (it even has an Apple Watch app included! It’s well worth the price and I’ve really enjoyed using it so far!

Finally, for my Mac friends out there here’s a short video explaining 13 Keyboard Shortcuts you might not know about.

https://youtu.be/m6UJRd8SdQo

2021 Week 12 – Tourney Time!

The NCAA Basketball Tournament (March Madness) started this last week after a successful Big-10 Mens College Basketball tournament the week before. Indianapolis is getting a TON of press and our city is looking pretty nice on the national stage.

My friend Joe Pellman at the Indy Chamber has been working on a project to help get Indianapolis in front of people who would normally not even think of it. When asked about their perception of Indy a lot of people outside of the region are neutral (better than being negative). Life in Indy was created to change that perception and help people discover our amazing city.

The truth is that Indianapolis is one of our country’s best kept secrets—a hidden gem in the heart of the Midwest. But we decided the Indy region shouldn’t be a secret anymore.

Life in Indy

I’m going to keep this weeks post a little on the short side. Lot’s of stuff in the hopper but the weather is way too nice to be inside playing on get Internet. Have a great week everyone!

2021 Week 11 – Spring Forward

I hope everyone remembered to set their clocks forward an hour before you wane to bed last night. I usually have DST on my calendar as a reminder but didnt for some reason this year so the time change kind of snuck up on me.

I was doing some work in Downtown Indianapolis this past week and you can feel the energy of the big basketball tournaments. The Big-10 games started last Wednesday and wrap up today. Then we start all over with March Madness this Thursday through April 5th. EVERY Big-10 championship game and EVERY March Madness game will be played in Indiana. This is the first time this has ever been done and really puts our State under the spotlight. From what I’ve seen so far Indianapolis has cleaned up quite nicely and is doing a great job hosting everything.

If you ever want to know how much of the year has passed you can get real time updates on the Year Progress twitter page. I’ll admit I was watching it closely last year.

The BEST cheesesteak shop in the city has a second location! Originally starting in Flat-12 brewery on the near east side, and later relocating just south of Butler University, Hoagies and Hops just opened a second location inside Chilly Water Brewery on Virginia Ave (Fletcher Place). I stopped by on Friday to try the 1/4 pound chili cheese dog and a small side of fries. This was a BIG dog. The chili and cheese were both infused with beer so it was a different tasting chili dog. Overall I enjoyed it and would order again if I wasn’t getting a cheesesteak.. I dipped my fries in a lot of the cheese and that was a winning combo.

And finally, I’m a fan of the Burger King Original Chicken Sandwich. When it’s done right it’s delicious. Sam the Cooking Guy makes his version at home and it looks really easy to make. I think I’m going to give it a shot next weekend.

2021 Week 10 – Last Dance with LastPass

It was reported last week that the popular password manager “LastPass” had no less than 7 trackers reporting data back to sites like Google. I’ve been looking for another password manager prior to this news but I wasn’t finding anything with the same functionality. I finally found a tool worth moving to called Bitwarden. It’s open source and FREE to use! You can optionally pay $10 a year for some advanced features, and to support the products development. After moving my data to Bitwarden and deleting my LastPass account I was more than willing to pay the money to support the tool It’s got a very active community and is constantly getting new features and updates. If you’re not using a password manager you really should and now you can for free!

Can a vegan Cheeseball taste good? It can if it’s from Eat Surreal! I’ve been seeing the “Amazeball” pop up from time to time on Instagram and it finally got my attention. I visited the Broad Ripple Farmers Market and picked one up. This is an amazing recipe that has honestly got my attention of how well vegan food can taste! if you didnt tell someone they were eating a blend of tofu, coconut oil, various veggies, and spices they would never know the difference. It’s THAT good! You can find this, and other Eat Surreal products at shops around town like Amelia’s Bread and Mass Ave Wine.

And finally… Gears and Gasoline released a 3-Part series where they take a couple of Mazda RX-7s and visit all 48 states. It’s a great set of videos to watch and looks like something that would be a lot of fun!