Day 102 – September 15, 2011 – Tightening the belt…

Number of days in Amsterdam – 102

Number of days without a bike theft – 98

Days since it last rained – 3

As the beautiful fall weather kicks in, it’s time to tighten up my belt.

No, this isn’t euphemism for poverty, or starvation, or even that I’m turning into a lean, mean biking machine, but the fact is that my pants don’t fit me as well as they used to.

Why is this?

We don’t have a dryer.

So my jeans don’t get that bit of shrinkage they used to in the states.

It’s not a bad thing. It’s just a casual observation.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Living Social site here in Amsterdam. For those of you who’ve never used the site, it’s like Groupon, but more focused on events. I bought a pair of tickets for the Taste of Amsterdam festival next weekend, and they took my money, but have yet to produce the vouchers, or return my emails. I’ll keep you posted on how that one plays out, but I think their may be some definite hiccups in their Amsterdam location. Are they getting too big too fast? Maybe.

This weekend is one I’m going to miss being in my home of Ferndale as well. It’s the annual DIY festival. It’s a sort of art/music/beer/food festival with a ton of great varieties of all the forementioned. It was always a great couple of days to get together with all my Detroit friends, and I hope you guys all know we miss you, and have a beer for us! (Well, for me, anyway, Nicole can’t be drinking right now.)

I also got an email that American Idiot is coming to Detroit. One more thing I’ll be missing out on. I do hope to see that someday.

And while I don’t want this post to be too focused on what’s going on back in the D, the fact is, other than my pants not fitting right, it was a slow day here. But family sent us a link to a cool news story that lets me know that Detroit is once again taking a step in the right direction with the opening of a new restaurant called Colors.

Colors is one part restaurant, one part school. While people dine on one side of the restaurant, people learn the restaurant business on the other. It’s things like this, innovative business plans intent on helping the community, that will help bring Detroit back to what it once was, and a place where I’d like to return to someday, after my wanderlust has been sated.