Speak Your Mind Reviews

I recently purchased a bunch of weightlifting equipment for my garage and I’ll be doing reviews of it all over the next few days.

The company I bought it through is called new york barbell of elmira corp and the manufacturer is a company called TDS. Unfortunately it’s out of stock on Amazon (where I bought it) so I linked to their 5.5 inch Steel Log. The 8″ log is the one in the center of the rack. It was $229.95 plus shipping.

Ok here are the high points:
Its well balanced and always seems to lay with the handles pointing up so no adjusting!
It takes Olympic plates so I didn’t have to invest in a bunch of pig iron.
It comes with real clamps not those spring clamps.
It’s coated with a black paint of some sort that seems to be pretty tough.

The down side.
The handles are coated with the paint. It doesn’t really make the handles slippery but the knurling doesn’t work as well as it could. I’ll be changing that with a quick run of the wire wheel in the next day or 2.
The tightening bar in the clamp is pretty soft & will bend if you put any decent pressure on it. So that is an area that I think they could improve in.

Overall
I have to say that this thing is a blast to workout with! It’s well balanced & comfortable to hang on to. It weigh’s 75 pounds by the way.
I like the 8 inch diameter. It’s big enough to work you pretty hard at top of the clean but not insanely hard like a 12 or even a 15 inch log would.
You’ll really start to see what I mean when you get into heavy triples, doubles & singles. Once you get it overhead you appreciate the balance.

Overall good stuff & I look forward to training with it on a regular basis! I’ve only had it for a couple of weeks so there really hasn’t been much opportunity to expose any weaknesses yet. If I run across and problems I will be sure to post them later on.

I’m not sure what has happened to this restaurant recently but it has really gone down hill. Every time we have gone in there to eat over the past 3 months or so we have end up with a mass of apologies from the waitress & a discount card from the manager. At first we figured it was a fluke but after 8 or 10 trips back since the first bad experience it has stayed bad. We have tried different days of the week and different times of the day and it hasn’t mattered it’s just bad with absolutely no improvement at all.

The service has really gone down hill and it looks like it’s because they are under staffed. Getting a refill of my coffee is like pulling my own teeth with my fingers. The one time we ended up getting our food before our drinks. We actually had to ask the manager to get our drinks for us!

It’s sad to see a historically decent coney place go down the tubes like this. After tonights performance we have made the decision not to return again.

My wife decided to try a new place on valetines day, namely Louie’s Chop House located in chesterfield, michigan on the west side of gratiot ave.

Right off the bat I was thinking oh…great louie’s chop house. How great can it be with a name like louie’s.  What I pictured and what it is was way off.

Of course valentines day it was packed to the gills. We had reservations & had to wait about 15 mintues or so to be seated. Once we were seated, in the bar as me & my wife are smokers, the waiter brought us some basil infused oil with fresh ground pepper on top. the bread was a few minutes late in arriving but it was very hot & fresh out of the over – nice & crusty the way I like it.

They had a piano player in the bar who was pretty good. My wife doesn’t care for piano music much but as the night went on that changed as he managed to play some tunes that she really liked.

She ordered a pineapple juice & coconut rum, I got a dragonsmead red (produced in warren michigan). The beer was great! We didn’t get any appetizers that night.

I ordered the honey walnut porkchops with asparagus on the side & my wife got the coconut shrimp with augratin potatoes. It took a while for it to arrive but the food was absolutely great and worth the wait!

There where 3 good sized pork chops nicely char grilled, the asparagus was a bit mushy for my taste but passable. You’ll have to read Tami’s review to get her take on the food. We were expecting to have room for dessert but that was far from the case. By the end of the meal we were stuffed & satisifed with the food and the whole experience.

In total the meal cost about $65 plus tip. So louie’s isn’t the cheapest place to eat but the food is well worth the exra dough for a nice night out.

Since Tami had her heart set on getting banana’s foster or cherries jubilee we returned the following night.

Just to see how the staff reacted I was sporting my blue jeans, lamb of god t-shirt (a heavy metal band) with a fleece welders cap. Tami was wearing a bass pro shop t-shirt & blue jeans. The staff didn’t miss a beat. We have found some higher end restaurants react negatively towards us when we walk in looking like that so it was a good test which they passed with flying colors. Once we we sat down in the bar again, by ourselves this time as no one else was in the bar. I got another dragonsmead red & Tami a lemonade. Our waiter immediately said nce shirt when he saw it, turns out he is a metal drummer for an up and coming metal band & the bar maid/manager (possibly owner has a son who has toured around the world as a metal drummer). So needless to say I was quite happy that the staff was down to earth & very friendly.

This time I ordered an appetizer, the cajun beef tips. Tami actually order the crab cake appetizer as her meal with augratin potatoes again. My meal was the detroiter sirloin steak, mdium, with garlic smashed taters on the side.

The beef tips took a little while to arrive (enough time for us to smoke a cigarette) but were good, not fatty at all & served with garlic cheese bread. MMMMMM very good. Tami said that they were spicy but I didn’t notice anything. Once we finished with that Tami had enough time to smoke another cigarette before dinner arrived. My steak was great and the garlic smashed taters were very tasty. I used a butter knife to cut the steak it was so tender.  The steak had tobasco onion straw on top of it but I didn’t have any as I wanted to save room for dessert. Tami seemed to really enjoy her crab cakes & taters.

For dessert we(Tami) initially ordered the cherries jubilee but it turned out that they were out of cherries so she went with the banana’s foster. After smoking a cigarette a different waiter wheeled in a granite topped portable bar with a burner and prepared the banana’s foster right in front of us. It was very, very good. The waiter made the perfect amount of topping for the vanilla ice cream.

Once we finished that we were ready to leave and told the second waiter so. After about 15 minutes he returned saying that our first waiter left and voided the order from the computer so he had no idea what we ordered. He was extremely apologetic for the inconvenience. After we went over everything we had he returned shortly with our bill. In total it was about $62.

Ok here is my take on Louie’s on a 1-5 rating system 1 is horrible 5 is great

• Food – 5
• friendly staff – 5
• atmosphere – 5
• timeliness – 3
• food selection – 5 (the key here is that the menu isn’t massive so the food they do offer is great)
• Price – 4

Overall if you’re looking for a very nice leisurely dinner with good food and a friendly staff Louie’s is a good choice. While it’s not the least expensive it’s not the most expensive either and even with the few “issues” we really enjoyed it.

We will definitely return to this great locally owned restaurant.

Here is the info for Louie’s Chop House as of this post

50355 Gratiot Ave
Chesterfield, MI 48051

586-949-9566

Hours

I have to say I am truely addicted to Amish furniture.  I own an amish furniture store. My husband started out working for a website that just did online only sales. Then we bought our store. I acually can stand behind the product I sell. Its a rare thing to say these days. When we bought the store I had no knowledge of anything. It was a long process learning everything I know. I must admit I still do not know everything. There are so many products and builders to learn about and its always changing. 

 I started out with a dining room table and chair set and now my whole house became amish. It took around 3 months to get each piece but well worth the wait. I am normally an impatient person. I hate waiting for things to arrive. I hate ordering online just because of waiting for shipping. I was so happy to get it. I am still currently waiting for my entertainment center to arrive but it should be coming with in the next week.

I can say I am truely jaded by owning real wood vs the cheap stuff. I got sick of my furniture falling apart if I had to move it in anyway. Or paying over charged prices for things that did not last. Specially since I know what the bigger stores pay for the items.  I know I could not work at one of the big boxed furniture stores knowing what I know now. I could not sell something I can not stand behind.

If you decide to try it for yourself and need help. Let me know. Even if you do not purchase it from me.  I will help you as best as I can. I had a customer put it best. ” I am not buying this furniture for me. I am buying it for my grandchildren.”

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