The photo hunt was the street lights located at the confusing intersection where Appleton Ave., Menomonee Avenue and Pilgrim Road all come together. Both Paul Wickesberg (Paul's Falls) and Margie R. correctly identified it this week! Paul told me in his email, "Did you know that years ago former public works director, Dennis Droese, actually named them? They were known as Huey, Dewey and Louie." I, of course, did not know this. Did you?

I was gambling with the photo this week. I thought it would be either too easy, or very hard. Every day I drive down Appleton Avenue as I head home from Germantown and can see the glow from blocks away! However, my husband never even noticed the lights until I made him stop the car so I could take a picture. I wondered how many others have passed them countless times without really seeing them.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, and my plans are quite simple. My husband's grandmother is taking the family out for dinner. This is the second time we've done this, the first time was about five years ago, and it was when my husband's grandfather was still alive. It was his [grandfather's] idea, and while it seemed very very wrong to be eating Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant, it actually was very enjoyable. I won't list all the perks, but I'll get to the most important one: NO CLEAN UP! It was heavenly.

I'll most likely start out the day tomorrow with a quick workout at the YMCA, then I'm going to park myself on the sofa and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I've watched the parade for the past two years, I don't really know why I haven't watched the parade prior to that because I really enjoy the performances.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Here is the next photo hunt! Do you know the location in Menomonee Falls where this photo was taken? No clues this week!

To play either leave a comment with your guess (note: I'll hold all correct comments in moderation as to not spoil the fun), send me an email to winelush@gmail.com, or just play along at home. I'll reveal the location on Wednesday. 

This month’s wine club tasted wierd and wacky wines. All of those bottles should have come with a Mr. Yuck sticker on them. This is what we drank, and I use that term loosely, because I’ve haven’t dumped so much wine since August of 2005 during chardonnay night.

Choya Umeshu Plum Wine. Have you smelled varnish lately? You’d better make sure it’s not plum wine because that is what was wafting out my glass. It tasted, in a word, nasty. A few of the ladies each tried (as in ate them) one of the six marinated plums that were floating in the wine bottle. I imagine that could only be compared to eating the worm from the bottle of tequila.

Mekedonikow Tsantali, a Greek rose. Oh. My. Gosh. BLECH! Try it, if you dare.

Donausonne Blaufrankisch, a 2006 Hungarian red. This was my wine, and after drinking the above two it tasted like a dream! A bad dream …… I had hoped that Blaufrankisch would somehow taste like a 2001 California Cabernet Sauvignon. It did not.

Goats do Roam, a 2005 red from South Africa. I have no clue what grape this wine was, they should put it on the label so that I know not to buy that variety again.

The best wine of the night was Oroya 2006, a Sushi inspired white wine from Spain. It was 60% airen, 30% macabeo, and 10% muscat. It was the first wine of the night, I didn’t take a big pour because I was saving myself for the rest of the night. My first mistake: in the future I will drink up!

(Cross posted @ Thoughts Outside My Head)

This week's Photo Hunt was right there on Appleton Avenue, high on the roof of MidAmerica Bank ..... formerly known as St. Francis Bank (there's the clue). Did you get it right? Margie R. was the first to email me with the correct location. Congratulations Margie!

Here is the next photo hunt! Do you know the location where this photo was taken? Here is your clue: Formerly a patron saint.

To play either leave a comment with your guess (note: I'll hold all correct comments in moderation as to not spoil the fun), send me an email to winelush@gmail.com, or just play along at home. I'll reveal the location on Wednesday. 

The last 24 hours has been rather hectic. It all started last night as I was making my deposit at my Landmark Credit Union, which as you might recall, I just switched to a few weeks ago. Everything was okay in my life before I pulled into the drive thru lane at Landmark, but it quickly changed as events unfolded and I found out that my accounts were siezed, my debit cards were disabled, and every single check that came into my account would need to be verfied with the issuing bank. And it would be this way for SIX MONTHS!

Folks, I'm one of those people who ALWAYS pays EVERY SINGLE bill on time. My credit history is cleaner than clean. They couldn't give me an answer to why my accounts were being treated this way, but promised that someone would call me as soon as they found out. As I drove home from the credit union steam was coming out of my ears. I was so upset. Is this how they treat all of their new customers?

It turns out it isn't. A branch manager called me within 10 minutes and as we were on the phone together she came across the problem. Someone had used my social security number at a different bank, someone with a name that wasn't mine, and they were not being very responsible. Alerts were sent out, Landmark received the alert, and locked up my funds.

I immediately pulled my free credit reports, which I highly recommend that every one of you do when you are done reading this post, and I was relieved to find that there wasn't anything that appeared to be fraudulent on them. This morning I had to fax over my Social Security card to Landmark, and they were able to put my accounts back to normal once they verfied my number. I then had to visit the bank where all the destructive activity was going on. Thankfully, they were very helpful and once I filled out the proper paperwork and provided the proper identification they removed my Social Security number from this person's bank accounts. I also issued a fraud alert with the credit agencies.

The day was looking up for me, and since I was near the Dept. of Motor Vehicles and my driver's license still had my previous address on it I decided to round out my afternoon by having it updated to reflect my Menomonee Falls address. As I was leaving I looked down at my license and noticed my signature.

Wouldn't you know that I signed my license L. Laczniak. I don't even know what to say to that, other than it's ironic that my entire day revolved around someone else using my identity and then I go and muck up the signature on my license.

I've spent some time in front of the movie screen lately, here's a recap of what I've been watching:

The Game Plan, starring Dwane "The Rock" Johnson, and a super cute little girl named Madison Pettis. This is a Disney movie, which I didn't realize until we decided to see it. I absolutely loved this movie! It's great for all ages, my 6 year old daughter enjoyed it, as did my husband. The Rock plays a bachelor football player who doesn't know he has a daughter until she shows up on his doorstep. Kyra Sedgwick is fantastic as his agent.

Bee Movie, starring Jerry Seinfeld and a bunch of other big name actors. In all honesty, this was a cute movie. I enjoyed it, but I don't think it lived up to the hype. If I were you, I'd go to a matinee, or wait until it came out on DVD.

The Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith and his son Jaden Christopher Syre Smith. Why didn't I want to see this movie last year when it was nominated for an Oscar??? I have no clue, but I finally got on Netflix and I loved it! I spent most of Sunday morning watching it. By the time it was over my face was wet with tears -- I'm sure I needed a good cry anyways. Will Smith's performance was definitely worthy of his Oscar nomination.

Now onto wine. Tomorrow night is my monthly wine club night. The wines we are tasting are 'weird and wacky wines'. It'll be interesting because every one has a different idea of 'weird and wacky'. Yesterday I visited Vintage in Germantown, where the owner, John, is always ready with a good suggestion. Off the top of his head he had about seven choices for me, but we finally narrowed it down to a red from Hungary. I purchased a 2006 Donausonne Blaufrankisch, the label calls it a Quality Red Wine. We'll see on Friday night just how 'quality' it is, and of course, if I have managed to bring the weirdest and wackiest wine. A close second, which I purchased just because, was a red from the France. As I was paying for my bottles I stumbled upon the wine I'd been searching for ever since trying it at Balzac on Brady St. in July: Zaca Mesa US Red Blend "Z Three". It's amazing! I bought one of the two bottles left, and told John to not even say what the total was out loud, just hand me the receipt and I'll sign it!

The location of the Photo Hunt is the Menomonee Falls Library, which I'll admit, might have been too easy. Did you get it right? Karen got it right with minutes of the picture posting. Karen, I'm going to have to work harder to stump you now.

If you'd like to see more photos of our library photo taking fun please visit my other blog Thoughts Outside My Head.

Here is the next photo hunt! Do you know the location where this photo was taken? Here are your clues: Once again it's somewhere in Menomonee Falls, a place that you should really check out. 

To play either leave a comment with your guess (note: I'll hold all correct comments in moderation as to not spoil the fun), send me an email to winelush@gmail.com, or just play along at home. I'll reveal the location on Wednesday. 

At 10 a.m. this morning I stood in line at the Brookfield Majestic to purchase tickets to the 2:40 p.m. showing of Bee Movie for my family. It's on the UltraScreen and I wanted to sit in the VIP Reserved Seating, which costs a little bit more, but is very nice. I had tried to purchase my tickets on line however their website stated:

"The UltraScreens® feature VIP reserved seating and general seating.
When you buy a VIP reserved seat the best available seats will be automatically selected. In case of sell-outs, the VIP reserved seats automatically selected may not be next to each other. If you purchase your tickets online, neither reserved nor general admission seats can be guaranteed to be together for sell out showings."
 

Since we wanted to have seats together, I didn't purchase our tickets online, but was well aware of the price of the tickets, which their websites states is $1.50 more than the ticket price. The matinee price for children is $6.00 and the price for adults is $6.50. When I include the $1.50 for the VIP seating the prices are $7.50 for children and $8.00 for adults. This was not what I was charged at the box office. I was charged $11.50 per person, regardless of age. When I questioned the discrepancy this morning I was disregarded by the woman at the box office. I checked the pricing on the computer just now and it's indeed what I described.

I called the box office and asked to speak to a manager about this, and he told me that the prices were increased as of today and they are having a problem updating the website. There was no offer to refund the difference, in fact there wasn't even an apology for the pricing error on their website. What ever happened to the customer always being right? Even a little bit of empathy would have gone a long way.

Hey, you know what, it's not my fault that their price is wrong online -- but's that's the price I expected to pay.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we recently switched from a bank to Landmark Credit Union. While we were at Landmark opening the accounts, we were set up with online banking. Login names and passwords were created, as well as I had to choose and then answer three security questions. The questions were the usual kind. For example: What street did you grow up on? What is your father's middle name? What was your kindergarten teacher's name? etc.... The point is that I had to answer all of these questions, and then the banker took a screen capture of my answers and printed it for me. Yesterday I set out to login to Landmark's website for the very first time. I did not write down my password, but I figured that I could remember it just fine. They emailed me my login name, so I had that. This was going to be a piece of cake.

However, I couldn't recall the website address was for Landmark, so I typed in what I thought it was: www.landmark-cu.com. The welcome screen to Landmark Credit Union appeared on my screen, I found the login area and typed in my login and password. Instead of being directed to my account, I got the screen that said that my password was wrong.

Well, okay. I'll try it again. So I typed in my codes again only to find that they were wrong that time too.

I clicked on the Have You Forgot Your Password? link and was prompted to put in my user name, the last four digits of my zip code, and the last four digits of my phone number. That's odd. Where's my super secret security questions that I have the answers to from the screen shot?

At this point I was sure that if I'd just plug in the proper numbers I'd get into my accounts, but after about 10 minutes of typing in the same set of numbers (I was pretty sure I knew zip code and phone number) and getting nowhere I finally called the customer service number on the screen.

"Landmark Credit Union, how can I help you?"

"I opened new accounts last week and am set up for online banking, but I seem to forgotten my password."

"What is your last name?"

"L A C Z N I A K"

Then started to search for my account in every imaginable way, finally admitting that it appeared that I didn't have an account with them.

Puzzled, I asked: "How can that be?" 

"What state are you calling from?"

"Wisconsin."

"Oh. I see the problem."

As it turns out, the fine state of Massachusetts also has a Landmark Credit Union, and it's not a part of my Landmark Credit Union. Once I typed in the correct website of www.landmarkcu.com I was able to login just fine.

The location of the photo is the Classic Bike Shop, which is located at N90 W16519 Roosevelt Dr. Did you know where it was? The correct guess was Rollie's Bike Shop, which I believe is the same place.

There'll be a new Photo Hunt on Monday. I'll have a Landmark Credit Union update tomorrow.

In the meantime, it's November which means it's National Novel Writer's Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo (or NaNo). Writers around the world began writing their 50,000 word novels today! It's not too late for you to get started on yours! Visit the NaNo website if you are interested. I wrote about my own experience with NaNo here.