Visiting Louisville

I was in Louisville, KY a couple weeks ago (we were providing cyber cafes, training machines and other support to an educational conference)


My wife and kids were able to come down for the leading weekend of the conference which allowed us to spend at least part of Father's Day together. I'm really glad they came - and more glad that the kids were good for my wife on the 6 hour ride back home!


On the way down, we stopped in Cincinnati to see my brother and his house that is very much in the middle of a complete renovation. The inside is all 2x4's, but the outside looks great. While there, he took us to an excellent local pizzeria. If you're ever in the area, make sure to check out Dewey's. They make "gourmet" pizza and have several very good choices on the menu. They also let you create your own and everything was excellent.


On Saturday, my family and I went to the Louisville Slugger Museum and factory which was a surprisingly worthwhile visit. The tour of the factory takes just the right amount of time to keep a 5-year-old and 8-year-old entertained throughout. What really amazed me is that for the whole length of the factory tour, you're within inches of the production lines - very cool.


As soon as the boys found out that we were going to Kentucky they started talking about how we're likely to see a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken stores. I told them I didn't think we'd see any more or less than we do in Detroit, but they were certain we'd see more. As it turned out, we didn't see any. For some reason, though, this was really on their mind. As we were walking around after the factory tour, they started talking about it again. It was to the point where I said to them that KFC probably wasn't even from Kentucky. Not more than 10 minutes later we walked past a visitor's center that had a life-sized statue of The Colonel himself. The boys were thrilled to have their picture taken with him. A few minutes later I saw my 8-year-old earnestly listening to one of the workers at the information counter. He'd walked up and asked what the story was about KFC and Kentucky. He was all-too-happy to come give us the details. Colonel Sanders was born in Indiana, but did indeed open his first store in Kentucky.


On the opening night of the conference, they had an off-site reception at the Muhammad Ali Center. I'm no fan of boxing, but this place was incredible. The curators did an excellent job of capturing my attention from the minute I walked in the door. I only saw one of several floors of the exhibits, and only part of that floor. The video clips they put together painted an excellent picture of this man, his attitude and his boxing career. If you're ever in Louisville, you should check this place out, even if you have no interest in boxing.

The reception was catered and had excellent food. I didn't get to try the shrimp, but I hear it was incomparable. I did have the best slices of beef tenderloin I've ever had in my life - really.

The next day our friends (and customers) mentioned that the caterer, Emily Fultz, insisted they come to her restaurant before leaving town and we were invited to tag along. We walked a few blocks to Jarfi's Bistro. The restaurant is attached to a performing arts center where The Lion King was currently running. The show started at 8:00 and our reservations were for 8:00 and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The chef, Jeff Jarfi, prepared the most wonderful meal I've had in quite some time. I'm not going to pretend a food critic so I won't try to describe how these things tasted or how they were prepared. (You can look at the menu to get all the details) Chef Jarfi prepared a 5 course meal that was out of this world. We had Baby Lamb Chops, Awesome Sea Bass, Tomato Mozzarella Salad, Filet Mignon and a Raspberry Sorbet with fresh fruit. I'd like to thank Amy and Sarah from Organizational Services, Inc for inviting us to tag along. I'd also like thank Emily and Jeff for such a wonderful meal and evening.