Saws, Aquariums, and New Restaurants: 30 before 30

Saws, Aquariums, and New Restaurants: 30 before 30

3. Buy a circular saw

I’m an adult. And a home owner. And up until this past weekend I didn’t own a saw. Prior to this point in my life, I never saw the need for a saw. What was I going to be cutting? But recently we’ve had all these projects planned (headboard, media console, etc. – they’ll make there way on here, I promise) and I need some hardware to get the job done. So we went out to Home Depot this weekend and finally picked up a circular saw. I can’t wait to start cutting stuff. Anybody have a table I can practice on? I’ll cut your table right in half.

6. Eat another burrito

I had another burrito.

13. Go to a new restaurant

Kerry and I had some errands to run on the east side of town, so we asked a friend for a good place to eat out there. She recommended Mulligan’s Tavern and now I do too. Walking in was sort of intimidating. It’s one of those places that you can tell immediately is a local bar. I’m guessing they don’t see a ton of new customers. It wasn’t one of those record-comes-to-a-stop kind of moments, it was more of a, “Hey, we’re here, is anyone paying attention to us” moment. But once we sat down, the waitress was really friendly, and the food was very good. I had a blue cheese burger and Kerry had a fish and chips special.

16. Go to the Cleveland Acquarium

How long were we going to go before anybody told me I had spelled aquarium wrong on my list? Were you all just going to leave it like that and laugh behind my back? Not cool, blog friends readers, not cool.

Anyway, we went. The aquarium is in the Powerhouse building in the Flats. When I was very young, my parents and their friends used to hang out in the Powerhouse. There used to be a bar in there that had a ton of arcade games. The adults could buy rolls of quarters from the bartenders, which they’d give to us kids, and we’d be off running around playing video games. I remember being all over that place, trying to play every game in there, and then running back up to my parents asking for more quarters.

The aquarium is in the old Howl at the Moon spot. I almost experienced a bit of sadness for Howl at the Moon being gone, but then I realized that I really have no desire to go to a dueling piano bar ever again. Or, at least, I’m happier with an aquarium being there rather than a dueling piano bar. But that’s just me. Maybe you have different feelings.

The aquarium is cool in that it takes you for a tour around the world as you walk through. You start off in an area that is all fish from around Ohio. You kind of start with this, “really? I paid to look at perch?” feeling. As you progress, you move through different regions of the world. I think seeing things living in their natural habitats, and then watching those habitats change, makes you sort of appreciate each fish more. The tropical area has bright colored fish, there’s a giant sting ray tank where you can touch the fish, and then the grand finale is a shark tunnel. It’s a huge tank with a walkway winding it’s way through the middle and it’s awesome. I figured I’d see one, maybe two sharks, if I was lucky. These things were swimming all over the place. A shark swam over my head at least five times, and that doesn’t even count every other sea creature that was also swimming around in there. It was very cool.

The aquarium isn’t huge, and it’s mostly smaller tanks, which felt kind of weird. After walking through, it seems pretty obvious that they tried to retro-fit this building to be an aquarium, and that it’s not the most ideal set up. However, given that limitation, it’s very interesting. I’m not really a huge fish guy but I did really enjoy it, and I’d recommend every Clevelander see it at least once.

Oh, happy Valentine’s Day.