Shawn Smith’s web ninja life

When I saw Mashable was sharing invites to the new TheKarokeChannel.com website, I knew I had to get on it immediately or face the wrath of Nikki.

It’s a pretty cool site. If you’re really into singing in front of your computer and spend too much time searching for lyrics and instrumentals, then this is the place for you.

Check it out

A new Chipotle restaurant opened in Ann Arbor today and they offered free food to local businesses and Ann Arbor VIPs as part of their staff training.

Lucky for us my coworker Tim gave them a call and ordered 23 burritos for our office. That’s right 23!

Check it out:

AND LET’S EAT!

My burrito as well as the burrito’s of two of my coworkers were actually missing. But that’s ok. We walked back and the nice staff at the new Chipotle gave us the requested burritos and 5 bags of chips and guac. This was the best lunch EVAR!

Nikki, Amanda, Kyle and I visited Wiards Orchard for the first time on Saturday. We were really surprised at how big the place is.

Wiards Orchard is more like an amusement park than your standard U-pick farm. They have games, rides, apple-cannons, a corn maze, haunted houses, things to climb on and PONY RIDES!

We didn’t get to ride any ponies, and frankly after one raced right by me, I don’t think I wanted to get near any of them:

During the Halloween season, Wiards features a number of haunted attractions, including a haunted hay ride. I’ve been on a number of haunted hayrides in the Michigan area, and most of them are unsurprisingly underwhelming.

Although we only saw the Wiards Orchard hayride during the day, from the looks of it, this one might break the mold.

See more photos and videos from our trip to Wiards

I took my brother recently to the Washtenaw County, Michigan Obama campaign office in Ann Arbor to register to vote. Kyle has never voted in an election before and I urged him to finally accept this glorious civic duty and get registered. Here’s the video of Kyle getting registered: You might be hoping for a better look at the Ann Arbor Obama. Well you’re in luck. Here’s a quick scan of the room:

Found this comic today on XKCD, a nice daily web comic - and I thought this was fitting.

Nikki’s company hosted its first ever company fair at the Saline fairgrounds and Nikki was kind enough to invite me along. Think of it as a fair with 1800 people, 600 kids, all the free fair foods you could get sick on, a mechanical bull, a climbing wall, carnival games, blow up climbing things and a beer tent - because that’s what it was!

Here’s some of the videos:

Get a look at the fairgrounds

I eat one of 1,500 corn dogs

Nikki milks a cow

See more photos and video of Nikki’s fair at my Flickr

Many have asked, ‘just what were you doing in St. Louis?” last weekend. Believe me, we weren’t taking a 12 hour trip through the Midwest to just visit St. Louis’ awesome City Museum.

Nay.

The real reason was to attend my younger cousin’s wedding! Here comes the bride!

The wedding was certainly very nice and the weather cooperated. Shortly after the ceremony, the newlyweds and the wedding party scooted off on golf carts for the photos. Meanwhile, we headed to the reception.

Just after dinner the dancing started. Sorry that you won’t see much of me dancing. After getting up at 5 a.m. and working the day of our 12-hour drive, followed by a day at the City Museum, I couldn’t do much to stay awake into the night’s hours. But you will see my mom cutting it up!

Check out more photos and videos from my cousin’s wedding in Missouri.

We have! Kyle, Amanda, Nikki and I let out our inner-children at the St. Louis City Museum, every kids dream jungle gym. This place is nuts! See Shawn, Nikki, Kyle and Amanda’s photos and videos from the City Museum

And here I am climbing through some of the stuff

For some reason, Flickr couldn’t process a couple of my videos, so here’s a couple interesting ones. Me climbing through a plane!

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And here’s me and the crew climbing through a tunnel in a hollow tree:

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There’s a ton more awesome videos to see, check out shawn smith’s photos and videos from the City  Museum.

The Keech Street crew arrived in O’Fallon, Missouri last night at about 1 a.m. EST - and we left Ann Arbor, Michigan 12 hours earlier! A trip should have only taken 8 hours, but I-94 was closed at the Chicago Skyway, forcing us to take the skyway. From there we sat in Chicago traffic trying to find our way back to I-55 and then I-70 to get into St. Louis.

Needless to say, we added about 4 hours to our drive with this little detour. But we made it. Here we are for our cousin’s wedding:

I loves me some green tea! Believe it!

Nikki and I have been on a green tea kick lately after we bought a huge box of it at Costco a couple weeks ago. Since we love it so much, we decided to try some of the best green tea in town at Cafe Japon.

Nikki explains:

Cafe Japon also has an excellent ton katsu with curry dish. Try it. You will be very very happy.