ME

Hello everyone, Welcome to my blog. Here is a little something about me and what I am doing here. As I'm sure most of you know, I nearly lost the battle to a very bad illness I contracted by breathing in a spore earlier this year. We believe it was during my time on vacation up in the North Shore area back in October. Doctors feel that my strong immune system actually 'helped' lead to me getting this Blastomycosis with ARDS so very badly.  Since coming home, we have decided to close our business and put it up for sale. With that, there are some legal matters to deal with, but in the time being, and maybe a long time being, I am going to be a stay at home daddy since I can't work. It's been going pretty well, I'm enjoying my time with the kids and not working full time(plus) for once. I do get some free time, however, and have been trying to figure out what I can do to fill this time, as well as help me through some of my troubles accrued from this illness. This blog is hopefully going to cure both desires. Thank you for your time.

Little background about me. As most of you know, my name is Mike "Cheek" Moore. I met my long time buddy Jason McRoberts in kindergarten and we became good friends later in middle school and still to this day. I think it was about 6th grade he randomly came up with a nickname for me which of course was, Cheek. Sorry folks, some of you had it wrong for whatever reason, which is fine, but to set the record straight, it is Cheek. Heard many variations of it throughout my years but now you know! Jason tried to be the only one to call me Cheek for awhile but he soon allowed friends to use this nickname and then some others, then not before long it was used by nearly everyone, to this day.

I am 39 years old, am married to my wonderful wife Sarah, we have a 5 month old beautiful baby girl named Scarlett and an amazing and sweet boy named Ryan from a previous marriage. Sarah and I have been together since Ryan was about 1 year old and the two are amazing together, I couldn't ask for a better relationship.
I have one sibling, a brother that is one year older than me who lives with his family in Woodbury, MN. The two of us are close and we have a unique relationship that seems to fit us just right. My parents are both retired school teachers, although my dad is now on the NR School Board, who have always been there for me. This includes now, as we have been living with them for about a month now due to several outside factors.
I grew up in the country just outside of Emerald but have been in the New Richmond school system since Kindergarten and then graduated in 1994. I spent time at UW-Stout and UW-River Falls before I decided to go full time into bar tending. I started out at The Old Saloon in 1995 for about 1 and 1/2 years and  then moved on to Champ's Bar & Grill for about 4 years. In June of 2000 I decided to go out on my own and purchased Mike's Place "On Skid Row" and remained there for 3 years before I moved my business across the street for a larger location in which I stayed there for 3 more years before I decided to sell.
I then moved on to Ready Randy's and soon became their Front of the House and bar manager. I was there from the opening of the restaurant and stayed working there for 6 years when Sarah and I decided to open our own business in 2012. During this time I also decided to go back to college at WITC for my marketing associates degree.
I have had the pleasure of meeting many great people in this town, from being a student here, working here, and doing business with people in this community. Friends have changed as expected through the years because of families or whatever reasons but I will always remember the good times and look forward to seeing them again. Some friends have stayed the same while some are newer and have formed great relationships with and I am happy to call so many people, whether I see them as much or not: friends.

This is my blog. I wasn't really sure I wanted to do a blog because I didn't really understand what is was; it sounded snooty or something to me that wasn't 'my style.' Of course I really don't know what my style is! I wanted to use my time (not working anymore) to write things that happened to me when I got sick. Then that moved to more of a diary of things I enjoy. They both kind of formed into this. I hope you all will enjoy what I have to say. Please respond to whatever you may want or ask questions you may have.