May Sweeps

Quite a full weekend.  Friday night Spacebee’s parents dropped by on their way into town and we watched the first half of the Brewers/Cubs game.  We headed out to try and meet our nieghbors at The Brink but couldn’t find them, and headed back to the Depot just as the heavens opened up.

Saturday was a full day: farmer’s market in the morning, then we had breakfast at Marigold with Spacebee’s mom and grandmom for mom’s day.  Quick nap, then we hopped in the car to drive to Milwaukee to have dinner with my family for mom’s day as well.  We shot back to my brother’s house to watch the end of the Brewers/Cubs game two.

Sunday morning, we figured that since we had to drive back through Milwaukee to Madison anyways we might as well see if we could wrangle some tickets to the game.  A Long Wong’s Wagon ride and two Standing Room-only tickets later we were watching Rickie Weeks sky a homer to left-field from the right-field foul pole.  It was nice to have standing room tickets as we just ambled around the stadium the entire game and saw lots of cool stuff.  Bad thing: the built a canopy over the FSN desk in right-field so you can’t hang over the fence and jaw at Craig and Davey anymore.  Good thing: the new store is ok, but the renovated store in left field is pretty cool.

I bought a pink bat.  See?

We also stopped off at Eastgate Cinema on our way back into Madison to see Star Trek.  I’ll bottom-line it for you: great movie.  I’m no die-hard Trek fan but I watched it when I was younger and was uncertain how they would shoehorn the new dudes, villains, etc. into the existing framework.  They did a great job, and with the exception of the groan-inducing (to me, but drew cheers from others in the theater) shouting of catchphrases by the characters I had a great time.  Go see it, it’s good.

Drenched

Let’s start off-topic and see if we can meander our way back to my original thought: this sounds like the coolest Chuck E. Cheese evar.

So I’ve had a week off for vacation, and what a week it was! Wisconsin got hit by a hojillion tornados, Lake Goddamned Delton was wiped off the map, spacebee and I were in Door County during all of this, and *SURPRISE!* the Brewers still suck balls on the road.

We were camping at Peninsula State Park and had prepared ourselves for a wet outing. In an eruption of sheer genius, Lawman offered his screen tent thing in case we had to sit around in the rain for a few hours(days). We arrived Wednesday evening and got things setup ok, played some beer pong and made dinner. Scads of June Bugs and hundreds of thousands of mosquitos drove us into our tent tent pretty early in the night. Thursday we awoke to the patter-patter of rain on the tent, and I had to run to the toilets in the pouring rain in flip-flops. The running was less about the rain and more about the sounds coming from my bowels. The rain continued more or less until the late afternoon so we didn’t get to do a whole lotta stuff we’d planned like rent bikes or go hiking. Meh.

Friday was very nice but we spent most of the prime time (daylight) looking at various houses my parents were interested in buying. As many of you know, they’ve had trouble selling their house in Racine and need somewhere to live now that they’ve both moved to Door County. In the end they decided to rent a (very nice!) farmhouse in Egg Harbor until the Racine house sells. Personally, I think it’s a great decision given the uncertainty of the market right now– they wouldn’t want to get stuck with two mortgages for the next two years. I’ve included a few pictures of the place they’re renting below. You can see more pictures at the appropriate Flickr set.

On Saturday we packed up and left the campground and stayed with my parents for a few days at the house they’re about to leave in Sturgeon Bay. We drove up the peninsula and took the ferry across to Washington Island, which was pretty kick-ass. The absolute greatest part of the trip to the island was when we had wine and appetizers at the Washington Hotel. If you are ever up on the island, I can’t recommend that place enough. Even better, they have a Coffee Room in Madison (right across Monona Bay!) that serves all the baked goods and coffees that you can get up there. On a bike ride around Lake Monona yesterday spacebee and I stopped there for a muffin and some coffee and it was a great place. Additionally, the owner of the Washington Hotel is a (co-?)owner of Death’s Door Spirits, which has a distillery here in Madison that uses Washington Island wheat to make various booze. They recently started making whisky and while up there I got 3 bottles of the un-aged first batch. It’s pretty good, come over and try it some time.

By the way, all of our camping photos can be found at my Flickr site.

One other weekend shout-out: Hot Tamales in Sturgeon Bay was some of the best Mexican food I’ve had since moving back to Wisconsin. They have great service, terrific food, and some hot hot hot salsa verde. I suggest the wet burrito or the hash brown sandwich (like an omelet, but made with goddamned delicious hash browns).

Last night I had a Brewers nervous breakdown. I yelled swear words at the TV for a minute and then turned it off in disgust. And that was BEFORE they allowed the 3 run triple. Barf.

Lastly, if you haven’t seen this YouTube of a house being washed into Lake Delton in Wisconsin Dells, it is goddamned wild.

Arizona in Pictures

I’m feeling better now thanks. Below is a smattering of photos from the trip, click here to see the full gallery.

Lots of Beauty

The Judge is Gonna Kill Me

Spacebee’s On The Side Of The Mountain (lens flare~!)

Spacebee’s birthday was pretty great yesterday. We went out to dinner with her friends, and then wwhazz and bellygirl got her Michigan State basketball tickets. I was the lucky Plus One, so I got to see Wisconsin crush M State. Afterwards we stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the Nitty Gritty so that she could get her free cup of beer, and then drank the night away at the Main Depot. We’re checking out the new Brazilian steakhouse up by State Street tonight (Samba). If it’s especially good or bad I’ll let you great people know. If it’s ‘meh’ I’ll just keep it to myself.

Backwards Compostability

Two Items: one Important™ and one Dumb™.

We spent Saturday up in Pittsville, WI (where the hell is that?) with the *-kalishes, wwhazz and bellygirl, rumthumb and lawman, and MY BROTHER. Photographics abound; I’ll link to some of rumthumb’s for now and get mine uploaded today. We smoked some roasts in the smoker, watched Cordero melt down in the 9th, and in the morning had a Gigantor Country Breakfast.

[UPDATE] Here’s a link to rumthumb’s gallery of pictures, and here’s a link to my gallery.

The ladies took a ride into Pittsville proper and got themselves some Bomb-Ass hunting caps, beef jerky, two bumper stickers, and a 30-pack of High Life for $20. Nice.

ktk and HADLEY!

There was also a rarin’ game of Bocce Ball. The wwhazz/lawman combo ruled all… again.

Smoked Meats!

The above pictures were all from rumthumb. My pictures centered more on a dog-wrestling match and food porn. Here’s a picture of the dogs playing…

And here’s some food porn for you:

Finally, from rumthumb, here’s a picture of me taking the food porn pictures…

Now, onto all things Dumb™. I guess the last episode of the Soprano’s was this weekend. I dunno, I never watch that show. Apparently a bunch of people went apeshit over the ending, though. Let me cover my eyes and point randomly at one dumb part of the Teh Internet:

The line to cancel HBO starts here. What a ridiculously disappointing end lacking in creativity to The Sopranos saga. But if you’re one of those who found it perversely interesting, then don’t bother to read on. Even if David Chase, who wrote and directed the final episode, was demonstrating the existential and endless loop of Tony’s life or the moments before the hit that causes his death, it still robbed the audience of visual closure. And if it were done to segue into a motion picture sequel, then that kind of crass commercialism shouldn’t be tolerated.

…

Chase clearly didn’t give a damn about his fans. Instead, he crapped in their faces. This is why America hates Hollywood.

This comes from the Me-Me-Me! School of Thought, which states that anything you don’t get is Dumb or Elitist, and anything you don’t like is like having crap thrown in your face? Or maybe pooped directly into your mouth; not sure. It’s unclear why people believe that they (the viewers) get to tell the creators of Art (uh, the artists) how to create said art. Moreover, realize that people are calling to cancel their HBO subscriptions. Take that, HBO! I’m not gonna watch the now-finished show on your network any mo– wait. Notably, thanks to Hollywood Douchebag or whoever this guy is , I know now that a clear dichotomy exists in the art-creator/art-consumer relationship. You either “give a damn about [your] fans” or you “[crap] in their faces”. Noted. You stumblefucks. You cloisterfucking Derrek Lee poopmouths. I’m canceling my internet subscription because this guy’s website exists.

We also saw Ocean’s Thirteen last night. It was ok, good summer popcorn movie, but I saw the ending coming 1.5 hours away. Also, it does a repeat performance from an earlier installation, which helps in calling it. Solid meh. Can’t wait for Superbad.

Convergence

As promised, here’s some pictures from my Saturday morning wandering:

Romantic Shit

As the sun set last night Spacebee and I furiously pedaled out to Picnic Point to get us some sunset action. Once there, we goofed around on some rocks for awhile and took some kick-ass pictures by balancing my new, expensive camera precariously on a rock above crashing waves. A dormitory/fraternasorotity/sexual-tension-extravaganza fire was blazing as we rode back into town. Once back home it was Leftover Night! I’ve been unable to eat down my vegetable-stocked fridge, so we had to use it or lose it. Rice pilaf, mashed potatoes, leftover meatloaf, steamed broccoli, leftover soggy veggies.

As a gracious host, it was my duty to endure through the DVD rental of the evening: Charlotte’s Web. It made me think: I think those slovenly farmer-folk were a little quick to leap to such wild-eyed accusations that “the pig made the web” or “it was a miracle”. There’s something in a web; a spider probably made the fucking thing. When questioned by a gawker as to whether they had a super-intelligent spider on their hands, the Farmer Naive replied, “We searched and couldn’t find a spider.” How hard did you look? Idiot.

I came up with a great Topic of the Day while grocery shopping today, but forgot it. In its place, I’ll describe my new favorite vegetable: ramps. Half green onion, half garlic (but not a shallot!). Today’s recipe: cooked up some hash browns, sauteed the ramps down, mixed eggs with the hash browns to make a scramble, then mixed in the sauteed ramps. Delicious. Tonight we get the next CSA share.

Tomorrow we’ll probably take off around 3:30 for Milwaukee to hit the next Friday Retro game. Gotta get there early; don’t want to miss the Brewers. TAILGATE!

Crazylegs 2007

It was a beautiful weekend for the Crazylegs Classic 07 run/walk here in Madison. Spacebee and I had signed up for the 8K (~5 mi) run that started at the Capital, went up to Langdon and over to the UW Hospital before looping back to Old University and up to Camp Randall Stadium. Unfortunately, due to timing of my wisdom teeth removal, I wasn’t able to do the run. Instead, we did the 2 mi walk from the Capital, up State Street and across campus to the stadium instead. We did the walk with many nurses from B4-6, and were in for a treat once we got to Camp Randall. All-you-can-drink beer! Yay! It was Bud Light or Michelob Ultra (blech) but it was free. Spacebee had a Scubby sighting, but by the time she led me back to the spot he was already gone. After the stadium drained out we went across the street to The Stadium bar for more booze and fun. Luckily, Gabe and Greg (two guys we did the walk with) were hungry enough to push for a Topper’s run. My mouth was hurtin’ something awful, but I was starving so I chomped down some Topperstix and a pizza while we stood outside at The Stadium and drank away. We followed that up with some Guitar Hero and all was well.

On Sunday I hooked up with Scubby for a round of golf out at The Oaks in Cottage Grove. The day started out terrific, but the wind soon caught up with us and by the end it was howling. I was frustrated, but had a great time getting out with Jason. We also talked about future golf trips and poker. Oh man, this summer should be a good time.

Here’s some pictures from Crazylegs.

One Small Update

This was me at 4:24am on Friday, March 2nd. Hoo boy. More Vegas pictures available here.

My NEW Favorite Picture

Eroz was in town for a minute today. We had a bite to eat at Nick’s and then played the ol’ squeezebox for old times sake. Also, nostalgia. Wwhazz’s Montemarte -> black eye trip was much discussed. Also, sundry other topics that I’m not at liberty to divulge. Hurray!

(more…)

Some More Pictures

This is a random grouping of pictures I took. Have fun.

Bellygirl wanted some pictures of snow. Well, here’s one. There’s more on Flickr.

Here’s some antique poker chips I found when moving. They’re more like tiddly-winks.

I put The Trout in a place on honor right next to my front door. Lawman was happy to see it when he and rumthumb toured.

By the way, did you hear that the city of Milwaukee blew up today?

At least 2 workers were killed in an explosion this morning at the Falk Corp. plant in the Menomonee Valley, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s office has reported.

The fire department has asked the Medical Examiner’s office to standby while they continue to work to secure the blast site.

At least one other worker is reported missing.

The blast just after 8 a.m., believed to be caused by a propane-fueled explosion, destroyed a building in the company’s complex, injured numerous workers and rumbled through much of the city.

The frightened relatives of Falk workers rushed to Miller Park, where blast survivors assembled following the explosion that rattled much of the city and some of the suburbs.