Looking for the Joel Chicago / Wisco Sweep!

It's a mini-Lake Michigan Circle Tour sports eclipse with the Green Bay Packers playing tonight at Soldier Field in Chicago against the Bears, and the baby bears of Wrigley Field playing in Milwaukee against the Brewers.

I am likely fairly unusual in my rooting interest for this event, hoping the Brewers sweep the Cubs this weekend (to move into a tie {at least with them} for the Wild Card race) and the Bears dominate the Packers in an embarrassing entree for their new head coach, Not Mark McMurtry.

* 6:56pm *

Brewers are holding a 2-1 lead so far in the 3rd and i'll comment later as we go.  I predict the Brewers go 3-1 and the Bears win 27 - 10.

* 7:21pm *

Virginia McCaskey intros the 100th season - the Cubs have tied it up (grrrr), but i still think the Brewers will win 3 out of 4 (to clarify) and will hold the Bears to their score (though i want to up the win margin because of Aaron Rodgers' douchebag moustache - is #douchebagMoustache trending yet?)

* 7:35pm *

Arcia is at second with 1 out!  Packers have gone nowhere in these first 5 plays...

* 7:47pm *

Jackson walks a lead off man after Eddy Pineiro hits his first ever field goal!

Now there's a second on base and Jackson makes a BIG PITCH to get Khris Bryant...  And a first pitch gift against Rizzo...

* 8:38pm *

both enemy teams are on the threat...

Drive

This year, I've driven across more than 2/3rds of the continental United States, from from Glendo, Wyoming to Bonita Springs, Florida; across the great state of Iowa; and around the bottom third of Lake Michigan; a bit around parts of Nebraska, Texas, New York and New Jersey.

   Source: googleMaps w/ Paint!

It's been a strange and sad year for our country, and it's not over yet, but on our recent arrival home from SouthWest Florida, I think that I won't be forging any new roads these last five weeks, so I offer my driving retrospective on 2017.

I love to travel, but a road trip is a special form of tourism.  Driving to or through a place helps you see it in a new way.  Interacting with local drivers (FIBs, the Pittsburgh Left, Georgians who don't like to be passed and speed up each time you move to the left lane to overtake them but then slow down once you're back behind them again, LA Wazers...) provides insight into the local culture. (The only better way to get in tune with a locality is to take public transit - to get around and see how people really live).

Brooke said to me (after we had just driven 21 hours to Florida for Rex Grossman's "Make-a-Wish" trip to swim and play ball in the ocean) that she loves the magic of an airplane ride... waking up one morning with your feet in an ocean, and returning home to sleep in your cozy bed during a blizzard that night (or vice versa).  I agree with this, but even when I do fly somewhere, I like to rent a car and traverse the local streets (see my video from my driving tour of Haiti in 2013 here!).

It seems un-related, but as i drove across this vast and disparate country of ours this year, I was gratified and alarmed to be reminded that we are both the nation of President Trump and the nation of President Obama.  We are such a complicated amalgam of a citizenry, it's kind of amazing that we can function (and have functioned) so well as to accomplish as much as we have.  It's not to say that there aren't massive wrongs that need righting, and injustices and indecencies and indignities that we can and should solve for - there are.  But it's not a small thing that we have created from this nation of mass diversity a grand, awesome, and terrifying power.

In my travels this year, i crossed the Mason-Dixon line, which is not a border (borderlands are thin, desperate places - see Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub for some ideas about this), but is another cultural continental divide of sorts for us.  We once fought a Civil War over this divide, and i've heard it suggested that we are approaching a new kind of civil war in our country.  This one would not be fought along geographical or tribal lines, but a kind of neo-tribalism.  Artificial tribalism.  Managed and created tribalism.

But i didn't see that in my trips.  We are a disparate lot, and i encountered a lot of folks in my travels who were different from me - who were my Other.  But we were also united in common cause of friendliness and decency and civility.  It's not the people peppered across this land who are divided, it is the artificial divisions that are being thrust upon us by richer (not higher!) powers that are divisive.

(i expect there is more to come...)

Walkabout (and sneeze-about)

Just in the midst of a rare sneeze-fest (8 or so in the last 90 seconds)…

Enjoying some sunshine in the backyard. Alongside an almost depleted rum and coke (Cruzan, because #AvenueLiquor wasn't stocking Barbancourt - I always prefer rhum to rum) 

So nice and warm today. And going to be hothot in Aruba in early May. 

A nice book and a friendly walk-y day. (Walked to McDonalds for hangover breakfast, and walked to Brig's to deliver Boots [aka Dog Terrorist] home). 

Not eating, but feeling peckish. 

Vote Happy

Election Day will soon be upon us, once again.  Milwaukee has a Socialist running for Sheriff (she seems really lovely, smart, and on the right side of history!), and a Green Party candidate for State Treasurer (and in September, his numbers were pretty okay!).

In this sad/silly era of bought & sold candidates, dangerous zealots (as well as more clown-ish zealots), and a political campaign and lobbying system that encourages corruption, a progressive looking for genuine reform options often doesn't know which way to turn.  Of course, Democrats being in charge of things is less bad than Republicans.  So, the sensible choice seems to vote for Democrats in close races, and vote more radically (Greens, Socialists, liberal Independents) when it's expedient.  The fear-mongering lessons of Ralph Nader loom large, despite the fact that they're misguided.

Nationally, there are a lot of interesting races.  That said, the US House is guaranteed to remain in Republican hands, despite the fact that more people will probably end up voting for Democrats.  Thank you gerrymandering.

Unfortunately, the same reason can't be given for why the Senate seems poised to fall into Republican hands as well.  Though it would be awesome, wouldn't it?  To re-draw the state lines to re-organize people into more culturally appropriate regions? 

• East and West Dakota - East Dakota would be a 40 or so mile wide strip surrounding the I-29 corridor, stretching from Grand Forks all the way down to Kansas City (anything north of GF we can give to Canada).
• Up North - the northern part of Minnesota and Wisconsin, along with the UP.

  

  Source: www.pastemagazine.com

• The Middle Bit - a utopic plot of mostly rural farmland, focusing primarily on the biography of me, including Clinton, Wisconsin, stretching up north to Madison, then over to Decorah, Iowa, then up to Minneapolis.  It looks a bit like those Tetris pieces that go down one, over one, down one again (see picture, except the other one, and turned vertically).
• Austin, Texas - Austin, Texas.
• Yellowstone - Just a really cool state to visit.  First bear governor.
• Iraq - I know we're mostly moved out, but it's time to start colonizing, people.

The State of Wisconsin has a useful resource for figuring out what all is going to be on your ballot: 

At the top of the ballot, of course, is the Mary Burke / Scott Walker race for Governor.  This one will come down to turnout, and while I'm not overly excited about Mary Burke, she's the choice.

Down the ballot a ways is our rootin'-tootin' Sheriff Clarke, running against Angela Walker.  It seems the last time the Journal Sentinel deigned to mention her in an article was August 8th, when Chris Moews was being backed against the gun-loving sheriff by Michael Bloomberg. 

Lake Express

Riding on the Lake Express Ferry for the first time.  We’ve just left behind the last of the birds doing the “Boat Challenge”, which I assume is a contest which consists of a dare to outrace the ferry for as long as possible.  Once the Lake Express gets up to its full cruising speed, it’s passing even the fastest moving birds like they’re standing still… except they’re flying parallel to the ship.

The Wisconsin coastline is still very visible, and Michigan, up ahead, is still just a vague notion.  At the mid-point, I’ll show you what both coasts look like.

It’s an odd blend of people on the ferry this morning.  There is a palpable sense of adventure to many of the groups.  It’s difficult to pin down any generalizations about the socio-economic status of Lake Express-ers.  Even more difficult to figure out is any kind of cultural mean.  There are a couple of foreigners, several “older couples”, a smattering of little kids with a parent or two, and a biker couple.  There are several people dressed like drifters, and an inordinate number of people wearing bright neon, which makes me constantly mistake them for crew members.  I can’t figure why they chose such bright attire, whether it’s their norm, or they felt it was befitting the water voyage.

The terminal, naturally, has the ooky borderland feel that almost any kind of station has.  A multitude of ennui from the people waiting, coupled with the dense feeling of mass anticipation, makes any transit hub a jumble of weighty unpleasant-ness.  Airports are particularly interesting examples of this, because the ‘average’ passenger is so much more bourgeois.  You expect a certain amount (that amount being large) of heavy despair when you’re at a bus station, but when you’re at an airport, it doesn’t seem quite as ‘natural’.  That sense of despair and foreboding is foreign for most passengers preparing to fly, and they don’t like it, and they don’t know where it’s coming from.

Now that we’re en route, though, things are looking up.  The side to side* canting of the boat aside (I’m riding up top), the ominous feel of the terminal is left behind, and the anticipation of arrival has captured the collective imagination of the passengers.  The air up here is heavy with humidity, but feels good, in conjunction with steady wind, and the forthcoming sunshine from Michigan (as you can see, the sun has long since risen, but not above the cloud-line quite yet) gives the trip a sense of hope.

 

* As I typed “side-to-side”, I tried to cast back to my nautical terminology, but only came up with port and starboard (which I think is back and left – a la JFK)… I then looked at the bottom of my shoe, because one of my pairs of shoes (boat shoes, natch) has the labels for all 4 directions of boating terminology (I think a third is aft – I can’t discover the fourth yet).

Emotion, Elasticity and Paucity

The last 45 minutes has been personally significant. I came home from work (which evidently is a bastion of out-of-the-loop-ed-ness and "what was that?"), fixed a snack (crackers and cheese) and a cocktail (The Fifty-Fifty Cocktail, from The Savoy Cocktail Book) and turned on a rerun of The Daily Show, as I am wont to do.

It was the May 3rd episode, featuring an interview with Peter Bergen, recent author of the book Manhunt: The Ten Year Search for Bin Laden From 9/11 to Abottabad.  As I sat and watched, I was in a pretty good mood - as I always am.  Jon Stewart is (no matter what he says about it) the foremost voice of critique of the 24-hour cable news culture in America.  Bergen, who is doubtless the most well-informed person outside of the current administration about the killing of Usama Bin Laden, pretty clearly stated that...

***

Update: 1/10/13 - I have no idea what the Bergen interview clearly stated, but here - you should watch it, because i trust my then-self:

!!!!

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Peter Bergen
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Progressive Voting Guide for Wisconsin - April 2011 Election

Voting day is just in front of us and this year's election is of vital importance. As such, I am trying to collect together a Voting Guide to inform people of their options. As I've said before (brilliant idea #2), there needs to be a site that collects all elections and gives good information on EVERY race, from President to School Board to Coroner (what is a "republican" way of coroning?).

Find your polling place!

This is in no way meant to be an unbiased, non-partisan guide. Rather, I will try to inform you of the candidate that will make Wisconsin a better place. I am open to discuss (in comments here, when I see you next, or any other way) and will update this post with changes when I get better information, but I want to post this as soon as I can. Please let me know if you know of other races and any info you have on candidates.

Wisconsin State Supreme Court
JoAnne Kloppenburg is the clear choice here. She's running against incumbent David Prosser, a former Wisconsin State legislator who has refused to recuse himself from the Collective Bargaining case despite the fact of having served with Walker and others in the state legislature and virtually assured to vote in favor of the bill.

Kloppenburg will restore some badly needed balance to the State Supreme Court, which is currently weighted toward republican perspectives (Note: I do not mean conservative perspective, I mean republican).

Milwaukee County Executive
Though I'm not convinced that either candidate is ideal, Chris Abele seems to be the less bad (and perhaps actually good, I just don't know for sure). His opponent, Jeff Stone is a republican legislator who voted for Walker's Budget and the collective bargaining sham of a bill, so he is clearly a bad choice (and, incidentally, probably a bad person in general).

Milwaukee School Board
District 8
Again, I'm not 100% about this race. It seems like both candidates aren't ideal, but until we are fully committed to running quality progressive candidates at every level I guess I would lean slightly toward Meagan Holman, who at least seems smart. I hope someone sets me straight here if they know any better, but the only information I can find is onmilwaukee.com's coverage of the primary in February and their answers weren't necessarily substantively different, but very much stylistically different (or intellectually different).

Milwaukee County Circuit Court - Branch 18

Vote to retain Judge Pedro Colón, who I really know nothing about, but I like his smile. Oh, and he seems like a reasonable guy.

a pretty nice little saturday

On Saturday i went - with brooke, eric, bethany, shane, & grant - to the quaint (don't look up etymologies, as a general rule) little town of Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. It was my first visit to Mt. Horeb, though i'd known it by reputation and street sign for more than a dozen or so years.

The drive there is the same drive (at least at the start - US Hwy 18) as the road to Decorah, so even en route, i am calm and content... On entering Mt. Horeb you pass through a series of roundabouts. The great thing about roundabouts is that you never quite have to stop & wait at them as you would a stoplight. The lousy thing about roundabouts is that Americans don't really quite get them... or trust them.

On arrival, after Rex Grossman walked around and screamed at people downtown, we made a brief stop at the Mustard Museum. There was quite a lot of mustard there.

After this visit, we moved on to the main stop, The Grumpy Troll, a well-run, really pleasant brew pub & pizzeria at 2nd St. & Main St. We sat downstairs, at the bar (the best way to get to know any place is to sit at the bar) and sampled some of the beers. The Troll's beers tend not to fall victim to the great failing of many micro (or home)-brews. Often a small brewing operation tends to rely too much on flavor, forgetting that beer-drinkers, in fact, enjoy beer. A chocolate stout tastes a bit much like chocolate, an ale with a hint of citrus too often gets drowned out by that citrus, but, for the most part, the Grumpy Troll avoids this pitfall. Their jalepeño beer (Slow Eddie) has just a touch of spice, on the finish, and adds a lovely compliment to a pizza (more on that in just a sec). Their only beer that does tend to fall victim to over-flavoration is the Maggie Imperial IPA and, in fact, the way it's over-flavored isn't offensive, rather, pushy. The Maggie measures 100 IBU's (International Bittering Units?), and is, in some ways, an IPA drinker's dream beer, but the bitter almost (but not quite) overpowers all else. In the end, the Maggie is good for a pint, but i'm not sure i'd want much more than that. The champion beer for me, though, was the CCCP Spetsnaz Stout, a lovely, dark stout with chocolate & coffee undertones.

Finally, at 4pm, the pizzeria upstairs opened. The pizza was some of the best i've found anywhere. I think maybe even better than (and certainly distinct from) Mamma Lilla's in Clinton, which is my favorite (comfort food) pizza. The crust was really quite good and they had several well-designed specialty pies. Also adding to the place's charm were the sort of retro video games, including a Sunset Riders knock-off in which we (Shane & I, natch) played some sort of mutant bulls...

After leaving the wonderful company of the Grumpy Troll, we headed back into Madison & hit the Great Dane Pub & Brewery at the Hilldale Mall in Madison. A diverting stop, though, no beer for me...

Finally, on the drive home we made a stop at Tyranena Brewery in Lake Mills, having some pints of their Pumpkin Spice Ale and Chocolate Porter as well as picking up a Growler of the Stone Tepee Pale Ale. And, with a gassy belly & a really quite mild beer buzz, we returned home to Milwaukee.

missing links

Saturday morning at 6:45 am i found myself for the first time in far too long a time pulling into the gravel parking lot of Turtle Green's Golf Course just west of Clinton with my brother tim. It'd been almost a year since the last time i'd golfed, also with tim, at an Omaha course, but this was something different, entirely. It was the course i "learned" to play on, and it was not yet 7 in the morning (a couple of guys were finishing up the 9th hole as we pulled in).

The clubhouse was still closed & locked up, so we headed for the first tee-off, then realized we didn't have a scoreCard. There were none outside, but tim checked the carts and found this one clipped to the steering wheel of one. I took on the "Ace" line, naturally. Tim played as Floyd and we were ready.

The last time i'd teed off at Turtle Greens was during our rehearsal dinner, and i'd played just the first hole, but hit what was & is the best tee shot i've ever had. It was lofty & long and ended up just over the lip of the small hill before the first green (my second shot, a 9-iron, went perpendicular to me and straight into the treeline). This time around i was a bit nervous at having overachieved so much my last attempt, but my first shot was strong & true, pretty much the same shot, just shorter.

Now, let me just say straight out that i am not a good golfer. As my scorecard above can attest to, i lack consistency, focus, and a good scanner. That being said, though, i think i'm starting to realize that i really love golf. If only i did it more than, say, once or twice a summer. Already, after just one time out i've got a shortlist of Must Have Clubs (a 7 or 8 wood & a pitching wedge - in my own bag i have a "loft wedge" which is occasionally useful, but when the next club up is my 9-iron, i have a lot of holes in my short game {mostly having to do with the fact that i'm a terrible golfer}). I hit 9 pretty decent tee shots (only #6 & #9 were out of the fairway and those because i actually went over the green).

Overall, it was a pretty lousy round of golf (though i did beat my goal-score from when i was 12 years old), but it felt great. Who knew you could get up at 6:30 and feel so good... i should do it all the time. In fact, if only i didn't have to work all the time, i think i'd be golfing constantly. Yet another reason to retire immediately. So, everyone, dust off your clubs (if you haven't got clubs - Nathan Gilkerson, i'm looking at you - go buy a set at a garage sale), hit the municipal courses and let's start cracking some windshields... Golf-Ho (that'll be my code-name)

Voting Day!!!

Hey all you fellow Wisconsinites. If you haven't gotten out there & voted yet, go do so now... Wisconsin Election Information is abysmally hard to come by, but i've stumbled on some nuggets that won't help me much, but for my Rock County friends... (If you're in districts 1 or 29, which i don't know where they are)

Janis Ringhand
WisconsinCandidate for Rock County Board - District 1 (Open Seat)
Janis has been a member of our farm team since 2005 and, in 2006, she was a Progressive Majority candidate for the State House in the 80th Assembly District. Despite hard work and a valiant effort on her part, she came up short by less than 200 votes. Now, Janis is running for an open seat on the Rock County Board. Janis is a former mayor of Evansville and, if elected, she will hold a progressive seat in one of the more conservative parts of the county.
Click here to support and learn more about Janis.

Katie Kusnasik
WisconsinCandidate for Rock County Board - District 29 (Challenger)
Katie Kusnasik is challenging a conservative member of the Rock County Board as part of a strategy to create a progressive majority in the next two election cycles. She is currently a legislative assistant to progressive Assembly Representative Michael Sheridan and specializes in constituent relationships. Katie is supported by United Auto Workers and the local Labor Council. Katie has attended training by Progressive Majority and this is her first run for public office.
Click here to support and learn more about Katie.

This info comes direct from ProgressiveMajority.org a useful, if incomplete website for finding progressive candidates. So, go Katie, go Jan... Go Vote, y'deadbeats... (i'm looking at you, shane)

Turn my pants into shorts

It's March in Omaha, which means the sun is shining (onto the sun porch), it's occasionally uncomfortably hot both here and outside, and despite the idyllic weather, none of the bars in town have their outdoor seating set up yet.

Early on in our tenure here in Omaha, brooke heard a statistic on the radio (almost certainly false, but nonetheless exceptionally compelling) that Omaha had as many sunny days per year as Fort Lauderdale (or Fort Knox, or perhaps Miami Beach... i can't remember any more). On first moving to Omaha this seemed like an apollionic blessing. Omaha seems to have a lot less of the heavy, bleak, gray season that i remember growing up in southern Wisconsin, and later in Iowa and Minneapolis. Almost every memory i have of Clinton is gray-colored...

I Enjoy the People

It's another lovely evening in Wisconsin. I've given 4 hours of my life to Barber Shop related causes & spent the balance of my evening out in the boondocks near Brodhead, hanging out with most of my Wisco folk.

What it mostly makes me recall is how much i love having friends about. I hate being in a city that everyone i know doesn't live in. I wish i was one of those people who knew only people that lived within golf-shot distance (golf-shot distance has become my favorite distance measure, because it's so arbitrary & really makes you seem like a better golfer than you are). And so we come again to my commune idea... Granted, the franchise commune plan that i've devised doesn't put everyone i know within a decent 3-iron, but it does surround myself with people i like & gives people the chance to do just what they like...

So, here's the plan, in summary. We (and by we, i so far just mean me, but also mean anyone who wants to join me) begin to accrue. While most communes are founded on left-y ideals of sharing and community (and ours will rather be, too) we have to start with building up the empire. So when one of us finds an old farmhouse or sweet house in the city (or perhaps we'll start with an RV) and buys it, it becomes the property, at least in practice, of the commune. And we spread out as we accrue more properties & people. So, for example, let's say i finally purchased that decked out 70s era RV that's been parked at the Greek restaurant in Millard for years & simultaneously, Lee buys an old house in Brookings (i believe Lee is really the only person vital to this whole plan working, at least of people that i know, because he can turn a pile of garbage into a moped & relocate doors at will). If Lee wants to take a vaca, he puts in for transfer to the RV & if i want to be in Brookville for a time, i take his spot there. We trade places & both get to experience a new life for a while.

Now, imagine this on a much larger scale, where there are tens or hundreds of folk moving around the world to the different places we own. Eventually, you'll be able to summer in Greece & spend a couple weeks a year at our condo in Playa del Carmen (right near where the guy makes the seashell lamps). It's going to be sweet, but so far, all i have is me & a mid-sized refrigerator box.

Weeks in Review

It has embarrassingly been a month since my last post on Roman Numeral J, and while i want to apologize to my faithful readers who've been reading the same mildy-drunken post of july the 4th for 4 weeks (sorry rssl, sorry Ci), i say in my own defense... it's been a slow last couple of weeks, so i've had trouble finding topics to talk about. Nonetheless, that's what blogging's for, right? writing about meaningless daily occurrences.

My Ulyssian epic begins just two short days after you last heard from me. On July 6th, andy, daveT & i cruised down to the Rockford airport for an Allegiant Air flight to Las Vegas, Nevada. After a couple gin & tonics on the morning flight i was ready to hit the Strip at a full sprint. We met tim at our hotel, The Imperial Palace, and wandered the nearby casinos. The Minneapolis foursome arrived late that night & i continued wandering with them until 4:30 in the morning. From $1 Margaritas at the Casino Royale to $2 drinks of any kind at Barbary Coast, we found our section of the Strip very accomodating. It was a Bachelor Party, so i forwent sleep in favor of good times & woke up with the early room that had retired before holliday, davewake, gilkerson & JP had arrived. Around 9 or so we hit the mediocre ImpPalace pool and then were off to the races again, cruising the strip, winning money, losing money, losing money. All in all, the weekend in Vegas was a pretty damn good trip. I drove a Hummer, saw the lovely American spectacle that is Las Vegas, and met some good life-long friends (shout out to Kylie!). Sadly, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so details necessarily must be few and far between. So, after a late-saturday night (3:30 am or so) which almost culminated in a fist fight with a drunk guy we got on a plane at 6am and headed home...

...arriving just in time to watch the World Cup final at home with my parents & andy. While the outcome was immensely disappointing, and Zidane's head-butt inexplicable, i am glad i got home to see the game.

The next week began lazily enough, making a few last minute plans, and Thursday night hoardes of people began arriving in the small hamlet of Clinton along with a lovely large RV from Finnegan's in Beloit. The RV Extravaganza was about to begin. We toured several local bars, karaoke'd at Rockin' Roger's (especially Grant), peed in an enormous urinal at the Boar's Nest (in a confederate flag-themed bathroom). Then i almost left my credit card at Sud's in Beloit & we ended up in the loft at the Hog Cabin. The evening was a blast, fun had by all, and afterwards i slept in the RV.

The next night was another extravaganza of sorts. The Rehearsal on the Green started out with Pastor Tom talking... a lot. First we talked through what the ceremony would be like. Then we walked through what the ceremony would be like (with continued talking about what it would be like), then we talked some more about what it would be like. Tom continually referred to the Miron's reading of a dialogue from Posession as a "dramatic reading," which we thought wasn't entirely accurate, but turned out to be right on. After the actual rehearsal we went out to Turtle Greens golf course for dinner & golfing. I hit what might be my best golf shot of all time teeing off on hole number one, a long straight hole with the road directly off to the right (behind a thin tree-line). My tee shot floated to within maybe 20 yards of the green. On the trip down to my ball, everyone took a few more shots (jackie taking one at the photographer, nearly nailing him in "his childhood"). My second shot, which was meant to be a lofting chip instead line-drived directly to the right, through the tree-line and perhaps over the road. The ball was lost, but i found another one, chipped over the green then picked up my ball and called it quits. I should have ended with my drive, but i got greedy. After a lovely dinner we headed to the Beloit Inn & i put the "finishing touches" on my slide show for the next evening.

The next day was kind of exciting. On Saturday, July 15th, i got married. And that was pretty cool. The entire day is in something of a blur, partially due to the excitement, and partially due to the heat-stroke induced by outdoor photography in july. Brooke & i both agree that it was fun, but that it might have been more fun if it had been somebody else's wedding. We constantly felt like we were missing out on lots of good times because we had 'obligations'. We did manage to get a fair amount of dancing in, both took part in the limbo competition & had a chance to harass the DJ for playing crappy music a few times each. I hope everyone had as good a time as i did (or better). In the end, there was little wine left over, seemingly no beer, and suit-coats were recovered from Club Impulse.


We bolted the next day & headed to Chicago before flying early Monday morning to Cancun Mexico for a weeklong honeymoon in Puerta Aventuras. We had a blast exploring Mayan ruins, swimming in the ocean, drinking, eating, and eating at our 'All-Inclusive' resort. The resort actually got a bit old after about a day. There is only so much swimming, snorkeling, kayaking and laying on a beach you can do in one place, but the food was excellent, the booze was free & our massuese Ernest had magical fingers. In the end we owned 1 hammock, 1 sea-shell lamp, 5 bottles of tequilla and some postcards of mexican art more than we arrived with. It was a great week, but we were happy to be home & now i've landed myself back in Omaha and am currently looking for gainful employment.

So, that's what went on while i was away. Now i am returned, hopefully with abandon. Looking for work, pining for school, and doing ok as long as i stay in the AC as often as possible...

Shy Town

Brooke & i took the train into Chicago yesterday to pick up her car and take another load of stuff home from my room. I was only in town for a matter of hours, but soon realized it really didn't feel like home any longer (if it ever did). On the bus ride back to Hyde Park, i was personally affronted by someone talking louldly on a cell phone; walking around downtown was too crowded, busy and noisy for my small-town ears. My pacing is changed. In just a single week i've adapted back to life in southern Wisconsin, meandering walks through town, driving everywhere (for a minumum of 20 minutes), lazing around watching World Cup matches.

I hope i've not yet completely lost my sense of the big city as home, but it's surely waning. I love a good city, but i am a small-town sort of guy. I'm ok with that.

Campy

Yeah, Evan Dando really speaks to me... Thanks to Eric & Bethany for another blast of a Memorial Day Weekend party...

I love the idea of being outdoors-y, I want to be a guy who likes to camp, who can build a fire, who can pitch a tent. And to some extent this is true. I can put up a tent, provided i actually remembered the poles & stakes, I can build a fire if i have a lighter and a lot of time.

But i think maybe i don't really like all these things. I am afraid of bugs, i despise being too cold or too hot, and i don't know what plants i oughtn't touch. After scoring a tent from Eric's parents since mine had no poles and blowing up an air mattress we had a pretty sweet set-up, but still, sleeping outdoors... i dunno, kinda sucks.

I think my kind of camping is the kind on wheels.

"...but i feel like this."

Whenever i have a cold, i feel like a walking cliché. My nose is shiny & red, my eyes watery... I sneeze constantly. My problem with illness, i think, is that i don't believe in it... My process of "getting sick," which generally happens over the course of two or three days, starts with an odd tickle that i assume is the result of a middling night of drinking or too little sleep and instead of maybe getting a better nights sleep, resting up for a day or getting juiced on vitamin C, i challenge the cold to take me down... I take some Nyquil & drink more, wear fewer sweaters on chilly days and sleep as little as possible. I don't ever really believe i'm getting sick until i'm deep in... And to top it all off, i'm really lousy at actually being sick... Because i'm a whiny little bitch...

Anyway, after a long Friday of academic conferencing (starring Judith Butler & crazy cool Jazz poetry) & moderate drinking followed by a chilly (& rainy) Saturday afternoon of soccer* (followed by another evening of beer & wine at the kids' place {thanks guys--good times}) i am fully under the spell of a miserable malaise. And that sucks. So, i'll sign off groggily & grouchily...

*My 'good goalkeeper' hoax was revealed Saturday, when i let 3 goals by in the first half... Although i kept them scoreless in the second half, my poor performance (which included 1 goal hitting my hands and trickling on past into the goal) cost our team the victory. We tied 3-3 & while a tie isn't a loss, it is a tie.