Skipping happy hour for the first time since summer started. That’s pretty sad but I’m addicted to the Rock Bottom Mug Club thanks to Hecker.  To get me in the weekend mood I brewed a batch of beer tonight.  A batch of boysenberry wheat.  I’ll get bad to you in a month to tell you how it turned out.  I’ll be brewering a lot these next couple weeks.  I have four batches on deck.

To my zero blog readers, I’ll try to get more posts, I swear.  It’s no surprise that I kind of lost interest in my blog this last year.  After posting entries since 2003 (my first journal was a home programmed database) I kind of lost my desire.  But I may make it a point to get back at it more often for my personal journal and so I have a history.

This summer was actually very exciting and would have made for some great posts.  We’ve been busy all summer.  We went to Washington Island and Door County, ran a relay from Madison to Chicago in 36 hours, went to a bunch of Brewer games (they may make the playoffs), my cousin Jeff’s wedding in Evanston (one of the best weddings I’ve ever been to), Summerfest, Irishfest, State Fair, Sheboygan County Fair, and many many other adventures.

We’ll here’s hoping to get back to my old anecdotes.

I wish I could start off my new round of journal posts with a more interesting post but this weekend wasn’t the most exciting. I spent the weekend putting polyurethane on the floors in our dining room and living room. Jocelyn and I were banished from the TV for the weekend because we couldn’t walk on the floors while they were drying. So to celebrate our new floors we had some steaks in the basement and watched COPS on our 13” TV in the basement with the Christmas decorations. Next weekend will be more exciting because it’s our annual Memorial Day BBQ which is guaranteed to bring some stories.

It’s been quite the hiatus but hopefully I can get a quick summation post up in the next couple days. I want to get the new theme buttoned up and everything imported so it will look like it did before I got lazy. I hope to get you loyal readers back, glad to be back!

This Saturday Jocelyn and I biked to Falls for our close to annual Tour de ‘Boygan. This was the first year that we both had road bikes for the trip. I thought we would bomb up there in no time but a month and a half of not biking and ten mile an hour headwind made for a slow five hour bike. It was way more brutal than I was expecting. Once to Randy’s house we showered up and met my mom and cousin Terri for dinner at Firehouse. The pizza was delicious as always and I ate way too much. After dinner my mom dropped J and I off at Hops Haven. We watched the first half of the Badgers game there. Since they had a live that was going to start during the second half we walked to The Skybox to watch the game in a better atmosphere. After the game was over Randy picked us up and dropped us off in Falls. We hung out at the O and caused a ruckus until bar time. Sunday, too sore to think about biking home, we had Rich drive us back. Sunday we watched in amazement as the Packers beat San Diego to start 3-0, amazing!

We went to the Brewers game on Friday. We skipped happy hour this week. The game stunk, the Brewers were down five after the first inning. Sheets is a bum. After the game we went to The Pub for a couple burgers. We hadn’t been there in a while and they scratched an itch I’ve had for a while.

Saturday was a gorgeous day. You can tell Fall is right around the corner. I’ve missed the last two Badgers games since I was in Canada so I wasn’t about to miss this one. I headed out to Luedke’s parents’ house to watch the game in their media room. A bunch of the guys went out there. We had a couple beers and watched the Badgers struggle to beat Citadel. I haven’t been overly impressed with their play so far this year. At least we’re not Notre Dame. After the football game we headed to Adam’s for Chappy’s bachelor party. There were about twenty guys there. Everyone played cards but I wasn’t overly interested in playing so I watched football and drank beer. We played some drinking games, at some pizza and smoked some cigars. It was a good time. Chappy’s single life is quickly melting away.

This past Wednesday was my last day at ASQ. I quit on a Wednesday so I could have a little free time before starting my new job. Thursday was the first night of the fair so I headed up to Plymouth. Both my brothers’ families went. I had some fried cheese and some beers. We watched the tractor pulls and talked to some friends. After the fair we stopped at Antonio’s for a nightcap before heading back to Rich’s.

I tried to sleep most of the day on Friday. We were taking off for Canada when J finished work. I didn’t get nearly as much sleep as I wanted. It’s hard to sleep during the day when you don’t have blackout curtains. J got home about four and we packed up the car and started the drive to Canada.

Hey hey, looks who’s back! Wow have I been a lazy goon. I upgraded to Windows Vista and never bothered to get my server set up again. Since my electricity bill is also out of control I really didn’t want my desktop running all day just so I can get one hit a day to my website. Well, I’m still lazy, but I found the time to get the basic server setup again on a really neat low power, low noise, low heat, low everything computer. The decTOP is what I’ve been looking for a while and it’s now my dedicated server. The little hand size server isn’t the fastest in the world but it does the job for a low traffic site. I had to dust off my Linux skills and learn command line again so that inhibited the process. So barring some sort of new problem you can look for my weekly musing once again! Good to be back!!!

It was Good Friday this week and there is no better way to honor the day than a Brewers game.  I met Luedke and Hand at Dukes to have some happy hour brew before heading to the game.  We bussed it to the stadium. It was a dreaded Brewers v. Cubs game.  Luedke had the tickets and they were awesome seats but we were losing the whole game and dealing with Chub fans in that environment is a form of torture.  L still had a ticket left and we called J to come meet us which she did.  We stayed at the game for about five innings and then went to My Office for a few.

Saturday Jocelyn and I went out to celebrate our one year anniversary.  It was a perfect one year celebration with my perfect woman.  We went to Devon Seafood in the new Bayshore Town Centre.  It was a crisp night but only being a couple blocks away we didn’t have be outside long.  The food at the Devon was outstanding!  I got an amazing cioppino which is a like a thick, spicy bouillabaisse. After dinner was over I gave J a pair of diamond earrings for our anniversary.  I may have shot myself in the foot and overachieved for a first anniversary present but J is worth every penny.  I got the earrings at a going out of business sale and have been holding on to them for four months which is impossible for me to do, especially with something like this.  I was able to wait though.  She loved them and the night was perfect.  We headed home, had some champagne and called it a night.

Sunday was our actual one year anniversary but since we had celebrated it the night before it was low key.  Sunday was also Easter.  The only thing we really did was eat our cake top that Becky had air locked and freezed for us.  It actually wasn’t that bad.  Nothing much else happened.  I made a ham so we had some sandwiches and took it easy.

This coming week is both of my parents’ birthdays.  What is becoming tradition is taking my parents out to St. Ann’s for a birthday dinner.  J and drove up Saturday night and took them out for some good eats.  My brothers and their fams showed up too.  I’d repeat the whole St. Ann’s experience for the 100^th time but it would be a broken record; fabulous porterhouse and delicious Old Fashioneds.  On this trip to St. Ann’s I did run into Justin Richardson who was also enjoying the buttery steaks.  When dinner was over I requested a cake for my mom and dad which was fun.  After dropping off my parents we headed back to WFB.

Sunday was the annual chili cook off.  We didn’t have the Wians’ with us this year but J and I went anyway.  The weather was rainy as is always the case for the chili cook-off.  The cook off was again a hit.  They need to move it back to the Lakefront brewery because the downtown room is too hot and cramped.  Either way you can’t go wrong eating ten samples of chili. Great way to end a weekend.