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Last night was a truly historic night in our country’s history. With this election we were going to have a historic outcome no matter who won. We were either going to have a woman in the White House or an African American in the White House for the first time. In the end, Barack Obama won, giving us our first African American in the White House. Obama is an amazing orator and his skills came through loud and clear with his acceptance speech. Stressing the change and the spirit of “Yes we can” if his speech did move you and give you hope you are as hard headed as they come and don’t believe in democracy, but rather yourself. Obama has an unbelievably hard job in front of him. The White House he is inheriting is in great turmoil and the country he now has to lead is so divided that to get the USA back on track seems impossible. But with his inspiration and spirit I believe that Obama can break down the ugly barriers both literal and figurative that plague this country and once again make us the UNITED States of America instead of the Divided States of American that we have been the last couple of years. Will it be hard, yes? Are we entitled to different views, yes? Can we work together even though we have these different views, yes? Can WE ALL do it TOGETHER for the betterment of future generations, yes we can.

An awful WI sports weekend avoided. Yesterday I watched the Badgers and Brewers both lose with Luedke at Rock Bottom. The Badgers dominated the first half and managed to lose when they failed do anything in the second half. They had a chance to tie and the two point conversion failed. At the exact same time the Mets won and Brewers staged a failed comeback to  be tied for the Wild Card on the final day of the season.

Sunday the Packers looked like garbage and lost to Tampa Bay. Rodgers was hurt in game four of the season. We’ll see how his durability is. A crappy weekend but then… TOTALLY REDEEMED by the Brewers.  The Crew beat the Cubs 3-1 on a Braun homer and Sabathia gem and the Mets lost 2-4 to the Marlins.  That makes us the wild card winner! I, like all of WI, am pumped! There is a rally tomorrow at the Summerfest grounds and then we take on the Phillies starting Wednesday. I’m hoping to get some tickets to see some Milwaukee history.

Thursday was a Rock Bottom tapping. The tapping was great as usual; when is free beer not great. Hecker, Arianne and I had some fun on the deck. We ran into a nice farmer guy from MN visiting his daughter. We got our free hour of beer and then boogied to My Office for a bit. We had a few there then hit Mykano’s for some grub.

Friday I took it easy. J is still gone so I’m hangin’ solo this weekend. I just say around, had some brews and watched the tube.

Saturday I did some work in the morning and then went with Arianne to Six Flags. I wasn’t overly excited to go when the day started but it ended up being a ton of fun. I hadn’t been there for about ten years so it was a new experience for me. Arianne got the tickets from Craig and Deloitte. Deloitte actually rented the park for the event and it was awesome. We got free food vouchers and the lines were non-existent. We went on all the best coasters without having to wait. We were there about three hours. I cruised home and Ari went to Chicago. I chilled at home the rest of the night. Mowed some grub and watched COPS.

Well today one of my hopes was officially shattered.  Rick Wright of Pink Floyd passed away. For those of you that don’t know Pink Floyd is my number one band and I had always hoped they would bury the hatchet and get together again so I could see them live.  This officially puts an end to that hope, a sad day indeed.

It’s only the second game and against another subpar team but Rodgers looked killer for the Packers again today.  Maybe I have to go back and edit last week’s post, Rodgers is fun to watch. Packers are 2-0, I like. Oh yea, and the Brewers are in the midst of an ugly September collapse.  The playoffs are looking more and more unlikely.

Well it’s offical.  Tonight was Aaron Rodgers first night as the starting quaterback of the Green Bay Packers.  He looked really good out there tonight but… it was the Vi-queens.  The Pack won the game and they’re 1-0.  I’ll always be a Packer fan but I do long a bit for Favre yet.  It would be different if he was in Kiln mowing the grass.  I could accept the fact that Rodgers is our quarterback MUCH easier.  But to see his exciting play elsewhere is like sharing your girlfriend with the rest of the high school and I’m not into that.  Like I said in my previous post, I’ll be watching both a lot this year.  Watching the Packers games were still fun when we were 4-12 because at least Brett made it interesting. In my years of football watching I haven’t seen one other player that can singularly make a game entertaining. But if somehow the Packers and Jets meet in the Super Bowl, well sorry Brett, Rodgers and the Pack are going to have to kick your sorry ass back to New York.

Well today was the first regular season game that Brett played in a Jets uniform.  It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be but then again the Packers don’t play until tomorrow night and if Rodgers stinks it up my feelings about today will change a bit.  Brett had a good game.  Solid with two TDs and no picks.  There were a couple Brettesque plays and that’s what I’m going to miss most when watching the Packers games.  It does backfire but you take the good and you take the bad.  You hardly ever remember a pick (unless it ends the season) but you always remember a falling down behind the back shovel pass. I used to hate the Jets but I’ll be watching my fair share of them this year.  But in the end… GO PACK GO!!!

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 back 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.