I Want To Ride My Bicycle

I finally bought something that I wanted in a long time. This weekend there was a large bike expo at the state fairgrounds. Friday after work J and I went to the grounds to get me a mountain bike. I shopped around and eventually settled on a last years model Giant. It's a nice bike with shocks and disc brakes, just what I was looking for. This bike expo was pretty big and while we were standing in line they had a stunt bike rider doing tricks on his mountain bike. This guy was pretty nuts and he was hopping all around on his bike. He hopped on some platforms, some skinny stands, and rode up and down some extremely steep ramps. He was ok but that'll be nothing compared to what I'll be able to do by summer's end. What better way is there to break in a new bike than to get out and ride it. So I got up Saturday morning and biked to Sheboygan. J didn't want to go on the ride this time, and I needed a way to get back, so she drove up. I left at eightish. The ride was actually easier than it was the last time. It was a bit chillier outside than I had expected and should have brought a coat but the workout kept my blood pumping and kept me warm. I stopped at the same little hardware store in Belgium for some a beef sticks and Power Aid lunch. On the ride I saw a blue bird, a cardinal, and a hawk. I thought god had sent the frogs to cover the earth again because I saw and heard thousands of frogs in the marsh areas on the sides of the bike path. The frogs were so loud I could hear them through my sound isolating headphones. Being one with nature, and getting a good sunburn was great but getting to my brother's was once again a relief. I knocked an hour off my last ride to 'boygan. It took me 4:45 to go the 66.1 miles. I actually had a couple things to do up der in 'boygan. I sold my brother Randy my computer (I built a new one hence the iRau outage) so I had to drop that off and I needed my brother Rich to check J's brakes which are need to be replaced. So I got both of those out of the way and I was also able to pick up my Christmas presents at Randy's. The real reason I was up there was to take my mom (4/1) and dad (4/5) out for their birthdays. We went to Schwarz's in St. Ann's. I've ranted and raved about this place already so the only thing I can say is my porterhouse was delicious as usual. We ran into my cousin Bobby there who said that there is actually a better steak house down the road. I find it very unlikely that not only…

Is That a Pre- or Post-Chili Glow

Saturday was the start of our weekend this week. Adam came over to watch the basketball games and drink a couple brew ha has with us. After the games the three of us went to the Metro for a couple drinks. I actually skipped the martini special this week and drank only beer. The last time I was there was the night we drank hurricanes and I got gut rot from all the sweetness of the drinks. After that we headed over to My Office and finished up the night there. Sunday J, Adam, Stacey and I went to the chili cook off being held at Lakefront Brewery. They had a bunch of different kinds of chili from all over the MKE area. It was $3 to get in and then a dollar for a cup of chili. I forgot my chili tastin' spoon at home but that didn't prevent me from eating upwards of twelve cups of chili. It was a gorgeous day so we finished up our chili eating adventure on the outdoor patio at Lakefront and soaked up some of the spring sun. It was pretty much the consensus in our group that Koppa's had the best chili of the competition. There were many other good chilies including Philly Way, Soup Station, Soup Shack, BBC's, and the official winner Q who made their chili with BBQ brisket and gave you a tortilla with it. We all ate way too much chili and we rolled home and basked in our chili glow. Maybe a chili glow isn't a good way to describe what we were basking in. Either way it was fun. Since a good majority of the Jocelyn's family went to Illinois I have to give them my condolences for Monday's hard fought loss to North Carolina for the NCAA basketball title. You'll get 'em next year tiger!

Pickled Easter Egg Hunt

This weekend is Easter weekend. Friday after work I watched the Badgers play NC State. The Badgers comfortably won which was a refreshing change as opposed to their normal play. I met Luedke after the game at BBC's on North Ave. I had a beer to celebrate the big win and headed home and got some sleep. Saturday was a lot of fun. Luedke and Anna joined me for the Riverwest Pub Crawl. The crawl consisted of 19 bars and you could consume one free beer at each bar. The crawl was $30 and more than worth it. We got our free t-shirt and map and off we went to explore the Riverwest area. Riverwest is actually kind of a sketchy part of town but there were hundreds of people on this bar crawl and there were always groups of people around. All the details of the crawl would take way too long to explain so here is a bulleted list of the highlights. Ate a pickled egg Met two old ladies on the crawl who were wearing plastic cups on their heads and said they were so hungover after last years crawl that their hair hurt Saw memorial to some guy that got killed in front of one of the bars Saw Peep art Saw crazily dressed band at a couple bars got buzzed in through buzzer door by the bartender/doorman at a sketchy bar Purchased old records from a yard sale Ran into guys from Random Lake Met Spike "the mayor of Riverwest" The whole thing was very fun and I must thank L and Anna for going along with me. I had a good time and made it to 18 of the 19 bars. Easter I just stayed at home and watched basketball. I didn't feel like going to Chicago with J so I just stayed put. I made a good ham and will have enough ham to eat for the next couple months. Unfortunately the Badgers lost to North Carolina. They played really good but didn't have quite enough in the end. Happy Easter!

Celebrating The Irish In Me

This was one of the rougher weekends I've had in a while and it started on Thursday with a little bit of St. Patty's celebration. After work I met Luedke and we headed to Sweeney's for some Guinness and Jameson. Neither of us were really feeling the Irish vibe in there so our visit was short lived. From there we went to my Friday lunch spot the Ardor. The Ardor has great food and it didn't disappoint on St. Pat's. I had a delicious corned beef, cabbage and potato dinner there. After that was done we sat around and drank some $2.50 Guinni and played some vids. We were minding out business when out of the blue Schwenker shows up. He was wasting time waiting for Brad Mohn's and randomly stumbled into our neck of the woods. So we sat, drank and played some dice while waiting for Brad. Finally Brad showed up but I was already deep in conversation with some random guy I met sitting at the bar that had a masters degree in art. He had just moved back to Milwaukee to interview to be a professor at a couple area colleges. His specialties were pottery and glass; he was a very interesting person. I was talking to him and everyone else had decided to go to another bar but I had just gotten a fresh beer and was talking to this dude. One beer turned into a couple and I ended up spending almost the whole night at the Ardor. This guy went to Madison too so we had all the college stories to share. Finally it was time to meet up with everyone else. I had gotten a text from Luedke saying he was at My Office so I made my way over there. When I got there there was no Luedke. Not wanting to look like a fool and walk in and walk out I sat down and had a brew. I ran into another character there. A black guy who claimed he was a true to life pimp and was waiting for one of his women. I was interested so I talked to this guy for an hour or so. His woman never showed up but I had had enough of this holiday and headed home a drunken solo Irishman. Work on Friday was pretty tough and I know now why I don't drink during the week. I went into work a couple hours late but it was no big deal because two of my three bosses were out and I didn't have much to do. For lunch I went back to the scene of the crime, the Ardor and talked with the owners about the craziness of the night before. After what felt like sixteen hours of work was over I went home to get ready for the night's basketball game. Luedke, Adam, Stacey, Chappy, J and I drove to Delahunt's joint to watch the Badgers game. It was a good time.…

Mountaineering Is Not As Fun As Spelunking

This weekend actually involved some travel. Friday night we didn't do anything because on Saturday morning we caught a flight to Tucson for Jocelyn's grandmother's eightieth birthday. Our flight Saturday morning was delayed an hour due to the fact that our fresh water supply on the plane had frozen. They were unable to fix the problem so our flight wasn't able to server hot coffee or tea and there was no water in the bathroom. Before we took off we also had to stop or a fifteen minute deicing, thank heavens we were going to AZ to escape this miserable cold. We flew Frontier airlines and it was pretty sweet because each seat gets their own LCD screen with twenty-six channels of DirectTV. This was very cool and made the flight go fast. We switched planes at Denver and literally sprinted to our connecting flight and made the flight with less than thirty seconds to spare. It was amazing that something actually worked out while traveling. The second flight was smooth and we arrived at about eleven to the 85 degrees of Tucson goodness. J's mom was there to pick us up and drive us to her grandparents' house. We stopped at Subway on the way and also at a grocery store to pick up some delicious Fat Tire Ale (great beer which you can only seem to find in the West). From there we arrived at the house and I greeted all the relatives and inhaled my sandwich. Our plan for the day was to meet Jeff DeBruin and his lady Kelly and go to a Brewers' spring training game. So I called J&K, who were already on their way, with the directions to where we were. They picked us up and we drove to the Rockies' training facility. It took us a little longer to get there than we wanted but we found a place to park and went to the game. On our way in I heard a "heads up" and looked up to see a ball. The ball was bouncing in the parking lot and I ran to pick it up. This was actually turning out to be a great day. The day really was perfect. I got to see a spring game where Brewers killed the Rockies, tickets were $2, we talked to some folk from WI who were sitting in front of us, had a couple Fat Tires from the tap at the game, I got to hang with my boy Jeff, and we enjoyed the high 80 heat. We couldn't stay the whole game and had to leave in the fifth inning to go back to the hotel to change for dinner. J&K dropped us off and headed back to Phoenix. It was great to see them and I'm very glad they came down to see us. That night we went to dinner at a Mexican place. Before dinner we had a pitcher of strawberry margaritas and some fresh table made guacamole, the…