This picture was taken on August 30th 2003 in Morgantown, West Virginia. I went out to West Virginia for the badger football game. My old roommate, Joe, had a group of his college buddies that were going out there and I got the opportunity to tag along with them. They were one crazy group. Anyhow this is in the parking lot before the game. There were quite a few other Badger fans and one group had something that was called "The Beer Ski". 5 cups taped to a ski, you fill them all up and 5 people drink all at once. Of course I had to do it and then get a picture with it.
Mama Mania day.
This picture was taken June 11, 2000 in Cleveland, Ohio along the banks of Lake Erie. that is me on a Cargo Ship in Cleveland. I was bored that day and went on this ship tour deal thing. It was right next to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That was my favorite hat. And one of my favorite shirts.
The Final 4 isn't over, but my pool is. Since no one of the 21 people to enter has any of the remaining teams in the finals or as the champion, no one can gain any more points. But first before I get to the final standings, let me call out the deadbeats.
I am sure all of my gamblers have been checking my blog early this morning to see where they stand. And while you are here, why not vote for Stegall being a welcher. I will get to that later. Alright let me get to the Tournament. First my deadbeats. And number of you have called or emailed me for my address, it is posted on one of the previous comments. But you are still a deadbeat until the money is in hand.
This picture was taken October 1st, 2000 in Waukesha, Wisconsin at my brother, Jeff's house. My nephew, Zack wanted a clown at his 3rd birthday party. So I was first on the list to jump in the costume. But when I was putting on the make up, the only way I could think of putting it on was like Gene Simmons. Turns out for three year olds, the Gene Simmons make up is a little frightening even if it is a bit on the technocolor side. And I will be honest my ability to make balloon animal is nearly non existant. Maybe I need to study up on balloon animals. It has been a while since i have practiced my juggling too. I need to get a job that isn't quite so demanding. I quote Lloyd and Harry from Dumb and Dumber. "There are no job available in this town." "Unless you want to work 40 hours a week."
mail call, and getting mail is a big deal in the army. Over the course of the summer I wrote Dave a couple letters. I believe Dave was the rank of “Private”. The first letter I wrote to Dave was addressed as follows:
to see a General in the United States Army drop and do push ups. STEGALL, GET UP HERE!!!” Dave knowing he was in for a hurting, slowly walked up to the Drill Sergeant. When he got up to Drill Sergeant the Sergeant yelled, “STEGALL START PUSHING THEM OUT!!!” And as he did so the Drill Sergeant threw the letter down on the ground. When the letter landed on the floor it landed face down. This was unfortunate for Dave because on the back of the letter I had written “Hey Dave, Don’t worry about the troubles you are having, keep dropping the soap in the shower and sooner of later you will meet that someone special.” This writing had caught the eye of the Drill Sergeant and he stopped and picked the letter back up and read the back. The ensuing dialog was as follows:
me as Dave. The Drill Sergeant then dismissed the entire platoon to the mess hall except for Dave who was left behind doing push ups. The rest of the platoon actually had to walk around Dave as they exited the barracks, most of them feeling sorry for Dave. This incident also gave rise to Dave’s new nickname “General” which was how the Drill Sergeant addressed Dave for the remainder of Dave’s time on the base. As the days and weeks past, from time to time the Drill Sergeant would see Dave from a distance around the base and would call out “GENERAL!!!” and then he would make a bending motion with his arms. This of course meant that Dave was to do push ups until the Drill Sergeant got there. On another occasion, Dave was in the barracks and headed for the showers, and the Drill Sergeant happened to be around and noticed Dave headed for the showers.
This picture was taken on Halloween 1999 over at Preston's Place across the street from my place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This was the night that a group of us went out to Sussex or Merton to see the Love Monkeys play at some beer tent and Security tried to throw me out. It was also the night I used one of the worst lines I have ever used on a girl that actually worked. Towards the end of the evening we ended up back a party and somehow I managed to manuever a female into one of the bedrooms. We were laying on the bed and while I was still all dressed up in my costume, this is what I recall of the dialog.
In honor of seeing Mark and Suzanne this weekend, I thought I would throw a picture with them up. This was taken May 24, 2003 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This was at T1's wedding. T1 being the nick name we gave Todd. So from the left to the right Me, Suzanne, Mark, Kevin and Todd. And imagine that, we are drinking. I am pretty sure that it wasn't my idea to do shots. Mark, Kevin, Todd and I were all roommates at one time. Bob who was our other roommate didn't make it to the wedding. And actually for one summer Suzanne was our roommate too. But she paid her rent in the form of doing the dishes. Sorry Shauntelle, but I don't have any pictures of you, so you aren't going to make it on to the blog.
Friday I had a rough day at the office. I met Nate and Preston for lunch at Paulie’s Pub. It was a bit obnoxious. Nate and I were sitting next to each other and the music was so loud that Nate and I couldn’t hear each other over Loverboy and Aerosmith pumping through the speakers. Fun. The place was pretty busy nonetheless; it shouldn’t take an hour to get some chicken fingers and cheese curds. I just wanted to watch some basketball. I got back to the office late and I stunk like an ashtray. Once I got home from work, Jay stopped by and we had a couple beers and watched college basketball. Then we stopped over by Nate to play some ping pong. Around 10:00 p.m. we decided that we would go down to O’Brien’s. My friend, Andy, was going to be down there and I told him I would meet him out there. The highlight of O’Brien’s was just before we walked in, a bouncer was carrying a patron out the door in a sleeper hold. And it appeared that the bouncer applied the hold correctly because when he dropped the guy down on the sidewalk he was out. I should have gotten a picture of that. Saturday afternoon, I took my nephew, Jared, shopping for his birthday. He is going to be 6 this week. I bought Jared a new bike. When we got it home I pumped up the tires for him and then I took it for a spin. The bike is quite a bit bigger than his old one, so it looks like there is going to have to be a bit of a learning curve since he fell twice in the first minute. Saturday night we went out to celebrate Jay’s birthday at County Claire. Around 1 in the morning Nate and I were sort of hungry, and since we were downtown, that 
would mean that we were close to Oakland Gyros. I don’t think I can overstate how much I enjoy eating there. And it always seems to taste so much better at 1 or 2 in the morning. Sunday I spent the majority of the day cleaning my house and watching basketball. Sunday night was the Coldplay concert. My friends and old roommates, Mark and Suzanne, bought tickets ahead of time. And Shauntelle and I were going to scalp tickets. I managed to get some lower level $80 seats for $20 a piece. Then once in the concert Shauntelle and I moved to some better open seats. We ended up being on the side even with the front of the stage and about 15 rows back. Really good seats, and I was pleasantly surprise at how good the band was. So if you live in Fort Wayne or Columbia, and Coldplay is slotted to come to town, I highly recommend going to the show.
Round 2 is over with and everyone’s bracket has been highly screwed up. Krum kudos to you, I have no idea how you picked Bradley over Pitt but you did. Dan, Coonen and Tree, nice work, all three of you nailed 11 sweet 16 teams.
This is my friend Jesus, he is a cliff diver in Mexico. More exactly Matzalan. When I was down in Mexico on a cruise for my high school prom date, Joy Gibb's, wedding, we had a stop in Matazalan. We toured the city and came across these cliff divers. This was back on August 16th, 2002.
Here is a veiw from above and also part of my thumb. Jesus told me that that water is about 7 feet deep. I had actually entertained the idea of jumping in but opted against it. I was feeling a bit dangerous, since the day before I did some bungee jumping.
This is a pretty cool view of the cliff diving, if you want to call it that.
I tried to get these results out last night but there was a problem with the blog site. But the Death Star is once again running and operational. And since we are back on line, what is going on with Kansas? You win 15 of the last 16 games, run the Big 10 tournament and then drop your opening game to Bradley. Bradley!!! March Madness, more like March are you F'ing kidding me? Fort Wayne what do you think about that? Alright, I am done venting, but if another one of my Final Four Teams goes down this weekend, the pool is off. Here are the results / standings after the first round.
It is that magical time of year again. And as the manager of BW3's told me today during lunch, "It is like Christmas!!" So let the games begin. There are 21 sheets entered into my pool, 3 by Krum. So here is how the payouts will work.
This picture was taken August 11th down by Miller Park. Nate and I were down there launching rockets, no that is not a euphemism, and one of the rockets flew east into the valley where they are / were trying to clean things up. As we were looking for the rocket I happened upon this dozer and thought this would be a funny picture of me with all of my might pushing a dozer. I do recall that Shelly was with us as well. Preston may have been there too.
This picture was taken on September 20th 2000 in Virginia. This was a dinosaur museum that I happened upon.
I don't have a date on this picture. I think it was 1999 or 2000. This was in the parking lot at the Dave Matthews Concert in Dallas at the State Fair Grounds. I flew down and stayed with and then went to the concert with my good communist friend, Dave "The General" Stegall. At that time Dave lived in Killeen, Texas, which is about 2.5 - 3 hours south of Dallas. On the way to the State Fair Grounds, I asked Dave if he knew where we were going, his reply, "Don't worry about it, I know exactly where we are going. You can eat those directions." 20 minutes later we were at the airport, on the opposite side of the city of Dallas from where we were suppose to be. Anyhow this picture was taken in the parking lot. Security was walking by as Dave and I were tailgating, i.e. throwing around a football and drinking Long Island Ice Teas, and I couldn't resist getting a picture with them. Dave had his safety vest in the trunk of his car that he wore when he went running at night. So I grabbed that and security and got this picture. That one guy sure was short. On a side note, after the show the plan was to drive back to Killeen. We decided that Dave would take the first shift and drive to Waco and I would then drive the rest of the way. Since Dave had already proven his mastery with directions, I helped navigate him out of the city of Dallas and on to the correct interstate headed for Waco, then I fell asleep. I woke up at 4 in the morning to see that we were parked on a on ramp to the interstate. I woke up Dave and asked him what happened. He said that he drove to Waco but didn't want to wake me up. I thought, "Wow that Dave is a great guy, he let me sleep a little longer." We switched seats and then I started driving. I wasn't on the road for a mile or two when I saw the first mileage sign "Waco 105 miles". Apparently, the night before, as soon as I feel asleep, Dave pulled over at the next exit. I ended up driving the whole way back to Killeen. Thanks again Dave.
This picture was taken June 11th 2000 at Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. This was my first and only WNBA Game. That is why I am laughing / smiling in the picture, because I can't believe I actually went to a WNBA game. As you can see they really packed them in for the event.
Now please realize that had I not come along with my infinite wisdom, check that while I do have infinite wisdom all anyone needed was a little common sense to figure out that she had the mark in the wrong location. Anyhow had I not explained to her why we need the correct location for these signs, I would have had a 2 foot by 2 foot hole in the concrete about 3 feet away from the spot where I would have had to have the contractor saw through 6 inches of concrete so that we could put the sign in the right location. I am not sure if I mentioned it before or not, but Nura and I were the same engineering classification at the DOT and in fact she had seniority over me.
This picture was taken in 1993, at my parents house in Wales, Wisconsin. Eat your heart out Micheal Jordan. You want some mad hops. Here they are. I must be a good four feet in the air. That is right. All real. No photo shop or anything.
This picture was take November 7th, 1996 in the Village of Shorewood. They had asked me to burn some film during my college internship with the Village of Shorewood. So I went down to one of the stores where they were paving a parking lot and took some pictures. It took a little coaxing but the driver finally agreed to let me in the cab and to take my picture.
Because of my two favorite readers, I have officially become obsessed with Fort Wayne, Indiana and Columbia, Missouri. I have done a little research on Mr. Internet to find some fact / factoids on my two new favorite cities. I wanted to do a little compare and contrast with these two fair cities and see how they stack up with Milwaukee the Great Place by a Great Lake.
Advantage: Columbia, but not by much. They all look like they suck as far as weather goes.
Now for the intangibles, which by the very definition should not be quantifiable.
Milwaukee: 2 Professional Sports teams and Summerfest.
Fort Wayne: I have no idea what you have.
Columbia: Believe it or not I have been there, once when I was 24. It was nearly impossible to rent a car. Small airport. The people were very nice. The University of Missouri is there. That is a Big 12 School. Although I don't know how hard you cats can party.
Advantage: Milwaukee
So what is the final tally
Milwaukee: 4
Fort Wayne: 2
Columbia: 6
This picture was taken November 7th, 1999 in Oslo, Norway. This was another instance of walking by people taking a group picture, and them me offering to take the picture for them if only I could get one with the group. I am sure I did wonders for World diplomacy and the image of Americans with this one. These people thought I was absolutely nuts.
I chose ths picture in honor of Barry Bonds and his recent and recurring steriod problems and publicity. Is it just me or does it appear that all of those drugs and fish paralizers he has taken over the years are starting to make him look a bit freakish. This picture was taken on May 17th, 2000 at Pac Bell Stadium, in San Francisco, California. I had been walking around the park since it is in a pretty location, i.e. right on the Bay. This group was getting a picture taken I told them that I would take the picture for them, then insisted that I get one with them. You can sort of see the stadium in the background.
In honor of seeing Spider this weekend and then him ditching me on Sunday. Here is a Spider picture. Taken February 17, 1992 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is legendary Minnesconsin Tour Number 1. Matt, Spider and Justus with me in the back.
I have sent out an earlier email to my regular gamblers, but as this is my main forum for communicating with others, I thought I would throw this out there in case I missed someone. I will again be holding a NCAA pool. And this year things will go extremely smooth. At least I think so. Last year as the tournament was going on. I wasted about half a day at the DOT putting together a spreadsheet with pull down menus that automatically calculates all of the points as long as you update the results. So if you are interested and I haven't sent you an email, send me an email with your email address. My work email is : Rickie_Davies@URSCorp.com It will be $10 a sheet. And I will decide the pay outs once I get everyone's sheets in. I will probably pay out the top two or three finishers.
These are the Lions at the MGM. They are laying on top of a tunnel thing you can walk under.
Here you can see what I was talking about. The Lions were real active at this time.
This is the New York New York. I slept on the floor here and also lost a couple hundred dollars here.
This is my Uncle Dave. After the wedding we came back to the room to change and he said that he was ready to go, but he sort of looks like he was ready to just go to sleep. Call me crazy.
This is the Paris Hotel at night.
Looking out at the Wynn at night from the Rivieria Penthouse.
The Venetian.
The Mirage.
Megan and Troy in the court yard at Caesar's.
Marilyn, Dave, Kim and Jake in front of the Dancing Waters at the Bellagio.
Andrea in the Penthouse, not a Penthouse.
The Penthouse had a bday (spelling?) and while I am posing here, I did use it when I was getting ready in the morning. I have to say, I was less than impressed. 
The Michelle Pfeiffer pose on the Grand Piano.
In front of the waterfall at the Wynn.
Elvis getting a little friendly in one of the gift shops. I expect that out of Liberace, but not the King.
Me on top of a camel outside of the Sahara.
And unfortunately, I didn't get around to the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. Maybe next time.
