Pearl Jam and Petty Take #1

Last night was Pearl Jam and Tom Petty the opening night of Summerfest. I went to the show with my friend, Liz. Things didn’t start off all that great. As I have been doing for years, when Liz met me at my place we walked down to State Fair Park to catch the shuttle. As long as I have been living in my house, I have known the Summerfest Shuttle to pick people up at the northeast corner of the Sate Fair Grounds. This always works out great because this is only a couple blocks from my house. Liz and I walked down to that bus stop and no one was there. I thought this is weird. Then I read the sign on the stop saying that they discontinued service from this location. What? They moved it to the corner of 84th Street and Greenfield. Liz and I had to walk back to my place and then drive over to Greenfield. We finally got down to the Summerfest Grounds and then picking up the concert tickets and getting into the Summerfest Grounds was a major hassle. But we managed. We got up to the concession stands and jumped in line for a beer. By this time it was a little after 8:00 pm. While we were in line for beer, I ran into my friend, Trisha Kuenzli. While waiting in line, Pearl Jam hit the stage. Liz and I grabbed a quick beer and then got to our Seats. Pearl Jam was great. Half way through their set, I had to go and grab another beer. On the way back I stopped over by my friend, Suzanne’s seats. She was there with her sister. I stayed by them for a couple songs and then made my way back over by Liz in our seats. When I got back by Liz, I quickly noticed that Liz had found 2 new friends. They were two very nice looking 25 year old girls from Chicago. At this point, I would like to say that I find it incredibly hard to believe that I have ever kissed a girl. It is amazing how often I screw up a sure thing. From the beginning Liz was working some pretty serious interference. She was cramping my style on hitting on these girls. Pearl Jam ended up finishing their set. Check out the set list below. During the intermission Liz and I headed out to get a beer and go to the bathroom. While I was at the bathroom, I ran into Suzanne and her sister again and they came back with me to my seats. So as I was waiting for Tom Petty to take the stage I was there with 5 girls, Liz, Suzanne, her sister and these 2 Chicago girls. I am looking like a man high in demand. As Petty hits the stage, I slide in next to one of the Chicago girls. According to Liz, this Chicago girl is digging me. That is of course according to Liz. Half way through the set, I ran out of beer and headed back out to the concession stand. Beers down there were $5 a piece, limit 4 per person. So I came back with 4 beers. When I got back, Liz was gone not to be seen again on this night, and none of the other 4 girls were drinking any more. I.E. I have to drink 4 beers. Not that that should be a problem. I guy in the row behind me noticed my dilemma and was more than happy to take one of the beers off of my hands. Next thing I know the Tom Petty is walking off the stage and the Chicago girls are gone. How did that happen? Then Suzanne and her sister bolted. I ended up watching the encore solo. Once the concert was over, I was dead set on going to Heaven City for some food. I always go there for some great food. But their stand is usually at the north end of the Summerfest grounds. I walked all the way down there to #1 find out that they don’t have a stand any more, and #2 there isn’t a food stand anywhere that is still open. Bummer. Dejected as I was, I headed for the shuttle bus. Upon arrival to State Fair, I trekked the 8 or 9 blocks back to my place. That was a brutal walk for the end of the night. So it was my typical concert, a good show, struck out with the ladies and came home by myself.


Here is the set list:
Wasted Reprise
Life Wasted
World Wide Suicide
Severed Hand
Corduroy
Animal
In Hiding
Even Flow
Gone
Better Man
Do the Evolution
Why Go
Jeremy
Inside Job
Comatose
Rearview Mirror

Encore
Crazy Mary
Leash
Porch

Neil Young

I have been making a pretty serious effort at trying to remember my stories that I tell when I am out and about. Unfortunately, I am normally having a beer or two when I am telling these stories and by the next morning I forget what story I was telling. Last night I went to see Pearl Jam at Summerfest with my friend, Liz, and as we were walking down to the south gate I was telling her this story and I made note in my brain to tell this story to you on my blog. This story goes back to 2000 or 2001 I am guessing. It was after Summerfest, probably in August. I went down to the Marcus Amphitheater with my buddy Joe Magnusson to see Neil Young. Joe and I have a history of scalping tickets for shows. Bruce Springsteen, Neil Diamond, the Rolling Stones. And normally Joe and I work out a great deal with the scalpers for the show, our rule is to pay more for beer than we do for the show tickets. One this particular night there weren’t too many scalpers out and about and the pickings for tickets were slim. Joe and I were brain storming on figuring out a way to get into the show. As I said the concert was at the Marcus Amphitheater but the rest of the Summerfest grounds were closed. As we were looking for scalpers unsuccessfully, we were also scoping out the fence along the Summerfest grounds looking for a possible spot to jump the fence to get in. Obviously we didn’t look all that inconspicuous while we were doing this because after a couple minutes this guy comes along in a golf cart asking us what we are doing. We told him nothing, and then started asking him about the show and a little small talk. Then Joe says to the guy “Hey, how about you let us into the show? We will give you $5 a piece.” To which he replied, “I can’t do that, I am a supervisor.” Joe retorted, “Well if you are a supervisor then you can do it, because you have no one to answer to.” Nonetheless, the “supervisor” stuck to his guns and told us to watch ourselves then went about his business. Another 5 or 10 minutes pass, and Joe and I are beginning to think that we might not get into the show as available tickets continue to be hard to come by. Then the “supervisor” comes back with his golf cart. He pulls up next to Joe and me and says “$10 a piece and I will get you in.” Joe and I jump at this offer, at this point Joe and I were near the middle Summerfest entrance. The “supervisor” tells us to get on the back of the golf cart and then radios ahead to someone. We get to one of the gates along the fence and it opens up for us. Then we are cruising through the Summerfest grounds right up to the turnstiles of the Ampitheater. The “supervisor” radios ahead and they open up a gate right next to the turnstiles. We pull in just on the other side of fence and the golf cart stops. Joe and I jump off and pony up $10 each and give it to the “supervisor” right in front of everyone else walking into the show and then head on our way. If you know me and my concert going, you know that I have an old Lynard Skynard ticket that I continue to reuse and gets me down into the first 10 rows. Joe and I used that and I think as the show ended we were in the 20th row or so. It was an OK show, but the story of getting in was better than the actual show.

Picture of the Day

Here I am visiting Krum up in Minnesota sophomore year in college.

Summerfest 1995 Again

7-11-95

Here is another recap of the Summerfest. I again wrote this back in my college days. Thursday Paul Krumrich came down with a friend from Minnesota, Mark, and we went down to Summerfest and saw the Guess Who. Again drinking like a fish. Friday night the three of us went out down to Summerfest again along with another guy, Nate. We drank at my house for a while and then we tried to catch one of the fore mentioned shuttles and missed it by ten minutes. We leave the bar and these two girls pull up in this little Nissan something or another. We ask if they are going to Summerfest, they say yes and the four of us pack into the back seat. They also had a free parking spot lined up. Then we get out of the car and they offer us a couple of beers, so we drink with them for a while. One girl tells me that she has a hand stamp and I spit on my hand and it rubbed off on me and I got in to the grounds for free. Due to our superficial state in of my college years, we promptly ditched these girls the moment we go on to the Summerfest grounds. That night we saw Fleetwood Mac at the Miller Oasis, it was packed. I started talking to a girl who was on one of the picnic tables. Slowly as the concert wore on, I worked my way on to the table. And then I managed to get Paul, Mark and Nate also up on this table. Then as is always par for the course for Nate, he fell off the picnic table. That night the four of us guys are walking out and me all made a bet that the first person to kiss a girl wins a buck from the other three, I lost by 3 seconds. The following day was Saturday, we woke up and headed down to see the Grateful Dead, I had tickets to both Sat. and Sun. There were the four guys from the night before and then another guy, Doug. Nate and Doug had tickets for only Sunday night and Paul and Mark didn't have any tickets. Saturday night we went down to the parking lot and I sold my ticket to the first person I saw for fifty dollars. I later found out that I could have sold it for 100 dollars. Bummer. We went to Mark's girlfriend’s house in Chicago and hung out till about 10:00 pm and that is when we decided that we were going to the bars. I was really tired and would have been happy with just sleeping, but since I am rarely in Chicago I had to give it the old college try. The year before I was down in Chicago and spent a ton of money at the bars, and I decided that this wasn’t going to happen again, so I came up with the bright idea to drink a beer every ten minutes. An hour and ten minutes later I was ready to go for the night. We hit the Chicago bars without much incident and got in at around 2:30. We got up at 8:00 a.m. to get a good parking stop in the parking lot. I recovered the rest of the day. At 2:00 p.m. we went down to the beach and went for a swim in Lake Michigan, the only “shower of the weekend”. I recall the water was really cold. We were back at the Dead at around 4:00. We just sat around in the parking lot with the other 30,000 people walking around in the parking lot. At 5:30 p.m. I started drinking again. We decided to go in at around 7:00. We one thing lead to another and I was doing beer bongs on top of our truck. I went in to the show and I had bought these tickets from Ben Miller so I was sitting next to him. Our seats were great. On the floor sitting off to one side on the 40 yards line while the stage was on the other 10 yard line. It was a great concert.

Picture of the Day

This picture was taken June 10th, 2000 in Cleveland, Ohio. This was back when I worked for Merge Technologies. The guy on my right is Don Kusink, I worked with him. The guy on my left is Jerry Whitehead. Don and I were working out in Cleveland and for whatever reason we had to stay in Cleveland for the weekend. This was the Friday night of this weekend. Don and I went bar hopping in Cleveland. We actually ended up going to an Eric Burdon concert at a place called the Ogden. That was pretty cool. After the concert we were making our way back to our hotel and we ran into Jerry Whitehead. We actually ran into him as we were taking a short cut through an alley. I recall making a remark on how the alley smelled and Jerry laughed and then I introduced myself to him. I told him I would buy him a drink, so this is the picture the bartender took at the bar. Jerry's plane got redirected to Cleveland, he was on his way to Chicago, so he was just out having a couple drinks.

Rothlisberger

I know this is a bit crued, but I find it pretty funny. You are a professional athlete worth quite possibly over $100 million dollars, endorsements included, and you decided to jeopardize all of this to ride a motorcycle. Moron. Not to mention you go on the record saying that the law says that you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet. Actually, you can ride your motorcycle without a helmet if you have a motorcycle license. I never want to wish ill will toward anyone, but when these pampered professional athletes pull something like this, I have to laugh.

Picture of the Day

This picture was taken in Ottowa, Canada in the summer of 2001. Just days after my high school reunion. I flew up there to visit Paul Krumrich and go to the Dave Matthews Concert up there. We ended up see the concert from one of the private boxes. Pretty nice actually.

Picture of the Day

Alright, I am going to make an effort here to plow through the rest of my pictures of the day. This picture was taken on 9-21-00, in Virginia. This was after I got my $780 reckless driving ticket goin 120 in a 55 mph zone. Good times.

Summerfest is coming

Well as you know I alwasy get really excited for Summerfest and it is only a couple days away. I am only planning on 4 trips down to the festival. But I thought I would break out an old story or two to get everyone in the mood. Here goes.
7-1-95
As you can see this is an old story, but it takes me back to my college days. These were the days when I would go to Summerfest nearly every night. This was the summer that I worked doing concrete inspection for STS Consultants. And I wrote this back then. I finished work and I was just planning on coming home and eating and going to sleep because I had to work the next day. Next thing I know my roommate, Bob, comes walking in the door with one of our mutual friends, Ben Miller. I went to high school and played soccer with Ben. He informs me that I am going with them to Summerfest. I tried to put up a bit of a fight but it didn’t’ work. I would say the conversation went something like this.
Ben: “Hey Rick, How are you doing? You are going to go down to Summerfest with us right?”
Me: “Well actually, I have to work in the morning. You guys go ahead and have a good time.”
Ben: “Are you kidding me? I come into town and you can’t go down to Summerfest with me.”
Me: “Ohhh alllright.”
As you can see that took a lot of convincing. We prepartied a little bit and then we walked down to Judge’s because they have a free shuttle from there to Summerfest. We are the last ones on the bus which was packed and we end up standing in the aisle, the people next to me bought two big glasses of beer from Judges and they were older, like 30’s. (For the record, I wrote this back when I was in college. Back then I called people in their 30’s, older. Look who is talking now.) These old people weren’t really pounding the beer and were actually spilling more than drinking, so next thing I know I am drinking pretty much all of their beer. We get down to the grounds and it is $9 to get in. (What is it now $15?) We went to the Miller Oasis for a Reggae fest thing first. I really wasn’t down there to see any band in particular more just to hang out with my friends. Even though this was my main goal to be with my friends, within the first half our my group of 8 had narrowed down to 3. And an hour an a half later I lost those two and I was by myself, I lost everyone. But I still ended up getting really drunk. Then at closing I ran into Jim Burrosse and Mark Meisenhiemer and they were giving me a ride home only I didn’t know that we were stopping at a bar first. Well that only lasted for a half hour, and then I left with another friend and I was just going to walk with him on the way home. So his house was first so I said see you later and kept walking home, I was a block and a half away from home when I ran into another friend, next thing I know I am closing Axel’s. I walk past Oakland Gyros, there is half of the group that originally went with down to Summerfest. I went in and talked to them for a while and stole a couple of French fries from them. I finally get home and Bob is passed out on the couch and Ben is hanging out by himself in the attic. So he and I talked until like 3 in the morning and I finally got to sleep only to get 3 and a half hours of sleep before I have to go to work. So I wake up all hung over and I have to watch these guys construct a retaining wall at the Circuit City by Southridge Mall. I ended up just laying in my truck all morning hating life. That put me at 50.5 hours this week, I had 64 the week before and 58 before that. I really miss those college days.

The Results Are In

Lately I have been going home for lunch. It is nice because I live not even 5 minutes from work, and I get an hour for lunch. As I was leaving my house today, I got a letter informing me that I passed my Principles and Practice of Engineering Exam. It took them 2 months to grade, but apparently it was worth it. I am now a Professional Engineer. And I will probably also be hung over tomorrow morning.

For those of you who know me, I think you will find this very amusing, but here is the definition of what a Professional Engineer is:

A professional engineer is a person who by reason of his or her knowledge of mathematics, the physical sciences and the principles of engineering, acquired by professional education and practical experience, is qualified to engage in the practice of professional engineering.
The practice of professional engineering includes any professional service requiring the application of engineering principles and data, in which the public welfare or the safeguarding of life, health or property is concerned and involved, such as consultation investigation, evaluation, planning, design, or responsible supervision of construction, alteration, or operation, in connection with any public or private utilities, structures, projects, bridges, plants and buildings, machines, equipment, processes and works.
A person offers to practice professional engineering if the person by verbal claim, sign, advertisement, letterhead, card or in any other way represents himself or herself to be a professional engineer; or who holds himself or herself out as able to practice professional engineering.
No person may practice professional engineering in Wisconsin unless the person has been duly registered as a professional engineer. In order to qualify as a professional engineer in Wisconsin, applicants must have the education and experience, and pass the examination or examinations, as indicated below. Further details regarding these criteria can be found in Chapter 443 of the Wisconsin Statutes and A-E 4 of the Wisconsin Administrative Code.

Global Warming

I was working out last night, and as I jumped on the stationary bike, I picked up a nearby “Time” magazine. The cover story was about Global Warming. Do you have any opinion on Global Warming? Is it for real? I think it is. The article went on to discuss that we as the world are on an environmental slippery slope. The Polar Ice Caps are disappearing at an alarming rate. There are speculations that as the ice caps in Greenland disappear and melt into the ocean, the ocean level will continue to rise. That makes sense. Calculations indicate that once Greenland’s ice caps are totally gone, the ocean could rise in level as much as 23 feet. If the ocean level were to rise that much, it would result in a vast majority of Florida would be under water. I don’t have the numbers, but from what I recall, the parts per million of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is continuing to increase. More Carbon Dioxide in the air means that more heat from the sun that gets trapped within our atmosphere. I.E. Global Warming. If you want to get depressed about Carbon Dioxide, go to a freeway overpass during morning or evening rush hour and just look at all of the cars. Imagine all of the exhaust going up into our atmosphere. Not good. 19 of the hottest 20 years on record have happened since 1980. I absolutely believe in Global Warming. I can recall when I was a kid, we would get several feet of snow, now there is never more than a foot of snow on the ground. My prediction, based on what I have just read, 20 years from now, temperatures in Wisconsin during the winter won’t get much below freezing at all. And Arizona will be hitting 150 in the summer. The earth is a living thing, and right now it has a fever, the virus is the human race. The earth will heal itself, but possibly at the expense of the human race. Be afraid, be very afraid. I don’t want to end this on a down note, so to cheer us all up, the good thing about Global Warming is that in the coming winters, the chances of my shower pipes freezing become more remote.

Poll

Where will my next great story come from?
	Thursday, Pearl Jam with Liz
	Friday, Pearl Jam with Borky
	Saturday, Dave Matthews with the General
	Sunday, Dave Matthews with the General
	Still waiting for the first great story
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Nothing

Well it looks like the US had their chance to advance to the knockout round in the World Cup and they blew it. From what I heard, they played a decent game, but got some bad breaks. It will be another 4 long years until the next World Cup. But I honestly don't think they deserved to move on, after all they did only score one goal in three games.

My postings have been a little none existent as of late. Mainly because I don't have a lot going on right now. I have recently turned back into "Mr. Fitness", so I have been trying to get myself back into shape. It has been pretty much a daily routine of working, grabbing something to eat, catch some TV, then work out, come home and sleep. I have never really known too many really healthy people to lead very exciting lives. The price you pay. In fact my life has been so boring lately, then whenever Freeway calls me, I actually sit and talk to him until he decides he wants to hang up. I actually listened to him talk about NBA trades for nearly 15 minutes. For instance, he informed me that their is a 3 team, 9 player deal in the works involving Guard Kobe Bryant, Guard/Forward LeBron James and Forward/Center Kevin Garrnet. For those of you who don't know who Freeway is, he is pictured here. Back when Nate lived with me, we were out at the bars and stopped at Oakland Gyros and ran into Freeway there. We ended up giving him a ride home and Nate gave him his business card which had our home phone number on the back of it, and Freeway has been calling ever since. It is widely believed that Freeway is in love with Nate.

But I am expecting my life to pick up a little bit with Summerfest around the corner. I am going the first two nights to both Pearl Jam shows. And then the next two nights (Saturday and Sunday) I am going to both Dave Matthews shows. 4 concerts in 4 nights. There has got to be at least one story in there somewhere. Time will tell. Anyhow, my friend Lisa has informed me that she has some extra tickets, 1 for Saturday's show and 2 for Sunday's show. So if you are interested, leave me a posting and I will forward it along to Lisa.

This weekend I am helping Nate put in a patio door. Hopefully things go well. I am getting a new digital camera today after work. So I should have some pictures of me standing around making smart ass remarks as everyone else is working.

The World Cup

I am not sure how many of you have been getting caught up in World Cup fever. I have been watching pretty much every game that I can. My buddy, Krum was just over there in Germany and caught the first two US games. The US still has a shot to advance, but it is somewhat bleak. They need to beat Ghana, and then have Italy beat the Czech Republic. By the transitive property of equality, if the Czech Republic beat the US and the US tied Italy, then the Czech Republic would also beat Italy. I have been tracking the games while at work and here is a link that I found. It has been a while since I have posted a poll so here goes.

What will the US do in their final pool game in the World Cup?
	Win and advance.
	Win but not advance.
	Tie.
	Lose.
	Real football is played with shoulder pads by guys named Farve and Nitschke.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

In case you were wondering, these photos were from my high school glory days.

DOT Story

July 17, 2005
I was driving down the project one day and I happened to notice that there was a flume on the high end of one of the curb and gutters. I looked at the plan and sure enough, it wasn’t suppose to be there. So I went to my inspector Sue and I asked her "When you measure something up in the field, do you look at the plan to get the location?" Because when you post any item they ask for a location. She said "Yes, Why?" I said "Well I noticed that there is a flume that isn’t on the plan but it is on the project. I assume you measured it up, but why didn’t a red flag go off in your head and why didn’t you ask me why it was there but not in the plan." She said "I saw you talking to the contractor and I assumed that you told him to put it there." I said "Next time they place something and it isn’t in the plan please ask me." I told her that I would take care of taking that posting out of the system. Here is where it really gets good. I went to take the posting out of Field Manager and the Spreadsheets, and you know what, that flume wasn’t there. So I asked her about it. She just said "I must have missed it." I tried to explain to her that this is a big deal that we missed it, even though in this case we weren’t going to pay the contractor for putting in something that we don’t need. In this particular case it worked out but normally if it was something that was suppose to be there, we would have short changed the contractor about $500.

Weekend Update

My weekend started early. I had Thursday and Friday off this week. Wednesday night I headed up to the Wisconsin Dells. My brother, Jon, and his family and all of his in laws had rented out a condo at the Wilderness Resort. And I tagged along. It was a fun relaxing couple of days. I came home Friday afternoon and that night I went out for a fish fry with Nate, Eric, Jim and Ryan. After the fish fry, I drove out to Eagle and stayed at Chris and Rebecca's place. Chris was pouring concrete the next morning and I told him that I would give him a hand. We ended up pouring 15 yards of concrete, it turned out really well. Saturday night I went out to Crawdaddy's with Rebecca and two of her younger sisters. A fabulous dinner as always. Today is Father's day, I am planning on stopping out at my parent's and then I am headed up to Minnesota for work. I am pretty much going up there for a 15 minute meeting and to take 4 or 5 pictures. Seems like kind of a waste of time. Unfortunately I dropped my camera this weekend and it is now broken. So I will have to get that fixed before I can get any new pictures out to you, but here are some old ones.

This is me Andy and Nate at Andy's 30th birthday party in Green Bay.

Here I am at the Brewer Game a couple years ago with my old roommate from college, Storch.

Here I am at Mount Hood with my buddy Browny.

Weekend Update

My weekend didn’t get off to all that great of a start. I was running some errands and listening to the Brewer game. They were up 6-0. I was thinking “What a great way to start off the weekend, with the Brewers winning.” I stopped at Home Depot and picked up my screen door that was on order. I got home around 8:30, and I had a pretty busy Saturday, so I decided to install the door while also watching the remainder of the Brewer game. Well the Brewers managed to give up there 6-0 lead and lost 10-6. This debacle preoccupied me while working on the door and I didn’t finish it until 11:00. Yes 2.5 hours to install a door, but as I said I was spending a lot of time swearing at the TV. Saturday I got good deal of time in on the couch checking out the World Cup games. I think I caught some of each game all weekend. Saturday night was my cousin, Megan’s wedding reception. She got married back in Feb, and the Wisconsin reception was on Saturday. It was a great time. Check out the pictures below. However I did have two issues with the evening. One, the groom’s step father gave a speech that was well bad. I have given my fair of speeches at weddings, most without being prompted. But in giving a speech I know that there are some rules. #1. Keep it short. 3 minutes max. I didn’t get a time on this one, but I will say it was well over the 5 minute mark. #2. Memorize your speech. If what you have is that important to say, it shouldn’t be that hard to memorize. But if you must use notes, try to get them on one page. 3 pages, as was the case Saturday is absolutely uncalled for. #3. If you get your punch lines / jokes from an email, chances are most people in the audience have already heard it. #4. Don’t swear. I don’t recall a specific swear in this speech, but I do know that he was toeing the line with some questionable language. #5. To steal a line from Seinfeld, use some showmanship. Go off on a high note. Never end you speech, by turning to the DJ and saying “How about playing some music?” Which leads me to the other downer on the evening, the DJ was a total toolbox. Here is a note to anyone who ever DJ’s, if no one is dancing your choice of music probably isn’t the greatest. A second suggestion to any DJ’s, just because it is a request doesn’t mean it should be played. I am reminded of my brother, Jeff’s wedding, when one of his high school football cronies, requested the DJ to play Bad Company by Bad Company so that they could remember the Championship Season. That was a great way to clear the dance floor. Sunday was a rough morning for me. But I finished the weekend off with a graduation party that I went to with my friends Chris and Rebecca. Later that night my brother, Jon had a party as his two brother-in-laws were in town and will be for the rest of the week. Actually Wed – Friday I will be with this group in the Wisconsin Dells. I can only hope that I get thrown out of the go-kart track again. And just so I don’t get any rude comments back, my sister-in-law, Julie who is married to Jon also threw the party.

Here is Table 5 once again. Although this time I did get to sit with them. This led to the renaming of the table to Table 12. Sort of like the name of any plane carring the president is called "Air Force One" any table I am at is Table 12.

Here is my cousin Kim and new cousin Katie kissing. Somehow our family weddings are slowly turning into a "Girls Gone Wild" episode.

Here is "Girls Gone Wild Family Weddings Vol. 2" My sister in law Jodi and Cousin Andrea.

If you have ever been at a wedding with me, then you have seen this before. Me doing the worm. Everytime I do it, I swear it is the last time I do it. And then a couple weeks later I get an invitation for a wedding and I get drunk and do it all over again. As you can see the dance floor was packed.

My cousin Megan and her dad, Uncle Tom, aka Unk.

Here are two dicks hanging out in the bathroom, they are attached to my brother in law, Tim and my uncle Dave.

My aunt Sandy and Unk with my brother Jeff in the back ground. I like this picture because Jeff is normally a bit on the more reserved side. And here he is doing something semi moronic, like I would do. But if it were me, Sandy and Tom would be expecting it.

Andrea, Katie and myself.

My nephews swimming over at Julie's house.

The Devil's Parents

I thought since some of you might not know Truz and Julie, here they are. I don't know about your thoughts, but Julie looks ready to be a parent, Truz, I am not so sure about.

A Devil Child is Born

Last night I spoke to my old roommate and good friend, Andy Josephs, a.k.a. Truz. Yesterday June 6, 2006 or 6/6/06 at 12:01 a.m. Truz’s wife, Julie gave birth to their first son, Brady. Word around the campfire is that Julie was pushing and trying as hard as she could to pop that kid out on the 5th rather than the 6th. Brady came sliding out and the doctor called the time of birth as 12:01 a.m. This quite possibly could have made Brady one of the first devil babies born in the country on this day. In light of the time and date of birth, I am starting a grass roots campaign to get Truz and Julie to change the name from Brady to Damien, to at least to get Damien as the middle name. Seriously Truz and Julie, congratulations.

Here is an Old Story

My mind is going a little bit, I can't remember if I posted this story or not. If I did, I apologize for retreading old stories twice. But I looked through the archieves and did not see it. So here goes:

My junior year of high school I had Mr. Serafin as a study hall teacher. My good friend, Paul “Krum” Krumrich was also in the class and sat across from me. Mr. Serafin would always bring in the previous days newspaper. One day, upon entering class Paul and I both ran to Mr. Serafin’s desk to grab the sports section. In the process of us both grabbing at the paper we happened to crumple it a little bit. Mr. Serafin took exception to this and reprimanded us, revoking our rights to read his day old paper for the rest of the week. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal because we didn’t crumple it that bad, plus it was old news. However it was his paper and we should be respectful of other people’s property. The following Monday I brought in my paper from home from Friday. And I had Paul go up to Mr. Serafin’s desk and grab his paper. Paul came back to his desk and put that paper under his desk. Mind you study hall was meant for studying and we were only allowed to talk for the last ten minutes of the class. About 5 minutes after class starts, I pull out my paper, Paul and I are holding the paper between the two of us, and slowly we continue to argue over the paper and we are even crumpling it a bit as well. During this time we are both checking out of the corner of your eyes to see what Mr. Serafin would do. But he was busy tutoring another student at his desk. Obviously we were not getting the reaction out of him that we wanted, so in a loud voice I said, “The paper is mine!” and I ripped the paper right down the middle. The sudden tear of the paper brought the room to silence and all heads in the classroom looked at Paul and I, then turned over to Mr. Serafin. Mr. Serafin slowly looked up from his desk and said “I don’t believe it.” There was a short pause, and then he repeated louder, “I don’t believe it!” He put his hands down on his desk and lifted himself up, then stomped over between Paul and me. I don’t recall his exact words be I know that he was looking for an explanation for our actions. I continued on with the joke saying “Well I wanted the paper and went to grab the sports section and then Paul grabbed it back.” Mr. Serafin turned to Paul and glared at him waiting for his explanation. Paul folded under the pressure, and slowly produced Mr. Serafin’s undamaged paper from under his desk and said, “But it wasn’t your paper.” Mr. Serafin grabbed the paper out of Paul’s hand and said “You two can’t read the paper for the rest of the year!” and then stomped back to his desk and sat down, still fuming over this incident. The rest of the class went back to their own work while Paul and I sort of gave each other the “well that didn’t work out so great look”. About 5 minutes later after the whole situation had set in, Mr. Serafin began laughing at his desk and said “Well you guys really got me on that one.”

Baby News

This is an unofficial announcement, but last I heard Andy and Julie were on the cusp of becoming parents. I was over by Nate and Michel last night. Nate and I were getting in some ping pong. At around 8:30 Michel yelled down to us that Julie's was at 9 centimeters. And that she might have to have an emergency C- section. I yelled up to her to have them keep that kid in until midnight so that he could be born on 6-6-06. As soon as I know all of the details I will let it be known to all of you.

Freeman Party

I would like to thank everyone who came to the party and help make it as successful as it was. I would especially like to thank my brothers, sister, sister in laws, god wife, and parents who were assigned a number of "Joe Mayo Party" tasks. You guys helped me with the cooking, the garbage, bringing out food, monitoring ice and alcohol, taking pictures, etc. I really do appreciate it and I couldn't have pulled off the party with out you, so thanks. I would like to also thank everyone who brought food. Congratulations goes out to team Shelly which was comprised of Shelly, Angela, Dawn, Borky, Eric and Czesar. Jake and Kim won the water balloon toss with a throw of approximately 60 feet. My kids musical chair champion was Zack, womens champion was Jodi, and mens champion was Jay. I would have to say the highlights of the day for me were Vanessa and Rebecca wrestling to the ground during musical chairs, TT kissing Borky at the end of the night and the countless happy faces I saw on all of the kids that went along with the tears coming down their faces when they had to leave. So here are pictures from the day. Enjoy.

Slacker

Yes I am a slacker. I wish I had more interesting stuff to post, but I have been in pre party preparation most of this week. I am guessing that a vast majority of my blog readers will be in attendance tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. I would post some pictures of what I have been up to, but do you really want pictures of me cleaning the bathroom (yes I actually did for once), vacuuming, buying alcohol and cutting the grass? Maybe next year. Look for pictures from the party next week. I have 22 chairs, and I expect half of them to break.