One of my many problems

I have a number of problems. I don't really have time to go into all of them. But some where on my list of problems, probably in the middle, is foot odor and I sweat too much. That being said I need a place to put dirty clothes. I was doing laundry yesterday, and I realized how offensive smelling my dirty clothes are. Normally I put my dirty clothes in the corner of my bedroom. But I don't think that is going to work. So I have come up with the idea of storing my dirty clothes out on my balcony until I accumulate enough to constitute a full load. What do you think?

Is storing my clothes outside a good idea?
	Yes, I do that.
	No, but I can't come up with a good reason why.
	How dumb are you?
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Hat Update

Here is the exciting update on the hats. I washed them. But they still smell a little funky. This is the pre-wash picture. This is the drying phase of the hat cleaning.
Last night I helped my old roommate from college, Mark, install a railing on is rental property. I more or less just went along with him and made smart ass remarks while he did all of the work.
And in case any of you might be concerned about how my project is coming along. Here is a photo taken this morning while they were pouring some concrete work. No that is not me manning the bucket. You should know that I don't get my hands dirty.
Here is an update on the cricket front. I didn't get around to chalking the skid plate, but I haven't heard the cricket since that one night. Maybe he is gone for good.

As for my exciting plans for the weekend. Friday night I am staying in the crazy Appleton area. Probably watching college football on TV. Saturday I am planning on going to my cousin, Mike's, football game in Sheboygan. Sunday, my old roommate, Joe, is having a golf outing with a cookout afterwards. Since I can't golf, I am just heading to the cookout afterwards. Check it out Joe, you made the blog. And if you show up at Joe's house Sunday early evening and mention you heard about the cookout on my blog, you drink for free. Monday is my fantasy football draft. I expect to walk all over my competition.

A New Poll

Is it time for me to have another poll?
	No. I won't vote anyhow.
	Yes. That is the best part of this crappy blog.
	You post polls?
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Are You Ready For Some Football?

I have been only mildly interesting in watching pre-season football. If you added up all of the portions games that I have watched so far this pre-season, I doubt it would add up to an entire game. But come Thursday night, I don't have to worry about that. The College Football Season starts this Thursday night. College football is more exciting than the pros anyhow. However, I am shocked that I haven't really heard any buzz or excitement about these games. Or at least commercials on TV advertising games Thursday. Then again, most of the games are on ESPN, and that station is too busy trying to determine "Who is now?". Whatever that means. But I am happy that ESPN helped me figure out that Kobe Bryant is more now that Ronaldinho. And apparently Tiger Woods is the most now. But if you have actually watched any of Sportcenter in the last month or so, wouldn't you think that Micheal Vick is the most now? I mean that is all that they talk about. Weird.

My cousin, Mike, has his first game this Saturday. I fully plan on being in the stands for the game. I would like to say that fall is in the air, but today the temperature was over 90 degrees.

Also for the loyal complaining reader, please note that my site meter is back up and running. And tune back in to see the results and see the photos of me washing my hats in my dishwasher.

Weekend Pictures

There was alot going on for me this past weekend. So I will just get right to the pictures. Here is Krum and I tailgating before Rage Against the Machine concert Friday night. A big thank you to Paul's dad, JFK, for giving us ear plugs. It was the loudest concert I have ever been to. You could feel the concrete floor of the reserve section actually moving up and down nearly the entire show.
Saturday I was in charge of kids games at my nephew Ethan's birthday party.
Here is Matayo, Ryan, Steven, Ethan and Quintin.
Saturday night, I am helping Luke with his beer bong before Dave Matthews.

Here is Angela with Rebecca's friend, Dave.
This is Sunday night before Dave Matthews, Rebecca pretending to play the flute.

Rebecca and her friend, Dave.
Team photo while tailgating. Angela, Me, Chris, Vanessa, Lucas and Rebecca.
And if I didn't include this Vanessa would kill me.

Crickets and Hats

Here is some mindless rambling that I haven't put out in a while and I am sure you all miss. I have posted pictures of the condo I am renting in the past. I live on the 4th floor and I have a patio, no wait a deck, actually I think the term is balcony. Last night I go to bed and I hear a cricket on my balcony. Last night was the first time I had hear this cricket. Can anyone explain to me how a cricket gets on my 4th floor balcony? I am pretty sure he didn't come in thought the front door. I went outside to get rid of the cricket and I spent about 15 minutes on my hands and knees trying to figure out where he was. This was highly frustrating in that he stopped making noise when I got out there. Then when he did, I quickly realized that he was safely resting under the skid plate that covers the door way to my bedroom. No way to get at him. So he is going to get chalked inside when I get back from this weekend.

Hats. Does anyone have any idea on how to gets baseball hats not to smell so horrible? Nearly all of mine are highly offensive smelling. I have had my mom wash them for me but no such luck. Is there a hat cleaning product out there? Anyone?

Picture of the Day

This picture was taken July 9th, 1995, Solider Field, Chicago, Illinois. Doing a beer bong before the Grateful Dead concert, it ended up being the last show of the tour before Jerry Garcia died. I figured this was as good as any picture with concerts coming up this weekend. Here is my current plan for the weekend. Friday is the Rage Against The Machine concert at Alpine. Krum is tentatively coming down for the concert. He is scared of the weather and might call an audible. Saturday afternoon, I am in charge of the entertainment for my nephew, Ethan's, birthday party. I will be organizing games and then throwing all of the kids into the pool. I might see how many kids I can line up and jump over and into the pool. Saturday late afternoon the plan is to be at the Alpine parking lot to tailgate, then Dave Matthews. I am staying at Chris and Rebecca's Saturday night. Maybe a midnight swim. Ang, Ness are you guys up for chicken fights? Sunday will be a recover in the morning get to the parking lot at Alpine to tailgate again and then in the fourth row for Dave Matthews. Should be ridiculously incredible. Look forward to some good photos next week.

The Simpson's Movie

While I was enjoying my stay in Minnesota this past weekend, I had time to take in a movie. I went and saw the Simpson's Movie. It was pretty good. Then again essentially it was just like watching a regular Simpson's episode, only three times as long. I can recall back in college, my roommate, Bob, used to tape the Simpsons and we would have Simpson marathons. Unfortunately these usually started after a long night of drinking. From what I recall Kevin had the record of 8 in a row. That took him to somewhere around 6 in the morning. I think I threw the towel in at 7 episodes. But back to the movie. Like I said it was good. I would give it a 6 or 7. There is a lot of crap in the movies now. But the Simpsons have been around forever. They are a rock on the TV landscape and always a decent choice. As is this for your movie viewing pleasure. Then again, it is the same stuff you see on TV. Why pay $7 when you can just see pretty much the same content on TV? I was happy to see that nearly all of literally hundreds of characters from the show made an appearance of some sort. It was a decent story line, with some highly unbelievable parts, but then again what do I expect from a cartoon. To me the biggest detractor from the movie had nothing to do with the movie itself. It was the two jar heads that were in the same row as me that were laughing so loud. And I would have been OK with them laughing. Granted the parts they were laughing at were funny......the first time I saw them on the trailers or on commercials.

Krum and Kaker Meeting

As mentioned in the previous post, Sunday afternoon I had lunch with Krum and Kaker. It ended up being a two hour lunch. But it was fun, a lot of BSing going on. The three of us have all entered back into our Mr. Fitness stages. I of course would be the least fit of the three. Kaker had just finished running a 10 K the day before and pulled his hamstring. Krum is training for a marathon and the day before ran 20 miles in training. Me, I am just trying not to look fat anymore, and the day before, I drank pretty much from 2:00 in the afternoon until around 2:00 in the morning. But I have done my share of 5k runs, and sprint triathlons. For those that might be interested in running a 5k or doing a triathlon here are some tips that came out of that meeting.

Rickie's tips for 5K runs and Triathlons:
Do not eat 30 fish sticks before a race.
Do not do a shot of whiskey with 1/2 mile to go.
Do not run with an open safety pin in your shoe.
Do not try to dunk other participants at the beginning of a triathlon while waiting for your wave to begin during a water start.
Do not engage in water fights at water stations.

And from the mouth of Krum, during triathlons, first come first served with regards to Gatorade and foot wash buckets. if you do not approve of the rule...swim faster! This coming after Krum mentioned that he finished the swim faster than most and drank other competitors Gatorade and used their foot wash buckets in the transition station. Krum, I hope you never change.

Sorry Joe, Movie review of the Simpson's Movie to come tomorrow.

Minnesconsin Trip

It was a pretty good weekend for me. I had a lot going on. Thursday afternoon I headed back up to Minnesota. I called it a work trip, and I actually stopped in at my bridge in Prescott to look things over. That was Thursday night, then I stayed with Borky. We had a couple beers and played some ping pong. Friday I had to help my friend, Flo, deal with a stalker, then I headed back to Eau Claire to drop off some paper work from my Prescott Bridge project. I drove back to Minnesota and watched the Simpson's Movie. Friday night I went to a play at the Gutherie Theater in Minneapolis with my friends, Flo and K.O. Saturday I head breakfast with Flo and Borky and then eventually Borky and I made our way over to Myra's for the boat party. We got there early and had our four man fantasy football draft. Not much of a chance of me losing that league. We had the boat party that night. Good times were had by all. Sunday morning I headed over by Krum and then Krum and I had a 2 hour lunch with Kaker. Next time we need Justus to be present for the meeting.
As I mentioned earlier had to deal with Flo's stalker. Flo called me Thursday morning and told me the story how this guy has been harassing her when she walks around the lake near her house. She asked me to confront him, and while I was doing so, Flo took a couple pictures. I hope it helped but after speaking with him, I quickly learned he is far off center. Hopefully she won't have to get a restraining order, but I wouldn't rule it out.Friday night Flo and I took the light rail downtown to K.O.'s place. We had dinner then went to the Gutherie for the play. This is the three of us out on K.O.'s balcony.During intermission of the play we went outside. From this balcony you can see where the 35W bridge collapsed. The play was called Private Lives, and one of the lead actors was the girl who played Toby in a Seinfeld episode, she was the red head who heckled Jerry on stage and then had her pinkie toe cut off.After the fantasy football draft at Myra's and before the boat party, we started playing drinking games. I invented card stacking for drinks. My aunt would love this game, after you place a card, you get to take a drink of Boones Farm. But if you knock the card house over, you have to slam half a beer. Here I am on the boat with Myra. Towards the end of the boat ride, I was talking to some people at the back of the boat. I noticed that the bar back continued coming back to a refrigerator and pulling out 6 packs of beer. I finally put two and two together and opened the fridge and found a bottle of Baileys in there. I took me and about 5 friends less than 10 minutes to finish off that bottle. What else to you expect from me, drinks were $5 a piece. Then again Borky and I brought flasks on board to save money. Cheap or a thinker? Remember I paid for breakfast at Perkins.Friday I had two dates for the play, Flo and K.O. and Saturday I had two dates on the boat, Heidi and Margaret.
After three hours of touring the lake we came back into dock, here I am at the end of the night with Captain Hank.Back at Myra's after the boat party we started doing keg stands. I am sure I had the longest time
Borky Bortke and Liz Bortke.
Doug struggling with the realization that the party is over.Here is your first sign that the world is coming to an end. It was the end of the party, and there must have been at least 10 people in the room and Eric and Flo just start making out on the chair in front of everyone. Hell called and they said it is snowing.
Myra passed out at the table at Perkins after the boat party.
Here is just a picture I took of Krum's place before we headed out to lunch with Kaker.

Picture of the Day

This picture is from long long ago. Soccer my senior year. Back in 1991.

Here is the latest

This will be highly unexciting for you, but you are the one who came here to read about me. This weekend I am headed up to Minnesota for Myra's boat party. I think this is the 3rd year in a row. Myra rents out a boat and about 50 of us or so cruise around on like Minnetoka. It is just like the Minnesota Vikings boat cruise without the strippers or professional athletes. I am also taking my beloved truck in for a tune up. Over the years it has taken a toll. But is still running like a champ. Although I have a feeling that this tune up will be a bit expensive. Especially since this is the first tune up I have had in the last 100,000 miles. Looking ahead to next weekend, it could be one of the best weekends of the year. I am planning on being at Alpine Valley all weekend. Krum is coming down to see Rage Against the Machine on Friday night. I told him I would go with him and look for a ticket to scalp. Then on Saturday and Sunday I am at Alpine for Dave Matthews with The General and the Twins. Like I said pretty unexciting. Here is a picture for you. Speaking of Dave Matthews, here I am with The General and Nate. I believe this is after the show. I think this was 3 or 4 years ago.

Dog Days of Summer

Are you guys sick of summer yet? I know I am not. Although we are on the cusp of my favorite season, fall. The weather is just perfect, football season is ramping up. And I have already started planning out my weekends for the fall. I am going to try to get a lot of football in this year. My cousin, Mike, plays for Whitewater, I would like to make it to at least two or three of those games. I also want to make it to one or two Badger games. Make it to Madison at least once a year for a Badger game, but I actually haven't made it into the game in at least three years. I am seriously considering heading up to Minneapolis when the Badgers are in town there. Now that I am living in Appleton, Lambeau field isn't more than a 20 minute drive from my condo. So I would like to get there and scalp a ticket to a game or two.

My weekend wasn't all that exciting, I spent most of it with my brother, Jon's, family. I held soccer practice with his kids Saturday and Sunday morning. I was also able to stop by my parents, my sister's place and see Nate, Michel and Elery. Here is a random old picture for you to gaze upon.

This picture was taken at Multnomah Falls in Oregon. I don't even recall when this was. I know it was when I was working for Merge Technologies. They sent me out there for business for a couple days. As I recall I finished up early and headed up to Portland to hang out with Browny.

Jumping Over My Nephews

Here is an unusual posting. I am taking time out of my busy weekend schedule to entertain you, my loyal blog readers. Actually as you know I have nothing going on this weekend. But Friday I was at my brother's house. Here are some pictures of me jumping over my nephews, Nick and Ethan. These four are me jumping over Ethan. Julie took these pictures.

This is me going over the top of Nick. With my advancing age and the fact that Nick is growing like a weed, this might be the last time I am able to leap over him.

35W

Someone asked me to comment on the 35W tragedy. Actually a number of people have asked me my opinion on how the bridge collapsed. From what I have seen, the design of the bridge is fine structurally as long as both ends of the bridge are securely anchored into its abutments, but as you can see from the video, once the bridge is required to sustain itself without what would be called support in the x direction, it quickly collapses. And what caused the initial collapse. My best guess, a small connection or joint somewhere along the bridge weakened and failed. (The major contributor would probably be salt from icing the roads in the winter time infiltrating cracks in the concrete and eating away at the steel bar reinforcement which at the time of construction was not coated with exopy as all bars today are.) This failure resulted in stress and forces that that connection or joint was supporting, being taken up by the next closest connection or joint. The added stresses and forces on this next connection or joint caused that connection or joint to fail. This went on and on until a number of these connections or joints failed and led to the bridge to collapse. Much the same way the World Trade Center collapsed. It took me a while to mentally picture where exactly this bridge was. In my days shortly after college when I lived with Krum, Brown and Little Buddy, I can recall I would go running with Russ and Marty, not on this bridge but on a smaller bridge over the Mississippi River right next to this bridge. I have been told that the I-35w Bridge was the most heavily traveled bridge in the state of Minnesota. Being a former Minnesotan and having a number of friends in the area, obviously I was concerned. No one I know was injured in the collapse. I do know many people who now have to deal with daily commutes that quickly jumped form 10 minutes to 1 hour and 10 minutes. Borky told me that he drove over the bridge about a half an hour before it collapsed. And he was suppose to meet a buddy but decided against it or he might have been driving back over it when it collapsed. To which I say, if Borky wasn't such a loser, he might be dead. I can assure you of this, my last bridge project in Prescott, WI, there was no work done structurally to the bridge at all. And as far as the bridge here in Appleton, WI where I am currently working. I have reviewed and personally inspected the bridges main girders, the only part of the structure that is remaining, several times and found it safe for vehicle travel. I hope.

Here we go again

Well I am back to having nothing to write about. I used up all of my stories from the past two weekends. Right now all I have to look forward to is this weekend. Of which I don't have much of anything planned. I will be back down in Milwaukee this weekend. Friday night I am scheduled to help my brother hook up his new TV. Over the course of the weekend, I am planning on stopping by Justus' place and kicking the crap out of him on the ping pong table. When I am done with him, he will be beat so bad that he walks with a limp. If anyone has anything exciting going on Saturday night, let me know.

Worst Movie of All Time

This past weekend, I didn't have much going on. I stayed in Appleton, because after four days with the Shermans they wore me out. Actually I am not sure about that statement. It was more that I was running a sprint and they were running a marathon. So we paced ourselves a little differently. Anyhow, I needed the weekend to recover from Eagle River.

Saturday I went to see Hot Rod. I saw a preview for it and I thought it looked amusing. It was horrible. A 0 on a scale of 1-10. My first clue should have been when I walked into the theater and I was the only one there. Don't go see this movie, don't rent it, in fact you should stop talking to be me for being so dumb to even pay to see this movie. Remove yourself as far away from this movie as possible. This movie make "Dude, Where's Your Car?" look like an Oscar winner.

Eagle River

I think people have been waiting for this one. As mentioned before, it was a long eventful weekend for me. After Josh's Birthday party on Friday, I went to a Shrimp Boil and the Jimmy Buffett concert at Alpine Valley Saturday. Sunday night I played my last soccer game for the summer. We won, and our team finished in second place in the league with a record of 5-1-2. Right after the game I headed up to Eagle River. My uncle Dave, Aunt Marilyn and their kids (Justin, Kim, Mike) along with their kids significant others (Katie, Jake, Katie) rented out a cabin for the week and invited me to come up and stay with them for a while. I didn't get in until late Sunday night around 11:30. Before I go any further I would like to state that I am a bad influence and an instigator. I showed up and things were pretty mellow. A couple of people were sleeping and drinking soda and water. That quickly turned to the radio cranked, beer bongs flowing, bottles of Boone's Farm wine passed around, fire roaring and things didn't die down until 5 in the morning. The next couple of days were all the same. I would wake up in the mid morning and get in a swim across the lake. If I am going to drink that much, I need to be doing something positive for my body everyday. Then we would go on a Booze Cruise on the pontoon boat. Probably the best part of the day. Just cruising around the lakes, when we got hot, we would stop the boat and jump in. Stop at a bar for a drink or food. We would get back in the evening and then hit the water sports. Either water skiing or tubing. I wanted to go so badly but I know with my bad shoulders and alcohol mixed together, I would do something stupid and end up in the hospital. On the first night we got back from skiing and I went to make myself a drink, I opened up freezer for ice and they had a couple of bottles of booze in there. I grabbed a bottle of Hot Sex and started going around to everyone and making them do shots. I was shocked at how easy it was to get everyone to do a shot. Their was absolutely no fight in any of them. It was pretty much the same whenever I filled up the beer bong. We played this reaction game. I said when you lost you had to do a shot. Everyone agreed. The entire time I was up at the cabin, I would just make a rule and everyone followed it. Most of it was drink related. One night we all sat down and played poker. I said if anyone helped out anyone else, mostly the guys giving the girls advice on if they should bet or fold, that they had to eat a spoon full of taco meat because we made 5 lbs of it. Sure enough, Dave ended up eating a big spoon full. Anyhow, after skiing we would eat dinner. Then play some cards, eventually making our way down to the fire pit. This is where the stories started flying. My favorite story of the weekend was about Dave. In his younger days, he had a Firebird that he used to beat on quite a bit. One day the transmission just went out on it as he was leaving work. Or at least when he put it in drive the engine just red line but he didn't go anywhere. Oddly enough, reverse worked fine. So Dave followed one of his co-workers in reverse from Palmyra to Lake Waterville. He said he was up to 50 miles per hour in reverse. As the fire continued to roar, I broke out a couple bottles of Boone's Farm wine. Borky turned me on to this the last time I went camping with him. It tastes like soda, but it doesn't have much alcohol in it, so when it was 1/3 gone, I fueled it up a little with absolute vodka. For Marilyn this brought back memories as she had taken in a bottle of the Boone's from time to time in her past. She was rather protective of the bottle got passed around. On to the pictures. This is Monday after the Booze Cruise. Check it out Tree, shirt is off and I am flexing. I think I was flexing in nearly every picture taken of me. How that is different from any other picture I pose for, I don't know. This is me, C.W.W., 73 and Pinto Bean. When I got there Sunday night they mentioned to me how everyone had a nickname. I ended up changing half of those nicknames.Bassman and C.W.W.Here I am spiking the Boone's Farm.C.W. taking a healthy pull off of the Boone's.My parents were up for one day. They brought Nick and Ethan. Me and my dad. I am flexing and sporting a Mohawk that I fashioned out of sun screen because I am going bald.Pocahontas with the spread eagle dive off the boat.C.W.W. and C.W. Initially Dave was "The Chief" and Marilyn was C.W. for Chief's wife. But somehow over the course of week "The Chief" started calling himself C.W.W. and I don't know what that stands for.Frog Dive off the front of the boat.Bassman cracking open a fresh bottle of Jim Beam. That is TB or Tom Brady behind.Pinto Bean and 73.
Me and 73.We had a little chicken fighting going on. I still say Ethan and I won.Group shot from the water.I know the Shermans are regular readers of the blog. I just wanted to thank you for inviting me along and letting me spend time with you on your family vacation. I sincerely appreciate it. I had so much fun. You guys can party hard. Actually you went much harder than I expected. If you ever need a 9th wheel please don't hesitate to call me up.