Tuesday, February 26, 2008

1 Day

Maybe this is just karma. And I probably deserve this for rubbing my trip and vacation in the faces of all my readers. Sunday night I started coming down with a cold. As of this morning I am still rather sick. Sunday night I was in bed shivering and sweating. I felt like that kid in the movie "Into the Wild", looked just before he died. So I feel and sound like garbage right now. Hopefully by tomorrow morning I am able to pull out of this.

You can consider this my final posting until at least next Thursday. But I promise some good pictures and maybe some stories. I told Rebecca the other night that I will try not to throw any drinks on anyone while on the trip. That is unless of course Vanessa is acting up.

Monday, February 25, 2008

2 Days

Allow me to begin with my weekend recap and then I will get to the story of the weekend. Friday night, was a whole lot of nothing. I worked out. Went a bought a couple of shirts for Mexico and that was about it. I am usually the first one to point out my own faults and shortcomings. And admittedly I have pulled up a bit short. A little over a month ago, when we decided to go to Mexico, I told Rebecca and Vanessa to bring plenty of dirty clothes along because I am going to have a wash board stomach. Well I didn’t exactly get there. But as you can see from the picture I came pretty close. Here it is ladies. I thought you might like to see what a real skaters body looks like. Drink it in. I have a new addiction, and Saturday afternoon I fulfilled it. It is getting professional massages. They are just the greatest thing. I got one last year down in Mexico and it felt great. When we got back, I told myself I was going to start getting them on a regular basis, but never did, until two weeks ago, when I went. In fact yesterday after my session was over, I bought a 10 pack of ½ hour massages. $270, I don’t think that is bad at all. My session started yesterday, and as I was lying on the table face down, I could hear the masseuse squirting the oil on to her hands and rubbing them together over the top of me. I got so excited. If you have never had one I highly recommend it. At only $30 a session, I can rationalize it by not going out for drinks on Friday night, where I would spend well over $30. By my line of thinking, if I stay in Friday night and get a massage Saturday, I am way ahead. Sunday was a bit of recovery from Saturday night and I managed to work out a little, do laundry and lay on the couch.

But Saturday night is where I did my damage. I was out with my college roommates, Mark and Kevin. We went to dinner first, and Mark’s wife, Suzanne, daughter and niece were also along for dinner. Afterwards the 3 bulls went out to a couple bars for drinks. Allow me to sidetrack for a moment. I love my blog readers. I know that I have quite a few religious readers who tune in nearly everyday. I feel very lucky to know that there are people out there who are actually interested in my life. Personally I find myself rather boring. I really do appreciate all of my readers and I do try to make things entertaining for them. Unfortunately, in trying to get a good story or picture for my blog and my readers I end up getting in a bit of trouble. There is a little voice that goes off in my head at times, often when I have a couple of drinks, and this voice says, “You know you probably shouldn’t do this, but it would make a great story.” At which point I usually do whatever it is I am contemplating not doing. It is exactly 12:39 a.m. Sunday morning and Mark, Kevin and I are at this Appleton bar on College Avenue called the Durty Leprechaun. We are sitting at the bar just talking and minding our own business when 5 or 6 stools down two girls jump up on the bar and start dancing. Up until this point it had been a rather uneventful evening out with just drinks and retelling old stories. I see these two girls on the bar and I think to myself, well I have to get a picture of this because up until this point I had nothing to post on my blog. There was nothing special about these girls dancing up on the bar. They didn’t take any clothes off or anything like that, they were just up there dancing, and maybe they were a bit touchy feely with each other, but it was far from anything shocking. This is something I have seen hundreds of times in the bars before. In fact I have even been up on a bar dancing before. It was really no big deal. So I got four or five pictures of these girls and went back to talking to Mark and Kevin. A couple of seconds later, the one girl who was up on the bar comes over to me and said that she wanted me to let her see my camera I asked her why. And she said that she wanted me to delete those pictures. I told her not a chance. We got into a fairly lengthy discussion about me deleting those pictures, which in fact there was no way that I was going to do any such thing. She told me, “I don’t want people taking pictures of me dancing up on a bar with other girls!!!” To which I replied to her, “Well here is a little bit of advice. If you don’t want people taking pictures of you dancing up on bars with other girls, I suggest you don’t get up on bars and dance with other girls.” Seeing that this discussion was going absolutely no where and that there wasn’t any chance of me deleting the pictures, the girl appeared a bit miffed. I should have seen this coming but I didn’t, and to be honest I think this is only the second time this has happened to me, and the other time was actually by a friend of mine. But this girl took a full beer and threw it at me. I was soaked. And she actually clocked me pretty good in the side of the face with the glass. I had a bit of a bump the next day. It took me less than half a second to compute what just transpired and to plot my own course of action. I took my drink and dumped it right over the top of her head. At which point her boy friend and his meathead friends, who were only a couple of feet away, charged at me. It all happened pretty quick, but Mark and Kevin were already standing between me and this boyfriend and then the bouncers came rushing in and usher this clown and his buddies all outside. A couple of minutes later, one of these meatheads came back into the bar and wanted to know why I hit the girl and why she was bleeding. I tried to tell him what happened but he was interested in waiting to listen to what I had to say. He kept inviting me outside to talk where he told me all of his buddies were waiting to beat me up. Figuring that I had already caused enough trouble, we called it a night, slipped out the back door and walked back to my place. 34 years old and I am starting bar fights. Real mature.

Here are the pictures that got me in trouble.
This is right after I dumped the drink on her head. I think the guy in the white shirt was the bouncer and the guy behind him is the one who wanted to take a shot at me.

Friday, February 22, 2008

5 Days

Have you ever used Ebay? I have a number of times. Usually there isn't much more than just garbage up for sale. However, about 6 or 8 months ago, I lost one of the wheel caps on my truck. And it has been driving me nuts. Yesterday I put a bid in on a wheel cap on Ebay. I found out this morning that I won. $15 for a stinking wheel cap. Then I had an impossible time getting my PayPal account upgraded. I was on the phone for 45 minutes. What a joke. But we will see how it all works out.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

6 Days

Sorry about yesterday, I had meetings on site all day. And that was fun, I really enjoyed being outside for hours when the temps with the wind chills were below zero. It sucked, but the whole time, in the back of my head I was thinking "No big deal, this weather sucks, but in a week I am laying on the beach." Alright other than complaining about the weather and looking forward to Mexico, what else it going on in my life. Well my training for my 1/2 marathon in April took a turn for the worse. Last night I strained my right calf running on the treadmill. So I am on the shelf for a couple of days. I also did the dishes last night. Which brings me to today's picture. I took some abuse a year ago when I posted a picture on all the different types of spoons that I have. Well get ready to dish out (no pun intended) more abuse. I have found that I have quite a few different kinds of plates. 7 to be exact. They are a collection of plates that I have gathered through the years and through the roommates.On the tails of this picture I thought I would see how different I am from my readers. So here is a poll to find out.
How many different kinds of plates do you have?
1
2
3
7
I eat out of the pan.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

8 Days

It seems like just yesterday it was 23 days until my trip to Mexico. And now I am down to a little over a week. This week will go fast and the weekend will fly by. Next Monday and Tuesday will be a joke and Wednesday I will be in Mexico. I have been looking ahead at the forecast. Most of my readers are aware of the the weather we have been enduring. More snow again yesterday. For me, the snow hasn't been that big of a deal. I am in a condo up in Appleton, so I don't have to worry at all about shoveling snow. And to be honest, I would like there to be plenty of snow and cold weather right before I leave. It will make my vacation that much more enjoyable. Speaking of snow, here are some snow pictures I have taken. This was yesterday on my project.
This is the parking lot across the street from my condo. They plowed this at around 3 this morning. I think it is safe to say that this mound of snow is all of 10 feet high.

Monday, February 18, 2008

9 Days

Let me give you my weekend recap. I headed back down to Milwaukee. Friday night I was at the Eggeners for pizza. Tony and Cammy were back in town from Philadelphia. Towards the end of the evening we played "Scene It" on XBox, and I proved my domaninace in movie trivia. Saturday I had lunch with Nate and Elery. Saturday night Jon and Julie had people over for dinner. The Nintendo Wii, got a pretty good workout. Sunday was my nephew, Joey's, baptism. Then I headed back up to Appleton in the snow. It I haven't said it lately, then I need to say it again. I love my truck. With new tires, and tires locked into four wheel drive, I was passing people on the drive, like they were looking for parking spots. Here are some photos.
This is Ethan doing pull ups on my arm.Jake did a couple of pull ups too.Saturday night Ethan was having a bad night. He got mad when I put frosting on his face and then said that he hated me. Join the list.Nick didn't mind having a little frosting on his face.Here are the parents, god parents, grandparents, deacon and baby Joey after the baptism.
The Davies family back at the ranch after the baptism, Jeff, Sue, Sarah, Zach and Joey.

Friday, February 15, 2008

12 Days

Happy Friday to everyone. It is suppose to be a high of 79 in Mexico today. That is almost 80.
I am going to rerun an idea from last year. As it is the day after Valentines Day, the day of love. I thought I would see how my readers did as far as getting some action last night. Since I currently am not seeing anyone, I obviously didn't. I worked out after work, then I went out shopping looking for some cabana wear for my trip which was unsuccessful. I was also unsuccessful in finding a present for my nephew, Joey. Joey is getting baptized on Sunday. And that was pretty much my night.

Did you get lucky on Valentines Day?
No, I forgot about it and had to sleep on the couch.
Yes, and the neighbors call to complain about the noise.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Thursday, February 14, 2008

13 Days

I thought I would give you an update on how my project is going. I am much more busy now than I was earlier in the project. Steel is getting put into place and it is starting to look like a bridge. I am still a bit concerned that they will not have it completed by the set completion date of May 2nd. But then again that is not my problem. Yesterday I had to actually do some real engineering. There is a centering device, which oddly enough is at the center of the bridge between the two leafs. This device is there to make sure that the two leafs mate correctly. Below you can see the center device in place.Now the placement of this centering device actually required me to do some engineering, or at least come calculations. According to the plans, the gap between the devices is to be .160 of an inch when the steel is at a temperature of 70 degrees. Because steel expands and contracts with the change in weather, I had to calculate what that gap should be on a day like yesterday. Below you can see my work. And you people say I don't work. By the way, that gap needs to be 5/16".I took this picture yesterday. I thought I would post it for you. Here you can see them swinging in a stringer. My ironworker foreman calls this "show steel", because it looks like work is getting done. But there is a lot of work required before you can put in the show steel. The public that complains when they walk by and assume nothing it being done because they don't see steel being put in place, do not realize this.I am not sure if all of this is more or less exciting than me bragging about going to Mexico or not. But I want to leave you with one more little project nugget. Here is a link that you can click on. This is a 3 dimensional rendering of my bridge. It allows you to rotate around the bridge and even cut cross sections. This has actually been a pretty useful tool in identifying part names and locations. Just so you know, I did not design or draw up this rendering. Based on this rendering, does anyone want to take a guess which part they are swinging into place?

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

14 Days

14 Days. That is 2 weeks to you and me. Are you starting to get sick of me counting down? Too bad. This is a little nugget that I have been saving up for a raining day, or at least a day where I had nothing to talk about. I left this out of my recap of my ski trip way back in December. I knew it was going to be a great ski trip before I even left Milwaukee. Eric and I were waiting for our flight, and the plane from Denver pulled into the gate. As people were deplaning, I recognized one of the passengers. It was none other than Adult Film Star, Ron Jeremy. At first I was just going to leave him alone, but then after thinking about it for a second or two, I knew I had to get a picture with him. He wasn’t real excited to pose for the picture, but he wasn’t in any way rude. I will give him credit for putting up with my request. Anyhow here is the picture.He is a lot shorter than I thought he would be.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

15 Days

I love when my readers give me material to work with. It gives me something to write about. You all know I have trouble coming up with my own material. The following is a comment posted a couple days ago by "The General", who by the way is a lawyer.

"Dude, the itinerary sounds great. I am totally jealous. However, let's lose the talk about you getting excited in tanning beds. That scares me, and is perhaps criminal. Watch yourself. General"

Well allow me to retort.
Counselor,
I realize that my talking about being in a tanning bed "scares" you and is "perhaps criminal". "Perhaps criminal", aren't you a lawyer, shouldn't you know what is a crime? Regardless, that is fine, everyone is entitled to an opinion. But let me tell you what "scares" me and what is most likely "criminal". You attempting to perform what looks like fellatio on the football figurine on top of our leagues fantasy football trophy. Those that live in glass houses should not throw rocks. I have decided to once again post that picture.

The General looks pretty happy in that picture. Now let me know what you all think of this picture. If talking about being excited in a tanning bed is "perhaps criminal", then there is no doubt in my mind that what I am seeing here below is absolutely criminal. I welcome any and all comments.

Friday, February 08, 2008

16 Days

I did a little research. Here is the site for the Canopy Zip Line Tours. Chris, Rebecca and Vanessa, if you are reading this and get a chance, click on the link and check out the video. The price is a little steep, $80, but I think it will be worth it. Who knows if you will ever get a chance to do it again. It reminds me of when I was in Paris and I was at the Eiffel Tower and I thought about going up on it, but then decided that I will do it the next time I am in Paris. Well that was 9 years ago, and as my memory serves, I haven't been back in Europe since.

Alright enough about making all of you jealous about Mexico. Wait, before I move on, have you been outside today? Currently in Appleton it is -11, -33 with the wind chill. 33 BELOW ZERO!!!!! My hand almost froze to the lock on my field office this morning. Can 16 days go quick enough, I doubt it. Today in Puerto Vallarta a high of 82.

OK, now let me get on to something not exciting. Here was my weekend. Friday night I went out to dinner with Mark, Suzanne and their daughter Elly. It was a pretty mellow evening. After dinner we came back to my place and watched Borky's movie "The King of Kong". I never said it was bad, I just said it wasn't worth $20.

Saturday I went and got a massage. My shoulders had been a little tight the last week or so. $35 for a half hour session. Well worth it. I might start making massages a weekly or bi-weekly occurance. I ran some errands in the afternoon. I stopped at the Fox River Mall in Appleton. It was ridiculous how busy it was. The parking lot was packed. Not to mention the stores. I actually only went into the sport goods store to get a new backpack. I didn't even entertain the idea of venturing out further into the mall. I got in a workout and then watched the Badger game.

Sunday, I noticed on the TV that their were winter weather advorsies in the area, wind chills in the -25s to -35s. I was going to go check out a movie, but I decided to not even leave my condo. I have a lot of stupid ideas. Well here is the newest stupid I idea that I have had. I have decided to run a 1/2 marathon. I am using this race as a stepping stone, and hopefully I can get myself in decent shape to attempt a full marathon sometime this summer. This 1/2 marathon is in Oshkosh in April. A week after opening day. That should work out well. Looking ahead to that date, I have started training. I actually have my body in pretty good shape, but not running shape. Saturday I put on 4 miles on the treadmill. And Sunday morning I ran for 8 miles. That kind of sucked. I found a running schedule online and Sundays are the longer runs. I am sure I will run out of blog topics and in the future I will post my running schedule.

19 Days

I am obviously excited about my trip to Mexico. I would say that the most excited I get is while I am in the tanning bed. Towards the end of the tanning session, the tanning bed gets so hot. Just like when you are down in Mexico lying out by the pool. You are sweating bullets, but then you just get up, jump in the pool and swim over to the swim up bar for a drink. oddly enough, I will be tanning this afternoon over lunch time. Here is the resort that I will be staying at, The Marival Resort & Suites Nuevo Vallarta.
Look at this, a slice of paradise.

Here is where I will by lying out every day. Look for pictures of me jumping off or over that bridge.And what is this? It looks like a swim up bar. Weird. Think I will be making my presence felt there at all?Here is what I intend my daily schedule to be like. First I am hoping that I sleep a little better than last year. I had a major problem falling asleep last year for the first couple of nights. Anyhow, wake up in the morning, do some morning push ups and sit ups to keep "the Temple" looking good. And then getting in a quick run. I have this problem with doing something so negative for my body, drinking all day,without doing something positive for my body. Then go lay buy the pool and catch some sun. Around noon I will start off with my first drink of the day. Mostly likely a gooie blender drink of some sort. But I do intend on smuggling down a bottle of Captain Morgans. Mid afternoon will be lunch. At around 3 or 4, I plan on starting in with my own beer slamming contests with anyone willing to take a shot at the title. Every hour on the hour we slam a beer. Since we are on the Ocean side rather than the Gulf side of Mexico, sunset pictures will be in full order every day. Then grab some dinner. I would imagine one or two nights we will head to downtown. Two things that I would like to do while on this trip. #1 do a zip line jungle tour. I have heard nothing but good things about these excursions. #2 redeem myself in the karoke contest. Last year I got screwed and everyone who was there knows it.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

20 Days

I would like to put the finishing touches on my fantasy football league. Pretty sure no one other than the people in my league really care. Sunday when I was at Stu's Super Bowl party, I awarded the engraved traveling trophies to the two winners of my leagues regular season and playoffs. Bubs was my league's Regular Season Champion. And The General was the playoff / Super Bowl Champion. Nothing hurts me more than having to present The General with a trophy. Adding insult to injury, I was the reigning Super Bowl Champion for the last two seasons. To have The General "follow in my footsteps" makes me feel dirty. As you can see from the standings, I did not have one of my better seasons.
Here are the final standings.
Regular Season:
1. Preston 11-3
2. Nate 11-3
3. Chucker 9-5
4. The General 7-6-1
5. Jake 7-7
6. Dan 6-8
7. Sherman 6-8
8. Rickie 4-9-1
9. Tim 4-10
10. Tree 4-10

Playoffs
1. The General
2. Chucker
3. Nate
4. Preston
5. Jake
6. Sherman
7. Dan
8. Rickie
Here are my two champions. Bubs is having a pretty good year. First he wins reader of the year, and now he is fantasy football champion.

There is something so wrong with The General. Can you believe that some how our society allowed him to procreate? I have actually been thinking about instituting a communication boycott with The General, since he never returns phone calls. But then I realized, a boycott wouldn't bother him at all. It would be like taking heat away from a penguin. They don't need it.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

21 Days

The King of Kong”. This is the movie that Borky raved about last week. He loved that movie so much that he insisted that I run out and buy the movie. This movie is a documentary about the World Record Holder for high score for the arcade video game “Donkey Kong”. It appears there is a cult or fraternity of competitive video gaming people. In totally stereotyping these people, I would classify them as nerds with next to no social skills, all of whom have never kissed a girl before. The leader of these nerds is a guy named Billy Mitchell. He was the reigning holder of the high score of a number of video games, “Donkey Kong” being the crown jewel of his accomplishments. Steve Weibe emerges as a seeming normal guy, who used to play “Donkey Kong” in his frat in college to take a shot at the title. While Steve was unemployed he took the game up again and was prepared to take a shot at the high score. The movie then follows Steve’s journey to become the world’s greatest “Donkey Kong” player. But there is also the ugly side of competitive video gaming, where by this cult of video games nerds attempt to disprove his scores and attempts at the high score as well as osrtosize Steve from there nerdy community. In the end it is a sad view in the pathetic worlds of these socially inept video game losers. My favorite quote from the movie was “Some people are addicted to drugs or alcohol. I am addicted to video games.” The movie is entertaining, but not worth buying as Borky claimed. I will give it a 6.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

22 Days

Here is my weekend recap. I stayed in Appleton Friday night. I got a call from my friend, Borky, and he told me to check out this movie called “The King of Kong”. Stay tuned as I will be reviewing this movie later this week. Borky had such high praise for this movie that he told me to "Run out and buy it. It is that funny." Because I hold Borky’s opinion on movies and music so high, I went to Best Buy and got the movie. That was Friday night. Saturday I headed down to Milwaukee. I went to my nieces’ basketball game. Erin and Abbigail were playing each other. It was an exciting game that ended in a 14 - 14 tie. Afterwards, I had lunch with my parents. Saturday night I went to dinner at Crawdaddy’s with my brother Dan, his wife and his in-laws. I never complain about dinner at Crawdaddys. The meal was great as always. That pretty much capped off the night for me. I was in bed by 10:00 Saturday night. Sunday morning, I went ice fishing with my brothers, Dan and Jon, my cousin, Justin, and Nevey and Kuzba. I guess I should clarify, I went and watched all of them ice fish. I just enjoy listening to the conversations. Sunday afternoon, I went skiing with Jon and his two sons, Nick and Ethan, at Alpine Valley. After skiing, I stopped by Chris and Rebecca for the first half of the Super Bowl, then made my way over to Stu’s for the second half. I was actually pulling for the Patriots to win. And lost $20 betting on the game to my brother in law, Tim. I guess that wraps up my weekend.

Here is Abbigail taking a shot in the game.Abbigail inbounding the ball. There was one time where she was inbounding the ball on the baseline and actually took a shot at the hoop. Abbigail is a bit of a chucker, just like her father.Here is Erin bring the ball up the court.Erin, bringing in a rebound. She is more of a roll player, passing and rebounding and not taking very many shots.Here is Josh obviously enjoying the game.
Saturday morning, Jon and Justin getting the hook out of the fish. They caught 10 or so fish, but none were keepers.

Monday, February 04, 2008

23 Days

I did a little research and found that last year I started my Mexico countdown at 23 days. As coincidence would have it, I am going to start this year’s countdown at the same number of days out. For those that don’t know I am headed back down to Mexico for some much needed vacation. I am going with Chris, Rebecca and Vanessa. The four of us were down there last year and had a great time. A couple of weeks ago I had dinner with them and even though Chris and Rebecca were a little reluctant to go, I talked them into it. We are all very excited for the trip. I have already started tanning and extended my normal work out routine. I told the girls to pack a bunch of dirty laundry because I am going to have washboard abs.