You Have Got To Be Kidding Me

In the words of Vincent Vega. "It would be worth them doing it just so I could catch them. I would give anything to catch them doing it."

The Bees Knees

In anticipation of the Badger game, I decided to take a whack at the bees I had noticed flying into the retaining wall. They had an enormous hive inside the block closest to the steps. I waited until the night and out there with a flashlight I flipped over the block and there was a cluster of bees the size of a softball. I dropped everything and ran into the house. So I took this picture the next day.But the next day I noticed that the hive went down from inside the block into the space between the two blocks below the one I moved. And there was another cluster of bees the same size down there as well. But some lighter fluid and a match and that took care of them.

Wiffleball #2

Bob was having some problems with his achilles, so he is taking a soak and filling Bill up.Mike at bat.
Bill at bat.
Paul at bat.
Here is the Home Run derby trophy. Joe actually took this out of someone's trash. He said his neighbor got it for being salesman of the year or something. I don't know why the guy was throwing it out, but I would have taken it out of the trash too.
I didn't take enough video. But here is Brad going yard.

It was a fun long day. We got in 6 games and a Home Run Derby in 8 hours. I was pretty tired by the end of the day. Paul ended up winning the Home Run Derby. He had 9 in the first round, and I think 11 in the finals. And home runs #7, #8 & #9 were blasts that were 1/2 way up on the pine trees. As for me, well I sucked. I didn't hit a home run until the last game of the day. Pathetic. Oh and I got thrown out at the plate right in the face by Mike. But it was still a lot of fun. There were a lot of choices for MVP of the day, but I am going to have to give it to Johnny who left it all out on the field, and in the bushes and in the bathroom. I have to be honest, his performance was unexpected.

Wiffelball #1

On Saturday afternoon I had a wiffleball tournament to play in. Mike Braun, one of my best friends from high school, and his brothers have an all day tournament at their parents house. It is a highlight of the summer. I think this was the 5th year.

When they were kids and Thurman Munson of the Yankees died, they went into the woods and buried his baseball card. Since the advent of this tournament, each year they bury another sports figure that passed away in the previous year. This year it was John Wooden. Here is Joe with the coffin.
Here is the sports cemetery. But while pounded the headstone into the ground,we lost some letters. And it ended up that we buried John Woden. Which ironically brings me to a famous John Wooden "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?" I wonder if that picture of John Wooden in the coffin turned over in his little grave?

Here is Joe at the plate.
Paul coming home after a trip around the bases.
Andy at the plate.
Back to the Sports Cemetery. Here is Joe's moving burial service.

Tuffy

In preparation for the Mississippi Camping Trip, Nate and I took his boat, "The Tuffy" out Saturday morning. Nate had made some adjustments, and the last time he took it out, he had some mechanical failures. Nate wanted to put it through it's paces before the big trip.Here is Nate at the wheel.

Camping is the second weekend of September. Any takers?

Ethan's Birthday

Friday was Ethan's birthday party. I stopped by after work. He had some of his friends over for a day of dodgeball and swimming. In dodgeball it was Ethan and 5 of his friends against, Jon, Nick and I. The score was 6-5 in favor of Ethan and his friends when I had to retire myself due to injury. Not a shock there. Although I will be ready next year. And I hope Ethan's friend, David, can make it again. Because he was nothing but talk, and next year I am going for headshots.

Here is Ethan opening his gifts.Ethan got a phone. Anyone want the number so you can run up the phone bill?

This is an interesting photo. And I didn't notice it until I downloaded the pictures to my computer, but while Ethan was busy opening gifts, someone was in the kitchen digging into the liquor cabinet. Any guesses as to who that might be?

Later in the evening we were discussing Nick's nickname, which most blog readers probably know as to be, "Pickle". And Pickle wants a new nickname. But as Brian pointed out, nicknames aren't chosen, they are given. I worked with a guy named, "Wiener", and I am pretty sure he didn't pick that out. I still like Pickle and I doubt that is going to go away anytime soon. But I did offered up "Bonesaw" as a new alternate nickname.

Breaking Bad

I have been talking about this show for a while. A couple of months ago, AMC was running this show from the first episode. By the third show I was hooked. It is without a doubt the best show on TV, better than the Sopranos. Although I have thought that it has been a little slow so far in season 4.If you get a chance to watch it from the 1st season, absolutely set the DVR.

Dog Crapping Sign

Here is my rough draft on the dog crapping sign?

"To the brave dog owner who continues to allow their dog to defecate in my yard,

I sincerely hope that I catch you allowing your dog to crap in my yard. And when I do, I rain down on your home, car and yard with fecal matter like you have never seen."

I am open to any revisions or corrections that you deem necessary.

Here it is, I just took a picture.

And I know I don't have to convince any of you, but when I find this person, trust me, I will be saving up my own excrement to decorate their house with.

Dog Crapping

Here is a question to all my loyal blog readers. It appears that someone in my neighborhood doesn't have a problem with allowing their dog to crap in my yard.At first it was one or two time in the carriage walk. But within the last week it happened twice in my front yard less than 10 feet from my front door. Any ideas with how to deal with this? I am open to any suggestions.

More Phish

I tried to get some pictures inside during the show, but most turned out rather poorly.This is no shock to anyone, but I lost the girls and ended up moving around during the show. I even tried twice the grease security into letting me on to the floor. I might have been more successful if I had given him more than $1. Here is the opening song, or part of it. It is a little over simulating.

Badger Game

Last Friday I was in the backyard watching the Brewer Game. In fact this is it below.While I was watching the game, I thought I would like to pull my big screen out for a game sometime. But it has to be for a noteworthy game. The next big noteworthy game would be the Badgers opening game on September 1st. I sent out an evite yesterday, but if I missed you, consider this your invitation. Party starts at 6:00 p.m. And I will need one semi strong individual to give me a hand moving the TV. Most likely the first person to show up. Hope to see you there.

Phish

My friend, Suzanne, asked me a couple months ago if I wanted to go to the Phish concert in Chicago. I am not the biggest Phish fan. I think I have seen them 3 or 4 times. But I am always up for a concert, so I told her if she couldn't get rid of the ticket, I would be happy to go with her. Her two friends, Holly and Kim also went with us to the show. Here is the view from the hotel balcony.The concert was at the UIC Pavillion, which is pretty small, which makes it a great place for a concert. I would go back for another concert anytime. On the walk there I came across the Bluesmobile. "It is 106 miles to Chicago, we have a full tank of gas, 1/2 a pack of cigarettes, its dark out and we are wearing sunglasses.....Hit it"
They had one parking lot for tailgating. It was a little weird because the lot was surrounded with a fence and there was some pretty serious partying going on. I sort of felt like a zoo animal.
I met this guy who had one of the dumbest tattoos I have ever seen. It is a take off of the Grateful Dead "Steal Your Face" but with an expletive. I had him hug each of the girls and he was all sweaty. I thought it was funny.
Then I started just taking pictures of good looking girls. Always a fun time.
I am not sure if Suzanne and Kim knew this guy or not. But I got my hand in there. We brought some beer with us, but we quickly ran out. People were selling Pabst for $1. Ridiculously cheap for Chicago.

Keeping with the theme of taking pictures of good looking girls.

Kickball

I was told that I needed to make a posting on the kickball tournament that I played in this past weekend. About a month and a half ago, my sister in law, Julie, asked me to sub on the kickball team that she and my brother, Jon, played on. I ended up making it to the remainder of their games and then it was decided to play in a kickball tournament in Richfield this past weekend. It rained that morning and when we showed up for our first game, it was a rather muddy field. But since my mother was a mudder and my father was a mudder, that makes me a mudder. In our first game, Leslie led off with a single. She was followed by Jon, who promptly kicked a home run. Then Michelle got a single, followed by Joe, who also kicked a home run. Next up was Kerry who got on base and then I walked to the plate. I think I popped out to the shortstop. Our first opponent wasn't very good. At the end of the 2nd inning we were up 19-0. The remainder of the game we all kicked with our opposite foot and won 23-0. Our next game started out the exact same way: single, home run, single home run, single and then I made an out again. Our second game we won 11-1, and the only reason they got a run is because I told the umpire to give them a run if they dove into the pond near the field where Dan had fouled the ball into. Going into our third game, the opponent had yet to get a runner to 3rd base. We won the third game 12-4 or something like that. There were only 7 teams in the tournament, and it was a double elimination tournament, so we now had to wait 3 hours to see who we played out of the losers bracket. We ended up replaying the second team that we beat. But at the end of the first inning it was 1-1, and our team was a bit nervous. And the game remained tied until the 4th or 5th inning where we started tacking on runs and eventually we ran away winning 10-1 or something like that to a team who's average age wasn't much more than half our average age.

A widely known strategy in kickball is kicking the ball down the 3rd base line and making the team in the field make that long throw across the diamond. Jon was playing 3rd and I don't know what he had for breakfast but he was on fire. I would say that in the first 3 games he was involved in 1/3 to 1/2 of the outs. There were at least 3 or 4 innings that day, where he made all of the outs by either catching a line drive or threw someone out. Now I would hate to give him any credit because I don't want his head to get to big, but he was the defensive MVP. Although I don't think he had the defensive play of the game. That honor would go to Joe who was playing left center. There was a line drive shot that got kicked in front of him and he had to play it on a bounce and from the outfield he threw a strike to Al on first. And even though the umpire called the runner safe, everyone knew that the runner was out.

Personally, I put on a rather poor exhibition on the diamond. I misjudged a ball that went over my head. And in 5 straight at bats I had 5 majestic flyouts to centerfield. And I was the only male on the team not to kick a home run.

Al, sorry but for whatever reason the pictures you sent me did not come through.

Whitesnake

Well it was during State Fair that I made my way down to see Whitesnake. Preston got some free tickets and gave them to Nate who then asked me to go with him. Here is Whitesnake on stage.Eric also went to the concert. I have no idea how good our seats were because we never sat in them. It was the first time I got to hang out with Nate or Eric since the Freeman party. So we were towards the back and to the side of the track seating where it wasn't quite so loud which enabled us to hear all of Nate's stories. Although Eric had a pretty long story about how he hopes to get on the TV show "Take The Money and Run"You may or may not believe this but here I am back stage with my arm around David Coverdale.I saw these two guys before the show. And then I saw them during the show and I had to find out what their deal was. Apparently just a father and son duo who like to party. Side note, wow do I look fat.

Happy Birthday

Saturday night was my cousin, Justin's, 30th birthday party. Here I am doing a birthday show with Justin.

Air Show

This past Saturday I went down to the lake front to check out the air show. It was interesting. I would say it was cool to see once, but I wouldn't plan my schedule around it. I biked down there and it was hot. Although look at this clown I saw down there. He was wearing jeans and a sport coat to the air show. Who does that?This was the most impressive aircraft that I saw. The Rockwell B-1 Lancer is a four-engine, variable-sweep wing strategic bomber used by the United States Air Force. First envisioned in the 1960s as a supersonic bomber with sufficient range and payload to replace the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, it developed primarily into a low-level penetrator with long range and supersonic speed capability. The B-1B entered service with the United States Air Force in 1986, for use in the Strategic Air Command as a nuclear bomber. In the 1990s, it was converted to conventional bombing use. It was first used in combat during Operation Desert Fox in 1998 and during the NATO action in Kosovo the following year. The B-1B continues to support U.S. and NATO military in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Lancer is the supersonic component of the USAF's long-range bomber force, along with the subsonic B-52 and Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. The bomber is commonly called the "Bone" (originally from "B-One"). With the retirement of the General Dynamics/Grumman EF-111A Raven in 1998 and the Grumman F-14 Tomcat in 2006, the B-1B is the U.S. military's only active variable-sweep wing aircraft. Watching this thing fly pass made me think that I am glad it is on our side. It is pretty bad ass. And loud.Finally was the Air Force Thunderbirds. Also pretty cool to see, but hard to get a decent picture of. Twice they buzzed the crowd which was really cool. Obviously you saw them before you heard them.

Pain

This picture is from a couple weekends ago. I was down at Miller Park to tailgate with my sister and her family. After tailgating I waited by the Will Call windows to talk to Nate because he was working that night. While I was waiting to talk to Nate I saw this guy. We was drinking and smoking and the back of his shirt said, "Pain is weakness leaving the body".

State Fair

First loyal blog readers, I have no excuse. I have missed posts all week. I have been a bit busy at work. And yes if you can believe it staying late to work on a hot button issue within the DOT. I have starting keeping a log of things said at work. They are a bit amusing. Here is one from last week. The leader of my team, Pete, had asked me to do something for him like fill out the TPS reports. Here was the conversation

Pete: "Hey Rickie do you have those TPS reports that are do at the end of the week?"
Me: "Yes indeed. They are in your inbox. Anything else I can do for you?"

Pete: "As a matter of fact there is. I will be gone next week, so could you run next weeks team meeting?"

Me: "Wow, I walked right into that one. Do I have a choice?"
Pete: "Not really."

Lately another thing I have been doing is at the end of the meetings when everyone is gathering their stuff and starting to walk out of the room, I start clapping and say, "Great meeting everyone!!! We had some good ideas and alot got accomplished!!! Good work!!!" It seems to boost morale.

Alright it is State Fair time. I usually don't go to the fair. But if I do go, my favorite attraction is the big fat sow with all of the piglets feeding off of her. If you are going here is something you might want to try to make it a little more fun. State Fair Bingo. Follow the link and print out the bingo cards. Granted this one is for the Minnesota State Fair, but really is there much difference other than at the Minnesota State Fair they might run out of beer, or maybe not even be able to sell it.