Opps

Well that Packer game sucked. I was pretty nervous about the game. I was happy the Packers made a good showing. They had some issues with injuries and so forth, but those are just excuses. It appears that the Packers and Cowboys and on course to meet again in the playoffs, and if that is the case, I think the Packers will give them a good run. The two biggest plays that I think cost the game for the Packers was that strip of T.O. that Al Harris had on the Cowboys first drive that was ruled forward progress and that 3rd and 19 conversion. I think that call goes the Packers way and they stop them on the 3rd down, the Packers win. I don't know why Favre thought it was best to just chuck the ball every chance he got. Why he wasn't going to more of the underneath stuff I do not know. I can't believe I am saying this, but Aaron Rodgers actually played really well. If Favre isn't 100%, I think Rodgers should be under center against the Raiders.

This weekend doesn't hold too much for me. Tonight I am taking two of my nieces showing at Toys'R'us for their birthdays. Saturday I am going to see M.K.A. and Saturday night is my nieces birthday party. I hope you all stay warm this weekend.

Packers

It is pretty obvious that no one cares about my complaining about how cold it is. Global warming my ass. So here is a topic that you all might care a little more about. The Packer Game tonight. I am a little nervous. I think it will be a close game and I hope the Pack pulls it out. I believe that this is the lastest in the season any two teams with records this good have ever met. That being said, this could be the biggest regular season game ever. No pressure. From what I have been hearing, they say Jason Witten, the Cowboys Tight End, should be the key to victory for the Cowboys. I just don't want to see T.O. have a big game. I wonder if he were to catch the game winning touchdown if he will cry again. Boy that is one question I would love to hear a reporter ask him.
Reporter: "T.O.!!! T.O.!!!! If you catch the game winning touchdown are you going to cry again?"
T.O.: "I wasn't crying, it was just really dusting out there!!!"

What will be the result of the game tonight?
	Pack wins.
	Cowboys win.
	The Packers are playing tonight, why are they playing on Thursday?
	Who cares, the Vikings rule (I expect Borky and K-Mart to vote for this one)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Weak Effort

I realize that yesterday I gave a pretty weak effort in finding some "cold" pictures. So I went out today during my lunch hour and got some better "cold" pictures. These were taken only a block or two from my project, on the main part of the Fox River. As you can see here is the dam. And in the back ground are the Fox River Mill Apartments. I nearly decided to live there when I moved to Appleton.Here is a close up of part of the Fox River Dam.And this is the picture I should have used to express how cold it was yesterday.

It doesn't look like this down in Mexico. What do you think Rebecca?

Throw a Drink In My Face

I was just outside and it is freezing. Literally. I am not ready for winter at all. And to make matters worse I found out just this past week, that Chris and Rebecca put the kibosh on our trip to Mexico. They decided that their money would be better spent on completing remodeling of their upstairs. At the time I was told this, I wasn't too disappointed. But I can assure you that my disappointment will continue to grow as the winter wears on and the temperatures continue to drop. Ness, do you still want to go without them? It isn't even December yet. 3 more months of this, I don't know if I can handle it. All of this being said, I would like to renew a claim / statement that I made last year. If you ever hear me complain about how hot it is, you can throw a drink in my face. Last year in Las Vegas, I complained about how cold it was, and Tree told me he was going to throw a drink in my face. But that isn't how it works.

I was looking for a good "cold" image. But when I typed cold into the Yahoo Image Search I got mostly porn. Go ahead and do it, I am not kidding. I now believe any word you type into a image search on the internet will result with porn of some kind. Anyhow, this is how my bridge looks and I am using it as a "cold" image". We drained the canal yesterday so that they can put in the submarine cables.

Loose Ends

I have a couple of loose ends to tie up here. So since I have your attention, I would like to run through them.

First, is the survivor league. Congratulations to my sister, Deb. It took 12 weeks for her to win but she finally outlasted Todd. Please let the record show that she was paid up on Thanksgiving Day before it was even over with, but I knew it was either going to be her or Todd, who works with Tim. However, I do have one deadbeat who still owes for the league. Myra. Time to pay the piper. Lisa, I know you wanted me to start up another league, but with only 5 weeks left, I am going to take a pass on a second league this season.

Second, while on the topic of deadbeats. My fantasy football league, The General, Chucker and Tree are all still deadbeats and owe me money. I know a number of people in the league read my blog. There isn't a chance that anyone who wins will get paid a penny until I get paid up from all the losers. By the way, Tree and The General, first you are on the deadbeat list, then you shine me on Thanksgiving Eve, not real good ways to get on my good side.

Third, Thanksgiving is over and that is a shame. As you all read, I had a great Holiday weekend and I am sorry that it is over. But that means that I can start concentrating on Christmas. According to latest poll results, you do not want any input on my Christmas card. That is OK, I had it narrowed down to three pictures, and I am pretty sure I know which one it is going to be. Sorry Ness, your picture didn't make the cut this year. Anyhow, if you got a card last year you will get one this year, unless you have been acting like Tree or The General. But if you didn't get a card last year or you have moved, leave your address as a comment on my blog. I will even send one to Ms. Anonymous if she still reads. Kim and K-Mart, I already have you down.

Fourth, This isn't a real movie review, because I only really do those for movies that I go and see in the theater, but since I saw them this last weekend I thought I would give you my input. I saw "Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer". Horrible. On a scale of 1-10 it is a 1. But Jessica Alba is in it, so that alone raises it to a 2. The other movie I saw was "Surfs Up". This movie is pretty much the same as "North Shore", except it is a cartoon and they are penguins surfing and not people. I would give it a 4 but Pearl Jam is on the soundtrack and that alone raises it to 5.

If I am missing anything else I will make it up in the postings later this week.

Thanksgiving Update

Hello all of my loyal blog readers. I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. I will just get to the pictures rather than tell you about all that I did. Here was a good share of my Wednesday, cutting deer. The days of my family butchering 300 deer are all over. I think we did somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 deer this year. No complaints from me. I can recall in years past where we would cut 10 or 15 on Thanksgiving just to put something of a dent in the pile of deer laying around outside.Wednesday night was the night in which I tried to get people to come out and join me for a drink. My disappointment in my friends was extremely high. The only one who could hang with me was Nate. Everyone else called it a night early or didn't show at all. It was no surprise that Justus and the General were no shows. Tree and Preston were major disappointment, they both said they would attend and never showed. But Nate, good ole Nate. He was a trooper. I got him home at 5:00 a.m. after a winning morning at the casino. As for myself, I was staying at my brother's house, I walked in the door at 5:40 a.m. and he was just walking out the door to go hunting. He said "You are kidding me, right?" I said "Nope." Anyhow this picture was taken earlier in the evening, Nate Eric, Roman, Myself and Moffatt.On Thanksgiving morning, I was up after only 2 hours of sleep. Here I am making my appetizers with my nephew, Ethan. Here are my finished appetizers, Bacon wrapped pizza rolls. Not only delicious but good for you.Friday I helped JFK (Krum's dad), Krum and Diceman (Krum's brother) put up lights in JFK'ss new garage. On a side note Thanksgiving night I was at the Krumrich's for some serious ping pong. Krum and I against JFK and Diceman. We lost the first 4 games and then went on to win 7 of the next 8 games. But JFK claimed that the first 3 were the only games that counted because it was best of 5, then every other game was just a "friendly". Friday afternoon, I took Krum on in a little one on one ping pong. I beat him 3 out of 4 games. This doesn't sound like much, but I have never beat Krum before. So a major accomplishment for myself.Friday night we (my family) went out bowling. I challenged my brother-in-law, Tim, to a match. It was $5 and Tim, who is in a bowling league and bowls every other week, gave me 33 pins. As you can see by the picture below, I won straight up 181 to 167. Now if you talk to Tim, he will claim it doesn't count because the bumpers were up as the kids were bowling with us as well. And while I will admit that I did hit the bumpers twice on two of my open frames. But Tim also hit the bumpers once and picked up a spare. Of course when he hits the bumpers it doesn't count, but when I do it does. On another side note, in the next game, I wanted to see how many times I could hit the bumpers before hitting the pins. I got 5 in before getting a strike.Here is my niece, Erin, at the bowling alley.After dinner here are all of the kids pretending that they are bowling. Jared, Erin, Lindsey, Abby, Josh, Nick and Ethan.Saturday I went to the Whitewater football game to see Mike Kicking Ass a.k.a. (MKA) Here are my aunt and uncle at the tailgate before the game.I was in charge of the grill. Here I am with my hotdog hanging out.You can believe what you want, but here I am fake puking. Nancy spilt some hot chocolate on the ground and I thought it would make a funny picture. You might see me puke after a football game, but never at the tailgate party before the game.Here is Whitewater on offense taking the field.And a Whitewater football game isn't complete without a picture of MKA. So here he is, the closest offensive lineman, number 73.Picking up where I left off from the Gopher game. I said I would do push ups everytime Whitewater scored. I figured that it was the playoffs and I really wouldn't have to do too many push ups. Well as you can see from the next picture, Whitewater put up 59 points. 59!!!! I ended up doing 291 push ups on the day. I will come clean. As you can see in the picture, I started doing the push ups down hill until the score got into the 40s, then I moved to doing them along the bleachers, and once the score got into the 50s I did them up hill.59 points. The highest point total of the season and I shoot my mouth off. It was cold on Saturday and the push ups did get me warm in a hurry.The post game tailgate party. Katie, Jon, Dave, Nick, Tim, Katie, Julie, Nancy Ethan, my dad and Mike.Saturday night I stopped by my brother, Dan's, to help him move some furniture and watch some football. I was giving Josh and Abby airplane rides. Here they are.

Badger Gopher Game

It was a great weekend up in Minnesota. I hate that 5 hour drive from Appleton to Minnesota, so I took a flight. It was great. No stress. It took half the time, I read a book. My back didn't get sore from sitting in my truck all day. It was a wise decision and worth the price of the ticket. Friday night I stayed with Borky. We grilled out, played some beer pong and then went to a bar that had a Van Morrison cover band. Here I am with K-Mart and Borky at the bar. I think it was called Whiskey Junction. We were watching the band and we noticed the bouncer who was at the door when we paid our cover charge. I told him I loved his Jonny Cash shirt and that I would be taking that shirt home with me at the end of the night. So when we saw him later, Borky got a picture with him. And I again told him that that shirt was going to be mine. You can see his reaction to my statement. Surprisingly I did not end up with the shirt. I don't think it would have fit anyhow.
Here is the Van Morrison band. They were pretty good. Towards the end of their last set I got into a shouting match with the lead singer over why they wouldn't play Tupelo Honey. And they never did play it, that was the only dissapointing part of their performance. How can you cover Van Morrison and not play Tupleo Honey?
Me and Borky.Saturday morning we grilled out in Borky's garage and then headed down to the Gopher game and the Humpy Dome. Lisa, Joe, Doug, Me, Dawn and Borky. Flo was taking the picture.
Here is Borky sporting his football helmet from his pee-wee football playing days.
Joe and I got into some serious ping pong before we left for the Badger Game. Joe and I are pretty even and I can say that the ping pong might have been the best part of the weekend for me. Joe, I want a rematch soon. By the way I won 4-2 in matches. Just so you didn't think Joe beat me too bad.
Joe and I told Borky that everytime the Gophers scored that we would do push ups for every point. We honestly didn't think we would have to do any push ups. But we knocked out over 100 over the course of the game.
Here are my push ups. After the game some lady came up to Joe and I and said, "You were the two guys doing push ups, that was great." In the 4th quarter alot of the fair weather Gopher fans had left when the Badgers were up by 2 touchdowns. So it was pretty easy to see us doing push ups from everywhere around our section.Just one of the many Badger touchdowns on the day. I would say that the crowd was right around 50% Badger fans.
Bucky bringing Paul Bunyan's Axe back one once again.
We went out to the bars downtown after the game. I was embarrassed for the Gopher fans. Everywhere you looked and every bar that you went into was packed with Red and White. In fact you barely saw any Gopher fans afterwards. I was telling Joe how weird I thought that was. I mean could you ever imagine a time being in Madison and walking into the Big Ten Pub after a home Badger game and seeing it full of another teams color? It will never happen. And that is all there was in Minneapolis. Maybe it will change once the Gophers get their new stadium. But I still think Bucky will make their presence known. Anyhow here I am at the bar with my friend, Flo.
Here is Krum and K.O.
Trooper and Krum. I told them to pretend that I just scored a hat trick and this is their reaction. Trooper and Krum know all about my soccer abilties and their expressions pretty much sum my abilities up.

It was a great weekend and a lot of fun. I want to thank Borky and Krum for letting me crash at their places. Although Krum's floor was far from comfortable. And I want to thank all of my Minnesota friends for meeting up with me.

ASCE Meeting

Last year at my performance review with work, I was asked by my bosses to going a professional organization. In the spring I joined the American Society of Civil Engineers. I have since gone to the annual state meeting in Madison. And yesterday the northeast chapter of Wisconsin had a meeting. I decided to go to impress my boss. Anyhow, the meeting included going to the National Railroad Museum. It was actually pretty interesting. That is the most exciting thing that has happened to me this week. But things will pick up this weekend. I am headed up to Minnesota this afternoon for the Badger Game. I am flying out of the Green Bay airport. I am pretty excited about a 1 hour flight rather than the 5 hour drive. Tonight I am staying with Borky. Tomorrow is the game and I am staying with my friend, K.O., downtown Saturday night. Sunday I am headed to Krum's place to watch the Packer game. I promise to have exciting pictures. But here are the boring ones from the National Railroad Museum.
This is mid tour, while learning about the U.S. Army #101, a Pershing-class steam engine.
This is the Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4017. The world's largest steam locomotive. Pretty much the pride of the museum.This is the British Railways A4 Class No. 60008 Dwight D Eisenhower. The General's World War II command train.

Blog Site Update

I received an email this morning from my good friend, Krum. He recently sent me a link to his blog, which is a collection of his poetry and so forth. I put a link to his blog on my blog. It is under links as "Krum's Blog".
Well in the email from Krum he asked me to and a quote:

"Can you change the name on your blog from krum to “Donald key’s blog” you can hint to whos it is, I want to go pen name style with the blog"

I have never been one to turn down a request on my blog so the new link is up on the site.


On a totally unrated topic, I wanted to run this by my loyal readers. Most of my readers are on my Christmas Card list. And if you aren't leave your address and I will add you. Anyhow, I don't want to brag, but historically speaking from comments I have received back, my Christmas Card is usually in people's top 5 cards of the year. You can admit it, you know it is true. Although I am always disappointed when I don't see it on people's refrigerators when I am in there home. Nonetheless, I would like to poll my readers to see if they would like some input on which picture I use for this year's card. I have it narrowed down to 3 pictures. All of which have already been posted on my blog.

Would you like to vote on which picture I use on my Christmas card?
	Yes, I want to be heard.
	No, I want to be surprised when it shows up.
	Your Christmas card sucks and so do you.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

American Gangster

When I was walking into the theater to purchase my ticket, I said "One for American Gangster." The guy next to me in line said, "That is a great movie, you are going to like it." How would he know what I would and would not like? But in actuality, he was right. I did like the movie. I am not a big fan of Russell Crowe. But both he and Denzel Washington were fantastic in this movie. I suppose that since they have both won Best Actor Oscar Awards, I would expect nothing less. This movie wasn't spectacular in my mind. But it was a very very good movie. It was actually worth the $6.25 I spent to see it. On to the jist of the movie. This is another movie based on a true story. The movie is about Frank Lucas, a black man living in Harlem who goes on to become New York City's biggest drug lord during the late 60's and early 70's. But the movie also shows the life of Richie Roberts, the cop who's job it was to try and put Frank Lucas behind bars. They did a great job of going back and forth between the two character's lives and then how they eventually intertwine. The movie moves along at great pace without any lulls. And it is entertaining throughout. I am always impressed with movies when they are done at a time in the past and they are able to get the cars, furniture, clothes, etc. from that time period. And with this movie they did a great job. On a scale of 1-10, this is all of an 8 maybe even a 9.

Thanksgiving Eve

I mentioned in a past post about one of the elements of Thanksgiving that makes it one of my favorite holidays. That element was going out on Thanksgiving Eve. Speaking of Thanksgiving Eve, I am throwing a little get together on Thanksgiving Eve. So this is my open invitation for my loyal blog readers to attend. Here are the particulars.

Where: Shepherds in Tosa, 6715 W North Ave, Milwaukee, WI

When: Wednesday, November 21st, (Thanksgiving Eve) 10:00 p.m.

I realize that all of you have your own plans and family obligations for this Holiday. And in fact I do have some plans earlier that evening myself. But as I mentioned this little get together will not start until 10:00 at night. Just to sweeten the invitation, if you show up I will buy your first drink when you walk in the door.

Jon and Julie, before you get all excited, I am still planning on making my presence known with the Dillabers. But around 9:00 or so once the conversation swings heavily toward hunting and fishing, I am bailing on you guys.

Free Gyros

This might be a bit premature, but I have been looking at the Packers schedule and I have been looking at the predictions that people made on my blog as to the Packers record. I honestly do not see myself having to buy anyone a gyro. The Packers are currently 8-1. Allow me to run down their remaining schedule:

Nov 18. Carolina Panthers (4-5)

Nov 22. at Detroit Lions (6-3)

Nov 29. at Dallas Cowboys (8-1)

Dec 9. Oakland Raiders (2-7)

Dec 16. at St. Louis Rams (1-8)

Dec 23 at Chicago Bears (4-5)

Dec 30 Detroit Lions (6-3)

I can not see a way that they will lost more than 3 of these games. But when they do lose 7 in a row and end up 8-8 you can blame it on me for blowing it.

Buy the way here are the predictions that you, my readers made.

11-5 Nancy

10-6 Tree, Annie and Mike

9-7 Joe

8-8 Bubs, Lisa, Roman and Borky

7-9 K-Mart and Tim

6-10 The General

4-12 Kakes (he lives in Minnesota now)

So if no one wins that will mean that I will just go to Oakland Gyros by myself and eat two gyros.

New Favorite Holiday?

Thanksgiving is quickly moving up the charts to becoming one of my favorite holidays. I don't think anything will pass the Fourth of July. But Thanksgiving is getting close. Why do I like Thanksgiving so much? Thanksgiving Eve. It is quickly becoming one of the most popular nights out at the bars. In my book I would rather go out on Thanksgiving Eve than New Years Eve.

The weather. It isn't all that horrible....yet.

My parents are no longer doing the full scale deer cutting operation. Which means I don't have to work that entire weekend. Or rather, I don't have to work 10 hour days that entire weekend. I honestly don't mind taking care of 9 or 10 deer a day, as long as I have help.

It is always a four day weekend. How can you not like a holiday that gets four days.

The shopping deals. I am kidding. No matter how great the deals are, I think you are moron if you go shopping the day after Thanksgiving.

The food. Turkey is OK. As long as there is gravy to go along with it, I don't have a problem eating turkey. Anyhow the food is always great for the Thanksgiving meal.

Natesgiving (the day after Thanksgiving). I have heard that it is again off this year, but that it should make it's return next year. This is a great opportunity to get together with my friends and beat Nate in ping pong.

Sheepshead. My friends all suck and I have a better chance of playing football for the Packers than I do of getting a card game together with my friends. However, there is usually enough family around Thanksgiving for a card game.

I think that is enough reasons. Just writing this is making me hungry for some turkey.

Weekend Update

Well this isn't going to be much of an update. I was up in Appleton, and didn't do much. I watched a lot of football. I had a chance to go to the Badger game, but didn't find out that their was an extra ticket until 15 minutes before game time. That was a major disappointment, especially as the game unwound and the Badgers went on to win. To put a little excitement in this blog entry, here are some pictures from the weekend. Here I am laying on the couch.
Here I am an hour later, still on the couch but laying the other way.I then worked the recliner into the seating rotation.I would like to say that I did thoroughly enjoy the Packer game. The only real disappointing part of the game was that Borky (from Minnesota) wouldn't answer his phone when I called to rub the game in his face. However, Borky did call later that night. I was again disappointed when Borky told me that he was actually rooting for the Packers because he doesn't like the Vikings head coach and he wants them to lose and for the coach to get fired. That is the last thing I wanted to hear. My pleasure is so much better when it comes at the cost of someone else's pain.

Into The Wild

I went to go and see "Into The Wild" yesterday. To be honest, the movie didn't start out too well. I made it through the previews and had my carry-ins ready to go when the movie started. But there wasn't any sound. I waited through the opening credits and then finally got up and left to find someone who worked at the theater to fix the problem. So I missed the first 5 or so minutes. But on to the movie itself. It is based on the true story of the life of Christopher McCandless. We pick up his life in 1990 just after college graduation, at which point he decides to go on the adventure of a lifetime. He tells no one he is leaving, nor does he make any attempt to communicate with anyone in this family while gone, and travels the western part of the United States including such adventures as kayaking down the Colorado River all the way to Mexico. Along the way, he gets a number of odd jobs to earn money. His adventure eventually leads him all the way to Alaska. This kid was a bit of a loner and definitely a non-conformist. The majority of the reasoning behind this adventure is rebellion against his parents who are upperclass, strict and disfunctional, with whom he has no urge to even communicate with. You can look at Chris in one of two ways, he is an idealist who wants to live off the land and be free. Or that is just and vagrant and a bum. There are many great nature shots, including a number with wildlife. I was interested in the movie as Eddie Vedder wrote a number of songs for the movie. But none of those songs really jumped out at me. Much of the dialog is about find oneself and the true meaning of living, so it is sort of like reading Krum's blog. In the end, I think it is far from a great story, but still a good movie. But I can't give it more than a 6. Rodge, you were the one who wanted me to review this movie. If you do go and check it out, the main character, Chris, reminds me alot of Ryan's friend, Gavin. At least in the way, that everywhere he went, he met people right away and always seemed to find some sort of odd job.

Broken Record

Hello to all of my loyal blog readers. This is pretty much a broken record here. And I am sorry, but I don't have a lot going on here. However, this afternoon I am planning on going to see "Into The Wild". This is a request from my friend, Chris, who wanted me to see it and give a review. I say this afternoon, because not even my job is all that exciting. I would bore you with the details, but I don't want to bore you. Here is the jist of how life on my project is going. We are waiting on the steel to get fabricated and because the contractor is at a point where they can't move forward, they have decided to lay off their workers until after deer season. I.E. no one is working on my project until the end of the month. That is other than an electrician who is here once or twice a week for a couple of hours each time. Are you bored?

Here is something new, my friend, Krum, has a blog. I have added a link to it. I hope that Krum can keep up with it better than some of the other blogs that my friends have started. Let me quickly run down their blogs and their last entry.

Villa's blog: You can click on the link but it says that it no longer exists.
Dawn's blog: Last entry August 27th 2006
The Generals blog: Last entry August 28th 2007

I do still have links to all of these blogs.

Grizzly Adams and Jake

Yes, Kevin does look a bit like Grizzly Adams. When I first saw him Saturday night, I just started laughing. Kevin is a great guy despite the beard. And actually it is the time of the year where I grow a beard as well. If I have a beard, I feel that I fit in better with the deer hunters that come to my parents house to drop off a deer. Then usually for Thanksgiving I shave in the some big lamb chops and a goatee. So that is coming.

Since I don't have a lot to talk about I have decided to branch out and show some pictures of other people. Relax, I am staying away from "M.K.A."

Here is another picture of Grizzly Adams (Kevin).

My sister in law's (Julie) sister's (Nancy) son (or for simplicity sake, my nephew), Jake bagged his first pheasant this past weekend. Here is Brian and Jake walking out with the bird.Jake, with bird, dog and gun. What more could a boy ask for.