Friday, September 30, 2005

A Few Notes From The Day

2-0 on seven innings of shut-out ball from Gary Glover? Whoda thunk. If they win 2 of 3 in Pittsburg (or go 1-1 with a rainout), they have a winning season. Go Brewers.

Speaking of which, my Brewers button down shirt arrived in the mail today. Finally have something to wear into the land of the Cardinal shirts.

Great bike ride today/tonight. I love crisp fall days. Have to remember to start drinking something besides coffee all day though, as I think I am way down on water content these days. Not good for bike rides. CK, I think I rode by your old house. We went right by the Saint Anne Market (sound familiar?). But I have to do some major excavating to get some more of my fall/night riding gear out of the boxes.

I pulled out Book 3 in Song of Fire and Ice to start rereading it before book 4 comes out. I'm dreading/anticipating the wedding chapter all over again.

I'm still waiting to see some pictures from the Rams/Titans game last weekend. Especially the steak sandwich picture.

AA, I got your phone message by the way, but missed the Grand Final. In a strange twist, you call wasn't the only mention of the Festival of the Foot. I joined a guild in World of Warcraft that is made up (entirely?) of Australians and Kiwis. Of course, I never see them online as they live on pretty much exactly the other side of the world, and gamers the world over keep similar hours. Maybe on a weekend. Of course, it isn't a serious guild (they don't take the gaming to serious), but I'm looking forward to the chat.

Good episode of The O.C. tonight. Lots of interesting plot twisties. I totally saw the Taylor thing coming though. Yuck.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

The Magic Number

With 5 to go, the magic number is 3. They can do that, can't they? It is the Pirates and Reds afterall.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Ah, It Is Good!


Yeah!
Originally uploaded by sethsdisciple.
Check out this review. Sounds like Sid and the boys have done it. Interesting that the bring in the editors of the industry rags and don't even let them touch the single player mode. They are so confident in the multiplayer, that the set up tournaments.

Sounds like this time I will actually be able to "Play the World."

I guess they figure that the one thing they haven't gotten right yet in this masterpiece is the multiplayer, so this time they built it from ground up with that in mind. Woo!

Friday, September 23, 2005

Well...

If the Brewers don't get to .500 this year, it will be because the hated Cards smoked them in the season series. The Crew has one last chance to right that particular ship this weekend. I think they need to take at least 2 of 3 from STL to have a chance at .500, but 2 under with 9 left.

Boy do I hate seeinig all of the Cards playoff ticket printouts and Cards Magic Number countdowns around work. Ug.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

It Is Possible

My wife's biggest adjustment to moving to the midwest will be having Letterman come on at 10:30.

Of course it does! Who can stay up until 11:30 to watch it (or 12 to see the guest!!!). He might be back in the rotation.

I, of course, will enjoy football being on at noon again. But the early EPL soccer game on Saturday moving to 6:30 is going to sting.

Friday, September 16, 2005

My Wife Stole My Post

Oh well. She covered most of the goings on.

My brother came over and I conned him into hooking up a wire or two.

Two kinda funny things on the day. First, figuring out that our fridge was about an inch and a half too tall for the shelves. Pulled down the unit over top, now faced with the decision of painting the whole kitchen (and probably, the way the walls run, the tv room too), or reinstalling the unit, but higher. Ug. Neither sounds fun.

Also, the cable guys said something to Kathy that I had to make her repeat several times as my brain couldn't process. "They (the old owners of our house) never had cable" or any sort of pay tv for that matter. No sat, no directv, no nothin. So, they had to run cabling from the street. Cripes. What did they do, talk to each other? The saving grace was that they, for whatever reason, had had the house wired.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Hurricanes from Afar

Don't know what the story really is with that storm riding up the atlantic coast, but I'm thinking of my friends in VB and Norf. You folks stay safe and dry.

I really won't miss the weeklong windups that often amount to nothing. Of course, the times they amount to something pretty much justify all the fretting of the other times. And it goes on for months.

The only good side is that you should have a couple of beautiful days of weather on Sunday or Monday. Best weather I've ever seen (bluest skies, no humidity, etc.) was always on the days after a hurricane cleared the area.

So anyways, I hope it blows out.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

They're Asking For It

And I hope they get it.

Link

The French press has done the one thing that could pull him back.

At the end of the day, he is motivated by hate. Everything he channels and converts into anger, and runs that down through the pedals.

He knows that nothing, nothing would piss the French (especially the press) off more than winning their race again, especially as no Frenchman has won the thing for years.

I hope they get what they are BEGGING for.

Monday, September 05, 2005

Their State Fair

My parents were born in Minnesota. Have I mentioned that? They (well, mainly my Dad) would bring us back three or four times every year when I was growing up. Most of the trips were fairly flexible calanderwise (probably a fall/winter trip for a Vikes game, one in spring sometime), but we would be in St. Paul on labor day weekend for the Minnesota State Fair. We'd go for a day or two, stay until about 3 or 4 on Monday, and then buzz back down to Milwaukee for the start of the school year on Tuesday. Actually, monday at the fair was always a little sad as the school year was hanging over me like the 16 ton weight on Monty Python.

Well, I came up to meet my parents this weekend at the fair. I haven't been here for 10 years, I think.

I kind of like this bit from the Wiki entry: At the fair, residents of the state and region come to be entertained, exhibit their best livestock, show off their own abilities in a variety of fields including art and cooking, learn about new products and services, and enjoy many different types of food—often on a stick.

On a stick! They aren't lying. Apparently the new thing this year was spaghetti on a stick. Wacky, eh? Apparently the only way to hold it together is to deep fry it. Blech. Seen around the ground on a stick were mocha (some sort of popsicle), corn, corn dog (refered to as a Pronto Pup, which has its own wiki entry), and various meats.

It was a focused run. 3-4 hours, and we covered a lot of old ground.

I started with a Peter's Weiner hotdog. Still tasty.

We stopped by the Minnesota Public Radio both. The are schlepping a lot of Prarie Home Companion stuff. My parents had seen Garrison on friday night. The story about the civil war enactment was priceless.

Next, a bag of Tom Thumb mini-donuts. The wax papap bag still looks the same, and is still caked with sugar after the donuts were gone. My dad used to send those empty bags all over the world to people who couldn't make it to the fair. Kathy warned me not to send her one.

We then walked over to the barns. I saw the prize winning cattle cow (purchased by a meat packer up in Wisconsin). We saw sheep getting judged. It was like a dog show by wollier. We finished with the pig barn. All of these places smelled exactly like what you think they smell like.

The last must have on my list (after walking longingly past the giant slide and Ye Olde Mill (a very poor man's Small World)) was a Honey Sundae, over in the Agriculture building. Honey icecream (and I don't really like icecream) with sunflower "nuts" mixed in, and then honey poured over the top.

Well, the guy screwed it up a little by putting way too much icecream in the little bowl, and then way too much honey on top, and then handing it to me. There was no way. I ended up with a honey glove by the end.

And then we left. But it was a great day. Some things (especially state fairs) don't change. Except for spaghetti on a stick. And then you remember why you are happy they don't change.

And Then I Laughed


Gypsy
Originally uploaded by sethsdisciple.
My tour of hotels took me to St. Paul, MN this weekend. Frankly I'm trying to kill some time waiting for Kathy to get out to St. Louis. I thought a good way to do that would be to visit my parents. If you are looking for my parents on Labor Day weekend, you better be looking at the Minnesota State Fair.

I rolled into town about 4 pm on Saturday, after spending the night just north of Bloomington, IL, home of Illinois State. My parents came over to the hotel they booked for me and we talked for an hour or two.

They had made plans to go over to Mancini's Steak House for dinner and meet my aunt and uncle (my god-parents) who they were staying with. We hung out in the lounge for 20 minutes, and had a drink until they met us. After a few more minutes, we went into dining room.

Nice meal. I'm not much on steak, but I'll do the "small filet" at Mancini's. Crusty on the outside and tasty. I love the plate that is just left on every table with peppers and pickles and tomatoes. Tasty.

Some info on my Aunt and Uncle. They lived in Australia for about 10 years (maybe from when I was 2 until 11?). I think that my aunt tries to make up for missed time by telling me the good stories. And she always made me remember that "your father is much older than me." 3 years.

Well, just as we were finishing the meat (well, my uncle and I had steaks, every one else had the Walleye), my aunt says "I have a story to tell about (your father)." Just the way she said it, I knew it was going to be good. My dad immediately looked warily at his sister.

We had been talking about the MN State Fair. Apparently, when she was 12, her mother (my gradma) decided to take her to see Gypsy Rose Lee in the Club Lito (sp?) on the Royal American Shows midway. It was one of those tents on the midway where they'd try to get ya to drop 25c to come in and see the risque show (or bearded lady, or whatever).

Why? Who can say. My grandma was, as my mom said, "pretty straightlaced." I bet if you could go back in time and ask her, it would be the kind of thing where she would say she didn't know. That is just a guess as she passed away about the time I was born.

So apparently as my 12 year old aunt and her mother sit down in the back of the tent, who should walk in but her 15 year old brother and his best friend, and plop down in the front row. I looked over at my dad at this point in the story and he was turning all sorts of shades of red. But he wasn't admitting to anything.

Apparently, years later, my grandma confided in my aunt that she had confessed it to her priest and gotten in some trouble with him. That was when my dad chimed in with "I never confessed it." And then I was laughing a lot.

Apparently, Gypsy could make the tassles rotate in opposite direction. There were hand motions. And then I was laughing more.

That is when my mom apparently connected some dots from her own past. Apparently this was the fist time she had heard that story.

She said that she and my dad were walking through the midway at the fair one year and they passed the Club Lito tent and my dad's jaw just dropped. She prefaced this with "I never told you about how your dad was almost never your father."

I like dinners with my aunt. I told her I was going to put the story up here, but I wouldn't tell her the address. Lets see if she tracks me down (is that another violation of #3?).

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Boom!


We have liftoff
Originally uploaded by sethsdisciple.
Now that is how you should look when you hit a grand slam.

And I still HATE Kane Davis.