So it goes...

We had a busy, but awesome weekend this Memorial Day weekend. It started on Saturday with working on the skunk deterrent fence at the foundation of the house. I was working away on it and about 1/2 way through my buddy Steve showed up to help. There's nothing like crawling behind some pine bushes and having your friend drop bags of dirt down to you. Writhing in the dirt ducking sticks that threaten to scratch your head and trying to wiggle to the far end of the porch, just out of reach. It was sweaty, dirty work, but it made all the difference having a second set of hands to help. Good friends are not afraid to get dirty to help you out. After that we tackled the back tree encroachment from the neighbors huge birch tree. Steve had an extendible saw that we used to lop off as much of the overhang as possible. There were some hairy moments on the ladder to be sure, but again, with one set of hands holding the ladder, and one cutting, it made the work lighter. Good friends should not

So I'm riding my bike home last night at 4:45 and what do I see but a guy on the Barstow Ave. bridge spearing carp with an 8 foot spear tied to a rope. When I passed, he had just speared about a 7 pounder that was flopping from the end of his home-crafted spear. He and his buddy and his girlfriend were hooting it up over their luck. Now, I didn't know how to react to this. As a fisherman who knows the joy of the catch I felt I should applaud him. Also, as a fisherman who has great disdain for the carp species, a roughfish that destroys habitat for all the good fish, I again wanted to applaud him. The only knock I had on the guy was his high profile. In other words here he is in the middle of downtown, ON A BRIDGE, chucking a spear at carp. There's just something wrong with that. It might be the passing kids in a stroller wondering why that freakish man is killing fish WITH A TRIDENT. (I think of anchorman where Steve Carrell says "I killed a guy with a trident") O

It's hard to believe it's nearly Memorial Day already. I love this time of year, but I don't want it to go by too fast. We've been graced with two 90 degree days this week, which not only caught us on our heels with things like air conditioners, fans etc, but was a bit of a shock to our system as well. The dog lays hyperventilating on the floor, not sure what to think of it all. The cats lay shedding on the furniture, less active than they usually are, and that ain't saying much. This weekend we've got an RV ghetto weekend planned with our friends who have a trailer. They've elected to park it at an RV park in Jefferson County about 30 minutes from here. http://www.rbresort.com/ It's made for kids and RV'ers, so has a water park, mini-golf course, para sailing, bungee jumping, roller coaster, stocked fish pond (complete with dynamite for those who want to fish), a 40 store mall, three starbucks, a McDonalds, a private airport, a mayor, streetlights,

6:00 PM Seeems like I've been up since 5:00 AM. It's a gorgeous 75 degree day here and one of those where you try to do it all in one day. Soccer, workout (ran 2 mi),house cleaning, farmers market, mow the yard, run kids to activities, and it's only six O Clock! Ben's soccer team took a beatin' again today 7-2. I joke that the game was really closer than the score indicates. Or, that if it was a football game it would have been a nailbiter. They actually played a decent half and were tied 2-2 at halftime. Then the bottom fell out and the shots just started raining on the poor goalie, Jeremy. I know Ben and his teammates must be getting a little frustrated, but they're not giving up. Every week, at least 11 guys show up. Alas, my family is back and I have to start a fire, run and errand and then eat dinner, on this the day that wouldn't end. I'll try to post again today, since the day is only just getting started. Blogging off for now...

So far I think the score is Skunk 2, Dad 0. A week ago we had a skunk spray under our porch where he was evidently residing. I did my best to make a one-way door so he could escape, but not return. After about 5 days, I plugged the hole for good and I thought I was rid of him. Well, I think he's back. I found a couple new holes today. Curses! So, I set into obsessive compulsive mode and built a new one-way door so he/she/it could again escape and not return. I then sealed the rest of the perimeter, including his second hole, so he couldn't go out any way except the one way door. It was probably quite a site from the road; me belly flopped on top of the bushes we have in front of our house jerry -rigging the chicken wire and blocking the rest of the potential entrance points with bricks and boards. It was like caddyshack a bit. I cannot rest until my house is my own again. That friggin ' rodent or whatever a skunk is. (Marsupial?) Annoying is what it is. I will keep you pos

Last night was the last night of Boys Club at church. It also signified the end of my short lived career as a Ranger for Boys Club. It was a night of very mixed emotions. I'm glad to be done and moving on, yet at the same time am sad that my son is now moving on too. We've shared some great times at BC over the years, and I think I'm what I'm going to miss most is just being together for 3 hours on a weeknight. For all the joking I do about BC, it really is a cool thing, especially for a father/son combination. I wouldn't have changed anything about my experience with the boys. We finished up with the awards ceremony where the boys get patches for what they've earned. Ben got patches for a number of things, including giving his testimony. The highlight of his night however was winning second place in the Bike Rodeo a couple weeks prior. (See medal pic. above). He was grousing all night about having missed last week (ice-cream Sunday week) because he was sick. He

Since today was the day I was supposed to be fishing in St. Germain, I decided to take it off of work and do what I felt like. The St. Germain area got between 2-4 inches of snow today, so I'm glad I didn't make the drive up to try and fish in that. That's no fun for anyone. So, I spent the morning in coffee shops drinking coffee and writing on the laptop. I started at the Steaming Cup in downtown Waukesha www.steamingcupwaukesha.com. The coffee was awesome and the atmosphere greatastic. A good mix of people with a great neighborhood feel to it. Locals and outsiders alike. The only downside to the whole experience was the "free" wifi, which wasn't working. At all. When asked, the waitress said they've been having trouble with it for a while now. She recommended I try one of the other unsecured connections she was sure the other businesses around them had. Well, it turns out the only one that did was the Clarke Hotel, and their connection sucked. It dropped

This whole oil slick disaster has got me sick to my stomach. How mankind can be so incredibly destructive to the planet we inhabit is just beyond me. I realize that I contribute to the problem by driving a car, but I do walk or bike to work for what that's worth. It's these clods that build these behemoth oil rigs and then qualify it with saying "the safety mechanism wasn't supposed to fail". Uh, really? And did you run any disaster scenarios in the rare case that it would happen? Or maybe have a plan in place to contain a spill the size of, oh say, the Gulf of Mexico? For all our government is meddling in places it shouldn't, it fails at regulating something like this? Oh the humanity! I'm not pinning this on the current administration, but rather government over the ages. My skepticism is party neutral. Enough downer for tonight. I won't be going fishing this weekend, because the weather is going to be crappy. 40's and rainy, with a 15 mph wind.