"Wan, Wisconsin! Wan, Wisconsin!"

Think you got enough room on either side of you two?

I'm not going to mince words.  I hate Wisconsin.  The more I'm exposed to the place, the less I like it, in spite of the fact my Wife grew up there.  My disdain, long cultivated before Scott Walker and Paul Ryan gained national prominence, was reaffirmed during a recent trip to the Dells for a volleyball tournament.

First, let me explain why I dislike Wisconsin so much; it's the state's drivers. I'll freely admit I'm a curmudgeon, and nothing sets me off more than the buffoonery I suffer when I'm driving; and odds are there's a Wisconsin plate on the vehicle causing my consternation.  You can't win with them!  They drive too slowly when in front of you, follow too closely when behind you, and they can attack without warning (i.e. signalling).

I have countless stories of run-ins with Wisconsin drivers. Like the driver who almost made a left turn onto a one way street from Hennepin Avenue, then proceeded to drive one more block on the wrong side of the double yellow line. I assume he thought every street in the area was a one way.  Or the woman in the Audi on I-94 heading into St. Paul, who either didn't see or ignored my signal to change lanes so she could use the travel lane to whip around someone in the passing lane. Or the cheesehead who arrived at a four way stop after I did, but made a right turn in front of me as I went straight.

I have a theory on the lack of quality drivers in America's Dairyland.  The small southeast region, from Madison east to Milwaukee and south to Kenosha, has a heavy influence from Chicago drivers.  Chicagoans, like Bostonians, are aggressive drivers, darting quickly from lane to lane in order to make progress.  This is a necessity to get around a large, tightly packed metropolis.  They're aggressive, but not stupid.  Import this behavior north of the state line and you get people who think this is the only way to drive without understanding the reasons why.

Everywhere else you'll find people who are at best two generations removed from the farm.  If they aren't driving cars, they're driving tractors.  In fact, the top speed limit in any small town off the highway is the same as your typical school zone. Seriously, if you have to get from one point in Wisconsin to another using a road not labelled 90 or 94, you might as well pack a lunch.  These areas are where the fatty deposits develop that clog the arteries of our interstate system.

365 in 365 for 2014: Images 013 through 019

The winter isn't even a month old and the season has already weighed heavily on most Minnesotans.  There are the die-hards with their outdoor hockey and ice fishing and extreme jogging (this is the same as regular jogging, but in sub-zero temperatures), but I don't associate with these people.  The ones I do are as tired of the cold and snow as I am.  I had to shovel snow again this weekend, but had some help with a very sunny day. The front walk looks better, but all I could manage on the driveway was to make the snow pack as flat as possible.

Although I'm not part of the cold weather crowd, I did have a run-in with one of their number.  Friday night was a special hockey night as I believe both the women's and men's U of MN hockey teams were playing outdoors in TCF Bank Stadium, the regular home of the college football team and the temporary one for the Vikings starting next year as the new stadium is built (the Metrodome/Mall of America Field was deflated on Saturday).  I was stopped at a red light on University Avenue on campus when a taxi pulled up next to me.  I heard some sort of vocalization and when I looked, there was a lumberjack-looking man, complete with auburn Viking mustache, leaning out the front passenger window.  I rolled down my window with trepidation.

"Game time," he said.  There wasn't any sort of inflection in his statement, so I didn't know if he was asking or telling me.

"I'm sorry.  I don't know," I replied.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

A look of shock and confusion suffused his face.  "You don't . . . you're not going to the game?"

I was dreading where this line of questioning was going.  Mercifully, the light turned green and his taxi sped away.  Nothing more was exchanged between us, but I'm sure he said "what an asshole" to his fellow passengers.

I'm still not sure what he was wanting from me.  I suppose to engage in some pre-game ritual to get each other fired up for the upcoming contest.  Unfortunately, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he chose the wrong person.  I guess my response should have been something like "OH, IT'S ON NOW!  FUCK YEAH!"  This would be followed by a series of grunts, shouts and hoots.  

So, I missed my chance to bond with the hardcore Minnesotans.  Maybe I will practice this type of exchange at G-Bug's next volleyball tourney.  I'm sure I can get away with some rough cursing around teen aged girls and their parents.  I'll let you know how it goes.  Until then, here are the next week of pictures.  Enjoy!

No. 013:  01-13-2014

The only other time I could get this picture would be in a canoe.

No. 014:  01-14-2014

Near full moon behind an apartment building in NE Mpls.

No. 015:  01-15-2014

A view of Mpls overlooking Lake of the Isles

No. 016:  01-16-2014

The imposing edifice of the Cathedral of St. Paul

No. 017:  01-17-2014

TCF Bank Stadium hosting Gopher hockey

No. 018:  01-18-2014

Growing up in West Hartford, CT, there was a small, two screen
theater called The Elm that showed late run movies for $.99.
The Riverview reminds me of The Elm.

No. 019:  01-19-2014

The Intimidator back at the net.  She doesn't need to jump to get
her hands over the net.  A force to be reckoned with.

My Spat With A Minor (Single-A) Celebrity

Pete Abraham is a troll, both in social media and in appearance.

I’ll admit I have enjoyed reading his “Extra Bases” blog on boston.com as he provides some good insight on the Red Sox and his summaries offer quick notes before each game.  However, there are times when Mr. Abraham has taken an attitude that chaps my ass and affects my overall opinion of him.

Here is the anatomy of these Pete Abraham posts:

Pete:  *Offers a series of stats that puts the team or a player in a bad light* 

Victim:  “Well, the team should do (X).” 

Pete:  “You’re stupid.  Look at these other facts I did not include in my original post, yet seem to have handy after you posted your silly response.” 

Victim:  “I’m not stupid.  You’re a hack!” 

Pete:  “No.  You are.”

The conversation starts to devolve from there; and woe onto those who use the improper version of ‘you’re.’

I had been annoyed when witnessing these baiting tactics, but my ass-chapping reached its zenith when I fell victim to them; hence the ease with which I made my earlier ad hominem attack.  In early August, Pete had tweeted where in the batting order Boston first baseman Mike Napoli had typically hit.  He ended the tweet saying the team was being patient with him.  I used this as an opportunity to ask if he felt Napoli would break Mark Bellhorn’s regular season team record for strikeouts.  Below is the exchange.

Now, I might be overly sensitive, but I felt Pete’s attitude was very dismissive; and he may have thought the view was “senseless,” but he used the word in an exchange with me, so I took it personally.  I probably didn’t use the best of baseball logic, considering I borrowed the “strikeout is the most unproductive of outs” from Tim McCarver, but if you dig through enough of his dirt, you can find some gems.  At any rate, Pete seemed uninterested in discussing Napoli’s strikeout total, until less than a week later he made this tweet:

WTF, Dude?!

I'm About A Year Away From Yelling At Kids To Get Off My Lawn

During the week, my body had already said "screw this shit" by forming a stress knot in between my shoulder blades on Tuesday night and suffering from a debilitating migraine on Wednesday. Thursday was the culmination of a series of frustrations that finally reached a boiling point.

After a Happy Hour with some co-workers, I took a scenic route home through Minneapolis.  I found myself at my usual haunt, following the west river road past the Mill City ruins.  I got behind a car with North Dakota plates and had to grit my teeth as he took a deliberate pace along the road, as in deliberately trying to piss me off.  As he slowed to watch people taking Senior or engagement photos, I finally let him have it with my horn. He was unmoved.  He continued his snail's progress, not gaining any ground on another slow mover ahead of him.  Seeing as sound didn't reach him, I decided to see how close I could get to his back bumper before he was encouraged to speed up.  He would accept no encouragement.

For those who don't know, the roads on either side of the river are basically two lane residential streets with walking/biking path on one side and a sidewalk on the other. There are sections with hills and switchbacks and the speed limit is 25mph.  There are areas for passing, but most of the time there is a double yellow line in the middle of the road.

Having had enough, I gunned my engine, hit my turn signal, raced past both the North Dakota yahoo and the slug ahead of him, making sure my one finger salute was at full staff as I quickly ducked back into the lane in front of an oncoming car.  As I looked in my rearview, I could see a line of cars forming behind my nemesis.  I remained unsatisfied.

Less than a mile from where I passed the slowpokes, there is a parking lot for riverboat cruises.  Feeling unfulfilled with the finger flicking, I needed to see what these idiots looked like.  I parked my car and, knowing I had time, ambled up the embankment to the walking/biking path.  I only took a couple of steps before seeing another car whip around the lead moron like I did.  I was glad to see I wasn't the only one.  Sure enough, this was an old couple driving a Mercedes station wagon with the windows down.  I shouted something about being a nuisance and then saw the same North Dakota driver following behind.  His window was also open.  "That fucking goes for you, too!"  The look on his face told me he must have thought I was released from a halfway house and now I was shouting at random passersby.  There are a few people like that, but another couple miles down the road.

Assholes Don't Just Drive Cars

Back in 2011 during the Thanksgiving holiday, we took a trip to Orlando to have a Disney family vacation.  For those of you who read my recent Father’s Day post, you’ll remember I said I hadn’t seen my father for three years before his visit because of limited resources of time and money.  A Disney trip would seem to belie that claim, but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity with my Mom, who paid for our accommodations.  The trip was still very expensive and used almost every cent of our free cash, but G-Bug was 13 years old and had never been to a Disney property; at least not with me and I wasn’t going to miss out on the chance.   We had a really fun time, created a lot of great memories, and took lots of pictures, but I really want to make a ventry about the tool shed I saw on our flight home.

Say ‘hello’ to Mr. Stephen Baker, an obnoxious, self-absorbed douche nozzle totally indifferent to the comfort of those around him, a testimonial you won’t read on his campaign Web site for a judgeship in 2010.  I want to clarify, this is just my opinion as Mr. Baker is an attorney and I don’t want to be sued.  What I detail below are the facts as I witnessed them while on the airplane.

Mr. Baker was traveling with his family who were seated in the row in front of him.  G-Bug and I had seats in the row behind him on either side of the aisle, so he was sitting in front of her and diagonally opposite me.  During the boarding process, Mr. Baker was speaking animatedly on his cell phone and continued to do so after the airplane doors were closed.  I was moderately perturbed when he did not power off his electronic device, as per the flight attendant’s instructions.  After what I thought was his last call, he leaned forward to his wife, sitting in the middle seat, and said something to the effect of “we’re losing money while on this flight.  Like, literally thousands of dollars!”  (Greed)

Asshole Driver 002

It was at this intersection a few blocks east of downtown Minneapolis that I had a run-in with an asshole driver that made me think of having a bunch of photo copies of the bubble blowing toy in my glove comparment to put on careless drivers' windshields.

As you can see by the sign I circled, the right hand lane is for going through the intersection or turning right.  The left lane is to make a left turn.  On the day in question, I was behind a car in the right lane.  There was an SUV with Kansas plates in the left lane.  I had a feeling the Kansas driver was going to go straight when the light turned green, and I was correct.  I didn't take offense as I have made the same mistake, and at this very light.

What really pissed me off, was the red, late 90's Jeep Cherokee that sped past both me and the car in front of me in the left lane, traveled 20 yards in the left turn lane of THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC (no cars were coming at the time), and dodged in front of the car in front of me.

The Jeep was able to make it through the next light at Hennepin Avenue and I thought I missed my opportunity to glare menacingly at the driver.  When the light changed in my favor, I turned into some slow traffic on the Hennepin Avenue bridge.  As I made my slow progress to the 'Nordeast' section of Minneapolis, I saw the red Jeep in the far left lane.  Unfortunately, I was in the far right lane with a third lane in between.  I kept the Jeep in sight as we crawled a couple blocks.  Then he turned into the parking lot of Surdyk's, a gourmet wine, beer, and cheese store.  If I had my printed pictures handy, I could have gone around the block and put one under his windshield.

You won this round, red Jeep Cherokee asshole!

Asshole Driver 001

This is a picture of an inappropriate bubble blower I saw in Las Vegas, but I had an idea to put the image to good use.  I'm going to print about a dozen of these and keep them in my glove compartment.  Every insensitive jerk who has parked across two spaces or whips past me to take a spot in a parking lot will get one of these tucked under his windshield wiper.

What made me think of this was a run-in I had with an asshole driver, who, surprisingly, was not sporting a Wisconsin license plate.  I had turned onto the street pictured below and was heading toward the highway.

As you can see, the street is a simple two lane road, the area by the curbs designated for parking.  On the right side of the picture, there are some warehouses and the curb sides are used to unload flatbeds.  There were no trucks or cars parked on that day I can tell you!

I looked into my rear view mirror and saw a cherry red blur whip out of sight.  Fortunately, I was able to get a second look as a mini-van sped past me - on my right!  It was like he was using the shoulder to pass me on a highway.  My shock lasted mere moments as I laid into my horn and flipped the offender the bird through the windshield.

Las Vegas Day Four (Part 1): May 28th, 2011



We saved the best for last, which worked out well; otherwise we would have spent the rest of our trip recovering.  I don’t think any of us had much of a hangover, but we did sleep into the late morning.  Mike went downstairs and returned with three cups of coffee and a newspaper.  The coffee was just what the doctor ordered.  We eased into our day and took stock of what we still wanted to do while in Las Vegas.  We had tickets to Anthony Cools and wanted to go to Coyote Ugly, which would take care of our evening.  We felt baked from the intense heat of the past couple days, so we weren’t eager to sit by the pool.  The European soccer championship was in the afternoon and since Rob and I had money on the game, we wanted to watch it.  A foam party was scheduled in the Monte Carlo pool area starting at noon and lasting until six, which sounded like a lot of fun.  We had a pretty big window to catch the party and figured we could stop by when we had some free time.  We hadn’t done any souvenir shopping and we were leaving early tomorrow morning, so we decided to do that to get the day going.

We visited the local places, like Gameworks and the M&M store, across the street.  We didn’t walk around for long before I started to feel a little light-headed, probably for not having breakfast after an alcohol-fueled night.  We made our way over to the MGM Grand to visit the shop next to the lion’s cage.  Inside the store, there was a window where people could view a lion cub being fed from a bottle.  There was an older couple with a trainer in the room and I assumed they had paid for the experience.  I also took the opportunity to redeem my $15 ticket I had from video poker on our first night in town.

The soccer game had an early start time for us on the West Coast, and just in time for lunch.  We re-crossed the street to New York, New York and found a place with immediate seating at the Nine Fine Irishmen.  Barcelona was well represented in the bar, but the table we sat was in an area where most people were cheering Manchester United.  We had lunch and Sam Adams while we watched the game.  It became pretty obvious that Man U was out-matched in talent, but the score was tied 1-1 at the half.  I knew if Man U had a chance to win the game, the final score would have to be 2-1.  When Barcelona scored its second goal, my hopes faded.  When Barcelona scored its third goal, they evaporated.  At least I waited until the official end of the game before tearing up my ticket.  Mike paid for lunch and we headed outside.

Las Vegas Day One: May 25, 2011

I didn't heed my own advice from my previous posting about what to plan and to expect in Las Vegas. Rather than pack my clothes in a carry-on, I packed a suitcase.  I'm pretty cheap when it comes to certain things and I usually can't justify spending $25 to check a bag.

However, my recent business trip to Kansas City made me realize the convenience of having one fewer item to bring through security. Plus, our most recent purchase from Melaleuca had a skin care kit that included sun screen. The tube is five ounces and too large for a baggie of toiletries. Rather than trying to squeeze three ounces into a TSA-approved container, I decided to pack a suitcase. This allowed me to bring the body wash, shampoo, toothpaste, and deodorant I purchased as well.

The other piece of advice I didn't follow was using my pocket cash strictly for gambling. I spent the morning before my flight doing a little house cleaning to give The Wife a head start before her mother arrived on Saturday. I didn't eat anything while at home and waited until I was at the airport to buy a small Lunchable and a bottle of green tea.  The total was $6.15 and I broke a ten. For those keeping count (like me), the trip had cost me $31.15. I'm going to try to keep a full accounting of my expenses.

My morning wasn't all about Swiffer, Febreze, and chinchilla poop.  I had reversed engineered my schedule, as is my nature, to calculate when I should leave for the airport.  I usually allow for plenty of cushion because I get seriously stressed about being at the airport in time for my flights. The dogs, Jack and Jill, were itching for another turn in the backyard and I let them out as I gathered my bags.

Once I was sure I had everything, I headed to the garage to put my luggage in the car. As I crossed the driveway, Jill came running from the front yard and my heart sunk. The two of them usually pair up for their antics, so I assumed Jack had also run to the front yard and Jill followed. They are good dogs for the most part, but now that the weather is warmer, they suffer from cabin fever and wanderlust. In truth, I'm surprised Jill came back so quickly. I think she knew they were being bad and she didn't want to upset the Alpha Male. Jack, however, went rogue.
The next 30 minutes were highly stressful. I went around the corner to where a full-size poodle lives, but the dog wasn't outside and I didn't see Jack. I knew I had to leave shortly and all sorts of desperate thoughts crossed my mind. What if Jack was hurt?  Or followed someone home? Or decided to go exploring?  I paraphrased a line from Speed:  you've got 20 minutes before leaving for the airport and your dog is AWOL. What do you do?  What DO you do?