Gone Fishin Part I

Between the July 4th weekend and last night, Emily and I have made three trips. First, over the July 4th weekend, we went to Emily's family cabin near Hancock, Wisconsin.

Never heard of Hancock? I hope not. There's nothing to do there but farm. Or hang out at a cabin on some land near Hancock that your wife's family farmed over 100 years ago. I chose the latter.

We went with our friends Zander and Julie. We were also graced by the company of Emily's sister and husband and their two sons.

There was a perfect storm of photography mayhem the night of the 4th. My brother-in-law just happens to be Minnesota's best photographer and the light was perfect for taking pictures, at least according to the Mr. Minnesota of Photography.

So while we played with whiffle balls, Ben played with his camera.



Well, we humans played whiffle ball. Pancho chased a tennis ball.



Julie has also uploaded some more of Ben's photos on her blog. Click here to see them. Ben is such a good photographer that it is worth your time, even if you have no idea who Zander and Julie are.

Top Five Things I Learned During Trip #1
5. It is legal to shoot off pretty much any kind of firework in Wisconsin.
4. Pancho is terrified of most of these fireworks. Especially ones that look and sound like professional fireworks. And are fired off non-stop for 45 minutes. Less than 500 feet from our beachfront.
3. The one place Pancho feels safest when he's away from home is the backseat of my car. Actually I already knew this. But what I didn't know is he sheds like crazy when terrified.



2. Zander and Julie love s'mores as much as Ben loves building a bonfire as tall as he is. In fact Zander and Julie love s'mores so much, they will make them even while the fire is taller then Ben. Ben is taller than I am, meaning that was one tall, hot fire Zander and Julie broiled their s'mores in.
1. Leinenkugel's makes a summer shandy, which I liked a lot more than the self-proclaimed experts (snobs?) at Beer Advocate. Of course those guys have some sort of a grading rubric with its own language.

Here's my rubric for scoring a beer:
Does it go down singing hymns?
If the answer is YES, drink more.
If the answer is NO. Finish the beer anyway and do not order or buy it again.

I found Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy went down signing hymns. Some people less secure in their masculinity may slap the "girlie" label on this beer, but I don't care. I am comfortable enough to hold a bottle of it next to me. It's not like it's a Zima or something.

Coming Soon: Our trip to California.

Bachelor Party

Emily has gone off and got her one of them booklearning degrees and an important job. As a result she travels a lot for work. She was gone from Monday to Friday last week and left today for another work trip and won't get back until Friday.

Needless to say I miss her. So does Pancho. I think the cats even miss her, the same way I missed bugging my older sisters when I was a bored eight year-old.

But I am proud of myself on several fronts. The house is still standing up. I washed the dishes tonight and cooked a meal for myself that included vegetables. I still get out and exercise. I even ran a pretty tough workout tonight. Two back to back sets of something I call the Texas Fartlek. I could tell you what it is, but then you would know my trade secrets. You know the secrets that allow me to run with no shirt or shame, but with a beer belly, pale skin, and a bald head. The Texas Fartlek kills your pride.

What is crazy is before Emily and I got married I was cooking all the time, mostly vegetarian. Lots of beans, rice, and salad. I ran pretty reglularly all by myself. I didn't need races or friends to help me along. Maybe I wasn't running as much, but when I did, I just ran for the hell of it.

Perhaps it was a matter of survival. Review the summary of my week last week. If I lived this way on a regular basis for the past ten years, my heart would have given up on me sometime between some pick-up baskteball game I played two years ago and this morning when I ran up the stairs at work.

Sunday Dropped Emily off at the airport. Went home and watched the Twins on TV with a can of Coke. Then biked over to my friends house where he grilled brats and burgers for dinner. I drank two or three of his beers and gave him a PBR and beef jerkey for Father's Day. His wife also served some salads she bought at Lund's. I was in bed by 11:00 p.m. This ended up being my healthiest night of the bachelor week.

Monday I went to the grocery store and bought fruit, believe it or not. Then I went for a short run, came home and finally got around to eating around 9 p.m. I had some of those salt and pepper chips I blogged about earlier for an appetizer and then an entire frozen pizza as my entree. Oh yeah, and a can of PBR. I stayed up past 11:00 watching the first 70 minutes of Once Upon A Time In America.

Tuesday Fancy Kirk and I ran a somewhat hard workout followed by Jucy Lucys at Shamrock's on W. 7th in St. Paul. We had two beers while watching the Celtics/Lakers game. We knew a third beer would park us on our ass. So I went home and watched the next 70 minutes of Once Upon A Time In America. I had some more of those salt and pepper chips and was glad I am too lazy to go the garage fridge once the movie is on. Otherwise that third beer would have been pretty tempting. I then read unitl about midnight.

Wednesday I had a Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon meeting. I drank a Coke and had three slices of pizza. This would end up being an appetizer (read on). No Handle Chad was at the meeting and chastised me for not blogging. I came home and it was too late to run. But it wasn't too late to walk the dog, eat another frozen pizza, and stay up past 11:00 finishing Once Upon A Time In America and watch some of the special features. Two beers were also involved.

Thursday I don't work Fridays, so I was out until 1 a.m. and in bed at 2 a.m. I went to The Hexagon Bar with my friend where I took in four bands and three beers. I actually had a healthy risotto primavera at the Birchwood Cafe, but this all has to be offset by how late I was up. I did get a run in and rode my bike to The Hexagon and Birchwood. When I got back home around 1:30 a.m. I polished off those salt and pepper potato chips.

One week does not an unhealthy life make. And I know there is no way I could lived like this for more than maybe ten days.

But this summary does answer my question, as to why I used to be on such regular good behavior before I got married. I didn't have a choice. I think left to my own devices I would find my feet again. But as unpracticed bachelor, I flail around a bit and end up eating potato chips at 1:30 in the morning. But this week has gotten off to a better start than last week.

For example, it is time for bed.

Random Question #890321

Do runners drink more alcohol than the average American?

The Deets already posted about a pizza party Emily and I had at my house last Thursday. Click here for his report on The Battle of Longfellow Pizzas.

We had all this pizza at my house as part of the "closing ceremonies" to an annual workout we run on a track near my house. So there were 12 of us over at my house after the run. After everyone left, I gathered, rinsed, and put all the empty bottles together.


The close observer will note a few Coke and Gatorade empties, but also an empty champaign bottle, to go along with all those beer bottles.

So as I was cleaning, I thought about my non-running friends here in the Twin Cities, my college friends (those who don't run anymore or played other sports), my family, and my high school friends. If you put all those people together, I don't know if all those people combined would have had as many beers as the 12 of us did on that Thursday night.

And this was a very tame social event. No one was even close to being out-of-control. It's just that we all enjoy drinking beer.

So I'm not suggesting runners are drunks. In fact, in all my years of running and knowing runners, I personally know of only one person who actually had a drinking problem. And that was in college. And no formal diagnosis was made. And that dude was never going to be a scoring runner on our team, in part because of his drinking.

So beer is at the center of most running circles, and I don't think it is unhealthy or bad. But I do wonder, is this true for other subcultures? Chess enthusiasts? Bloggers? Cartoonists?

Winter Magic

Minnesotans, I have found, believe the ways to stay warm in the winter are more fun than the ways to stay cool in the summer. Of course, I have a clan of Texas relatives who will tell you otherwise. Floating down the river, cold beer, swimming at the lake... Sure all of these things are fun. But I am learning to enjoy the winters here in Minnesota (ten years later) and have found that there are a lot of fun ways to stay warm. Best of all, most require you to be physically active. Consider...


Squirrel hunting.




Running.




Hiking.




Bird watching.




Biking.




Hockey/Skating/Broomball/Boot Hockey/Any Other Ice Sport That Requires Balance Skills That My Cerebellum Is Obviously Incapable of Providing




Ice Fishing On A Frozen Lake (notice, I said most, not ALL activities to stay warm require physical activity). I blew this photo up, hence the poor focus. For those of you not from Minnesota, that big blue auger is how you punch a hole in the ice so you can fish. Seems like heavy machinery to operate, considering how much beer drinking you do while ice fishing.




Snowmobiles. Okay, I know these are cars on a bridge, but it's the closest picture I had of snowmobiles. And really, aren't cars and snowmobiles really one and the same? They are to me.




Cross Country Skiing and Snowshoeing




Playing with Your Toys. Be it a football, snow softball (those crazy kids and their false sense of invinvibility), snowballs, or in Pancho's case, a shitload of stuffed animals. He has this habit of taking one toy outside each time I let him out to chase squirrels (real or imagined). Then he dumps the toy on the deck, and leaves it there. As a result, by the end of the week, all of his toys have piled up in the same spot outside. He then wanders around inside all week, wondering where the heck all his favorite toys went. Dogs are kind of stupid.





And last but not least, staying at home...




...and drinking beer. Did I mention that not ALL warm activities require PHYSICAL activity. One man's winter den is an ice fishing shanty, while another man's is a room with a TV, a wife, and a DVD player.

So, what is your favorite way to stay warm in the cold?