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You know, the kind where you think about ways to totally change your day-to-day routine?  I had one of those days today.

I found myself thinking about those people you hear about who drop everything, give up their worldly possessions and move to some exotic tropical location, and become beach bums.

Man…. wouldn’t it be nice to be a beach bum?  Everything about being a beach bum sounds really good right now… except for the hurricanes.  We could probably get some money for our possessions (except the house in this market), throw it into some sort of account that won’t bottom out and move to a place where the cost of living is a fraction of Madison.  We could probably get by for a few years on it….

*SNAP*

Back to reality….  I’ll slug along with the rest of the middle class, hoping to retire sometime in the future with enough money to be able to afford an apartment, eat more than generic oatmeal and have some well educated kids to lean on when I run short on cash.

Our laser printer toner pretty much bit it this week, so it was time to take it to Cartridge World to refill it.  The cartridge isn’t too big so I figured it wouldn’t be a problem to run it to CW during lunch today.  I’ve been packing my lunch lately (which is SO much better than eating a sub every day) and my lunch bag takes up the storage under the seat.  So, I busted out the bungee cords and strapped the old cartridge to the back rack of my scooter.

All fine and dandy, until it comes time to park the scooter.  One thing I didn’t consider is, what to do with the stuff I need to run errands for?  I can’t just leave it strapped to the scooter all day… someone might walk off with a toner cartridge or whatever else I might have strapped to the back of the thing.  So, I lugged the cartridge along with my lunch bag and helmet into work.  It was quite the hand full.

So, that got me looking at ways to store more stuff on the little scooter.  How goofy would it look if I got some saddle bags for this thing?  It would make life a lot easier when I’m going to run errands.  My other option is to get a tail bag or trunk that goes onto the rear rack.  Which ever option I pick, there needs to be enough storage to hold a 12 pack of Miller High Life (official beer of Sour Face Ann) on the scooter when it is my turn to buy.

So, I’ve driven to work on the scooter two days in a row. Thankfully, the weather has cooperated.

It is pretty obvious that an approximately 300 lb scooter is no match to a 3000 lb car. Sitting at a light with cars surrounding me makes it very clear who owns the road. My first trip to work was pretty cool. It was a nice morning and there was little traffic. I got to the main drag going to work, where all of the cars converge onto a four lane road that is posted at 35 mph. Everyone does at least 40 mph once they get onto American Parkway. I went into this, knowing what to expect… hold on and peg it! So, I did just that. I turned left onto American Parkway and pegged it. It is slightly downhill and before I knew it I was pushing 50 with a big SUV hot on my tail. Thankfully, I turn left shortly after getting on American Parkway, so it wasn’t too terrifying.

The ride home was a different story. The same stretch of road was pretty tame, oddly enough. It got more interesting once I got on a side road which merges from four lanes to two lanes. There are some train tracks right where the road changes from 4 to 2 lanes. I picked the curb line because it was a better crossing. Right when I did that, 3 vans went flying past me on the left, leaving almost no room for me to get back into the lane. The speed limit is 30 there and I was doing about 35. They passed me going about 40+. The rest of the trip home was cake.

I learned my lessons from yesterday and applied them today. I still pegged it and didn’t get tailgated. I took the middle of the road over the tracks and nobody passed me on the right.

Today was a much better experience than yesterday (and yesterday was a LOT of fun!). It doesn’t look like the weather is going to cooperate for the rest of the week. I need to get some rain gear for those typical Wisconsin weather days where it goes from sunny and nice to a torrential down poor in 1/2 an hour.

Oh, one more thing. 26 miles and I only burned about 1/8 th of a gallon of gas!

One night, I was talking to my old friend Nat on the phone.  He mentioned that he was “tooling” around Kewanee IL on a scooter, getting about 100 mpg and loving every minute of it.  After that conversation, I got to thinking about all the money we could possibly save if I stopped driving my truck to work every day (getting 19 mpg at best).  Even better, we’d be doing our part to cut back on oil consumption.  So, I started doing some research.

2 months later, this is sitting in my garage!

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Chad (Deb’s step-brother) is getting married in a few weeks and I went to his bachelor party this weekend.  Ben (the best man) organized a 4 wheeling trip to central Wisconsin.  I’ve never been 4 wheeling before and have only driven one once before, and that was just around Gary’s house a few times.  Gary and Sharon let Bryan and I borrow their ATVs for the weekend, which was really nice!

I was a little nervous about how I would do on one of those things.  Bryan and I ran up there early on Friday so I could get some time in before Saturday hit when Chad and his friends, who have done this before, would be ripping it up on the trails.  Bryan took it easy on me at first, but then he started cranking it up.  We went about 30 miles or so on Friday and by then, I was starting to feel pretty good about it.

After that, we hit the play area, which has some big mud holes, jumps, etc.  Bryan and I went in there and got a little messy.  How messy?  Check these pictures out!

The next day we put on 60 miles and pushed it a little harder.  At the end of the day, we all had a blast and nobody got seriously hurt.  I think we were all a little sore, but none the worse for wear.

July 5th is the annual gig in the park across the street from our house in Madison. I have no idea how many of these we’ve done over the years. My band (still no name… we’re not creative enough) plays on or around the July 4th weekend every year with at least 3 other bands.

Mike & Tom (brothers) were in a 50’s, 60’s, 70’s band called Stormin’ Normin’ when they were in high school and college. The singer and bass player for Stormin’ Normin’ organize a reunion every year and invite us (Mike & Tom are in the band I’m in) and the bass players band to play every year. It is a big family event. Mike & Tom have about 1,000 immediate family members in the Madison area. The park fills up with kids and people every year.

If you’re not doing anything on the 5th of July (afternoon), come on out to Elvehjem Park and join the fun.

Today, Grandma Judy & Grandma Irene visited. We took them to the Olbrich Spring Flower Show. It’s on until Mar 23. If you want it to feel and smell like Spring, I suggest a trip. Also, if you want to warm up during a cold day, I suggest a tour in the observatory when it’s sunny out. It felt like summer upstairs. I was carrying Kendra in our ergo carrier. By the time we were back downstairs, she had little sweat beads all over her face.

Eric had fun smelling all the spring flowers and throwing Grandma Judy’s spare change into the fish ponds, and Kendra slept during her first visit to the gardens!

I’ll post some pictures when I get them downloaded from the camera.

Well, it isn’t official yet, but I figured I might as well post something about it.

I’m going to be teaching a class at MATC (Madison Area Technical College) this fall! I applied early in the summer and they just contacted me a few weeks ago about teaching an intro to networking class. So, I decided to give it a shot. It is every Thursday from 5:30 - 9:00 pm.  I’ve never taught a class before, and have always wondered what it was about.  Now is my chance to check it out.

The nice thing is MATC gives me everything I need to teach the class.  Their philosophy is to find people with industry experience and teach them how to teach rather than take a teacher and try to teach them the industry.  I like that!

I’m looking forward to giving it a shot.  Hopefully the students and other faculty will take it easy on me my first semester.

So I was checking out my scar and noticed something strange.  I managed to get a mirror setup properly so I could see the scar and noticed that there was a stitch sticking out!  I grabbed the tweezers and pulled on it a little, and to my surprise, it wouldn’t come out!  So, I called Deb in to have a go at it.  She pulled pretty hard and it came out a little bit, but not all of the way.  I tried again and ended up finding another one!  So, now what!?  I hope they will work their way out.  Our guess is they are the internal stitches that the doc put in.

I went into my regular doctor today and had the stitches removed.  The ER doctor did such a good job - he made sure that my hair (what little is left) was safely sewn in place as well.  The doc had to cut some of my hair to get the last few stitches out.

So, according to Deb, there are little holes where the stitches used to be.  I’ve gotta go get a mirror and check it out.