Thomas's Real World Adventures

January 2012

2012-02-04T12:02:00.000-08:00

January 2012

On the 7th, I went to Milwaukee with Terese to meet some friends from high school. Julia lives there and Alexandra and Stefanie visited her. It was nice to hang out with three high school friends I don't get to see much anymore. It was also very odd to me to hang out with a group of four women after going to Michigan Tech - we barely had four women there total! They all ganged up and picked on me too, but I could handle that! We went to the Lakefront Brewery which is a famous brewery in downtown Milwaukee. I also went back to the Milwaukee public market and had some oysters - delicious!

Tugger the cat had his 21st birthday on January 10th! We're all still amazed this cat is still around. Aside from the blood pressure medication, spotty blindness in his right eye and deafness, he's doing fine! He still walks around, howls, eats hard food, and uses the litter box just fine. I expect him to be around for a while still. FYI, he would not drink the beer.

I also went back to the pistol range in Deerfied with some friends. We rented a Desert Eagle, which is a .50 caliber pistol. The thing was huge. It kicked a ton when you shot it and it made your hand sting, like if you were to swing a baseball bat and hit a tree or something. Each bullet cost $1.50, which is more expensive than my hunting rifle.

On the 16th, I stayed at my friend JZ's place downtown for a night to watch his dawgz while he was out of town (JZ's two dogs are always referred to and spelled "dawgz"). That night, we got a minor snow storm (a dusting by Houghton standards). On my way out of town the next morning I saw one person get rear-ended and 2-3 spin out. The Beltline was super packed and it took me almost an hour to get the dawgz dropped off at the boarder. Shortly thereafter, I was headed back to my apartment to get ready for work and, while stopped at a stoplight, I got rear-ended! The driver that hit me couldn't stop in the snow. No one was hurt and our cars just had some scrapes and scratches.

I also joined a recreational broomball league here in Madison! It's not quite like broomball at Michigan Tech because they use the official brooms, which are wood with a little plastic handle. It's harder to hit the ball with those because they're not like the clubs we used at Tech. It was pretty fun to play broomball again though! It is a different style of play than at Michigan Tech!

For restaurant week (a week where many fancy restaurants in Madison offer a sampler menu for $25), Terese and I went to Samba. This is a Brazilian-themed restaurant where there is a buffet for appetizers/first course and then the gaucho-costumed waiters walk around with skewers of meat that they carve right on to your plate! It was a fun place and had really tasty grilled pork and steak.

I also organized a short winter camping trip with some buddies that are hard-core enough to go winter camping! We drove out to Blue Mounds state park (about 1/2 an hour away) and hiked out to a campsite in the dark. We set up some tents and finally, after at least a half hour of trying, I got a fire going in the fire pit we dug out of the snow, using wood and pine needles, that had been under the snow! It was a nice little camping trip and was very scenic too (Blue Mounds is one of the highest points in southern Wisconsin). It only got down to about 20 degrees at night and all six of us survived!

Last Thursday we had a pie cookoff at work, just for fun. There were two categories: sweet and savory. I entered a new recipe in the savory category: squirrel pie! I made it out of four squirrels I had hunted around here. I entitled the pie "Chicken of the Tree Pot Pie" and clearly labeled it as organic, free range, and locally sourced! Surprisingly, people ate it even after finding out it was squirrel - there were no leftovers! I won the consolation prize - some beans to use while baking pie crusts. The picture shows the uncooked pie before adding the top crust.

December 2011

2011-12-31T20:13:00.000-08:00

December 2011

Complete Set of Photos

December was a pretty exciting month!

Finally, after years of trying, I was able to try lutefisk! Lutefisk is a Scandinavian dish that is cod soaked in lye and cooked. It is essentially gelatinous fish. It's a very Norwegian thing to eat and many churches in Stoughton (a town nearby with a strong Norwegian heritage) have lutefisk dinners. I hit up one of these and had a sampler plate. It actually was not bad at all! It's nothing I'd eat all the time, but it's not as bad as people said. I sat at a table with a bunch of grandparent-aged people and socialized with them - it was fun!

After the dinner, I went to Milwaukee to attend a party that Julia (friend from high school) was throwing - it was a cheap wine tasting! Everyone had to bring a bottle of cheap wine which we put in paper bags to hide the kind of wine. We taste tested and voted on the winners. My two entries did not win :(.

I traveled to Reading, PA for a few days as well. Pronounced "Redding," it's the home of the Reading Railroad from Monopoly (pronounced "Redding Railroad" - I learned something new!) I didn't take any pictures because it was dark when I was out and about. I did get to sample some Yuengling beer - that's the oldest brewery in the country (Minhas in Monroe, WI is the 2nd oldest). The flight back was another travel adventure - our flight was delayed so we had to fly to Milwaukee and rent a car back to Madison instead! The funny thing is we made it Madison before our originally scheduled flight made it in!

On Saturday the 10th, Terese had a flute recital at the Wisconsin Governor's Mansion in Maple Bluff, the ritzy part of town. It was a nice recital and I got to see the residence all decorated for Christmas. The governor was not there (that I saw), but I did get to see his man cave in the basement!

Tugger went back to the vet on the 14th to get his blood pressure checked. The pictures shows the little cuff they put on his front leg, just like a human would get! His blood pressure is normal again, his kidneys are doing better, but he has spotty blindness in his right eye. Overall, he's doing great for a cat that's almost 21 years old! (The vet tech didn't want to be identified!)

On the 17th I headed out to the pistol range in Deerfield with some of my friends. I'm definitely improving!

One day, I came home from work, opened the garage door, and saw the fire alarm going off in my building! I wisely decided to park on the street until I figured out what was going on. A bunch of my neighbors were standing around so I chatted with them. It turns out the carpet cleaning crew was there and accidentally bumped the alarm, so there was not actually a fire. However, a neighbor had to call 911 to get the alarm turned off, so we could hear a siren approaching as we socialized. A firetruck arrived and a fireman and firelady came out and went in to the building, all suited up and one even had an ax ready to go! After a few minutes they turned the alarm off and we got to go back inside.

I went back to Mason for Christmas on the 22nd. Anthony, my buddy from Tech, arranged a pheasant hunt for us in Chelsea on the 23rd. It was me, Anthony, Bob (from Tech), Bob Sr., and Carlos (Anthony's coworker). It was a really fun trip! Out of 25 pheasants we bought, we shot 17 of them and split them up afterwards. I got three nice pheasants out of the deal! It was nice to see old college buddies again.

Being home for Christmas was nice too. I got to visit some old high school friends, visit with family, go to retiree coffee at 3 PM at McDonald's, visit relatives in Lapeer, and just sit around and relax a little bit. It's funny - every time I go home, Mason has changed so much, but it's also changed so little!

November 2011

2011-11-30T12:48:00.000-08:00

November 2011

Complete Set of Photos

Well, not too much exciting happened in November. Most of the excitement was hunting-related! Otherwise, I just carried on like normal - watching some Red Wings games, going to a few US-Madison hockey games, and hanging out with friends.

I went with my pheasant hunting buddy Andy to a public hunting area in Avoca, WI (about an hour west of Madison). This place was interesting in that you could hunt hen pheasants, not just the roosters. I ended up getting one hen. A hen is not as brightly colored as a rooster and only a little smaller.

I also went back up north to my aunt and uncle's place for the gun deer hunt. I sat out in the same blind as the last three years. I saw a spikehorn on Sunday (a small, two-point buck) but I didn't shoot hIm because it's a small buck. I did see a bunch of does, fawns (including this little guy who got really close to me) and some squirrels and grouse. I didn't see any other bucks though, so I didn't take a deer.

I'm not beaten yet though - down here in Madison there are two more deer seasons: an anterless-only season the weekend of December 8th and another doe/buck season from Christmas Eve to January 8. So, I'll find some public hunting land and sit out there for a few hours and see what I can find. This will be tricky because you can't use bait in the southern area of the state and I haven't had a chance to scope out the area so I have no idea if there are even deer that live around there.

Everything else in Madison is about the same. Tugger is still alive and doing well (he's due for a blood pressure check soon), the weather is getting much colder (but it hasn't snowed much yet), and all of the protester/Recall Walker people are out in full force collecting signatures.

October 2011

2011-10-31T18:42:00.000-07:00

October 2011

Complete Set of Photos

October was a pretty fun month! I got to do some fun stuff during my free time on the weekends and also got to go on two trips to exotic locations!

I went with my buddies Gil and Shaun down to the DNR shooting range in Lafayette County. I got my deer rifle all sighted in and ready to go for deer season. Gil had a brand new .22 that we started to get sighted in as well. I tested out three different bullets and it was cool to see the differences in how they shoot - the Winchester 150 grain bullets were spot-on (and what I plan to use), the Federal 150 grain were OK, and the Federal 180 grain hit the target about 4" below the bullseye!

On the 5th I got to go on a trip to Alaska! I was able to take a vacation day while I was up there to see some of the sights of the Anchorage area. I was in Alaska for just a few days, but I liked it already - it reminded me up the UP with a big city. It was not really cold - maybe in the 40's or so, and the amount of daylight/darkness was similar enough to MI/WI at that time of year. What I thought was great was in the morning on the traffic report on the radio, they had reports of accidents, traffic congestion, and a moose in an intersection!

Anchorage is a big city with skyscrapers just like Madison and Lansing. What was really cool was that behind out hotel was a city park/pond area with a sign warning people about agressive beavers! Apparantly the beavers that live in the pond get really terretorial and have attacked dogs that went swimming in the water too close to the dams! I could also see pink salmon swimming in the streams right there in the middle of the city - it was really cool!

I had a whole day off while I was up there, as did my buddy Nijay. We climbed Flattop Mountain which is southeast of Anchorage. It was super windy that day It was really scenic and had some great views of the city. head out on the Seward Highway south of Anchorage, which went right along the ocean. We didn't see any whales though. We headed though a really long tunnel to get to Whittier, AK which was a very quiet town at the moment (we were during the tourist off-season). We went by the Portage Glacier as well (which was much bigger than the glacier I saw in Wyoming!), but it was raining at that point and it was really foggy in areas. I also got to check out a marsh south of Anchorage where you can sometimes see moose, but I didn't see any this time. For food, I sampled gravlax, baked salmon, salmon jerky, king crab legs, and Alaska beer!

When the work was done and right before I flew out, I checked out Thunderbird Falls north of Anchorage. That was a very nice waterfall and a nice ~1 mile hike through the woods.

I went directly from Alaska to Greensboro, North Carolina for a few days. I enjoyed some excellent barbecue at a small family restaurant in Lexington (a city famous for barbecue). It was shredded pork with a tangy vinegar sauce, not the thick sauce you may be thinking of. It was tasty. I also got to check out a Carolina Hurricanes NHL game on Wednesday night against the Boston. It was nice to go to an NHL game because Wisconsin doesn't have a team and the closest ones would be in Chicago or St. Paul. There was a really obnoxious and drunk Boston fan behind me who got ejected right at the end of the game!

October 15, the day after I got back to Madison from North Carolina, was also the first day of the pheasant season in Wisconsin. I went out with Keith, who I met during pheasant season last year. We didn't any the first day, which was quite windy, but I did get a nice rooster on the second day! I've been busy the next few weekends so I haven't been out pheasant hunting again yet, but I plan to soon!

Terese arranged a visit to a pumpkin patch near Lodi with us and two of her friends from grad school. It was a family business like Rowe's Pumpkin Patch. I enjoyed the corn maze, which I have never actually done before! We also carved some pumpkins!

On the 21st, my Dad and Angie came to Madison to visit. They had never been out yet since I moved there. We did some standard tourist stuff (I showed them where I work, we walked around State Street, took a tour of the state Capitol building, checked out a few of the local breweries, etc). I even arranged their lodgings at a hotel and worked with the manager to short-sheet their bed before they got there!

Fun with Facial Hair!

2011-10-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

September/October 2011

(See September Photos)

During the camping trip in Wyoming last month, I never bothered to shave (most backpackers don't). When I got back to civilization, I had a pretty good shadow going and thought "I'll let this grow for a bit and see how silly I look with a beard!" I also decided to try various mustache/beard combinations. Here are the results:

"The Full Beard" - I let this grow in for about 3 weeks.

"Chops" This looked really bad and only lasted for a few minutes.

"Goatee" I kept this around for about two weeks.

"Fu Manchu" I kept this for a few days.

Creepy mustache, a.k.a. "Molestache" I kept this for a few days.

"The John Waters"

September 2011

2011-09-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

September 2011

Complete Set of Photos

I tried to fit in a lot of fun outdoor activities this month before it starts getting cold and snowy. Overall, it's been a pretty good month.

Early on, I went to the Taste of Madison with some friends. This is an event on the Capitol Square where a bunch of restaurants from the area offer small portions of their food for a couple of bucks each. You get the chance to sample a bunch of different places. I enjoyed some tasty shrimp, crayfish, Thai food, and more!

I also went with Gil and James to a trap shooting range in Sauk City. I had never officially been trap shooting before, so one of the range guys had to show us how to work the equipment. This was a good time and some good practice for pheasant season. I need to do some more practice though!

For my birthday, Terese made me an excellent fish dinner and fabulous birthday cake and we went to four different breweries! We went to the Minhas Brewery in Monroe for a tour, which was neat. We got to see the bottling line and everything. Apparently, this brewery is the 10th largest in the country. They contract brew and have a bunch of different name brands which is why you've probably never heard of them before. We also checked out Gray's Tied House in Verona, the New Glarus Oktoberfest, and the Vintage Brewery in Madison. I took a nice nap and had a good time!

On they way back from New Glarus, Terese wanted to find a letterbox in an old railroad tunnel. I had no idea this tunnel existed. It's actually part of the Ice Age Trail too, so I would've made it to this tunnel eventually. It's over 1000 feet long and is built on a curve so you can't see end-to-end and we had to bring flashlights. It was like a long, flat cave! I had to climb up the wall a little bit to find the letterbox.

James and I also went to the last Sunday home Brewers game the day after my birthday. The played the Florida Marlins - I think that's the third time I've seen the Marlins play. The Brewers won and are now in the playoffs. It was a dreary, rainy day so Miller Park had the roof closed.

For work, I got to go back to Michigan Tech to help recruit at the career fair. I didn't have much time in Houghton, but it was great to be back. I could "feel" the UP as soon as I drove in! I picked up some KBC beer and an official UP Pasty.

Montana/Wyoming & Wind River Range 2011

2011-08-31T20:55:00.000-07:00

August 20-28, 2011

Complete Set of Photos

For my big, adventurous camping trip this year, I went to the Wind River Range in Wyoming with my buddy Dave from Tech, with base came in Montana. It was really nice to get out to Montana again. I know Dave from college and I also have to have relatives to visit (my Aunt Laurel, Uncle Bill, and cousins Devan and Samantha) that I don't get to see very often.

For the backpacking portion of my vacation, Dave and I went down to Wyoming to the Wind River Range (above) to do some fly fishing for trout. This area was recommended by Orvis guy in Madison and it looked like a really nice area. The map for the wilderness area was really nice too - it had markers for trailheads, ranger stations, fishing accesses, and... microbreweries of all things!

On the way down from Belgrade (near Bozeman, MT), we drove past the famous Madison River in Montana and then turned south and went through Idaho. I had never been to Idaho, so it was cool to see some highlights - like potato farms! We could also see the west side of the Grand Teton mountains from the road as well.

We hiked from the trailhead to Eklund Lake the first night (about 5 miles) and then, the next day, we went to Island Lake (about another 5 miles or so). This was a really cool lake way up in the mountains at about 10000 feet. Dave and I fished in this lake and a few smaller lakes on the way to and from Island lake throughout our trip (Little Seneca Lake had some trout in it). Dave caught about a half dozen trout in the mountains, but I only had a few strikes and was skunked.

On Tuesday, we went on a day hike to Indian Pass. This is a pass directly on the continental divide and is about 12000 feet (the highest mountain in Wyoming, Gannet Peak, was nearby at over 13000 feet). Our map said it would be about a 9 mile round trip... the map and reality disagreed and we actually went about 14 miles that day! The trail and the pass were really cool though. We saw some awesome scenery - there was still snow even at this time of year and we could see the runoff melting and flowing into cold, blue lakes. On the east side of the continental divide there were even some glaciers! I had never seen a glacier before (the difference between a glacier and a pile of snow is that the glacier slowly moves).

The last night, since the fishing was not very good in the lakes and they got really deep fast (it's hard to get deep fish on a fly rod with floating line!), we decided to hoof it all the way back to the truck in one day (about 10 miles) and then drive to another campsite right near the Green River, fish the Green River for a little bit in the morning, and then drive back to Belgrade in the afternoon. In the morning on the way out, there were two helicopters that were flying back and forth. On the way out of the mountains, they were towing what looked like airplane wreckage on a cable below the helicopter. I looked online and a plane did crash in the area about two weeks prior, so my guess is they were just now getting the wreckage out.

On the trail back out, we met two guys (Andy and Ted) from Texas and socialized with them while hiking out. They invited us down to the Wind River Brewing Company in Pinedale and kindly treated us to dinner and beers! It was very nice to meet some friendly backpackers and I would not mind meeting them on the trail again someday!

Ted and Andy suggested a good campsite on the river, so we stayed there. That morning, I caught my one and only trout in Wyoming - a small brown trout. That one fish cost me $70 in fishing licenses! So, in conclusion, this was a really good backpacking trip but the fishing was not as good as expected.

After leaving the Wind River Range area, Dave and I started to drive back through Montana. We took the route through Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, stopping for lunch in Jackson, WY on the way. Jackson was a cool town, but very touristy. There were some arches downtime made with collected elk antlers!

Grand Teton National Park had some really cool views of the mountains. We stopped and fished on the Snake River for a little while, but I didn't catch anything there either. Then, it was on to Yellowstone! There's a ton of stuff to see in Yellowstone, but I wanted to be back in Montana at a decent hour that night and there are a ton of tourists driving around, so we didn't spend too much time in Yellowstone other than to drive through. We did, however, stop and check out Old Faithful! It was really cool and the geyser went off just a few minutes behind schedule. I had never seen boiling water come out of the ground around the geysers before either! On the way out of Yellowstone, I saw a few elk and a buffalo.

Back in Montana, I spent two days hanging out around Belgrade with relatives. I went fishing on the Gallatin River near their house and caught two small brown trout. The next day, I went with my Uncle Bill down to a different stretch of the Gallatin and some of the feeder streams where we each caught a couple of trout - I got three rainbows and a large brook trout (that had a smaller trout inside of it!). They were delicious and tasted like victory and success.

My aunt and uncle also hooked me up with a ride in an ultralight piloted by one of their friends. That was really fun! It was like riding a motorcycle in the sky because you had the wind on you and could just look right over the side down to the ground. It was really fun to chase deer around the fields and, because this was a small town where the pilot knew a bunch of people, we waved to farmers and other people on the ground.

The next morning, it was time to go back to Wisconsin. Randomly, I ran in to another buddy from Tech (and Boy Scouts back in Michigan actually) in the Minneapolis airport and we chatted a bit before I got on my flight back to Madison. On this flight, I landed a seat in first class! So, I enjoyed luxurious leg room, a wide seat, pillow, blanket, and complimentary adult beverages for a whole 35 minutes back to Madison.

Overall, the trip was very fun and a great success. When I got back, I found that a man from Michigan had been killed by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone either on Wednesday or Thursday (Thursday was when I was in Yellowstone). Last year, a man from Michigan was killed by a grizzly north of Yellowstone not far from where Dave and I were backpacking, while we were backpacking. Men from Michigan better watch out - I'll be in Montana twice next summer!

August 2011

2011-08-31T20:26:00.000-07:00

August 2011

Complete Set of Photos

On the 5th and 6th, I went camping for a night with my buddy Eric. Since we were going on a one-night weekend camping trip, we just stayed in a state park (something I normally don't like to do because there's too many people around). We went to Blue Mound State Park, which was a very short drive from Madison. It's one of the highest points in Wisconsin and had a really cool view of the surrounding area! The next day, we drove to Devils Lake State Park, about an hour north of Madison. This is a really cool, very popular park that fills up every weekend for camping (we didn't even try to get a campsite there). It seems like half of Illinois was there!

Devils Lake is known for the really cool bluffs and rock formations surrounding the lake (pictured). I wore my full backpack to get ready for my Wyoming trip (see the other blog post!) and huffed and puffed my way up two 500' bluffs with really cool views. After a hot and sweaty day of hiking, we jumped in the lake for a swim, which was really nice.

On the 13th, again with Eric, I went to the Great Taste of the Midwest beer festival in Madison! This is a very popular beer festival held every year at a city park in Madison right on Lake Monona (above). Tickets are hard to get - most people camp out all night waiting in line (seriously - I saw tents by the liquor store down the road) or, like me, hope to win a mail lottery which takes minimal effort to enter. I lucked out and got two tickets. There were ~150 breweries from various Midwestern states representing and they brought about 500 kinds of beer. I got to sample a bunch of new, interesting styles in my fancy tasting glass! It as a good time, except for the last hour where it rained. I enjoyed the festival but there's no way I'd wait in line all night to go. Maybe if I win the mail lottery again next year I'd go again!

The next day, Terese and I went canoeing on Lake Wingra. The plan was to go fishing for some bluegill, crappie, or perch, but the wind put an end to that plan. The rental place where I got the canoe didn't have an anchor, so as soon as we stopped paddling we were just blown to the south shore of the lake. The lake was filled almost to the top with weeds, so it was really hard to fish anyway. We got frustrated after a few minutes and just gave up fishing and paddled around sightseeing. After we returned the canoe, we just fished from shore for a while. Terese caught way more and bigger fish than I did (the feisty bass I'm holding was hers).

The night of August 14/15 is the day that all of the leases for the college student housing downtown expires. They have to be out of the apartments on the 14th and can move in to the new apartments on the 15th. This is known as an interesting time to drive around downtown because there are tons of old couches and mattresses being thrown away and, though I didn't see it, apparently some people who are homeless for a night will pile their stuff in a parking lot and sleep on top of it for a night!

I also went out to Montana and Wyoming for a week. Those escapades are detailed in a separate blog entry.

July 2011

2011-07-31T17:49:00.000-07:00

July 2011

Complete Set of Photos

Wow... lots of fun stuff happened in July! I got to go camping for the first time this summer, enjoyed some smoking hot and humid weather, went to the company picnic, had a quick weekend family vacation in Chicago, and checked out the Dane County Fair.

For the 4th of July weekend, I was getting super antsy because I hadn't been camping yet this summer. I did my research online and settled on the Porcupine Lake Wilderness area near Drummond, WI (way up north, near Lake Superior and Minnesota). The plan was to leave work on Friday, drive up, camp three nights, fish for some trout in Eighteenmile Creek, and come back to Madison on Monday, July 4. Plans changed somewhat!

On Friday, I decided it would probably be better to simply drive up north on Saturday morning. I wanted to avoid the traffic that I would probably encounter and I decided I could just go fishing near home that night and have just as much fun. I went to Badger Mill Creek right there in Verona (which is not listed by the DNR as a trout stream) and I caught a nice brown trout! He went straight to my freezer that night and I left for Up North on Saturday morning.

When I finally made it to the wilderness area (about a 5-6 hour drive), I turned down the dirt road and started my way to the parking area. I had to squeeze my car through some blown over trees that had been minimally chainsawed. I got about two miles in and was totally blocked by a downed tree. As I turned around to find a different route, I came across some forest rangers cutting up downed trees. The one ranger told me some really serious straight-line winds went through the last night. When I finally got to my camping spot, some people there I met (also from Madison) told me they left Friday, it took them 8 hours to get there because of traffic and the guy sat in his tent the whole night listening to trees fall and hoping one wouldn't fall on his tent! So, it was really good I waited another day to drive up there!

I parked my car near Eighteenmile Creek with the goal of finding a place to camp near the creek where I could fish for some trout the next day. It turns out this creek is super small and in a really thick, swampy area that would be impossible to fly fish. So, I gave up on that and walked to the next parking area where I met a guy who gave me some tips (and a beer!). I found a much nicer camping spot right by Porcupine Lake and just stayed there for two nights.

It was a really nice area, but there were no trout streams right around there. I did catch a bunch of bluegill and a crappie in the lake (I ate one bluegill) and I went fishing in Porcupine Creek to see if there were any trout there (I caught a ton of little fathead minnows and shiners, but no trout). So, that was a bust. It didn't rain or anything and it was very relaxing to sit and read a book and relax in the quiet woods. A porcupine walked by too!

On my way back to Madison on Monday, I stopped at the Namekagon River that went along the road to see if I could catch some trout there. Again, I only caught minnows and shiners, but it looked really promising and my guidebooks mentioned the river is better at different times of the year. Hayward, WI (nearby) is home to the freshwater fishing museum and some huge fish!

I also tried fishing in Love Creek in Iowa County. It was a really remote area and a nice stream, but I didn't see any signs of trout. There were a lot of thorns and poison ivy though - I found out the hard way!

On the 16th, I went to my company's annual summer picnic. I enjoyed some steak and lobster (tradition!), got to do some rock climbing (which I hadn't done in a long time), and pet some farm animals.

After that, I headed to Chicago to meet my mom, sister, and brother for a quick family vacation. We usually go to Chicago for a weekend every year or so and enjoy a quick vacation, so this time we made a point to do some things we've never done before. We checked out a jazz club, the giant Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, and a Cubs game.

Terese and I also went to the Dane County Fair on the 22nd. It had been a while since I'd been to a county fair. It was very similar to the Ingham County fair - there was even a Pork Producers booth that I patronized! (They only had pork burgers, not porky joes).

In the Yellowstone Lake Wildlife Area in Lafayette County, there is a free DNR shooting range. I headed out there to practice with my pistol and run a few rounds through the new deer rifle. I was able to shoot a group of 3 in a 50-cent piece size grouping at 100 yards!

June 2011

2011-06-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

June 2011

Complete Set of Photos

June was a very busy month. I had a lot to do at work and I was gone almost every weekend, traveling somewhere or going home. It was still a lot of fun though!

The first weekend in June, I went to Ottawa, Illinois with Terese to her family's house for her sister's high school graduation. Ottawa is similar to Mason, maybe a little bigger. It was nice to meet her family - I was on my best behavior the whole time! In Terese's family, it is tradition to TP the high school graduate's car. So, I was in Terese's mom's car with her, her mom, and two aunts, all waiting in the dark across the road from where her sister was going to party that night. As soon as the sister pulled in, parked, and went inside, we sprang in to action and wrapper her sister's car in toilet paper and saran wrap! It was a very good, thorough job if I may say so myself. I hadn't been TP'ing since high school, so I had a blast!

The rest of the time, Terese showed me around Ottawa. I got to see the airplane in a field, downtown Ottawa (where Lincoln first spoke!), and enjoy some Tropical Sno (a snow cone), and just hang around.

On Sunday, on the way back to Madison, we stopped at Matthiessen and Starved Rock state parks. I'll admit - I have never liked Illinois much, mainly to most of my experiences being in Chicago where it's crowded, dirty, constantly traffic-jammed, and hard to find a parking space. After seeing these state parks though, my opinion is much improved! I had no idea there were so many cool rock formations and waterfalls in north central Illinois!

On the 11th, Terese and I went to the Wollersheim Winery. This is in Prairie du Sac, about 1/2 an hour from my apartment to the northwest. This was a cool little winery - we got a tour of the old buildings, the cellars, the actual vineyards, and got a tasting! I was disappointed they were out of the Eiswein (ice wine), but I did get to sample some port.

Also in June, we had a really bad storm go by my apartment and, we found out the next day, a weak tornado! My power went out for a few hours and the tornado siren went off, so I hung out with the rest of the neighbors in the underground parking garage for an hour or so. I even took Tugger with me in his cat carrier! We looked out the door but never saw the tornado - it just looked like a bad storm to us, with lots of wind, rain and lightning. Later, I went hiking on the Ice Age Trail in Verona and saw some of the damage - there were a lot of downed trees. No one died or anything though - it was a weak tornado according to the news articles.

During the weekend of the 17th, I traveled back to Mason for my brother Kevin's open house. I wasn't able to go to the actual graduation the week before, so I came home for the open house to see relative and such too. I was mainly busy helping out with open house stuff, but I did get to hang out a bit. I visited the guys down at Slick's, shot my pistol out at the farm, went to retired farmer coffee with my grandpa, and so on. On Saturday, I also went to Fenton to visit college buddies Bob, Anthony, Christina, and Blake (Anthony and Christina's son). That was nice to see those guys again. This last trip home was also somewhat bittersweet - my mom had sold the house on Kelly Rd. (pictured) and this was the last time I would ever see that house again. I made sure all of my stuff was out of it and said my goodbyes. My mom got a new job in Grand Rapids and moved there shortly after I went back to Wisconsin. My new "hotel" in Mason is the Gray House (my grandparent's old house).

I also finally checked out the Henry Vilas zoo in Madison. This is a small, free zoo in a city park. It's a pretty basic zoo with all of the normal zoo animals (lions, tigers, gorillas, giraffes, etc.) and it was nice to take a walk through there and check things out. They also had the two species of rattlesnake in Wisconsin.

Again on June 25, I went back to Illinois (Rockford this time, so not a long drive) for her friend's wedding. The ceremony was at a church in a historic village area and there were cannon booms going on during the wedding. Afterward, we checked out the field next door and there was a Civil War movie of some sort being filmed! So, we got to watch some Civil War reenactor people for a few minutes running through a field and shooting off guns and cannons!

The last week in June I got to go on a business trip to Birmingham, Alabama. I was the experienced advisor so I just went along to help out. The trip went well and we had a little bit of time to explore. I had some oysters and alligator for dinner and some Alabama BBQ for lunch the next day. It was really good! The Birmingham area is also much hillier and forested than I expected. There was kudzu (that invasive vine) all over too. The weather actually wasn't too bad - a storm had gone through right before we got there so the weather was relatively cool and pleasant, though still really humid. My glasses would fog up when I went outside! In the city, we checked out the Five Points area, which has an old cobblestone road and a bunch of restaurants.

May 2011

2011-05-31T21:38:00.000-07:00

May 2011

Complete Set of Photos

Wow... lots of fun stuff happened in May! The weather finally got nice in Madison so I was able to do a lot more outdoors things. Plus, I made a trip back to Mason and also Up North!

In early May, my neighbor dropped me off in Cross Plains to hike on the Ice Age Trail again. Here's a cool view of Cross Plains from a bluff.

On the 6th, I went home to Mason for the weekend. My friend Julia from high school was getting married. It was a nice wedding and it was nice to see some of the old high school crew again (some of whom I hadn't seen since graduation). From left to right is: someone I don't know, Courtney, Steve, Leanne, Ryan, Alexandra, Stefanie, Me, Julia.

Also when I was home that weekend, I rode the trusty old Nighthawk for the last time. It was for sale and someone bought it shortly after I left to go back to Wisconsin. It was a good motorcycle and I was actually sad when I first heard someone put a deposit on it, not excited that it was selling. It was a great motorcycle to learn on, but too small to keep using and not worth the hassle of hauling it to Wisconsin and getting a new title and plates and such for it. I'll just have to get another motorcycle someday! So, the Nighthawk is officially gone :(

Stoughton, a town southeast of Madison, was traditionally heavily Norwegian. Every May they have the "Syttende Mai" festival and parade and such. "Syttende Mai" means "May 17." I actually went to Stoughton twice that weekend - once with some friends to to see Cherry Pie and once with Terese to see the parade and Norwegian Dancers performance (apparently, the cool kids at the local high school are the Norwegian Dancers, not the cheerleaders)! The mascot is some guy in a Viking suit.

Since trout season began in May, I was out again trying my luck to catch an edible trout. Finally, after countless hours, all my hard work and perseverance paid off and I finally caught a nice trout! I got this 11" brook trout at my secret spot near Mt. Vernon (about 15 minutes from my apartment). I caught a few other small trout in the same stream but tossed them back. I caught more than twice as many trout in a few hours on that stream than I did all summer last year!

I also visited Waltz Park in Mt. Horeb, a town near Madison. I don't know who exactly it's named after, but it was cool to get my picture by the sign!

During Memorial Day weekend, I traveled up to Niagara for my cousin Rachael Ann's high school graduation. Terese came along to meet the family and to see the UP - she had never been this far north! On Friday, me, Terese, Dad, and Angie all drove up to see Houghton and check out Michigan Tech again, and we also went all the way up to Copper Harbor. We took the scenic road (M-26) and saw some waterfalls, Cliff Drive, Brockway Mountain drive, the snow gauge on US-41, and other sights of the Keweenaw. It made me miss the area a lot - I image I'll be back pretty frequently to visit throughout the rest of my life! The rest of the time we spent with family and we help manage Rachael Ann's open house. I also got to sight in my new deer rifle, shoot my pistol, and go fly fishing with Terese!

On the way back, Terese and I stopped at Bratfest (the world's largest brat festival). I got to see Cherry Pie (yet again!), eat a few brats, and enjoy a festival that just screams "Wisconsin!"

April 2011

2011-04-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

April 2011

Complete Set of Photos

In Mid-April, we had our first Verona Area Concert Band (VACB) concert! This is a local concert band that just formed this winter and we meet in the Verona high school band room. I heard about this from people at work and decided to give it a try. It's pretty fun and nice to be able to play percussion again - I hadn't touched the drums or a xylophone since high school! I unfortunately don't have any pictures from the concert, but it was pretty well attended and went very well!

Also in April, I made a trip up to Houghton to visit some friends that were still at Tech. Most people I know were going to graduate in the spring, so this was pretty much the last chance I'd get to visit friends. I got to see a lot of friends from the dorms and other activities. It was really fun to see everyone again and visit some of my old haunts (like the KBC, the Library, Michigan House, Redridge Dam (pictured), and to check out campus. There is a new apartment building that was constructed since I left, but otherwise it's about the same. Even in mid-April, the weather was cold and snowy (well, kind of like sleet). When I checked out Redridge, it was super windy and sleet was blowing around - it was really nasty. There were really large waves coming in from Lake Superior too!

Also in April I had my shift on the after-hours pager at work. It went well, aside from the fact that I was diagnosed with mono halfway through! That really sucked - my throat swelled up visibly and it was so sore I could barely talk. I had to go to urgent care twice - the second time the doctor gave me some steroid pills that helped my neck swelling go down. I lucked out I guess though - a lot of people are super weak and pretty much out of commission for a month or so - I was never really tired and only had a sore throat for about two weeks! I'm back to normal now.

At the end of the month, my friend James came over and helped my bottle my latest batch of beer. This time around, I tried a lager for the first time (the same batch I brewed in the March blog post). The samples I took of it tasted OK for being warm and flat. The beer still needs to rest in the bottles to carbonate for a while longer, then I can put one in the fridge and sample it!

Other than that excitement, I've just been trying to spend some time outside as much as possible now that the weather is getting nice. Trout season is also right around the corner!

March 2011

2011-03-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

March 2011

Complete Set of Photos

This month, I tried my hand at brewing again (with photography by Terese). This time, I'm trying a lager (a more complicated beer). In German, "lagern" means "to store," so lager beers are stored at cooler temperatures longer to ferment. I monitored the temperature in my basement storage room and it was about 48 degrees - pretty good lagering temperature! The basic brewing process was the same, I just had a different strain of yeast. There was just one problem... the yeast didn't work! For a whole week, my beer just sat there and didn't bubble like it was supposed to. After a week, I checked the specific gravity and saw that it hadn't fermented at all - that's very bad! So, I went back to the brewing store and the guy gave me another packet of yeast to try. I go home and check the beer one last time and, lo and behold, it was fermenting (and bubbled for a week or so!) and I didn't even need to add the yeast. So, things seem to be going well so far, but the beer has to sit a few weeks still.

I finally went to the House on the Rock with some friends one Saturday. This is a popular tourist attraction in southern Wisconsin. Essentially, there was an eccentric guy who built a large house on top of a rocky hill and filled it with stuff (notably automatic music things). I saw this on a show on the Travel Channel once, so it was cool to visit it in person. Nearby was "Taliesin," one of Frank Lloyd Wright's houses.

Terese and I also went to the National Mustard Museum in Middleton (yes, such a place does exist!) It was really cool - there were hundreds of mustard containers from every state many many countries (Meijers brand mustard represented Michigan) and displays on how mustard is made. There are also hundreds of different kinds of mustards you can buy and sample. I sampled quite a few and settled on a hot German mustard. There were also hot sauces you can buy and I learned my lesson to not sample a sauce called "Da Bomb" without reading the bottle first!

March 19 was the anniversary party at work, which I attended with Terese. This was about the same as last year - there was a lot of interesting and delicious food from various restaurants in Madison. It was weird being all dressed up at work!

I also went to the Madison Symphony Orchestra with Terese and some of her friends. They performed Beethoven's 3rd symphony. I didn't see anyone have a heart attack in the seats this time!

Also, at the end of the month, I went to New York City again. I stayed in the same hotel as before so I was somewhat familiar with the area. During the trip, I got to sample a lot of interesting food at various restaurants around my hotel (which was in Flushing, a very Chinese area) or other areas. Among the foods sampled: goat curry, fried shark, tripe, chicken feet, and duck feet (with webbing!) On Wednesday night, my contacts took us to Manhattan where we checked out Wall Street and Times Square. Near Times Square, I saw Robin Williams come out of a venue where he just did a show!

Februray 2011

2011-02-27T13:29:00.000-08:00

February 2011

Complete Set of Photos

February was a pretty eventful month! I did some traveling and some fun stuff around Madison. The weather in Madison is definitely starting to warm up - ice fishing is starting to die down, there's almost no snow for snowshoeing, and the outdoor ice rinks are being closed down already. Work is still going well and the cat is still alive and kickin'.

I went on a business trip to Seattle for a couple of days, which was a nice change. The weather was very nice compared to Madison - it was in the 40's and sunny while we were there (it didn't even rain, which was unusual!). We kept pretty busy during the day doing work, but at night we had a little bit of free time to go to dinner and explore a tiny bit. We had some really good sushi, oysters, crab cakes, and more. I got Rachel a coffee mug from the first Starbucks ever and I got to see Jimi Hendrix's grave (near our hotel).

That Saturday after I got back from Seattle, I went to Milwaukee with some friends from work (and Julia from high school and her fiance) and saw the Bucks basketball game against the Indiana Pacers. That was the first NBA game I've ever seen and was pretty cool. Because the Packers had won the Super Bowl the week before that, the CEO of the Packers and two of the players made an appearance during halftime and they even brought the Lombardi trophy with them! The crowd went nuts. They Bucks also have some mascot guy in a deer suit which is pretty funny - unfortunately, I didn't see him to have my picture taken with him.

Terese and I went to the Madison Symphony Orchestra, which was really fun - I hadn't been there before! A guest pianist played Beethoven's "Emperor" piano concerto and it was really good. I really enjoyed watching the very serious percussionists play the triangle, tambourine, and wood block!

I was also downtown one day and walked through the Capitol briefly to check out all the protests going on. There were a bunch of people with signs and such, as well as hippie drum circles and such!

It's very unusual that I would go on trips this often, but I also went to North Carolina for a few days. Getting there was an adventure - it was the first time my flight has been delayed/canceled and caused me troubles! Our flight from Madison to Detroit was delayed 4 hours (causing us to miss the connection in Detroit anyway) before it was canceled. We then had to drive to Milwaukee to take a flight to Atlanta to connect to Greensboro. We finally made it to Greensboro 6 hours late from when we wanted to start, but we were able to reschedule the return flights to stay an extra night to get all of the work done. We didn't have much exploring time being a business trip and all, but one of my contacts there took us by some really nice houses to a really good BBQ restaurant where I tried BBQ pork, pork ribs, Cheerwine (a local pop) and fried pork skins. We also visited Natty Greene's (a brewery celebrating a local Revolutionary War hero), and I just wandered around downtown a bit. Greensboro was a really nice place - I will be back in the summer sometime when the weather is nicer too!

On Saturday the 26th, I went with my friend Eric to see "Cherry Pie," the 80's hair metal cover band again. Like before, it was a really good show! They'll be back in the Madison area a few times this summer so I'll go check them out again. I also finally got a chance to test out my new down sleeping back before the weather got too warm. I simply slept outside in the woodsy area across from my apartment where the Ice Age Trail goes. It was down in the teens that night and I was toasty warm!

January 2011

2011-01-30T21:24:00.000-08:00

January 2011

Complete Set of Photos

This month was pretty exciting!

I've made use of the last few weekends in January to get in some squirrel hunting. The land I hunt on still has plenty of squirrels and the owner wants them gone! My dad also let me borrow his .22 (I still use my 12 gauge too), so now I can snipe the squirrels from farther away. It's very relaxing to go squirrel hunting - I park myself in a chair in the back yard, sit there peacefully with birds flying around and such, all while getting a breeze on my nose and not staring at a computer screen for a while!

One weekend, my friends Dave and Katie stopped by to visit/stay the night on their way back from Michigan to Montana. Dave is my neighbor from the dorm I went hiking with in Montana and Katie is his girlfriend, also a Tech grad. I will likely be back in Montana during the summer of 2012 for my cousin's high school graduation and will probably go backpacking and fly fishing with Dave again too.

On January 10th, Tugger celebrated his 20th birthday! The cat is still doing well - still howling, still deaf, and a little creaky when he walks up and down the stairs. To continue the candle tradition, he got a can of wet food with "20" candles in it! I recently bought a new down sleeping that is really warm and soft - it took Tugger just a few minutes to find it and promptly curl up and go to sleep on it!

On the 14th, I drove down to Chicago to visit my friend Steve from high school. I hadn't seen Steve since 2008 and it was really fun to see him again and catch up! Steve now works as a body piercer near downtown Chicago and still plays in the band "Large and Lovely." Unfortunately, the band didn't have a show while I was down there so I didn't get to see them play. On Saturday, Steve had to work and then I went downtown to meet up with Dad, Angie, Rachel, Kevin, and Geoff (Kevin's friend). We stayed at a hotel and went to the aquarium, John Hancock observatory, and the art institute for a mini-vacation. I thought the aquarium was pretty cool - I had been there before a long time ago, but they're always fun to check out!

Also, on the 29th, I went pheasant hunting with Andy and Keith (the two guys I met in October). Since the pheasant season is closed, we went to a game farm when you buy a certain number of birds they release in a private field for you to hunt. You (and I to an extent) may view this as "cheating," but a main advantage of this is that it allows you to train the dogs better because you know for a fact there are pheasants in the field. Besides, even the state land around here is stocked with pheasants - there aren't enough wild ones to sustain hunting populations. The weather was nice - clear and in the high 20's/low 30's. We had 12 birds in the field and got at least 4 of them (Keith was still hunting when I left for the day).

I also used my new beer can holder to make beer can chicken!

Work is still going well. I have a few trips coming up in the next few weeks too: Seattle, WA, Greensboro, NC, and back to Queens, NY. In my other free time, I've been doing some snowshoeing on the Ice Age Trail, skiing at Tyrol Basin, practicing hockey at Elver Park, and generally having a good time!

December 2010

2010-12-30T18:08:00.000-08:00

December 2010

No pictures this month!

Earlier this month, I sampled my second batch of home brew - a pale ale. This was pretty good - it didn't taste a little watery or weak like this first batch. I followed the steps super closely and everything went according to plan, resulting in a decent beer with 4.5% alcohol (that's about normal). I took some home over Christmas to distribute and it's gotten favorable reviews so far!

The mother of Wayne, one of my coworkers that hunts (deer only) and fishes, lives in the country outside of Mt. Horeb (west of Madison). She complained about pesky squirrels that keep eating her bird seed. Wayne knew that I would be glad to take care of that problem for her! So, I went out to the woods, sat in Wayne's tree stand, and sure enough, after about I five minutes I see a squirrel scampering around. I snuck down the ladder, walked quietly through the snow, and took out squirrel number one! I have dispatched three squirrels total so far, all of which I have eaten or plan to. People may say "oh gross, who'd eat a squirrel!?" First of all, remember that I've eaten a guinea pig before, and second, they're actually really good. I fried one up in some chicken broth and bacon and it was tender and delicious. Sorry, I don't have any pictures of this! I'll try to remember to take a pictures of a cooked one next time.

At work, I have been assigned to be a mentor! I now share a new office with a new hire from December and I am supposed to show him the ropes and help him get acclimated to the company. He's originally from Michigan also so he had no issue with my Red Wings pennant on the door!

The cat still alive, but has gone crazy. Tugger has never been a very friendly, cuddly lap cat, but now he'll actually sit on my lap while I watch TV or work on the computer. He will turn 20 on January 10. He's still going strong for such an old codger.

Now that we finally have some snow in Madison, I've done some snowshoeing on the Ice Age Trail. I've been here a whole year and still hadn't done some of the segment that runs through Verona, about two miles from my apartment! I've decided it will be a life goal to do the whole trail, kind of like how some people hike the whole Appalachian Trail or the North Country Trail. I will, of course, do the Ice Age Trail in segments!

I went back to Mason for a few days over Christmas and, for the first time ever, made it through/around Chicago without getting caught in a traffic jam! It was nice to see family and friends again and pick on siblings and cousins. This trip home was like every other - there were a few new buildings around town, some businesses that had closed, and about a million people I know who got engaged or married. Mrs. Brown's naughty reindeer returned, my grandparents moved to a new house within sight of the old one, and everyone else is still pretty much the same.

November 2010

2010-11-30T21:12:00.000-08:00

November 2010

Complete Set of Photos
(Warning: graphic pictures of deer!)

This month, the only super interesting things to happen were a visit from my sister Rachel and some success (finally!) hunting! Other than that, I've been keeping busy at work, hanging out with friends on nights and weekends I'm in town, and I am still enjoying Madison.

Rachel visited the second weekend in November. Unfortunately, she had to do some homework while she was here, but that was fine because I had house stuff I could do too. We went to the UW hockey game (when she conveniently forgot money for the ticket :) and some shopping. She brought her laundry to do at my apartment though, of course!

On the 6th and 7th, I went pheasant hunting with Andy and Keith (the same two guys I met opening day) and was lucky to get another pheasant! The dogs were off to the side and I just about stepped on this guy. I cooked him up the next day on the grill with a red wine marinade. It was pretty good and I only found a few pieces of shot in the meat!

Now, here's the exiting part of the month - deer season! Now that I have a "real world" job, I don't get the whole week of Thanksgiving off (the same week as deer season). So, I went up to my aunt and uncle's in Florence County, WI the Saturday and Sunday before Thanksgiving. I sat out in the blind for those two days and didn't see a big buck to shoot (I did see a spikehorn, but I passed him up because my uncle didn't want me to shoot a spike). My uncle got an 8 pointer on opening day though! I had to go back to Madison to work until Wednesday, then I went back up north Wednesday night. It was snowing north of Green Bay, so the last few days of deer season were a little colder than the first few! On Thursday it got in the high 30's and a lot of the snow melted. Later, it got cold again and all the snow froze with an icy crust. I had a doe tag this year so I was planning on taking a doe as soon as possible, but on Thursday I only saw one baby deer.

On Friday, right at the end of the day, I saw the same baby deer for about the third time (he/she was bold too and actually came closer to me than in this picture!) Then, off in the distance, I saw a doe come out of the brush! I got the gun ready (my uncle's .243) and had the safety off as the doe came to the clearing. I was ready to take a shot, but I had a problem - that stupid baby deer was in front of the doe and it wouldn't get out of my way! I had a perfect broadside shot too, but I didn't want to risk barely missing the top of the small deer to get the bigger one behind it. Suddenly, a deer off in the distance grunted (an alert sound) and the doe and the small deer took off running. I was so close!!! Then it was dark and time to go inside.

On Saturday morning (the 27th), I got up at 5 again and was in the blind before 6 (it was still dark out). As expected, the baby deer came by after a little while. He usually was there alone, so I didn't expect much. Then, I heard crunching footsteps (remember, the snow was icy and crusty). I got the gun out and ready and saw a bigger doe step in to the clearing. Even though I wasn't moving more than to move the gun to aim, she knew I was there and looked right at me, stomped her foot, and then just kept eating. She was behind a clump of trees , but was moving around while eating. Finally, at 7:22, she stepped out in to my shooting lane and I pulled the trigger - that was the end of her! I saw two flashes of white as the baby deer and another one I didn't even know was there both took off running. The doe I shot ran down the hill (the same way she came) with her tail down - a sign she's hit pretty bad. A few seconds later, I heard a bunch of branches break and a crash/thump sound.

I seriously sat there in the blind and shook for a few minutes - it was such an adrenaline rush! About 20 minutes later, the two deer than ran off when I shot actually came back! I got out out of the blind, causing the two deer to run away again, and went to look for my deer. I was concerned because I didn't see any blood on the ground to track the deer. I followed the tracks where the deer ran down the hill and, after a few minutes of searching, found her maybe 50 yards from the clearing. I had shot a few inches farther back than I was hoping for - I hit the liver and heart, not the lungs (which usually leave a better blood trail to track). It was such a relief to finally get a deer in my third year of trying!

I went back to the house and my uncle and I went out with the four wheeler and dragged the deer out of the woods and took it to a field to dress it. Later that night we strung it up in the garage and I got all the meat off the bones (note: graphic but interesting pictures of this process are in the link above). I spent some time on Sunday trimming the fat, tendons, and cartilage out of the meat but most of that work I have to do back in my apartment in Madison.

So, I've spend the last few evenings trimming meat and packing up the tenderloins, backstraps, and some steaks for the freezer. I'll make the ground venison tomorrow and can start on jerky and sausage after that! It's a lot of work but very satisfying to process your own deer and know exactly what goes in to getting the meat.

It still hasn't snowed yet in Madison. I'm looking forward to when it does - then I'll be able to snowshoe, ski, and not feel so guilty about spending time inside!

October 2010

2010-10-31T14:31:00.000-07:00

October 2010

Complete Set of Photos

My neighbor Katie works west of town (in Black Earth, as in Black Earth Creek where I've gone fly fishing), so one day I hitched a ride with her to Cross Plains (on the way to Black Earth) to where the Ice Age Trail crosses through that town. I then walked the ~10 miles back right to my garage door! Most of this trail was along the side of the road so it wasn't too exciting or scenic, but it was still a good Saturday morning.

I also headed to Iowa county (west of Madison) to try some squirrel hunting. I didn't get one of course, but I at least saw one before he ran away and I couldn't find him! I even bought a squirrel call (which works great for tracking down woodpeckers which like to respond to it), but it works with squirrels in the yard of my apartment building! I did find a nice trout stream for next year though - it's quite a walk from the parking area so hopefully it's lightly fished. There's supposedly a cave in this fishery area as well (noted on the DNR web site), but I haven't found it and a DNR biologist had never heard of it.

My friend Jesse and I went to the first ever Madison Brewfest one Friday night. It was very lightly attended (everyone was probably saving up for the Badger football game the next day), but there was a band named "Cherry Pie" playing. They played covers of 80's hair metal music. It was awesome! They even looked the part with the long hair, metallic shirts, and so on. It made my day!

I finally got some game with my new Weatherby on the 16th and 17th after dutifully carrying it around the woods for many, many hours: a pheasant and a dove! The dove is interesting because you can't hunt them in Michigan, but you can in Wisconsin.

There were about a million people at the public hunting grounds at noon on Saturday the 16th when pheasant season opened. Two guys (Keith and Andy) noticed I didn't have a dog (I've flushed pheasants just out wandering without a dog and was planning on just walking around) and they asked if I wanted to come along with them and their two dogs. That was really nice of them and we swapped numbers and such so I can probably go out hunting with them again later in the season. We were on the edge of a field that was eased to the state and the dogs flushed one right in front of me that I got. The pheasant is in my freezer right now to be roasted at a later date!

On the 17th, I went out by myself to Shoveler's Sink, a federal waterfowl production area in Cross Plains (a few miles away from my apartment). There I got a dove that flew in to a tree in front of me. I ate that dove already - very dark and gamey, but not bad. There's a surprising amount of meat on a dove!

On the weekend of the 22nd I went to the Biehl game preserve for a visit. The plan was to help out with yard work and get the deer blinds ready for the week of Thanksgiving, but the weather had other plans. It rained pretty much the whole weekend and we didn't get much of anything done. Uncle Ken and I went out grouse hunting for an hour or so Saturday morning before it rained (he got one, we both shot at a few others) and I just toughed it out in the rain for a while Sunday and got "my" blind cleaned out and two squirrels to boot! I may be able to head up there again before Thanksgiving, but we'll see how things look.

On the 29 and 30, Michigan Tech was in town to play UW-Madison in hockey! I gathered up a few friends and we went to see the games at the Kohl center in Madison. Tech lost both, unfortunately (5-2 and 4-1), but since UW-Madison scored 5 goals we get a free ice cream at Culver's, so it's not a total loss!

Also that weekend my friends Steffanie and Erika, both former RA's at Tech the same year as me, were in town. Steffanie and I went to Freakfest, which is the wild Halloween party on State Street. In the past there were riots and fires and such, but now it's controlled a little more and you have to pay to get in to cover the cost of security and stuff. There were a lot of cool costumes but also a lot of stupid drunk college kids (I saw one guy get arrested!). I put zero effort in to a costume this year, but Steffanie brought two crayon suits from a friend so I was a teal crayon for Halloween. It looks ridiculous!

September 2010

2010-09-26T19:53:00.000-07:00

September 2010

Complete Set of Photos

Lots of interesting stuff has happened in September...

The Nighthawk, my first motorcycle, is officially for sale. It was a great bike and it was a hard decision to sell it, but I've definitely outgrown it and I didn't want to deal with hauling it to Wisconsin and retitling it and everything. Hopefully some other 16 year old kid will get it and learn to ride on it.

I finally went to a Milwaukee Brewers game with James and Eric, two friends from work. Miller Park is a really nice, new stadium only 1 1/2 hours or so from my place. There is a retractable roof too! The Brewers played the Chicago Cubs (which is one of the rivalry games) and won.

On the 24th I had my 24th birthday - in Wisconsin, this is special and is called your "Golden Birthday." I celebrated with a few friends downtown - there is an establishment where you get a free mug and tap "adult beverages" on your birthday. Now only one more year until my car insurance goes down!

Throughout the summer I was on a beach volleyball team with some friends from work - almost all of us started together in January. Our name was "Safe Sets" (a great name for a volleyball team, if I may say so)! We were either the worst or second-worst team in the league, but it was still fun. Here is a team picture.

On the 25th, I went to the New Glarus Oktoberfest. New Glarus is a town about 1/2 hour southwest of Madison and is named after Glarus (a canton of Switzerland). They really ham up the Swiss heritage but in the case of Oktoberfest, it passes for German. It was a cool little town with a lot of Swiss-looking buildings. There is a famous brewery (New Glarus Brewery) there as well which provided the beer for the Oktoberfest. This is a really popular beer in Wisconsin. I got a special mug to commemorate the occasion.

I've gone fly fishing a few more times, but still no luck. I was trying to get one more trout before the season ends on the 30th, but it doesn't look like that will happen. On the 26th I went to the Sugar River (just a few miles south of my place) and found out it was a really nice river - wide, open, not a lot of brush on the banks, and it was always thigh-deep with a rocky bottom for wading! I saw a few trout rising, but none of them would hit my flies (I tried nymphs, dries, hoppers, poppers, and no luck!). I almost stepped on one trout though and a few others actually hit my wader boot when they swam by! I think it's because of a combination of me being new/not so good at fly fishing and the quality of the streams around here that I never have any luck - this is no Montana!

On the 28th, President Obama was in town to speak at UW-Madison. This was an open event, so I took a few hours off of work to go down and watch (I'm not a political person, but I've never seen a US President before). I got to the entrance of where you got in to the crowd area about an hour early and there was a huge line... I'd seriously guess it was more than a mile long (the picture is just a very, very small part of the line). By the time I walked towards the end of the line (not all the way because I found an old friend from Tech who let me cut!) and we waited a bit, they told us the crowd area was full and we were out of luck (I read in the news later that some people waited in line over 5 hours). We tried other ways in but were out of luck. We did get to stand by another field and at least listen. There was a military helicopter circling around and we saw a Secret Service-looking guy with some other policemen.

August 2010

2010-08-29T20:38:00.000-07:00

August 2010

Complete Set of Photos

Well, I had no major wild adventures in August, but I was keeping busy (at work and at play!). I was on call for a weekend (I got three calls and had to wake up in the middle of the night to attend meetings), but I survived and was able to handle everything professionally. I also landed an anterless deer permit for this year - hopefully I'll finally get a deer! I don't care if it has antlers or not - those don't taste very good!

Here was a cool rainbow that appeared over "my" pond after a storm. One day I caught 6 nice bluegills in there. They are now in my freezer.

I went to the WJJO Band Camp (a bunch of concerts, like Common Ground) for a day. That was pretty cool but overpriced (and $3.50 for a bottle of water? Ridiculous!)

I've done some more fly fishing - unsuccessfully, of course. It's just tough around here - the streams are smaller, muddy on the bottom so you can't wade, and brushy around the edges so you can't really cast. Plus, it's tough to get there at dawn or dusk, when fishing could be better. Oh well - it's fun being outside still. I've still caught a total of 2 trout in Wisconsin so far. I bought a really good book that has a lot of good tips in it, so hopefully I'll improve a bit.

My mom and brother came to visit for a weekend too. I got to haul them around and show them the Farmers Market, State Street, UW-Madison (which I know next to nothing about), my offices, and other haunts.

Also, on the 23rd, I got to go on my first business trip to New York City! We were able to get all of our work done during the day so we got to do some tourist stuff in the evenings. One night we went to Times Square and wandered around a bit and the next night we went to a Mets game. Our hotel was in Queens in the Asian neighborhood (which supposedly has more Asians than the "real" Chinatown in Manhattan). There were lots of good restaurants - at one, I had lemongrass squid and (it actually said this on the menu) "salty pickled lemon drink." It tasted like salty lemonade. I also sampled salmon roe at a sushi place. Not bad, but it something I wouldn't eat much of.

Tugger is still alive and kicking.

Montana Visit & Fly Fishing

2010-08-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

July 24 - August 1, 2010

Complete Set of Photos

The second part of my Montana trip was staying with relatives and fly fishing. My Aunt Laurel, Uncle Bill, and cousins Devan and Samantha moved out there from Michigan many years ago I had not visited them at all since then. It was nice to see relatives again! We also stopped in to the ice cream shop where Devan works and sampled some huckleberry ice cream.

During the day, I would go fishing on the Gallatin River (conveniently right down the road from their house) and I also went with Devan and Samantha to the "College M," which is a huge white "M" on the side of a mountain that is visible for miles and miles around. There is a very steep trail that goes up to it, which we hiked. Samantha drove us there and back safely!

My main task for my time in Bozeman/Belgrade was fly fishing. One night, Dave came over from Bozeman and my uncle and I all went fishing in the Gallatin down the road. Only Dave caught anything (a small brown trout) which I later ate. I had a few strikes, but no catches. The next day, I went to the river again and saw a ton of large trout sitting at the bottom of the river. I tried fishing with a nymph (a fly that sinks), but they wouldn't bite at all. It was around noon, which is not usually a great fishing time. Later that night, Dave and I went to the Gallatin River (way farther upstream though, in the canyon, that's him in the picture) and tried fishing again. Dave got two trout right next to him when they flopped off the hook, I had one that went airborne before unhooking itself! Still no luck...

I had originally wanted to try to go to Yellowstone National Park for a day. Apparently, that would take a whole day (i.e. sunrise to sunset) and even then, you wouldn't be able to see everything. Plus, I didn't want to have flown all the way out to Montana and not even catch a trout! So, I decided to pass on Yellowstone and keep on fishing for my last day. On Saturday morning, Bill and I went to Hyalite Creek, which is near the reservoir where Dave and I ended our hiking trip. After Bill discovered the trout were biting on a Hare's Ear fly and I tied one on, I finally caught some trout! I ended up catching about a 1/2 dozen small rainbows and one edible-size brook trout. Bill caught 5 nice rainbows to keep (we were using the same fly, he was just lucky and got the big ones!) The beast I caught is on the far right (remember, brook trout are smaller than rainbows in general :) Dinner that night was very tasty! An interesting fact was that there is no size limit on trout in Montana, so legally I could've kept every trout I caught. I didn't feel right keeping a trout that is smaller than some smelt I've caught before, so I let them go.

Also, that afternoon I got a tour of Belgrade and Montana State. Belgrade is a small town, probably like Leslie. It does have the Madison River Brewery, which I got to visit and sample some local brew. I also got to see some of the university buildings in Bozeman too - it's definitely bigger than Tech.

All in all, I had a very nice time out in Montana. I'll be sure to visit again (and go to Yellowstone next time!)

Hiking in the Gallatin Mountains in Montana

2010-08-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

July 24 - August 1, 2010

Complete Set of Photos

This week, I used my first paid vacation days ever to travel to Montana! I have relatives there (my Aunt Laurel, Uncle Bill and cousins Devan and Samantha) and, coincidentally, a friend from Michigan Tech who now is a grad student at Montana State (Dave).

I was in Montana for approximately 9 days. For the first half of my time there, Dave and I went hiking in the Gallatin National Forest. For the second half, I visited relatives in Belgrade and went fly fishing. I'll write about hiking in this blog post and the rest in a second post.

Getting to Montana turned out to be an adventure as well. For the first time so far in all my travels, I had flight troubles. It turns out my flight to Detroit was delayed which would cause me to miss the flight to Bozeman. I ended up being able to rebook seats on flights that would get me to Helena. That meant Dave had to drive a little farther to pick me up, but this way I didn't miss a day waiting for the next flight to Bozeman. It was fun flying over Minneapolis/St. Paul - I could recognize my old haunts from last summer when I worked at 3M!

On Sunday morning, Dave and I headed right down to the trailhead. His friend Andrew (another MTU grad too) drove us to the trailhead after we dropped Dave's truck off at our destination. We started off on the Porcupine Creek trail which was relatively flat, but I still noticed the elevation. During the whole trip, I didn't get elevation sickness or headaches or anything, but I did get really winded really fast - I had to take way more resting breaks than I was used to in Michigan or Wisconsin. We ended up camping in a small meadow by Onion Basin across from a really cool mountain.

The next day, after leaving the Porcupine Creek trail and going north on the Gallatin Divide trail, we hiked over to Eaglehead Peak. Around that mountain, we found quite a few pieces of petrified wood (we were on the northern edge of a petrified forest). The next mountain was called the Sentinal. On the way, we actually passed patches of snow that were still there. It was really weird seeing snow at the end of July! The air temperature was still in the 70's or so during the day, I'd guess. Our tent was right next to a small stream that had its source at a snowpack a few yards up the hill - that was fresh, cold water! Also, right before dusk, we got to watch a herd of about 15 elk come over the ridge and graze. It was pretty cool! Those where the only identifiable large animals we saw - neither of us spotted a bear, wolf, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, or mountain lion.

The next day was our longest day and we got caught in three storms. I learned that storms in the mountains are way more dangerous than storms in the valley, MI, or WI. They come up faster, can have higher winds, and lightning is a real concern if you're on a ridge or mountaintop. You need to get to low ground quick in a storm. During the first storm, we just sat under a clump of trees and ate lunch while it rained lightly and had a few lightning bolts. It then got nice and sunny again (and we saw a rainbow). During the second storm, we were down low in a valley so we just walked through it (again, just light rain). Yet again, it got nice and sunny. Shortly before dusk, we were still about 3-4 miles from our desired campsite because of delays and rests. We decided to just put on the headlamps and keep going in the dark, but... yet another storm sprung up! This was seriously not good - like Dave said, outside of driving a car, it was probably the closest to death we've ever been! It was dark, raining rather hard this time, we were on a narrow, rocky trail on a ridgetop at about 10,000 feet, there was thunder and lightning close by, and, to top it off, it was really foggy and hard to see (during the day we had watched fog roll in over ridges - it looked like a scene from a horror movie).

We were stuck - our choices were to sit and wait at a high elevation in the lightning or keep walking at a high elevation in the lightning. We kept moving. At last, about 2 miles from our intended campsite, we saw the trail that led down the mountain to the valley (and relative safely). Unfortunately, it was still covered by a big patch of snow! Dave and I agreed to not make an already bad situation worse by trying to climb down slipper snow in the dark, rainy, foggy storm, so we decided to camp there for the night. Our choices for flat ground were on the ridge (exposed to the wind) or about 10 feet below that on the flat ridge or snow. So, we ended up camping on a big clump of snow, on the side of a mountain, 10,000 feet up, in late July!

In the morning, we woke up clear and sunny skies (thankfully!) We slowly made our way down the snowpack, found the trail, and walked downhill through the valley past a lot of waterfalls. The waterfalls were really nice. During the hike up to this point we only saw three other people - two day hikers from a distance and one guy we passed going the other way. In the valley, we met a ton of people day hiking and stopped to chat. They were all really friendly, just like in the Midwest. After making it back to the truck and then Bozeman, we celebrated with some Taco Bell (which is more expensive in Montana, by the way).

When I come back from hiking trips, I usually joke about not being eaten by a bear. When we got back from this trip, we found out someone was actually eaten by a bear (and two others wounded) at a campsite not far from us in the same National Forest while we were out hiking (link to CNN article). They didn't have food in their tent either - the attacks were unprovoked. Dave did have a can of bear spray (hard core pepper spray) that we were supposed to use if a bear attacked us.

During our trip, we were at elevations of over 10,000 feet. Mason is at 919 feet and Madison is at 863 feet, for comparison. Our total route was about 38 miles with a total uphill climb of about 13,000 feet (that's over two miles straight up!) This trip officially replaces Lake Superior Provincial Park as the most extreme trip I've done.

Dave also brought his GPS along, which was very handy (the trail wasn't hard to follow, but the GPS would tell us altitude, atmospheric pressure, and keep track of the distance traveled). Dave was able to transfer our route to Google Earth - here is a link to the file. You can open it in Google Earth and zoom/pan to see our route and even a 3D look at it!

Blackjack Wilderness & Bond Falls

2010-07-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

July 8-11, 2010

Complete Set of Photos

I took my "July 4th" holiday on July 9th and went camping up north with Todd (from work) and his brother and friend (Jordan and Ryan) who flew in from Utah. We went to the Blackjack Springs Wilderness area, which is in northern Wisconsin near Eagle River. I was really looking forward to this weekend - I got an extra day off of work, I was camping with 3 other Eagle Scouts, and I brought a new telescoping fishing pole (I brought my fly rod too) to try out! The area is named after four springs in the middle of the wilderness area.

Todd left earlier to pick up his crew at the airport and I left a little after - we were going to meet up for dinner north of Madison. As I was driving along on I-94, Todd entered the highway from the ramp right behind me - perfect timing! After getting to the parking lot (way out in the woods on a dirt road) at midnight, we just hiked a few hundred yards down the trail in the dark and set up a camp.

In the morning, we woke up and walked the few minutes back to the cars to get our food and prep for the real camping trip. There were a lot of wild blueberries alongside the trail to eat! The hike was short but scenic by the lake. The springs were nothing spectacular - they were just flat, shallow ponds in the middle of the woods.

After a short hike around the lake (Whispering Lake was the name - it was fairly small and we probably didn't hike more than 3 miles or so to get to the campsite), we found a nice campsite by a spring with a small creek down the hill for water. After setting up camp, we decided to take a short hike around the lake to a beach area we found to do some swimming and fishing. While Todd, Ryan, and Jordan swam, I tried my hand at fishing with my telescoping fishing pole. I caught a few bass that were pretty small. We met a few other guys who came from a cabin to swim and socialized a bit. People out camping are almost always really friendly.

The next morning, Todd/Ryan/Jordan left early - they had to be back in Madison by Sunday but I was going to stay an extra day. After they left, I relaxed a bit in my hammock and read a book for a while before packing up and heading to a river to fish. I looked like a radioman from a WWII movie with my fly rod sticking up from my back like an antenna!

I went fly fishing on the Deerskin River (which is supposed to be one of the best trout streams in that area), just a mile or so north of our campsite. The part I was on was only about 3" deep and I didn't see any trout. I kept hearing thunder and started to get a little nervous, so I hiked as fast as I could to my next camping spot and set up my tent! I found a nice spot on the west side of the lake up a small hill. Since it hadn't started raining yet, I walked down to the lake and started fishing for a while. I was fishing for a few minutes when I started to feel raindrops. I reeled in my line as fast as I could and ran up to my tent! Luckily, it only rained for 5 minutes (and it was more of a sprinkle). Later, I found out from Todd that when they were driving back to Madison, it rained so hard people were pulling off of the highway and stopping because of the low visibility! I lucked out where I was.

After the rain stopped, I went fishing again. For once, I had a lot of luck! I caught a ton of largemouth bass - 35 in about 2 hours, by my count. Almost every cast would at least get a bite. I caught so many the skin on my thumb was getting worn off from their teeth! I think the lake was stunted though because I don't think I caught a fish that was over a foot long (they were all small bass and the limit is 14"). So, I threw them all back. I don't like the taste of bass much either, so I wasn't disappointed.

The people we met by the "beach" mentioned that they had gone to Bond Falls earlier on (that's a really famous waterfall in Paulding, MI in the UP, about an hour from where we were). I had driven by the sign many times on my way to/from Tech, but had never stopped to check out the waterfall. So, after leaving the wilderness area on Sunday, I headed north to check it out. It was really cool!

Then, like a true Waltz, I "got to thinking..." I was only a short ways away from the grocery store in Bruce Crossing I knew sold KBC beer! So, I ended driving another 20 miles or so north to pick up some KBC! I have not found a place to buy it in Wisconsin yet.

July 2010

2010-07-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

July 2010

Complete Set of Photos

For July 4th, Nancy (a friend from work) threw a party at her place in Downtown Madison. When it got dark, a group of us walked down to the shore of Lake Mendota to watch Rhythm and Booms. This is a really popular Madison fireworks show. It was at a park on the east side of Madison (so kind of far from where we were), but it was still cool to watch the fireworks over the water!

Also, later in the month, I went to a wedding for some friends from Tech (Thomas and Katie). This was in Menominee, MI. It was great to be able to see all of my old college buddies again! As you may remember, for two years at Tech I lived in "The Attic" in Douglass Houghton Hall. People in the Attic tended to hang out a lot and we were all good friends throughout my whole time at Tech. A bunch of us where there and it was really fun to reminisce about old times!

On the evening of the 22nd, I was planning to grill a nice ribeye in front of my apartment buildings. It turns out the weather had other plans! We had some intense storms, many inches of rain, and even a few tornadoes a little to the west of my apartment. I had already fired up the grill when it started to rain, so I kept at it and still had my steak (even though the yard flooded a bit and I had to walk through a few inches of water to get to my grill). I even saw a rotating cloud over Verona (not quite a funnel cloud, but it was definitely spinning).

Now, on the 24th, I'm on my way to Montana to visit my Aunt Laurel, Uncle Bill, and cousins Devan and Samantha. My buddy Dave (neighbor from Wads at MTU) also lives out there now, so I will get to hang out with him too. The plan is to go backpacking in the mountains (the Gallatin range), fly fish as much as possible, and maybe go to Yellowstone if there's time!

2010 Verona Hometown Days Parade

2010-06-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

June 13, 2010

Complete Set of Photos

Verona, the town just south of my apartment and the home of the main Epic campus, has a Hometown Days parade every year. Verona is very similar to Mason and Holt back home. I happened to be in Verona when I noticed there was a parade starting, so I stuck around an observed. It was a pretty standard parade like we'd have in Mason, but with a Wisconsin twist I thought funny! You'll want to check out all of the pictures.

There was a band playing on top of a bank at the main intersection.

A Sheriff candidate passed out wallet-sized schedules for the Packers, Badgers, NASCAR, and hunting seasons combined!

There were many tractors of various colors and a new Cub Cadet lawn mower! I couldn't tell if it was all one family driving the tractors.

A dairy passed out free cream-centered popsicles.

There was a float for the "Packer Backers."

Bucky the Badger made an appearance.

Brewing!

2010-06-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

June 2010

Complete Set of Photos

I finally tried my hand at homebrewing on Memorial Day. The basic process is you add malt extract and hops to boiling water, boil it all for a while, and then add that to more water in the fermenter. So, after getting all the equipment around, I boiled some water in a 5 gallon pot on my stove and added malt extract (a malty goo from a plastic bottle). A few minutes after I added the extract, the pot boiled over (just like the book warned me about!) but I didn't get to it in time! I spent the next two days scrubbing charred malt crud from my stove and the pot with stove cleaner! After that episode, the rest of the brewing process seemed to go well.

After adding hops and boiling for a few more minutes, the next step is to put everything in the fermenter bucket and add the yeast. It fermented happily for the next few days (bubbles of gas come out of the fermentation lock on top of the bucket lid) and sat there for two weeks total.

On 6/8/2010: I measured the specific gravity for the first time after brewing and tasted the sample. It tastes like watery, flat beer right now, but it still needs a few weeks to sit and carbonate after I bottle it. So far, so good...

After the two weeks, Nijay and James (buddies from work) came over and helped me bottle it. This was a messy process – I ended up cleaning beer off of the wall and mopping the floors when we were done! The basic process here was to add some corn sugar to the beer (for carbonation) and get a siphon going from the fermenter in to the cleaned, sanitized bottles. I ended up with 46 bottles of beer (a batch should make about 50 bottles, but I’m sure a bit was wasted for testing and as part of the mess we made!).

Every beer has a name - I have decided to name this "Valley Creek Amber Ale." Valley Creek was near where I lived in Minnesota last summer. The specific gravity (relative density to water) of my beer was a bit low when I first put the wort in the fermenter and when I measured it before bottling. By my calculations, this means the beer is about 3% alcohol by volume, which is a little lower than most beers (5% ABV). This means you could legally buy it in a grocery store in Minnesota, hence the naming reference (in Minnesota, you can't buy beer more than 3.2% alcohol in grocery stores - you have to go to a regular liquor store)! There are many factors that could’ve caused it to be lower alcohol and I’ll pay more attention to those next time.

In two weeks, I’ll be able to crack one of the 46 bottles open and see how it turned out – I’ll update the post with how it tastes!

Overall, it was a fun process. I’ve learned a few things from the first go, so the next batches will hopefully be a bit cleaner and go a bit smoother!

Update: 06/27/10 - I tried the first bottle of homebrew - it's pretty good! It didn't carbonate very much so there isn't much head retention, but it definitely tastes and looks like beer, so I consider it a success!

June 2010

2010-06-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

Complete Set of Photos

I've had lots of adventures in the last few weeks!

The day before Memorial Day, I went fly fishing west of here, in Iowa county. It was 92 degrees and very humid out. The first creek I tried was Love Creek. I found out the parking area is actually by Strut Creek, which is very small. Love Creek was a hike inland. There were snowmobile trails, so I figured I'd follow those in the general direction and would surely find the creek (I did have a map too). I was wrong! I don't know where the trail went yet, but it didn't cross the creek after a while. So, I took a nice hike through the woods, in 92 degree heat, in rubber waders!

After giving up there, I went a few miles over to Trout Creek. Finally, after almost two years of fly fishing, I finally caught a trout! It was a 7" brown trout. I tossed him back (he was too small to keep and it was a catch-and-release stream anyway). Of course, I forgot my camera that day, so you'll have to take my word for it!

On Memorial Day, I tried my hand at brewing with my new kit. Brewing was an event in itself - it will have its own blog post shortly. Also, I borrowed a carpet cleaner and thoroughly cleaned the Fusion inside and out, as well as spots on my living room carpet where the cat puked.

On the 4th, I went to the Three Days Grace concert in Milwaukee. It was a really good show - complete with huge flames (I could feel the heat way back in the crowd!).

On the 6th and 7th, I went with James and Nijay, two guys from work, to Lake Wingra to rent a boat and go fishing (it was a free fishing weekend so they didn't need a license). On Saturday, it started to rain just as we got there, so we passed on the boat but stood on the dock in the rain and fished. We all caught a few bluegill (I caught a small bass and a decent size crappie as well), but we were all soaked at the end! We tried again on Sunday - this time we rented a rowboat and got out in the lake a ways with no luck. Then, it started thundering and there was lightning. We started to come in right as it started to rain... then it rained harder... then it hailed! It was good-sized hail too, bigger than pea size! We waited out the storm for an hour, then it got nice and sunny out and we continued fishing. We didn't have much luck though,we only caught a few small bluegill right at the end.

Tugger also got a bath. He's too old to even put up a fight anymore - he just stood there and took it!

Also, I will officially be using my first vacation days to travel to Montana to visit relatives and my buddy Dave from Tech. I plan on backpacking in the mountains, fly fishing, visiting Yellowstone, and pestering some cousins I don't get to see often!

Also in June, I went backpacking in the Kettle Moraine State Forest again. This time, I went with Eric from work (also from Michigan originally) so I only had to hike the trail one direction! I saw another turkey - see if you can see its head in the picture. There was also an old log cabin to check out from 1846.

On June 26, I went fly fishing again on Mount Vernon Creek, a few miles south of here. I must be getting better - I caught another trout! This beast was an 8" brown trout and I actually had my camera to take a picture of him (below). It was a perfect catch - I cast in to the bend of the river where the current is slower, the fly gently landed on the water, and a second later the trout hit it! 8" is too small to keep and I was on a catch-and-release stream, so he went back in the stream.

On the 27th, I found a pond in Verona (another water retention pond) and tried my luck there. I caught a few bullheads (which I kept - we'll see how they taste later!) and - this is a new one - two goldfish or koi or whatever they're called! The one was bright orange and other was the sliver white color. They were about 5-6" long.

Bratfest

2010-06-08T18:35:00.000-07:00

May 29, 2010

Complete Set of Photos

This weekend I went to Bratfest in Madison! I went on a smoking hot Saturday with Eric and Gil, two buddies from work. I had been looking forward to this for a while. If it had cheese, it would be the ultimate Wisconsin festival! This year, they set their self-proclaimed world record of 209,376 brats sold in a four-day weekend! I can tell I'm getting old and starting to not be a bottomless pit - I only had two brats (with extra sauerkraut), ice cream, a couple "beverages," and many, many samples of mustard!

Here's a picture of the grilling area. You can't see the propane tanks, but those grills are hooked up to tanks bigger than ones on houses out in the country!

The basic premise of this fest is to eat brats and lots of them (there is beer too, of course!) There was also live music, ice cream, and (I thought this was especially cool) a stand from the National Mustard Museum in Middleton with lots of different varieties of mustard to sample. The girl even brought me a sample from the cooler in the back - it was a very intense horseradish mustard that made my eyes water. A trip to this museum is in the works!

Also making an appearance was the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile.

Hiking the Ice Age Trail

2010-05-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

May 22-23, 2010

Complete Set of Photos

This weekend I traveled about an hour southeast of Madison to the south Kettle Moraine State Forest to go on a short hiking trip. I went by myself - none of my buddies wanted to go and I wasn't going to let that ruin my plan!

The Ice Age Trail is a national scenic trail that runs for over1000 miles, all through Wisconsin. It starts on the border with Minnesota, goes south through Madison, then back up to Door County. It actually goes right across the street from my apartment - I can see a trail marker from my balcony. It follows the edge of glacier from the Ice Age - everything to the north of the trail was glaciated and everything south was not. You can tell that it's much hillier in southwest Wisconsin because of that!

I set out from the headquarters area for a leisurely hike of 11.2 miles to the Pinewoods campground (unfortunately, you couldn't backcountry camp and I had to stay in a state park with cars, crying babies, and noisy neighbors). I was a bit too confident and optimistic - I was already limping and blistered when I got to the campsite (I had hiked about 15 miles in a day before and it was the first hike of the season, after all!). Then, in the morning, I had to wake up and hike the 11.2 miles back to my car! It took me two hours longer to get back to my car, but I made it. I could barely walk from then until Monday evening.

This part of the trail was not particularly scenic, but still fun. There were a lot of kettle lakes and prairie areas to explore. I also stumbled across a baby turkey while its angry parents flew around above me making all sorts of noise.

There is a lot more of the trail to explore in the state forest. I plan to do a lot more hiking on the IAT in the rest of the state too!

(Fly) Fishing in Wisconsin

2010-05-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

May 2010

Complete Set of Photos

Finally, it's fishing season in Wisconsin! I'm still trying to complete my goal of catching a nice trout and eating it. In contrast to the Mason area back in Michigan, the Madison area is not in the fishing black hole of the state. There are actually nationally known trout streams within a 1/2 hour drive of my apartment. I've been to a few so far and have many more line up to try out! You can catch brown, brook, and rainbow trout around here.

The astute reader may notice that I sure seem to go fishing a lot and never catch any fish. True - I'm new at fly fishing and have yet to become an expert as to which flies will catch fish and such. Hopefully I'll get better with experience. I also just have a lot of bad luck :) Plus, the worst case scenario is that I spend time outside walking through a stream.

There is also a small pond across the street from my apartment. It's not the greatest pond (all the storm drains in the neighborhood go there) but there are lots of fish in it (and a muskrat I see swimming around). The problem is they're all about 2" long. I finally caught a huge sunfish though (probably 8" or so) and fried him up in kitchen. Delicious!

Mount Vernon Creek is a few miles southwest of Verona. I actually saw some trout in this stream (which is more luck than I usually have), but it had a very muddy bottom and it had a lot of branches in it. It was tough because I couldn't wade (I had to walk along the banks) and the trout would all hide under the branches where I couldn't get to them.

Black Earth Creek is a couple of miles to the west of Madison. This is the creek that's nationally known! I was there a few weeks ago and tried my luck in the connected pond as well - no luck (no one at the pond that day was catching anything). The creek here was a little nicer than Mount Vernon - the bottom was rocky enough to wade in. I saw a few trout surfacing, but didn't catch any.

Mifflin Street Block Party

2010-05-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

May 1, 2010

Complete Set of Photos

Today, I got to attend and observe the Mifflin Street Block Party in downtown Madison, near the university. This would be a similar event to Cedarfest at Michigan State, but with fewer riot police and teargas. Nancy from work had a BBQ at her place downtown a block from the party, so we were able to grill some brats and watch all of the drunk college students wander around.

The party was to celebrate the coming end of the school year for the UW students. The police, who had a very strong presence at the block party, enforced the laws rigorously: you can drink beer, etc. on lawns, but not sidewalks or streets. So, everyone would stand on lawns and porches (of any of the student houses on the street, regardless if they know who lives there) to enjoy beverages. It was fun to watch the lawbreakers get handcuffed and hauled away!

April 2010

2010-05-04T18:13:00.000-07:00

April 2010

Complete Set of Photos

Well, life is Madison is pretty good so far. Work is going well - I finally have customers and am doing "real" work, but I also still have some certification stuff to work on! I have customers on both coasts of the US and in the Netherlands. My job doesn't require much travel, so I don't know when or if I'll be going anywhere soon.

I also obtained my first shotgun. It is a Weatherby PA-08 12 gauge pump with a 26" barrel. It was brand new, never been assembled from the box! I've run a couple turkey loads through it so far and it seems pretty nice so far. It kicks a lot too! I will be using it to turkey hunt in a few weeks here. I have a turkey choke and a Hi-Viz sight for it too. I'll have more pictures of the gun in action later.

Also, during the weekend of the 24th, I went back to Mason for my dad's wedding. I also picked up some White Castle, Rachel, her friend, and a bunch of their laundry in Illinois on the way. The wedding was nice and I got to see a bunch of family members from far away and catch up on picking on my cousins! On the way back to Madison, I dropped off Rachel and Stephanie at Olivet and got to enjoy dorm food at a college again. I thought it was funny when I helped Rachel carry stuff to her dorm room - she had to announce that there was a man in the hall and then her residents would do a double take when they walked by her room and saw me in there!

In other news, I joined an adult skills development hockey class in Verona which started this month. There was a pretty small but dedicated group of people that showed up and it actually did help out my hockey playing. I'm a slightly better skater and a much better shooter after the class. I may take a break from hockey in the summer to do things outside, but plan on joining a hockey class again in the fall or winter. Going to the gym regularly has helped out too - I'm not as worn out after playing hockey for an hour as I was back at Tech and at the beginning of this class.

I also got this Garfield comic in my email a few days ago and thought it was pretty funny, seeing how I live alone with my old cat! FYI, usually 3-4 people view my blog a day! Speaking of old cat, Tugger is still doing OK. He still howls very loudly in the very early morning, but if I clap my hands just right so it makes a loud cracking noise, it's loud enough that he can hear it and he shuts up for a few minutes!

March 2010

2010-03-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

March 2010

Well, I haven't had too many wild adventures this month - nothing photo-worthy at least. Here's a recap though:

Work is going well. I'm still in training and am taking more classes to become trained for my job. I passed a Linux certification exam and am working on becoming an Epic-certified system manager. It's exiting stuff - soon I'll get customers assigned to me and do "real" work!

The first weekend in March, my sister Rachel came to visit. I was able to show her around my new city and office. We also went shopping for stuff for my apartment - I now have some very classy-looking artwork on my wall! We also checked out a Turkish restaurant on State Street - I had an Iskender Kebab, which was good, but not quite the Döner from Germany!

Also, the weekend before St. Patrick's day, I went to Milwaukee to visit Julia (from high school). Luke (also from high school) was there as well and we hung out in downtown Milwaukee for a while enjoying the after-parade festivities. At night, we went downtown to meet some of Julia's work friends at the "Whiskey Bar." We were expecting a laid-back bar specializing in whiskey. We were wrong! It turned out to be a classy dance club (while we waited outside, limos were pulling up and dropping off girls dressed to the nines). We went in, sat around a table, and tolerated the club music like a bunch of lame grown-ups!

Verona, the town just south of my apartment, has an ice arena that offers an adult hockey skills development class. I signed up for that and am looking forward to playing hockey again (starting next week!) and getting a little better at it in the process.

On March 27 we had Epic's 31st Anniversary Party in Voyager Hall (the training building). It was a fun event - more formal than normal work (I wore my suit) with an employee video contest, a trivia challenge (my team of January new-hires tied for 1st!), and lots of good food from local restaurants. I had sushi, Indonesian food (not that great, actually), Indian food, and Jamaican food. There was a even a little Jamaican pasty thing!

The Ice Age Trail, which I've mentioned before, is no longer is covered in snow. So, I've been able to hike on it (as opposed to snowshoeing before) and I've gone to the west for a ways as well. It actually goes right through the golf course across the street! This summer I'll try to go to a northern stretch that I can hike a longer distance and camp on.

It's also finally getting warm outside! I've been able to sit out on my balcony and enjoy sunshine and warmth (and let Tugger get outside a bit too). Pretty soon I'll be able to start fishing and camping and will have more interesting things to write about (like catching trout!)

Outdoor hockey & Visit to MTU!

2010-02-19T18:04:00.000-08:00

February 2010

Complete Set of Photos

Well, I haven't done too many exciting things this month, but there have been a few!

The first weekend in February I went with Jesse (also interned at 3M, now also works at Epic) to the Camp Randall Classic hockey game featuring UW Madison against U of M. This was pretty cool - they had the hockey game in the football stadium and had a crown of about 55,000 I heard. Unfortunately, all the seats were quite a distance from the ice, but it was still cool!

I also went back to Houghton on the 12th to visit friends back at Tech. I made it there in a little less than 6 hours driving time, so not bad at all! My original plan was to head up there during Winter Carnival (the previous weekend), but there was stuff to do in Madison (the hockey game, Superbowl, etc.) so I stayed here. I got to hang out with friends and watch a few broomball games too!

I must say I was disappointed with the Winter Carnival statues this year. I heard the weather didn't cooperate well either, but I've still noticed a decline every year since I've been there. I say this a bit hypocritically as I've never helped build a statue (it's a ton of work - let they fraternity kids who pay to do it work on them!) There are more pictures in link above. The theme this year was "games," so there were a lot of video game statues, as well as a Wheel of Fortune and a Price is Right statue!

I also went snowshoeing with Anthony (roommate from freshman year) at Hungarian Falls , near Hubbel just north of Houghton. This was really cool - I was surprised I had never been here during my time at Tech! The falls (although frozen) were really tall and it was a cool place to snowshoe around.

Exploring Madison & Other January Happenings

2010-01-23T16:49:00.000-08:00

January 2010

Complete Set of Photos

Since moving to Madison, I've done a bit of exploring. There are two places I've gone snowshoeing: the UW Arboretum (pictured) and on the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. The UW Arboretum is a natural area a few miles away with snowshoeing and cross-country skiing trails. The Ice Age National Scenic Trail is actually located right outside the window of my apartment (I can see a trailhead marker from my balcony). It's many hundreds of miles long and goes though much of Wisconsin. It just so happens part of it runs across the street from me. I've explored that small chunk of it. I also discovered outdoor ice skating at Elver Park - I've practiced and improved my hockey stop!

Tugger the cat also had his birthday on January 10. As corny as it sounds, I got him a can of food with "19" candles (we did this when I was a kid - I think it was his 5th birthday then). Tugger tried to eat the food while the candles were going, felt the heat from the flames, and then wouldn't go near the food until I blew them out! I saved the candles to reuse when he turns 91.

Also, for Christmas, Sam got us hockey tickets to the UW Madison-Denver game on the 22nd (UW Madison and Denver are in the WCHA, as is Michigan Tech, so they all play each other throughout the season). This was a great present and I really enjoyed the game and seeing Sam. I got to see Bucky the Badger skate around on the ice too! They tied 3-3.

Currently, it's been unseasonably warm and a lot of the snow has melted, so I haven't been able to do many outdoor things. I'm taking the time to catch up on some reading and TV watching!

My New Job at Epic

2010-01-16T15:54:00.000-08:00

January 22, 2010

Official Epic Photos
Official Epic Web Site

Well, I've been working at Epic for a few weeks now and am starting to settle in. I still have months of training still and when I'm not in official training, I'm learning things on my own, so I haven't done much real "work" yet.

Epic was originally located in Madison (in many different buildings), but a few years ago they built a bunch of nice new buildings in Verona (a suburb to the SW) and have gradually moved most everyone out there (some buildings are still under construction). These buildings are really nice and have a bunch of artwork, etc. throughout. The campus is nicely landscaped with streams, ponds, rocks, and a waterfall. There is also a huge training building with classrooms and a large auditorium. The picture here is just part of the campus - there are many, many more buildings, but it gives you a feel for it.

My team, Server Systems, is still located in a building in Madison. It's a slightly longer commute, but not a big deal at all. The building here is nice too, and I get my very own office! That's right, not a cube! I have my own walls, door, name tag and everything (no window though, unfortunately). The picture is the courtyard inside.

Server Systems works with customers regarding server hardware and database support for their installations of Epic software. I will even get to travel a little bit! Here's the official job description.

The Real World: Madison, WI

2010-01-03T19:35:00.000-08:00

January 4, 2010

Complete Set of Photos

Well, I've finally done it - I'm in the real world and am officially a grown-up!

Last week, I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. On Monday, my mom and I drove the Fusion with Tugger (my cat was comingalong too) and the truck/trailer with my Dad, Kevin, and Geoff (Kevin's buddy) came on Tuesday. We unloaded all my stuff, assembled furniture, went shopping, and I said goodbye to everyone. Finally, I'm on my own in my own apartment! If there are any dirty dishes in the sink, weird smells, etc., it will be my weird smell or dirty dishes laying around!

Here are some pictures of my apartment (it's the top balcony above the garage door in the picture above). It's a loft style, meaning the kitchen, dining room, and living room are downstairs (the 2nd floor of the building) and the bedroom, bathroom, and closet are upstairs. It's a neat layout that gives me lots of space. My balcony overlooks a pond that's in a city park. There's also a prairie nature preserve area nearby. The building has an underground, heated parking garage so I'll never have to scrape my car in the morning! I also have my own laundry machines, which is nice). Note the "Psycho" shower curtain!

Tugger the cat is doing just fine. For those of you who don't know, he will be 19 next Sunday. For an old geezer cat, he's in good health with the exception that he's deaf. He mostly moves from one sleeping spot to the next and howls incessantly in the middle of the night (I'm working on a solution to this - I won't be against pills). He's also finally using a cat bed that my Grandpa and I built when he was a kitten!

I start my job at Epic on the 4th. I won't be working out of the new campus in Verona, but out of a building in Madison. Both buildings are a short commute from my apartment so I won't spend a ton of time commuting. I've been exploring the surrounding area a bit, trying to figure out where things are and how to get around.

Graduation from Michigan Tech

2009-12-20T19:52:00.000-08:00

December 12, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

Well, I did it! After four and a half years, I graduated from college - I am now an official Tech alumnus! I am very glad to be done and to move on to the "real world" in Madison, but I will also miss some aspects of college life (mainly everything but the programs, homework assignments, and having to do work at all hours of the day and night). A bunch of my friends will still be at Tech for another year or two, so I'll have people to go back and visit during Winter Carnival and such.

It turns out that a picture of me taken by the official MTU photographer made it on to the MTU facebook page (above). What you can't see in this picture is that I'm wearing the furry paw gloves from the Blizzard mascot suit! Last year, Anthony (another Blizzard) graduated and wore the furry legs under his gown. When I got onstage, the President laughed (he knows the Blizzards and knew we'd pull a stunt onstage at commencement) and gave me a hi-five! Here's a picture with the gloves.

My mom, dad, grandparents, aunt, and two cousins endured the drive to Houghton to attend the ceremony and hockey game beforehand (Rachel was still in school studying for finals, so she didn't come).

Here's what I ended up with:
Bachelors of Science in Computer Systems Science (magna cum laude)
Minor in International German
Honors Institute member

Here is a picture of me and my mom, dad, and brother:

Here is a picture of me and my grandparents:

Here is a picture of me and my aunt and cousins:

2009 Deer Hunting

2009-11-28T11:50:00.000-08:00

November 21-29, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

Well, unfortunately I had another unsuccessful deer season (it wasn't just me though, reports from Michigan and Wisconsin say this year wasn't a good year anyway). I went to my aunt and uncle's house in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving break and sat out in the deer blind from dawn to dusk Saturday-Friday (with a break to go to my cousin's basketball game Friday) and didn't see a single antlered deer (where they live, you can only shoot bucks). Opening day sounded like a war zone - there were shots going off left and right every few minutes, then the shots tapered off as the week went on. I think all the bucks were blasted those first few days ;)

Hopefully there will be antlerless permits here next year so I can shoot a doe. I just want the meat and antlers don't taste good (I'm not going for a trophy for my wall). I did see a ton of turkeys (I counted 13 when I took this picture), squirrels, and grouse, so I'll be back when I'm a resident of WI to take care of those animals!

Here's a quick summary of what I saw. I saw plenty of deer, they just didn't have antlers.
Every day: a bunch of squirrels, crows, and bluejays
Saturday: 7 deer, 1 grouse
Sunday: 4 deer, 1 skunk
Monday: 9 deer, 3 grouse, 1 huge woodpecker
Tuesday: 5 deer, 5 grouse
Wednesday: 3 deer, 3 turkeys
Thursday: 8 deer, 13+ turkeys, 2 grouse
Friday: 8 deer

Even though I didn't get a deer, it was still a fun, relaxing weekend. I got to sit outside all day, in the peace and quiet, reading books, eating those chocolate-covered donettes, and drinking Mountain Dew. It was great! It was also fun watching all of the little woodland creatures frolic - it was just like a scene from Bambi!

On the way back to Tech, I stopped at the Silver River Falls (northeast of L'Anse) to try steelhead fishing. A guy I met while fishing on Bass Lake in Iron Mountain suggested it (he caught a 17" brook trout while I was there!) and he even gave me a lure to try. Well, no luck there either, but it was a cool waterfall!

November Updates

2009-11-17T20:01:00.000-08:00

November, 2009
Complete Set of Photos

Well, this has been an interesting month so far!

I went hunting with Bob and Rando around Lake Perrault earlier this month and finally got some game all by myself! We went out looking for squirrel and grouse (on two occasions). The first time, I took my dad's .22 but found it too difficult to shoot squirrels (they move too fast) and a grouse on the ground I found (either I had a really bad shot or the bullet hit a twig or something, it was sighted in well). Rando and Bob ended up with 7 squirrels and a grouse between them. The second time we went out, Bob let me borrow his 12 gauge and I got three red squirrels! They're too small to eat, but they have nice skins we hang on the wall. Here's a picture of the first victim.

Also, during the weekend of the 13th, I headed down to Madison to check out apartments. I looked at 4 different places Friday and 3 on Saturday. On Friday night, Sam drove over from Milwaukee and we had sushi before meeting Alex and Jesse for a while (two other 3M interns from last summer). Coincidentally, Jesse will also be working at Epic Systems this spring! I found an apartment I really liked and signed a lease for it (it's a one-bedroom loft with a view of a nature preserve and pond!). I'll post pictures when I move in.

Also, on Friday, November 20, our Thanksgiving break starts. Like last year, I'll be headed to my aunt and uncle's in Niagara, WI to go deer hunting. I have a stack of books to read, new Under Armour, and a bunch of snacks for the week. It should be a good time, and hopefully I'll get a deer to fill our freezer!

It's also been exciting preparing to graduate. My degree audit is turned in, I'm wrapping up final assignments in classes, and I'm ready to get out of here! I like Tech and all, but it's time to move on. I'll be home for about two weeks after commencement, then I'm off to Wisconsin!

Blizzard T. Husky

2009-11-03T11:30:00.000-08:00

2005-2009

Well, now that my time at Michigan Tech is coming to an end, I can let everyone in on a secret I've been holding since I started at Tech that very few people know about. I was one of the Blizzard T. Husky mascots! I've been a Blizzard since freshman year... I actually arranged it when I was on a high school visit! It's been a great time being Blizzard and hanging out with the other Blizzards (who shall remain nameless, of course!) I'll miss it when I'm in the real world!

This is me in the pictures (from the hockey game on October 31, 2009). Before the players come out during the pregame of a hockey game, Blizzard skates around the ice and throws a football in to the crowd. I'm not the greatest skater in the world and it's harder when you're in a dog suit and can barely see, but it works out OK.

The reason I've kept this a secret so long is that's the way mascots roll. If people know who is in the suit, it just isn't as fun. It's also the same reason mascots don't talk. It's also great that you don't need to worry about embarrassing yourself and you can dance around, etc., and no one knows it's you! There's a nice article from the State News (MSU's student paper) that explains the "culture" of a mascot, although from Sparty's point of view. It's really tough to keep it a secret... sometimes people wonder why you suddenly disappear for a few hours. Back in the dorm, I'd just get up, walk out the door, and come back and my roommates would barely notice! The article mentions that it's very hard not to tell your friends after you've done something really interesting in the suit... I can testify to that!

On that note, my junior year the Blizzard crew got an email from Andrea, who wanted to interview Blizzard and write an article on the mascot for the Lode (Tech's newspaper). Andrea was Pete's girlfriend and Pete lived literally next door to me in the Attic. It ended up being me who anonymously responded to her emails and it was hilarious to be sitting on the couch in my room, send the email, and then hear her from the next room say "Blizzard responded to my email!"

Blizzard does many things at Michigan Tech: football/basketball/volleyball/hockey games, Open House visits, Parent Weekend activities, parades, Winter Carnival, ice skating, skiing, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, photo shoots, etc. I've done most of these things in my time, and it's been great!

Some of my fondest and/or most interesting memories include:

Working (3 times!) at the GLI hockey tournament in Detroit (We skated at Joe Louis Arena with Sparty, stayed in the Ren Cen, and hung out a lot in the suite on the 69th floor!) I have also possibly been broadcast on FSN!
Shooting our CO2 T-shirt cannon
Traveling down to Grand Rapids for the Battle at the Ballpark football game
Picking on people who don't know it's me (I can think of friends I've sprayed with a hose, noogies given, and a certain professor whose hair I always mess up!)
Skating around on the broomball courts during IRHC events
Snowshoeing in costume during the Bigfoot snowshoe event
A short gig as an Easter Bunny at the mall
Seeing "myself" on posters, etc. all over campus

Oh, by the way, the "T." in "Blizzard T. Husky" stands for "The!"

The "Real" World

2009-10-25T15:12:00.001-07:00

October 22, 2009

Good news! I have accepted a job offer with Epic Systems in Madison, WI and will be starting my first, full-time real world job in January! Epic is a company that makes software for the health care industry (it runs in a lot of hospitals and doctors' offices). I will be working in Server Systems, assisting hospital IT teams and doing UNIX system administration and such. You can find out more about Epic at their web site.

I went down to Madison in September for an interview and was surprised at how much the area reminded me of Lansing. Madison is a little bigger than Lansing, it is the state capital, and it has the huge state university (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Epic is technically headquartered in Verona, which is a smaller town just SW of Madison in the middle of farm country, just like Mason. So, it shouldn't be that much of an adjustment for me! My current plan is to find an apartment on the west side of Madison, away from the college students (I'm done living around students all the time)!

It should be fun living in Wisconsin. I like the Upper Midwest atmosphere and am glad I got a job where I'm still around hiking and fishing opportunities, yet still far from home and independent. I'll have to get used to people calling drinking fountains "bubblers" and pop "soda" though!

Samantha visits the Keweenaw!

2009-10-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

October 22-25, 2009

This weekend, Samantha had a short break from school and was finally able to come to Houghton to visit! It was great to see Sam again and show her my school and all the cool stuff to see and do around here, but unfortunately we had horrible weather the whole weekend - rain, snow hail, wind, and cold temperatures. That ruled out the motorcycle ride!

Sam arrived from Minnesota (she flew home first to get her car, then she drove) on Thursday night. Bob and Anthony helped me prepare a Yooper Feast, with smelt (breaded and fried), pheasant (legs slow-cooked in hot sauce), grouse and woodcock (breast, pepper, and onion wrapped in bacon, grilled) and smoked whitefish that Sam brought along. The Red Wings were on TV also, but they lost :(

On Friday, I was able to show Sam around campus a bit. I unfortunately had to go to class for one hour though! Later, after lunch, we headed out to the sandpit to do some shooting, which is something Sam had never done before. Along with my dad's .22, Bob and Anthony were kind enough to lend me their 20 gauge and .243, respectively (they left to go bow hunting for the weekend), so Sam and I were able to blow up a few water jugs and clay pigeons! We also drove around a bit and checked out the breakers, the Redridge dam, and Covered Road. For dinner, we went with Katie and Christina to the Library (the restaurant/brewery, not the one with books).

On Saturday, I took Sam all around the Keweenaw. We went though Calumet, down Cliff Drive to see the cliffs, on M-26 to Eagle River (stopping at the waterfalls along the way and enjoying the curvy, hilly road!), to Eagle Harbor, and then to Copper Harbor. Brockway Mountain Drive was really nice - from the top, you could see the fall colors all around as well as Lake Superior to the north! Lastly, we stopped at the snow thermometer, depicting Keweenaw County's record snowfall in the late 70's! The red arrow on the right side is last year's snowfall.

For dinner, we picked up some pasties (No visit to the UP is complete without a pasty!) and then headed over to DHH to meet Jackie and Devan for a sauna. After heading to the KBC to meet Katie and Thomas (Tammy 1), we headed back to the apartment for the night.

We both had a really good time this weekend. I enjoyed introducing Sam to the Keweenaw, as well as checking out things for possibly the last time before I graduate! Luckily, none of my friends scared her away. We're all a good bunch of crazy characters up here at Tech and I told Sam what to expect so there were no surprises! Hopefully she'll be able to come up again in a few weeks for a hockey game!

October 2009

2009-10-05T19:26:00.001-07:00

October, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

On October first, I went fishing at Redridge with Anthony. Both of us tend to have a lot of free time in the afternoons and end up going shooting or fishing. Redridge is a pretty cool place - about a 15 minute drive west of Houghton. There used to be a town and the main attraction is a large dam built in 1901. The Salmon Trout river is blocked up behind it. This is the river that has its source at Lake Perrault, where I've gone trout fishing in the past. We didn't have any luck (in the past, I've caught large perch here), but it was fun to explore and get outside for a while.

On the weekend of the 2-4, I had the opportunity to travel down to Grand Rapids to watch the Michigan Tech Huskies football team play Ferris State in the "Battle at the Ballpark," a football game that took place at 5/3 park, a baseball diamond. Tech smoked Ferris and I got to see my buddy Timmay play! A highlight from this trip is the odd 17 MPH speed limit sign from the parking lot!

October 10th was Michigan Tech's homecoming. Since the beginning of time, the theme for Homecoming has been hobos (why, I don't know). Anyway, the powers-at-be at Tech are on yet another political correctness binge and decided to decree that the hobo theme is not politically correct and students should just show Tech pride. The parade, formerly known as the "Hobo Parade," is now just the homecoming parade (this whole business is ridiculous, in my opinion). The parade was a bit smaller and shorter this year due to construction downtown. Brandon, Jeff, and Petcoff (three guys from the Attic freshman year) all came up to visit and we hung out over the weekend. On Saturday, it was really cold, windy, and snowing (yes, snow on October 10!) so we didn't golf, tailgate or go to the football game like we planned. It was fun to see some old buddies again!

Also, on the 13th after class, I tried my hand salmon fishing on the Falls River in L'Anse. Of course, I didn't catch anything, but it was still fun to wade around a river! I had never been to the Falls river before - it's actually really cool! There were two main waterfall areas that I saw. I also met a nice Yooper who gave me some tips on salmon and steelhead fishing - I will come back next time after a rain, when the water level is raised up a bit!

Probably more updates to come...

September Updates

2009-09-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

September, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

In between classes, I've been keeping myself busy this month.

I was in Milwaukee again last week and, in addition to visiting Samantha of course, had the opportunity to see the vacant lot where Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment once stood. He was a notorious serial killer back in the 80's. Because of all of the horrible murders in that apartment building, they just tore it down and it has remained a vacant lot ever since.

I've also gone grouse hunting with Bob and Anthony a few times (Bob has an extra shotgun he lets me used). We've gone to Keweenaw County, near Gratiot Lake, and haven't had much luck (mainly because we don't have dogs to flush the birds out). We have seen a few grouse, but no one got them.

Also, for my birthday on the 24th, I luckily had no class or tours that day - I had the whole day off! I took the Nighthawk on another ride up to Copper Harbor, taking the scenic M-26 route there and Brockway Mountain Drive on the way back. It was a good ride, and lots of fun! I also went shooting with Anthony, ate dinner at Taco Bell, and then went to the KBC at night. It was a good day!

On Saturday, September 26th, I had my combination senior party, birthday party, and Oktoberfest celebration all-in-one! A bunch of us (around 20 people at a time were there) gathered in the back yard and grilled and sat around a fire in the grill. Luckily, the weather cooperated and it was a good time!

K-Day 2009

2009-09-11T17:36:00.001-07:00

September 11, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

Today was K-Day (Keweenaw Day), an annual Michigan Tech tradition. It consists of all of the students, etc. converging on McClain State Park on a Friday in early September to take advantage of some nice weather and get to know more about the university. Most student groups will set up a booth to give their sales pitch and have some sort of activity, such as cotton candy, snowboarding (on real snow hauled in), and so on.

I went with Bob, Anthony, and Christina. With all of us being super seniors (5th year) or above, we were not interested in joining any new clubs, but we went for the free food that was served! Now that I'm off campus and no longer have a card to swipe in to the cafeterias, I'm learning to take advantage of free food opportunities! Also, after being at Tech for 5 years, you get to know a lot of people, so we just hung out and socialized for a while.

Afterward, we headed out to one of the shooting ranges in the area for some target practice. For this purpose, we used a watermelon, a cantaloupe, and one of those decorative Halloween gourds. When you hit a cantaloupe with a 20 gauge slug, it completely explodes!

New Apartment

2009-09-08T12:40:00.000-07:00

September, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

This fall, I finally moved off campus and out of the dorms at Michigan. For my last semester (remember, I graduate in December so I'll only be here in the fall), I moved in with Bob and Rando (Randy). Bob was my neighbor across the hall my freshman year in the Attic, and Rando lived around the corner from us. Also, Bob was my roommate in the Quad in the Attic my junior year.

I now live in an apartment at the end of Mill Road (so, south of town a bit, past the SDC and near a trailhead for the Tech Trails). The location of the apartment is very nice - we have a field area out back where we can see deer walking around at night. It's a very quiet area as well. As mentioned, the apartment is right next door to a trailhead to Michigan Tech's trail system, so I don't have far to ride to get to the mountain biking trails!

It's only a two-bedroom apartment, so it's a little cramped, but we're managing fine (plus, all the expenses are split three ways!). I share a room with Rando (because he had the bigger room). We constructed a loft that I bought from Caleb (former roommate from Ford in Dearborn) in order to fit both of us in the bedroom. In order to fit all of our stuff in the apartment, we constructed another couch stand. So, in the living room, we have a whole end of the room that's 2.5' off the ground to allow for storage underneath and stadium seating couches on top!

Because the rug that Bob had didn't cover the whole length of the couch stand, we left the left few feet bare particleboard. Bob's dad had an extra 20 gauge shotgun reloader, so we bolted it to the couch stand and now have the ability to reload shotgun shells while watching TV! That end of the couch stand is the "gun area," complete with reloading supplies, various ammo, cleaning supplies, and clay pigeons. We will be getting a 12 gauge reloader soon. Note the disco ball, still hanging from the ceiling!

At first, it was very weird for me to be a commuter student. I now had to drive to campus, worry about finding a close parking spot, and I am no longer able to simply walk across the street to the dorm to my room and the cafeteria! I'm also now one of the bums that tries to mooch meal swipes off of friends that still live in the dorms! It's a nice change though - it reminds me that I'm almost done with my time at Tech! I really like Tech and all, but I've had a taste of the "real world" as well and I'm looking forward to that soon!

Trip to Isle Royale National Park

2009-08-22T19:46:00.001-07:00

August 24-30, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

Mark and Adam's Photos

For the MTU Outdoor Venture Crew fall trip, myself, Adam, and Mark went to Isle Royale National Park - Michigan's only National Park and the least-visited national park in the lower 48 states. Isle Royale is a large island in northern Lake Superior and is actually closer to Canada and Minnesota than Michigan. Going to Isle Royale was one of my goals while I was a Tech student and I'm very glad a fortunate that I was able to hike on the island for a week, right before my last semester!

Overall, it was a very nice trip. It was a nice wilderness to hike in, but we still saw a lot more people, especially compared to the LSPP trip in May. Also, Isle Royale is well-known for its moose and wolf population - there are actually Michigan Tech researchers who study the predator-prey relationship on the island. We never saw a wolf or moose on the trip, but we did hear the wolves howling at night when we stayed at Chippewa Harbor.

Here's a map of the island so you can see where we went. I'll write this entry by day, so you can see where we were on a certain day, as well as the interesting things in that area.

Day 1 - Houghton to Copper Harbor to Rock Harbor to Daisy Farm - 7.1 miles hiking
I stayed over at Adam and Mark's house so we could get an earlier start on the drive to Copper Harbor to catch the ferry (it left C.H. at 8 AM!). The ferry, the Isle Royale Queen IV, took about 3.5 hours to get to to the island in a very calm Lake Superior (no one got seasick!). After we arrived at Rock Harbor, we split off: the backpackers set off on the trails and the others headed over to the hotel/lodge area where they were staying. We hiked to Daisy Farm, which was a decent walk when you're starting out around noon!

Underway, we stopped at Suzy's Cave and picked some thimbleberries. On that note, thimbleberries and blueberries were everywhere on the island! We happened to be there at the right time and were constantly munching on berries as we walked along the trails!

We also stopped and looked at some old mine shafts from the old Siskowit mine. They were fenced in and were just holes in the ground.

At Daisy Farm, we found a shelter to stay in (most campsites by the lake have three-sided shelters with a screen wall that you can stay in. It's easier than a tent and gives us more space). Later that evening, I was reading a booklet at the bulletin board when I heard this trotting sound behind me. I turned around and a large fox ran by within a few feet of me!

Day 2 - Daisy Farm to Chippewa Harbor - 9.7 miles of hiking

The next day, we hiked over to Chippewa Harbor. This was a very scenic (although out-of-the-way) campsite that was well worth the extra hiking! At this dock, we actually went swimming, which, although Lake Superior felt like it was freezing cold, was very refreshing after a day of hiking!

Day 3 - Chippewa Harbor to Hatchet Lake - 15.2 miles of hiking

This day was our longest day of hiking. We had a (relatively) early start to the day and made it to Hatchet Lake by late afternoon. On the way, we hiked on the Greenstone Ridge trail (one of the two main ridge trails, the other being the Minong Ridge trail). There were some really cool views of the island. We could also see the Keweenaw to the south and Minnesota and Canada to the north and west (the horizon in the picture). You could even see Thunder Bay!

Because Hatchet Lake is in the middle of the island, there were no shelters for us to stay in. We stayed in Mark's tent instead. This was a "large" 2-person, 4-season tent. This was an experience - we were pretty much spooning the whole night with three guys in a 2-person tent until Mark and I switched orientation (went head-to-toe) so we fit better. It got so hot too (a 4-season tent has less mesh and therefore doesn't breathe as well), that I woke up in the night just to stick my head outside to get some cool air!

Day 4 - Hatchet Lake to McCargoe Cove - 10.5 miles of hiking

This was a very cool day of hiking. We stopped and explored two mines near Todd Harbor - the Isle Royale Mine and the Pittsburg Mine. Again, they were just deep holes in the ground. While searching for the second mine, I ran across a cool stream. There was a small waterfall in the wooded area, and then, a few yards downstream, yet another waterfall straight in to Superior!

Farther on down the trail, we stopped at the Minong mine. This was cool - there were two shafts that you could actually go in. The one even had old rails for the carts that hauled the copper out. There were also ruins of an old blacksmith shop and so on. There actually used to be a settlement here in the 1870's, but the mine wasn't very profitable so they closed it down.

Later, once we had arrived at a shelter in McCargoe Cove, we were very fortunate. We were minutes from opening a can of salmon to make dinner when some other backpackers came by and asked if we wanted any fresh lake trout. Of course we did! It turns out some random guy on a boat stopped by and gave these hikers a gallon Ziploc bag of fresh lake trout fillets. They couldn't eat them all, so we helped out. We used Mark's backcountry oven and we actually baked them with some butter (supplied by the boat guy) and some Italian seasoning that we had. It was delicious!

Also at this campsite, we saw a beaver swimming around in the cove, as well as a the largest leech I have ever seen in the water. The thing was over 6" long!

Day 5 - Stayed at McCargoe Cove - 0 miles of hiking!

Unfortunately, we woke up to a cold rain the next morning. We reached a consensus to just say in the shelter at McCargoe Cove for another night (our next planned stop, Lily Cove, only had tent sites and we didn't want to repeat the tent experience from the other night when we'd all have to be stuck in the tent the whole time)! So, we just sat around, laid in sleeping bags and read or napped the whole day. A ranger stopped by to check our permit and said that the forecast for the next day was more rain and gale-force winds! This was discouraging, because we had to move the next day in order to catch our ferry! He also informed us that the Ranger III (the ferry that leaves from Houghton) was going to stay at the island longer - this delayed a batch of people in Houghton and on Isle Royale for a day!

Day 6 - McCargoe Cove to Three Mile - 12.6 miles of hiking

This day was just miserable! Luckily, the gale-force winds never made an appearances, but it was cold, windy, and generally nasty all day. We tried to hike as fast as possible to keep ourselves warm, as we all discovered that our waterproof boots, pants, and jackets weren't waterproof for that long! While we were hiking (on another section of the Greenstone ridge) we could see fog, clouds, and rain blow around, which was very cool.

We hiked to Three Mile, a campsite about three miles from Rock Harbor (of course...). We found the last open shelter, which we shared with Brittany and Jenny, two other hikers who arrived at the same time. Luckily, in the afternoon, the rain stopped and the sun came out, so we were able to hang up stuff to dry and, yes, go swimming again! This time, the water seemed even colder, but again, it was refreshing to get that nasty sweaty grime from hiking off.

Day 7 - Three Mile to Rock Harbor to Copper Harbor to Houghton - 2.7 miles of hiking

For our last day, we had just a short hike back to Rock Harbor to catch the ferry. We even got to see the ferry bring a fresh load of backpackers to the island from the trail we were hiking on! Lake Superior was calm once again, so, 3.5 hours later, we were back in Copper Harbor. Our next destination: the Burger King in Calumet, where we all had a Quad Stacker meal that was over 1700 calories! It was glorious!

We then made a triumphant, smelly, and bearded return to Houghton around 9 PM, with the first day of school the next day!

So, the total distance that we hiked was at least 57.8 miles (there was some extra to get to the sites from the main trails and such). I ended up with only two blisters. Someday, I'll have to go back to Isle Royal from Minnesota (that ferry docks on the southwest end of the island) and explore the other half of the island!

During the trip, we ate a bunch of interesting "gourmet" food. Some of our backpacking concoctions were fried spam and couscous, canned salmon (with spine!) and couscous (pictured), blueberry/thimbleberry muffins cooked on the backcountry stove (pictured), Italian seasoned lake trout, and a huge log of pepperoni with pepper jack cheese!

I also have a cool panoramic picture that I took that I may post in the near future.

Visit to Milwaukee & Niagara, Wisconsin

2009-08-22T19:45:00.001-07:00

August 19-22, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

Before school started, I had the chance to take a trip to Wisconsin to visit Samantha in Milwaukee and, on the way back, my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Niagara, Wisconsin. It was a fun trip and I got to see parts of Wisconsin where I'd never been before!

I went first from Houghton straight to Milwaukee (a six-hour drive). I met up with Sam and got to go out to dinner with her and her friends from Marquette University (where she goes to school) at the Mexican restaurant "Cempazuchi," which was featured on the TV show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" on the Food Network. Afterwards, we hung out at a friend's apartment - it was a really nice, new loft apartment a few blocks from campus. It completely blew the Houghton housing out of the water, it was so nice! Here's a picture of Sam's apartment building, right next to campus!

The next day, Sam and I went on a walking tour of Milwaukee. I had not heard positive things about the city before I got there, but the parts I saw sure didn't look any worse than Detroit! Actually, the downtown area, with the river and some older buildings, reminded me a lot of Chicago. I though the university looked really nice, too. It's a bit bigger than Tech, but had some cool stuff. The rules there are also way less restrictive, so I felt bad for my sister Rachel who went to Olivet!

No trip to Milwaukee would be complete without visiting a brewery, so Sam arranged a tour of the Sprecher Brewery for me, which was pretty cool! The actual tour was quite short, but we had four sample coupons for the bar area! They had a wide variety of different beers, as well as a bunch of different types of pop that they brew (it is fancier pop, like IBC and such). A couple from Novi, MI was there and mentioned that you could buy Sprecher products at the Costco in Brighton, but I'd never seen them anywhere else.

The next day, we went to the Milwaukee Ale House, which is a restaurant and brewery downtown, kind of like the Library in Houghton. I had the sampler there, which was also very good. I left Milwaukee later that afternoon, as I was due in Niagara that night. It was nice to see Sam again - next time, she's going to visit me in Houghton for the Keweenaw experience! I'll make sure to get some pictures of both of us when she comes to visit, because we forgot to in Milwaukee! Here's a picture of just Sam though.

In Niagara, I went with my cousins Rachael and Ali to Piers Gorge, which I surprising had never even heard of before - it's a whitewater section of the Menominee River (the border between WI and MI at this point) just a few miles from Niagara. We were also lucky enough to see some whitewater rafters go by (and a guy get launched out of the raft into the cold water). I also discussed hunting strategy with Uncle Ken (same as last year, pretty much).

Also, because we decided to leave for Isle Royale on Monday instead of Sunday, I got to stick around for a sibling reunion lunch (all of Uncle Ken's brothers and sisters were in town). We had smoked brisket which was delicious and made me want to get my own smoker now!

Anthony's Wedding

2009-08-12T08:48:00.001-07:00

August 15, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

On August 15, I had the opportunity and honor of being a groomsman in Anthony's wedding. This is the Anthony that was my roommate freshman year and we've been friends and hung out with the same crazy group of people ever since! They were married in Houghton in the St. Igatius church, and the reception was held on the 7th floor of the Best Western downtown.

Here's a shot of Anthony (from Stockbridge when I first met him) and Christina, the bride (originally from Florida).

The bridesmaid I was paired up with was Jessica, one of Christina's friend from Florida.

A lot of the pictures from my camera came out blurry, plus I don't want to go about posting a ton of pictures from their wedding, so there are just a few of me in the tux on the link for the complete set of photos.

Fishing in the Keweenaw

2009-08-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

Mid August & September, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

This post will be updated during the next few weeks as I plan on fishing a lot before I go to Isle Royale and school starts!

On Monday, August 10, Bob and I went to Hoar Lake, which is in the very tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula (we had to take a dirt road for about 15 minutes past the end of US-41 to find this lake). We caught a bunch of pike on spoons and spinners while padding around in Bob's canoe. The pike were all about 20" long, (my largest was 23" and Bob's was about 25"), which is small for pike standards (the legal size in Michigan is 24"). From what we hear, this is normal for that lake. This was fun for me because I was finally fishing from a boat and I caught my first pike! I caught 7 pike and Bob caught 12 in about four hours that day.

On Wednesday, August 12th, I went to Lake Perrault (south of Houghton) to try my hand at fly fishing. This lake is the source of the Salmon Trout River which flows through the Keweenaw to Redridge on the Lake Superior shore. I hiked around the edge of the lake to where the river should start and found that it is dried up for the summer. There was a nice pool there though, so I waded in and started fishing. I ended up only catching a small bluegill (my first flyfishing catch!), but no brook trout that I was aiming for. I could see the trout swimming around and they would hit my fly and jump out of the water at it, but they would never get hooked. It's all good though, because that lake's regulation says that a brook trout has to be 15" to keep - that's a pretty big trout - and the ones I was seeing were definitely smaller.

On Tuesday, August 18, I went fly fishing once again, this time to two rivers near Gay: The Traverse River (Houghton and Keweenaw counties) and the Tobacco River (Keweenaw county). The Traverse river, at least the part near Gay-Lake Linden Rd., was hard to get to through the brush and was muddy and silty on the bottom, which made wading difficult. I got a ton of bites but no catches (I think it was all really small minnows that hit the fly and made it seem like a bite). After I went to the Tobacco River, I checked out the Traverse River farther towards Lake Superior, with no bites at all.

Next, I went a few miles down the road to the Tobacco River (there is a nice little park right on Lake Superior right past Gay with river access). This was a cool river - it was shallow and rocky on the bottom, which makes it easy to wade in. Plus, there were a few small waterfalls! Here, I caught two small fish both about 4-5" long. The one in my hand is a lake chub and the one hanging from the hook is currently unidentified.

Later on, in September, Bob and I have gone fishing at a few other places. We caught a few bass, crappie, and pike at Sandy Lake, Emily Lake, and Pike Lake, but nothing spectacular. On Pike Lake, I caught a smallmouth bass (it was about 3" long, so a baby) and a monster perch (pictured below)! On Sandy Lake, I caught a small bass and Bob caught a nice crappie. Anthony and Christina were with us in a separate canoe and were around the corner, so Bob and I took 3 pictures of the same bass and 2 of the crappie and told them we caught 5 fish in just a few minutes!

Bob also caught a small brook trout when we went to Lake Perrault again (with the canoe this time). It was way under the legal size though.

Bachelor Party!

2009-08-06T15:16:00.001-07:00

August 7-9, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

My friend (and roommate from freshman year) Anthony is getting married this weekend and I am one of the groomsmen. In lieu of the standard, traditional bachelor party, Anthony elected to go on a canoeing trip to Craig Lake State Park, which is near Michigamme. I was up for this (of course, I'm a big camping type person) and I even volunteered to organize the trip.

The campers were (L to R in the picture below): Anthony, Bob (former and current roommate), myself, Tammy 1 (my RA freshman year), Erik (Anthony's brother and best man), Rando (former neighbor and current roommate), and Delebreau (from the dorms last year). It was interesting that the crew was mainly a group of us from my freshman year that still are good friends and hang out together!

We left Houghton late Friday afternoon (within a few hours after I returned from downstate) and drove to the park, where we met Tammy 1. After unloading all the gear and canoes (which we rented from Tech), we hauled it all 1/5 of a mile down to the lake. We brought a ton of gear and food - there was no way we were going to starve on this trip! We had three canoes and one kayak for Erik. We paddled to about the middle of the lake and set up camp at a site with an excellent "dock" - a big, flat rock jutting out in to the water.

The vast majority of Saturday was spent fishing and exploring in the boats. I went with Anthony to the north end of the island where we hiked through the woods to find Clair Lake, and then did some fishing near the source of the Peshekee river. Bob and Rando explored another river as well. We caught a decent amount of fish (not as many as we hoped to), including some bass, pike, walleye, and crappie. On Craig Lake, it's artificial lures only and bass, pike, and muskies are catch-and-release. For keepers, we ended up with a 15" walleye I caught (that's pretty small by walleye standards, but over the special size limit for this lake), and two big crappies that Erik got. We filleted them and beer-battered them back at camp!

The weather for the trip was OK - it rained both nights (there was a good storm Saturday night), and it was drizzling on Saturday morning, but for the most part it was cloudy or sunny. Here's a picture of "Team Tammy" on the way back Sunday morning after it rained. Overall, the trip was a success and everyone had fun!

Overall, I was impressed with the park. It was in the middle of nowhere and had some really cool views. It's in the same general area of the UP as the McCormick Wilderness area, where I went in May 2008. There were cool bluffs and waterfalls around, too.

End of 3M Internship

2009-07-24T17:29:00.001-07:00

July 31-August 6, 2009

Well, my internship at 3M has finally come to an end. I really enjoyed working there and I really liked the Twin Cities as well (it wasn't really that much different from Michigan - the weather was similar, the accent was about the same, and it just "felt" like the Mid-Michigan area). It went really well and was a lot of fun! I will miss the fun things to do and the intern friends I made there - it was a fun and interesting group to hang out with!

I left 3M after lunch on Friday and then loaded up the car to drive back to Houghton (I had to drop some stuff of at my apartment and pick up some other stuff to take home to Mason). I made it from St. Paul to Houghton in about 7 hours and from Houghton to Mason in about 9. The Fusion got really good gas mileage on the trip - about 37 mpg in the UP and about 31 mpg in the LP. I made it from L'Anse to Mason on one tank of gas (that's close to 500 miles!).

I was then back home in Mason for a total of 5 days. I was busy running around to various appointments, dinners, shopping, and meeting up with friends and family who I haven't seen for a long time. It was nice to see people again and notice all of the things around Mason that have changed - our mini golf place is completely gone, the bowling alley was extensively remodeled, there are streetlights along Cedar Street now, and more!

Now, it's back to Houghton for Anthony's bachelor party (we're going to Craig Lake State Park - this will be the next blog post!), then some bumming around Houghton, then a trip to Isle Royale the last week of August, then my last semester at Tech before the "real world!"

Minneapolis Aquatennial

2009-07-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

July 19, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

On Sunday, I went with Sam to the Minneapolis Aquatennial, which is a 10-day festival in July to celebrate things in Minneapolis. During this event, they held a sand castle building contest and a milk carton boat race at Lake Calhoun, which is a lake/park surrounded by Minneapolis. This was a great idea on Sam's behalf!

I especially enjoyed the milk carton boat races - they were very similar to the cardboard boat races at Tech that I have participated in! In Minneapolis, the rules seemed to be a bit more relaxed. The boats could hold different numbers of people (some held only one person, others held three or four), they were made out of lots of cardboard milk cartons glued to each other, and they were all creative designs (such as a dragon, a paddle boat, and a Star Wars ship).

None of the boats we saw sank right away like some of the cardboard boats at Tech. At Tech, the boats have to be made of cardboard, glue, and duct tape and they must hold at least 8 people. Most are "boat" shaped as well. Some will buckle and sink right away, but ours (see a post in an October 2008 blog entry) actually made it around the buoy and back.

The sand castles were, well, sand castles. Some where pretty intricate, although we didn't stay long enough to see the final versions and the judging.

4th of July & More!

2009-07-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

July 2009

Complete Set of Photos

For the July 4th weekend, some of the interns and I that didn't go home for the long weekend had a lot of fun!

Thursday night, after work, a group of us headed to downtown St. Paul for the Taste of Minnesota festival. This is just like Common Ground - there were bands, music, and fireworks at the end. The band we saw was Staind - we got there too late for the other two bands.

On Friday night, we went over to my apartment and watched "Revenge of the Nerds." I thought this movie was hilarious - I had never seen it before and I learned where a lot of pop culture jokes and such from the Simpsons came from.

Then, for the 4th, a group of us went to Stillwater, MN, which is about 15 minutes away on the St. Croix River (the border with Wisconsin). Stillwater is also the oldest city in Minnesota. This was a really cool town and it reminded me of a mix between Mason and Houghton. For example, the downtown had a lot of older buildings, ice cream parlors, craft shops, etc. just like Mason. There were also small cliffs, hills, the older buildings, and even a lift bridge, just like Houghton!

On the note of lift bridges, the one in Houghton blows this one out of the water! The Houghton bridge is much higher and wider (the length is longer in Stillwater though). We got to see the bridge lift up too so a sailboat could get underneath. Here are links to the Stillwater and Portage Lake bridges.

The fireworks were interesting as well. From what I've heard and seen, Minnesota has about the same fireworks laws as Michigan (meaning everything cool is illegal) but Wisconsin will let you blow up whatever you choose. So, we could sit on the river and watch all the people in WI shoot of fireworks before the Stillwater show started. There were some civil war reenactors with cannons that were being shot off all the time. There was no parade, which was interesting.

Also, on Wednesday night (the 8th) a sizable group of 3M interns headed to Minneapolis for the Minnesota Twins vs. New York Yankees baseball game. On Wednesday nights, student tickets are only $4 ($7 for the Yankees though). It was fun, but it just didn't seem right to me because the baseball stadium is indoors (it's also where the Vikings play football). The Twins lost 3-4, unfortunately.

June Updates & Guinea Pig

2009-06-29T19:46:00.001-07:00

June 2009

Complete Set of Photos

Well, June has been going well. I've done a lot of working, grilling, fishing, and a few other things.

I wanted to go backpacking somewhere in Minnesota this summer, but it appears that all the good places are farther up north (meaning too far for a quick weekend trip). So, Josh (another intern who lives in the same complex as me) attempted to go camping at Afton State Park, which is right on the St. Croix river (border between MN and WI) and conveniently less than 10 miles away. None of the sites were open, so we couldn't spend the night, but it was still a nice day outside. This park had some cool trails that went through a prairie area and a small creek that we explored. I also tried my hand at slacklining (like tightrope walking) and found out I need a lot more practice!

Now, to one of the highlights of my summer so far! Samantha, another intern I've known since orientation who is from the Twin Cities area, was over one Friday when we were all grilling out. She mentioned that she knew of a restaurant called "Chino Latino" in Minneapolis that served guinea pig! I thought this sounded really cool (you know I eat a lot of weird things)! So, Sam actually agreed to go with me to sample this guinea pig (it was a two-person entree that had to be ordered two days in advance). We just started laughing when the waiter brought it out - it was a whole guinea pig, sprawled out on top of rice and potatoes, with the claws, skin, and rodent teeth still on! We had to sit there and carve it up like a turkey too! It actually tasted really good (in my opinion). The texture was like really tender chicken, I would say. The restaurant itself was an experience as well - it was a very hip, trendy place that I would expect to see in California with movie stars or something. Here's a picture of the guinea pig:

Also at the end of June, my mom and little brother came by for a visit. So, I got to show them around my current home a bit and do some of the standard tourist things I haven't even done yet. We first headed out to downtown Minneapolis to look around. That day was coincidentally the Pride Parade, which was very interesting in itself. We also went to the Minnehaha Falls, which is in a city park.

We also headed out to the sculpture garden near the art museum and got to see the famous sculpture of the spoon and cherry. For whatever reason, this is a popular symbol of Minneapolis and it shows up on maps and brochures. The next day, Monday, they visited my office and we went to White Castle for lunch. After I got out of work, we went to St. Paul and drove around, taking pictures of the fancy houses along Summit Avenue (I don't have the pictures on my camera) and looking around downtown.

Oh, the internship is still going very well. I've had the chance to do informational interviews with managers of other departments. This allows me to get a sense of what the other groups in 3M IT get to do.

Here is my plan for the rest of the summer:
July: Work
July 31st: Last day at 3M, goal is to be in Houghton that night to swap stuff
August 1st: Drive from Houghton back to Mason
August 7th: Drive back to Houghton from Mason for Anthony's bachelor party (canoeing at Craig Lake State Park)
August 9th: Back in Houghton
August 15th: Anthony's Wedding
Sometime in the last two weeks of August: Backpacking on Isle Royale!
December 2009: Graduate from Tech
January 2010: Real World!

More from the Twin Cities...

2009-06-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

May/June 2009

Complete Set of Photos

Since I've been here, I've had the chance to do a bit more exploring around the area. I know the somewhat general road layout now as well!

In St. Paul, on the banks of the Mississippi River, there is a part called Indian Mounds Park. There are old Indian burial mounds here that you can check out.

Here's a nice shot of downtown St. Paul from the same park.

Also, on day, Myc (from Michigan State) and I went to downtown Minneapolis to explore. Around here, St. Paul is known as the more business-oriented city with not as much to do, whereas Minneapolis is the exciting, wild rockin' place to be. Minneapolis is quite a bit bigger and had some really cool skyscrapers downtown, as well as the network of bridge/tunnels so you don't have to go outside when it's cold to go from building to building!

Everything is going well. I'm having a good time at 3M - I've had the chance to do some informational interviews with people from other groups, so I got to see some other aspects of IT there. There was also a tour of the pilot plant where we got to see how some types of tape are made!

Oh, on June 12, myself, Liz, and Myc drove over to Caleb's apartment in Maple Grove to watch game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Red Wings and Penguins. As you probably know by now, it didn't go well for us. Anyway, we got stuck in traffic twice on the way there, once for this event. We could see the smoke from a ways off!

Also, all of the 3M interns are here by now. There are about 8 other interns I know of that live in the same apartment complex as me. We hang out a lot on the weekends and try not to cause too much trouble! I will not be getting a roommate, which is cool! Tremell, who was supposed to be my roommate, was reassigned to Boston.

I'm the only intern I know of from Michigan Tech, but there are a few from Michigan State and U of M. Oh, on that note, I have to get used to the fact that 'round these parts, "U of M" means University of Minnesota!

Leinenkugel's Brewery Tour

2009-05-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

May 23, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

Today, I traveled over to Chippewa Falls, WI to visit the Leinenkugel's brewery. On the tour they mentioned that Leinenkugel's beer is distributed in 48 states, but I've heard from others that it's more common in certain places than in others. I went with two other 3M interns: Tremell (who was supposed to be my roommate until he was reassigned to Boston) and Mycael, who happens to go to Michigan State.

The brewery was pretty cool, but unfortunately they don't operate on Saturdays, so we didn't get to see the bottling line in action or anything. We did get two samples, which we enjoyed outside in the sun on a picnic table next to a cool stream.

Everything at my internship is going well so far. The Twin Cities area (or at least what I've seen of it so far) is really nice and it looks like I'm going to be doing some cool testing at my job. These first two weeks though I've mostly just gone through training and tutorials and such on the software tools that we use for our testing (to get me up to speed). I've done some exploring around the area and have experienced the Jucy Lucy burger - a cheeseburger with the cheese inside the meat. Delicious!

3M Internship

2009-05-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

May 11, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

Well, I've started to get settled in to my new internship at 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota! Here's some information:

My apartment is really nice - it's subsidized by 3M. I'm in a 2-bed, 2-bath townhouse in Woodbury, MN (about 15 minutes from the 3M Campus) in a really nice townhouse community. Woodbury is almost entirely subdivisions and shopping malls and is very new and clean (the most perfect example of suburbia I can think of!) The guy I thought was going to be my roommate has been moved to a different 3M location, so for the time being, I have this place to myself and have no idea who my new roommate will be or when he will show up. So, I took the master suite!

At 3M, I have my own cube and dual-monitor computer setup on the 4th floor of one of the office buildings (behind the one in the picture). What my group does is testing of applications for customers - we'll test and simulate certain numbers of users, network conditions, and such and analyze the results. So far, it seems that it will be very similar to my Performance Analysis class from last semester, which is cool that I finally get to apply something in the real world that I learned in school!

I also did a bit of exploring in downtown St. Paul - it's pretty nice! The one park actually had an (artificial) stream running through it, and I found the AgriBank headquarters (the parent organization of GreenStone FCS, where I had my first internship).

Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada

2009-04-26T19:49:00.001-07:00

May 3-7, 2009

Complete Set of Photos
Adam's photos (there are more pictures of me in here)
P.S. You'll actually want to look at all of these photos. They're pretty cool!

Wow... what an amazing trip! For the annual Spring Trip for Tech's Outdoor Venture Crew, we went to the Lake Superior Provincial Park near Wawa, Ontario, Canada (about two hours north of Sault Ste. Marie). Myself, Adam, and Mike were the campers - all three of us former Boy Scouts and hardcore backpackers.

For the rest of this post, you may want to refer to this map so you know where we are when I mention a place. Keep in mind it's a really big scale and it's in kilometers. This trail is 65km long and it is labeled as "very demanding" and is expected to take 5-7 days to complete. We did it in 3!

This was officially my second-favorite place to go backpacking (North Manitou Island is still number one!). It was by far the most strenuous hike I've done, but also the most scenic and adventurous (as you will find out!)

Mike and I were both RA's at Tech, so we burned rubber out of Houghton a little after noon on Sunday when we were released of our duties. We met up with Adam in Sault Ste. Marie, MI, did some last-minute food shopping (we bought enough for 4-5 days), and drove to the park. We had no problems getting into Canada or finding the park - it's on the only road in the area! We had Adam's CRV and my Fusion as vehicles.

The plan that first night was to drive both cars past our starting point (the Visitor Centre) and leave Adam's at the west end of Gargantua Road. We would then pile in my car and drive back to the Visitor Centre. We would then hike from there to Gargantua Road and take Adam's car back to mine and head home from there. Here's what actually happened:

While driving down Gargantua Road at night (it was probably 11 PM at this point, on a dirt road in northern Canada in a place so remote we couldn't even get an FM radio station), we got caught in a remaining snow pile that was on the road about 2km in from Highway 17 (the road was mostly clear though). So, we had to stop and chip out Adam's car. We figured the road could be worse up ahead, so we just left his car on the side of the road and figured we would just walk to the car from the lake (Gargantua Road was either 14 or 16km long, so we didn't make it that far before we parked the car). We drove my car back the Visitor Centre, parked it, and set out.

On the first night, we just hiked a short bit from the Visitor Centre almost to the Agawa River. We camped on the beach, under the stars.

On Day 1, we hiked from just before the Agawa River to right before the Sand River. Once again, we camped on the beach under the stars. We had absolutely wonderful weather that day - it was probably in the 60's, sunny, and breezy by the lake. The highlights of this day were two abandoned cabins/lodges we found, as well as the Agawa Pictographs. These pictographs were left by Indians about 150-200 years ago. The trail right before this was, in my opinion , the most challenging of the entire trip. We were walking across soccer-ball sized rocks, jumping from boulder to boulder, squeezing through cracks between two rocks, climbing really steep hills/cliffs, and even sliding across snow and ice in small caves.

After waking up, we hiked across the Sand River (using the bridge on the road) to Beatty Cove, where we camped in an established site with a nice fire area. On this day, we met two other hikers going the opposite direction - the only people we would see the whole trip! We then climbed a really steep hill a had a great view of Lake Superior. We had even better weather than on Monday - it was a great hike! Usually I don't get blisters while hiking (I have good socks and broken-in boots), but the terrain on this trip (meaning huge rocks on the shore) really took their toll on my feet and I had to bandage them up to avoid blisters. We also discovered that not all of the trial is well marked - there were small blue markers nailed to trees, but that was only when you were in the trees. Usually, on shore, there were small stone cairns (stacks of rocks) to mark the way. The rule was, if you got lost, just follow the lake and you'd eventually find the trail again.

We had a long hike ahead of us for the last day - from Beatty Cove to Gargantua Harbour, back to the car. Unfortunately, the excellent weather didn't hold out. It rained on and off all day. We'd hike for a bit, eventually get sick of the rain, and would then stop and put on rain gear, only to have it stop raining again! This day was especially treacherous - the rocks we were jumping on and over were very slippery and all of us slipped and fell a few times. In one of Adam's videos, he captured me slipping when climbing down from a rock. Luckily, I was holding on with my right hand, otherwise I would have fallen into a small crevasse and would have been hurt pretty bad. When we finally reached the end of our portion of the Coastal Trail at Gargantua Harbour, we took a breather and then headed back to the car on the dirt road.

We then headed east towards Adam's car, a ~14km hike on a dirt road ahead of us. We just about flew down this road because it was so flat and straight compared with the rest of the trail! We reached the car in a little over two hours only to discover, of course, that the battery was dead! After a quick discussion, it was decided that Adam and I would hike out to the road and hitchhike back to my car, drive back to Adam's car, jump it, and be good to go. So, Adam and I headed out to the road - it was about 9 PM at this point and foggy because of the rain on the remaining snow. After about half an hour, when we gave up with the thumb's up motion and started waving our arms, a guy named Roger pulled over and offered us a lift back (keep in mind that everyone on this road has to go past the Visitor Centre). About 20 minutes later, we got to my car, drove it 20 minutes back to Mike, jumped Adam's car, and drove both 20 minutes back to the Visitor Centre. At this point, we were all very tired, bruised, sore, blistered, scratched, and wet, so we just parked the cars and camped on the beach in front of the small campground that was there.

The next morning, after being awoken by more rain, we got back in the cars and drove home. At the U.S. Border, the Customs guy pulled Mike and I aside to be searched - I had to pull the Fusion into a garage where some other agent kept asking if we had any drugs or needles and threatened to "bring out the dogs if I have to!" Mike and I went inside and were searched there as well - we had to empty our pockets, lift up our pant legs, etc. Lo and behold, who else comes in the room a few minutes after us? Adam, who was a few minutes behind us and in a different lane! Of course, the customs agents didn't find anything on us, so we continued on to Houghton.

What an adventure!

Smelt Dipping '09!

2009-04-26T19:34:00.001-07:00

April 24, 2009

Complete Set of Photos

As is tradition, Bob and I went smelt dipping again this April (while listening to the Steve Miller Band and eating Taco Bell!). Last weekend, we first tried Cole's Creek (a few miles west of Houghton) where we've had good luck before, but not so this year. All I caught was a small rainbow trout which I put right back in the water. At Swedetown Creek (in Hancock, across the Portage from Cole's Creek), I saw one smelt, but the water was running really fast, was cloudy, and was too cold.

Finally, on the 24th, we caught wind that the smelt were running at the Pilgrim River, which is about a mile east of campus, right on US 41. That night happened to be Senior Walk (the last weekend before finals is Senior Walk, when all of the seniors make one last "walk" to the various drinking establishments in the area). It also rained, stormed, and hailed for a while. Around 11 PM, Bob and I showed up at the Pilgrim River and hit a great run! The road was lined with cars and people were lining the whole riverbank dipping smelt, so we knew it had to be good! The water was a bit muddy from the recent rain so we couldn't see any specific smelt, so we just dipped blindly. Every few dips, we'd get 1-3 smelt in our net (nowadays, that's good!). I didn't take many pictures this year because it looks the same as the pictures from last year!

We ended up with about 100 smelt, which we cleaned in the kitchenette by my room and will eat in the near future. This, unfortunately, will be my last smelt dipping experience as a Tech student because I'll graduate in December.

April 2009

2009-04-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

April, 2009
Complete Set of Photos

Well, not too much has happened here in April except Spring Fling and the snow finally starting to melt. All that's left now are the big piles left from the plows (and that huge snowball that was a globe during Carnival).

I'm in the process of finishing off the semester, which involves working on a few projects and homework assignments. They are coming along nicely. I have two final exams and a take-home exam due during finals week. The rest of the time, I plan on moving stuff over to the apartment.

This Friday and Saturday night, Bob and I tried our hand at smelt dipping. We only saw one smelt on Friday and I only caught a small rainbow trout on Saturday, so we had no luck. We're too early - the water and air is still a bit too cold.

On Saturday, I went with Kevin and Anthony to the Gay Bar. For those of you not familiar with the Keweenaw, there is a "town" named Gay about 1/2 hour from Tech. The town bar, of course, is named "The Gay Bar." It's a common thing to do to drive out there, get your picture by the sign, and have an adult beverage. During the drive back, I almost hit a golden eagle with my car. The thing was perched on the side of the road and took off into the road as soon as I drove by and just barely cleared the roof!

Also, on a side note, Friday it was about 70* during Spring Fling. Today, Sunday, it snowed. Stupid weather...

Spring Fling 2009

2009-04-17T08:17:00.001-07:00

April 17, 2009
Complete Set of Photos

To start out Spring Fling (an annual celebration to get you out of your rooms and labs, as well as a stress-reliever from studying and preparing for finals), we played Oozeball, which is just volleyball in the mud. Our team was the "Elysium Gladiators," a house team that also had a few guys from 4-D (the next house over) in it. Our game was at 10:00 AM. It was still about 50* out and we lost the game, so we never got to play again later in the afternoon when it was almost 70* out!

The rest of Spring Fling is essentially student groups sitting at their booths, as well as activities like mechanical bull riding, tomahawk throwing, and a motorcycle stunt show. Unfortunately, I had class and work that afternoon, so couldn't see some of the stuff (classes aren't canceled for Spring Fling).

Some of you may remember this statue from Winter Carnival in early February. Here it is again, more than two months later!

IM Floor Hockey - Team Tralala

2009-03-22T16:53:00.000-07:00

March-April, 2009
Complete Set of Photos

This year, I once again played on an Intramural Floor Hockey team (the last time I did was freshman year). Our name was "Team Tralala" (from the cheesy techno song, pronounced "tra-la-la") and we played in B league (the more challenging of the two men's leagues) and had a 3-2 record, which is pretty good!

The players were mainly people from Elysium and former Attic residents. It was a fun season and everyone had a good time!