Summer's goin by fast...

Well, July is pretty much over now but the blogging bug has bit me again so let's see what's been going on in my world.

Rachel's parents came down this weekend to spend some time with us. We managed to celebrate Dave's birthday by going to Natt Spil, an eclectic fusion restaurant just off the Square that has what is, in my humble opinion, the best damn pork sandwich EVER. On crispy home made french bread, with spicy mayo and plenty of cilantro and jalapenos. Mmm-mmm good.

We managed to get quite a bit of theater in this weekend as well. On Friday after attending a bbq at Joseph and Leah's we headed out to go see You've Ruined A Perfectly Good Mystery, a play written and performed by Madisonians that is headed off to the New York Fringe. The play was about a Sherlock Holmes rip off set in a completely irreverent choose-your-own-adventure and narrated by someone with a hilarious love of overworked simile and heavy handed puns, much to our main characters' dismay. Probably the best part about this play was the scenery, which was carried and acted out by the rotating portion of the cast. Particularly awesome whenever there was travel involved. Plus, at the end, dirigible battle!

Next up was Captain America. I liked it, maybe not as much as I liked Thor (THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRR!!!) but it was a fine addition to the Marvel line up. Hugo Weaving had an amazing clipped German accent as the Red Skull and, as Rachel put it, "Everyone hates Nazis, and when you have people that even the Nazis hate then you just don't care how many get blown up!" Hat tip to Marvel for including Nick Fury's Howling Commandos as part of the storyline and making Bucky into a badass. Also, the Avengers trailer at the end? YES.

Finally we traveled an hour out of town to Spring Green, WI to watch a play at the American Players Theatre. This place was very cool as it's an outdoor theater, and we have been blessed all weekend with absolutely perfect weather. Unfortunately we were a bit confused as to exactly how seating was going to work and brought a picnic dinner, only to find that there were actual theater seats and outside food wasn't allowed in the theater. Nonetheless we quietly broke out our peanut butter and raspberry & hot pepper jelly sandwiches and served ourselves slices of gourmet sheep and goat cheese on crackers while the play was going on.

The play that we saw was Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, a comedy about a man who accidentally brings the spirit of his first wife back from the grave with terrible results. It was very witty and the actors performed quite admirably and, for being an outdoor production, the special effects were good. I do have to say that it did drag on a bit especially towards the beginning, but overall it was a great way to finish out the evening. Plus I think I saw more bats during the play than I have at any other point, which is awesome.

And that's mostly what's been going on. Deb, as I know you're reading this, if you could send me some of the pics from the weekend I'd love to post them up.

Thanks for reading!

Protest Pictures Album

For those of you who are interested, here are my pics from the protests, including a lot of pics I haven't posted yet that were shot by Rachel Carroll, Girl Reporter, from inside the Capitol. Enjoy!

Wisconsin Union Protest Pictures

The Last Couple of Weeks

So I've been a bad little blogger and haven't updated nearly often enough in the past couple of weeks. Lots of stuff has been going on too, so let's get started!

First of all, there was an Old Tymey Drinking Party on the Saturday before the Super Bowl. I happened to find, of all things, a Steampunk store in Madison where I managed to pick up the above white-tie attire. Let me tell you, that the fact that I have a cot with tails, a top hat and a monocle makes me an insanely happy man.

Second, it was unseasonably warm in Madison last week, reaching the 50s towards the end of the week. Every one was out of doors and in the sunshine.

It also gave me a great opportunity to get Rachel a brand new hat! Don't she look awesome?

This made it GREAT protest weather and we had lots of people show up. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, start watching the news! Our dear Governor is trying to take away the collective bargaining rights of most public unions in a very deliberate union-busting measure, made all the more obvious because the unions have accepted any financial burdens that they might be proposed to take.

This weekend there was even more protesting despite the chillier temperatures... we managed to get over 100,000 people gathered at the capitol to protest Walker's power grabbing. Check out the pics below- a lot of the protest signs were particularly inventive!

Ban the Imperial Walker!

Finally, Rachel's parents were in town to check out her speech at a UW conference. We went to a restaurant called Bluefies which is a heart attack waiting to happen. For reference, appetizers were Mac-n-Cheese-n-Bacon-Bites, and the deserts are pictured below.

These are Butterfinger wontons and chocolate chip cookie dough egg rolls. Mmmmmmm...

Well, that's what I have for now. Talk to you all soon!

Christmas 2010, part 2

*EDIT*

I didn't actually mean to post this today... I set this one up to post automatically on Saturday and must have forgotten about it. For those of my readers who don't know, my Oma passed away this past Sunday. I guess that makes the fun we had in the post below a bit more special seeing as it was her last Christmas with us. There will be some commemorative posting later, but for now let's take a look at the good times.

The cousins could only stay with us for a couple of days, leaving on the Thursday after Christmas. Before then we managed to do a few fun things, including a trip to the Corning Museum of Glass. The CMoG as I'll be calling it is a pretty cool museum, showing off a lot of glass science and history right next to the place where they invented fiber optics and CorningWare. Here are some photos from our outing:

On our last night we had Fasekigla (oy... is that how you spell it?) and my dad made stuffed peppers. Yum!

My cousins were all scheduled to leave by Thursday but my Uncle was unfortunately not able to get a seat on his flight. So we decided to make the best of it and went on a mini wine tour, hitting up Bully Hill, Dr. Franz Konstantin, Heron Hill and Ithaca Beer Co. Here's some pics of beautiful Finger Lakes country with some Herzl clan members thrown in.

Christmas 2010, Part 1

Well, it certainly has been a long time since I rapped at you all... wait, I've started this way before and it didn't work out well then either.

For Christmas Rachel and I headed back to Elmira. We were planning on driving but through a combination of stress on my part and increasingly dire weather predictions for the weekend we decided to fly. I had to work until noon on Christmas Eve so the best that I could do was the first flight out of Milwaukee on Christmas morning.

For reference, the weather predictions were very dire- snow starting on Christmas Eve and building into a full Nor'Easter on Sunday. And, to be fair, it proved true... just not on any of the places that I was going. 3 AM on Christmas? Roads clear. Flight to and from Detroit? Not snowing. My entry into Elmira? The ground was brown. BROWN!

Coming from a land where there was at least a foot of snow on the ground, I think it's fair to say that I was a bit disappointed.

SigusFriedus and Le Dog picked us up from the airport. After that it was a whirlwind meet n' greet with the immediate fam and the quickest present opening that I have ever been privy to. Highlights included:
-I Love Bacon! from The Girl
-Awesome spring jacket that Hans got me from Columbia
-Mark Twain's Autobiography!
-and the most awesome thing of all, a drinking horn holder.

You seriously have no idea how awesome this is. Having experience attempting to use a drinking horn at... a family friendly Rootbeer-athon!... it is incredibly hard to reliably keep one's drink in the horn or one's mouth based simply on the fact that you can't put it down. With this device, I can enjoy my Nordic traditions while secure in the fact that my horn will not tip over and spill my mead.

From there my cousins came home and we started off the big family reunion. Gifts were exchanged in a "Secret" Santa. I got some awesome silicone bake/cookware from my cousin Matt while I in return got him the Star Wars pop-up book (with working lightsabers!). The inevitable Christmas dinner featured double the normal number of birds, and in the war between Max and Meat I am sad to say that meat almost won, going so far as cutting off my dessert resupply. The jerks.

I also got to reconnect with Greg who grew a beard in my absence. Much Black Ops was played, and I was introduced to a new game that Hans got called Stomple. I can't help but pronounce it the German way...

Anyway, this post is getting a bit long, so I'll continue the rest of the trip hopefully over the next week. Check in next time for the 7 v 7 soccer tourney!

Until next time...

"The xmas holidays have this high value: that they remind Forgetters of the Forgotten, & repair damaged relationships."
- letter to Carlotte Welles by Mark Twain, 30 December 1907

Frozen Lakes and Music

It's getting fairly chilly here in Madison- we've had quite a bit of snow as of late. Epic is dealing with the problem in particularly crazy fashion by keeping their artificial river running throughout the winter. Granted, it leads to this pretty awesome view:

In other news, the girl and I have been concert going fiends as of late. First this past Sunday we went to a Doomtree concert featuring our favorite rapper, Dessa!

She is ridiculously talented- for one of my favorite songs of hers, check out the video below:



We also went to the Trampled by Turtles concert on Friday. They focus on contemporary bluegrass and are from Duluth. An example of their music is below:



In other news, I've been formally attached to a customer team and they are glad to finally meet me. So far the work hasn't been too tricky, but I hear there will be a lot more soon.

That's it for now- lots of busy work this weekend, but not too terribly much.

Until next time...

"We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music."
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927

Epic in the Mist

Before we get to the mistiness, update on the week. I finished learning one programming language last week and am now halfway through another- we move pretty fast around here! I have a pretty good grasp of the languages but today I seemed to be slipping a bit more than usual... not a good sign since I need to take the certification test in these languages in two weeks. Might've been because my old friend Insomnia has been hanging around, but I blame stupidly intriguing game systems and Tom Clancy for that. Stupid interesting things keeping me up...

Also this weekend Rachel and I went to our friend Dwight's house for brunch and it was a delightful experience. Dwight is a guy that we met at an English party even though he is only tangentially related to the department. Now we're hanging out all the time cuz he's a pretty cool guy who knows how to do EVERYTHING. Heck, the man even makes his own Limecello... Anyway, every so often he has a small group of friends come to his house for amazing brunch and conversation, mixing around the group each time to hear more interesting ideas. Really cool concept and the food was delish. Now if I can just get him to fork over the Bread and Beer party pics...

I'm also getting to know my coworkers better, and in pursuit of that goal I'm going to the Madison Brewfest this Saturday. I know, big sacrifice for me :) I'll give you a rundown of the different beers come next week. For now, pics!

 These pics came about because the entire campus was wreathed in fog one morning a couple of weeks back. I thought the campus looked really cool, so took some pics. Enjoy!

Until next time...

"Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more--restful."
- Speech by Mark Twain, 3/30/1901