Bloggings, Travel

Lake Geneva

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For the past 2 years Don has made it a tradition that he takes me on surprise birthday getaways (Montauk, galena)…and this year he carried on the tradition. 

Friday after work he picked me up and we started on our way.  We got on 94 and started driving.  About an hour into the drive we pulled into an Arby’s for dinner and got some gas.  He told me we only had about 30-40 minutes left.  I drove since he needed to navigate.  We arrived at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin around 9:45 pm Friday June 24.

He had booked us a room at Maria’s Bed and Breakfast.  It was a nice place and we were tired so we went to bed.  The next morning Maria made us breakfast (stuffed French toast).  Then we set out to take a look at the lake.  It was a nice day. We saw many places you could rent boats like motorboats and wave runners.  Don wanted to rent a speedboat so bad.  I was a little bit nervous…Don: “Honey, I’ve driven boats hundreds of times..” Me: “Not in real life! Grand Theft Auto doesn’t count!”

We saw a cute family of ducks!
We saw a cute family of ducks!

After walking around more and discussing what we should do, we decided to rent the speedboat.  We rented it for 2 hours…neither one of us has ever driven a boat. We got about a 10 minute lesson then they turned us loose.  It was great!! So much fun.  Don loved driving.  I was a little scared to drive.  The speed limit was 35 mph.  We could barely get it up to 30…it just seemed so fast and when you hit waves the front of the boat would fly up. 

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After the boat ride we went to get lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the lake called Popeye’s (not the chicken place).   It was pretty good.  Then we walked around and looked at the shops. At 3 pm we had a 2 hour boat tour of the lake.  It went around the perimeter of the lake and told about all the houses and the properties and a little bit of the history. It was interesting but we were both so tired. 

After the boat tour we went back to the b&b and used the Jacuzzi.  Then we went putt putt golfing. We ended the night by going to a small diner downtown. 

The next morning we woke up and Maria had prepared a vegetarian omelet for us. Then we set out on the road.  We wanted to go to a cheese festival we had read about but Don wanted to make one stop on the way there and of course it was a surprise. We arrived at a place to pick our own strawberries.  We got a lot of them.  Don fell in a hole when walking and I thought he broke his ankle!  I got rashes on my hands and ankles from the weeds so all in all a successful trip.  The strawberries were amazing.  We even got to taste some wine that they make from all fruit except grapes.  It was a little too sweet for my liking.
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Then we got back on the road to head to the cheese festival. When we got there it was just a grocery store that had a few of the award winning cheeses for people to try. Not really a festival in our eyes.  We saw an old fashioned train at the store and decided to see what that was about. The train went from the elegant farmer store to East Troy Wisconsin.  When we got to East Troy we arrived at the original building for the train depot.  Then we went to an old fashioned ice cream parlor and then back to the grocery store.
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Then we headed on the road again towards home. We made a stop at the Cheese Castle to pick up some Wisconsin cheese.  And we stopped at the fantastic Big Ed’s Barbecue.  So good.  It’s funny because at the beginning of the trip I said to him “Remember that time we went to that restaurant and we were the only white people…well except you’re not white.”  That was Big Ed’s and we ended the trip by going there. 

Bloggings, Rantings

I think I need to blog more.

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tonight i was bored and curious about something so i had to log onto myspace.  the reason for the myspace log on was to look for something i knew i had blogged about.  myspace has changed  A LOT.  i don’t even know what’s going on with that site!  it looks so different!  does anyone ever use it or look at it?  I haven’t in probably years. but it looks like their blogging is still better than facebooks.

well anyway…i was looking through my blogs for something…and i used to blog  A LOT.  and some of the stuff i wrote i don’t even remember! and as i was skimming through some of them i was like “man i’m glad i blogged about this now i can remember it!”  there were crazy dreams and just random things i did. i wonder if that will be there forever on myspace.  i hope so.  it was like a stupid diary.  a REALLY stupid diary, because i only wrote about mostly stupid stuff.

i should blog more though i guess.  then when my kids are growing up and are like “mom what did you do when you were younger?” i can show them because i know i probably won’t remember.  here kids just read this myspace blog.

i did find what i was looking for though…it was about puzzles.  most of you know mary and i went through a time in our lives where we were addicted to eating lots of junk food, getting drunk, and doing jigsaw puzzles…and i wanted to know how it all started so now i know.

so in tribute to our reunion in the next couple of weeks here is an excerpt from the blog of how all the puzzles started.
this was written sometime in the summer of 2007.

“so i’ve had something on my mind…something that i’ve wanted to get off my chest for awhile.  i dont have anyone in particular i would like to tell this to so i thought i’d just write a blog so that anyone that wanted to could find out.  i have a secret.  it may not be a well kept secret considering that most of my close friends already know (especially mary)  it’s more of an addiction rather than a secret.  well it’s both, a secret addiction.  this addictions started on November 26, 2006.  how do i know this?  because i received a traffic citation on this same day.  i remember me and mary were both very bored.  i mean BORED.  it was a sunday and we couldn’t think of anything to do.  so all of the sudden out of nowhere we decide to do a puzzle.  a freaken jigsaw puzzle…which we had to buy at meijer….which on my way home resulted in a speeding ticket.  this was supposed to be a one time thing but as winter became colder, snowier, and icier…and we had crazy drunken nights…and a lot of free time….we found ourselves wanting to do more puzzles.  so we just started buying puzzles and buying them….(pretty much cleaning out meijer, wal-mart, target and surprisenly k-mart) and when we finished one we would glue it together with puzzle glue…some people may not know but there is such a thing as puzzle glue…and now this addiction has resulted in about 10 glued puzzles stashed under my bed….

puzzles are like a sport except you’re doing probably the complete opposite of most sports by sitting on your ass for hours at a time…eating tons of junk food and sometimes even participating while wasted. ”

Bloggings, Rantings

out of balance

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Today I heard the line, “there is nothing wrong about consumption, its just right now it is out of balance”. I think that was the piece I was missing to my perspective. Lately I’ve been plagued with these thoughts of consumption and how its slowly destroying our lives. And I’ve been looking at consumption as a double edged sword. We need it and yet it will eventually bring about our destruction. Now though, I think it is overconsumption that is the problem. And how consumption has warped the minds of so many people. Consumption as a lifestyle, consumption for the sake of consumption, these are the main problems, not consumption itself. Does that make sense?

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Where was I?

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My last post was incomplete.

I'm on the bus now just thinking.

I think that there is a reason why each person is born. But it is not as personal as most people would believe. I believe that it is not the individual that has a destiny, but all of mankind. Most people spend there whole life trying to figure out their own lives when they really should be considering how their lives fit into the bigger picture.

If mankind were to be thought of as a single entity then each person becomes a part of a giant whole. Like the cells of our own body, each person functions as part of a giant living organism.

Our reason for being isn't what we accomplish in our lives, it is what we impart on the future of mankind.

I am not trying to lead this thought into a religious ending. Nor am I trying to lead you down a road that finds a certain religion to be right or wrong about creation or life itself. In fact I am trying to reason a Pan-religious theory. An idea about life, that fits across all religions.

—
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

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So it rained today.

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So lately ive been dealing with this change the world desire. This stems from the idea that we all have a purpose. Well actually its a bit more complicated than that.

I've been playing around with the idea that humans have a purpose. That we all exist for a reason. The reason however is not a singular or individual thing. You see most people try to figure out what their purpose in life is. If they find it then good for them, but if they don't find it they either give up on it or kill themselves in a mindless rage of pointlessness. I think when you look at your life as a singular thing. That is, your reason for being alive only effects yourself, then you'll never see a point.

There are also some who don't care. Somewhere along the way they heard the line "life is about living" and they adopted a lifestyle that was purely about experiencing as much fun as possible before they die. We're only on this earth for a finite period of time and therefore that means keep the party going cause it'll end any minute. I think that's crap. I think that there is more to life than just life. And this pleasure seeking lifestyle is working against us.

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