NOT The Blue Tiger Skin Lycra Tights Story

All right - I try to stay out of politics but this is too funny.

I think it was yesterday that John McCain was giving a speech in front of a bunch redneck bikers at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and he offered up his wife (the next first lady?) to become the Buffalo Chip Queen.

The bikers burst into cheers at the thought of a topless and MAYBE bottomless Cindy McCain. This would truly be a watershed moment in political history.

ummmmmmm - is their no one that looks into the venues in advance?
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Funny - I mentioned Madden NFL Football yesterday and there is a big article about it in the paper today. The new version comes out next Tuesday and there will be a lot of work missed Wednesday. Well - it comes out for all platforms EXCEPT PC. PC's are the forgotten platform nowadays. You can't even FIND a baseball game for a PC, no one makes them. It's all XBOX and PlayStations and so forth.

This is what Madden looked like in 1989. It was the very first computer football game to have 11 players on a side. John Madden insisted on 11.

This is what it looks like today. It is so realistic it is amazing. Players around the NFL purchase it just to see themselves playing and to look at their ratings for each player. It seems every NFL clubhouse has several games going at all times.

Speaking of Football - I have to think Brett will be playing for Tampa Bay. My feelings on this? Good luck to him. Not mad at all. I can see both sides of the issue and when times comes I'll cheer for the Packers as I always have.

Before all of this garbage took place I was looking forward to 2008-9 with Rogers as QB. He is pretty darn good you know. Football Outsiders, a group that looks at EVERY play of EVERY player of EVERY game and ranks each play on whether it was a victory or not, love Rogers. These guys know what they are talking about and I don't say that lightly.

They say:

"The Packers are in good hands with their new starting quarterback. Rodgers will have his struggles, and there will be much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments when that happens and No. 4 isn’t there to bail the Pack out. Still, it’s important to remember that in the Cowboys game, the offense played better with Rodgers than they did with Favre, because Favre was having one of his “Hero Days,” when you never knew what you were going to get. Rodgers was able to implement a game plan, and do it well, under a lot of pressure."

Add his sample-size DVOA to the equation (the best for passers with 10 to 99 attempts in 2007), and the (spoiler alert!) positive projections given to him by KUBIAK and Pro Football Prospectus 2008, and it’s pretty clear that fans of the team that has belonged to Brett Favre since the early 1990s will still have reason to cheer in 2008 and beyond.

These guys were the only major publication to predict big things for the Packers last year. This year WITH Rogers they predict 11-5 for the Packers. Rogers will have 28 TD passes and 15 INTs. (They are freakishly close on most predictions).

The Packer front line is DOMINATE and the running game will be outstanding. Jennings is one of the top 5 receivers in the league. Sure the Pack could do SLIGHTLY better with Favre MAYBE, but he will not me missed THAT much.

So be mad at Thompson and his Micky Mouse handling of the Favre situation but enjoy the season. The reason the Packer admin have been so anal about this entire thing is they think Rogers is the real deal and the Packers are a better team with Rogers as QB. Time will tell but have then been wrong in the past few years?

Not really.
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Cats do the strangest things

When we lived in Madison we had a two season porch. Spring and Fall. It had a metal roof so in summer it regularly reached over 400 degrees so it was not really usable.

We had a TV out there and would watch sports and so forth at times and just hang out. We were next to Sandburg Woods, an unknown Nature Preserve and had all sorts of critters roaming around.

ANYWAY - one night we were sitting there and a big carpenter ant is walking across the floor, then up the TV stand. Blake see's it and Sierra see's it and Milo is interested and they watch it climb/walk up the stand.

Milo decides he's had enough and jumps up on top of the TV and waits for it. Mr. Ant continues to climb the stand and crests the top of the TV and is now face to face with Milo.

Milo, on alert now stands up and lowers his head and and is about to eat Mr. Ant.

He opens his mouth and stops.

All of a sudden his gag reflex hits AAACH!!!! and he backs up shaking his head and almost backs off the TV. He jumps down and walks away continuing to shake his head back and forth looking like he was thinking "WHAT WAS I THINKING". Then stops to clean himself.

I thought cat's would eat ANY bug! I was wrong.

Milo sleeping.

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hmmmm - my last batch of beer might be interesting. I mashed at a temperature of 165-170 and it SHOULD have been in the 155 area. (Mashing is where you steep your grains in hot water for a period of time, this will make the enzymes in the grain convert the malt starch into sugar).

However one forum guru said " Sounds like you could end up with a low gravity, high flavor session beer which are actually pretty hard to make."

Meaning a high alcohol, favorable, lighter beer.
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Back to hitch hiking.

You left me in Glacier National Park and I had decided to make camp there for a few days. I went on hikes and just hung out a while.

One night I am awoken with sirens blaring from a police car that is just driving around. Seems a woman with a dog was mauled by a bear and they were taking no chances.

The next day I decided to leave and my way out was to go on what most travel books call the most beautiful highway in the world. The Road Going To The Sun Highway is breathtaking and a family picked me up and transported me to the other side. If you get up to that area you MUST go on that highway.

I left Glacier and had my thumb out going east again and it started to rain - YUCH. I had had good luck so far with rain. I was a little homesick as it had been a few weeks when a car comes to a screeching halt?

It was a face I recognized. The door opens and a figure jumps out, his long hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze. We run to each other like star-crossed lovers running across the grassy field toward each other, like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

What? Where was I - sorry - flash back.

It's Rod (a different Rod them me) my sometimes sort of infeminint friend (I always assumed he might be GAY). He is as surprised to see me as I am to see him. Him and some of his Jefferson friends are on vacation. They pick me up and I spend a few days in their cabin.

However they are just starting their vacation and I'm starting to get tired of all this away from home time. I leave after a few days and spend the next 3 or 4 days on the road. Nothing exciting happened (that I can remember) until I'm getting close to Madison.

A older guy (my age now I suppose) wearing all white (I remember that) picks me up near Lacross and as we are heading south I'm getting bad vibes. OH, he is friendly enough . . . . very friendly and I remember having my hand ON my big ass knife.

But all is OK and he lets me off near Cascade Mountain.

I remember walking down State Street in Madison. So close yet so far from my home in Fort Atkinson. I could not call my parents as they had gone to Door County and it was Saturday night.
I remember asking a hotel on the outskirts of Madison if I could put a little pup tent up but they would not let me. I then walked and came to a house near where Yahara Golf Course is now and I knocked on the door.

A lady yells and I ask very nicely if I can put up a tent in her yard. It's dark and a storm is coming. She yells at me to leave before she calls the cops!

I walk on and pitch my tent next to some building and the storm hits.

The next day is Sunday and I walked from Madison to Lake Mills. Not a car was on the road. I finally went to a farm house and call SOMEBODY and got a ride the last 10 miles.

The rest is a total blank.

And that is my story.

Join me when someday I'll tell about one of my many 500 mile bike adventures across Iowa where I wore blue tiger skin lycra tights. I still have photos of that . . somewhere.

See - I told you it was NOT The Blue Tiger Skin Lycra Tights Story.

Rod