Holy Smokey the Bear!

So I heard last night that because we would be in a new air mass the fires from Canada would reappear.  The sinking air that is associated would move the smoke to the ground.  I woke up and yea, it's a little hazy out in Columbus!

So I drive to Madison this morning and HOLY CRAP!!  The closer I get the more it looks like smog from the 70s. I get out of the car and I feel I'm in the north woods with sweet pine camp fires burning.  Canada - we need to do something about that land.  Regime change? Take their matches away?  Cut down all of those darn trees?

My weather forecast sucked yesterday.  The morning rain totally blew the evening storms into not much.  OH! - Madison got drenched with 1.2 to 1.4 inches of rain.  Columbus was in a gap and we had 0.34 inches.  Yesterday morning we were working out at Anytime Fitness and it was POURING.  We get to my house and my sidewalk is a little damp but across the street . . .perfectly bone dry!

We are in an extended warming pattern starting tomorrow,  Temps for Columbus will be 71 today, 74, 78, 80, 85, 86, 83, 82, 82,  with a good chance of pop up thunderstorms in our baroclinic zone* starting Friday and continuing until Wednesday. I suspect an inch of rain total in that 5 days.

baroclinic zone = A region in which a temperature gradient exists on a constant pressure surface.
    
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The two popcorn wagons - NEVER together until last weekend.  I hope they got along.  Notice we kept them separated just in case. Yes - I talk to inanimate objects  . . . . and they answer back . . . but only to me it seems. 

I will have 8x12 matted images for sale for $25 at some point . . . just saying . . . since I have had inquiries!

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Cathy had a graphic representation of the Woman's Soccer match.  The most-watched single-network soccer match in U.S. history - good bye baseball, you are dead!

 
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You guys saw that hidden in the Wisconsin budget was a blub saying that the party in power would control the Wisconsin Retirement Funds! hmmmmmm!

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China stock market is crashing! I hope Enerpac is not going to take a hit.  Their market has lost an equivalent of 3000 points in the last 3 weeks.  OUCH!!   

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OMG - You know Jared the Subway dude?  Won't be seeing him around.  The FBI raided his home on child pornography charges.  WTF?

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OH - Trumps new hotel? Seems undocumented immigrants are building it!  It also seems there is some "awkwardness" on site.

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The death of baseball you say?  I keep hearing that Major League Baseball is a dieing sport and "no one plays baseball anymore".  Yet, MLB attendance has never been higher and TV revenues have never been greater.

Something else is happening - the average age of the leagues best players are at an all time low since they started keeping these records in 1990.  A huge wave of young talent has hit the major leagues. The difference is offense. Young players are always really good defensively and grow into their offense. However this year they are outstanding defensively AND are the best hitters since the 2007 class PLUS, are faster on the base paths!

We are smack at the start of a lot of future superstars!  Stay tuned.

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Funny - in Boston there is STILL a 12 foot high pile of snert (snow/dirt) in the city!

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And don't get me started on the Seattle Bucks or the Las Vegas Bucks when they move out of Milwaukee!  SUCKS!!

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Did you know that between August 2013 and December 2014 drug companies gave doctors 3.53 BILLION dollars to prescribe THEIR drugs to patients! hmmmmm  that seems shady!

Nuff said!

Did I mention I have started to make a photo table top book?

OK - done!!  

Popcorn popcorn

I see I went over the 600,000 page views recently - I can get to a million when I'm in my 80s.  SWEET!!

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I have to write my blog at a different time I think. With DJ being home more it's messing my schedule/workout times.  Getting up at 5:45 had it's advantages. 

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I have not had a chance to even look at most of my photos of the parade  . . .or anything I have taken in the last week.  I think most people will say the bagpipes were the highlight and the best photos I have seen were on facebook are by Mike Thom.  I only have one as I had the wrong lens on my camera for the event and too much clutter in the backgrounds.   I hear it was a spur of a moment event which went off spectacularly. 

We purchased sound canceling headphones for Sydney and Caydance which worked great.

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The original popcorn wagon was brought up from Glenview ILL. It was found and refurbished for $60,000.  This wagon had not been on the streets of Columbus since the 1950s if not earlier after the horrific accident that killed Alice Schmidt's good childhood friend in the cart.   

There is a good article in WisNews about both wagons (I'll have photos of OUR wagon . .soon)

George Hasey's original popcorn wagon

There was a contingent from ILL with the wagon and they commented "How mane people live in this town???" as I think they were expecting a small town parade and not what Columbus offers. 

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USA USA USA - no team has ever scored a goal so fast in the finals of the World Cup and USA scored 4 goals in that time.  The USA is also the first country to ever win three championships and are now the the most dominate football team in the world. 

It was an awesome match that. Japan is all about control and precision and the US came out in berserker hair standing straight up mode like World War Z.  Japan did not know what hit them!  BAM in your face!   

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The Milwaukee Bucks have become one of the top 4 teams in the NBA last week when they signed free agent Greg Monroe!  WOW!!  one of only five 15-10 players in the league. Average 15 points a game and 10 rebounds, a solid bonafide big man in a league where there are very few of this kind of player.  He is a perfect fit for the Bucks and as Dan Patrick (who is a pretty smart guy) predicts "The Bucks will play the Eastern Conference finals next year against LeBron and the Cavaliers.  

Of course he also predicted before last years season The Packers would win the Super Bowl and THAT didn't happen.  

Monroe is 25 years old and the only thing the Bucks were missing was a big man at center.  Many other teams wanted him but he said the Bucks have the best chances of a Championship in the next few years.

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REAL good chance of thunderstorms this afternoon between 3:00 and 6:00 but the systems seems to be slowing so maybe later?  We should get a BIG soaking though with a line of heavy rain associated with the cold front.   Columbus is in the slight risk of damaging weather area which is just north of Madison so from what I read the timing is perfect for Columbus being at the height of the storm. . . . . .if it gets here before the sun starts sinking. 

The CURRENT rain today is not the main event!  

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seems there are a few people pissed at The Old Rock Bar proudly displaying a Confederate flag in the parade.  Why would a business do this?  I was considering going there for their amazing fish fries but . . . no more!  Guess I need to boycott the place. 

Watch your six! Raptors got a new alpha!

I, Rod Melotte, am cutting ties with Donald Trump.  I expect to be sued and my chances of becoming Miss Universe will drop dramatically!


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Just Do It.

Just is the most useless word in the English vocabulary. It's weak and meaningless.  Yea yea Nike used it in a slogan they copied from murderer Gary Gilmore who's last words before he was executed were "Just Do It" but you can delete "just" 95% of the time and a sentence will be stronger.  "Do It"  Don't just think about doing it, do it.

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Luke Ridnour of the Orlando Magic, Memphis Grizzlies, Charlotte Hornets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Toronto Raptors, has been traded 5 times this week.  That has to be some sort of record.

The MLB All-Star game should be interesting this year with the National League All Stars going up against the Kansas City Royals.  hmmmmm something needs to be fixed with this fan voting thing as clearly the people of Kansas City have way way too much time on their hands.  At the moment 7 of the 9 starters are Royals.

Speaking of baseball, the Brewers have had a really crushing schedule this year so far. At one point they had basically 43 straight days of work.  They had one day off but that was a travel day.  Then they had 1 real day off and something like 25 straight games after that (all numbers are from memory of a few days ago).

The rest of the year they have more frequent days off.


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We went to see Jurassic World yesterday. I give it a 7.5.  Could have been higher but the children in the movie irritated me and frankly there were so many sub plot threads that were meaningless that I think the movie was 4 hours and then they cut out 2 hours leaving threads of unresolved plots.

We were talking about the flick afterword and we just kept say what was this and what was that and so forth.  I think there is an entire movie on the cutting room floor.

Hot and Hot

HOWEVER - we did not go to the movie for the deep social values and complicated plot lines. We came for dinosaurs and holy crap they were seriously awesome!  People cheered the finale' and clapped and DJ jumped out of her dream lounger once.  I was really hoping both children would have been eaten though!

Just eat me

Chris Pratt was excellent and Bryce Dallas Howard is a knock out red head. Jake Johnson from New Girl is in the movie.

The family involved are from Madison.

num num num - I kiss you with my teethy's

 
Favorite line "A promise tomorrow is worth a lot less than trying today."  

In the trailers a movie is coming out called The Martian which I immediately got the book and am reading it.  It was recommended to me about a year ago and I was intrigued but seeing there is a movie - I had to read it.

https://youtu.be/Ue4PCI0NamI

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later