At the Farm

I finally got to take a break this weekend. Thanks to the "floating vacation" day that we are allowed here, I got to take Friday off and head up to the family farm in the UP. I didn't do much there, but got to relax and spend quality time with my dad, grandpa and great uncle. The only downside was that it rained all day yesterday so I spent most of the day inside reading and watching Ohio State destroy Indiana (only game we could get on the TV). I did get to go out hiking this morning with my uncle to try to help him find the corner of one of the 40's. This took some trig and my GPS unit. We came close, but not precisely since I calculated the point by hand without benefit of a basic scientific calculator so I made some approximations. It would have been much more accurate had I had access to an inverse sine function to get the precise heading. Oh well I can find it next trip. The entertainment of the day yesterday was watching the other three guys attempt to catch a field mouse that got into the house. They failed. They then set a snap trap with peanut butter in the kitchen by where it disappeared. Later in the evening we heard the dog rustling around in the kitchen then a SNAP and she came running out to the living room dancing about licking the air. She had gotten the peanut butter but got bit by the trap. Lucky for her she got away without it staying on her tounge. It was amusing.

I will have to try to spend more time up there now that I have made the trek. It's only 150 miles which worked out to about 2 hours and 45 minutes total.

The rest of last week was busy as hell from Monday to Wednesday with meetings all over the place Monday and Tuesday and staff meeting on Wednesday. The staff meeting was interesting for being a relatively calm October meeting. Membership was pushed, but there was little yelling or beating. We are not sure where we will be finding kids, but we're going to keep trying. After the meeting we went to the Scout Exec's house for brats and steak before heading out to evening meetings.

Thursday was not really a work day. It was more of the politicking part of the job as I spent the day participating in another round of our chamber leadership session and attending a YMCA camp fundraising dinner. The leadership session was about Quality of Life in Sheboygan and included tours of the Children's Museum (yes, I climbed through the treehouse and across the Sky Crawl), Performing Arts Center (where they want me to volunteer as a house manager--we'll see), Art Museum--I'll come back to this, and Road America for tours and other sessions. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center was amusing. I actually like art museums for the most part and this one was decent, it had an interesting display of "Dreamscapes", the artist I like most was the ParkeHarrisons. Otherwise there was also an exhibit of the Rhinestone Cowboy. The funny part was that our docent (tour guide) was a retired school teacher that scolded our group twice because we kept wandering off while she was talking--"At least kids don't wander off and know how to listen...". The best part was that it was the Chamber rep and myself that were wandering the worst, at one point ending up in the next exhibit. I couldn't help it, I just don't care what the artists' goal was in their print or what it has been interpreted to mean--I see art and decide whether it appeals to me and, if it does, what it means in my view. If I want more info I'll ask. Road America was disappointing since we could not drive the track due to paving work. I just got new tires this week ($530 later) and thought that that would be a great way to break them in.

I missed the Lions game again today. The damn Packers preempted it locally, at least the Pack lost and to the Vikings. The faithful will be grieving all week. As far as the Lions go, they won. Despite this, Garcia is not the answer. I don't know what it is, but I think the front office needs to look at the whole picture and not blame the QB all the time. Give Garcia a while and the fans will hate him too. We'll see how next week goes. Thank goodness I missed the State game yesterday. That would have been awful to watch, the score and lowlights were bad enough without seeing the whole sad story.

I got approval to take Thanksgiving week completely off so I will be in town from Monday night through Sunday morning. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that before, but now it's official. Hopefully the drive is better this time.