Tag Archives: 4th of July

General, Uncategorized

Creepy Holiday

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I mean the 4th is creepy in terms of its creep-up-on-you-ness, not in a bum-on-the-bus-staring-at-you-licking-his-lips sort of way.

Mid-point of the summer season, and where has the first half already gone?  Seems like just over a month ago it was Memorial Day, and… er– wait, ummm– well, the rest of the summer is gonna cruise by, and I’ve got most weekends booked up already, so… maybe it just seems like it’s flying as usual.  I think the scheduling has a lot to do with that.  Once you have plans for every weekend in a summer, even though the time hasn’t passed, it feels like it has.  I should take some more vacation this summer.  Don’t know when I would, though.

Here’s a big switch from last year– I moved, and effectively got “settled in” all in a matter of a few days.  I could totally entertain at my new apartment already, and I haven’t even lived there for a week.  Pretty sweet.  I have another piece of furniture to add, which I believe Michelle is going to be gracious enough to provide.  This last piece will keep the booze out of plain sight, which is a plus when you’re trying to not look like a drunk.  I think I’ll take some photos and put ’em up here.  I said that about Justin Roth, too, I know, but I mean it on both fronts…

Oh, and speaking of mid-points, and thinking of it because the Brewers are on right now: I mentioned in a post back on May 20 when the team was 20-24 and in last place that they needed to get hot in a big hurry and start winning at an alarming rate in order to stay in contention and live up to expectations.  Since that time, they’re 26-14, which I believe is still the best in the NL over that particular period.  They’ve picked up just 3 games on the Cubs over this stretch, but more important than that is that the top teams in the NL Central have distanced themselves somewhat from the rest of the pack in the league.

I feel confident that if we can’t catch Chicago, we could still get into the playoffs as the Wild Card.  On 5/20, I was thinking that 90 wins would meet expectations.  Earlier this week, after exactly 81 games (half the season), they were 44-37; on pace for 88.  They still need to continue streaking throughout the second half, but I feel a lot better about the team now than I did six weeks ago.

Tonight, I’ll be at Michelle’s apartment to view the “4th” of July fireworks at the lakefront.  Tomorrow, we’re going up to Waupaca to meet Michelle’s cousins for the weekend.  Enjoy your 4th!

General, Uncategorized

An Update of Sorts

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Been trying to get a lot done at work this week, so sorry if you’ve been anxious for more news. A few items of note:
– Had a nice first-weekend-of-July at a cabin that Michelle’s cousins had rented up in Waupaca. They had us stay over for the weekend, and we pitched in for a little pontoon cruise on Saturday. It was fun.
– Saw the new Harry Potter movie this evening. I enjoyed it. Jen seemed to have a good time, too. I could tell she was a little disappointed in the omissions from the book (which is pretty typical), but to be honest, I didn’t remember enough from the book to really notice. Those last two books went really quickly for me, and to be honest, I retained very little. I should probably go back and re-read both before the final installment comes out in a couple weeks.
– Oh and I found an apartment.
Here’s the address: 6524 W Wright St in Wauwatosa. It’s a 2-bedroom in this older duplex. Jen came over with me when I signed the lease and commented that I would probably need more furniture to fill it up. That could be true.

I’m glad that I found it, and it has basically all the amenities I was looking for (close to bus line, garage parking, ample storage, laundry in the basement), but I’m still a little apprehensive about it. I took Jen with me to look at it, maybe in part because I wanted her to find something wrong with it. The landlord lives downstairs, and that’s not a situation I’ve ever lived with before, so I’m a little on-edge about how that will work. Even though I’ve run the budget figures up and down, I’m still a little worried about making sure I have enough money every month. Maybe I also felt a little bit of pressure to get into a place right away, just because the prospect of remaining homeless over the duration of my upcoming MT vacation had me scared shitless. I think I may have mentioned before that I like to move in to places that I’m actually excited to go to. I’m not excited about this place, it just happened to be the first one that met all my criteria and I could move in a little early. Not that’s it a bad place at all. It’s a very nice place. I’m sure if you get to see it, you’ll like it. Maybe I’ll feel better once I get there, but for the time being, I am very guardedly glad to have it.

Meanwhile, speaking of vacation, Michelle and I have been deep in the throes of planning. I think we’ve got a good, tentative outline of everything we want to do and see while we’re in Montana for Storyhill Fest and a visit to Glacier National Park. We already bought the tickets and stuff for Storyhill quite a while ago, and we booked the campsite at the Park, now we just have to decide on a rental car and some of the trips (horseback riding, rafting) that we want to do and we’ll be more or less set. The trip-planning has been a lot more fun for me than anything else I’ve had going on lately. I really, really, really hope I can relax by the time it’s time to go.

I think I’ll leave you for now and go lie awake for a couple hours while I wait for 4:30 to return…