Into The Wild

Jon Krakauer wrote a true-story bestseller called "Into The Wild" a while back. I think I read it in 4 or 5 days which is really good for me.

Sean Penn directed the screen version of the movie and shot some of it in Carthage, S.D. The stories subject Christopher McCandless gave up all of his earthly possessions in order to hitchhike to Alaska and live in the wilderness, during the journey he worked in Carthage for a while.

In the end McCandless' body was discovered in a junky bus at a remote campground in Alaksa.

The trailer is out now and from the looks of it I can't wait to see the movie this fall.

Guest Blog Today.

I'm going to do something new here...I'm posting a guest column. It was just too good to let slip into web-history.

As some of you know, readers can post comments at the end of the each blog entry, I think every now and then I get 2 or 3 per entry...it gives the reader a voice on this blog. So after last week's post on my "big problems" traveling United Airlines, my older and always wiser cousin Brent left this super funny post, and I couldn't let it set on a back page...so congrats Brent...you have been published on Living On Liquid...one question though - Did you put Jesse the Gov. in a headlock?

The following is Brent's post:

Tom, As I read your blog from my PC phone Thursday night, yeah Vicky told me to look it up, I was sitting on a plane in Minneapolis waiting to take off on a 3.5 hour delay trying to get to NYC.
Rain in the area and traffic congestion forced Laguradia to shut down for a few hours. Great..what else to do but surf the Internet from my phone.

As I near 1 million Northwest miles, 950,000 and change, I've had many interesting travel episodes. I've had 4 aborted landings, 3 from stray planes in the way in the runway and 1 from the landing gear not engaging. That provided an extra hour of flight time and 2 tower flybys to verify landing gear locked down.

I've endured kids screaming and crying for 10 hours of a 15 hour flight from Melbourne, Australia to LA. I was stuck in Australia 5 extra days during the 9/11 attack. I had a drunk pass out on me and wet himself..ironically, the stewardess gave me a bottle of wine for my troubles.

Don't fly Aerlingus from Dublin, Ireland to Manchester, England...you'll be sick the rest of the day. KLM from Amsterdam to Paris is a pretty good flight..until they give you little sandwiches with week old cheese with a meat like substance. And the dutch stewardess has a tooth or two missing.

I learned along time ago "stuff" happens. A few things I learned right away that sounds like you just learned...Never check your luggage, always carry on your luggage, and never fly United...and Aerlingus.

Flying without a corporate jet and with the masses as allowed me to meet interesting people. Like the man who got on the Quantas flight from Melbourne, Australia to Adelaide, Australia and exclaimed "When this plane is in the air I will save you all from your sins". He didn't get the chance. Or the lady that let her dog out from Minneapolis to Atlanta. That woke a few people up.

I've also sat by famous people..Former Gov. Jesse Ventura, Al Neuharth, USA Today, Joe Mauer, MN Twins, Tim Johnson, John Mcain, Paul Schafer, Serena Williams, and John Thune. John and I crossed paths on 4 or 5 occasions in the Minneapolis world club on Thursday nights coming back to Sioux Falls.

So Tom, if you are stuck in a corporate jet, you may be missing out on seeing all the world has to offer and all the interesting people God created. Just be sure to carry on your luggage.

Brent

United??? More like somewhat disjointed...

I realized how much I love our corporate jet on Monday. I just show up, I get on the plane, and I don't even have to undress or wait in lines...I get a big fat leather seat to sink into, the donuts and coffee are fresh and the pilots load my luggage on the plane without forgetting it on the tarmac.

My schedule was different than the schedule the jet took this week, so I flew to Montana on my old friend United Airlines. I didn't ever really commute by plane until I took this job, so my biggest concern before was finding gas stations with good cappuccino. Now I'm in airports on a regular basis and I have become a pretty smart and good traveler...too bad United Airlines can't make the same claim, and they travel for a living.

I left Sioux Falls on Monday after a 2 hour delay, got to Denver and had another 3.5 hour delay...I didn't get to Bozeman until 2:30 a.m. Had I drove I would have been an hour behind my plane arrival in BZM...and 2 days in front of my luggage.

It seems United (aka---Disconnected Airlines) couldn't find the time in the almost 4 hours from when I arrived in Denver to throw my luggage with precision and care onto the next plane I was to get on. Usually it makes it there in the 45 minutes that the layover is scheduled to last.

So after a meeting with a "Divided Airlines" representative in Bozeman, and 3 half hour plus phone calls with Habib from customer dis-service concerning my lost...I mean "delayed" luggage, I finally got my stuff 2 days later...I only have one day of my trip left!

The crazy thing is the route my luggage took to get to the Hampton Inn in Butte. Follow if you can...

Monday: Sioux Falls to Denver (got lost somewhere here)
Tuesday: Denver back to Sioux Falls (WHY I HAVE NO IDEA)
Tuesday mid-morning: Sioux Falls back to Denver, Denver to Bozeman, Bozeman back to Denver, Denver to Salt Lake.
Wednesday: Salt Lake to Butte...then the Butte airport decided to hold on to the bag for a few hours before delivering it to my hotel.

Makes you wonder how someone hasn't gone postal on a United desk clerk.

Other names United should consider to better represent their service.

Divided Airline
Separated Airlines
Bad seats, old planes and uncaring employees...Fly Disbanded Airlines.

You are reading this saying, well fly Delta or something...I can't I already have a bunch of frequent flier miles, that I don't want to lose...and they have the quickest flights to Montana. I'm bound to their inadequacies.

Tile Shortage.

I think actual real world construction experience should be a Federally required prerequisite for being able to work in a lumber store or a flooring store.

Case in point, my Uncle Skip, a somewhat-retired handy man works for UBC in Garden City, he has taught me things, so I know he is a great asset to UBC helping weekend warriors with projects...I worked construction in the summers and at a lumber yard during college time, and so I always thought I was a good help by knowing the difference between AC and CDX plywood and so on.

Now to my story...we started to lay the tile in the kitchen last night...we are doing a "hopscotch" pattern. So there are 2 size of tile, 12"x12" and 6"x6". I told the flooring guy we needed 400 square feet of flooring, in a hopscotch pattern in this tile. When we picked it up I should have wondered, but I trusted the "expert" tile estimator.

The tile looks great, but we are only half done with the kitchen and we are out of small tile. I should charge the clown for the gas it takes to drive to Mitchell to pick up more, but I have to pick up some other things at Menard's anyway, so I'll just be kind of grumpy to him when I tell him he messed up the project time line. (Like this project has a time line anyway...I think the tile sat in his store room for 3 weeks)

Maxim's birthday is on Sunday...5 years old.

My dad has a cat.

My dad is not much of a cat person...me either for that matter, but he has a few wild cats at the horse barn to help keep the mice population down.

I think there has always been 1 or 2 cats around, but at one point this year he had a cat that had kittens. One day out of the blue he commented to me, "I think I'm gonna neuter that cat." That comment now lives in infamy in our house, because at the time he said it...nobody was talking about cats, and he just brought it up as general conversation.

Try it sometime, when a conversation goes dead during a party, during a boring meeting, or in bed just before you kiss your wife goodnight...just throw this out there, "I think I'm gonna neuter that cat." then see how many people look at you strange or just bust out laughing at your obscure Bob Barker remark.

So anyway, after laughing at him and finally with him, I ask him if he is going to take it to the vet or what...he says, "Are you crazy, I wouldn't waste money on that...I'd just shoot it." Now you have to understand this comment came from a 60 year old, native Beadle county, farm-raised boy. Pretty typical thing for a person around here to say.

For the record Webster defines neutering much differently: To render incapable of breeding by surgically removing reproductive organs--the testes in males, the ovaries and uterus in females ("spaying"). (Not by drilling it with a .45 slug)

So now that you have his background with cats...about 2 weeks ago I was in dad's garage and I hear this meowing sound. It was a couple week old kitten! This guy flopped from cat killer to kitty foster parent like Lindsay Lohan goes from sober to plastered! On top of it all...he was bottle feeding it...once every 3 hours!

So on Sunday I see the once homely orphaned kitty, is eating kitty food and lapping up milk out of a bowl, jumping, climbing and running around. She has been named "Shaky" by Maxim. She occasionally comes into the house, climbs on the screen doors, and despite mom's efforts to give her every chance to run away, the kitty lives in the garage.

Dad said after my niece Cassidy leaves he's going to get rid of it, but we will see. It will be to lazy to hunt for food on the farm, and I'm not taking it. I think it should stay in the garage. After all, I think he is attached...I kind of like the little thing as well...just not enough to be a cat person.

This Child Is Very Excited About Living!

The title of today's post is a nice way of saying, Brecken is a complete handful. Some minutes he can be a sweet little boy, but then the alter-ego kicks in and he dumps toys all over the floor, or pulls a plant and stand on to the floor then laughs like a madman about his ability to destroy that which Stephanie has made.

Last night Steph was in town, so it was me and the boys. We went swimming, which involves the tube, a 15 foot section of climbing rope tied to the dock, and all 3 of us in a tube made for 1 or maybe 2 small kids. After 30 minutes of riding the big waves Maxim and I jumped on to the dock and when I went to grab Breck, he went "rubber legs" on me and would not get out of the water. So for another half hour I pushed him out and pulled him in on the tube.

He threw a huge fit when it was time to get out. After the swim in the lake, we hit the swing set and trampoline, finishing the night off with grape freeze pops. I gave him a bottle and sent him to bed at 8:30...I was pretty proud of myself, thinking I was super dad, and that this kid was not the little tornado we sometimes make him out to be.

1:30 a.m. Brecken had been crying for at least a half hour (I was waiting for Steph to hear him...she sleeps super heavy). By 2 a.m. we are all awake watching TV and Brecken is playing like it is the middle of the day???

Just when you think you have your children figured out, they throw the off-speed pitch and catch you sleeping. I think we all went to bed around 3:00 a.m. Somehow during all of this Maxim ended up sleeping in our bed while Brecken was voicing his opinion very loudly...he was still there when I left for work this morning.

Fun Stuff Always Happens Around Boats.

I posted this video because stuff is always funnier when it happens to other people...but ironically I have fallen out of a boat, ran over a friend at a very slow speed with a jet ski, seen a pair of boardshorts get ripped off by a boat cleat, caused a friend to rack himself on a boat dock, while on a jet ski I saved a sailboat crew of 5 from the shark...I mean CARP...infested waters of Lewis & Clark resivour...also towed in the sailboat, on the same day watched an 18 foot boat go under the water in like :30 seconds, ...and finally was the 2nd to last person to abandon ship when my cousin's Malibu sank due to some crazy high winds last year.

That being said...I really love being around the water.

Memorial Day Pictures.

The weather for Memorial Day weekend sucked so not much time was spent in the water. Dave and Travis were huge in helping get the docks back in the water and rebuilding the section of dock that the neighbor's pontoon tore apart.

Here are some pictures...most don't need any explanation.

Steven Wright

My dad and I love this guy.

Happy Birthday to the good doctor.

Most of us have childhood friends that we spent tons of time with, I was lucky enough to have cousins that doubled as friends. Our extended family unit is a close one, and we always do stuff together. My dad's sister has 3 boys and they lived a few minutes on a bike away from our house so, it seems like, every day I would ride to their house.

Brent is the oldest and kind of the voice of reason. He still is, now that I think of it. Jon and I would be dead or in jail if we would have done everything we wanted to back then, he kept us safe. Aaron was the little one that was along for the ride, whatever the day brought.

I'm not sure how old we were, but I pretty sure parents these days don't trust their kids or society enough to let them be home alone like we were back then...but we had Brent as our summer guide!

Our dads worked at the same bank, and our moms at the same clinic so there was enough communication between all parties to understand what the boys were doing that day, or what they thought the boys were doing...and who knows my aunt might have been home all the times I was over there, but the years have clouded the memories.

Jon and I were the closest in age, so we were natural playmates. From climbing on the roof to epic baseball games in the backyard trying not to get caught climbing the fences to retrieve the ball from the neighbor's yards, games of fumble-bumble (a football game we made up), knee hockey in the basement, and street hockey games at all hours of the night. I am pretty sure we always made Aaron be the goalie...sorry about that, AJ! Fishing trips with Uncle Lynn to the river...who could forget the frogs we caught and named them all "Joe Heckburg". I have fond memories of their house on MacDonald Drive. The crawl space, the tree in the back yard that was 3rd base, climbing the trees in the front yard and listening to Michael Jackson's Thriller album on the record player in the living room.

It's been a few years, but those memories are still as fresh as ever.

Rick Springfield of 1980's pop music fame had a song called "Me and Johnny"...every once in a while it finds it's way to my MP3 player's now playing when I hit shuffle. Here are some lyrics...

Lookin' back I'd say we broke a few rules
Left one or two hearts in a ruin
Spent all that precious time doin'
Things we figured that Presley might have done

Stole a few cars, never got caught
Started some fights in the scrimmage
We got caught up in the image
Of playing young rebels by the handbook
Looking back I guess we had some attitude
We were gonna be hard and tough

Me and Johnny
We're gonna play tonight
It's gonna be alright
We're gonna shine

I think of the Doctor when I hear that song...and 1000's of times in between those times.

May 29 is his birthday...out of all my friends and cousins, that's the only person's birthday I have memorized.

Happy Birthday, Dr. S.

I'm a son of a gun...fighter.

If you know my dad, you know he was born 150 years to late.

He would ride a horse to work if they had a hitchin' post at the bank. In fact, when he retires he is going to ride his horse across South Dakota.

He still ropes some calves and team ropes now and then, but during the winter that season slows down, so this winter he started participating in Cowboy Fast Draw Competitions. He built a target and backstop in the garage and shoots his .45 Ruger as shown in the picture to the right with cousin Scott. He has only shot himself in the leg once...just a flesh wound. Gunfighters are a tough breed.

This video shows some guys doing this at some big thing in Idaho. Not the greatest video, but they are shooting at 2' diameter circles with a light that tells them when to draw.



So anyway last Sunday my dad had a shoot in Mitchell and he did really well. All of his draws were under a half a second, which is really good. He ended up getting 3rd place...which means he's the 3rd Fastest Gun In The Mitchell Region, or it means in a gun fight he would have been the 2nd to last guy to die!

We joke about his new hobby quite a bit, when we wrestle in the living room (yeah we still wrestle like we did when I was a kid) he always says, "Hey, easy that's my shooting arm!".

So to give my dad something to strive for I post the below video as something to aspire to. This guy takes out 5 targets in the time it would take me draw and shoot once! I think it's cool, my wife thinks my dad is crazy...look what she has to look forward to!

A Little Vacation From Typing.

Sorry, that was a long pause between posts, and apparently it didn't go unnoticed...Verlie the Great ran me down on Sunday, almost in tears, asking why I wasn't writing anymore. So I promised him the blog would go on.

We have been very busy getting things ready for "opening day" weekend. Memorial is the true kick off for most northern lake dwelling folks (so we are told), and we have 13 people coming to the house on Wednesday. Bad new is...the weather according to KELO-LAME is supposed to be rotten, oh well.

The boat house looks super, new paint, mom's old kitchen cabinets, and some scrubbing...it's a place I like to hang out...it's like a screened in porch on the water.

I'm ready for summer...you can just feel the fun of summer getting ready to explode...especially when you talk to people who have kids in school or teach school. The last week is like a formality to satisfy G.W. Bush's master plan...so that no child is left behind.

I remember how end of the year field trips rocked, but I saw the most pointless field trip yesterday...the teacher took them to Wal-Mart...like...OH...we might have this problem with American kids not knowing how a retail store works. Those might be the children that are left behind.

I think we should just cancel the last week of school, the teachers don't want to be there, the kids don't want to be there...just end school a week earlier. But then again the new last week of school would be just like the current last week of school. Catch 22.

Noah's Update 2.0

So it's not going to be as bad as the Governor first told us on Saturday night...I almost cancelled my trip to Montana because of the gloom and doom he was forecasting. The scientist at the USGS calmed he and his staff, by saying that the James River had crested at 17.9 feet. The picture to the left shows the river at it's highest point. The 3rd Street Dam is somewhere under about 8 feet of water.

Then again as I say "not going to be as bad"...I think...tell that to the folks in Aberdeen.

Lake Byron looks so big right now because of the added water volume, it's pretty impressive.

The lake went down 4 inches overnight...it's down about 6 from it's highest point, but not enough to use this picinic bench.

Finally today I leave you with another successful parenting moment. We only wanted boys so we would have someone to mow the lawn. Last night the 2 little weasels started on the lawn...Brecken would pull the grass out of the ground and give it to Maxim, then he would put it into the bag while making engine sounds. At this rate the yard should be done by the time I get back from Montana.

It is a beautiful day in the mountains today...to bad I have to work. I wonder if United Airlines will let me "carry on" my mountain bike next time?

Noah's Report

Would anyone know the number of a good canoe builder? I might have to load Steph, the boys and our dogs, 2 by 2, on to the thing if we get any more rain.

Since Friday night there are reports of up to a foot of rain in some places along the James River Valley in South Dakota.

We got about 7" on Friday night at Lake Byron. People all over the area are cleaning basements out, and buying every Shop-Vac in a 8 county region.

The lake, which is up 2.5 feet since we moved in back in August, came up another foot early Saturday morning...along with a day of 30 mph winds our permanent dock got a great wash off, and we were pretty happy with how things were going.

Then Sunday morning, when we woke up we heard this constant, bong, bong, bong, bong...so I walked out on the deck and looked down at the water, and behold, we inherited a pontoon boat. The bad news was that the waves were throwing the boat on top of our dock and breaking it apart. (the pictures above shows the damage, and our neighbor and his kid looking at the "wacked up boards" as his son Cody put it) In 10 minutes 3 neighbors had identified the pontoon as a neighbors from the south side of the lake.

We jumped in, found the keys in the glove box (only in South Dakota) and waited for some waves and a couple of pushes off the dock and our piers by the deckhands, and the boat was freed.

So me and the neighbor went for a 7Am pontoon ride on Sunday morning, to help the lost boat find it's way home. The owner met us at his house, and we ended up loading the pontoon and his boat on the trailers. He said, "enjoy your new dock that my insurance company will put in for you." Ahh, insurance companies, I love working with them, or getting worked by them.

Sunday night we took a tour of the area to see the water levels...here are some pictures.

This is the boat launch on the south side...if you click on the picture you will be able to see the mooring posts that hold the dock in place...right now the dock is about 2 foot under water.

This is the Dave Gross' farm. The house was dry, but the feedlot looked more like a swimming pool. Dave also has a place on the lake, and his dock suffered a little damage as well.

This was the scene in the back of the Expedition during the tour of the country side...Maxim was completely excited about driving around looking at the water, as you can tell. Brecken, as usual, just happy to be along.

This is "Hog's Back" on the east side of the lake, if you are familiar with the lake, you probably don't recognize it at all...funny how some water changes the look of the land.

Over all we were pretty fortunate, no tornadoes, no flooding, yet. Just some busted up dock and a bunch of drifting garbage that found it's way to our dock and boat lift. Oh yeah...if you look closely at the picture of our dock you can see a 40 foot utility pole...that will be brought up to the front parking area of our house and will serve as our "parking bumper". So I guess we did get some good things out of the storm. Maxim was also excited about the dead bullhead that washed up on our dock. Living on Liquid is soooooo exciting.

And just think about a week ago I was running out of things to blog about, and was thinking about shutting down the blog for a while, or forever...like anyone beside Skipper, Verlie and Grandpa Roger would know. Last thing, becuase of the rain, Steph's dishwasher is hooked up and running, and the fridge is plugged into it's own outlet, not by an extension cord running to the bathroom.

Progress, little by little.

Montana Tourisim Council

A buddy of mine from Missoula sent me this today.

Montana life long residents love their state to death, and hate...let me spell that...H-A-T-E...the fact that people in California and other West Coast states come into town and buy up land, houses and resorts for top dollar because they need a break from the smog and the big city.

So when they see another article in National Geographic Adventure, Transworld Snowboarding, Outside Magazine or any other publication they cringe a little bit. They fear Clark Griswold will pack up the family RV and crowd their town for a glimpse of mountain, river and wildlife majesty.

They are a bit jealous about sharing their state, kind of like when you see Minnesota or Missouri license plates on another yellow H2 parked in front of field in the middle of South Dakota during the opening week of pheasant season.

I am sure Montana Gov. Brian "Bolo Tie" Schweitzer would not approve of the "campaign", but most of the Montana locals I work with feel at times like putting up a fence around the boarders...at least on the west and south side of the state.

I am headed back to Montana next Wednesday...in fact in the next 3 months I will spend about 40 days in Montana and Idaho...I think that gets me an "honorary citizen" pass for 2007 anyway.

If you want more reason to head to the mountain state, check out some pictures from an acquaintance of mine through work and pheasant hunting.

I have a "man crush" on Tony's abilities with a camera, and his overall job for that matter. He gets to travel all over taking pictures of active lifestyle stuff....my kind of gig. You will realize why Montana citizens want the whole state to themselves after drooling over some of his pictures.

Learn To Play The Drums With Your Fingers.

You never know what you will get from the Living On Liquid blog site.

Today's post is a video that came to me from a friend who shares my love of playing the drums and congas.

At first I was like you have to be kidding me, this is ridiculous...then he busts out this crazy rudiment, that I couldn't play with 4 arms and 6 legs!



If I only I had a Creative Keyboard..."THIS IS ROCK AND ROLL".

The Butter Effect.

2 years ago BFY Productions put out a wakeboard film called The Butter Effect. In the world of skiing and wakeboarding "butter" is also known as "glass". When the conditions are perfect...no winds, no crowds...it is some of the most fun you can have on a wakeboard no matter how good or bad you are.

To snow skiers, it's 8 inches of fresh powder, to surfers it's a clean double overhead, to walleye fishermen I'm told it's a nice little chop in the water, to a hockey player it is freshly Zambonied ice...those perfect days and conditions for doing what you love.

Well, yesterday was a typical Monday, too much work to be done in too little time...in fact, while walking through the hallway I actually thought about pulling a fire alarm so I could bail. I actually get that temptation almost every time I see a pull-type fire alarm, but that is another story, and my therapist won't allow me to blog about it yet.

So around 4:50 my wife says, "Hey babe when are you coming home? Just wanted to let you know I looked at the lake and it's butter."

This is where the Butter Effect kicks in...I forget all my worries and stresses of the job, and I find new life on a Monday. I got home in 15 minutes and was on the lake 7 minutes later. After a nice session in some pretty cold water the rest of the day was spent in the yard watching the boys play on the swing set, trampoline and riding bikes...pretty easy to forget about the Monday with a life like this.

It made me think, so many people don't have a "Butter Effect". That's probably why we have so much crap going on in the world.

What gets you off the couch, out of the cage you call an office and enjoying "God's Playground" as a great friend of ours would call it...is it golf, biking, walks, fishing, hunting, grand kids messing up your house and eating all your cookies?

Teva sport sandals has a slogan to help sell sandals to people with a mind like Steph and mine...

GO. DO. BE.

State Fair Entertainment, Drummer Needed?

My cousin Brent, who pretty much introduced me to a lot of the "great" music I listened to in Jr. High and High School as a result of riding in the back of his light blue Citation on the way to school, posted a reply to LivingOnLiquid yesterday informing me that Ted Nugent is coming to the South Dakota State Fair. Now of course this isn't 1979 Ted Nugent it's 2007 Ted Nugent, but hey, it's the Motor City Madman in HURON???

For those who don't know, when I moved to Huron as a youngster my father was the State Fair manager, and since then the Fair has had a special place in our family's heart. My sister still gets giddy at the mention of the ride known as the "Scrambler" and she is still addicted to cotton candy, my mom and Aunt Glo were nurses at the first aid trailer for years, and I enjoyed the benefits of being the manager's son, with free reign over all the Midway rides, and shuttle buses at my front door when ever I needed them...OK, so our house was on the regular route...but it was a fun place to grow up, and the week of the fair was like a big party on our yard, as we lived right on the fairgrounds.

Even after he resigned, the Fair hired my dad as the Entertainment Stage Manager. This also turned into the family business of "fair week". Eric, Mari, Aaron, Sally, Mom, Scooter and countless other "friends of Bob" would "work" the catering trailer or "runner" duties for the week of the fair, or for just the night of the show they wanted to attend. All in search of the "backstage pass".

I have a few backstage passes, guitar picks and mementos in a scrapbook somewhere, and have had the chance to rub elbows with, drive around, and watch eat the likes of...REO Speedwagon, Rick Springfield, a bunch of WWF superstars, New Kids on the Block, George Strait, Garth Brooks, Chris LeDoux, Loverboy, Barbara Mandrell, Charlie Daniels Band, Tiffany, Vanilla Ice, Color Me Badd, The Beach Boys, John Waite, Tiny Tim, Charlie Pride, John Denver...and the list goes on. As I look back it was pretty big time stuff to be involved on the inside of that operation.

As a drummer I would always figure out who the drummer of the group, or better yet who the drum technician was and I would hang around them, trying to pick up anything, hints, pointers, drumsticks, or drumheads. In fact, I once got a full set of Remo LiquidHeads from the drum tech for some country group. They were worn out for him, but to this day they are still on the set I used to play, that somehow ended up, and still is, in the back room at Bethel Church. My dream was every year, that the drummer for a group would come up sick or missing and they would need someone to sit in for the concert...I was confident I could have played for anybody back then. To the benifet of each artist that dream never came true.

I did sit in for Kyle Evans and the Company Cowboys for a few songs one night, and also played for his son Dustin Evans before he became the regional act he is now. My other night of drumming stardom was at my cousin Kent's wedding dance...he sang and I ripped the drums with the band, doing Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places". My cousin Jon and I also tried to jam in my parents basement one time...him on the trumpet and me on the trap set, but there wasn't much music we could play with a 2 person "pep band".

Now I play in church, on the steering wheel, on my desk and occasionally on Maxim's tummy full of milk...but if Ted Nugent shows up to Huron without a drummer...I am ready. Ted it's up to you???

Star Wars Kid

Maxim is completely obsessed with all things Star Wars...I can't blame him, I still find my wallet caught in a "tractor beam" anytime I see something Star Wars related.

I was online looking for a Stormtrooper Pirate Flag for the flag pole by the boat house, and/or attached to the roof of Maxim and Brecken's swing set...that's another story...anyway, I ran across probably the most famous piece of video ever, on the Al Gore invention that we now call the Internet.

"Star Wars Kid" I am pretty sure this is one of the first videos I ever saw on the Internet...and might be one of the funniest as well. Turns out this portly little soul was teased beyond belief for his unwelcome Internet fame.

Some things you didn't know about him, that I find interesting...Ghyslain Raza is his name, he's from Canada, and his "light sabre" is a golf ball retriever! He cut the video at his high school video department and left the tape...a few months later some classmates found it and posted it on Kazaa.com...the rest is history. His parents helped him sue the 4 kids responsible and late last year they were awarded around $300,000 Canadian.

Not bad money for a little humilition in front of the world...but then again that's only about $267,000 American...take out $95,950 for lawyer fees...and about half in taxes, and the kid has enough for about 2 years of college!

Motor City Madman.

In the wake of VT's campus shootings, rock-n-roll and hunting legend Ted Nugent opened his mouth, or his computer keyboard and this is the result. (click on the word "this" in the last sentence...it's called a hyperlink)

The Motor City Madman knows how to kill a buck from 50 yards with his Oneida Eagle bow, how to rip classic rock and roll with a scream, and how to completely tick off every gun control proponent in the nation.