Mille Lacs

On Saturday morning, Anton, Mike, Steve and I all piled into the Grand Prix to head up to the north land for a day on beautiful Lake Mille Lacs. The reason for the occasion was Mr. Aaron Zimmerman's impending wedding and the need to celebrate his final days of bachelorhood.A condo right on the lake had been rented at Izaty's resort, along with a few hours of walleye fishing. But more on that later.

We probably had the two best days possible, weather wise. Lower 70s each day, with an absolutely gorgeous sky. Of course we broke out the bocce ball, polish horseshoes, and a football or two.
A quick dinner before heading off on the boat. You need a lot of food to feed 15 guys! But what a good looking grill.
Quinn had the most interesting sandals I've seen. The bottom of the sandals actually had a bottle opener in them! Genius.
And we're off! Now, I am not what you would call an avid angler. I think I've caught a total of three fish in my entire life. And there were all sunfish. So this is all new to me.
Here we are. Fishing. Not much else to say.
Nate brought a snuff board. Anton was pumped.
The bachelor caught the first big walleye. A 24 incher, I believe.
Matt was the big winner in terms of quantity. He cought something like 11 or 12 fish. Others caught one. Yet we're all 10 feet away from each other at most.
This is what fishing's all about, I guess.
And I learn quick. My first walleye was a 17 incher. Long enough to keep, but not too long to have to throw back. It became food.
I can't remember who caught this fish, but they obviously take great joy in it.
It was a picture perfect evening.
I think this was Mike's first fish. Also his first walleye ever.
Nate with a nice catch.
Aaron and his dad, Curt.
Oh, another one for me! I had a total of 5 or 6 walleye on the night. A pretty good haul, if I do say so myself. And all of mine were keepers.
Sunday morning we took the scenic route back, stopping in at Anton's parent's house. Mike enjoyed the tractor.
Overall, an excellent weekend. Good food, good fishing, and good times!

Mad Town

After Brendan's wedding, we figured we were close enough, so we headed down to Madison for Saturday night. Donnie and Heather were kind enough to put us up for the evening. The weather was perfect again, so we headed to the Union Terrace for a couple of drinks.We played President, where I absolutely ruled. I was the president every round except one, when I was vice. My luck would not hold out the rest of the evening unfortunately.
Chad met up with us later, at the Irish Pub. Chad recently graduated with his law degree, and will be moving down to Chicago.
We did a bit of a tour of State Street, heading over to The Pub next.
We decided to head back to Donnie's around 11ish. No one knew quite how tired Donnie was, though. He crashed hard. For which we made lots of fun. The rest of us stayed up a few more hours playing more card games.
The ride back was less than comfortable. We thought it would be a good idea to save on gas money and all cram into Mike's truck. Five people in an F150 is NOT the way to spend 4+ hours. We stopped in Black River Falls to stretch. Like many places in Wisconsin, they have giant figurines for advertising stuff.
This one's for you, Hye.
All in all, a great weekend. It was exactly the escape I needed.

Brendan and Lori Tie the Knot

On Friday, Kelsey and I headed down to Merrimac, WI with Mike, Alisha, Shawn, and Megan to attend Brendan Dwyer's and Lori Kettlehut's wedding. It was held at Devil's Head Resort. It was one of the best weddings I've been to, very small and relaxed. There were about 110 guests, many from high school and Minneapolis.

The weather held out for a picture perfect ceremony.Yeah, my eyes were closed. It was still the best picture I had.

Here's the wedding party doing the wave during the first dance.
The coolest part was the attention to detail in the wedding. They had a great voice over during the first dance. And the program had the whole story of how they met.

Congrats and Best Wishes for the future!

OUCH!

Was in a small car accident on Thursday. The Explorer took it like a champ, though! It's just a flesh wound.

Crappy camera phone picture at the scene:Later. Had to bend the bumper out to drive it.
The alignment's off quite a bit now. I think I'll just replace the bumper with a 2"x8". How's that gonna look?

Clean Clothes Finally

On Wednesday Mike helped me transport our new washer and dryer from ApplianceSmart to home. The old units were heavy! It was tough to get them out the door. Fortunately Minneapolis will pick up the appliances on recycling week for free.The glorious new washer and dryer! Front load, energy and water efficient! Had a couple of problems getting them running, but now they're good to go. As you can see, the wall was partially painted. I'll finish the rest of it later.
The pedestals were a nice addition. They made the washer and dryer more pleasant to use, and let us get rid of some ugly storage that was hanging from the ceiling.

Basement Done

Well, almost. The carpet was installed on Wednesday, and one of the doors was installed. No trim yet, but it was done enough to have the inaugural party on Friday. Which entailed the inaugural beer spill, as well as the inaugural dent in the drywall. It wasn't much of a party, just some poker with Mike, Kevin, Jon, and Jake. But we had a good time. Here's what the basement looks like now, pretty much.
Any bets on how long it takes me to finish the trim work? Then I get to start on the basement hall, and possibly bathroom. Houses are soooo much fun.

Appliances are Dumb

Yeah, you read that right, appliances are dumb. My house is full of them. The only one I'm on good terms with is the dishwasher, and I'm sure I've now jinxed that. My refrigerator leaks water from the freezer section, which I wetvac up every few weeks. My range only has two real burners, is electric, and the oven won't hold a consistent temperature, causing pizza to burn on one side and be raw on the other. The disposal is loud, and likes to jam a lot. My washing machine has never really been able to wash hot. It was mostly cold or freezing cold water. And Wednesday, the dryer decided to stop drying. Well, it will dry, just not tumble. Yes, it's just a broken belt. But while investigating the fabulous Whirlpool brand LDI 7801 W1 model dryer, I found that it's a week older than me (purchased June 1, 1978), and that parts don't really exist anymore. The washer is only slightly newer, having been acquired by a previous owner in 1980.

So the decision now is, fix or replace? If I replace, I might as well do the washer too, because Murphy's Law says it will break two days later if I don't replace it. And then it will probably just cascade to the fridge and range, leading me to remodel the whole kitchen. I mean, I'll already be in there, right?

Chad, I'm warning you about this home ownership thing right now.

Brewfest

Kelsey and I drove up to Superior, WI on Saturday to attend this "brewfest" her friends had invited us to. Turns out this is somewhat of a big deal in the area. The Gitchee Gumee Brewfest has been going on for 10 years now. You need to get the tickets ahead of time, as they're big sellers. Kelsey had reserved tickets for herself, Lil, and I three weeks ago, but the guy said we could pay when we picked them up. Saturday morning, no tickets. Something about they're all sold.

WHAT!? Well, they don't sell the tickets at the door, either. Looks like it's go home, right? We head over to the arena, where I find someone to plead my case to.

"We drove all the way from Minneapolis!"
"They said they would hold the tickets."
"I'm wearing a shirt that says 'I enjoy drinking beer'."

In the end, some soul took pity on us, and we worked a deal to get in!A large number of area breweries were represented. The farthest was Rogue Ales from Oregon. I've had their beer before, it's quite good.

It didn't take long for a beer fault to occur. Penalty box for you!
Viking Brewing had one of their seasonals, the Hot Chocolate Beer, and turned it into beer floats! Very tasty.
Of course, with so many brewers and varieties, we HAD to narrow down a winner. The highlights for me:

• Surly. These guys are in Brooklyn Center, and absolutely the most delicious beer I had all afternoon. Both the Coffee Bender and One beers were awesome. One is a limited release, maybe I can find it. Neither is a beer you could drink a lot of, though.
• New Glarus. What more do you need to say, after Spotted Cow.
• Fitger's Brewhouse. A Duluth micro. Not the best, but the most unique beer of the night: Wildfire Lager. A lager infused with peppers. By no means subtle, either. It was almost like drinking the juice from a jar of peppers.
  

Overall a very good time. I found some very surprising new breweries and flavors to check out.

This guy also agreed that it was a success!

Top O' The Bachelor Party

Saturday was a joint bachelor party for Mr Brendan Dwyer and Mr Nick Thorson. No, this isn't Massachusettes, they're not marrying each other. Although in this pic, you wouldn't know that.Mike arranged for a dodgeball party at Dunwoody. Two hours of dodgeball was a great start to the evening.
After the dodgeball, we headed over to Grandma's for dinner.
Later we made it to Bootlegger's for all the green beer we could drink. For an hour at least.
At this point, we lost track of a large part of the group, and I stopped taking pictures. But a great time was had by all, I'm sure. Thanks to everyone for making it from other parts of the country. Now just about 60 days to go for Brendan.

Basement Renovations

I know, I know. It's been QUITE awhile since I've posted here. What can I say, life's been pretty boring as of late. What have I been up to? Well, mostly basement remodelling this last weekend. For those of you who have forgotten, and that's probably ALL of you, this is what my basement looked like when I moved into this place.Notice the crappy wood panelling and beautiful mauve carpet. Not great, but certainly better than other decor in the house at the time. Well, back in October of 2005 (yes, a very long time ago) I had a little bit of water down there. The reason is not of concern anymore, but it began a chain of events that I could not have envisioned.

Jake and I ripped up the carpet back then, as it was not what I wanted. Under the carpet, tile. And not just any tile, but asbestos tile. So I had that removed professionally.
With the trip to China, work on the basement was put on hold. Other things around the house were more important, anyways. Mike and I did clean out all the panelling, but that was about it for the summer.

Here's what the basement looked like last Monday. New doors were put in. A bit of updating some of the wiring. Now it was time for some drywall.
Fortunately, Jake once again came to assist me! He had plenty of experience, which came in handy!
Whoo hoo! Sheetrock is on the walls.
Tomorrow will be the taping/mudding. Against some better judgement, I'm going to try to tackle that job myself. With any luck, we'll prime by Thursday, and paint it next week.