Cardinal Directions

My wife, Jean, and I lived in this house since 1986.  When we first obtained a loan for the house the mortgage broker told us, "This is your starter house.  You should sell the house in a few years and get a larger house."  I guess we are bad listeners because we are still here. 

The house is situated in a quiet neighborhood without a through street.  The cardinal-points keys are the road to the north, a blue house to the west, a line of overgrown arbor vitae trees to the south with a pieced together wire fence the owner in the yard to the south installed to keep his dog in his yard and promptly got rid of the dog, and a yellow house on the east. 

South

I approached what I thought was the owner of the ugly arbor vitae trees to the south a few years ago and suggested that we jointly cut the trees down.   The arbor vitae are his trees, I think,  but I am not sure of the property line and I am too cheap to pay a surveyor to determine the property line.  After discussions with the south property owner, the ugly, overgrown arbor vitae remain because he claimed he just survived cancer and did not want to add the stress of removing trees to hinder his recuperation.

East

The yellow house to the east has gone through a succession of owners but it has continued  to be owned by somebody generally living in the house.  Since we lived here, I remember five owners. 

The original owner was a divorced woman with a son who liked to construct car trailers in the garage.  Occasionally large semis loaded with steel would  drive up our little street and drop steel girders off in their driveway.  The son and  a friend would then move the steel girders into the garage, cut them with acetylene torches, and construct the trailer using paint containing 100% volatile organic compounds.  Besides the paint smell and the noise, he and his partner would build car trailers well into the morning.  I went to the City of Madison Planning Department one day and asked whether it was legal to build car trailers in a garage in a residential zoning area.  The city planners told me it was not.  When I told the son he should not build these trailers he leveled a torrid of obscenities at me. Shortly after the verbal abuse,  I then formally complained to the Planning Department which then investigated.  Later that month he knocked on our door and conceded that he was wrong and stopped building car trailers in the garage.

The son was the same guy who wanted to pull shrubs from the front of the house.  The shrubs were there at the time it was built and firmly anchored.  He hooked a rope to the shrubs and the other rope to his back car bumper without attempting to dig out the shrubs.  He assumed horsepower was greater than root power.  He then placed the car in drive and gunned the car.  The car left with the rear bumper laying on the ground next to the shrubs and him in the street with the car shaking his head.  Most of the neighbors saw his attempt and it made for great story telling for years to come.

The next owner was a Madison Police Department (MPD) cop who got married, became sick of his shifts as a cop, and is now a security officer at Meriter General Hospital.

 The third owner couple had two kids and stayed in the house only as long as the husband,  Mike, obtained his PhD in mathematics from UW-Madison after which he was hired by Harvard University or Columbia (one of those two small eastern colleges)  to teach mathematics.  Mike did not like anything other than mathematics and so was not good at yard or house upkeep.  When they left his wife found out they were expecting kid three (Surprise!). 

After they left  the house was rented for a year to a Mormon couple with two kids who tried to buy the house from Mike.  Mike wasn't very good at selling houses either and the Mormon couple and kids bought another house before Mike could make up his mind. 

The current residents, a couple and son, rented the house for a year and decided to buy the house from Mike.  Mike got his act together and sold the house to them although he had to sign the final papers while taking a sabbatical in Germany.  The new owners,  another Mike and his wife have a 4 year old son.  The new Mike is a gear-head and  likes lawn work as much as the prior Mike.  The new Mike spends a lot of time in his garage working on one of their four cars.

Although the yellow house to the east has been interesting, the most interesting house is the  is the blue, chaotic house located to the west.

West

The blue house to the west did not begin chaotic. When we moved into our house in 1986, George and Helen owned the house.  George worked for the Department of Revenue (DOR) and had been retired when we bought the house.  George was either an attendant or pilot for the Wisconsin Air Service before he worked for DOR.  Believe it or not, at one time Wisconsin had its own airlines.  In pictures he appeared to be a steward and not a pilot, although he never said. Helen stayed at home and did cross stitch. George, at one time, was a major force in the Madison Scouts, a drum and bugle corps of some acclaim.  They had a violin showcased in a case in their main room.  George apparently played the violin also at one time.

George and Helen were always there.  We needed them one time when our second child wanted to be born in the middle of the night.  George happily came over after being called at midnight and watched the oldest daughter while we were in the hospital. Jean and I were always invited to their house during Christmas for a Christmas drink.  Jean and Helen had a Bailey's Irish Crème.  George and I had a beer.  That beer was probably the only beer George drank all year.  One year I convinced him to drink two beers at this annual event which made him tipsy and invoked Helen's anger at me.

As George moved on in years, he could no longer do many of the outside chores.  So  gradually I began mowing the lawn, cutting the hedge, and shoveling the snow.  George passed away in a nursing home in 2002.

After George's death, Helen was then left alone in the house which caused her nearest son, Doug, living in Minneapolis a lot of headaches.  Helen never drove a car and so Jean would take her grocery shopping.  Doug would travel back to Madison every other week to fix things in the house for Helen.  Gradually Doug's wife got tired of Doug's trip to Madison and convinced him that Helen should sell the house and enter an assisted living facility.  Helen was not sold on her daughter-in-law's idea but gave in and sold the house to a trust in 2006. The first attempt at placing Helen in one of these places in Madison was a dismal failure because Helen was not cooperative and Doug spent more time in Madison after moving her than when she was living in the blue house.  Doug then decided to move her to an assisted living facility  in Minneapolis closer to Doug.   The selling of the house and moving to Minneapolis broke Helen's heart and she died within a year of selling the house.

When the trust took over the house, guys who looked like former convicts employed by the trust, came in and stripped the house of any furnishings left by George and Helen.  All of the carpeting and many of the appliances were junked or replaced. After that we have seen a series of renters paying a price listed on a lawn sign of $1,450 per month.

The first renters were a black couple, Tanya and her male partner -- never could determine if they were married.  They were in the house for six months. One day Jean and I came home witnessing five MPD police cars surrounding the house.  According to the cops, Tanya was not happy with her partner and went after him with a knife.  He had serious injuries from stab wounds on his back and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.  Some of the neighbors speculated he was dead.  We were interviewed by a MPD  detective and asked questions about how they lived.  Apparently her partner either rose from the dead or made a miraculous recovery because he was sweeping the front stoop two weeks after the knife incident.  The  couple were gradually evicted from the house for nonpayment of rent.

The next renters were a nonprofit agency which housed two young guys in wheelchairs.  The agency had people staying with the wheelchair guys 24/7.  The wheelchair guys looked at the house as a prison and the women attendants as prison guards  One day one of them made a break for it  in his motorized wheelchair when no one was looking.  The attendant discovered the breakout and stopped him at the end of the block.  The nonprofit's residents and attendants resided in the blue house for a year and a half and then one day they were gone. The movers came in the middle of the night, moved them, and left.

The third series of renters was a Veterans Administration (VA) guy by the name of Kirby. Kirby came from Rockford, Illinois and decided the VA hospital in Madison was better than the one in Rockford. Kirby had one leg amputated in a VA hospital before moving to Madison.  Jean became acquainted with him one day when she heard a voice and saw him lying on his back and not able to reach his wheelchair in his driveway.  He had left his car, missed his wheelchair, and was lying helplessly in the driveway.  Jean helped him into his wheelchair.  Kirby also locked himself out of his house one day and we had to help him break into the house by bypassing the lock.

Kirby was divorced and then remarried.  His second wife committed suicide before  he moved Madison. After lying on the driveway and locking himself out of the house, Kirby realized he needed help. Kirby then hired his first wife to be his caretaker.  The first wife and her two older sons then moved from Rockford to Madison to take care of Kirby at the house.  Mary, the first wife, appeared to work hard in keeping the house in order.

 Kirby was a bird lover and had six cockatoos.  One of the cockatoos escaped one day and was not seen even after  they performed an all-out search of the neighborhood.  I think our resident hawk found the cockatoo and had an enjoyable meal. The two sons did not work and apparently stayed in the house viewing porn on the Internet all day while drinking beer they purchased from our local Super America gas station located within walking distance of the house.

Kirby smoked and drank.  He appeared to have a great time when he lived in the house.  In July 2015, Kirby became sick and was hospitalized.  He needed surgery.  He went to the Madison VA hospital for the surgery and the surgeon discovered he was full of cancer and then closed him up. According to Mary, he died on the operating table.  Mary and the two sons could no longer afford the rent and moved shortly after Kirby's death.

The current residents are a single mom and kids.  The single mom has a boyfriend who lives with her and the kids. We are unsure how many people actually live in the house now because we see a number of different people coming and going from the house daily.  The boyfriend has a rather noisy late model car that he uses to transport various people back and forth to work and school.  His taxi service starts at 4:30 am during the work week and the noise of the car at that time in the morning has not made him popular with any of the neighbors.

We are not sure what to expect from these west-located neighbors.  On January 30, 2018 at 8 pm we had five marked and one unmarked MPD police cars parked along our street interested in the residents of the blue house.  They viewed the house from across the street for an hour and then left.

With everything that has happened in the blue house and after seeing a street full of MPD police cars, I hope not heeding the mortgage broker's advice about moving up to a different house does not come back to haunt us.

Living Room Technology

Living Room Technology

When I was a junior in college in the early 70s (that is 1970s and not the 1870s) there was an offer from Crazy TV Lenny at the American Store on the Beltline for a receiver, speakers, turntable for under $500.  Crazy TV Lenny even threw in a 10 speed bike.  The offer was too good to pass up.  A year after my TV Lenny purchase,  my roommate decided to sell me his Dolby cassette player which could be directed into the receiver after he left  for a job in Alaska.  For many years I was happy with my turntable,  receiver, cassette tape deck, and speakers.  The 10 speed bike fell apart and went to the junkyard three years later.

For those who never experienced TV Lenny, TV Lenny was an institution in Madison.  He took over a failing electronics shop, American TV, and turned it into a successful business by a combination of crazy advertising and business acumen.  He sold the business and the people taking over the business failed to continue his approach.  American TV filed for bankruptcy in 2014.

In future years, I was able to avoid the 8 track tape craze. I neither had the money or hot car to install an 8 track tape machine.  But I chose the wrong side of the beta tape - VHS tape war and bought a beta tape player that was soon obsolete and was replaced by a VHS machine.

After my left knee replacement on November 20, 2017, I have been forced to sit in a rocker-recliner located on the north side of the living room and stare at the current electronic gadgets located for the most part on the south side of the living room.  I look at our current technology configuration and shake my head as I recall the TV Lenny days.

We still have the dependable receiver, speakers, and turntable.  But in the last five years we now have an Internet modem, CD player, DVD player, DVD blu-ray player, WII playstation, Uniden telephone center, and Smart TV.  All of this equipment  has LED emitting diodes that supply a kaleidoscope of colors whether it is on or off.  The red, blue, and green LED lights brighten the living room even when everyone is in bed.  If anyone walked past our house and can see the living room past 10:30 pm it would appear we are working hard using a massive computer system. Perhaps this light display and false impression of activity has saved us from potential interlopers.  It may be one of the hidden benefits of owning all of this stuff.

The south wall also has a bookcase and entertainment center to contain and feed the gadgets. We have vinyl records.  (We had them even before they became popular again.). We also have CDs and DVDs.  Some of the CDs we never listen to and some of the DVDs we have never seen the movies or old TV shows contained in their pretty boxes. We even have DVDs for the Wii PlayStation that are bunched together expecting to be used but never see the blue light of the Wii.

We have additional electronic gadgets in other parts of the living room. We have Alexa from Amazon which listens to our conversations.  We tell Alexa to play music from a radio station ever so often to give her something to do. We have an IPOD and IPAD.  I have a Nook e-reader that I never figured out how to use.  We also have two dumb cellphones.

(Yes, I guess we are heretics in this age of smartphones.  Our two kids have smartphones which they "cannot live without".  Jean, my wife, uses her cellphone for calling and texting people.  She is perfectly happy with the ability of her dumb cellphone which disappoints our cellphone carrier,  U. S. Cellular.

Me, on the other hand, only owned a dumb cellphone because other people in the family were concerned I may be in a place where there was no telephone and that I would need to contact someone.  Since that decision was made four years ago I needed the cellphone two times.  Because I use the cellphone so often it sits in a case in a different room strategically placed so I can't hear it if it rings.  I do not know what all of the different buttons do and have no interest in finding out. 

Why, am I so out of the smartphone mainstream?  I see people with smartphones and they are always on or peering at their cellphones.  It appears to me the cellphone takes their time without supplying any benefit.  I think napping is a better use of time. But that is my take.  Oh, by the way, I have no idea what my dumb cellphone number is and so do not ask.)

Controlling my TV in college was simple.  You turned it on and the antenna would find between one and three channels.  To turn off the TV you pushed a knob.  The journey from the couch to turn on or off the TV may be all of the exercise occurring on that day of TV viewing but it was exercise nonetheless.

Today we have a dizzying amount of remotes.  (Yes, I know it is possible to consolidate all of the many remotes into one remote but I neither have the patience or understanding to do that.)   We have a remote for the TV, the cable, the DVD player, and the blu-ray player.  The cable TV remote has buttons that I am afraid to push because bad things may happen.  The DVD player remotes have buttons to start, rewind, end and do other things as you watch the DVD.  The different colored buttons begin with black and also have blue and red.   The red button does not appear to do anything when pressed, I hope.

With all of this technology we now have access to a great number of cable TV stations we never use, NETFLIX, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and cellphone calls from credit card companies telling us we are negligent in not obtaining their credit card.  The occasional wrong number from a drunk calling from a bar in San Diego also makes the cellphone a modern convenience we look forward to using.  I also must admit I cannot figure out what Facebook can do and have no idea what to do with Twitter. I am afraid if I learn how to use Twitter, if that is possible, I may get an errant tweet from the White House which is pretty scary under the present administration.

So you can see that if someone graded me on technology knowledge today I would hover near a D or D minus and coasting downward to an F.  But I can live with that. I am afraid as to what I will need to know about the next electronic gadget that I asked for, a camera.  Oh, you say I have a camera in my dumb phone.  Really?

But if you want to go back in time and not deal with the electronics we have books located in another bookcase  on the east side of the living room.  These books are silent witnesses to the lights and glitz of the electronic gadgets on the south side. The books have one advantage over the electronics; they do not require electricity.

As I sit here in my rocker-recliner recuperating from the knee replacement, the smart TV, Alexa, and other various electronic wonders are waiting for me to press a remote or issue a voice command.  I think I will sit in my chair, take a nap, and keep them guessing. 

Letter to Kentucky

Hi Tommy and Carolyn,

Jean and I met with my mother this week to decide our itinerary toward reaching the magical land of Florida to her winter residence in Rockledge, Florida.

Our first discussion addressed the question, “Is it still there  -- Florida and her residence?”

Some of her fellow campers are already there.  Hurricane Irma destroyed the office and their recreation hall according to people already there.  The office, where people pay rent and get their mail, is sort of mobile so it keeps people guessing where it will be one day to the next.  I guess they are doing that to keep the residents’ minds in shape.  As far as my mother’s place, she lost a few shingles and her air conditioning/heating system.  The A/C, heat was replaced this week and so she now has some place to call home.  You can infer because her buddies are down there, Florida still exists.

The next discussion involved the time we should cross the Kentucky state line. 

We decided we would leave the State of Wisconsin on Thursday, October 26 and drive straight through.  The problem occurred during our discussions defining the phrase “straight through”.  We decided no one’s plumbing system can hold out in a car for eight hours and so the “straight through” probably means more than the 8 hours Google Maps proclaims as the time to drive to Kentucky.  Because of this uncertainty of arrival time, we decided to reserve a space in the Best Western in Lawrenceberg.  My mother reminded us about our status in Milwaukee and she wanted the status to be more certain than the Patterson status in Milwaukee.  Right now, with Marian and Drew we have no idea whether we are welcome within the city limits as far as the Patterson family is concerned.  With that concern in mind, she did not want to chance you two meeting us at the state line and telling us to go back north.  We booked the room in Lawrenceburg until Saturday, October 28^th.  We will then move onto the next destination from there.  We hope to spend most of Friday, October 27^th with you – assuming you don’t meet us at the Kentucky state line and tell us to go to West Virginia.

Our next stop on that Saturday may be Chattanooga, Tennessee where Brett, one of my mother’s grandchildren, resides. After Chattanooga, the next destination is Valdosta, Florida where we will rent a room at the Hampton Inn and Suites for the night.  October 29^th is the last push to Rockledge.  We can take a leisurely push to Rockledge on that Sunday because the Green Bay Packers have a bye that week and the people at the campground will not be sitting at her doorstep waiting for the beginnings of her Packer party.

Jean and I need to discuss the route we will take to return to Wisconsin. We will assume that if we are not met at the Kentucky state line going down that we can drive back through Kentucky, assuming Google Maps lets us go that way, without any concern from the Kentucky Pattersons.

Let me know if you have any trouble with this itinerary.  We still have time to adjust our timetable so we can take my dad’s favorite route by going through Michigan.

Thanks.

Ralph

Woodmans

Woodmans

Woodmans is a large grocery store which has several locations. Our Woodmans is located on the southwest side of Madison.  Woodmans is a grocery store where you will find a number of state employees shopping for food.  In the Madison grocery store ranks, Woodmans fits into the budget of most state employees.

Before retirement, my wife had me tag along while she occasionally shopped after I returned from work.  Now at retirement, I am allowed to accompany her during the day for these shopping adventures.

Shopping at Woodmans is an experience each time you shop at Woodmans.  There are two types of people that shop at Woodmans -- those that know what they are doing and those that do not.  The clueless people walk around not knowing where anything is located and are in danger of being trampled by people who do.

My wife knows what she is doing at Woodmans.  She compiles a shopping list each week and then organizes the items on her list by the grocery aisle which houses each item.  Milk is never the first item on her list.  The first item is always bread or a bread product.  She has shopped Woodmans so much she automatically knows which aisle the product is located in.  She gets incensed when Woodmans changes the aisle locations or she makes a mistake, misses an item, and then causes her to retrace her steps to corral the missing box of cereal, can of tomatoes, etc.

Me, on the other hand, are one of the those that do not know what they are doing.  My role is to push the shopping cart and try to keep up with my wife in sight.   It is work to keep up because she  tries to limit the amount of time in the store as much as possible and the outlay of the store is better when you are on foot rather than pushing a shopping cart.

Trailing her with the shopping cart is not easy.   The first obstacle is the produce section.  Woodmans has a lot of produce but not much area to maneuver.  Each time I approach the produce section with the shopping cart I shudder.  I know I will fall far behind my wife if anyone is talking with an acquaintance, the friendly Woodmans people are restocking, or if someone dumps produce on the floor.  All of these potential roadblocks occur and when they occur simultaneously waiting on the Madison Beltline in a traffic jam is preferable than trying to sort out the mess in the produce area.

If you survive the produce area then there are other hurtles to overcome.  People love to park their shopping carts in the middle of the food aisle.  By doing that they ensure shoppers from either direction cannot pass. These people stand to the side of their shopping cart scratching their heads, discussing what can is needed while talking to their spouse on their cellphone, or yelling at their kid strapped into the shopping cart which decided to cry because the kid had an audience   The shoppers from either side try to be polite by clearing their throats, talking loud, smiling, or trying to move the impeding shopping cart out of the way.  Sometimes the delayed shopper's gambits work and sometimes they don't.  As for my experience, the delayed shopper strategies never work and so I am constantly trying to either find my wife because she is now in a different aisle or sprinting after her trying to keep up.

Woodmans also has a silent obstacle.  Woodmans has a cadre of electric shopping carts.  From my observation most of the people driving these silent killers do not need them.  They should walk like everyone else.  But I must admit an electric shopping cart looks like a lot more fun than pushing a manual cart.  The challenge for us manual cart people is you never know when an 89 year old grandmother will whiz past you on her electric shopping cart.  Getting passed in an aisle by an electric shopping cart is a sobering and humiliating experience.

If you get past the milk, ice cream, and pop aisles in Woodmans then you are close to Nirvana, the checkout lines.  There is a strategy to getting through the checkout lines.  You must conduct reconnaissance on  each checkout line and assess the checker and the bagger. If either of these two people are slow in what they do, you move to the next line.  I also discovered another Woodmans' rule.  The shortest checkout line may be longest checkout line because the machinery will break down or the person before you forgot something in the back of the store that they need to get before checking out.   This rule is the equivalent of the laws of gravity because it is always true.

I learned a lot while experiencing the Woodmans' experience during the daytime.  One of these days my wife said I may be allowed to go solo.  I am not looking forward to that day.  However, if that day occurs then I know the Woodmans' Liquor Store is the next store in the shopping center.  I will then plan to visit that store for liquid assistance before I try to get past the produce section in the main store.

Leg Pain

I have two bad legs which needed multiple operations over my lifetime.  The worst one is my left leg.  My left leg became painful on Saturday, August 12.  It was so bad I needed crutches to get around. I called my doctor and they had no openings.  They suggested I go to urgent care.  Jean and I went to urgent care on Monday, August 14^th.

We rolled into urgent care. I did not need crutches to walk in the door.  I paid the $25 copay, registered at the front, registered inside urgent care, sat down, and we were whisked into a room within 5 minutes.  The nurse took my vitals and determined I was still alive.  She said the doctor would be in shortly.

The doctor, Susan Montgomery, did show up.  She was a middle aged woman and she looked at me with suspicion.

“What is wrong with you?”, she asked in a very condescending voice. 

I  responded. “I have extreme pain in my left leg.  It is pain that comes and goes.  Right now it is less but Saturday night it was really bad.”

She looked at me not believing me.  I think she thought I wanted drugs.

“Let me look!”

I showed her my left leg with the abundance of scars from prior leg operations.  Her face softened.

“So you say this has been going on for a time?”

“Yes, and it got really bad on Saturday.”

Susan smiled.  “I want to have some X-Rays on that leg.  Then we will see what is going on.”

A nurse escorted me to X-Ray and they took eight X-Rays on my left leg and foot.  They then led me back to the examination room.

After 10 minutes of waiting, the Dr. Montgomery knocked and walked in.

Her approach was 180 degrees different from the time we first met.  She was very friendly.  “With that leg I have no doubt you have constant pain. The X-Rays show you have bone on bone by the knee.  You probably need a knee replacement. I will refer you to an orthopedic surgeon.”

So, I have a scheduled visit with an orthopedic surgeon on September 1^st.   September could be a painful month.

The moral of the story is once somebody like me retires, the body immediately falls apart.

Hayward Vacation 2017

     The annual Hayward vacation which occurred from Saturday, July 22 to Friday, July 28 was a vacation tempered due to the death of Uncle Stan Garnsworthy and his visitation on July 28th and subsequent memorial service on July 29th.

     This was our 11th year at the Virgin Timbers Resort located on Moose Lake, 20 miles east of Hayward. This year we moved to a bigger cabin, cabin 3.  We needed the extra room because we had six people rather than five.  Amy's boyfriend Dan joined us this year.  Cabin 3 had one more bedroom than Cabin 2.  It also had a larger porch than Cabin 2.  Both Cabins 2 and 3 had great views of Moose Lake.

     Cabin 3 had its peculiarities.  All of the bedrooms were at a tilt.  None of the flooring was level in the bedrooms.  Cabin 3 also retained its archaic wiring system.  The porch was lighted with Christmas tree LED lights. The LP gas stove burners had to be lit manually.  The wiring system could not handle more than one high amperage appliance at one time.  Cabin 3, unlike Cabin 2 in prior years, did not experience mice, hornets, or bats.  The lack of wildlife and the increased space made Cabin 3 much more livable than Cabin 2.

     Virgin Timber Resorts had new owners in 2017, Chris and Tammy.  Chris was a middle-aged guy with a Fu Manchu beard, piercings between his eyes and other places on his body, and many tattoos.  Chris worked in IT in Texas before he and Tammy bought the resort.  Tammy appeared did not have visible tattoos or piercings.  They both had two daughters, four dogs, and cats.  Chris upgraded the wifi system but apparently had an aversion to cutting the grass around the cabins.

     Besides us the people attending included the Butlers, Foxes, and McDermotts.  The Butlers included Jane, Keith, Hannah and Hannah's boyfriend, Ben.  The Foxes were Dave, Donna, and Anna,  The McDermotts were John, Karen, Jake, and Jake's girlfriend, Jensen.

     Chris and Tammy changed a few things at the resort.  The main boat dock was cut in half due to some disagreement between them and the owners located next to the resort.  Many of the rowboats used in prior years now sat in a graveyard located at the back of the resort.  The fish house was also moved near the center of the beach.  

     The weather was cloudy and dreary for the first three days and nice the last three days.  The fishing was the same throughout the vacation-- dreary.  I took my usual number of fish from the lake, zero.  Most of the other people fishing had similar luck.  They spent significant time fishing and not many results.

     John'a boat, the boat used for water skiing, was out of action until Wednesday because it needed a replacement part.  After significant fishing frustration, Dave's boat, the fishing boat, was taken out of Moose Lake and moved to Spider Lake on Thursday.  Spider Lake had significantly more fish than Moose Lake.

      We made our usual pilgrimage to Hayward on Tuesday.  Laura, Amy, and Dan spent some time in the shops.  The highlight of visiting Hayward was eating at Perkins and shopping for cooler ice at Walmart.

      The vacation itself could be classified as ho-hum.  The Butlers rented the pontoon boat on Wednesday.  We burned four piles of wood on Wednesday night.  We had a pizza party in the bar on Tuesday night. We played some cards and board games.  We ate well.  We relaxed.  For those reasons, the vacation was a success.

      A new plan was hatched for fishing in 2018.  John's boat will stay at the resort.  Dave's boat will move from lake to lake and not be put into Moose Lake.  The new plan hopefully has better fishing results.  

Retirement Start

     Today is Thursday, August 3, 2017 and it is my third week of retirement from DNR.  I really consider it my first week because two weeks ago we were preparing for vacation and last week we were on vacation.  This week was the first week when in prior years I would be working instead of writing this post.

     I was counseled by many people about retirement being the best thing ever.  I have no doubt retirement is a good thing but no one warned of an adjustment period.

     The beginning of July, I was working 10 hour days to keep up with my work and to get enough of the work completed so someone would not walk into a mess.  The annual emission inventory project for 2016 was completed for the state and the federal government before July 14th, my last day.  

      On Monday, July 31st, there was no DNR work to do.  I did not have to interact with a DNR computer or fellow DNR employees.  It was as if someone placed a wall in front of me and I could no longer pass through the wall.  My dreams were still about work. My body still woke up anticipating going to work.  But I did not have to go to work.  The wall was there blocking me from doing the work I had done for decades. It was a weird feeling.

     I now have extra time, 40 to 50  hours a week.  I am tired after coming back from work.  I can read a book.  I can bike.  I can do many things in which I never had time to do before.

     It is a weird feeling and as I get more into retirement I hope it this weird feeling will fade.