Catching Up

Nanci was at Brat Fest I was in Burlington teenagers were skulking on park benches Guido and Vince were eating chocolate covered bacon and chili suckers.

While Andy tried his chili sucker, Vince's Dulces Karla Jilotes Grande Chile never touched the inside of his mouth, and he claims to like spicy food.
It's just as well according to this article from the wire on lead in Mexican candy. Wish I would have been armed with that little tidbit before I hit The Expo. Take a whirl around the Food and Drug Administration Web site and you may never eat again.

A sucker dipped in sour lemon powder

Oh don't feel sorry for him, if you only knew; not too long ago he was grabbing my purse and dumping its contents on the floor of the Cub Foods check out line.

While I was lost in the month of May, June happened.
Who out there would buy a dairy cow t-shirt that said, "Kiss Me, I'm Lactating?"

One of the most exciting things this June was when the White Sox came to Miller Park and properly spanked the Brewers. Twice.
NOTE to the unattractive man in the second row left of the visitor's dug out: Chill the f*&@ out, I have a point and shoot camera without a telephoto lens and I will obstruct your view of J.D.'s butt for a full 1.3 seconds while I take his picture.

The very end of June means the Largest Firework's Display in the Midwest, Rhythm and Booms.
This is what fireworksguide.com said about it:

Rhythm & Booms is Madison, Wisconsin's premier Independence Day Celebration and fireworks display. As the "largest fireworks display in the Midwest", it easily surpasses other fireworks events in Chicago, Minneapolis and Milwaukee because of the length of the show (approximately 35 minutes), the number of shells fired (15,000) during the show, and the size of its annual budget. It is the largest single-day event in Wisconsin.


Take that Chicago, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee.
The very end of June means not venturing too far from home for fear of running into a buzzing swarm of pyromaniacs and their ghastly hive of traffic.

The crowd seemed a little different this year

Rainy weather caused a cancellation and moved the fireworks from Saturday to Sunday. That allowed me to score a couple Mallards tickets, see the game, and nurse a cooler full of consumables that lasted until the last shell was shot and the last song was sung.

Little Vito and the Torpedoes vs. The Booze Brothers would be a great cage match

Weren't Little Vito and the Torpedoes in their late 20s and 30s when I was sneaking into the Shuffle Inn as a teenager? I say this with love. Hell, all I did was eat, drink, watch baseball, and pet dogs, and I was wiped out. You go, Little Vito and your Torpedoes.

Cable on this ferris wheel snapped while Madison's local news media ate funnel cake and cheese curds.
Everyone was all right, but somehow a policeman got caught up on one of the cars, dangled out of his seat, and dropped down to a freaked out kid a few cars below.
I got there while firemen were rigging cables to pull the cars down one at a time.

I kept seeing crazy ferris wheels and carousels everywhere I looked.

Things I learned at this year's Rhythm & Booms:

Cable access and the Shopper Stopper can scoop the Madison news media

Never ride ferris wheels or carousels

Don't eat anything, ever

Old rockers never die, they keep playing until you can take a left on Sherman Avenue