Recently in Madison Category

Don't really have any good, concise stories to share so I'll just do a brain-dump of sorts... we'll start with training, eating, and recovering.

It's no secret that I probably have some type of eating disorder... I love food - looooove food. And I really seem to love the foods that are just awful for me - donuts, cookies, cupcakes, fish fry, fritters, popcorn, and peanut M&Ms all come to mind as some of my favorite "binge" foods. Without exaggerating in the slightest, I could easily eat a dozen donuts in a sitting, or 5-6 huge cookies, or pounds of deep fried fish.

So I force myself to stay away from these foods, but about once a week, the cravings get the most of me, and I go on a massive food bender. I track every single thing that I eat on Livestrong, and after a day of pigging out, it'll be nothing for me to have consumed 7,500 calories. Not real smart, and not real good for me...

I then get angry with myself and vow to stop eating badly, and along with the internal lashing that I dole to myself, I crank-up my training efforts while becoming extremely strict with my diet for the rest of the week. Immediately following my binge day, I'll usually do a massive "brick" workout (60+ miles on the bike, followed by 10+ miles running) with the hope that by spending 5 hours working out I'll undo some of the damage that my pig-out caused.

And that leads to over-training, which leads to me being ridiculously sore, which when combined with the low calorie intake for the rest of the week leads to me wanting to eat more to help with recovery, and thus the cycle repeats itself. I can't give myself time to recover because I know that a binge is just around the corner, and so I'm always in a state of hurt... In an effort to treat the hurt and to aid recovery, I use all sorts of "crutches" - recovery drinks (glutamine/protein/carb blends), compression gear, glucosamine supplements, and so on. Rather than treat the symptoms, I need to address the issue and get back into a more realistic regimen.

I've gone back and looked at my old training and diet logs and discovered that as soon as I started to ramp-up my running (to 8+ miles per day), my binges became more frequent and severe. My theory is that running 50+ miles a week while eating around 800 calories per day for 6-days out of the week must deplete something and cause an imbalance of some sorts (highly technical terms, I know), which leads to my monstrous cravings for really bad food.

Prior to the 50+ mile/weeks, I was able to manage my diet really well. I didn't have such crazy cravings and I was able to be responsible. So, after this season's racing is over (I have a few big-distance races remaining), I'm going to rollback my running to around 4 miles per day.

With any luck, that'll help with the cravings, will cause me to eat more responsibly, will ease my overtraining pains (my back is a wreck, and my knees/hip flexors are always killing me), and should result in an all-around better situation. I'll still try to maintain a 800-1000 calorie/day diet, but by reducing my mileage it should be easier to manage over the long-term.

Granted, I won't be in "half-marathon" form all year round, but I'll definitely be in "easy 10K" form, which will allow me to get back up to a half-marathon with 5-6 weeks of training should the need arise. I'm also going to pack on more biking miles, because biking seems to be a lot easier on the body than the 50+ mile running schedule.

We'll see how it goes.

Changing gears to topic #2...

As I didn't have to work this weekend, I took a trip to some of the local farmers markets, as well as a trip out toward Black Earth for some sweet corn. I stumbled across this family farm that has the absolute best sweet corn I've ever had in my life - it's literally like candy - you can eat it 100% raw and it's still unreal.

I bought 4 ears of this heavenly sweet corn for an unbelievable $1.50. The folks that run the stand are super nice and very knowledgeable - I asked a bunch of dumb questions about the differences between sweet corn and "field corn" and they happily shared their knowledge with me. I also asked how many acres they tend to and how much of it is sweet corn vs. field corn; they pointed to the field 5 yards from where I was standing and said that they usually plant their sweet corn "within" the field corn.

They go "about 9 rows in" and plant "3-4 rows" of sweet corn, which they then harvest completely by hand. They can pick about 100 ears per hour per person, and they pick it each day, early in the morning. The corn that I bought came from this very field just earlier in the morning:

From Black Earth I made my way back to Madison where I hit a few farmer's markets. I scored some Bison tenderloins, some locally grown chicken, dirt-grown tomatoes, organic mushrooms, and some freshly made pretzel rolls. I scoured the markets for some asparagus, but alas there was none to be found. Oh well, I still had the makings for a really nice dinner... but what to have for dessert? How about grilled peaches? I stopped by Brennan's and grabbed a peach and a pint of blueberries (for morning cereal use).

I roasted the mushrooms, along with some Penzey's Spices California Pepper for a flavor boost.

While the mushrooms were roasting, I brought a pot of water to a boil for the sweet corn and also preheated the grill. While those were coming up to temperature, I made a glaze for my peach - I took 1.5 ounces of Appleton Estates 12-year spiced rum, stirred in a tablespoon of brown sugar, and reduced it over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes. I finished it with a touch of local honey and left it to simmer, until I had about 2 tablespoons of liquid left.

I salted and peppered the Bison and threw it on the grill for a total of 6 minutes, which brought it to an otherworldly medium rare (123F). I let the bison rest as I boiled the sweet corn and sliced a tomato. I cut the pretzel roll in half, warmed it in the oven for a few seconds, and was ready to dig-in:

6 ounces of grilled Bison tenderloin = 200 calories
6 ounces of roasted cremini mushrooms = 60 calories
1 large ear of boiled sweet corn w/ butter spray = 180 calories
1 pretzel roll = 190 calories
1 medium tomato with Mrs. Dash salt-free seasoning = 33 calories
Total calories = 663 calories

A little more than I would've liked to have eaten, but I (you guessed it) rode and ran a lot today, so I'll be OK. I washed it all down with a Diet Root Beer from Point Brewery (man, that's some awesome root beer), and then dug into my dessert - a glazed and grilled peach with 1 tablespoon of my brown sugar/rum/honey glaze (total 179 calories):

So, even with my monumental dinner feast, I'm still sitting at 1,278 total calories consumed for the day (Recoverite formula following my workout; cereal + protein drink for lunch; and then this dinner), with 3,812 calories burned.

Changing gears again: I saw the movie Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio, and while it was decent, it was incredibly long. I found myself wishing it was over after about 2 hours. Yes, it's intelligent and really well produced, but it got old after a bit; or at least it did for me. I did get to watch it at one of the best movie theaters ever, the Sundance 608 theater at Hilldale. That place is awesome - reserved seating, always nice, perfect sound, and a more mature crowd.

Shifting again: I bought Apple TV for the apartment. I figured that since I don't have cable, I could justify spending a few bucks on the Apple TV unit and renting a season of Man V. Food in HD - the unit and season rental cost about what 2 months of cable would cost...

The Apple TV unit is pretty neat - it allows you to upload all of your iTunes and MP3 files to it, so it not only plays movies and TV shows, it'll play your music as well. It also has a photo album system for your pictures and a bunch of other things. It's pretty nifty and despite only being 720p resolution, the image it produces is fantastic.

And finally, to bring it all home, I finally finished mounting my TV and soundbar, and I believe the apartment is about 99% set-up. I'm not totally crazy about this arrangement, but it seems to work:

That's it for now. I'm sitting on the couch with the windows open, enjoying the nicer weather (71F, low humuggity), watching a really dumb show on ABC, reading Men's Journal, and crafting this blog entry. I'll catch you later this week.

For reasons unknown, I thought it would be a really good idea to pick-up a part-time job... at the time, I thought that I had a lot of "free time" on my hands, and that I might enjoy something like cooking or bartending, so I put out the feelers and eventually landed a part-time job cooking food at a local restaurant.

...and that "career" lasted about 5 weeks.

Folks that visit my blog know that I love food and love to cook, so it seemed like an ideal opportunity for me to combine something I loved to do with something that would pay a little bit of money and get me "out of the house."

But what many folks may not appreciate (myself included) is how much more challenging and different it is to cook in a "commercial" environment than it is in a "home" environment. I certainly under-estiamted the skills required to cook during a busy breakfast or lunch - when you've got 80-90 people ordering all sorts of different things all at once, things get crazy in no time. And I quickly went crazy - I couldn't keep up with orders, I forgot things, I obsessed about things that didn't matter... and after this past weekend, I hung-up my spatula.

I really enjoyed the experience; it was interesting to see how things work in a small kitchen and I very much liked the people I worked and interacted with. They tried to show me tips and tricks, but as one of the guys put it, "You can't be as detailed oriented as you are and hope to survive as a short-order cook." I think he was right.

It also didn't help that I worked primarily on weekends, which meant that my schedule would go something like this:

3:30am - wake-up, dress, stretch
4:00am - go for a run
5:25am - return from run, take a quick shower, feed cats
5:55am - drive to pool
6:05am - swim for 20-25 minutes
6:35am - rinse off at pool, dress
7:00am - work at part-time job
3:30pm - finish part-time job, head home
4:00pm - hop on bike
7:00pm - return from bike ride, shower, feed cats
8:00pm - eat, rest, watch TV

(Repeat for Sunday)

Definitely made for long days and short weekends, and got to be rather stressful. I also noticed that it took a toll on my legs - something about exercising for 5 hours each day and then standing on your feet for 8 hours straight didn't work out too well.

Part of me wishes I could've "cut it" as a cook, but ultimately it's for the best. I'm a better patron (and part-time fish fry critic) than I am a cook. :-) So now it's back to the normal weekend routines, which should be nice. And the next time I get to thinking that I have too much free time on my hands, someone pass me a book or a puzzle instead.

It looks like I'm officially a "tree hugger" - all I need are some Birkenstocks and a few more Phish songs on my iPod.

Why?

I bought a Toyota Prius. I almost can't believe I typed that; let me explain what happened to prompt this purchase.

As most of you know, I had been driving a gorgeous (but large) Chevrolet pick-up truck. I found it at a local dealer with really low miles, loaded with options, and more or less in perfect condition. I installed a Line-X bedliner, detailed the heck out of it, and planned to keep it for a long time. It was nearly ideal - it could hold my bikes with ease, it was comfortable, it had a great sound system, and it ran like a top.

But, it was nearly impossible to maneuver the thing around town and it was really impossible to park it in my new garage - I literally had to have the front license plate of the truck touch the front wall of my garage so that I could close the garage door (and even then I only had about 1.5" of clearance behind the truck).

Every time I parked the truck in the garage, I went through a 5-8 minute "dance" that involved me pulling-up as close to the wall as I possibly could, jumping out of the truck to check my distance, inching forward a bit more, jumping back out to check, and so on. It quickly grew old. Before you suggest that I hang a tennis-ball to mark the ideal parking location, know this: the ceiling in the garage is 15+ feet high.

It also grew old trying to find parking spots - whether it was at the grocery store, the parking garage at work, or at one of the many ramps in downtown Madison... parking that beast was always a chore, primarily because the turning radius was so poor. I've never done as many Y-turns in my life as I have over the past six months or so.

So, I put the truck on craigslist, and wouldn't you know it, but I sold it in just two days to a super nice couple from Mount Horeb. They picked-up the truck early last week, which left me without a vehicle. The weather was nice, so I didn't mind biking to work, nor did I mind walking to get groceries and other things.

I didn't know what kind of car I wanted to buy... part of me wanted a station wagon (Audi A3, Audi A4 wagon, VW Jetta Wagon, or VW Passat Wagon) because I'd be able to put a bike or two in the back and still have room for other things like a small toolbox, a small suitcase, and so on. The Audi options offered all-wheel drive as well.

Part of me wanted a sedan (Chevrolet Malibu, Subaru Legacy, Saturn Aura, Ford Taurus, or a Ford Fusion) because it would be practical, roomy, and there were plenty to choose from.

Part of me wanted something really fun (Mercedes Benz E350, Mini Cooper S, Subaru WRX STI, or an older Corvette).

And then I stopped to think about how I "really" used my vehicles; truth be told, I hauled my bikes in the truck on exactly two occasions... I didn't really use the 4WD feature... I didn't use the back seat for anything other than holding groceries... but I did enjoy the low monthly payment (I got a really good deal on the truck and loan), and I did spend a ridiculous amount of money on gas every 8-10 days ($65 per fill-up), and I did hate parking it.

So it was evident that I needed something that was affordable, got good mileage, could haul some cargo if necessary, and would prove to be reliable and, if possible, slightly fun.

Purely on a whim, I searched for used Toyota Priuses, and wouldn't you know it, but I found a 2009 Prius at the local Toyota dealer - a one owner car, loaded with options, certified-pre-owned (which meant it came with a 100,000 mile warranty from Toyota), and with a decent number of miles. I checked Carfax for the car's history and it came back clean - the records showed regular maintenance, no accidents, and all looked good.

So, I haggled on the price, got an excellent deal, and an excellent interest rate. As mentioned, it's a 2009 Prius with "Option package 5," which means it has: voice-activated GPS navigation, JBL premium sound system with iPod interface, Bluetooth, automatic climate control, leather seating, and a few other items I'm forgetting. The original sticker price was $29,855. I got it for about half of that, and it came with Toyota's certified-pre-owned hybrid warranty, which gets me a really nice extended warranty.

After getting the car home last night, I washed it and set about detailing it. Here it is, sitting in the garage (in which it fits nicely), getting ready for a good buffing:

I taped off the plastic and rubber trim so that I could really get after things with the buffer. Once the taping was complete, I clayed the car, buffed it with Meguiar's #101 and #201, polished it with Zaino Z-PC, washed it again, and then applied 3 coats of Zaino Z2 (with ZFX) and finished with a wipedown with Zaino CS (Clear Seal). I dressed the tires, cleaned the interior, and treated the leather. The whole process spanned two days (I started last night at around 6pm, worked on it until around 11pm; woke-up and rode/ran this morning (7am - noon); then finished the detail at around 7pm this evening).

I snapped two quick photos - the lighting was bad, so I'll take some additional photos in the near future.

And here's some of the fun stuff from inside - the touchscreen computer is pretty cool - it serves as the climate control center, information center, and navigation hub. Check out the mileage I've gotten so far:

Here's a picture of the entire "dash" area - the layout has most of the items in the center of the car... it's going to take a bit to get used to it.

So there you have it. I'm a tree-hugging hybrid driver. :-) And while it's not the most exciting car I've ever owned, I should enjoy the lower car payment and the incredible fuel economy (most of my trips are in-town at speeds below 40mph, which is where a hybrid shines). I predict I'll spend about $30 on fuel every 3 weeks (versus $130+ with the truck).

And finally, as I was driving to take a photo of the car, I witnessed an accident in downtown Middleton. Further proof as to how poorly people drive around here... picture this: it's 80-degrees outside, it's sunny, there's not a cloud in the sky, the pavement is totally dry, and there's barely any traffic. Perfect conditions.

A Buick SUV, heading east on University Avenue in the right-hand lane, suddenly decides that it's going to cut across three lanes of traffic to turn left at an intersection that doesn't allow left-hand turns. The driver cranks the SUV violently to make the turn (I'm guessing they were speeding as well), and next thing you know, I'm watching a SUV roll on to its side and slide before coming to a rest. I just shook my head and stopped - the traffic in front of me stopped as well...

...sort of scary.

Even scarier is that I cross that intersection every single day while running.

Here's the aftermath - just as I was taking this picture the tow-truck got the SUV right-side-up... I was so angry - I wanted to get a better picture, but this is the best I could manage.

You've got to love the drivers around here. Truly, truly awful.

No fish fry reviews - sorry. The 'ole waistline needs a serious break from that Friday night ritual, so I've been actively avoiding that temptation.

I did however attend a Mallards baseball game last weekend with my friend Dan and his family and we had a blast. Dan and Tara purchased some awesome seats that were located literally behind home plate:

Not a bad seat for $7!

The game quickly became a lop-sided trouncing as the Mallards went ahead of their opponents (from LaCrosse) in the second inning to the tune of 9-1... So, we had to find other sources of entertainment and the most obvious option was to watch and shout along with a Mallards staple: The Beefstick Guy.

He sells a variety of items, but as he climbs up and down the stairs and makes his way through the seats and bleachers he shouts, "Peanuts, sunflower seeds, caramel corn," (and then with heavy emphasis on the "EE" and with the crowd of 7,000 people joining him) "bEEEEEEEEEEEfsticks!"

You'd think it gets old... but it never does - the whole crowd yells along with him and before you know it, you're joining the crowd. I figured I'd take a picture with his legend:

I also took a picture with Dan; upon review of the photo we promptly noticed two things - one, we're getting old, and two, we got "photo-bombed" by a little kid in the background... classic!

The night quickly came to a close and was capped-off by some fireworks and live music. We weren't able to stay for the music as Dan was there with the entire family (including his nephew who was visiting from New Jersey), so we watched the fireworks for a bit and then called it a night.

In other news, I'm continuing to get the apartment "in order." I got a magnetic knife holder and a few Victorinox Fibrox knives:

And, I finally got around to mounting the TV on the wall... what a difference that made. I'm waiting on one more component to arrive and then I'll be done with the set-up of the living room entertainment pieces (and I'll be able to get the last cardboard box out of the area).

I also bought a "cat sitter" DVD (I'm embarrassed to admit it) to help entertain the cats a bit. At the old apartment, the cats enjoyed watching birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and other critters as they scavenged bird seed from my upstairs neighbor's (aka "Psycho") porch. Here, they don't have that luxury, so I hoped the DVD might be a nice diversion from time to time. Turns out Shiloh loves it:

...Probably the best $5 I've ever spent on a DVD.

And finally, here's one last shot of Shiloh sitting on his favorite toy. I'm not sure why he chose to sit on it like this, but I thought it would make a fun picture.

I realized that I forgot to include some additional details from last week, so consider this a "pot-luck" entry of sorts...

If you'll recall from a previous entry, I stopped by Art Fair On The Square last week, and saw some really neat artwork. One of the artists that really stood out was this guy - he had these mean-looking dogs and cats featured in his work:

I would've loved to buy some of his stuff, but if I recall correctly, he was asking $3,000 or $4,000 for that painting... yikes! I realize it takes talent to conceptualize and create something like that but wow.

And speaking of wow, we (Mark, his friends Chris and Brenda, and me) donated a few bucks to a charity so that we could get our pictures taken in some crazy hats. I chose this viking number -

Our group photo was taken and posted somewhere online... I've managed to misplace the URL, so I guess I'll never see the fruits of our donation. Something tells me it's not a big loss.

Changing to another subject, I met some really nice folks (Kevin and Kelly) down at the MidTown and we got to chatting about documentaries; turns out we had all watched the "Beer Wars" documentary (I mentioned it here in a previous blog entry). One of the things they did in Beer Wars was demonstrate that nearly all light beers taste identical, and that when challenged, even the most die-hard beer fanatics couldn't tell the difference between 3 beers in a blind taste test.

We decided to give it a try ourselves, and the fine staff at MidTown proctored our test - they set-up 4 blind samples of light beer for us:

We blind-tested the 4 beverages; I took time to smell them, inspect them, cleanse my pallet between samples, and everything imaginable to try and better my odds of guessing correctly. Kevin and Kelly did the same; we all laughed heartily at how difficult (read: impossible) it was to differentiate between them.

As you can see, I received a perfect score of 100% misses. While Kelly and Kevin both correctly identified Miller Lite, Kevin was the clear winner with 2 correct answers. I encourage you to try the test for yourself - it's really quite funny/ironic/eye-opening.

Speaking of funny - it's been a while since I've posted or shared something from failblog.com and/or icanhascheezburger.com... as if trampolines weren't dangerous enough, check out this handy work:

And finally, for my last bit of randomness, I'll leave you with a photo of what I wake-up to just about every single morning:

Sorry for posting two entries in a single day, but wow - today was a good day in every sense of the word.

It rained cats-and-dogs last night - some areas around Madison reported 6+ inches of rain in the 'ole rain gauge. I don't know about you, but I sleep really well when there's a good rainstorm. So, with the A/C blasting cold air, the rain pouring down, and with two cats curled up near me, I slept like a million bucks. It's been a long time since I had a good nights' sleep (too many things going on - the mind races all night).

I woke-up extra early to ride the trainer for an hour or so; watched the news, felt refreshed, had a good sweat going, and felt really good (I normally dread the trainer). Had the usual breakfast (.5c Fiber One, .25c Skim Milk, 1oz fresh blueberries, supplements, and coffee), then hit the "Beltline," only to find that traffic was non-existent. I easily made my way over to Fitchburg, where I had an early morning Trigger Point/Deep Tissue massage scheduled.

My legs have been trashed lately (probably due to overtraining), and I figured a massage might help loosen them up and recover a bit. The therapist did an absolutely amazing job on the 'ole levers - and while moments of the massage were quite painful (especially the calves), I felt awesome afterward. I hopped back in the truck, drove to work without any traffic once again, and had a great morning of work - got tons of things done.

At lunch, I stopped at a local farmer's market and scored some super fresh local sweet corn - 3 ears for $1.

Near the end of the day, Phil (co-worker) and I went to a local market where we scored some really good cheese (English Hollow Cheese??), some produce, and some Wild Blue Popcorn kernels. I figured I would try my hand at air-popping some corn in the microwave.

I drove home and went about making dinner. I had fresh, organic, locally sourced chicken, fresh locally grown sweet corn, and a fresh, dirt-grown, locally sourced tomato with some roasted broccoli, a Diet Root Beer (from Point Brewery), and 1 Tbsp of an all natural BBQ sauce:

I used my new favorite seasoning for just about everything: Mrs Dash. It's salt-free, and the Chicken seasoning is amazing, as is the "Extra Spicy" (use it on veggies), and the "Table Blend" (use it on tomatoes and eggs).

Best of all, I enjoyed this guilt-free, 364 calorie feast out on the deck, because the weather was incredible - mid-70s, no humidity, sun in just the right place, iPod playing some good dinner music... bliss.

I'm still out on the deck now (at 8:30pm), enjoying my air-popped popcorn (it's super good; hit it with some Mrs. Dash as well) and browsing the web. I really wouldn't mind if today never ended - it's been a good day!

I had to take a work-related trip to Chicago yesterday, where I had an opportunity to visit our corporate headquarters. The HQ is located in the heart of downtown Chicago - on LaSalle Street, near the Washington Street intersection. It's a gorgeous area; I really do enjoy big cities.

I arrived a bit early for my meeting, so I grabbed a seat at the Starbucks "patio" that was located in front of our building, settled-in, did some work, and took a few minutes to do some quality people watching.

So much personality in the city - the buildings are majestic, the shade makes things seem more inviting, and the hustle and bustle makes you feel like being active - like you should be working harder. And work harder you'd have to if you wanted to live in downtown Chicago - I almost choked when I saw the hourly parking rates for the ramp I had to park in... $27/hour!!!

I made my way up to the 40th floor of the building and was stunned by the incredible views. One of the folks pointed-out this awesome "green space" that sits atop the City of Chicago's City Hall building:

Apparently that rooftop is indeed part of city hall - pretty impressive.

The meeting went well and wrapped-up at around 5:30pm or so. I then made my way over to IKEA where I bought a desk and a bookcase for the apartment. The desk turned out to be a major failure - it's far too large for the apartment, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.

But the bookcase/entertainment stand seems to be working well:

The stand measures about 6' long and stands about 32" tall. Within the next few weeks I'll mount the TV to the wall and shuffle some things around. With any luck, I'll also sell that small 13" TV in the lower left corner of the photo, and will find a place for that box in the lower right corner of the photo. I can't wait to be 100% settled-in.

Now... does anyone need an oversized desk that's never been used? :-)

If you'll recall from my previous entry, I was contemplating the idea of heading to Summerfest. Well, after much deliberation, I decided to make the 80-mile drive to Milwaukee and check out Summerfest 2010.

The adventure began with the fight to find a parking spot, and after 20 minutes of driving around looking for lots with open parking spots available, I settled on one near the festival, ponied-up $25, and... got door-dinged by some moron who flung his door open and directly into my passenger door. I was in the truck when I heard that sickening "thud" noise - I looked over at him and all he could muster was a feeble "sorry." Ugh.

From there, I made my way to the ticket window and paid $15 for an entry ticket, then stood in a long line so that I could get frisked by some Neanderthal who when finished frisking me asked, "Do you have any illegal drugs or weapons on your person?" Um, yeah - I've got a whole boatload of drugs and a couple of Uzi's in my pocket... seriously?

Once inside, I made my way over to the US Cellular stage - it's one of the companies that I work for/with on a daily basis, so I figured I should see the stage and snap a photo (and I have no idea who the two random folks are in the middle of my picture - they just walked through as I was taking the picture).

The neat thing about Summerfest (and particularly the USC stage) is that the entire event is located quite literally on Lake Michigan - the shoreline is just a few feet away from the grounds; I took this photo from the "other side" of the USC stage:

Since there wasn't a band playing at the USC stage, I decided to walk around for a bit and check out some of the smaller stages, the vendors, and the various food stands. I stumbled across this tropically-themed stage where a band was playing some really catchy music. I have no idea who they were, but they attracted a decent crowd and they were fun to listen to. I stuck around for about 15 minutes or so, then grew tired of getting bumped into by drunk people while being cooked by the sun (there's not much shade at Summerfest).

I continued walking around the grounds, where I passed twenty-odd food vendors... and eventually settled on getting a "sampler platter" that consisted of cheese curds, chive fries, and mozzarella sticks. All for $9.

I found a seat at the Harley Davidson stage where I snapped this photo of the sampler platter:

After devouring most of that plate (it was actually quite tasty), I walked around for a bit more - I was thirsty and needed a beverage ($6 for a bottle of Lite!!!!), and I still had another section of the park to check out. I thought about taking the sky cars - they have these mini-gondolas that run from the north side of the park to the south side of the park - but decided a picture of them would suffice and a walk would do me better.

I quickly started to realize that Summerfest isn't as great as my mind likes to remember it... it's expensive, it's hot, it's crowded, the crowds are annoying, and there's far too much "downtime" between acts. And, for some strange reason, they schedule most of the bands to play at the same time; for the most part, all of the stages run on a 2-hour schedule, so at noon, all of the stages are "live." Then at 2pm, the stages are "live" again; 4pm - live; 6pm - live; 8pm - live; 10pm - live. Why they don't stagger them so that there's always a show going is beyond me...

I spied some kids playing chess - I thought the huge chess board was pretty neat:

Having covered the grounds end-to-end, I was ready to sit down and settle-in for a band or two. The Counting Crows would be playing the Harley stage, so I figured I'd go over there, stake out a good seat, and wait for the 10:00pm show to start. Two bands played prior to The Crows - the Nick Howard band and Katzenjammer. I took a decent photo of Nick Howard (who was actually quite good):

Katzenjammer played next - they're an all female group from Norway (I believe) and they were sort of neat because they all played all of the instruments at one point or another - pretty talented group to say the least.

And finally, at 10:00pm, The Counting Crows started their show. Blurry photo - I was standing on a bleacher seat getting bumped by dozens of people.

And I stayed for exactly one song. Modest Mouse was playing next door on the Miller Lite stage; I checked them out for a second, but their area was even more packed than The Counting Crows area was. And so, after driving for 80+ miles each way, spending almost $140 on parking, ticket, and food, and sitting in the hot sun for 5 hours, I left early.

Just as I was leaving, the fireworks began:

And they carried on into my drive home - a "gang" of motorcycle riders were in front of me as I left the grounds and for some reason or another we got into a "heated discussion"... I think they weren't moving for anyone and were busy revving their engines and trying to look cool... so I honked at them to get them moving, and they took exception to it. So, we had a little chat. And then a traffic cop came over and told them to move along and told me to leave them alone. Fine - in fact, I'll leave Summerfest alone all together next year. To say it was a supreme disappointment would be a major understatement.

Summerfest is a "free" concert that tests your patience, your wallet, your resolve, and your cardiovascular and digestive systems... I ate way too much junk food while there. :-)

So, yeah - next year, Summerfest will be a big "no go."

Finally, in other news - I bought my first Blu-ray DVD this weekend: Batman: The Dark Knight - and all I can say is "WOW." I'd never seen a true Blu-ray picture before... it's absolutely unbelievable. I cannot explain it and do it any type of justice - the colors are so vivid, the contrast amazing, the motion looks almost 3D, and the sound will blow you away. I tried to take a picture of the experience, but it's not going to be fair... trust me that you need to get a Blu-ray player if you haven't already.

Woke-up at 7:00 and hit the road for a 65-mile ride today, followed by a nice 7-mile run. I wanted to beat the wind (it's due to get windy today) and heat (it was in the low 80s when I finished the workout). Took a shower, threw on a pair of shorts and am now sitting on my deck, enjoying a bowl of Fiber One with blueberries and an Optimum Nutrition Strawberry Whey protein shake while listening to some music and reading the WSJ on my laptop.

Ahh.

Apologies for the dark photo; it's super sunny today and I'm sitting in the shade so the contrasts are all messed-up...The deck measures about 180 square feet (10'x18') so it's got a decent amount of room; it offers a fair amount of privacy, thanks to the solid walls, but still allows you to enjoy the outdoors. Wonderful.

I might hit Summerfest tonight... it ends tomorrow and I'm thinking it might be fun to go check out a few of the bands there.

Oh man, what a friggin' week it's been. I can't tell you how happy I am that the weekend is upon us and that it's a "long weekend" to boot. I definitely need some time to rest and relax!

I moved this week; it's hard to believe that I've been in Madison for a full year now. Seems like only yesterday I was in Austin. But, time flies when you're busy and having fun - definitely experiencing both of those scenarios with the new job and life here in MooTown. So with a year under my cheese-filled belt and the lease expired at my old apartment, I decided to find a new apartment - one that didn't have a crazy old lady as an upstairs neighbor...

And I found just such a place; smaller than the old place, just as expensive, but newer and (hopefully) a lot nicer. Bonus: no upstairs neighbors to wake me up at 4:30am as they vacuumed or did laundry - I'm on the second floor. Yay.

The moving process began about 3 weeks ago, when I started to pack-up the "non-essential" stuff. I packed "off-and-on" for about 10 days, then really turned-it-up and got to some serious packing during the last 10 days of June. I also cleaned the heck out of the old apartment - I absolutely didn't want to sacrifice any of my security deposit, so I made certain the old place was operating-room-clean.

June 30 arrived and by 5:00am I was wide awake, ready to get moving. Jed helped me pack-up the U-Haul on the previous night (thanks, Jed - I really owe you one!!!), so all that I had to do was deflate the air mattress, throw the cats into their crates, grab my cooler from the refrigerator, and head over to the new place.

And that's where things went sour. The cats (god love 'em) absolutely hate their crates. I knew this, which is why I woke-up so early - I had to be out of the old place by 9:00am, so I figured 4-hours would be plenty of time for me to get them into their crates. No such luck... they're wise little kitties, as they heard me move the crates into the bathroom.

They instantly sprung from the air mattress to the top of the cabinets in the kitchen, where they sat for 3+ hours, refusing to budge despite my best efforts to coax them down. I tried playing it cool - ignoring them; I tried putting out some "wet food" for them; I tried throwing turkey to them... nope, they were on to my plan.

So, with 15 minutes to go, I grabbed a big bath towel, climbed up onto the counter, and snagged Shiloh. As I was stepping down from the counter (with Shiloh screaming/yowling/yelping like he was possessed), Mack sunk her teeth and claws into my leg - beating me like I owed her money. She was apparently upset that I was "harming" Shiloh.

I flung her from my leg, which was now gushing dark red blood, only to have her "box me in" to the kitchen. She was "halloween cat" (arched back, hissing, swatting); after a brief stand-off, I lept over her and ran for the bathroom, where I closed the door and flipped Shiloh into his crate. He was not happy.

But I still had Mack to capture, and I was pretty certain she wasn't going to play fair. After chasing her around for a few minutes and taking some heavy battle damage to my ams, I had Mack in her crate. I locked the bathroom door, raced over to the manager's office of my new apartment, picked-up my keys, and raced back to the old apartment where I was able to check-out just in the nick-of-time.

I put the cats in the back of my truck (in their crates, of course) and drove to the new place, where I proceeded to unload the cats and the rest of the stuff from the truck. I then drove back to the old apartment, picked-up the U-Haul, and made my way back to the new place, where I was supposed to meet another friend who was going to help me unload the U-Haul.

Well, due to some extenuating circumstances, he wasn't able to make it on time, so I began unloading the U-Haul myself. I had to return it by 3:00pm, or I would've been charged a significant late fee. So, I hustled up and down the 24 stairs that connect the ground floor to my new pad. The new place is about 20-feet above ground; it's nice for views and TV reception but it stinks for moving!

After about 100 trips up-and-down those stairs, I had everything out of the U-Haul, save for the "big stuff:" a couch, the grill, the bed, and my brand spanking new 55" Samsung LCD television.

My friend was still M.I.A., and time was ticking down, so I unloaded everything by myself... I used the ramp to slide the couch down from the U-Haul and into my garage; I carefully slid the TV and grill down the ramp as well. I slipped a moving blanket under the mattress and box spring and slid them down the ramp and into the garage - pure genius if I do say so.

And just as I was wrapping-up, my friend arrived and we raced back to the U-Haul center where I returned the truck at exactly 2:59pm - a full minute ahead of the due-in time.

We drove back to the apartment, carried the big stuff upstairs and then went out for a bite to eat. I think I went to bed at around 2:30am that night.

I've spent the past 2 days cleaning and organizing the place... I've still got a ways to go - I need to mount the new TV to the wall, figure out what to do with my furniture, determine where to place cat boxes, and eliminate some unnecessary crap, but I'm making progress... I went from this:

(notice Shiloh doing his best impression of "Where's Waldo?")

...to this (sorry for the dark photos; I took them this evening at around 11:30pm without a flash):

The new place is much smaller - it's only about 800-square feet (compared to 1200+ square feet for the old place), and it's only a one-bedroom, so I'm having to get creative and efficient with my organization.

Here's a shot looking "in" to the living room from the kitchen:

Those windows open to a large deck that I absolutely love - I scored a cheap, used patio furniture set from a co-worker and can't wait to sit outside with a cold beverage and my laptop, enjoying a nice summer's evening.

Here's the massive flight of stairs that I've really started to hate:

At the bottom of those stairs are two doors - one to the left that leads into my garage, and the one straight ahead that leads outside. It's nice not having a shared hallway/entryway like the old place did. I won't have to listen to people coming and going at all hours of the day/night.

At the top of the stairs is a small "intersection" - hallway to kitchen/living room is to the left. Bathroom is the first door on the left; laundry room straight ahead; bedroom to the right.

Here's the bathroom - I found the shower curtain on Overstock.com and just bought the rugs from Bed Bath and Beyond today.

And here's the bedroom - it's a bad picture because it doesn't show much detail... there's a huge walk-in closet to the right, along with a big "nook" that currently holds my other TV (37" Panasonic LCD).

I've also got my bikes in the bedroom, and I love the 10-foot high ceilings with the tall windows. I get a phenomenal breeze here - I've yet to turn on the A/C. Granted, the sun does make things a bit toasty in the late afternoon, but the view and breeze makes it all worthwhile.

I only wish the place had more storage - I don't have a pantry, nor do I have a linen closet or storage closet... I've got a large 1-car garage (it's more like a deep, 1.5 car garage) directly below my apartment that has some storage in it, but aside from that, there's not any extra space.

I'll be happy when everything is all set to go - I'm hoping to mount the big TV to the wall this weekend, find places for everything else, and arrange my furniture in an intelligent manner. I'll share additional photos when everything is all finished.

I still need to buy a bunch of stuff - night stands, a desk, some bar stools, a book shelf, and so on... moving is expensive! But, the great things about the new place outweigh the costs: I'm upstairs, I have a total of 3 neighbors (which I've yet to hear a peep from), I get a great breeze/view, and my television reception is stellar. And, I've got my own private entry and my own garage. Woo Hoo.

I am draggin', though... between the packing, moving, unpacking, cleaning, organizing, running, riding, swimming, and working, I'm about ready to collapse. Speaking of which, it's 12:38am and I've got a long day of riding/running/organizing ahead of me tomorrow.

Unless you've been living under a rock or in a cave (or just don't care about technology), you've probably heard all about Apple's new iPhone.

And that means you've probably also heard about how ridiculously difficult it is to get one - when the phone was made available for pre-order on June 15, it literally crashed both Apple's and AT&T's web servers - their systems couldn't keep up with the demand for pre-orders. AT&T's web servers took several days to recover from the hit.

I tried to pre-order a phone on June 15, but didn't have any luck; by the time I was able to login to see if I could even attempt to place an order, Apple had sold out of phones and was predicting that the next batch would be available by July 14. AT&T announced that it wouldn't be offering any phones for sale in its stores to "walk in" customers, and worse yet, pre-ordered phones wouldn't be available until late June at best.

I wasn't too concerned; my current iPhone (the 3G) has served me very well - it's been ultra-reliable, handy, and I've really enjoyed it. So, if I had to wait for the 4, no biggie.

Well, then I started visiting forums and reading the preliminary reviews. People were getting their phones earlier than the official launch date (today - 6/24). People were reporting that Apple stores would have anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred phones available for "walk in" sales (people who didn't successfully pre-order).

So last night, at about 8:55pm, I decided to race over to the Apple store in Madison to see if there would be a line of people. With new Apple product releases, the faithful (or nutty, depending upon your point of view), often camp out the day before the product launch. Apple was going to open its stores at 7:00am on 6/24/10 to offer the new iPhone for sale.

When I arrived at the store, there was a line of about 10 people - these folks were committed to standing in line, overnight, for at least 10 more hours... just for a phone. I figured there was no way I was going to spend all night in line; if anything, I would come back early in the morning and re-check the line - but I wasn't keen on that, since I wasn't sure if the store would even have any phones available.

I didn't sleep much last night and found myself wide-awake at 4:00am, so I hopped into the truck and took a spin down to the Apple store where I found about 200 people waiting in line. YIKES!!! "No thanks," I said as I turned around and drove back home.

I had another opportunity to drive past the Apple store at noon and again, the line was massive - at least 200 people were still waiting. I was doomed - no shot of getting a phone today, but oh well.

And then at around 4:00pm, I checked the Macrumors.com website to see if anyone had information about the Madison Apple store's stock of iPhones. And wouldn't you know it, someone posted at 3:15 and stated that they had just left the store. There were apparently "at least 400 phones" on the counter. I figured, "What the heck, I'll go check the line once more." So, a 4th trip to the Apple store led to me standing in a relatively short line of about 100 people.

The line was divided into two groups: "Reservations" (meaning you had a pre-order) and "Walk-in" (meaning you might get lucky enough to get a phone). I stood in the "Walk-in" line and was immediately annoyed by the guy in front of me - he wouldn't stop fidgeting, shifting around, craning his neck to see "how much longer" the wait would be, calling his buddies and saying, "Dude, this line is so long - it's not moving - the other line is flying, but this line is slow," and so on...

He even started pestering the Apple store employees, whining about how slow our line was moving, wondering why it was taking so long, and all sorts of other annoying stuff. The staff was getting perturbed, as were the other folks in line. He tried to talk to me a few times and I dismissed him with a, "Complaining about the line isn't going to make it move any faster - it is what it is."

Well, after about an hour and a half of waiting, I was 4th in line - only 4 "walk-ins" to go and I'd be in the store. An employee came out and looked perplexed. She studied our line and then went back inside. Now we were getting nervous, and the annoying dude was really starting to redline - I thought he was going to explode like a piece of popcorn... he was bouncing up and down, rocking back and forth, and repeating, "No, no, no, no - don't run out, no, no no, no - don't run out."

She came back out and asked the first person in our line how many phones they were buying. "One." She asked the next person. "Two." She asked the nervous guy. "One - just one - all I need is one." She asked me. "One." Then she went back inside.

She came back out a third time and said, "We might have enough for you. It's going to be close." Well, now I started to get nervous... I was so close - but yet so far.

Thankfully, after another 15 minutes or so, I was inside of the Apple store with this sitting next to me:

According to the associate who was assisting me, I scored the 3rd-to-last "walk-in" phone they had. There were seven phones left when they asked how many phones we needed - oh man, that was close! I feel bad for the other folks that were standing in line behind me.

The purchasing process was painless, quick, and very enjoyable. Apple had their system down to a "T." I was in and out within 10 minutes - they managed the entire transaction from a modified iPhone of their own (it had a barcode scanner and a credit card reader built-in to it), e-mailed me the receipt, established the AT&T service, and sent me on my way.

I got the phone home and here are some comparison shots to the iPhone 3G. The old phone is on the left, the new one on the right:

And here they are stacked on-top of one another (new phone on top):

And the desktops compared, side by side (old phone on left, new on right):

And finally, a sample web-page (old phone on left, new on right):

So, what are my initial impressions (not that you care)?

The phone feels heftier and more solid than the old 3G - it just has a more "precise" feel to it, even though it's lighter and slightly smaller than the old 3G.

The screen is definitely much improved - the text is sharper, the colors are more accurate, and the feel is better.

The speed is greatly improved - applications launch instantaneously. The extra storage capacity (32GB vs 16GB) is appreciated - I was nearly out of room on the old phone, so now I've got some space to grow into.

And that's about all that I've tested so far. The camera is supposed to be much better (it includes a flash and will also shoot HD video**), but I haven't snapped any photos with it yet. Maybe I'll break it in on a fish fry tomorrow night... :-)

Would I go through the trouble to buy it again? Hmm. I don't know. It is just a phone, afterall - it's not going to change my life, make me run faster, or help me win any popularity contests... it is a nice piece of hardware, but I don't know if it's as revolutionary as the hype has made it out to be.

So long as it serves me as well as my old iPhone did, I'll be happy. I guess that's all that really matters.

** Edit: Here's a brief video that I shot with the iPhone - it's nothing fancy, but it should give you an idea of the front/back camera options. I can't figure out how to export "longer" videos directly from the phone without using YouTube, so until I can, you'll have to suffer with viewing via YouTube.

So I was minding my own business late last week when I received an e-mail from the Majestic Theater - Zane Lamprey, comedian and host of Three Sheets was going to be playing a show on Friday, and tickets were still available.

With nothing else on the evening docket, I figured it would be worth my time to make the short drive downtown to check out the show. The Majestic is a storied theater that's located about a block from the capital building - it's also not too far from The Great Dane or the Monona Terrace.

Problem #1: I didn't have a ticket to the show. The box office opens an hour prior to show time, so I figured I would get into line early and buy a ticket. Just as I was nearing the box office window (the line wrapped around the block), a guy walked by asking if anyone needed a ticket - he had an extra and wanted $10 for it. I flipped him a $10, got the ticket and saved myself $11 (face value on the tickets were $20 + $1 service fee).

Once inside, I quickly found a small two-top table in an ideal location - dead center of the stage, about 15 rows back, directly in front of the sound board. Win! Problem #2: I didn't have anyone with me, so I wasn't sure how I would "hold" my table while using the restroom or grabbing something to drink... and that's when a waitress came by and asked if I needed anything to drink. Win! I probably should've bought a lottery ticket as well!

So, I had my beverage, and a great table. The place was starting to fill up; the music got a little louder, camera crews buzzed around (they were filming the show for Zane's latest television series called "Drinking Made Easy"), and I was.... getting tired.

The show didn't start until 10:00pm, and I've come to realize that I may be too old for such late night ventures. The first comedian, Marc Ryan, got onto stage promptly at 10:00 and did a great job - he entertained us for about 25 minutes, and then introduced the second "comedian," Steve McKenna.

Steve didn't do much other than drink a handful of beers and tell a few jokes. But, he did bring out Zane's "drinking character/buddy," Pleepleus.

Pleepleus has developed a bit of a cult following; Zane usually takes the much smaller, stuffed-animal version along as he tours the world and then strategically places him in various shots/scenes during filming. I'm not 100% familiar with the entire story behind Pleepleus, but I believe it's a vague reference to "getting that monkey off your back."

So, by around 11:00pm, Zane came onto stage (there was a minor set change after Steve finished), and by now I was really getting tired. The crowd was also becoming quite rambunctious and a bit restless. Zane came out and the first thing that people "demanded" was that he imbibe a bit:

Zane told a few jokes, shared some stories, and then transitioned into an educational bit about various alcoholic beverages. It was really quite interesting - he talked about various types of wine, whiskeys, beers, and so on. But, he was really losing the crowd... I wasn't sure what to expect from such a show; it became clear that most of the people there didn't really want to be "educated" about the fine differences between an Anejo and Reposado Tequila.

And so, I left early. I was simply too tired to hang around, which was a shame because I also scored a free pass to the "meet and greet" after the show. I think I would've passed out had I stuck around much longer - by the time I got home, I could barely keep my eyes open. I guess I'm not much of a party animal these days. :-D

So, I'm glad that I went to the show; I just wish they wouldn't start them so late! Had the show started around 8:00 or 9:00, things would've been perfect. But alas, I'm just an old fogey - the kids probably enjoy those later start times.

I spent the rest of the weekend doing the usual: riding and running. I've found that I seem to run better after a ride... not sure why that is, but my legs feel better when I run immediately following a ride. In fact, I'm pretty certain that my Saturday morning ride (65 miles) helped me recover from the Chicago race.

My legs had felt pretty sore all week; I didn't run on Sunday or Monday, and then I ran "lightly" on Tuesday through Friday (averaged about 5 miles per day). But after my Saturday ride, I felt brand new - I ran 9 miles without any problems or difficulty. It's so odd... I also got one heckuva sunburn on my arms - I forgot to wear sunscreen... yikes!

I rode and ran this morning (45/10, respectively) and have spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the couch, reading a book and "watching" a little television. The cats have been keeping me company - here's Shiloh as he sits next to me:

And Mack has been watching/hunting a chipmunk that keeps running around on the patio (if you look carefully, you can see her behind the bike):

I've been debating dinner options... I'm still not certain what I'll have. Nothing really sounds good, and I'm not terribly hungry, but I've only had a bowl of Fiber One and a protein shake today, so I should eat something... pizza? Thai? Sandwich? Argh - nothing sounds good.

So, I've lived most of my life in Wisconsin... as such, I've eaten my fair share of brats - in fact, there's a story that involves me, seven brats, and a fourth of July celebration, but that's best saved for another time.

But as much as I consider myself a true "Sconnie" (Wisconsinite), I'd never heard of Bratfest until this year. Apparently, it's been taking place since 1983, and has really "taken off" in recent years. What started as a small bratfry in a grocery store parking lot has transformed into a record-setting 4-day festival that includes 200+ music acts, a carnival, fireworks, and over 200,000 brats served.

I met-up with Jed and his wife Jamie (sorry if I'm spelling her name wrong!), and promptly made my way over to the "heart" of the affair - the brat tent. Bratfest does a smart thing and sells their brats at a reasonable price - $1.50 will get you your choice of: a brat, a veggie brat, a hot dog, or a soda. For $3.00, you can get the infamous "Double Johnny" (two brats on one bun).

In addition to the intelligent pricing scheme, the logistics of Bratfest are excellent. They can move a ton of people through the lines without much delay - we stood in line for maybe 45 seconds, placed our orders, and were walking away with a bag full of brats in no time. Ballparks and other events should study this festival - the efficiency is top notch. How do they do it? Here's the grilling station, affectionately known as "Tastyville" - they had about 50 people grilling brats non-stop on more than 20 5-foot-long grilles in this area.

With brats and beverages in hand, we made our way to one of the three music stages, staked out a spot, and listened to a few bands. My only issue with the entire event stems from the music - the sound systems weren't loud enough (we could barely hear the band), and there wasn't enough seating available. Other than those two minor gripes, the event was quite enjoyable. Here's me and my brat, listening (sort of) to a band:

We stayed until about 8:30 or so; the festival closed at 9:00pm. Definitely a good night - it's always great to see Jed and Jamie; throw in some brats, beverages, and bands and you've got a winning combination. Speaking of winning combinations, it looks like Bratfest is on track to break another world record - as of last night, they had sold 172,600 brats, and only need to sell another 36,000 today to beat their previous best.

Learn more about Bratfest here - there are some interesting stats!

Sorry folks - no fish fry review this week as I had a 20K race first thing on Saturday morning, and I didn't want to be loaded down with a gut full of fish. I did enjoy a nice "carb load" on Friday night, by way of a bison steak, a sweet potato, some grilled asparagus, tomatoes, and a nice huge bowl or two of popcorn.

The race came about with short notice - I discovered it purely by accident on Tuesday of this week and was fortunate enough to secure a spot in the race. The race began at 9:00am on Saturday, with the start and finish lines located at a beautiful park in Monona.

The race course consisted of one lap around Lake Mendota for a total of 20K (or 12.45 miles). About 950 people entered the race; I thought about carrying my camera to snap some pictures along the way, but decided against it as I didn't really feel like lugging a camera around for nearly 13 miles of running.

The weather was nice - mid-60s at the start, sunny, but incredibly windy. And by "incredibly" I mean sustained winds of around 20mph, with gusts in excess of 30mph. There were a couple of times where gusts of wind literally stopped me in my tracks - I nearly fell over and/or came to a complete stop while running. It was brutal at points, for sure.

Wind aside, the race went well, although I need to remind myself to stop lining up near the back of the pack during the start of a race. I spent the first 3-4 miles weaving in and out of people, which was tiring and aggravating. By around mile 5, the herd had thinned and I was able to settle-in to my normal 8-minute mile pace.

Only surprise of the race was a rather unique "aid station" that was set-up around mile 9 or 10... two guys set-up their own table with cups, but rather than filling the cups with Gatorade or water, they had them filled with beer. I started laughing as I approached and saw their sign. I thanked them as I ran by, but declined a "cold one" - there was something about drinking a beer while running that didn't seem too wise.

I finished the race with a time of 1:44:15, which was good for #278. Not too bad, I suppose, especially given my bad choice for a starting position and the strong winds.

Here I am at the finish line, just after completing my race:

The park was really quite cool - it was huge and gorgeous, and it even had a small pond/lake in the middle of it. The race directors arranged for a band to play after the race, and they also had after-race goodies, including pretzels, trail mix, fresh cut fruit, animal crackers, and of course: beer. I just don't understand the fascination of drinking a beer after a race, but as the saying goes, "When in Rome..."

I had about 1/4 of a cup and wished I hadn't. Normally I would enjoy a frosty beverage, especially on a gorgeous sunny day, but like I said - after expending about 2,000 calories worth of energy a beer just doesn't "hit the spot."

I stuck around to watch the band for a bit:

Then I headed back to the apartment and rather stupidly went for a bike ride. Holy cats - that wind was ridiculous on my ride... I almost got blown off the road (literally) so many times that I lost count. Riding with the wind at my back, I averaged 32mph. Riding into the wind, the best I could muster was 8mph! It was absolutely insane!! I called it quits after 20 miles, admitted defeat, and fought my way back to the apartment.

When I got home, I refueled with one of my favorite post-workout meals:

1 cup of Fiber One cereal, .5 cups of Silk, some blueberries, and a strawberry protein shake. 250 delicious, refueling calories.

I joined my friends the Topels for dinner in Delafield - it was great to see them, and we had a tasty dinner at the Delafield Brew Haus.

Today, I lounged around for far too long, and then went for an 80-mile ride - I love riding out here because it's so gorgeous:

After my ride, I went for a 8 mile run, and then cleaned the apartment... nothing too terribly exciting, I'm afraid. Dinner tonight was a bison burger with a sweet potato. I'm counting down the days until Friday - I'll definitely hit a fish fry!

I ran the semi-infamous Crazy Legs Classic race today. It's an 8K (5-mile) race that starts on the Capitol Square and finishes on the 50-yard line of Camp Randall Stadium (home of the Badgers football team). The event attracts about 20,000 people and is more of a party than a race... take for example the pre-race "gathering" - I met some friends (Jed and his wife Jamie) at Genna's Lounge (a bar):

The place was packed at 9:00am with people that were running the race. And everyone was drinking bloody Marys, beers, and even mixed drinks! I was a bit surprised, to say the least. It was great to hang out with Jed and Jamie (I'm spelling her name wrong - apologies!) and some of their friends from Jed's workplace. We socialized for about an hour or so before making our way out to the Capitol Square to line-up for the race.

The race started at 10:00am with the fastest runners leaving in group "A." I was in group "W" - quite a way from the front pack. Next year, I'll request a faster group, because I spent the majority of the race trying to weave my way in and out of people as I passed them. Here we are, "in line" and waiting like cattle to hit the starting gate.

After about 20-25 minutes of standing in line, we were near the starting line. The starting line was really cool - it was filled with Badger players who were high-fiving everyone and wishing them luck. The marching band was there playing music, the cheerleaders were rooting for everyone, and Bucky was wishing everyone well. I didn't get a great picture because we were already starting to move, but you'll get the idea:

The bigger guy (#68) was obviously a lineman for the Badgers frontline... :-)

Once on the road, I tried to get a few photos, but none really turned out too well. We went from the square to Langdon Street, past the Memorial Union, up Observatory Hill, down through the dormitory area, around the hospital, under University Avenue, and then into Camp Randall. Here are a few shots from the race:

That's Langdon Street, near the Memorial Union.

And here's the "back side" of Observatory Hill:

And here's the finish line area. I tried to take a photo at the actual 50-yard line, but my iPhone camera goofed-up and the photo didn't turn out at all. :-(

I finished the race at about the 40-minute mark (update: results were posted - my official time was 40:45 and I finished #3141 out of 20,450). Not a great time by any means (about an 8-minute mile pace), but with 20,000 people to deal with it wasn't a bad race. My hat is definitely off to the Crazy Legs organizers - they know how to run a race. Everything was well organized and easy to follow, and they managed the huge group of people with absolute perfection.

Following the race, there's a big party at Camp Randall, complete with bands, brats, beer, and all sorts of goodies. I stuck around just long enough to take a few photos, including this shot of the spectators:

After snapping a few photos, I ran the course in reverse back up to the Square (people were still running the race, and after hearing "you're going the wrong way!" about 300 times I removed my race number), where I took a stroll through the Farmer's Market.

It was quite nice - not too many people as the weather wasn't great - and I scored some bison steaks from a local farmer, along with some organic tomatoes, all for less than $15. I also got a picture of the capitol with these about-to-bloom tulips:

So, all things considered, not a bad Saturday morning. I ran just under 11 miles, had a decent race, picked-up some bison, and am now relaxing at the apartment. The weather is supposed to be crummy tomorrow as well, so I'll probably be stuck riding the trainer. Argh.

Happy to report that the weekend treated yours truly quite well. It started with a decent fish fry (review will be coming shortly) and ended with some gorgeous weather. I had a chance to hang out with my friend John from Minneapolis - it's always great to see him, and it's even better when I can combine a visit with a trip to a local brewery.

On Saturday, I met-up with John in Potosi, WI. Potosi is near the Iowa/Wisconsin border - it's about 1.5 hours south west of Madison. John was there diving in a flooded mine shaft (John is an accomplished SCUBA diver) and invited me to drop by and check things out. So, I hopped in the 'ole truck and made my way down highway 151 to Potosi.

I arrived at about 3:00pm, just as John and his dive buddy were surfacing from their dive. Here they are, coming out of the water:

The area that they're exiting from once served as the main entrance to the mine. From what John said, the mine flooded in the 1960s; it provided both copper and lead back in the day. John said they had to swim about a half-mile into the mine before they got into the actual tunnels. It sounded really interesting; he also provided me with a DVD that of dive footage from the mine - I can't wait to check it out.

Here's John exiting the water - check out that diving rig:

He uses what's called a "re-breather" - that's the large thing that's hanging on his back. A re-breather captures the expended air bubbles as you're diving, cleans the carbon monoxide from the air, salvages any remaining oxygen, and then uses a chemical reaction to create new oxygen. It's all computer controlled; it allows you to dive for longer periods of time without having to carry several extremely large oxygen tanks. It's a cool device, but is extremely pricey (and quite complex).

Here's a closer-shot of the dive rig:

He wears a dry suit so that he can dive to some incredibly deep depths without getting too cold. Under that suit, he wears an electrically-heated jacket/pant suit as well. It's a really cool set-up.

Finally, I mentioned that John had some video footage of his last dive to the flooded mine. He also has an amazing video camera set-up... check out this crazy contraption:

So after leaving the mine site, we headed into Potosi for some dinner and a brew, compliments of the Potosi Brewery. The Potosi Brewery has been around since 1852 - it's one of the older breweries in the area, and from what John was saying, the brewery just recently re-opened, thanks in part to a government grant. The place was apparently left in shambles after closing its doors in 1972; the new owners have done an amazing job of restoring the buildings, which include a museum, the brewery, a restaurant, and a gift shop.

Here's the outside of the brewery:

When you walk in to the brewery, you cross over a glass covered portion of the floor; the glass shows the spring that feeds the brewery's water supply. It's pretty neat:

The bar's no slouch, either - it's very nicely done:

We took a seat at one of the tables and promptly ordered some cheese curds, some root beer (which Potosi makes onsite), and an Imperial Pale Ale (also made onsite). The curds arrived after a short wait - they were ok; nothing great... a bit greasy and slightly over cooked.

After wolfing down the cheese curds (I had ridden 45 miles and ran 15 earlier that morning), I ordered a grilled chicken salad. John opted for a grilled cheese with chef's vegetables. The salad was super good - one of the best I've had:

It was extremely fresh tasting; the chicken was perfectly prepared, and the veggies were crisp and of extremely high quality. John reported that his grilled cheese was excellent as well - it looked incredible. We chatted for a bit and then called it a night. John had a 5 hour drive back to Minneapolis; I had a 1.5 hour drive back to Madison, so we called it good.

Finally, I mentioned the weather - wow, what a gorgeous weekend we had. I woke up fairly early on Saturday morning and hit the road for a nice ride, followed by a good run. I threw on the compression recovery tights and socks in anticipation of Sunday's weather, and thankfully I wasn't disappointed...

This morning, I was greeted by a beautifully sunny morning, with temperatures in the high 50s, light winds, and not a single cloud in the sky. Donned the bike gear and hit the road - I had planned to do another 45 mile ride, but the weather was so incredible that I just kept going. Here I am at around the 55-mile mark:

It was so nice to be out on the open road rather than stuck on the trainer. One of the best things about living in Madison is that you can go from city to "middle of nowhere farmland" in about 10 minutes, as evidenced by this picture from the bike:

I made my way back to the apartment and was surprised to see that today's ride spanned 65 miles. Not bad, especially for such an early-season ride. My legs felt pretty good, so I hit the road for a short run. I didn't want to overdo things, so I kept the run on the comfortable side. I'll get up tomorrow morning and do my normal circuit.

So, that's about it - the weekend in a nutshell. I'll crank out a fish fry review tomorrow; we hit the Alchemy Cafe on Atwood - not a bad place!

I mentioned that I've been trying to reset my diet - so far, so good. I did eat a bit of pizza yesterday and may have had a donut or two, but all things considered, the new meal plan seems to be working well.

I also mentioned that I've been addicted to documentaries, and that I recently watched a movie called "King Corn." Well, one of the things they talked about in King Corn was the impact that corn has had on livestock and consequently our nutrition. They compared a cut of grain-fed (aka corn) beef against a cut of grass-fed beef - the grass-fed beef had about 10% of the fat that the grain-fed beef did. The grass-fed beef was also free of hormones, antibiotics and other undesirable stuff. It takes longer to "finish" grass-fed beef (the cow is more active and isn't ingesting insane amounts of sugar), and as such it's more expensive to purchase, but the result is better for everyone.

So this past weekend, I set about finding a local farm that raised grass-fed beef; I didn't have to look far - turns out there's a small farm about 30 minutes from the apartment that raises organic, grass-fed, free-range cattle (along with ostrich, buffalo, poultry, and pork). I stopped in and purchased a couple of beef tenderloins, some chicken breasts, and some organic, locally grown vegetables.

I waited until tonight to sample the grass-fed beef, and all I can say is: wow. It was excellent. The farmers told me that grass-fed beef cooks faster than grain-fed beef and instructed me to cook it to "no more than 125 degrees." I followed their instructions and all went well.

Here's my plated dinner:

There's a small, organic tomato (20 calories), 4oz of roasted broccoli (25 calories), 6oz of roasted mushrooms (40 calories), 6oz of beef tenderloin (240 calories), and 8 spears of asparagus (40 calories). A grain-fed portion of tenderloin would've come in at 410 calories - the difference all stemming from fat content.

The cats seemed to like the grass-fed beef as well...

So, if you have an opportunity, I'd strongly encourage you to locate a local farm that offers grass-fed meats. You'll cut down on the amount of fat that you ingest, you'll support a sustainable, locally operated business, and you'll enjoy a wonderful meal.

I almost forgot to include details about Phil & Shawn's Superbowl party from last weekend and what a great time we all had. Phil and his wife, Shawn have a lovely home just outside of Sun Prairie that they share with their three daughters. They invited a few folks over to watch the game - I was lucky enough to be invited and really enjoyed it.

Why? Well, for starters, the game was entertaining and engaging, although I must admit I didn't watch it as closely as some did, and I also managed to miss a lot of the commercials... bummer. But my reasons were valid - there was a ton of awesome food, and when I wasn't busy munching on all sorts of goodies, there were plenty of new folks to chat with - Phil's friends and neighbors were in attendance as well, and they were all a lot of fun to hang out with.

I guess I wasn't the only one who wasn't tuned-in to the game as much as I should've been:

Quite a mix - adults, kids, infants, dogs, Mark... (ha!)

They put out a great spread of food - everything from sausage and peppers to a warm beer-cheese dip to pumpkin bars... one of my favorites was this monster cookie that I believe was a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie, covered with a cream cheese frosting. Yummo.

And as easily as I could have eaten the entire cookie, I only had a half of a slice, so I tried to be good. :-) I also sampled some incredible peanut butter/chocolate bars, and a mess of other tasty things.

Of course, the other secret to a good Superbowl party can be found in the fridge... you have to love being in Wisconsin:

Lots of New Glarus offerings, along with MadTown Nutbrown Ale, Rathskeller Amber, Founders Proper, and the 'ole standbys of Lite and Leine's.

Despite all of those offerings, Phil had us try one of his favorite beverages: Grappa. From what I understand, it's a brandy liquor that's made from the grape remnants of the winemaking process. It smelled like pure gasoline, but it's one of Phil's favorites, so we had to sample it. In the end, it wasn't horrible, but I probably wouldn't ask for it by name... I'd much rather stick with something like this:

(That's Phil in the background asking if anyone would like some more Grappa)

So, all in all - a great party. The game didn't turn out too badly, either. Thanks again Phil - I can't wait for the next Superbowl party (although I'll probably pass on the Grappa).

Fish Fry tomorrow... I'm just sayin'...

Moving north has had its advantages (fish frys, cheese curds, donuts, etc), but it's also had its fair share of disadvantages (snow, cold, bad drivers, etc). And with last week's blizzard event, I came face-to-face with one of the biggest disadvantages: running in the snow.

I don't mind running when it's cold out, but when mother nature serves a healthy dish of icy and snowy goodness, running becomes not only difficult, but dangerous. As soon as we knew for certain that snow was imminent, I made sure to sneak in a long "final" outdoors run.

The day of the blizzard, I ran indoors on a treadmill (our office has a nice gym available for free), and I was immediately reminded of how much I loathe treadmills. Grinding out six or seven miles on a treadmill is pure torture - it's so boring and dull, even with headphones and a television. After the third mile, I would've given anything to be running outside... but, with 16-18" of snow covering every passable surface, my wishes were unlikely to be realized.

So, I trudged out 3 more days on the dreadful treadmill... in the meantime, I looked for solutions to help me get outdoors to run again - I looked at snow shoes, trail running shoes, slip-on spike systems - you name it, I looked at it. None of the solutions got rave reviews from online sources; fewer fit my shoes (size 13). I was growing desperate...

I had stumbled across an article about using sheet metal screws as replaceable spikes, but was afraid to try it for a number of reasons. After careful consideration, I ventured to the local hardware store and bought a handful of 3/8" long sheet metal screws. I placed 10 screws into each shoe (6 on the front, 4 on the heel) and gingerly stepped into them. I didn't feel anything sharp or pointy, so I donned the rest of the running gear and hit the outdoors.

Success!! The screws worked like magic. They gave me ample traction when the going got rough; they worked best on icy or hard-packed snowy surfaces. On dry sections of sidewalk, they're a bit noisy and you can feel that the shoe isn't completely "normal," but it's not uncomfortable by any means. Winner, winner chicken dinner!!

I've done 5 runs on the current set of screws, and it's looking like I'll have to replace the screws with some fresh ones. Although, to be honest, the sidewalks were about 98% clear today, so I may run without the spikes until the next snow storm hits. Here's what the screws look like after about 45 miles of use:

It's amazing how well that $0.70 solution works, especially when it's compared to other solutions that cost upwards of $40. It's also refreshing to know that when the next snow storm hits that I won't have to spend too much time on the 'ole dreadmill. :-)

We're off to a fish fry tonight, so stay tuned for an update later on!

... and the fireplace is anything but delightful... (the apartment has a fireplace, but it's not in use)

So, for those who may not have heard, Madison (and most of Wisconsin) got socked with a true blizzard last night! The weather-guessers are reporting that we've had 16-inches of snow so far, with another pile due to arrive today.

Here's what it looked like from the living room this morning at around 8:00am.

Nearly everything is closed, which is quite unusual as Wisconsin can usually deal with a lot of snow. Even the Metro Bus was delayed; malls are closed, as are all of the schools. But my workplace is open, and since I live about 3 miles from the office, I decided to venture in.

Finished my bike ride (on the trainer, in the living room - I'm not quite that crazy to ride outside), and then laced up my new winter boots. Bought these a few months ago - people laughed, but who's smiling now? My feet are nice and warm, and dry, even after trudging through a solid foot-plus of snow. :-)

Thank goodness for underground parking! The car was clean, dry, and toasty warm - they keep the garage at 65F, so there was no dealing with any scraping or "digging out." Did have a tough time getting up the hill that leads you out from under the building; it was pretty icy. These poor folks didn't fare as well:

The most treacherous part of the commute was the apartment's parking lot - seriously! The roads weren't too bad, but they were pretty empty. This is University Avenue, which on any other day would be packed with cars. Today it was packed with snow and not much else:

Normally, dealing with a lot of snow isn't too much of a challenge, but what's going to make this storm interesting is that they're calling for gusty winds that'll start this afternoon - gusts up to 50mph, with steady wind speeds of around 30-35mph. Blowing snow = large drifts, and the drifts can create a real headache.

It's been a little breezy today - here's what the stoplight near my office looked like as a result of "light" winds.

Combine all of that snow with gusty winds and falling temperatures, and you've got a recipe for an unpleasant environment. It's currently about 30F outside, which isn't too bad, but the temps are dropping. They're saying it'll be a low of around zero tonight, and tomorrow's high temperature is supposed to be 8F. Yep, that's EIGHT. 8F with super windy conditions, and the windchill should hit about -20F.

I may have to run on the treadmill tomorrow. :-(

Anyway, I made it in to the office - here's our parking lot:

I have to laugh - I just overheard someone who came in from outside say, "It's not too bad out there, I've seen worse." Gotta' love it.

Has it really been more than two weeks since my last blog entry? Wow, I guess it has been! Time flies when you're busy with things; I apologize for not posting an entry for so long.

So let's get caught up. First things first: I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and that the turkey was tasty, the stuffing scrumptious, and the pie perfect. Mine was, well, interesting... but more on that at a later date. I need to relax a bit and look at things objectively, but let's just say that I won't be heading north of Madison or over toward Fitchburg for any events of any type in the foreseeable future.

But enough about that. What's been happening? Well, I'll tell you what hasn't been: fish fry. Yep, you heard that right. We've taken a break from gorging ourselves on fish each Friday because it's been setting us up for an entire weekend of bad eating. So, an executive decision was made: we're taking a small hiatus from fish frys.

In other news, many of you may recall that I have a favorite radio show that's hosted right here in Madison and is called "Whatdya' Know with Michael Feldman." I've been to a few live showings and have always wanted to participate in the show, either as a contestant or as a "contributor" by way of a funny story or odd-ball question.

I had my chance to participate two weekends ago, when Michael chose me to play in the Whatdya' Know Quiz. The quiz usually occupies the last 15 minutes of each hour of the show (it's a 2-hour show), and it works by pairing an audience member with someone who calls in via telephone and correctly answers a qualifying question.

Once the "team" is identified, Michael asks up to 5 questions from categories that include: current events, people, places, science, odds-n-ends, and "things you should've learned in school had you been paying attention." The questions are usually quite random and odd, but most folks seem to win (thanks to Michael's guidance toward the correct answers).

Winners take home a "treasure trove" of prizes that are usually as off-the-wall as the questions from the quiz. It's the highlight of the show, so if I was ever to be selected, there was certain to be pressure to perform.

Well, I was selected and I bombed. Michael usually walks around the audience looking for volunteers to play the quiz, and tons of people raise their hands. I raised mine and he immediately walked over to ask my name and where I was from. Ok, no problem. Then he asked for "one good reason why you should play the quiz."

Now... this is where you can shine or bomb. I had dozens of witty replies prepared - everything from, "because it'll make a great blog entry" (thus setting up a segue to a discussion about my blog) to "because I'm not wearing underwear" (thus setting the tone for a wacky dialogue)... I'd practiced my response for years.

But, when the time came, I choked. I mumbled something about the Badgers football score and that by winning the quiz it might motivate the team. Michael looked at me as if I was from another planet, and from there it went downhill.

I tried making a few jokes; poking fun at myself, suggesting a cheesy name for my team, and so on, but it all failed. ARGH - nothing like bombing on a nationally broadcast radio show.

That's me up on stage, playing the quiz. I was paired with a gentleman by the name of "Mac" from Ohio, who was on a crummy cellphone connection in his garage - he was hard to hear. I was also incredibly distracted by Michael's computer screen - it was constantly being updated with information about the telephone lines (via an Excel spreadsheet). And, I could see the answers to each of the quiz questions - Michael held the cards in a way that I could easily read the correct answer...

But, I didn't answer a single question. I felt guilty for being able to see the answers, so I let Mac, Michael, and the audience sort of "fill-in" the blanks. I was a miserable contestant - boring, uninteresting, and a complete downer.

Alas, with the show running out of time, we won the quiz, and my treasure trove included this little bounty of goodies:

The haul included some concentrated cherry juices (tart cherry, cranberry mix, blueberry mix, and one other), the Whatdya Know home game, and an eclectic mix of greeting cards from a fabric museum in Missouri.

Other than that, there's not much exciting news to share... I ran a 10K race on Thanksgiving morning, called "The Berbee Derby." I did pretty well - there were about 5000 runners; I finished 460th, with an average pace of 7:56/mile. Not my best time, but it was only 32F and incredibly windy - I think the steady wind speed was about 18-19mph.

And finally, I ventured out to a "Black Friday" event early this morning... a local sporting goods store had advertised Smartwool socks at 50% off, and since they're some of my favorite socks, I figured I'd grab a few pair.

Came to discover that the "sale" only included "select" styles and sizes from a specific rack... so, after standing in line for more than 30 minutes with six-pair of socks, I was told that none of my selections were on sale. And so continues my luck... :-)

The company that now employs me is a pretty cool place for a number of reasons, but perhaps one of the best things they do is place a big emphasis on the importance of maintaining a proper "work-life balance." They do a great job of recognizing people's hard work and efforts, and are extremely supportive of everything, especially team-building exercises.

So, each department is allowed a budget for team-building activities, and as the "new guy," I was tasked with planning a group outing/event for our department. After floating several ideas out to the group, we decided to tour Taliesin, which is Frank Lloyd Wright's home, studio, and school - it just so happens to be located in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

We selected October 21 as our "outing day," booked tour tickets, made lunch reservations, called "dibs" on some of the company vans, and cleared our calendars. The 21st came, and off we went. We started the day with some donuts, bagels, coffee, juice, and milk at the office, then hit the road.

The weather wasn't too cooperative at first; it was warm (mid-50s) but rainy... and we were all a bit scared by the general condition of one of our vans - it looked a bit "urban" to say the least.

That's Phil in the front seat; he's inspecting some of the van's safety equipment. I'm not sure if he did that because I was driving or if because the van didn't do much to bolster our confidence?

The drive to Spring Green is relatively short - it took about 40 minutes to travel there, and thanks to the fall foliage, the scenery was absolutely beautiful. I forgot how lovely it is when the trees are changing color. Here we are at the entry gate to the Taliesin visitor center.

Taliesin is pronounced "Tahl-EE-ess-in" and it's Dutch for "Shiny Brow." Mr. Wright's parents were Welsh, and he apparently knew a few words here and there, so he selected Taliesin as the name for the 600 acres on which he built several homes (for himself, his parents, and a few of his aunts), his studio, a farm, and eventually a design school.

Contrary to popular belief, he did NOT build "The House on the Rock." That structure, while located within close proximity to Taliesin, was actually built by Andrew Jordan, Jr, and is an interesting story by itself... You can read more about the story over at Wikipedia.

We spent some time in the gift shop, then headed over to the school. The tour folks don't allow anyone to take photos of the inside of the facilities (probably because the place is quite rundown and in dire need of restoration), so the photos that I took are all from the outside.

Here's the school facility, as seen from our tour bus:

The school features a large social/gathering room with an upstairs study/library, a theater, a dining hall, a design/learning studio, presentation rooms, and dorm rooms. Believe it or not, the school is still in operation today... I say that, only because none of the buildings are heated, and none of the buildings have doorways with any type of threshold.

FLW was big on incorporating nature and surroundings with his work, so he did things like source all of his building materials from local resources (local to the property), and to really focus on making the structure be "one" with the landscape - his buildings followed the landlines; he didn't clear a site and build on "flat" land. He also liked to carry outside elements to the inside, and that's why there aren't any thresholds on his doorways - he felt a threshold created a dividing line... so, as such, there are gaps of an inch or more under every door. He also liked to use unrefined rock as flooring, on both the outside and inside - hence, no "sealing" under doorways.

Here we are, about to enter the school's entertainment hall:

The students were all in Arizona, which is where "Taliesin West" is located; it's a satellite school where the students study during the winter months. The interesting thing about this school is that it's more of a "community" - the students are required to contribute efforts as laborers for the community by assisting with farming duties, cooking, cleaning, and caring for alumni members who come to visit or may still reside at Taliesin. Interesting concept, to say the least.

The students also help with designing commissioned projects, which turns out to be a good thing. FLW, while a talented designer, placed a preference on "form" over "function." As such, many of his structures haven't aged real well; although many have. It seemed to be hit-or-miss... this particular building appears to have held up well - check out the date on the cornerstone:

From the school, we headed over to his residence, which incorporated his living quarters, his primary design studio, his entertainment areas, and a farm - all in one building. The building survived (well, portions of it did) three fires; that's another interesting story to say the least... it's massive and very cool, but alas, very rundown.

Here's part of it, as seen from our bus:

And here's the parking area - the architecture is so cool:

We spent a good hour and a half inside of his home, and then wound-up in the backyard, where we were allowed to take a few pictures. This is a photo taken from the mezzanine of FLW's bedroom:

Pretty spectacular, eh? FLW was big on having "uninterrupted views" of the surrounding nature - he didn't want to look out from any window and see another structure. I'd say "mission accomplished" in this case.

Here's a view of part of the house and the back courtyard:

And one more:

The tour came to an end, and we made our way over to The Old Feed Mill in Mazomaine, where we enjoyed a nice group lunch. After lunch we drove back to Madison and called it a day.

For those that may be interested in learning more about Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin, check out the Taliesin Preservation website, and if you have a chance, take a tour. It's really quite interesting stuff.

What a week. Work has been absolutely crazy; didn't have much time to do anything all week, so when Friday came along, no one had to twist my arm to lead the way to a fish fry.

Decided to head down to Belleville to check out Borland's Tavern. I had been to Borland's about 15 years ago and really enjoyed it; I hoped it would be as good as the 'ole memory bank made it out to be. Belleville is about 15 miles south of Madison - about half way to New Glarus, and aside from Borland's, there isn't much else in the town, so if the fish wasn't decent, we'd be hiking it back toward Madison for dinner.

After the short drive south, we hit Main Street Belleville and there she was - the familiar Borland's sign. Shining like a beacon, beckoning us to come on in and sample the fish.

We walked in and everything was exactly as remembered - the bar with the old fashioned stools, the fluorescent lights, paper placemat/menus, the paneling; this place had all of the ingredients to be fantastic!

The Borland's menu is fairly limited - it's first and foremost a bar - we didn't see any cheese curds on the menu, so we ordered an Old Fashioned Sour and the fish. Borland's offers one type of fish: deep fried cod. Take it or leave it, thankyouverymuch.

The Old Fashioned arrived and it was...... well, a good effort.

Can you spot what's wrong with the Old Fashioned? That's right - no muddling, no cherries, too light on the bitters, and far too heavy on the whiskey. They did use Squirt, so the potential was there. Thankfully it was only $2.50.

Shortly after we finished sampling the Old Fashioned our plates arrived. I was starving, as I didn't have a chance to eat anything at all on Friday (thanks to work being ridiculously busy), so I went with the "double order" of fish.

What you're seeing here is: six pieces of fish, a huge side of coleslaw, some bread, and an order of fries. But you came here for the review, so let's get on with it. The fish was absolutely great (or at least my plate was). Yes, it was breaded (loses points), but the breading was light and crisp and didn't overpower the fish. The fish itself was excellent - light, flaky, moist - all of the things you'd expect or want from great fish. My only complaint is that it wasn't all you could eat, although that's probably for the best - I would've probably run them out of business if it was.

I skipped the slaw (I'm not a slaw fan), so nothing to report there. The bread was great - most likely homemade, very soft, slightly chewy, and delicious. The fries were excellent as well - I have a feeling Borland's knows their way around the fryer because the fries were perfect.

With the belly full of fish, it was time to call it a night.

Saturday night brought a Badger hockey game - found some tickets via Craigslist and ventured over to the Kohl Center to watch Bucky do battle with the Colorado College Tigers. The seats were pretty phenomenal - right behind the goal.

During the warm-ups, the players rifle the pucks toward the goal and a lot of them miss, which results in the loudest "WHACK!" noise you've ever heard as the puck flies into the plexiglass barriers at about 100mph. It was a bit unnerving to say the least, but sitting a few rows from the ice made the flinching worthwhile. Here's the Zamboni in action:

The game started and it was pretty cool - the action, the speed, the tenacity of the game - it's quite a fun time. Got to see a few scuffles, including this little tiff... I wish I knew hockey rules a little better - the game would've made more sense.

Here's Bucky during one of the "halftimes" - I'm not even sure what they call the downtime that takes place between the three periods.

The Badgers wound-up tying the Tigers: 1 to 1. The game was a lot of fun, though - there'll definitely be more hockey games in the future!

Rather than fight the masses that were leaving the Kohl Center, it sounded like a good idea to hit the local watering hole for a beverage. Nothing to really report from here, other than I saw my first "stein" - check out this monster:

That's a 5-liter stein, next to a "normal" 1-liter stein. There was a group of guys that staggered in to the bar and wanted to order a boot, but because the bar was so busy, they were out of boots and suggested the stein. All I can say is - WOW. The thing is massive. I'm not even sure how they picked it up, since it's ceramic and had to weigh 20 pounds empty!

Finally, had a chance to ride the bike outside today; the weather was gorgeous, if not windy. It was sunny, in the low 40s, and a perfect day to hit the road. 2 minutes on the trainer seems like an eternity; 2 hours on the road, on the other hand, feels like 2 minutes, even when it is cold and windy. I'm not sure how many more opportunities there will be to ride outdoors... and that makes me a bit sad.

So there you have it - not a bad little weekend. Oh, and for those scoring at home - there were actually 4 Bs (if you count the beer in the stein).

Happy October, folks! Although I don't know how happy things can be when the high temperature so far has been about 50.000F! The past few mornings have been especially chilly - during one run earlier this week, the thermometer said 34F. Nice!

Work has been busy - my projects are in full tilt mode; phase one of one of the projects is due to launch next week and there's still a ton of things to take care of, so I kept my head down most of the week and focused on getting as much done as possible. We sent nearly 2700 "grid cards" out on Tuesday alone - that was an interesting day!

So, when Friday came and the opportunity to eat two - yep, you heard right - two fish frys came about, I jumped at the chance. First stop was to the local watering hole - Paul's Neighborhood Bar. We had heard the fish at Paul's was phenomenal, so we stopped in for lunch to check it out.

Unfortunately, the fish fry at Paul's doesn't start until 4:30pm... so, we were "stuck" with having to find an alternative. I spied a baked cod special for $6 and decided to give it a try. The fish was great - but the plate was doused in butter... argh.

And as if covering the fish, the potatoes, and the beans in butter wasn't enough, they serve it all with a side of butter. You have to love Wisconsin.

The good news is that the fish was quite good. I sandwiched it between a few napkins in an attempt to soak up as much butter as possible, skimmed as much butter off the potatoes as possible, and enjoyed the lunch.

For dinner, the crew hit Norm's Hideaway Bar and Grill, which is located on Lake Koshkonog, just outside of Fort Atkinson and not too far from Busseyville.

Some coworkers had told us about Norm's, and after checking with a few other sources, Norm's earned a shot at being reviewed/rated by The Friday Night Fish Fry Fanatics.

The place sits literally "on the lake" and has a great northwoods/rustic feel to it. The only downside is that they allow smoking inside, but thankfully it wasn't terribly busy and therefore it wasn't terribly smokey.

Here's a shot of the bar area - we sat here for a bit while waiting for a table to open up (it's first come, first served for seating, and you order all of your food/drinks/etc at the bar).

The bartenders were friendly, fast, and helpful. We chatted with one of them for quite a bit - she gave us some tips about the food, and later shared some appetizers with us.

While waiting for our table, we ordered some appetizers - white cheese curds and mini corndogs. They were pretty tasty - the curds were good; not homemade, but good.

A table opened up, and we ordered fish - I was the only one to go with baked fish, and decided to try the Fiesta Poached Cod. It was three pieces of poached cod, topped with a roasted garlic salsa and served with potato pancakes. It looks odd in the photo, but trust me when I say it was absolutely delicious. The fish was light, flaky, flavorful, and tender. The salsa and potato pancakes were great as well. The potato pancakes weren't as good as the ones from Palmyra, but they were a close second!

Other fish orders included Walleye, which earned rave reviews (no photo, sorry!) and the deep fried cod, which was extremely tasty. The fried cod was served nice and hot; it was lightly battered, moist, delicately flavored, and not the slightest bit greasy - not even after it sat for a while, which is a great indicator of a well-fried piece of fish. And, it was $9 to boot - talk about a bargain!

We'd highly recommend Norm's Hideaway - great fish, great location, friendly service, and outstanding value. It's definitely worth the 25-30 minute drive from Madison.

I woke up this morning to weather that was, well, not so great - low 40's and raining. So, it was time to break out the dreaded trainer. I don't hate the trainer at all; in fact, I really like it, but I don't enjoy riding on the trainer because it's quite boring. Nothing like riding on a bike treadmill for an hour or so.

The other thing that scares me about the trainer is that I'm still not convinced that it's OK to use a carbon fiber bike on the trainer... the bike's bottom bracket seems to "flex" a lot while riding, and that makes me nervous - I'm afraid it's going to crack or become damaged. I really need to get a second bike for trainer/commuter use.

After riding for 70 minutes, I hit the road for a run, then went over to Oktoberfest at Quivey's Grove. Quivey's Oktoberfest is quite an event - they invite 35 microbreweries to their grounds (Quivey's is a restaurant) and for $30 you get a small tasting glass and the chance to sample as many of the microbrews as you wish.

The event is quite popular - it sells out months in advance, and people arrive early to get in line - this is the line, nearly 30 minutes before the event was due to open, and with the weather not being real friendly (rainy and cold).

Once inside, it was a madhouse. People everywhere, all eager to try the different microbrews. Tried a bunch of different offerings - some were really good, others not so much. Quivey's did a great job of thinking of just about everything - they had this ingenious little "washing station" where you could rinse your glass between tastings. So simple, yet so effective - a horse trough, some PVC pipe, and a garden hose.

There was even a band that played a nice variety of music; mostly "rockabilly" type music, but they were pretty decent. The funny part of it was they kept stopping the band so that the Badger football game could be played over the PA (the Badgers won, by the way).

Quivey's also had food offerings that included bratwurst, soft pretzels, pulled pork, chicken sandwiches, and cheese curds. Tried the pulled pork sandwich (absolutely phenomenal) and a brat (decent, but not amazing). But perhaps the coolest thing at the event were these pretzel necklaces. Here's Jed showing off his edible neck ornament:

With nearly 1000 people crowded into the tent, a belly full of pork, brats, and microbrew, and the weather not giving any sign of getting any warmer, it was time to call it a day. Headed back to the apartment and am sitting on the couch, watching some football. Hope you're all having a good weekend - we'll see you next week.

Here's one final shot of the people inside the tent at Quivey's. If you look really closely, you can see some of the breweries around the perimeter of the tent.

Can you believe that September is almost behind us? It seems like just yesterday when we were celebrating the 4th of July... it's incredible how time literally flies by.

Speaking of time, I'll keep this entry brief; for those that are keenly aware of my blog and past entries, you may recall a post or two about a book and author that I stumbled across some time back while listening to Michael Feldman's radio show. The book was called The Omnivore's Dilemma and it was by Michael Pollan. The book was amazing; everyone should take the time to read it because it really will open your eyes about food - where it comes from, how it impacts us (economically, environmentally, nutritionally, and so on), and how there are responsible and irresponsible ways to produce and consume food.

Anyway, Michael Pollan has a new(ish) book, and he stopped by Madison to promote it. He spoke to a group of about 7,000 people at the Kohl Center on Thursday night, and as luck would have it (and time allowed), I was able to stop by and check him out.

The "show" was free - just had to park, walk in, and find a seat. It lasted for about 2 hours and it was really interesting, as you can likely imagine. Apparently the new book, In Defense of Food has caused a stir - it's got people taking sides for a number of reasons, which is probably good because it ultimately means that people are reading the book, digesting the message(s), and feeling strongly about it. I managed to score a copy of the book at the show - autographed and all - for $9. A nice find, for sure, and I've just started to read it so I'll report back on it when I finish it.

Having spent Thursday night with Mr. Pollan, Friday night was just around the corner, and that meant another fish fry was in order. The crew decided to try Christys Landing, which is located on the western "coast" of Lake Waubesa. It's a tricky place to find by car; by boat it would be quite easy.

Christys has an unusual layout - it's similar to The Stamm House; you enter at the "bar level," with all dining taking place upstairs. There's a hostess who waits at a makeshift hostess station near the bottom of the stairs, and when you're ready to eat, you walk over and request a table from her. She takes you upstairs, where there are about 10 tables and just two waitresses.

Upon being seated, we ordered some onion rings and cheese curds - the crew was starving, and the service was a tad on the slow side, so we "over-ordered" in the interest of staving off our hunger as quickly as possible.

Here are the curds and the rings:

As you can tell from the photos, the appetizers weren't anything special by any means - just your standard "from the freezer to the fryer" Sysco offerings. But, they were cooked well, and being as hungry as we were, they did a fair job of satisfying us. We placed our fish orders - cod all around, and also ordered an Old Fashioned (as is tradition).

The Old Fashioned wasn't muddled (strike one), and didn't come with olives (strike two). Despite these two strikes, it wasn't bad - the crew thought it was a decent effort, but definitely not noteworthy.

We also sampled the chicken chili, and were pleasantly surprised - it was extremely hardy, with huge chunks of pulled chicken and just the right amount of zing. Despite the great chili we were still a bit nervous about the rest of the dinner... the service was slow, and with the exception of the chili, nothing really "stood out" as spectacular.

But alas, our concerns were for naught - the fish arrived, and it was outstanding. Here's the fried cod with cheesy home fries (red potatoes with onions) - sorry for the bad photo... iPhone... you know how it goes...

And here's the cod with curly fries:

The fish was easily top three quality fish - huge, thick cut portions of cod with a perfect beer batter, all flawlessly executed - no grease, no odd taste, just fantastic fish, plain and simple. Served nice and hot, the fish was delicate, "meaty," and flaky without being crumbly. Excellent job on the fish, for sure.

The curly fries were delicious as well, but the final pleasant surprise were the home fries - boiled and grilled red potatoes, mixed with onions, peppers, and cheese - yummy. Very good.

The bread basket was also great; the first round of bread included mostly wheat and potato buns; the second round featured Asiago cheese-enhanced rolls.

Value was great - the plates of fish were $10.95 and included salad/soup. We'll definitely go back to Christys.

Have a good week, everyone. We're still working on the new site (wisconsinsupperclubs.com); it'll be a few weeks before it's up and running, so until then, you'll have to suffer through fish fry reviews here at geekysteve.com... :-)

First things first - I realize that most of you are getting tired of reading about fish frys and biking and running, so it's time for a brief announcement: the fish fry crew has decided to venture out and start our own website, dedicated strictly to reviewing fish frys and supper clubs. We purchased a new domain name and I'm in the process of putting together the site. It'll be a month or so before things are up and running, but keep your eyes open for the new site - it's called www.wisconsinsupperclubs.com. It's got "place holder" text there now, but as soon as we can figure out how to organize the site, lay it out, and get some Google AdWords running, we'll have it live.

So, with that said, it's time for another fish fry review. :-)

The crew hit The Stamm House in Middleton, and despite looking good on paper, it failed to deliver. In fact, it may have been one of the worst fish frys ever. Why?

Simple - the fish was icky. There's no better way to state it than "icky." It had the most ridiculously strong fishy (and not in a good fishy way) taste; I'm pretty sure that even the worst cafeteria fish would blow away the Stamm House fish. It took a lot of ketchup and a lot of lemon to choke down their fish. Ugh. So disappointing...

It wasn't terribly greasy, and it was breaded quite nicely. But aside from that, it was downright awful. The restaurant itself was pretty cool - lots of history, lots of charm, good service; but that was about all they had to offer.

Didn't do too much on Saturday - went to Johnson Creek and bought a winter jacket (!!!), then went to the Come Back Inn to watch some football, and prepare for my triathlon. ;-)

I did the Devil's Challenge Triathlon today, which is held at Devil's Lake State Park, just outside of Baraboo. The park is beautiful - here's a shot of the lake about an hour before the race started:

The weather was cool at 7:00am - about 50-ish. By race time (8:00am), the temps were in the low 60s, so it wasn't too bad. Here we are, getting ready to hit the water - I think the race started about 30 seconds after this photo was snapped:

For some reason, that photo is just hilarious to me - I look like a 1930's bomber pilot with those goggles on. :-) So, the race went about as I expected - the swim was terrible (go figure), and it was complicated by tons of seaweed and extremely shallow water. Here I am coming out of the water, with my wetsuit already about half-off:

That wetsuit was more trouble than it was worth - the water wasn't too terribly cold (72F) - it really slowed me down in the first transition... it took me over 4.5 minutes to get out of that wetsuit and onto the bike. I don't know how the other guys change so quickly - most folks were done with their swim transition in 2 minutes! Anyway, with the wetsuit off, it was time to head out on the bike:

The bike course was super hilly - just what I like. The first 2 miles of the ride are essentially up a steep hill. I passed dozens and dozens of people on that hill - some people were throwing up, others were crying (men and women alike); it was pretty odd. I'm so glad that I torture myself each weekend with a super hilly 60+ mile practice route. :-)

Finished the bike section pretty easily - here I am coming in from the ride, running my bike back to the transition area:

The bike transition went fairly well, but I'm still quite slow in transition... my T2 time was nearly 3 minutes; for comparison, other guys did it in under a minute. UGH!!!!

I ran well, despite the hilly run course, and finished the run portion (3.1 miles) in just over 23 minutes. I felt really good during the entire run - I could've kept going without any trouble, but time was up and here I am coming across the finish line:

I managed to finish in 1:30:07, which was good enough for 161st place out of 620 people. In my age group, I finished about middle of the pack - 24th out of 46. The transition times literally cost me 5 spots in my age group alone... if I would've had an "average" transition time, I would've finished 19th out of 46. I really need to fix those!

So, that's it for now... oh, almost forgot - celebrated the finish with some breakfast at Mr. Pancake in Wisconsin Dells:

Yum! Time to be good again - cold weather is coming, and that means I'll have to curb the binge eating on the weekends. :-(

Early review - surprise!

Started the weekend by attending special party at my favorite bike store, Cronometro; they had a bit of a customer appreciation/new product line introduction gala, and it sounded interesting, so it was over to Willy Street to check out the party and to check out the Ridley line of bicycles.

Ridley reps were there, which was cool, because Ridley has a great line of "Cyclocross" bikes that have caught my eye. I'd love to get another bike to use for commuting to and from work, riding on trails, and using on the trainer during the winter. I really liked this model, the X-Fire:

Unfortunately, that bike is quite a bit out of my price range. As shown above, that bike runs right about $6,000. Yikes!! Thankfully, there are some that are a bit more affordable, like this interesting Crossbow model, shown here with a fender kit and the latest Ultegra components.

After spending about 30 minutes oggling the new bikes, chatting with folks, and sampling some Belgian beverages (Ridley is based in Belgium), it was time to head out for the fish fry.

The crew decided to hit Toby's Supper Club, which is located just outside of Madison, on Stoughton Road. The place received stellar reviews from several web sites, although some of the folks from work warned us that it might be a bit "local" or "townie."

The place is tiny - hardly bigger than an average living room - and as such, was absolutely PACKED full of people. We arrived at around 7:30pm, and the place was jumping - we could barely find a place to stand while waiting for a table. And while there were obviously a bunch of "locals" there, the crowd was friendly and enjoyable, and thank goodness for that - check out how packed the bar was:

The entire time that we sat at the bar, the bartenders literally flew around, multitasking like crazy. It was nothing for them to be filling two drink orders (mixing several drinks at the same time), while making change for someone at the bar, and taking a new drink order from someone in line. And they never once missed a beat - it was pretty fun to watch them work their magic.

Toby's has a unique ordering system - while seated or standing at the bar, one of the bartenders somehow notifies a waitress that you'd like to order food. Out of nowhere will appear a waitress, who takes your order, and tells you that she'll get you once the table and food are ready. With so many people stacked in the place, we found it hard to believe that this would actually work, but it did.

Our wait was long - about 2.5 hours - but well worth it! While sitting at the bar, we started off with the customary cheese curds, which were solid. Top 3 rank for curds, for sure:

We generally prefer a battered curd to a breaded curd, but the cheese in these curds was so good that it made up for the non-battered-nature. The ranch was also spectacular. Curds = WIN.

And before we knew it (the clock had struck 10:00pm), our table and fish were ready. The table was outfitted with the customary Supper Club fare: a veggie bowl and a bread bowl.

And then came the fish. Toby's offers: Baby Pike, Cod, and Lake Perch. And the prices are more than reasonable - no more than $13 for a plate. Here's the cod:

It was superb. Unbelievably good - easily Top 2 fish. Why so good? Once again, the fish is breaded, which is normally not a point-scorer for us. But, the breading is light, the fish is fried perfectly (not a hint of grease anywhere), and it's served piping hot. The flavor is unreal - the fish is the actual star of the plate; it's not overwhelmed by breading or spices, or anything unusual. Simple = good, and Toby's cod is GREAT.

Here's the combo plate (Lake Perch on the left, Baby Pike on the right):

Just like the Cod, these two offerings were stellar and beyond compare, and for the same reasons as the Cod. Lightly and perfectly breaded, expertly fried, and packed with wonderful, yet delicate fish flavor. Well worth any wait, plain and simple.

And the service was equally fantastic - our server, Rhonda, was great - super fun, helpful, and tolerant of our boisterous crew. Here's me and Rhonda:

We called it a night and left Toby's content, happy, and raving about how incredible the fish was. We'll definitely be back!

Saturday morning came much too early, especially given there was a 54-mile bike race in Fort Atkinson that I had entered. It's called "Ride the Rock" and it benefits the local literacy council (I think). The race started at 8:30am from Jones Park in Fort Atkinson. Here we are leaving as a group to start the race:

The race went horribly. I've discovered that I absolutely hate bike racers - they're some of the most self-centered, inconsiderate, unnecessarily aggressive riders on the planet. I was basically run off the road within the first few miles of the race by the "teams," all of which were trying to jockey for position by literally elbowing and bumping people out of the way... all within the first 3-4 miles of a 54-mile race. Really?

Factor in that the race wasn't a sanctioned event and that it was basically a charity ride, and it's just all the more silly to risk crashing and wrecking your bike, breaking bones, or causing harm to other people. Yet these guys don't apparently care... you'd think they were trying to qualify for the Olympics or something. To heck with that. After I hit the gravel, I let the group get ahead of me, and I rode out the "race" without worry of getting in a wreck.

Unfortunately, the group will always ride faster than a solo rider, by a pace of around 4-5mph. So, within the first lap (18 miles), I had completely lost site of the pack. That was fine by me. Here I am passing through a little town on my second lap:

And here I am at the finish line, giving a solid "thumbs down" to the group. The race was generally well organized, the course was well marked, and the support crews were good, I just wish my "fellow riders" shared some of those qualities.

So, yeah - no more bike races (or more specifically, bike racers) for me. I'll just enjoy my triathlons, where the emphasis is on the individual's effort, and not impacted/driven by mob mentality.

Interesting title, I know... but it sums up the weekend and might (?) make some sense... Had another busy weekend - with the weather being as nice as it has been, it only seems reasonable to try to accomplish as much as possible, even if it requires a finely-tuned schedule. It's only a matter of time before these beautiful 75F days are a distant memory, and brutal cold + tons of snow become a harsh reality.

The weekend started with the customary fish fry. This time our crew hit The Old Fashioned, which is located on the capitol square in downtown Madison.

The Old Fashioned is a bit of an institution - it's known for its huge selection of locally brewed beers, great drink menu, and diverse menu that features burgers by number. The bar certainly didn't disappoint; we arrived at around 6:00pm and were informed that the wait for a table would be approximately 30-45 minutes. So, we bellied-up to the bar - check out the numerous taps:

They have approximately 150 different locally made beers; 30 or so of which are available on tap. We tried a few offerings from The New Glarus Brewery, primarily because they were on special. We were also pleased to find that The Old Fashioned apparently knows how to honor the drink from which it's named - they muddle their cherries, which is key to a great Old Fashioned:

While waiting for our table, we decided to order the "Number 3 Cheese plate," which featured Ghost Chevre cheese, which is a nutty-flavored soft cheese, along with some 16-month Gouda and some 10-year Cheddar. The cheese plate was awesome:

We were eventually seated, and promptly ordered some cheese curds. Cheese curds are a yardstick by which we evaluate a restaurant and its fish fry "package." The Old Fashioned's curds were obviously homemade, but despite that, they failed to impress. Sure, they looked great:

But in reality, they were super greasy, relatively flavorless, soggy curds that oozed grease with every single bite. The batter barely even stuck to the curds - that's how greasy they were... Truly disappointing, even more so when you consider the cost: $7.

We ordered a round of old fashioneds to try and wash down some of the grease from those curds. And once again, we were disappointed. The old fashioneds were ok, but they weren't spectacular by any means. Average, at best. Cory from The Oakcrest still holds the honor of making the best old fashioned.

Soon after downing our old fashioneds, the fish arrived. Baked cod for me, and deep fried cod for the crew. We had high hopes for The Old Fashioned's food - it received good reviews from friends and from internet sources. But yet again, the result fell quite short of our expectations.

Here's the baked cod:

Notice how miniscule those pieces of fish are??? They're barely bigger than the lemon wedges. The flavor was ok, but it wasn't anything spectacular... it was also greasy (too much butter) and slightly overcooked. Definitely not worth $14, that's for sure! ARGH.

Here's the deep fried cod:

Notice how dark it is? Yeah - they way over-fried the fish, and as such, all you could really taste was the super-done batter. They also served far too many of those greasy onion strings with the fish; perhaps The Old Fashioned could go lighter on the greasy sides and focus more on properly cooking their main dish (and serving a more reasonable amount).

All-in-all, I would not recommend The Old Fashioned for to anyone looking for a good fish fry or decent curds. Truly underwhelming, overpriced, and simply not worth the long wait and high price.

At least there was a friendly little guy waiting outside as we ate:

And with the sun setting, the capitol building looked fantastic - picture perfect:

After the disappointing dinner, we called it a night. Good thing it was an early evening - with Saturday's forecast calling for calm winds, clear skies, and temperatures in the high 70s, I was anxious to hop on the bike and put some miles under my tires. Woke up fairly early on Saturday morning and hit the road for a 77-mile ride. It was absolutely glorious. I stopped at around the 65-mile mark and snapped a quick picture:

After the ride, I went for a quick 3-mile run, just to help loosen up my back and quads. I find that by running after a ride I feel so much better the rest of the day. If I don't go for a run, I tighten-up and feel really stiff the next day.

With 80-miles under my belt, it was time to head out to the Taste of Madison. This annual event attracts several thousand people, several dozen local restaurants, and several dozen bands from all over the country. In past years, I remember really enjoying the event - there were tons of local restaurants, good bands, and reasonable prices.

This year, there were too many chain restaurants (Red Lobster, Abuelos, Little Ceasars, and so on), the prices were too high (most "samples" were $4 each), and the bands weren't too interesting. Candlebox was there on Saturday night, and while they were interesting, it wasn't a "great" concert by any means. :-(

So... here are some photos from the event:

A bunch of people, for sure.

Tried some Buffalo Chicken Pizza from Toppers - it was ok. Nothing great.

Tried some Sesame Chicken from Hong Kong Cafe - meh.

Tried some fried mac-n-cheese bites from Bluephies - they were decent. The cookie dough eggrolls were also decent (no picture, sorry).

Enjoyed watching the cooks prepare food for the throngs of rabid eaters.

Tried some Bruschetta - once again, meh - so boring and tasteless.

Got a free hug from two really stinky (BO) kids. Had to give them credit for their ingenuity, though.

And wrapped-up by watching Candlebox play a mediocre show on the WJJO rock stage. At least the weather was gorgeous, and once again, had a chance to hang out with Jed and Jamie (friends from an old job), so it wasn't a complete loss. Although, speaking of loss... I managed to lose my very favorite sunglasses! UGH!!

Sunday was a relatively uneventful day - rode the bike about 25 miles, went for a run, and then ran errands the rest of the day. I've been craving waffles like nobody's business, and was lucky enough to find a "classic" waffle maker (non-Belgian) at Tuesday Morning. It made some really killer waffles:

Nice and crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside - perfect and delicious. The batter was a whole wheat/rolled oat combo that was fantastic. Roasted some bacon, scrambled a few eggs, and had a glorious Sunday night dinner (of breakfast foods). I'd normally worry about the number of calories associated with such a feast, but the fuel was put to good use - I ran a 10K race the next day in Randolph, to help benefit the Dodge County Humane Society.

Here I am (in the orange shirt), running my way to a 6th place finish, with a time of 45:21. That's one of my better 10K times - my previous best was over 50-minutes!

Upon returning home and resting for a bit - my legs were cramping like crazy during the race - it was over to the local triathlon supply store for a new watch. My Garmin GPS watch has been a bit unreliable lately - it doesn't want to "take" a charge, and it goes dead quite often, so I needed a back-up. I scored this Timex Ironman watch for a really reasonable price:

I really like it so far; it's nice and light, waterproof, and it allows me to "rest" my primary daily watch - the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean.

Finally, check out this other recent score:

Several stores were running crazy specials on Pepsi products this week, so I took full advantage of the deals. The sodas ranged in price from $1.77 - $4 per case. Made a few trips, but it was worth it - there shouldn't be any soda shortage for quite some time!

I'm a bit late with this update; it's been a busy week - lots of things going on at work that have been taking a tremendous amount of time and effort. Had a busy weekend last week, and it started oddly enough on Wednesday night with a trip to Lake Mills for some pizza.

Went to the Blue Moon restaurant, which occupies the space once held by Anna Maria's. Anna Maria's was a great, great, great pizza place. Man, I miss that pizza. So while at the Blue Moon, it only made sense to order the pizza; the hope was that it wouldn't disappoint... and while it wasn't horrible, it wasn't anything like Anna Maria's pizza. To add insult to injury, the service was quite possibly the slowest and most painful service I've ever endured. It took nearly two hours to get out of there... and the place was virtually empty. Wow. Never again.

Friday included a fish fry (of course). Rather than try something new, the Friday Night Fish Fry Fanatics decided to revisit a favorite - The Avenue Bar. And, we're happy to report that the fish was once again stellar. Started with a bowl of Hungarian Beef Noodle soup, and it was unreal. Wow - so good.

And followed-it up with the usual - beer battered cod with fries. Yummo!

The pictures simply don't do the fish justice - it's so amazing. I think it'll be difficult, if not impossible, for any other establishment to knock-off The Avenue's fish. If you're ever in Madison on a Friday, be sure to check out The Avenue. You'll be glad you did.

Saturday included what else - lots of running and riding.

The Middleton Good Neighbor Festival was underway, and it included a 5K run that started and ended at The Capital Brewery. For some odd reason, the city of Middleton had placed barricades along University Avenue, which led me to believe the road would be closed come Saturday morning. I also figured the Capital Brewery wouldn't have much parking available, so I decided that rather than drive and try to fight traffic/parking, I'd just walk and/or jog the 2.5 miles from the apartment to the Brewery and then do the 5K race.

So, I woke-up about an hour early, got dressed, and started my walk toward the Brewery. The race started at 9:00am; I didn't hit the road until about 8:30am... so, that meant I had less than 20 minutes to walk 2.5 miles. Nearly impossible, so I decided to run to the race.

Got to the race with about 5 minutes to spare. Thankfully it was only about 45F outside (in August!!), so I wasn't overly warm... The race started and 194 of my fellow runners were off!

I finished in under 22 minutes, which was good enough for 31st place out of 194 people. Not bad! I was pretty happy about that. I didn't spend much time celebrating, though - I still had some more running to do. I finished off my run-filled-morning with an 8-mile loop around western Middleton. Total miles covered by foot: 13.9.

Hopped on the bike and took a 35-mile spin through the countryside; it was 11:00am or so and the temps were still in the low 50s... and the wind was absolutely brutal - gusts of up to 30mph, with a near-steady northerly wind of nearly 20mph. Not fun.

After all that running and riding, I was ready to unwind, so it was over to the Come Back Inn for a beverage. The CBI has these excellent authentic German glasses; I ordered a "Totally Naked" from The New Glarus Brewing Company - it was oh so glorious:

From the CBI it was over to The Oakcrest for some Mahi Mahi. How a tiny, little hole-in-the-wall bar can cook such amazing food is beyond me! Their burgers are unreal, their steaks are amazing, and their Mahi Mahi is unbelievable. This photo is blurry (it's so dark in there), but trust me when I say the food is really, really superb.

Also happened to have the best Old Fashioned ever, compliments of Cory - a young (21 year old) bartender who provided some of the best service I've ever had at any restaurant. He made great conversation, mixed a mean Old Fashioned, and served a killer plate of fish. Here's Cory working his muddling magic:

Hit the road first thing on Sunday morning - rode 67 miles, did a quick little jog, and then rested for most of the day. Hit the Great Dane for dinner - I had a burger, but my dining partners were a little more adventurous- they enjoyed a chicken pot pie and a brat plate:

And finally, went to this little Taqueria tonight for a burrito - and it was incredible. It was also huge, but cheap - just $4 for this monster:

Their salsas were amazing as well; even bought some to take back home. I can't wait to try it on a breakfast taco and/or some turkey wraps.

This weekend will include some more bike riding and then there's a 10K race up in Randolph that I think I'm going to enter. We'll see how it goes. Oh, it's also "The Taste of Madison" this weekend, so since it involves food, odds are pretty good that you'll be reading about it during next week's update. :-)

By now you know the drill - it's Sunday night, I've got a bunch of food pictures to share, so let's just get on with it.

Started Friday night by visiting Kavanaugh's Esquire Club.

Astute followers of my blog will recall that I visited Kavanaugh's not too long ago... well, it's so good that a second visit certainly wasn't going to hurt my feelings. So, the fish fry crew made its way to Sherman Avenue for some Esquire Club fish.

The Esquire is always quite busy, especially so on a Friday night, so we bellied up to the bar and enjoyed a few Spotted Cows while waiting for a table to become available. The bar at the Esquire is your typical "Supper Club" bar - oval-shaped, dark wood with heavy chairs, and tons of people gathered around it.

After a forty-five minute wait we were shown to our table, where we ordered the house specialty - all you can eat Ocean Perch with fries, and the beer battered Cod with cheesy hashbrowns.

I've got to give credit to the Esquire - despite the fact that the place was packed to the gills (pun intended!) with people, they get the food out at a record pace. Within a few minutes of placing our orders, the fish arrived. Here's the Ocean Perch:

And here's the cod:

Both were amazing by their own right. The Ocean Perch has a wonderfully delicate fish flavor, features a corn-bread breading, is served piping hot, yet has no hint of grease. It flakes nicely when cut - it's really great fish.

The Cod was delicious as well. Slightly more mild in flavor; flaky, moist, tender, and wrapped-up in a crispy beer batter. Really, really good - and unfortunately, not eligible for the "all you can eat" promotion. :-(

I downed about 3-pounds of the Ocean Perch. It's so good.

Went for a long (64-mile) bike ride on Saturday morning; the weather was cool - in the low 60's - and windy, so it wasn't a terribly enjoyable ride. I fought a 20mph headwind for about 50-miles worth of riding, and boy, talk about frustrating. It literally sucks the life from you - it's relentless and disheartening, but, it makes for stronger legs, so it's not all bad. Returned from the ride and went for a quick 5-mile run. Calories burned: 3700-ish. Nice.

After all of that riding and running, I was ready to refuel. So, as a fan of sweet corn, it only seemed natural to venture over to Sun Prairie for the Sun Prairie Corn Festival. For $1, you get into the festival, and then for $6, you can get a "tote" that the good people of Sun Prairie will fill with as much corn as the thing can hold. What's not to love?

Apparently, I'm not the only person who really enjoys corn on the cob... While the SPCF people have a heckuva system down for getting folks in and out of the corn serving area, there was still an impressive line:

Now this is what I like to see:

With an empty tote in hand, we made our way into the barn, where we were ushered to one of a dozen or so people that were ready to fill our tote with freshly picked-and-steamed corn. Here's the corn as it's coming into the barn (hot out of the steamer - they steam over 70 tons of corn in a single weekend):

With the tote full of corn (they fit 10 ears in our tote), you make your way over to a "shucking table" where the husks are removed and the corn cleaned and prepped for buttering:

Once your cobs are shucked and buttered, it's time to make your way out of the barn and to the "salt tree" - certainly not good for the blood pressure, but it sure is an ingenious system:

And the net result of all of that work:

YUMMO!!! We left the corn barn and made our way up to the "beer tent," where we purchased a few Miller Lites, found a place to stand, listened to some music and ate some corn.

While the corn was outstanding, we managed to wolf down another one of my favorites, beer-battered cheese curds. These were from "Wittenberg's Blue Barn" and they were outstanding.

Oh so good. Aside from being a bit windy, the weather was nice - it got into the low, low 70's... just crazy for August weather. I always remember July and August in Wisconsin as being hot, humid, and semi-miserable. This summer has been anything but - it's been cool, and downright cold on some days. I think the high on Friday was 65F!

With our bellies full of corn, it was time to trek on down to Oregon to meet the newest member of Jed's house - Rocco. Rocco is a baby Boxer, and he may be one of the cutest little guys on the planet!!!

So cute, and maybe a tad-bit naughty. But in his defense, he's only 11 or 12 weeks old, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. It's obvious that he loves being around people - here he is waiting and watching as Jed cooks some shrimp:

Jed and his wife Jamie made some awesome Shrimp Tacos with an out-of-this-world avocado salsa; while our bellies were still a little full from the corn fest, it was hard to say no to this incredible feast. (That pile of red sauce is homemade salsa with habanero - yummmmmm!)

And, we washed it down with a delightful pineapple upside down cake. I'd never before had pineapple upside down cake, and I must admit - I'm a fan. I'm sure it's not very good for you, but it's so good that it's well worth the calories (and guilt).

We chatted for a while, watched a few episodes of Man V. Food (what a fun show), enjoyed playing with Rocco, and then called it an evening. Rocco was obviously pooped - here he is, wishing us farewell (look at those cute but oh-so-heavy eyes):

Woke up this morning to 50F temperatures (again, it's ridiculous!!), waited a bit for the weather to warm-up, and then went for a shorter ride (35 miles) and a shorter run (3 miles). Spent the rest of the day running errands and hanging around the apartment, and am now waiting for Entourage to start.

I've got a 5k race next Saturday, so that'll be fun.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I can't believe it's Sunday night already - almost time to return back to work... the weekends definitely go by too fast. This weekend was a pretty good one - lots of things happened, so let's get started.

I've decided to enter another triathlon, which means I have to start swimming again. Argh. Biking and running - no problem. I'm regularly biking 70-ish miles at a time, averaging just around 23 mph, and my runs are doing great as well - I just finished a 13-mile run today, at an average of 7.5mph. So, those are fine. But swimming? I hate it!

So, I started taking swimming lessons. I found a great swim instructor who lives in Portage, so I snuck out of work early on Thursday and drove up to see if she could help my horrific swim stroke. We hopped in the lake and she took a look. The initial verdict? She claims I'm not that bad, but I'd disagree. We worked together for about an hour and I learned some great drills, tips, tricks, and exercises from her. It was well worth the drive - she was super knowledgeable and helpful, and I think I'll be making a few more trips before the race.

Friday brought about another fish fry, this time compliments of The Mid-Town Pub. It's located just a few blocks from the apartment, and it got decent reviews from people, so it was worth a try.

They have an odd menu/system - there's all you can eat fish offered from 3:00pm - 7:00pm; otherwise it's a "one plate" dinner. Got there at about 6:00pm and ordered some cheese curds; they weren't anything special - typical "drop n fry" frozen curds that probably come from Sysco. Sad, but I'm becoming a curd snob...

Look familiar? Yeah. They're pretty much the same exact curds as one can find at: The Avenue Bar, The Oakcrest, and Paul's Neighborhood Bar. Decent curds, for sure, but once you've had great curds it's hard to get excited by run-of-the-mill curds.

The fish came out after a lengthy wait, and it was decent. Beer-battered cod with fries. No other side options. Very mild flavor, decent batter. Better than some, but not as good as The Avenue Bar or Jordan's.

Unfortunately the service was so slow that there wasn't much chance to take advantage of the "all you can eat" offer, as it took nearly an hour for the first batch of fish to arrive and another 25+ minutes for the second batch. By then the window for all you could eat fish was closed, and I was bored and aggravated, so it was time to leave.

Saturday morning saw a welcomed change: I got rid of Charter and got AT&T U-Verse. U-Verse is "TV by IP" - everything comes to your home via a fiber optic internet connection. So, my television comes via fiber optic to my phone line, and then into a mini computer/gateway. The gateway then transmits the TV signal to the television. It also broadcasts a wireless internet signal for my laptop (so I get my internet connection via fiber optic - fast!!!), and if I had telephone, it would go through the same device.

The signal quality so far is fantastic, and the services appear to be much better than Charter's. Charter was a disaster from the start, so I was glad to make the switch. It's slightly less expensive as well, so that's a bonus.

With U-Verse installed, I went for a quick bike ride and run, and then hit the road for the Packers vs. Browns pre-season football game. Mark, my friend from work, has season tickets and wasn't able to use these tickets, so it was the perfect opportunity to see a game.

Did some tailgating before the game with Dan and Tara:

Scored a decent parking spot near the stadium for just $20, and traffic was light, so we had time to enjoy some snacks and beverages prior to the game. Our modest tailgate was nothing when compared to some of the other set-ups at Lambeau field... this one was particularly "interesting" -

Once inside the stadium, Dan's alter ego came out:

They had handed out pom-poms but Dan, not having spent time as a cheerleader, obviously didn't know how to properly use the pom-pom. That's ok - I think his interpretation was just fine!

The seats were awesome. We were in the south end zone, in row 60, but, our seats were on the aisle and, they were the very last row in our section, so we had a built-in seatback, thanks to a concrete wall. We also enjoyed a wonderful breeze; the weather was in the low 80's, sunny, and humid, so the breeze was definitely welcomed!

The Packers more or less dominated the Browns (go figure); we saw a touchdown early in the first quarter - it happened in "our" end zone, so that was cool - here's the touchdown (not that you can see much, but it gives you an idea of where the seats were).

We were also seated next to some younger folks; I think they said they were from Utah, but I could be wrong - maybe only one of them was from Utah... They were cool guys, and it was fun to hang out with them during the game. Here's a shot of the rowdy bunch:

With the game well in control of the Packers, we were desperate for some additional entertainment, so when the opportunity to Polka struck, Dan and Tara jumped at the chance:

And after the game ended, they fired-up some "YMCA" by The Village People, so here's Tara and I doing our interpretation of that timeless classic:

The Packers won, 17-0, and rather than sit and fight traffic, we decided to hang out and tailgate for a few hours to allow for the roads to clear. Since it was a night game, that meant we didn't get back to Madison until well near 3:00am... a late night indeed, and as a result, today was quite lazy, aside from going for a 30-minute swim and the 13-mile run (as mentioned earlier).

That's it for now. If you're able to take advantage of it, check out AT&T UVerse - so far, so good. Great picture, great internet signal, a small DVR, flexibility, and decent pricing.

Well food fans, it's been another full week, so let's just jump right in and update you on the weekend's eating results.

Friday night: Hit Jordan's Big Ten Pub to check out their fish fry. There had been numerous write-ups about this place; some great, some good, some mediocre, so there was a bit of hesitation about trying it. Happy to report that the experience was fantastic! A very solid fish fry, complimented by two surprises: the cheese curds and the old fashioneds.

Background info first; they don't accept reservations, and there isn't a host or hostess to be found anywhere. It's strictly first come, first served, and normally that wouldn't be an issue. However, this past weekend Madison played host to The Great Taste of the Midwest, and as part of the festivities, Jordan's was one of the sites that was hosting a few of the microbreweries that were invited to attend the Great Taste event. So, that made for a rather packed establishment - finding a table proved challenging, but we were seated in a booth after about an hour or so.

We ordered the cheese curds, and I'm happy to report that these curds were excellent. Definitely top notch curds - obviously handmade; squeaky yet chewy, and perfectly battered. All of today's photos are from the iPhone, so apologies for the poor quality!

Jordan's has an impressive selection of Friday night fish entrees - there were three kinds of baked fish available, fried cod, fried perch, shrimp, and about a half-dozen sandwich options. I decided to be "good" and ordered the Cajun-grilled Walleye. It came with a salad, which was delish; I chose onion rings for my side. Check out this monster slab of Walleye:

The fish was great. Once again, it wasn't all you could eat, but it was tasty! The onion rings were excellent as well. Thankfully, my dining partners weren't afraid to order the good stuff - the fried cod was every bit as tasty and excellent as the walleye:

And, as mentioned - there were a few Old Fashioneds consumed, including this Old Fashioned Sour:

We learned something new on Friday night - the key to a good Old Fashioned Sour is two-fold... a good sour has seven shakes of bitters, and the fabricator must "muddle" the cherries and sugar prior to adding any liquids. Oh, and you use Squirt as the sour. So, I guess that's a "three-fold" key. Regardless, I'm not a fan of the Old Fashioned, but Jordan's Big Ten Old Fashioned were pretty amazing. I wouldn't hesitate to order one in the future.

Saturday featured bad weather in the morning - heavy rains - that ruined my iPod Shuffle... I tried to sneak out for a run during a brief sunny spot, only to get caught in a massive downpour 15-20 minutes later. Try as I might to protect my iPod, it fell victim to Mother Nature and died. ARGH.

And, as luck would have it, just after my iPod was wrecked by the weather, the sun came out and the weather was gorgeous. 90F and not a cloud in the sky. Go figure. Someone really hates me.

So it was over to the new Thai place to try some of their grub. Egg rolls, steamed dumplings, and chicken Pad Thai. All were excellent! No grease, good flavor, great service, and good value - win, win, win.

Here are the photos (egg rolls, dumplings, Pad Thai):

After downing some Thai food, it was time to hit the highway - picked-up some cheese and some coffee from Beres Brothers (their Highlander Grogg is unreal). Ran a few more errands and then headed over to Paul's Neighborhood Bar to watch the Brewers game. Paul's is near the apartment and is a pretty friendly place with good food, good service, and great prices. They also serve breakfast, which seemed odd - a bar that opens at 6:00am to serve breakfast? Wow. But, who am I to argue or question things...

Started the evening with some cheese curds and deep-fried mushrooms:

And wrapped it up with a cheese burger (add lettuce, tomato and onion) and cajun fries:

So good. There's nothing like good, greasy bar food. Unfortunately, that little event counted for an ungodly amount of calories, so on Sunday morning I hit the road on my new bike frame - yes, the local shop came through and warrantied my beloved Cervelo (although there was a fee for assembly).

I did just over 70 miles (burning 4500 calories), and then finished with a 5-mile run (burning 580 calories). So, by 11:00am on Sunday, I was back to "calorie neutral."

The new bike frame is wonderful - I was quick to love on the Seven, but the Cervelo is really an awesome bike. It's so fast - it accelerates and climbs like a friggin' race car - it really does. And, I believe Cervelo tweaked the ride quality a bit with the '09 version (my replacement frame is a 2009 model, rather than a 2008) - the ride was a bit more smooth than I remembered it, and that was a welcomed surprise. It wasn't nearly as velvety as the Seven, but it wasn't as bone-jarring as the '08 ride.

Upon closer examination of the new frame, it appears as though Cervelo changed the seatpost geometry and diameter, which may explain the smoother ride. Here's the newly reconditioned steed, in all of its glory:

And a close-up of the revised seat post structure - it tapers to a narrower diameter at the top (27.2mm vs 31.7mm) to improve ride quality and (I'm guessing here) improve aerodynamics slightly. The seat stays are still pencil thin - it's ridiculous that they can hold-up while being so thin.

While out on the bike, I stumbled across a farm that was selling fresh sweet corn - they had a picnic table set-up in the front yard, along with a bucket that you put your money into. A dozen ears of corn were $3.50... so, I picked-up a few ears, dropped a few bucks in the bucket and enjoyed some delicious sweet corn. To say that "in season" sweet corn is addictive is an understatement - this stuff is so sweet, so tender, and oh so good. I could very easily eat it every single night - add a very light sweep of butter, a pinch of Kosher salt, and a shake of pepper, and you've got an unbeatable treat.

So there you have it. Jordan's = Win. Ha Long Bay = Win. Paul's = Win. New bike frame = Win. Corn on the cob = Win. The only downside was losing the iPod to the rain... but, I guess you can't win them all. Catch you next week!

So as I mentioned in an earlier entry, my beloved bike has suffered a fatal injury - the bottom bracket cracked, and the bottom bracket is an integral part of the frame. Any problems with the bottom bracket, and it's a "no ride" situation. And, since my bike is carbon fiber, it cannot be repaired - it has to be replaced. There's a chance my frame will be covered under warranty, and I hope it is, because I simply cannot afford to replace the frame - there's no possible way I could beg, borrow, or steal enough money to cover the replacement cost. :-(

Here's what a cracked bottom bracket looks like:

Carbon fiber - so light, but so fragile. It's got me absolutely sick.

The shop that's looking at the frame and working with the manufacturer to get it covered under warranty was kind enough (or should I say evil enough) to lend me a bike to use while mine is out of commission. Normally, I'd be grateful and ecstatic to receive such a generous offer, but the shop lent me a bike that is so awesome, and so much farther out of my league that I'm now genuinely even more upset that I ever had the opportunity to ride such an incredible machine.

The bike is a custom-made Seven Cycles bicycle. These beauties are handmade by true craftsmen; the attention to detail is unbelievable, the ride is indescribable, and the look is absolutely drop-dead sexy. As the bike sits here in the living room, I can't stop looking at it - it's so gorgeous, but the beauty is more than skin deep - there are some serious brains behind this fabulous figure.

Look at that beauty. So elegant - a combination of titanium and carbon fiber - it's truly marvelous. The roads around here, as you're well aware, are barely passable. They literally beat you into submission - the expansion joints feel like canyons, and potholes abound. Stop paying attention for a second and you'll likely be slammed back into reality when your bike pounds into a crater-sized road imperfection. Whenever I'm on my "regular bike," I dread the roads - I can't wait to get out and into the country, where the roads are smooth(er) so that I can focus on riding without worrying that I'll be bounced off my bike or jarred into a crash.

Well, believe it or not, but the loaner bike handles every single road imperfection with absolute aplomb. I put 80-some miles on the bike this weekend, and it made every road feel like a brand new stretch of perfect pavement. I was shocked - I couldn't believe that our crummy roads could feel so nice.

I was able to maintain speed without worrying that I'd hear a "snap" or a "pop" or some other unsettling sound. Seven's engineers are pure geniuses, and I don't pretend to know the first thing about road bike geometry or tuning, but I'm confident that if Bentley built bicycles, they wouldn't be able to hold a candle to Seven's stuff.

It's crazy to think that I'm so excited over a loaner bike that doesn't fit me properly and that is completely out of my price range, but it really has been a "ride changing" experience. If I had a Seven ID8, I wouldn't have to spend hours trying to map "smooth rides" - I could just go out and pile on the miles. It would be glorious.

Look at the attention to detail - not only is their logo perfectly machined into the rear stay, those welds (on titanium no less) are impeccable. I took 100+ photos of the bike - a bike that's not even mine! I won't bore you with them, but wow - this thing is amazing in every respect.

Part of the secret to the ID8's awesome ride is its ingenious integration of carbon fiber in some key areas - namely the seat tube and seat stays. From what I understand, these aren't high stress areas, but they carry a tremendous benefit when it comes to damping and cushioning. Combine the carbon fiber in those areas with a slightly longer chainstay, and it makes for a truly magical ride. I did 70-miles on Sunday alone and for the first time ever, I didn't feel "beat up" after the ride. Yes, my legs were a little tired, as I averaged 20.7 mph on the ride, but the rest of my body was feeling fresh.

Here's a shot of the carbon seat stays:

That's some seriously cool-looking carbon. Here's a shot of it on the seat tube:

It's so slick! The sum of the little details all add-up to one seriously awesome bike. Awesome to the power of incredible. I'm not normally at a loss for words, but this bike has really impressed me - I wish I'd never ridden it, because now I know what a "real" performance bike should feel like.

The ID8 does have one minor kink in its otherwise perfect body - this particular frame doesn't seem to climb or accelerate as well as my current bike does. What does that mean? Well, on my bike, when I really crank on it to accelerate or climb a serious hill, it goes. There's no "softness" or "cush" - it just goes. With the ID8, I found myself struggling a bit with acceleration and climbing steep hills. Part of it could be the gearing (this ID8 demo bike had a terrible gearing configuration), but part of it I suspect is a result of the emphasis on the super smooth ride. It's a minor, minor complaint - barely worth noting - but I couldn't continue to gush. :-)

I'm guessing that if I were to ever be able to obtain a Seven, and it were indeed custom made for me, I'd be able to have them build-in a little better acceleration and climbing responsiveness. Sigh, and that's why life is so cruel. I'll only be able to dream and wonder what it might be like.

Here are some final pictures of this wonderful machine - I'm dreading the minute when the shop calls to either give me bad news (that I have to return the bike) or really bad news (that my frame can't be warrantied). Sigh...

Look at that beefy bottom bracket - no shot it'll ever crack!

And the frontend - so strong, yet so forgiving. The fork absorbs road imperfections without sacrificing handling and agility. The head tube? Forget about it - bulletproof.

Look at those welds - pure magic.

I've never wished more in my life that Santa really did exist! So amazing, and I'm truly envious of anyone that's lucky enough to own one of these magnificent machines. Until you've had a chance to ride one, it's understandable as to why you might not be able to fathom why I'm so giddy about the Seven ID8. It's truly a masterpiece, and my hat is off to everyone at Seven. Keep on doing what you're doing!

With the chance of riding my bike slim to none, I slept in a bit (until around 8:00-ish) and then hit the road for a long run. After wracking-up a little more than 8 miles (I ran for about an hour), the bike was loaded into the car and I made my way down to the bike store to see what they'd have to say about the crack that I discovered in my bottom bracket last night.

Thankfully the shop is open seven days a week; I showed the crack to one of the mechanics on duty. He looked at it for a while, threw out a few ideas, and ultimately said the shop would have to show the damage to Cervelo. So, I'm bikeless. Ugh. During the best part of the summer, the best time to ride, and about a month before I hoped to do another triathlon. Yay me.

With the bike dropped off and my heart broken, it was down to New Glarus to check out the brand new facilities at the New Glarus Brewing Company. Apparently the beer business is good for the fine folks in New Glarus; they just opened a $20-million dollar facility a month ago, and it is quite amazing.

That's just a small section of it... I've yet to take a tour of the New Glarus Brewery; that record didn't change today. There was a huge group of Harley riders that arrived just seconds earlier, so once again, it was a quick spin through the gift shop and then back to the road.

Why the rush? Well, you all remember Jed - one of my friends from "the good 'ole days." Jed is a fellow cheese curd aficionado, and if there's one thing that he's been adamant about it's how great the curds from the Monroe Cheese Days are. He swears they can't be beat, but unfortunately for me, Cheese Days only take place once every two years. Turns out the Green County Fair was taking place this weekend, and Monroe happens to be in Green County...

Paid the entry fee and sought out the cheese curd booth. Within minutes, there was a small container of curds and some New Glarus Naked sitting in front of me:

The curds were.... good - really good. They tasted a lot like a grilled cheese sandwhich, which was a bit of a shock. They had a buttery flavor to them, the batter was fairly thick and crunchy, and they weren't really too greasy. Very good curds.

With the belly full of cheesy goodness, it was time to stroll the fair. Here are a few highlights:

Hung around the fair for a bit longer, then went back to Madison. Enjoyed an old familiar feast for dinner:

Pizza Pit! So greasy. So bad for you. But so good. Not to worry, I'll work it off this week... and I vow to eat better all week.

With any luck, I'll hear from the bike shop by Tuesday or Wednesday. Until then...

And they're called potato pancakes. And they're from The Nite Cap Inn in Palmyra. Yummo!!!

Mark, my friend from work, convinced me to drive to Palmyra for fish on Friday night. Fully aware of my quest to find the best fish fry in Wisconsin, Mark was certain the Nite Cap Inn would be a successful venture. Turns out he was partially right.

Truth be told, he raved about the potato pancakes and said that the fish was "decent." So, we hopped in the car and drove an hour to Palmyra, where we easily found The Nite Cap:

The Nite Cap is a true Wisconsin Supper Club. Definitely attracts the older, local crowd - I saw more than a few Brandy Old Fashioneds being served up. We put in our name and had a seat on the porch. While sitting on the porch I spied this little gem:

Within an hour or so, we were seated and ready to dig in. Here's Mark as we prepared for the feast:

Notice the Old Fashioneds? Yeah, when in Rome...

So on to the chow. The fish? The baked fish was unreal. Easily the best baked fish I've had in quite some time. It was light, wasn't slathered/covered/drowning in butter (in fact, it was totally dry), flaky, flavorful, moist, and seasoned with a great mix of herbs and seasoned salts. Oh, so good.

The fried fish was average - nothing too great to write about. Good, solid fish, but not amazing.

The potato pancakes: WOW. WOW. WOW. I've never been a huge fan of potato pancakes but these were beyond amazing. I simply can't explain them - they had a great flavor (mix of potato, onion, and mild seasoning). They were crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. No hint of grease anywhere. We ate dozens of them, and I could've ate dozens more. Holy cow.

Turns out (after chatting up the waitress) that the potato pancakes are an old family recipe that involves a meat grinder (for shredding the potatoes and onions) and some 100+ year old cast iron pans. Whatever the secret is, it works. They're so good.

So after dinner, I was happy:

...but full. So, it was off to ride and run this morning. I managed to get in a ton of miles this morning - I wound-up literally in the middle of nowhere, so I took a few photos of Wisconsin's gorgeous (and ample) farmlands:

I rode for about 3 hours, then took a quick run to help loosen up the back. Spent the rest of the day cleaning the bike, only to discover a major problem with my frame... I'm lucky it didn't break. I believe the repair shop over-torqued the new bottom bracket that I bought from them, and it appears to have cracked my frame. If that's the case, and they won't take responsibility for the crack, I'm out a *lot* of money for a new frame.

Carbon fiber can't be fixed - it has to be replaced, so that means I'd need a new frame... and that would stink big time, because I can't afford to buy a new frame. I'm going to visit with the shop tomorrow and will see what they say. I'm not sure I'll sleep much tonight... the idea of spending 3 mortgage payments worth of money on a replacement frame has me feeling quite ill. :-(

Happy to report that this past weekend was quite enjoyable - got to do a bunch of fun things, ate some great food, and generally had a good time.

Kicked things off with fish fry at The Avenue Bar.

The Avenue Bar is located on East Washington Avenue, near Ingersol Street, and has been around for quite a while - I want to say since the 1960s. It has become a bit of an institution; on any given weekday, you might find the local politicians having lunch alongside mechanics and housewives. On Friday nights, the place is absolutely crazy - it's not uncommon to find people waiting 2-3 hours for a table.

Despite having reservations, there was still a 20+ minute delay/wait. But the wait was worth it - upon being seated, cheese curds were ordered and they arrived promptly. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier or not, but I'm becoming a bit of a cheese curd snob... battered curds are worlds better than breaded curds. The Avenue features battered curds:

I had heard and read a lot about The Avenue's fish fry, and to be honest, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. Some people raved; others said it was greasy. From what I had seen on the plates around me, the fish looked solid, so I decided to order a few extra pieces of fish - the only downside to the Avenue is their fish is not "all you can eat" - $11.50 gets you 2 pieces of fish with sides; extra pieces are $2.50 each. Not cheap, but that's the price you pay for good fish, I guess.

And I'm happy to report that the Avenue does indeed have good fish. In fact, I'd place it easily in my "top 3" fish fry places. Absolutely fantastic fish:

The beer battered, deep fried cod was thick cut, perfectly fried to a golden crisp, and delicious. The fish was flaky and fresh, very mild, very "meaty" thanks to the thick cut, and spectacular. I could quite easily stop searching for "the best fish fry" and just settle in to The Avenue Bar. But, alas, I owe it to myself (and my fellow blog followers) to keep searching.

After fish, it was over to The Greenbush Bakery for a....

Apple fritter. Check out that monster. So good. But, it gave me fritter poisoning - I ate too much on Friday night and wanted to die. It definitely made it very difficult to get up and go for a bike ride on Saturday morning, but with 5500 calories of food sitting in my gut, I had to do something, so I forced myself out of bed at 6:30am and hit the road.

60-ish miles later, I was feeling a little better, but I was also freezing. It was unbelievably cold on Saturday... when I hit the road at 6:30am, it was 51-degrees. When I got back at around 9:00 and went for a quick run, it was still below 60. And it was July 18th!!! That's unreal.

A small group of us went to see another production of Michael Feldman's Whadya' Know show, and I actually got on the air. I asked the question, "It's July 18 and I'm wearing long underwear. Why?!" Michael asked me if I was wearing long-johns or just a long top - I confessed it was just the top. Nothing too exciting, but fun, nonetheless.

From the radio show, it was down to State Street, where Maxwell Street Days were taking place. Fought the crowds and eventually landed in Dotty Dumplings Dowry, where I had an ostrich burger and a "fried sampler."

The burger was great! I'd never had ostrich before, but it was super good. Tasted just like beef, but with a fraction of the calories. 6oz of grilled ostrich is 160-calories.

The sampler included fried mac-n-cheese, onion rings, cheese curds, mushrooms, and fries. I tried a couple of each, mindful of my Friday night binge...

Bummed around Madison the rest of the day and then hit La Bamba for dinner. La Bamba is known for being an uber-cheap restaurant that caters to the late night, drunken university crowd, but for some reason, they closed their State Street location (which perfectly fits the bill for the above mentioned crowd) and now have only east side and west side locations. The west side location is about 5 minutes from the apartment, so it made sense to stop there for a late night dinner.

Steak burrito with lettuce, tomato, onion, and hot sauce. Yummo. And just $5. Not bad.

Woke up Sunday morning and went for another long ride - 60-ish miles. I've found a good set of roads that run from the apartment up to Waunakee, toward Mazomainee, and back. There are some killer, killer hills, and the traffic is fairly light, so it's a good ride. I got a bit of a late start on Sunday morning, and wanted to go to the Come Back Inn for breakfast, so I rushed back, hopped in the shower and then raced over to the CBI for some grub.

Turns out there was no need to hurry; they serve breakfast until 2pm... oh well. Ordered "The Big Breakfast" - 2 pancakes, 2 eggs, 4 slices of roasted bacon, and some breakfast potatoes. Washed it down with some fantastic coffee and was absolutely in heaven:

Went back to the apartment and felt so guilty about breakfast that I hit the road for a run. I don't normally like to run after having ate something, but wow - I had a fantastic run. Nearly 8 miles at an average pace of 7:11/mile. I've never done that before; maybe before my next race I should "fuel up" with some CBI breakfast!

With the better part of the day done and not wanting to sit around the apartment, it was over to Warner Park to watch a Madison Mallards game.

For $12 a seat you can get into the "Home Plate Club" - the first two rows of seats located directly behind the catcher - and it's quite a good deal. You're literally 5 yards from the catcher/batter/umpire, in a reserved seat, and it's only $12!!

The camera angle didn't really do the seats justice; I had to sneak the lens between the chain links on the fence, so the angle is wrong - trust me when I say the seats were close!! It was Susan G Komen day at the game, which is why the Mallards were in pink jerseys and hitting with pink bats. They auctioned the bats and jerseys after the game, with all proceeds benefiting the Susan G Komen organization.

Started the game off with some pork nachos (I'm a glutton, I know it!!!):

And they were superb. The chips were crisp, the pork was slightly sweet and perfectly smoked, and the nacho cheese was spicy but not out of control. And, they were reasonably priced at $4.

The Mallards have a nice little set-up, actually. Just behind home plate is a food court area that features several different food venues, a couple of drink venues, a souvenir stand, and a bunch of picnic tables:

Sat and watched the game for a bit - I'm not quite sure what division of baseball the Mallards are in, but it was a fun game to watch. Yeah, there were a few errors here and there, but it kept things interesting. Only one inning ran "long" - I think it was the 4th or 5th. Otherwise, things moved quickly and the Mallards did a great job of keeping the crowd entertained. Here's the Quench Gum truck driving around and shooting t-shirts:

Bad picture, I know - the sun was in the wrong spot... I did score a decent picture of one of the mascots, Millie:

While the nachos were good, you can't really go to a Wisconsin game (of any type) and not have a brat... so, it was back out to the food court for a garlic brat and some hand-dipped cheese curds. They looked great:

And, I'm happy to report, they tasted as good as they looked. I love having long arms, because I can take pictures like this without any assistance:

That's a happy (but getting fatter by the inning) me, enjoying that brat and curds. I really, seriously, need to stop binge-eating on the weekends. I'm completely out of control. But everything is so good... it's hard to sit at the apartment knowing that there are places like the Greenbush, Culvers, and so on all within a stones' throw... I'm hoping that I'll get my fill of these places and then settle down.

So that's it for now. Lots of food this weekend, lots of miles on the bike and by foot, lots of calories, and lots of good times. Rumor has it this Friday's fish fry will come by way of Palmyra, so stay tuned.

Oh yeah, almost forgot - the Mallards won - they beat the Eau Claire Express 9-7. There was even a home run.

Alright, I've calmed down a bit, and am going to give this entry one more try. If it fails anywhere along the way, you won't be reading this, and I'm shutting down my blog for good. I can't tell you how maddening it is to spend nearly two hours on an entry only to have this horrible software wreck the post and mess-up the pictures. So without any further ado, here we go...

Q: What's the only thing worse than a Texas driver?

A: A Wisconsin Road.

Q: What's the only thing worse than a Wisconsin Road?

A: A Wisconsin Sidewalk.

I'm dead serious when I say that Wisconsin roads are the worst roads I've ever driven on. And it doesn't make any sense to me - Wisconsin property taxes are through the roof, and yet the roads make even the worst dirt roads from Arkansas seem as smooth as glass.

And it's not just side roads or back roads; nope - it's I-90, I-94, The Beltline, East Washington Avenue, University Avenue - all of the "regular" roads. They're awful! I challenge anyone to try to drive on those roads with a cup of coffee (without a lid). You'll burn and/or stain yourself within the first 100 yards of driving, I guarantee it. Potholes, heaves, ruts, missing sections that are more than 10" in diameter - it's unreal. And people just fly over these crappy roads like they're driving down a Californian boulevard...

And the sidewalks? Forget about it. I really am surprised that the cities around here haven't had their pants sued off over the poor quality of the sidewalks. It's not uncommon to find sections of a sidewalk that stick up 4-6 inches higher than the previous and/or following sections. Chunks of cement are missing from the sidewalks; rebar is exposed - it's ridiculous. I smell a letter or six in my future - I just have to figure out who to write to with my observations and complaints about the road and sidewalk quality (and lack thereof).

To give you an idea of just how bad the roads are, I had to spend nearly $300 fixing my bike last week as a result of the bad roads. The potholes are so many and so big that I wrecked my headset. I put on more than 3500 miles on my bike in Arkansas and Texas without incident; my first 100 miles in Wisconsin cost me $300. Unreal.

Ok, rant over. Now let's talk about work. It's going well - still busy, and my projects are cranking along. I've been becoming more familiar with the layout of the building - it's 13 stories in total and has some cool features, but it is a bit tricky to navigate at times. My office is on the third floor, where there are 17 conference rooms alone - the main conference room that we use overlooks the entryway/atrium:

As I mentioned, my "office" is on the 3rd floor, but it's not really an office. Most of the building is set-up as a big cube farm, and there aren't many real offices to speak of. Executive-level management has offices along the window sides of the building, but most everyone else is in a cube. Here's part of our cube farm:

I'm in the second cube on the left, and my workspace looks like this:

Nothing too exciting. But, I did manage to score a nice new HP laptop and a new HP 19" LCD, so that's nice. Our cubes are also near one of the half-dozen or so break areas that are on each floor. These break areas are pretty great - each has several refrigerators, vending machines, filtered water, "Filter-Fresh" coffee machines (the machines custom make you a cup of coffee on demand), pizza makers, iced tea, and so on. Everything is free except for the candy machines. Here's what a typical break area looks like:

Oh, there are also free newspapers and magazines in the break areas as well - it's nice to be able to grab a quick peek at the headlines or to look at the "weekend" section of the paper to find something to do.

We also have our own full service cafeteria, complete with a full kitchen that offers a full menu, along with daily lunch specials. Rumor has it that Monday's Sloppy Joes and Friday's burgers are fantastic; I haven't had lunch there yet, but I do stop down fairly regularly for a snack. Here I enjoyed a Diet Coke, a Vitamin Water, and a yogurt:

I usually grab a snack like that (they also have things like fruit salad, fresh fruit, cookies, and so on) about once or twice a week - it's a nice change of pace and only costs $2.05. Here's what the main entrance to the cafeteria looks like:

The building also has a free, full-service health club, but I didn't take any pictures as there were people working out in there, and I would've felt weird snapping a picture of them. So, as you can see, the office is a pretty decent place.

I've also managed to make friends with a few folks at work, and one of the coolest people that I've met there so far is a guy by the name of Mark. Mark is a few years older than me; he grew up in the metropolis of Palmyra, and we've managed to hit it off. We go to lunch and/or dinner fairly regularly, and it's always a good time. He's got a bunch of senior level project management experience, so with any luck I'll pick up some tips and tricks from him as well.

Last week, we decided to grab a late lunch at Roman Candle Pizza on Williamson Street. It was the day before our Fourth of July break started, so we left work a little early and grabbed some 'za. It was fantastic - they have a "firecracker sauce" which has a little bit of a kick to it, the crust is reminiscent of a New York pizza, and the toppings were fresh and tasty.

While enjoying our pizza and Spotted Cow, we kicked around the crazy idea of running over to Summerfest to catch Judas Priest. So, on a whim, we hopped in his 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee (lovingly nicknamed "Nitschke") and drove over to Milwaukee. We managed to find a parking spot (for only $20) near the festival grounds, and within a matter of minutes were walking the Summerfest grounds.

We stopped by the US Cellular stage, where I believe Le Disko was playing:

And then we headed over to the Harley Davidson stage to see an aging Rob Halford and Judas Priest perform. The show as loud, bright, and entertaining, even if we couldn't really see the stage from where we were standing... there were thousands of people crammed into the stage area, and mullets were everywhere. This photo is the best I could do:

It was pretty fun to watch a classic band like Judas Priest crank out some familiar hits, and they didn't sound bad at all. With a better sound system, they probably would've been really fantastic to watch, which is surprising when you consider they're all probably in their sixties.

On Monday night, with the apartment still in complete disarray, I learned that my friend John was in town and that he wanted to get together. John brought his new dog, Teddy, down with him to visit, so it was over to Lake Mills to check-in with John and to meet Teddy. Teddy is a wonderful dog - a German Sheppard mix of some type, and he's super sweet and docile. Here he is sitting and waiting patiently for a treat:

And here's John holding Teddy like a baby - told you he was docile!

Had a nice dinner with John; we went to Ken's Towne Inn Pizza in Jefferson, where we enjoyed half-priced pizza night. John is such a great guy - it's always fun to chat with him, and I'm looking forward to hopefully spending more time with him as we now share a closer proximity to one another.

This past weekend, it was down to the Capitol Square to check out Art Fair on the Square. Ended up meeting with Jed, one of my old friends from a previous job, his wife Jamie, and Mark and his girlfriend Karen.

We had a really good time, despite the fact that there were probably 30,000 people jammed around the Capitol all looking at overpriced art. I say overpriced, but it's really just because I can no longer afford to buy anything cool... For example, there was an artist who had some awesome paintings of various animals, but at $150 for a small print, I just couldn't justify buying anything.

Here's what part of the square looked like, as shot from the steps of the Capitol:

The weather last weekend was awesome - low 80s, low humidity, and lots of sun. And after spending far too many hours in the sun, it was over to my favorite place for some refreshments and lunch:

Yep, that's The Great Dane Brewery. Enjoyed a sampler platter of seasonal and newer beers and then wolfed down a seared tuna salad. All in all, a perfect day. Sorry, no food pictures from The Great Dane - I forgot to take photos as the conversation at the table was too much fun.

You will be pleased to know that I did score some pictures of the fish fry from Flannery's on Friday night. Flannery's is a german-style pub that's located in New Glarus, and came highly recommended by a coworker who knew of my passion for a good fish fry.

Here's Flannerys from the outside:

Started off with some cheese curds, which were ok - not nearly as good as the curds from Ken's Towne Inn.

After the curds came the soup - a delicious french onion soup, complete with nice big hunks of whole wheat croutons:

And then there was the fish: fried haddock, which was very lightly breaded, fried to perfection (no excess grease), and perfectly flaky and light. Quite easily the best fish I've ever had. Believe me that this picture doesn't do the fish any justice; it was really dark inside Flannery's, and my iPhone doesn't talke the greatest pictures:

That big hashbrown-like thing on the left is called a "Rosti" (pronounced "Roosty"). It sounded interesting, but in reality, it wasn't very good. It was very bland and flavorless, despite featuring shredded potatoes, egg, onion, peppers, and cheese. It literally had no flavor at all... but the fish was excellent, so it didn't really matter.

With my belly full of fish, I had a wonderful bike ride on Saturday morning - I rode nearly 50 miles (two laps around the lake, a lap around the capitol, followed by a spin out to the airport and then back down to the campus area) and ran 8 miles. I figured that with all of that exercise I could treat myself to some Greenbush Bakery donuts:

Two cake donuts (blueberry) and an "Oreo donut" - it had crumbled Oreos on top and a buttercream filling, and was heavenly.

I felt guilty after eating 25,000 calories worth of donuts, so on Sunday I rode the bike up to Mazomainee (about 38 miles) and followed it up with a 6-mile run. My gut still feels overly stuffed - I need to stop eating so irresponsibly, but there are so many good things to try that I can't resist it. I really need to get things back under control, though...

So, that's about it. I hope this post "works" - if not, I'm going to be really upset! Stay tuned for more food photos and stories...