Review: Shoveling Smoke

Shoveling Smoke by Austin Davis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One of the Amazon Prime Free books for the month, Shoveling Smoke was a lot of fun. I could see it turned into a very funny movie. All about crazy characters; horse trading; and East Texas. I do recommend for light reading.

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Do I Stay or Do I Go?

I can't believe I'm losing sleep over this!

I bit the bullet this past spring and joined a golf league. It is a "social" rather than a "competitive" league. No handicaps, and very little prize money if any. One of the members is on my Monday morning bowling team. She assured me the only league rule is "don't talk when someone is swinging". That did turn out to be the case. We do follow most of golfing general rules and etiquette. Each week I may team up with whoever I want to.

The season started out terrible and I did consider quitting the league as my golf was embarrassing, but the ladies are very encouraging so I stuck with it. I've noticed that when I "ride" in a cart with another golfer I don't do as well. If I walk with a push cart I am less stressed and feel more in control. I also do better when golfing with a different group each week then sticking with the same ones. Now that the season is almost finished I'm please to report my golf has improved and while my final score isn't the lowest I'm no longer the highest either. Most times I drive the ball off the tee further than the group I'm with.

The league began the first Monday in May and ends the last Monday in August. A luncheon banquet is scheduled for the last Monday in September and if necessary other Mondays in September are for rain outs. So far there has been one rain out.

Here's my dilemma...The Monday morning bowling league begins on the same day as the Monday morning golf rain date. I know my bowling buddy that is also on this golf league will be golfing. But me - I'm not so sure. On Monday September 17th do I drive to Bowlero or Brookfield Hills Golf course?

The Pizza Trail

For the past 38 years, Mama's Pizza on Burleigh has been my favorite for great take-out pizza. Unfortunately, they recently closed so I went in search for a new take-out pizza. Marco's World Famous Pizza on 84th and Lisbon is close so I gave it a try. The first one was pretty good with a thin crust and a tangy sauce. As their advertisement says; they DO load on the toppings.

I ordered the next Marco's pizza with a "hand-tossed" crust. While bringing it into the house the heavily loaded pizza managed to flip and land upside down on the kitchen table. Believing in the five second rule, and the fact that it didn't land on the floor, I sort of put it back together - after all pizza is all mixed up anyway. The hand-tossed crust was very good. Again I liked their sauce and loads of toppings.

My third take-out pizza from Marco's had just come out of the oven when I arrived to pick it up. They quickly wrapped it up and I noticed how hot it was while placing it my car. Back home, I lifted it off the backseat and felt the toppings begin to slide to one side. Because it was so hot the toppings started to come through the paper packaging. Pizza ended up on the back seat of the car; on the outside of the car; on the driveway etc. I left a pizza trail right into the house! There was enough left to eat but I had a real mess to clean up. Wherever the next take-out pizza comes from, if it doesn't come in a box, it won't come in the house!

The 2015 Wisconsin State Fair Craft Competition Results

For the first time I entered items in the Craft competition. I arrived too late to see them judged. Two of my items were on the "reject" table so they came back home. Because the other two were not among the "rejects" they must have won something.  Results are typically posted on the State Fair web site in about a week or so.  In the meantime here are the two that did win something...

UPDATE 7/29: Pumpkins came in 3rd place in Holiday category. Watercolor came in 4th place in Painting category. 

"Pumpkins" Repoussé and Chasing

Design and crafted by Carol Banach

Material: Soft Copper .005 thick 36 gauge

Trace design onto copper sheet with pointed wooden stick

Shape front and back, pushing out areas to enhance design

Continue flipping over, adding detail as desired

Brush ink over embossed copper sheet

Remove excess dried ink with fine steel wool

Polish gently with soft cloth

Yellow Hibiscus Watercolor

Sketched and Painted by Carol Banach

• Negative Painting Technique
• Masking fluid used to protect yellow blossoms and stems
• Cobalt Blue and Permanent Yellow blended wet on wet for background wash - Primary Red used sparingly in wash
• Layered background several times to create leaves darkening each layer by adding more Cobalt Blue to pallet.
• Blossoms, stems and details added last

 

(This painting was matted and framed when entered in the competition, 

however I forgot to take a photo.)

The current Zoo Interchange mess is All My Fault!

It happened one afternoon in the fall of the early 1960's. I would have just turned 11 or 12 years old. My family recently moved closer to my grade school. Close enough in fact to ride my bike there and home.

My school was on 95th and Bluemound a few blocks east of the Milwaukee County Zoo which was being built up little by little. Not too many buildings were there yet. However Monkey Island was done and I think Samson the gorilla had already arrived. The best part was back then we could get in for free! We were looking forward to a lot more structures and animals. We visited the area frequently.

Situated between the school and the zoo, my friends and I found some great hills to ride our bikes on. We noticed a lot of trucks going in and out of that area, but on the weekends we had the place to ourselves. We also found sticks in the ground - not branches - but sticks that had some markings on them. We played around with them pulling them out to look them over and then either sticking them back where we found them, or moving them to make a sort of track for our bikes. It was a really fun time.

So back to that fall afternoon. A couple of Milwaukee police officers came to school and visited every classroom asking if we had seen anyone in the area between our school and the zoo. They told us a highway was being built and it was a very important project. The police were investigating some vandalism regarding surveyor markers. The damage would likely cause big problems and probably a delay in the construction.

Of course no one admitted anything!

After researching the Zoo Interchange history  I found The Milwaukee Journal wrote in a front-page story in early August, 1963 "the interchange has been a source of concern. The work is complicated, and the relocation of strategic power lines is involved...the structures weave and twist like an intricate pretzel..."

I think the real reason we going through today's re-construction is because those surveyor markers got messed up back in the l960's. The current FIX started in 2012 and won't be completed until 2018.  I sure hope no kids are riding their bikes around the area now...

To read more information about how they are fixing the mess I made go here:

WI Zoo Interchange Project