Postcard From Wisconsin

[kbobam]

Oh.  Em.  Gee.
Just finished writing that 'title', and was pretty pleased with the post so far.  
But then I realized that what I'm potentially subjecting you to is essentially a sort of 
'personal blog', which is just about the worst thing one human can do to another.
(Not quite as bad as 'reality T.V.', but pretty close.)
I apologize in advance.  Especially because my psychic friend just told me that I'll be sending
you guys 437 of these 'postcards' before such time that I become a small 'curd' in a huge
vat of 'whey' in a bizarre (and cheesy) industrial accident.  
So here are a few pictures from a far away land I took today, with I hope not too much commentary.

For a Monday morning I was thinking pretty clearly today, and decided that it would make a lot of sense
to cruise around the area and see what businesses were nearby.  All other things being equal, why not
try to find a potential employer within walking or biking distance?  And just maybe there might be one
of those which was appealing in its own right!  What do you know?!  Nailed it right out of the box!
(Turned out this is a different company now who kept the Bud logos for 'historical landmark' purposes.)

 

I'm probably getting a little ahead of myself here, but thinking about where I might want to live, well, this is looking like a pretty good choice to me.
This building is in what I want to call "old downtown" Manitowoc. It's sort of a 'one of a kind' structure around here, in that you just don't otherwise have this
sort of large tall old-school hotel/apartment style of building in this area.  And it's so 'New York'!  (Where I'm from, if you don't remember)  I kind of love it.  

I rode a couple of circles around it today on Steph's bicycle (seen in foreground!) and learned some things which made it even more appealing.  At street level on
the front side there's a cantina with cheap pitchers of beer.  And as if that's not enough, there's a Chinese restaurant around the side and an Italian deli around the
back!  I could happily handle a lousy job to live here!

 

Although!  I took a ride in the opposite direction today and found a new neighborhood.  Got to the end of a street I'd never been on before and saw this.
Made me feel like that person who 'discovered' the Pacific Ocean.  I'm assuming this is Lake Michigan, but what do I know?  

The street which runs parallel to this view is called 'Lakeview Drive', which reminds me of an address in Ann's neck of the woods which I could never afford.
Here?  Maybe some day.  Better get a job soon.  ( :

[Steph]

I get out so little that I was unaware that the decision had been made to preserve the Budweiser bottles.

There was a big ruckus about them being removed, and I got all bothered about it, but I became resigned to them being gone.  All things change, right?  So I'm glad the owner decided to preserve the landmark.  

[Steph]

Went down to our Lake today.  In the daytime.  Thanks to Bob for fixing the bike so it wouldn't seem like such a chore to go that full mile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A bike is much better than roller blades. 

[kbobam]

Ha!  I forgot about the roller blades. 
Yes.  Some of the terrain near the lake is much better served by the
bike's knobby tires and their tendency to stay on one's intended trajectory.
Although roller blades do look cool.  One of these days I'll get up the nerve.

Here's a shot of 'a brand new one on me', in spite of the fact that I come from Annapolis,
where they supposedly take fish pretty seriously in spite of their silly tendency to call
striped bass 'rockfish'.  I can definitely tell you that if you go down by the water in
downtown Annapolis they will not provide you with a large convenient fish-cleaning
station which apparently includes the biggest garbage disposal unit currently available.
I'm impressed.  Actually, about a hundred yards away I knew I was coming up on 
something impressive.  Just didn't know what it was yet!  Made me happy, though.
In my case, I grew up a block away from an open-air fish market I walked by every day,
so the 'aroma' is a good thing to me.  Maybe our serious fish people at TMC know what I mean.

(Steph, the rest of this message is really boring.  Please don't waste your time reading it.)

So slightly up-river from the clean fish area was this 'I don't know what you call it' which lead
out to a lighthouse.  I left Steph's bike at the near end and walked out and took a look at it for
half an hour or so.  Didn't even occur to me to make a point of locking the bicycle to something.
I guess depending on where you're from, you may not be particularly impressed by this.
Coming from the Baltimore area, this was a totally mind-blowing situation for me.
(The first day I was in Wisconsin, I was having a cup of coffee somewhere and using a laptop
computer.  When I went to the restroom, I took the laptop with me.  In Baltimore or D.C. you'd
be an idiot not to.)  But I know better now.  I like it here!  ( :
 

 

 

[ann]

You call it a jetty.  Nice jetty.

[winnie]

Nice bike,which must surely have two locks here in Amsterdam,but you get used to everything.

[kbobam]

Heeeere.................jetty!  Jetty, jetty jetty jetty jetty!............................
That sounds like a pretty normal word.  And I had no idea what it meant.
I think there may be a lot of those.  It's been coming to my attention lately that although I'm
a complete fricking genius in many respects , I have these 'gaps' in my knowledge that 99%
of 'normal' people don't have.  It's very frustrating.  I don't know what to make of it.  

Long ago in New York City things got so bad that even two bicycle locks weren't good enough
People started doing completely insane stuff.  Like taping laboratory samples of their bodily
fluids to their bikes to make them less appealing.  What a world!  .