I’m Not Going Spelunking Anytime Soon

Watched Descent (a movie) earlier tonight. Didn’t know anything going in other than the one sentence blurb on the theatre’s website. Basically, I watched it in order to kill time until Talladega Nights started. But back to this movie…

Basically, it stars no one you’ve likely ever heard of. And after watching, I know for a fact that I have no plans to do any spelunking of any unexplored caves ever. I leave that to others. Caves that have been well explored and host lots of tourists, I’ll still go through, but nothing unexplored. There is just way too many things to go wrong. I’ll get my adrenaline rushes elsewhere. This is much like after watching Open Water, I have no plans to go diving in Open Water in a large group. I don’t trust people’s abilities to count everyone that gets back on the boat and, although I’m a pretty good swimmer, I have no desire to swim out in the middle of the ocean.

Back to the movie again… For a horror type movie, it was actually pretty good. Nothing that makes you go wow, but there were definitely some spots that sent a chill through my body, and the first one lingered for a while.

About all I’ll say about the plot is 6 women drop into an unexplored cave and things go bad from there. A highlight… one women literally gets a blood bath.

Like I said, if you want to see a decent horror movie, this is probably worth going to. You could also probably wait till Halloween and rent it then as well.

On a side note, it looks like they are making a sequel to Open Water.

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Busy Weekend & Adventures in Fox Lake

As I had mentioned, last weekend was busy, busy by my own choice though. Friday after work I hit the water with John, Ronee and Jonah. Decided to put the boom on the boat and try some tumbles… Here are some action shots with some varying degrees of success.

Just stood up, face full of water
It does not taste good!

Practicing the slide for the first time…
need to keep my feet down just a little bit


This slide is a little better


Close up shot of a deep water start


Once again, face full of water and spray. Too far back on my heals.


More sliding… finally have good form.


Starting to spin just a little bit


Trying the tumble for the first time… form is actually OK.
Handle is at my hip. Just didn’t spin all the way around.


One foot and face full of spray

Still on one foot, still too much spray

Really not sure here. Just a lot of spray.

Saturday morning, woke up early and hit the water once again with John and Seven. My back was a little sore from the tumble turn attempts the night before, but I still did lots of footing. We even managed to share the bay with a weekend wally. He let us foot. Then he pulled his kid tubing, then he took off and we had the bay to ourselves. Between the night before and this morning, probably did 20+ foot runs. That’s lots of skiing in a short time. Lots of fun too.

Saturday night I headed up to Fox Lake to watch the Beaver Dam Must-Skis do a show at the Boathouse Pub. Not the best site for a ski show due to all of the docks and no beach, but a great place to watch a ski show. Great little bar and a fun team to party with.

After the show, went into the cool air conditioning of the bar and ordered up a pizza. Ended up being one of the best bar pizzas I’ve had in a long time. It was a simple, plain pizza, but it was delicious. The other kicker, the bar had Stella Artois on tap and they had the Golden Chalices to serve the beer in. Definitely a place to head back to.

Ended up partying the night away with John, T-Bell, Ma & Pa Bell and Marcy. Pa Bell did lots of karaoke while T-Bell also frequented the stage quite a few times. By the end of the night I had consumed enough liquid courage to also take to the stage and did my rendition of Ram Jam’s Black Betty. Here are some night to remember the night with… Luckily, there is no audio.

Whoa, Black Betty… Bam-a-lam…
Note the chalice I’m holding, it has Stella Artois in it

T-Bell, Me & Marcy
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Cleaning Out the Inbox – Sparrows, Footstock, Nessie and Motocross

Lots of random things from my inbox… Mostly from the worlds finest news source. All worth reading.

Sparrow Aviation blames glass for death… A while back I wrote about the birds that were flying into my windows. Well it turns out that I’m not the only one that views this as a problem. According to the fine reporters at The Onion, apparently sparrows view this as a problem too. Go check out this very good story.

WIKI. I’ve also seen articles about students that use the wikipedia as their only source of information for reports that they do. What they don’t realize is that the wiki isn’t always right. Now we have proof.

Nessie. Everyone remember the Lochness Monster of old. Well apparently, there really were Lochness monsters of old. I mean really old. They found skeletal remains of creatures that bear a very strong resemblance to Nessie down in the Australian Outback. So maybe Nessie is real? You can go here and come to your own conclusions.

Woods? Apparently Tiger thinks everyone let him win the European Open. You can read the official story over at our friends The Onion again.

Motocross. Ever get the feeling that the guys (and gals?) that compete in motor cross just might not have a firm grasp on the world. Well here is the articles that confirms that. Apparently, the one of the guys decided to keep going on his education and learned a little physics and now he realizes that the fact that he didn’t kill himself in his sport is a miracle.

Wired for Sight. Ever wonder exactly how much bandwidth is needed to transmit the data that your eyes interpret to your brain? No? Well apparently someone did because now we know. It is just a little shy of 10 Megabits. Not sure what 10 Megabits is? Most networks now are 100 Megabits and most wireless connection max out around 54 Megabits. Needless to say, we are all pre-wired with a pretty good network connection between our eyes and our brains.

92. Know what that number means? If you follow the Packers, hopefully the first thing that came to mind is Reggie White. He is being enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend. Here is a good retrospective on him. Check it out.

TMQ. One of the best parts of the pro football season, at least to me, is reading the very unique commentary of Gregg Easterbrook. He writes an article titled Tuesday Morning Quarterback, currently published on ESPN.com. Needless to say, he writes a very unique style of writing about football. For example, in the first article of the year he points out that in this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, he determined that of the 123 women portrayed in photos inside the magazine, 63 of them were wearing less than a complete swimsuit. He is always full of unique and interesting factoids. Go read the first article of the year and then stop back each week for more. Usually published late Tuesday morning.

Footstock. Finally, the sport of waterskiing got some real live press in a real live widely read publication. You can my rants about the lack of this earlier over here and here. OK, maybe it wasn’t live, but it was a widely read publication. The NY Times to be exact. It seems that the little town of Crandon, WI hosts an event worthy of the Times coverage. Crandon is the home of Footstock, THE endurance barefoot figure eight race to compete it. It features the largest cash prize and the most competitors. Why do the call if Footstock? Seems it is just as much a party atmosphere as the Woodstock was, but the party is about barefooting. Overall, it was a pretty good article, I just can’t get over the photo they chose to run at the top. The footer has just about the worst barefoot form one could have. Legs straight out, bent forward at the waist. Only time this position would really be OK is if you had just completed a ridiculously long run and were dead tired.

On your right, the Chuck Norris Bridge. Yes, that could be something you just might hear if you go to Budapest, Hungary on a tour. Seems they are letting the people pick a famous person to name the bridge after. Who new the Texas Ranger was that popular in Hungary? He is currently leading with 11% of the vote. I would have thought maybe the Mr. T Bridge would be a better choice. I Pity the Fools who get to live on Walker Way near the Norris Bridge. (That was just a really cheesy line so I could type in Pity the Fool… seems that is a made for TV movie coming soon.)

Must-ski Lounge? Well, that’s it for today. Check back soon for some a recap of my adventures from last weekend. Tried a tumble turn, did an obscene amount of skiing over the course of 12 hours, and went to watch the D2 State Champs put on a show at a great little bar in Fox Lake, WI in weather that was way too hot. We partied till late in the night and had way too much fun.

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