9 posts tagged “wisconsin”

A couple of weekends ago, we went to Sparta's Butterfest. Sparta is Jess' home town, and being a small city in Wisconsin, it was only natural that its annual fair be named after a dairy product.

While the fair itself was mostly rained out, the sun was out for the parade on the Sunday. Being my first real parade in the good ol' US of A, I was not fully prepared for the Shriners (aka Freemasons) in their little cars; the barage of sweets and chocolate milk; or the local Republican candidate handing out flyers that just said his name and that he's Pro-Life. I kid you not.

It was actually pretty fun, sitting on the pavement in little chairs, clapping and watching the assorted floats, vintage emergency services vehicles and marching bands go by. The only similar thing I can really recall enjoying was Lewes Bonfire Night back home.

This weekend in Chicago, we're getting a different kind of fest - Chicago Pride - and Jess and I are going to the parade on Sunday. Of course, having been to another parade, I am wondering what the gays could possibly do to top fez-wearing go kart drivers and one-note, Right Wing politicians. Will they throw condoms and arseless leather chaps into the throngs of spectators? Will they have the characters from The Wizard Of Oz driving little penis-shaped go karts? I can only hope.

While I do jest, it's still amazing to me that Chicago is such a gay-friendly city. I always assumed the US was still very homophobic based on their reluctance to endorse civil unions and so forth.

What's on your "To-Do" list today? What are you most looking forward to and what are you most dreading?

- Shave... as in clean shave... for the first time in months. Jess may like the permastubble, but it itches bad enough as it is, without the heat and humidity. CHECK.
- Be awesome. CHECK.
- Ivan Lendl's nationality. CZECH.

Other than that, it's all about finishing up my half of my current project; seeing REM/Modest Mouse/The National, and doing late night laundry ahead of a weekend away.

This weekend has been... yeah, it's been alright.

Jess made last minute plans to go up and visit her mum in Wisconsin - her mum just had surgery and needed an extra pair of hands, plus they haven't seen each other since Christmas and there's been... stuff in between then and now. I was going to go to some event downtown with co-workers but between the weather and being tired, I lamed out and had an early night.

On Saturday, my friends Jim, James and Nick from back home wanted to play some Mario Kart Wii online. We set up a video chat session on Skype, buggered about forever getting our accounts connected on Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service then played and chatted for a couple of hours. Although Nintendo's online system is absolutely retarded and as un-user-friendly as it gets, it was good fun.

Other than that, I watched a ton of VH1 countdown shows, played some Grand Theft Auto IV online (which, by the way, was infinitely simpler than the Nintendo solution) then had an early night.

I started my Sunday by watching the Radiohead special, followed by more GTA IV; a trip outside to pick up a package/trade in some games/get supplies; yet more GTA IV; rubbish TV, and so forth. Now I'm having a relatively early night ahead of work tomorrow.

I won't see Jess till after work. Bo.

And now I shall try to sleep in spite of the screaming morons outside.

Jess and I woke up pretty hungover this morning. We packed everything into the car, cats included, made a quick detour then collected Zach from his grandparents'.

The drive from there to Jen's place was extremely treacherous as we were basically driving through blizzard conditions - the snow was bucketing down and obscuring our view. Other than stopping midway for some food, we just kept at it, rarely passing 40mph. It was lucky we were so careful as we passed a ton more cars, lorries and pickup trucks either flipped over or stuck in the ditch.

We finally got Zach home and both Jen and Jess were worried about us driving the rest of the way as it was supposed to be much worse further south according to practically everyone. After watching the Weather Channel, I insisted we chance it as south of Milwaukee looked clear. Reluctantly, Jess agreed (her reluctance was because she is the one who has to drive, poor thing).

It was pretty much a piece of piss once we got out of Wisconsin. The roads were clear other than a few idiots who thought they were Nigel Mansell and once we got home, we got everything unloaded super-fast. We had trouble finding parking in our 'hood but we lucked out eventually.

Everything's unpacked now, so we're going to top up the meter by the car and get some food before we pass out.

Dear god... tonight we went out with Jess' dad, Jeff, and her step-mum Janelle. I am fucking rat arsed. They're great people. We met them at their place before heading to dinner at a pub near their place. From there, we crawled three bars in town and I am super-wasted after several beers and a few White Russians.

The last bar we ended up in had karaoke. In between Jess and Janelle rocking Madonna, Cheap Trick and stuff, we endured this ultra-white guy singing R Kelly and KCi and Jo-Jo songs, and some girls doing country classics. Odd.

I need water and a lay down. Peace, y'all.

So I'm sat here in the armchair of our huge motel room. Out my window, pretty much everything I see is covered in a blanket of thick white snow. The Shell station nearby proudly states that it sells Amish cheese. Welcome to Wisconsin.

We set off from Chicago very early on Sunday morning in our rental car (a Toyota Matrix, whatever the hell that is) with the cats in the back. Chicago was blowing a gale to do its nickname proud, but we didn't hit snow till we got further north in Illinois. And then we hit it big time. The deeper we got into the dairy state, the more treacherous the roads became - eventually slowing us down as we passed cars, SUVs and other vehicles all nose down in the ditches beside us. We were the fortunate ones.

Other than the change of pace and lots of confused mewling from Chloe and Midas, we made Madison in good time and headed straight to Jess's mum Jen's house.

We went for lunch and shopping, then headed back for an evening of snacking, board games and gift-swapping. I was very, very spoilt. Jen and I thrashed Jess and Zach at Cranium after an aborted game of The Game Of Life (the recent edition is way more complicated than I remember it, pointlessly so) and then we crashed.

This morning, we got up fairly early, packed up the car and headed west to our second destination. The snow is a lot worse out here, but the roads were pretty clear most of the way bar an overturned truck.

We're up here until Friday. My first Christmas in America is a white one, with lots of travelling.

That's Latin, not a Harry Potter spell.

I have less than forty-eight hours before I leave work for my Christmas break - I leave at lunchtime on Friday and don't come back till New Year's Eve. That's a good nine and a half days away from the office. I'll be working just four days that week before Jess and I head to St Croix in the Virgin Islands with our friends Amber and Shannon for a belated honeymoon.

I cannot wait. I get to spend one week in a very cold place and one in a very warm place.

As we're spending my first American Christmas in Wisconsin with Jess' family, we'll open the lion's share of our presents on Saturday. It doesn't make sense to drag all of our presents all that way and back when we'll have two cats, several days' worth of clothes, gifts for other people and various gizmos filling up the rental car.

I am very excited to open the huge present that's currently sat in our office, and might take that one with me if we have space. Ahem.

Although I'm taking my laptop and my Sprint mobile broadband thingy, I will more than likely not be online too much while we're away as we'll be visiting and hanging out with people. And that's where the Vox Silentium comes in. See? My post titles make sense!

If I don't speak to those of you who read this before, I wish you all a cool Christmas, a killer Kwanzaa, a happy Hanukkah and a great whatever other religious observance you might undertake in the next few weeks.

I have raved about Maritime before. They are a wonderful band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin that formed out of the ashes of The Promise Ring.

Their third album, Heresy And The Hotel Choir, hits stores on 16 October and I have been enjoying a leaked copy all this weekend. Although not as thoroughly wonderful as their last album - We, The Vehicles - it's still one of the best things I have heard this year.

Here are some selections from it.

Are you taking a vacation this summer (or this season)?  Where are you headed and who's going with you?

Well, we're going back to Wisconsin for Memorial Day weekend (next weekend). I really, really want to go to the Wisconsin Dells and Six Flags this summer. Other than that, we've not made any solid plans yet, but it would be nice to check out one of the major cities I haven't seen such as Boston, DC or anywhere in California.