Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Cougar In The Falls

Yes, that is right, we have had a cougar sighting here in the Falls. Actually, I believe it was WAY out on the fringes of the village. For the last month or so there have been reports popping up about a cougar in the area being spotted on trailcams. There was even a report on the news showing someone’s doorbell cam with the big cat walking right up on the stoop and looking in the front window of a home in Brookfield. The news report listed a name, so I checked the whitepages online and if that name was correct, the cougar was right in the heart of Brookfield, just off of Capitol Drive.

The DNR has been sort of blowing it off I think. By the time they actually release a statement confirming the sighting, it has been at least a week. I have heard some other “expert” on TV say it is irresponsible for authorities not to be treating this as a very serious situation, like having a serial killer stalking the area. I think that it is probably somewhere in between. I think it is a sign of a healthy ecosystem that we have a big cat roaming about, and since I am not outside at nighttime, I don’t have to worry much, but it is something to be watchful of. Maybe one night while I am driving Ali around to her cheer or tumbling practice, we’ll see it roaming around an empty farmer’s field.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Stepping on a Possum

You read that correctly, a possum. Tonight as I was about to run a bag of garbage out to the garage, I opened the back door, and I was about to step outside, when I saw a slow, lumbering body of what I believe was a possum, right under the door on the stoop. It was moving to my right, toward the driveway. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I would have stepped right on its back.

I say that it looked like a possum, because I didn’t get a real good look at it. It was grey and white, and about what I would consider to be “normal size” for a possum you would see waddling about on the ground, But it didn’t have the nasty, scraggly fur. At least it didn’t appear to be furry. It looked to me to be almost bald, or have VERY short hair. Either way, it walked right off the stoop and down the step. I didn’t see if it went across the driveway toward the neighbor’s house, or if it hugged the side of our house and turned the corner toward the street. Either way… good riddance! I hate possums!

Saturday, February 17, 2018

iPad Update

Since we got the new iPad, I haven’t had much time to sit and figure it out. But now that we are home from Ali’s Nationals I have a little time to look into getting it set up and working, and boy it is different than a normal windows O/S. First, I was under the assumption that I could get a detachable keyboard and treat it like a laptop. WRONG! What I have found out is that an iPad will not serve 100% as a replacement for a desktop computer, but more as a supplement. Or maybe the desktop serves as the supplement to the iPad. Either way, it doesn’t look as if the iPad can be a stand alone replacement for the old desktop computer. That is revelation number one.

Second, I discovered that linking, or syncing, to Kris’s existing iTunes account basically transfers everything from her phone to the iPad. So now when messages come to her, or she gets email on her phone, it also shows up on the iPad. Which means I need to look into how to shut off notifications. I am beginning to wonder if getting an iPad was a good idea.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Concussed?

Ali came home from practice tonight and informed us that she got kicked in the head and she had a really bad headache. So the question becomes, did she get a concussion? I really don’t want to run her to the doctor just to have him tell me, “yeah, she got hit in the head, it is going to hurt”. But I also don’t want to find out later she had a concussion and we didn’t do anything about it. Although sometimes I wonder how critical concussion protocol really is. I remember getting concussed in high school and yea, it sucked at the time. But it was also something that my coaches were able to notice right away. But I didn’t have to sit out for days waiting to be cleared. It was, “are you feeling better? Then back to work…”

I think she’ll be fine, but with State coming up in a couple of weeks, we’ll have to keep a close eye on her. Better safe than sorry.

Monday, February 12, 2018

Southwest Experience

I know that Southwest Airlines is a discount airline, and I accept a few inconveniences such as the cattle call to board. But I will say that our experience with Southwest this year going to the UCA Nationals was head and tails better than what we had to deal with flying on Frontier last year. The flight last year was fine, but the process of getting our boarding passes to checking luggage with Frontier was a nightmare. Flying from Milwaukee was OK, but coming back from Orlando last year was an experience I hope I never have to repeat. Last year we got to the airport and had to wait in line for about 40 minutes just to check our bags, and then another half an hour (at least) to get thru TSA.

This year we dropped off our car (which took 5 minutes) and got into the terminal to check in. It took a minute to figure out where the Southwest desk was, but in doing so we saw the Frontier line. It was at least as bad as last year, if not worse. With southwest, we went down, did self check-in. Put the tags on our bags, dropped them at the counter, and we were on our way. Total time was about 10 minutes (if that). Then I think we got lucky going thru TSA. We only had about a 10 minute wait.


And again, going in and out of Milwaukee isn’t bad (I don’t think) with whatever airline you choose, the problem is when you go to another city (like Orlando) with a huge international airport and then have to deal with their desks, and employees. So say what you want about not getting an assigned seat, or having to scramble to line up for the boarding locations, but I’ll take Southwest any day!

Sunday, February 11, 2018

The Oldest City in the USA

Since the girls didn’t make the finals rounds for day two, Kris and I decided we would drive up to St. Augustine for a little sightseeing. I know they have the old Spanish fort and I also thought it would be cool to see the Fountain of Youth. And I thought they would have a few other things to do there that we would just be able to do on a whim once we got there. I looked it up and found something about the fort, punched it into the Garmin, and we were on our way!

It turned out to be about a two hour drive, but I figured since we didn’t have anything else to do, it wouldn’t really matter. I thought that I would try a “shortcut” and take an earlier exit to get to the fort. I was reading something about taking a ferry to it, which I don’t remember at all (I remember visiting the fort when I was about seven and there was no ferry involved). But I thought that maybe they had changed something. It turns out the fort I had looked up was Fort Matanzas, however the fort I was thinking of was the Castillo de San Marcos. I followed the directions and we drove past the turn for Fort Matanzas. It was sort of in the middle of nowhere and I thought, this can’t be right, so we kept going, and I asked Kris to look it up on her phone. It took about another half an hour to get there, but we finally arrived at Castillos de San Marcos in the historic district of St. Augustine.

The tour was about what you would expect. There were people dressed up in 16th century Spanish army uniforms who gave a 15-20 minute speech/presentation of the fort and the duties the soldiers performed there, then they fired off their cannon. After that we got to wander around, in and out of rooms. It was interesting that it was actually an active fort up until the end of the Spanish-American war, and that there were (5) different flags that have flown over the fort since it was built.











When we were done with walking around the fort (you can only look around so long, and I don’t think that Kris or her aunt found it as interesting as I did) we took a walk across the street to what looked like a small, narrow alley, that was filled with little shops in what looked like 18th century buildings. We walked in and out looking at things. We got Sarah a couple of trinkets in a Native American (aka First Nation) shop specializing in turquoise and silver jewelry. We bought her some spiritual stones that were supposed to bring her good luck.

When we were done walking around the shops we moved about a mile up the road to the official Fountain of Youth. 

 
(Interestingly, this spot was also featured in Expedition Unknown’s episode on The Secret and buried treasure in America). There wasn’t a whole lot to do here, but we did go in and get a small Dixie cup of water from the Fountain of Youth (Do I look younger?).





It was actually a little "sulfury" smelling and didn't taste all that good.  But since life expectancy in Europe at the time of Ponce de Leon was only something like 35-40, and the natives in Florida were quite a bit older, so they figured it had to be the water.  

There was also a planetarium show that depicted what it would have been like for Ponce De Leon to navigate by the stars to the New World. When that was done we took a slow walk around the park. There is an active excavation going on where they are exploring a native settlement that was actually on that property 400-500 years ago. 






When we were done, of course they have you “exit thru a gift shop”. Nothing but cheap trinkets, so we didn’t purchase anything.  Maybe I should have bottled up some of that young water for later on.

If we had more time, I could have spent the entire day going around St. Augustine. We didn’t even go to the Pirate Treasure Museum, or the Lightner Museum. We had to get to my parents’ house for dinner and it was a good 90 minute drive to get there. Add to it that I was lost as far as which roads to take to get there, and we had a long drive ahead of us. Maybe that will be on a list of things to do on future trips to FL.

Disney Isn’t Fun Anymore

I love DisneyWorld. I love all the movies (well most of the movies), I love just walking around the parks and watching people. However, as I mentioned earlier, this year’s trip to the Disney Theme Parks was just not fun. You are not supposed to be grumpy walking around the “Happiest Place on Earth”. I am not 100% sure why that is, but I have a theory.

 When we were younger and we were taking Sarah and Alison to Disney, our “fun” was in seeing them have a good time. The girls loved going on the rides, meeting the characters, and watching the parades. As parents, we put up with the crowds, the pushing, the rudeness, the long waits, and all the rest just to make sure that our children have a wonderful, memorable time.

Well, this time around we did not have children with us, so there was no payoff. We were forced to deal with the rudeness of people (won’t say who) at the parks and put up with long lines, and pushing thru crowds, and having attractions breakdown which forced longer wait times. It was just a lot of hassle with no reward at the end. Sure, the Haunted Mansion was awesome, as was Peter Pan, and Pirates. But the time spent at Animal Kingdom seemed like a waste, and the same with EPCOT. I think that next year if Ali makes it to Nationals, we’ll just skip going to the Parks and just hang around the hotel. Or maybe go someplace we haven’t been, like Universal Studios, or even back to Sea World. It isn’t like there is nothing else to do in Orlando. However, the new Star Wars land is going to be opening soon, but aside from that, I think it may be time to skip Disney for a while.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

A Bad Day Getting Worse

If failing to make it to the semi-final round wasn’t bad enough, we ran into a bit of bad luck ourselves. Kris had a Holloway warm up jacket with the Falls “F” logo that said Falls cheer when we walked in, but didn’t have it when we walked out. It was her favorite jacket and we couldn’t get a replacement because it was a special, limited time fund-raising gear purchase. We went back into the venue looking for it, went to the lost and found at the ESPN complex to see if perhaps someone turned it in… no luck. So a bad day just got worse.

The lost and found people had her fill out a form describing her jacket with her name, address, and phone number. If someone were to end up turning it in, they would call us, or if we weren’t at Disney anymore, they would have it sent back to us. So there is a slim chance it could show up, but we are not holding out much hope. So in addition to the crappy day/time we were already having, now Kris didn’t have a jacket. This was also the jacket she wore on the plane, so it is going to be cold going home Monday morning. This whole trip has just been a drag!

A Bitter Pill

This year’s performance at UCA Nationals ended up being a bitter pill for Alison and her team. But more on that shortly. First, let’s go over the day leading up to the ESPN Complex at Disney. First off, Kris and I were not in a good mood due to reasons/situation beyond our control. And part of it was due to Ali not performing until about 3:00 in the afternoon. Last year they were in the first group/session and they performed around 10:00 AM. So this year there was a lot of waiting around before they went on. Second, was the venue. Last year they performed in a large, field tent. I didn’t think it was all that bad, but this year ESPN built an entirely new “arena” and all the performances were in there. The only problem is that the arena was separated into (4) different areas, North, South, East, and West, each one color coded. We found our area, and tried to find a place to sit. It was a zoo! We gradually made our way over from one spot on the very edge/side of the arena to a place pretty close to the center of the seating area. But that took forever.

Then, one HUGE complaint about the venue… there was no cell service, so we had to use the wifi in the arena. Unfortunately, because there were about 2000 teenage girls (and some boys) in addition to the parents and spectators, there was not enough bandwidth/capacity to handle everyone wanting to use the wifi. We were trying to get in touch with my parents to let them know where to go and where we were, but couldn’t connect. ARGH! Also, since all four areas were in the same place with only curtains and some flimsy dividers separating them, we could hear the music and cheering from other sessions that were going on while teams from our session were performing. It was very distracting and made it very hard to watch the teams.

So, now with all that being said…. Here is the Menomonee Falls Indians Cheer 2018 UCA performance:



It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. Unfortunately, they also got put into a very difficult session, so they had to be almost perfect in their performance. They weren’t. When it was all said and done and the scores came in, the Falls was not announced as making it to the semi-finals, which is a bitter pill to swallow after last year’s relative success. I think that it is easier to accept when you perform your best and other teams are just better than you. This performance was not one of their best and I think they all felt they could have done better.

Then afterward, Ali was being a little brat. She didn’t want to talk to us, or her grandparents. She was pouting and walking around doing her own thing. It sort of made me mad, and I laid into her when I finally tracked her down, and I don’t feel bad about it. In the end when the coach reported what the scoresheets were, she told us that they just missed out on making it to the next round. I forget how many teams were in their session, but they were something like a half a point away from making it to the next round. I think they took the top 12 or 13 teams, and they finished in 14th place. Don’t quote me though, but it was in that neighborhood. I am sure they got over it after a couple of hours. At least now they can just enjoy the rest of their time at Disney.

Friday, February 9, 2018

Disney Is Crowded

Since we came down on a Thursday, we had a day to kill before going to ESPN SportsZone for Ali’s competition. This year, we bought a park hopper pass that would also get us into the competition, so the plan for Friday was to go around the Disney Parks. We still weren’t sure if we were going to need a pass for Sunday, but figured, if we did, we would have it, and if not, we could always just decided to stay in Orlando and hit the parks again Sunday. Since we were staying at an Animal Kingdom resort, we planned on driving to Animal Kingdom and seeing a couple of things there, then taking one of the Disney shuttles to some of the other Parks.

Animal Kingdom opened at 9:00 so the plan was to leave about 8:45 let the push of people getting in the minute the gates opened get thru and then we’d be in the next wave of patrons, so to speak. It only took about 5 minutes to get to the Animal Kingdom parking lots, but it took another 15-20 minutes to actually get in and get parked. And even then, we were quite a distance away. Who would have thought that Disney would have been so crowded on a Friday in February???? And it only got worse from there. The wait times for some of the more popular attractions were about an hour, and most of the ones we really wanted to do we were unable to get fastpasses for because they had all been given out for the day. And the ones we could get (like the Haunted Mansion) were all later in the evening. I have to say that overall, this Disney experience was not one of the better ones we have had. It would almost rival the Christmas trip of 2016.

Thursday, February 8, 2018

First Time Driving

Ali was leaving for the airport at 3:45 AM so I thought it would be the perfect time to let her drive.  There wouldn’t be anyone on the road and therefore no chance of messing up traffic.  That was true, but it was also a little sketchy.  She did a good job maintaining her speed at the posted limit, but she has a tendency to “drift” to the right.  I had to tell her two or three times to turn the wheel to get back to the middle of her lane.  I can see that is going to be something we need to work on.  Backing up was also a challenge.  As we were going out of the driveway, she asked, “which way do I turn the wheel?”  And then when we finally got to school, she had no idea where to park and ended up parking in four different spots at once.  And this was in an empty lot!  I have no idea how she is ever going to be able to figure out how to pull into a parking stall with cars around her!

This is definitely going to be a fun next six months! 

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Learner's Permit

Today is 6 months out from Alison’s 16th birthday, which means it is the first day that she is eligible to get her learner’s permit.  Ali did all of her classwork online, so even though she ended up passing her “test” at the end of the class, she still had to take her test at the DMV before she could get her temps.  I am pretty sure that with Sarah we just had to show up and give them a check, because she took a two week course after school for an hour a day and then passed the test at the end of it.

We got there right when the DMV opened.  There were a bunch of other people there already when we got there at 8:28, so I assumed they had opened the doors.  Nope!  I suppose, being a government agency, they have a HARD opening and closing time.  Not a second earlier, nor a second past the posted times would they remain open.

Once we got to the info desk and gave the person working there our paperwork, Ali got her number.  We only had to wait for a couple of minutes before they called her.  Then when we went to the window, the woman behind the counter had her do her vision test and I think a couple of other things before sending her off to a different room to take her test.  Before going though, she had to leave her phone with me.  The lady was very helpful, but was a low talker.  Why is it that the DMV always has people like that working there?

I thought it might take about a half an hour or so, but she was done in about 10 minutes.  She ended up with a 46/50, and there were at least two questions she was mad that she missed, because she knew the answer, but the question was a graphical one and the picture they showed with the question was very confusing (according to her).  Knowing how things at the DMV work, I wouldn’t doubt it.

The longest part of the day at the DMV was waiting to get her permit.  They called her right away to get her photo taken, but then we had to wait for over half an hour to be called to go back up to the counter to pay the fee and get the paper copy of her temps.  Then when we got back up to the window (we had the same lady who helped us the first time) the lady made her take the vision test again.  Apparently she either forgot, or forgot to note on her paperwork that she already passed.  Again, who would have ever thought a DMV employee would do that?  It wasn’t a big deal, but just more typical of what one would expect from the DMV and why they get a bad rap.




It took a little while, but we finally got it, and we were back to school by 10:00.  I asked if she wanted to drive home, but she thought it would be better if I drove.  We were on a little bit of a tight schedule because she was only excused until 10:00, so it was probably best that I drove back home.  Now the fun starts, being the passenger while she drives and not freaking out.

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Driving Lesson

Alison is going this week to get her learner’s permit.  In fact, she’ll be getting it (fingers crossed) the day before we leave for Nationals.  After their competition, she went to a friend’s house who was having a party to hang out for a few hours.  I had to pick her up at midnight (since she can’t drive) and with the snow we were getting the roads were very, very empty.  I thought this would be a good chance for a driving lesson.  She could get some experience driving in the snow as well as some time actually on the road with very little traffic.  Plus, with the snow, she’d have to drive slowly and with no other cars out we wouldn’t need to worry about holding up any other traffic. 

It was probably about five miles to her friend’s house.  But when I picked her up, she said she didn’t want to drive the whole way, but would do about half.  So when we got about halfway, I pulled over and let her get behind the wheel.  She didn’t do too badly, though we did do a little bit of drifting.  I am not sure if that was because she couldn’t see the centerline of the road, or if the bumps in the road were causing the car to slide around a little bit, or if she was drifting on her own.  I told her to do her best to keep the tires aligned with the tracks already in the snow.  Then we came to almost a complete stop when making the turn onto our road, and when she went to turn into our driveway, she overshot and missed.  I never realized that making a turn was so difficult.  Turns will definitely be a skill we will need to work on coming up.

Disappointing Finish


Last year Ali’s team had a great warm-up for the Nationals competition at Disney with a big 1st place finish at the Brookfield Blast.  This year was quite a different story.  They took 4th out of the four teams competing in their division.  Not a very inspiring finish heading into Nationals next week.

I will say that their performance left a little something to be desired.  One girl missed a bunch of her moves and another girl shorted one of her tumbling moves so I am pretty confident that they didn’t deserve to finish first.  However, one of the other teams fell three times during their routine, and I would have put them on the same level as our girls.  They finished 2nd.  The third place team was very generic and uninspiring.  It was a pretty simple routine, and I don’t know how they finished ahead of Ali’s team with such a simple routine.

One of the problems was that one of the girls suffered a concussion in the week leading up to the competition, so they had to have another girl step in and learn her part in two days of practice.  But she wasn’t the reason for the flubs.  Personally, I don’t think the one girl who fell is very good.  I think that she is told she is good by her parents, and she doesn’t listen to her coach (but that is just my opinion).  The girl who cut her tumbling apparently possibly has a concussion as well.  She hit her head late last week, and is dealing with headaches, but she still competed.  Because of this, there seems to be some discord running thru the team right now, which is just not good since they are competing at Disney in a week.  Unfortunately, is isn’t inspiring any confidence in getting to the semi-finals this year.  I hope the girls can pull things together, but I am not sure what their chances are going to be.

Thursday, February 1, 2018

New Logo?


Earlier this year, we had a Cheer merchandise store open to buy shirts, jackets, etc. to support Alison’s cheerleading team, and help raise money for her trip to Nationals. To put it bluntly, the options sucked! We were told we had to go thru a site/company “approved” by the school and athletic dept. It made me think that someone, somewhere was getting some sort of kickback. The stuff was so generic, I don’t know why I ended up getting anything at all.

So fast forward to December when one of the other cheerleading parents decided to go thru the company they used last year for their fundraiser clothing to get some cool new gear. I mentioned that I had some ideas for a cool logo that would be unique to the cheer team, and not associated with the school at all. My thought was that if you wanted something with just the school logo on it, getting something that just said “cheer” or “cheerleading” is not very marketable. What HS boy is going to want to wear a cheerleading shirt? So you have to design something that EVERYONE will want to wear, not just cheerleading parents. That being said, I sent a few ideas to the parent running it, and she thought one of them was very cool, and very unique. I mentioned that she should make sure we could use it, because it was a depiction of an indian head, which of course is forbidden by the spineless school board. The principal supposedly looked at it and gave his blessing. So the day after Christmas links were sent out, and then promptly shut down because Ali’s coach informed the parent that the logo was not allowed because it did have an indian head incorporated into it.

You be the judge.

My thought on it is first of all, this is not “offensive” and secondly, No one is going to tell me what I can and can’t wear when it comes to a t-shirt, or a sweat shirt. If I wore a Cleveland Indians shirt, or Washington Redskins shirt, would they kick me out of the gym? The parent updated the link and options for merchandise to remove my design, but I still think I may look for a site online where I can have something made, if for no other reason than to say screw you, I’ll wear what I want! Hopefully I can get this sketch cleaned up and sent someplace to have a shirt or sweatshirt made up before Nationals.

I actually think this would be a very unique, new design that looks much better and marketable than the ridiculous “F” logo. Mainly because we are Menomonee Falls, not Falls! I should trademark it so if anyone wants to possibly use it in the future, I get paid!  At the very least I may buy a couple of plain shirts and see how much it would cost to get it put on.