A simple thanks

Today, on Veterans Day, I honor my grandfather. And Michael Wendling. And two college friends.

My grandfather served in World War II. I don't know the story behind his service. All I know is that he served overseas, was injured and awarded a Purple Heart. He was a man of few words and didn't speak about his military service and he passed away before I was old enough to realize what he did for our country.

I didn't know Michael Wendling, but I attended his funeral at a hilltop cemetery on a warm October day in 2005. Wendling was killed while serving in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard when a roadside bomb exploded near the Humvee he was driving. The images from that simple, yet powerful, graveside military service are still etched in my mind. And every time I hear a bagpiper play "Amazing Grace," I am reminded of Michael and that day.

My friend Beth spent a year with her National Guard unit deployed to Kuwait and Tim is awaiting a deployment. I can't put into words what their service to our country, both what they've done and that they had to guts to do it, mean to me.

To all the other veterans, thank you.

I wish I had a hockey stick. I would have taken the penalty.

Gotta love hockey.

A cranky old man hit me last night.

I went down to Madison with my friend Amanda last night for our annual hockey outing. I'm a Wisconsin grad and she went to school at Michigan Tech, so whenever the Huskies come to town, we head down to the Kohl Center for a night of checking, fighting, goal scoring and other hockey goodness.

Friday night the Badgers beat Michigan Tech 3-2 and were up 1-0 when the second period started. Then the Badgers got in the goal-scoring groove and jumped out to 2-0 lead by the end of the second period. Just 3 minutes into the third period, Bucky scores again and the students start with the "high school goalie" chants, which quickly turned into "pee wee goalie" chants.

I admit, I'm a bit obsessed with Zambonis.

It was a good night. Five power play goals, a 34-save shutout by sophomore goalie Scott Gudmandson and the Badgers walked away with a 6-0 win and a weekend sweep of the Huskies.

Sounds like a good night. Right? Well it was. Until you factor in the cranky old man.

With 3 minutes left in the game, the student section starts up the "stand up old people" chant. And me? I'd rather stand as I watch a good college basketball, football or hockey game. But because I now fall in the "old people" category and my seats are no longer in the student section, I have to sit. Unless it's halftime during a football game or a goal is scored during a hockey game. Then I'm allowed to stand and cheer.

So last night, I followed the "old people" rules. I sat during the action and jumped out of my seat when the Badgers scored a goal, rejoicing with my fellow fans, calling the Michigan Tech goalie a sieve.

I should have sent Bucky after the cranky old man.

And with the 3 minutes to go, the students started calling for the old people to stand up. Because remember, Bucky was up by 6 goals. All that stood between them and a victory was 3 minutes of going through the motions on the ice.

We were supposed to be happy. Excited.

So we stood. The entire crowd at the Kohl Center, with the exception of Amanda and her son (because remember they were Tech fans) and the handful of Tech fans behind the bench, stood and cheered.

And the cranky old man sitting behind me. He stayed glued to his seat. Sitting. And grumbling. And yelling at me to sit down. I ignored him at first. Seriously. Everyone else in the arena was standing. He kept grumbling. And yelling at me to sit down.

Maybe he thought I was hard of hearing or something. Because all of a sudden?

He hit me.

Not just a polite tap on the elbow. A full fledged smack on the shoulder.

I turned around and glared at him.

"What?"

"Sit down."

"Why? Everyone else is standing. We're winning. Be happy."

"You don't even have people standing in front of you. Sit down," he growled at me.

With a glare, I sat. And felt stupid. Because everyone else remained standing. Except me and the cranky old man. And then I fumed. Seriously, if he didn't want people standing in front of him, he had a few options. Either fork over more cash and get the swanky box seats, save some money and buy seats in the nose bleed section or better yet, stay home and watch the game on television.

So when there was 1 minute left on the clock, I stood. And he grumbled. And yelled at me again. But I stood my ground and continued to stand. And cheer on the Badgers to victory and celebrated with the rest of the Badger faithful.

And the cranky old man? He kept grumbling and got out of his seat with 10 seconds remaining and left the arena before the final horn even sounded.

Hitting another Badger fan, not staying for the end of the game, disobeying the students plea to "stand up old people" and not even bothering to stay and celebrate the victory with the time-honored tradition of "Varsity."

Some Badger fan he is.

A Saturday afternoon update

Yes, yes. It was Indiana. But still, Wisconsin finally beat another Big Ten opponent. I'll take the 55-20 victory over Indiana.

The tire situation? It's fixed. I took my car up to the tire guy this morning. Granted it normally takes me 30 minutes to get to the tire man. Today, because I couldn't take the highway and had to go completely out of my way here in The City on the Water because of the holiday parade (yes, Santa made an appearance here today. Nov. 8), it took me an hour and ten minutes. Crazy.

But my little Ford Focus is now sporting a shiny new tire.

And you know what that means?

It's time to hit the road. Because I'm heading down to Madison for some fun times at a Badger Hockey game. Details to follow tomorrow.

Drop the puck!

A tire update

A tire update. And not a good one.

I took my car to an auto shop today, crossing my fingers they would be able to patch up the hole. I dropped my car off and went to lunch with a co-worker.

Eight boneless wings drenched in Sweet BBQ sauce later, I get a cal from the car place. They had news about my tire.

Not good news.

Apparently there was a cut in the side wall. I dunno. I don't understand cars. I know to put gas in, get an oil change every 3,000 miles and rotate the tires every 6,000 miles. Side walls? Those I don't understand.

But I do know the meaning of the word unrepairable.

And that's what the car man told me about my tire. It was unrepairable. But he could sell me a new one for $96.

Uh, no thanks. Just put my spare tire back on and I'm calling my real tire guy. The one I bought the tires I have on my car a year ago. The tires which are now three good ones and one unrepairable one.

I called my tire guy. Told him what happened. He sounded confused. Apparently it's kind of hard to get a cut in your tire's side wall. But the tire guy? He's going to sell me a new tire. For $60. A deal. Thank you tire guy.

So I'm still riding around with my ghetto looking spare tire on my car until Saturday morning. Then I get my new one. And hopefully this will put an end to my tire problems. Because I think I've dealt with enough of them lately.

There's more than voting on Election Day

On to more important Election Day stuff.

I was a bit confused. It was sunny. And in the mid-70s. And it's November. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I checked, I still lived in Wisconsin. The weather? Crazy. But I'll take it.

Originally I was planning on hitting the YMCA in the early afternoon and logging some miles on the treadmill. But it was way too nice outside to be couped up indoors, running to nowhere. So instead I pulled out my bike. Remember, it's November and the nice biking days are numbered. I hopped on and was only planning on a short ride, somewhere around 6 miles or so. But once I started riding, it was so nice that I didn't want to stop.

So I kept going. Fourteen miles later I pulled back into my driveway and parked my bike, but only because I had an hour to shower, get ready and make it work. The next hour was rushed, but it was so worth it.

That rush kind of prepared me for what was going to come during the rest of the night. Election nights at a newspaper are hectic. You've got a bunch of stuff to do in a limited amount of time. And results never seem to be available by the time deadline rolls around.

Last night I didn't have problems with deadlines or election results.

I had problems with my car.

In the form of a flat tire. Again.

I was standing in the parking lot, talking to one of our photographers about where we were heading to. I was on my way out to Democratic headquarters to do the color piece about the mood at the party, focusing on the presidential election. As we were talking, my eyes wandered over to my car, which was sitting in the same parking spot I left it in two hours before when I got back from a polling location run.

"Does that look like a flat tire to you Joe?"

The photographer just laughs.

The rear passenger side tire on my car? Flat as a pancake. Making my car undriveable. Not a good things when you've got places to go.

Thankfully the photographer offered to take the flat tire off and replace it with my spare. Good thing since I kind of needed my car, not only to get to my assignment, but more importantly to get home at the end of the night.

He used some tools and a jack (which I didn't even know was buried in my trunk) and took the flat tire off and replaced it with that funny looking donut-like spare tire. Twenty minutes and I was set to go.

Now I just need to get the tire patched. Because honestly, I'm not buying another tire. The ones on my car now? They're only a year old. I'm not forking over all that money to replace a perfectly fine tire, even if it has suffered a minor puncture and gone flat as a pancake on election night.

The election, my thoughts

Election Day. It's come, it's gone. I'm not going to go super in-depth, but here are my thoughts.

Yes, I voted. I was voter No. 198 in my ward at 11:30 a.m. There were no lines. I walked in, gave them my name, got my ballot and went to my voting booth. I filled in the circles, fed it to the machine, got my sticker and walked out. Time it took to vote? At most two minutes.

And while I did fill in the circle next to Barack Obama's name, I'm not over the moon happy that he won like so many other people. Yes, there are some things about the man that I like. But there are also things about the man and his ideas that I don't really like. Given other choices, he may not have gotten my vote. But given the candidates I had to choose from, I kind of saw Barack Obama as the lesser of two evils.

Stop throwing stuff at me and hurling insults my way.

Given that he's been chosen by the voters to lead our country for the next four years, I'll give the man a chance. Maybe he'll surprise me.

Remember to vote. And feed the reporters.

You can't have a newsroom full of reporters on Election Night and expect them to survive the night without food. And treats definitely qualify.

So tonight I baked. OK. I admit, the cupcakes? They came from a box. But they're still good. And by this time tomorrow night, they'll look delicious to any reporter in my building. That is, if there are any left. Cupcakes that is. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if a reporter or two went missing as well.

Because on Election Night, you must have food. Preferably treats. And of course pizza.

For those of you who aren't spending Election Day in a newsroom, remember to go out and vote. Because if you don't? You can't complain.

October's reading recap

The reading list for October isn't very long. But that doesn't mean I was slacking.

No. I just happened to choose books that were kind of long. Lots of pages. Lots. Of. Pages. I'm talking about 1,284 pages. An average of 642 pages per books, because I only finished two books.

But that brings the total to 35 books for the year and 12,687 pages. Not too bad. Only a couple more books until I hit my goal of 40 for the year. And pages? I don't think I ever actually set a page goal.

So what did I read in October? Take a look:

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
The Host by Stephenie Meyer

The Other Boleyn Girl was OK. It dragged for a bit, especially in the beginning, but the last 200 or so pages were good. Me? I never realized Anne Boleyn had a sister. And while The Host was good, it was no Twilight series. If I had to choose, I'd rather read about vampires than aliens. But it was a good read.