Our family camping trip last weekend was a lot of fun. It's the second time we have gone to this place. We like it because it's well maintained, quiet, and you can walk to the beach. Aside from the mosquitoes biting us at the campsite and the horse flies biting us at the beach, I would say everything went without a hitch. 

Erik always wants to stay up late enough to see all the stars. He always makes it late enough to see about half of them, and then a mere minutes after he falls asleep there are double. He did his darndest this time with a bunch of glow items to play with, but eventually he said, "I'm so tired. I'm sorry I couldn't stay up late enough." I reassured him that I was proud of him for listening to his body, and he was under no obligation to stay up any later than he wanted or needed to. He's an awesome kid.

The other day I played a bunch of tennis for probably the first time in at least 15 years. I met up with a couple of friends that I was playing online team trivia with. One guy I know pretty well, but for the other guy it was the first time I met him in person. He is really cool and gave me two really good tips that I'm going to use.

1. He had tires on his bike that don't require any air in them. To me it would be worth it to put those on to never have to worry about a flat or puncture, and to never have to go through the time of checking the PSI and pumping up before a ride. 

2. He also shared with me that he is coming up on one year sober. He said that he has had trouble supplementing one addiction for another, and his nicotine consumption went way up, sometimes in the form of Snus nicotine pouches. So, he found tea bags that you put under your lip, and the only drug in there is caffeine. I must admit that I throw a snus in from time to time, and I know it's a horrible habit. I'll be at a baseball game, for instance, and then decide at a certain inning that I'll just snus up for the remainder of the game to cut off the booze intake. But that strategy would turn out to be a terrible one if I ended up getting mouth, throat, or any other kind of cancer as a result. So, I ordered up a four pack of tea packets to try out. 

The tennis itself was mostly pretty terrible, but we had some pretty solid volleys from time-to-time, had a lot of fun, and got some good outdoor exercise. The courts have some cracks and weeds growing out of the ground, but courts few people know about that are right on the lake with this view are an amazing find.

What is really funny is how there are apartment buildings just beyond the fence on the other side, so if you accidentally launch a homerun (something you don't want) over the fence, you can land your ball right on someone's balcony or porch. Those folks probably never have to buy their own tennis balls. 

Tomorrow night I'll be heading out for a "guy's night" over by Choo Choo Train's place. It will be the first time all of us guys have been in the same place together since the Covid hit. I have Desi's first birthday party the next morning, so I plan on implementing the tea pouch technique at a certain hour so that I'm not a hungover sack of doo-doo at my own kid's party. 

Fare thee well, Seven Readers. 

Random Photo Gallery

 Hey, check out what the Noisewater family has been up to via series of photographs, like in the old days when you went to somebody's house and they pulled out their damn slide projector. Hey, quick side bar (slide bar?) story - I remember as a kid we traveled to Florida and my dad got in contact with a very eccentric man that he used to work with. We were back at his house and he says, "Hey, you want to see my pictures from India when I went to the Sex Temples of Virupaksha?* No one said "no thanks" in time, so he giddily fired up that slide projector and up on the big screen came a series of shots of ancient sculptures engaging in kinky sex in a variety of positions and groupings. I was like 9-years-old. Learning a lot. Anyway, here are my very G Rated Slides. 

* That may not be the name of the sex temples he visited, but he knew the name of it. I just searched on Google, found a link for 7 Sex Temples in India and picked the funniest name.

** I copy and pasted the name of the temple and it changed the font and it made a weird highlighted thing over this section of the post. I tried fixing it and made it worse. Let's look at some pictures, shall we?

On Saturday morning I took Erik with me for a socially distanced yoga class that a friend teaches by the lake. She hits you with a lot of cardio and strength stuff, so you're really banged up when it's over. Plus it's a chance to sort of connect with people, even if you're not talking with them a whole lot. Erik got bored with the iPad, ran out of snacks, got bored of looking at boats, got bored with the three or for poses he attempted, and then at minute 40 of the 60 minute class I decided that he lasted a lot longer than most 3-year-olds would have given the circumstances, so we hopped back on the bike and headed out. 

For being such a good sport at yoga I rewarded him by finding a park with water sprayers. He's the guy with the mask. I would say about 2 out of 10 people at the park had masks on. Erik is a solid dude. Never complains about wearing it. And I think a lot of parents with more than one kid will tell you that when you give a kid some time with just him and a parent, they are so wonderful to be around. He isn't competing for attention with his brother, his mother, or anybody. We were just hanging, and he was a blast to be with. 

On Sunday we didn't feel like going anywhere, so we locked ourselves and the kids in our crummy little urban front yard area with bubbles, baseballs, a bat, a volleyball, a couple of chairs, and a couple of beers. That's Desmond in the picture. He is coming up on 1-year-old and can pull himself up to stand, as you can see. I thought this picture was funny because he looks like an exhibit at a zoo. The "yard" is mostly weeds and dirt, so he was a mess after crawling around there for the better part of an hour.

Mrs. Noisewater is most certainly the artist of the family, but by god if Erik wanted a rocket ship, I was going to draw him one. Notice the Transformers shirt. The kid knows his 1980's Transformers trivia, and it's damn impressive.

This is the whole Noisewater famn damily in our Chicago Blackhawks outfits ready for the big game. I have been so sports starved with everything cancelled that I am going absolutely batty, yes I chose that word on purpose, over my Hawks. They won the game that night and advanced to the next round, probably directly correlated to Desmond's Patrick Kane jersey with the belly flopping out. 

What's new with you, Seven Readers? Go ahead an answer one, two, or all of these: Ever been to the sex temples? Ever endured someone's vacation videos or slides? Got any sports teams you've been supporting? Got any exercise programs you have been trying to stick to?

Just some random updates, some funny things and things that are going on with with Dr. Kenneth Noisewater . . .

1. Mrs. Noisewater, Erik Noisewater, and myself just got back from Pittsburgh. We like to visit cities that we feel might be misunderstood and/or underrated. Cleveland really surprised us not too long ago, and Pittsburgh is similar. I'm a big Cubs fan, so we caught a Pirates versus Cubs game at PNC Park. The view from our seats with the backdrop of the skyline was breathtaking. I bought myself one of those old school Pirates hats with the yellow stripes going around because I have always dug that look, perhaps more due to Rocky George from Suicidal Tendencies than because of Willie Stargell and the like.

That's Rocky on the far right, obviously

Willie wore it well too.

We also took Baby Noisewater to a children's museum with a Thomas the Train exhibit, and he just about lost his mind. We don't let him watch all that much television, but when you're you're stuck on an airplane or need to get some stuff done around the house, you got to put Thomas on for the kid. He only has a handful of toy Thomas trains, and one of them is a random white train that has magnets to connect to Thomas but does not seem to be officially affiliated with the franchise. I felt bad that he didn't have a name on his underbelly like the other guys, so I started calling him Steve. Now Baby Noisewater refers to him as "Steve" or "Big Steve," and it's hilarious. I keep telling him that it's bullshit that Big Steve is never featured on the cartoon show. Maybe we had best pen a letter to the network upon Steve's behalf to get him some damn air time. 

2. Sometimes when I come home late at night with too many beers in my belly and need to stay up drinking some water before heading to bed so I don't have a 3 day old man hangover I will watch a bunch of Youtube videos. Sometimes it will be a comedian I like and a million of his/her routines or talk show appearances. Sometimes it will be guitar solos from a band I like, especially when there is very limited footage of them and I have to do detective missions. And most recently it is two Black guys who are self-proclaimed hip hop fans with very limited knowledge of heavy metal music having live reactions to metal music for the first time. 

They blow me away because I have heard some of these songs a million times and don't even think of an observation that occurs to them the first time they hear it. They are very likable dudes, they listen to everything with an open mind, and they really seems to know about and appreciate all kinds of music. Below are a couple of good examples. I like the Megadeth one because the one guy says the song kicks like a porno with zero dialogue or foreplay, just smashing, and then he does a graphic sex noise with his hands. 

Then I like the Mercyful Fate one because of their reaction to King Diamond's high pitched otherworldly voice. It's not a sound you would expect someone to love the first time, so I like how they keep it real, admit it's weird and funny for them, but still give the song a chance.

3. So the other day Mrs. Noisewater are driving home from a BBQ, and I hear a not quite 2-year-old Erik Noisewater in the backseat saying "vagina, vagina, vagina" like 10 times in a row. I asked the Mrs, "Is he saying vagina?" She said that he came in while she was changing the other day and started pointing at her and asking questions. She thought it best to just tell him the real terms, but what we didn't know is that he would be obsessed with all the naughty parts. Every time I lay him down to change him, without fail, he says "wiener and butt," pointing to the correct places. Then one day I take my shirt off in front of him and he says "boobies." That was a blow to my confidence for sure. So anyway, he's in the backseat saying vagina 19 times, and then he says pizza around 12 times. I said to Mrs. Noisewater, "Vagina and pizza? He's planning one hell of a weekend back there." Mrs. Noisewater laughed and said that should go in the blog, so there it is.

Fare thee well, Blog Buddies. 

Vacation In a Tiny But Mighty State, Too Much Darn Running, My Aching Back, and The Mats

1. Vacation in a Tiny but Mighty State

We just got back from a vacation with Mrs. Noisewater's family in Rhode Island. Her brother rents out a beach house for us every year for us all to get together and be beach bums for a week. It is good for Baby Noisewater to see his cousin (who is close in age to him) for an extended period of time, since his cousin lives all the way out in New York. All his cousins on my side of the family are fully grown. I must say that after a rocky start of smacking each other in the head any time they wanted each other's toys, they gradually became very close and wanted to play together all the time. 

On the final day when we were packing up the rental car I got a call from the airline who gave me an offer to fly out the following day instead in exchange for 600 dollar vouchers each, plus vouchers for the price of each of our outgoing flights, plus the cost of a hotel and our meals for the last day. Hard to pass that up, and we got to check out Providence, R.I. for the first time, a wonderful little city. And now we have dough stored up and ready to take us on our next vacation. I have already been thinking of friends I haven't seen in forever who I should visit, and it shouldn't have been a matter of money to make me consider it. But I guess that's just how it goes. 

2. Too Much Darn Running

I got in some nice runs during the vacation as part of my marathon training. I had a 16 miler scheduled for last Sunday, but because I ended up flying in Sunday instead of Saturday, I had to get on the lake path during the 90 degree heat rather than in the much cooler morning. I met my friend Night Train for the first part of it (as he was wrapping up 16 miles of his own). We started getting back into running together a few years back, but he is a little younger and just a better athlete in most every way. While our pace used to be about the same, now he crushes marathons with a pace well below 8 minutes. That's like my 5K pace. So his long, slow run pace is like me hauling ass as fast as I possibly can. The four miles I did with him in the heat wiped my ass out so badly that I had to stop at 10 instead of the 16 I had planned on. 

Quitting is not something I do when I run, so this was very disheartening. How I perform this upcoming Sunday for a 15 miler is crucial. I want to eliminate the heat factor by getting out earlier, and eliminate the Night Train pace factor by not running with him (which is a little sad because I like his company). If I quit with those variables controlled for, then it's a matter of I'm behind in my training or I have become a quitter. 

3. My Aching Back

I posted a social media video doing push-ups with Baby Noisewater on my back. I did a couple similar baby workout videos when Erik was a baby, but now he is more of a toddler. Naturally he is now heavier and more active. It is perhaps the strain from the toddler push-ups that paved the way for the injury the following morning at the water park. I slid down a water slide with him for like the 15th time, and while half-submerged in water I tried to hoist him out of the trench which is when the lower-left part of my back clenched up. I tried to walk it off and stretch but the pain wasn't going anywhere. Naturally, he wanted to do that slide another 9 times, despite me guiding him towards other less painful experiences. Little kids have an innate sense of knowing what you don't want them to do, and knowing that must be the cooler and more dangerous thing. I guess that's something they continue to master as they reach their teenage years. I sprung for a massage today. I got a deal with the spa connected to my gym for a two for one, but all they had left for today's massages were dude practitioners. Oh well. I needed it today, so I just went with the man-on-man action. Anyone have a preference with sex of their masseuse or does that totally not matter to you?

4. The 'Mats

I read a ton of rock and roll biographies, and I can say without a doubt that "Trouble Boys" about the Replacements is the best of that genre. I was a casual fan when I started, and now I have slipped into that true fanatic status that so many 'Mats fans lay claim to. As a matter of fact, I didn't feel a right to call them The 'Mats before I read it, but after reading the book, which led to revisiting all the albums, watching tons of interviews, and getting into Westerberg's songs to the point where you feel like he is speaking to you, I'm now an obsessed 'Mats fan. I suggest you give the book a read because they are like no other band. You have Bob Stinson's tragic upbringing that led to his severe mental health problems and eventual dismissal from the band. You have his brother Tommy joining the band at 13-years-old, dropping out of school and being raised by a hard drinking and hard drugging rock and roll band. This is something that would never be allowed for in today's society, and it's fascinating that it ever happened at all. 

Then you have the band's leader, Paul Westerberg, who simultaneously wanted to be have a big hit bunform to anything. He would et didn't want to coither self-sabotage the band or just be met with unfortunate circumstances every step of the way. That and they had a brand of music that doomed them to be cult heroes rather than household names. Or maybe all of this was a master plan to be snubbed and broke during their time, but to hold up better than any other band of the 1980's. Yes, the songs themselves have their hooks in people, but those wild and unpredictable drunken shows where they read an audience and decided to do play the exact opposite of what that audience wanted to hear (an all country show for punk fans, for example), made everyone who attended feel like they were part of a one of a kind show, like they were in on the joke, and like that one show they saw was historic. This also extended their legacy. 

When they reunited in 2013 I had a ticket to see them at Riot Fest, a weekend long rock festival in Chicago. My friend smuggled in a bottle of Jack Daniels, and drinking my way through Suicidal Tendencies and the Pixies, I was so horribly over served and tired that I decided to take myself home before the Replacements even took the stage because I had to work the next day. I looked at the set list and it was just about every song I would have wanted them to play. It will always be one of my all-time rock regrets, but then again, getting too drunk to see The Replacements is kind of the perfect story arc. 

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I got a metal show that I'll be seeing tonight (Spirit Adrift), and I don't work tomorrow. A friend I was going with cancelled last minute. With the back killing and needing sleep more than metal at the moment, I almost decided to skip it. But then when I asked an old friend to go, he said he would. Yeah, missing these guys isn't likely to become anything like missing The Replacements, but I'm not taking my chances. I'm not quitting on stuff anymore, be it with concepts, running, staying in touch with friends, or anything else. Talk to you later, my blog buddies til the end . . .

Case Logic Inspires Logical Music Choices

Get a look at that. Yup. That right there is a book full of CD's that is currently in Latifah (My cars always have Black chick names. No idea how that started). I unpacked them all out of the cases years ago and found the biggest book offered on Amazon to transfer them into to save space. Do you know that I am such a nut about my outdated tangible music format that I took the back covers out to slip into the sleeves so that I wouldn't lose any paperwork? Also, how could I part with some of these discs? You see that album on the left that reads, "Thirteen?" That is an album by a group called Horny Toad with Louichi Mayorga, founding member of Suicidal Tendencies. He came into the record store I worked at to drop off a few copies, but sadly I wasn't working that day. That album is one where if I threw it out I just know that I would never think to look it up down the line. And even if I did, I would never find it. The Horny Toads live on inside Latifah!

The giant book of CD's has been sitting on a shelf for years now, but something made me take them to my car one morning. I have been having a blast spinning some classics (classics to me, that is). The other day I played Jane's Addiction's "Ritual De Lo Habitual" all the way through. If you go through the effort of putting back the last disc, thumbing through for your next one, slipping the new one back into the player, and especially if you are driving during that whole process - then you're going to damn well listen to the whole thing.

This was the beauty of tangible music, and those days are long forgotten by many and never even known by newer generations. But, my god, I forgot how fantastic Jane's Addiction was. As I was playing those songs I got to thinking that girls loved that band too. They had a sexiness about them with the grooves they played, and they were all tattoo'd up rebel surfer types but with a hippy vibe. They had a heavy but funky aspect to their playing, a lot like the Chili Peppers, only Jane's had a good singer.

I'm off to a beach vacation tomorrow with my in-laws for a week, so I wanted to be sure to keep up on blogging weekly. I know I won't get a chance at the beach house. Your Mission, Seven Readers: Find a piece of tangible music and play it. Report back to me with your findings. 

My lady and I are going to Catalina today, a small island off the coast of California.  We don't know much about it, but we have heard these things and will figure out soon which are true:

1. They don't allow cars on the island, so there are golf carts zipping in every direction.  Zips a verb, right?

2. It is overrun with wild pigs.

3. There are wild buffalo on the island too that were not native to the island; they were used in movies and have been growing in numbers ever since.

4. It's impossible to leave without having said "It's the Catalina fucking Wine Mixer!"

Godforsaken Updates . . .

- I had way too much to drink Friday and Saturday, and then I had some more on Superbowl Sunday.  That 3rd day in a row is always the one that catches up with you during the work week, and I know this, but you're not not going to drink for the Superbowl, right?  They need to move that darn game to a Saturday.  I was over at my sister's place and her piss poor neighbors all went home at halftime, and I started falling asleep after 4 or 5 Guinness.  Then her really fun neighbor came over with a bottle of Mike Ditka wine, so I had to try some wine made by "Da Coach."  I didn't have to drink from the next bottle of wine opened, but I did.

- I'm going to Austin, Texas later this month for the first time with LSD, who is finishing up school out in Los Angeles, in case you're a new reader or forgot.  We get together once a month in one of our cities or a neutral one, and this is one I'm really excited about.  The really fun neighbor I mentioned a minute ago heard that I was going there and said, "Ooh!  That's where they have all the bats!"  She is convinced that it is a city overrun with wild bats.  You would think I would have heard about that by now . . .

- My sister and I made fun of her, but it turns out she's right.  Just look at all those bats!

Take a Look at This Video About Drunk Monkeys

I don't know what you learned, but I learned these things . . .

1. This had better be the cheapest resort in the world because I could never relax in a place where at any given moment a hoard of monkeys would come to raid my Piña coladas.  

2. The rate of monkeys that prefer not to drink, drink in moderation, and drink to excess parallels that of humans.  Wow!  The excess drinkers are 5%.   I guess that is why I only like around 5% of people and monkeys that I meet.

3. The alcoholic leaders in the monkey communities are no less respected.  I suppose I can see this.  There are a lot of powerful people out there who are functional alcoholics, and how hard is it to "function" in the monkey world?  Sleep, eat, steal booze, make baby monkeys.  Pretty great life, actually, especially when you are on a resort and shit-faced all day.

I felt rather uninspired for gift ideas this year, but one that I did get right is a trip for me and my father to go to the Baseball Hall of Fame in July.  My dad is getting up there in years, and he has never been to see The Hall, despite being the most knowledgeable baseball historian I know.  As a kid, I remember seeing him spending hours leafing through the Baseball Encyclopedia, making notes in his illegible handwriting about things he happened to know about various players and their seasons, such as Babe Ruth's worst season due to health complications he had due to a hot dog eating contest.  If you ask him any question you can think of, such as any big name player's lifetime average, he can rattle it off immediately.

He and I have 4 days in Cooperstown, N.Y., and we're staying in a cozy little bed and breakfast in the "penthouse suite," which is the ideal room because we can spread out, and multiple beds are good because my dad is on a slightly different sleep schedule than me (he goes to bed at 8pm and gets up around 4AM). 

Even if some family members got gift cards and the like from me this time around, I was really proud of this gift, and I felt like the best son ever when I saw how excited he was about it.

Everyone else have a good holiday?  Anyone want to share a good gift they got or gave away?

Another Post About a Damn Dream? Come on?!

Yes, I have done these before, but I promise I will make it funny and brief.

In this dream I'm at the airport with a friend of mine, and we both spot two former NFL players getting ready to fly somewhere together.  We overhear them saying that they are going on a tropical vacation.  One of them is Herschel Walker, and the other one is . . . Herschel Walker.  And this when your dreams can so easily trick you.  I was trying to place the face of the second one, but I had forgotten that I already knew the first was Herschel, so I guess they were just both Herschel?

My friend and I in the dream were wondering if maybe they were gay ex football players because who goes on a tropical vacations with another dude?  I guess it doesn't matter if Herschel and Herschel Clone were gay or not, but I guess people just like to get a scoop on some celebrity gossip.

So, if you have skimmed through this post, and I wouldn't blame you if you did, this is what you need to know, as this was just a dream:

1. I have no information that Herschel Walker is or is not gay.

2. I also am not making any claims that ex NFL running back, Herschel Walker, has a clone.

3. Even if Herschel Walker does have a clone, I have no evidence to support the fact that he takes tropical vacations with his clone.

4. If he and his clone take tropical vacations, that does not necessarily mean that there are any homosexual activities taking place during the course of said vacation.

Herschel Walker

Herschel's Gay Love Clone?

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Anyone have any fun dreams lately that they want to share in the comments or just any thoughts on this dream?
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I'll be out of town this weekend, this time running 22 miles around Lake Geneva in Wisconsin.  Sounds a lot more hilly and "challenging" than I thought. 

So I may be writing more when I get back because guys who can't walk have a lot of time for blogging.

In the meantime, how's about the 10 most painful shots to the nuts?

To Live and Die and Do Stuff in L.A.

These are things I plan on doing in California this weekend:

1. Have sweet, sweet monthly sex with my long-distance girlfriend.

2. Get up early and go for a run along the beach for some last minute training before next week's Chicago Marathon.

3. Go to some sort of museum with the GF. Museums are kind of suck-ass, but when you're with someone fun, they're as fun as anything else.

4. Meet long time blog friends in person for the first time, Laughing Through My Chardonnay and SO@24. A few years back we would have hilarious IM conversations dubbed Eifel Tower Sessions that would either turn into deep probing therapeutic talks or completely off-the-wall disgusting revelations, both of which were equally rewarding. So, it will be good to have a happy hour with them and create "Eiffel Live."

5. Perhaps see one of my oldest friends who has been living there quite some time, and he has a birthday on Saturday. He's been playing in bands for years, and he may even play a show for his b-day, which would be great fun.

6. Go to In-N-Out Burger

7. Then a couple more rounds of the old monthly in-out-in-out with the lady.

8. Fly home Sunday and go back to my cold and lonely life back in Chicago, back to work with very little sleep.