July 2010

Wednesday July 7th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

Let’s start with last weekend. Last weekend was great with a lot of happy people around. The Dark Horse band with Tommy Greywolf was great too.

The rain came a little early on Monday for a lot of people. According to the USGS gauge it added up to just over an inch. Athelstane Weather is showing 1.61″ and Scott e-mailed in that Rhinelander saw 1 3/4″.

I am sure that some of that hit the Peshtigo River watershed. How much remains the question. The wathershed is on the fringe of the range of the radar and the precip totals are always suspect. In heavy rain the majority of the signal is reflected back before it ever gets here. There is more rain expected over the next 36 hours, so rafting should be great again this weekend.

Did anyone catch last night’s sunset? Golly was that something. Here I was 30 miles from home with no camera. It started with the sun peeking through a patch of overcast and backlighting a big thunder cloud. Then it did the beam thing where the rays of sun poked out through the clouds. Later the horizion went orange while the small high clouds reflected pink and blue. To the east were more big thunder clouds lit in the softest pastel blue and gray. It was really something, a top 10 postcard sunset to be sure. I was not happy about not bringing the camera.

There is an event today that deserves our attention and support. The Beach Club on Waubee Lake is having a fundraiser for the  Lakewood/Townsend Ambulance Service. It starts at 4pm. There will be music by Kendricks & Johnson, a remote controlled boat race, and drawings for door prizes like autographed Packers pictures.

There is also a big motorcycle ride and swap meet up here this weekend that involves a lot of places around here. It should be pretty huge.

So we had a little music last night. I have been having a rough week and needed to blow off a little steam. The couple of you that followed along found it novel. It turned out to be an interesting playlist, but it is now just a memory.

I have been getting into this e-cig thing, and I like it. There are really good and really bad ones, and the same goes for the juice. I have it pretty well down pat, and am now trying different variations. I also found out what it is like to lose one yesterday, when it apparently fell out of the truck.

If you are interested in trying one or buying one, e-mail me through the tab on the left. I have spent the money finding the good equipment and juice. What I haven’t figured out is if I am going to set up a series of affiliate links or just a store for them. I am also considering a tasting party to introduce them to people who are unsure or unwilling to buy one without trying it. While I figure it out, e-mail me and I will set you up with the right stuff.

You do not need to spend $60. I can get 2 for that, and a sample pack of high quality juices too. I am also awaiting arrival of some high quality semi-disposables that will retail at 16 or 18 dollars.

The juice that comes with them is usually terrible tasting Chinese propylene glycol (anti-freeze) based stuff. It does not have to be like that. My non-PG flavor of the day is Island, a nice pineapple pina colada flavor. It is hard candy delicious.

With my e-cigs I am down 30-40% on the regular coffin nails in the past week, and this week will be at least 50%. The $30 worth of juice coming tomorrow will replace 3-4 cartons worth $150-200. I like it.

One downside is that I have turned into a bit of a gadget getter trying new parts and different combination of them. I still spend my $50 a week, just not all on cigarettes.

You should also be warned the the 51 brand e-cigs are frequently associated with a charge card scam, and the free trials that are spamming our e-mail boxes are too. Let me help, don’t get ripped off.

The weekend weather forecast looks ok. Saturday should be a bluebird day with temps in the upper 70s. The NAM showed a line of showers Sunday morning, then no rain until about sunset. The NWS went with a blanket 40% chance for Sunday.

While checking into that I also saw some really nice blobs of red and orange on the radar heading right for the Peshtigo River watershed. That will be perfectly timed to bring the river up this weekend. Yee-Ha!

That is about it from here. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday July 6th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

That was quite a holiday weekend. The weather stayed pretty good until Monday afternoon, Tommy Greywolf and the Dark Horse Band were great, and there were a lot of people around having a good time.

I really filled up the weekend, so I am still kind of sorting through all of it and organizing for the week, and I am not ready with a regular update just yet. Look for that tomorrow.

Thanks!

RJB

Holiday weekend FRIDAYYYY!!!!!!!

Ok so who else is pumped up that is the Friday of a holiday weekend? Golly I’m like a 6 year old on his third Red Bull.

Let’s start with weather. The high pressure that gave us bluebird weather all week is moving to the east. That will give us southern or southwest winds, and a warm weekend. We can expect the heat and humidity to be increasing as the weekend progresses toward Sunday.

Sunday, or second Saturday as we call it, looks ok to start. The HPC has us rain free until noon, and then from noon to 6pm we are bordering the 0.01-0.1 and 0.1-0.25″ bands for possible rainfall.

After 6pm Sunday it looks wet. The storm that will be coming for Sunday night and Monday has some energy and moisture from the tropical storm that went through the Gulf of Mexico, so it could bring heavy rains.

So, we will start out the weekend today in the low to mid 80s. Saturday looks like mid to upper 80s, and Sunday looks like more upper 80s or maybe a 90.

That is a pretty nice forecast for a holiday weekend, and if Sunday’s rain holds off another half of a day it would be even better.

Second Saturday? Yep, that is what we call it. A lot of people have Monday off with the holiday, so Sunday is like a second Saturday. Second Saturdays are usually pretty fun with people giving it their last yee-ha and partying like it is 1999.

The people coming to Kosir’s to raft will have fun this weekend. The Peshtigo River is still almost double it’s median flow for today, running 452cfs up from the normal 250. It is falling and will keep on falling, but it should stay plenty fun for the weekend.

The Menominee River is still running strong too, with the low of 1,000cfs and peaking on either side of 2,000 the last two days.

Either one of those rivers is better than usual for this weekend, so go rafting if that is what does it for you.

Also at Kosir’s this weekend is some exceptionally good live music. The DarkHorse Band is coming, and bringing special guest Tommy Greywolf on violin/fiddle. The Darkhorse guys are great on their own merits, playing country that even I like.

Tommy Greywolf is just amazing. He has played with Brooks & Dunn, on the AMA awards, Leno, Letterman, with guys from Kansas, Poco, and Loggins & Messina, and so many other people.

Go to his web site and check out his video. He is really an extreme talent, and the ladies are more than just a little bit partial to him as well. Beyond all of that, he is a genuinely nice guy. I have met and seen him a 3 or 4 times, and he is a huge talent and a great guy.

I have played music for a long time. I listen to and play stuff like Steely Dan, Yes, old Genesis, Kansas, Pink Floyd, Jeff Beck, and guys like Junior Brown and Andrew Winton. Tommy G could sit in with any of those greats, plus all of the country greats too. I know good music.  Come see what I am ranting about. Saturday night, July 3rd, Rapids Resort.

Added to the last minute event list is live music at the Curve in Sunday night.

Who is up for a sunset? Click & win a 1024 wide version for the desktop..

I think that is about it for the last minute updates.  Have a fun weekend, be safe, and thank you for visiting!

RJB