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The Rambling Insomniac
Tom is a 25+ year resident of Germantown and the surrounding community. He currently lives in Hubertus with his wife and two small kids on a hobby farm near Bark Lake. Tom's blog will likely not save the world, but hopefully, you'll get some enjoyment from his ramblings.
May 2008 - Posts
By Tom White
Tuesday, May 27 2008, 08:26 PM
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Don’t you hate it when you have big expectations for something, and then it doesn’t live up to them? Whether this be an event, a party, a gift you’re giving, a holiday, or whatever. Just something you had perceived of going one way, and then it goes completely opposite of what you had planned. For anyone that’s raised children, we’ve all learned not to set ourselves up for disappointment when it comes to expectations centered on them.
Take my family’s trip this past weekend to the Family Kite Festival down at Veteran’s Park on Lake Michigan. My wife and I had planned the entire day out, complete with kites, picnic supplies and various other surprises for our kids. We thought for sure the kids would love seeing the lakefront, all the people, the kites, and the various other things such a festival has to offer. But when we got there, one major element for flying kites was missing. Yep, that’s right, there was no wind. We tried to keep our kids interested in their kites, but this involved constant running. After watching my wife and 4 year-old daughter run off into the horizon and disappear with their pink, smiley-face kite in tow, I actually thought I might never see them again. But, they came back some 15 minutes later, kite string tangled everywhere, my daughter crying, and my wife with a look of frustration on her face I cannot even begin to describe. About the same time, my 3 year-old son lost all interest in his kite, and started whining about wanting to “go home” and was truly testing my nerves. Now mind you, we had only been at the festival for 20 minutes at this point. Gee, what fun we were having already! All this whining certainly wasn’t part of the plan!
So, we switched to Plan B and laid down a blanket and started to have a picnic. Fortunately, the kids really enjoyed this. After eating some food and enjoying some drinks, we made up a game called “Wiener Wraps”, which involved rolling each other up in the blanket we had brought. We played this for what seemed like forever, and the kids would have played it all day and night if we had let them. Such a silly little game, done with nothing but an old blanket, but the kids thought it was the greatest thing ever. I guess it was sort of like when you’re all excited about the big toy you give a kid for his or her birthday, and then they spend the entire afternoon playing with the box it came in.
So anyway, I guess kids have a way of keeping us humble, and they remind us not to set our expectations too high for things. They make us realize that joy can be found anywhere in life, and it doesn’t have to be something big, elaborate and planned out to make it memorable and fun.
G’Night G’Town!
Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything. ~Giacomo Leopardi
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By Tom White
Tuesday, May 20 2008, 02:08 PM
My wife and I recently scheduled a summer trip to the Northwood’s for our family. We are renting a cabin on a lake, near Minocqua, for a week in August. We spent hours looking at countless resorts and all their offerings, and finally found one that should be just perfect for the kids and us. We’ve rented a log style cabin with a beautiful porch that overlooks the lake. The resort has an awesome looking swimming beach, with a nice gradual slope into the water, where our kids are likely to spend the majority of their time while we’re up there.
We’ve sent in our deposit for the cabin, and are now just sitting back anxiously looking forward to our trip. But just today, I received something I found a bit odd. I received an e-mail from the resort owner that politely asked me to “sign the attached waiver and fax it back” to him. The waiver is written in typical “lawyer-speak”, and has a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo in it. Its basic message is that the resort offers many activities, including swimming, boating, fishing, and various sports activities, and that there are “significant risks” associated with such activities. I am being asked to sign the waiver to indemnify the resort from all liability in the event one of the members of my family gets hurt doing one of these “risky” activities.
My goodness!! Is this really what our society has come to? We need to sign waivers to stay at a resort for vacation? Has self-entitlement in America reached the stage where we have to sign disclaimers to protect each other from lawsuits related to swimming, running and playing? I guess it has, and in my opinion, that’s just plain sad.
Well, I went ahead and signed the waiver and faxed it off. I sure hope we don’t need to sign a waiver to eat pancakes at Paul Bunyan’s restaurant while we’re up there.
G’Night G’Town!
Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers. ~Erik Pepke
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By Tom White
Tuesday, May 13 2008, 03:06 PM
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Having moved into our hobby farm two years ago now, my wife Stephanie and I came to the conclusion that we simply had too much junk piling up around the place. We had countless boxes of stuff that hadn’t even been opened since we moved in, and a few others so full of junk that it made me wonder why we even moved them in the first place! I use the term “junk” loosely here, as a lot of our stuff was good stuff, but just not stuff we use anymore. So, we decided the best way to get rid of all this stuff was to host a Barn Sale.
I could bore you with all the details of our sale and the work we did to prepare for it, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll offer a simple observation – the $400 bucks we made fails in comparison to the many new friends and neighbors we met, and the many interesting conversations we had. The conversations were varied, and included such intriguing subjects as politics, golf carts, gas prices, organic eggs, collectibles, horse manure, fainting goats, dogs, children, cooking, marriage, etc. etc. etc. At least a dozen of our “customers” offered some sort of historical knowledge of our farm or our neighborhood, all of which were extremely entertaining.
We weren’t successful in selling all of our junk in just one weekend of the sale, so we may put the signs out another weekend or two as the weather continues to warm up. So, if you are in the Bark Lake area and see signs for our “Barn Sale”, feel free to stop by and chat for a while. We’d love to meet you. Who knows, maybe you’ll even find some junk to buy yourself!
And if you do get a chance to drop on by, please don't bother using the line, "Is this the barn that's for sale?", as we've heard that one a hundred times already!
G’Night G’Town!
One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. ~Author Unknown
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By Tom White
Tuesday, May 6 2008, 01:26 PM
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Due to a busy couple of weeks, I’ve been quite delinquent on my blogging responsibilities. However, I have made note of some things that have been on my mind lately and I’ve formed them around “20 questions”. Unfortunately, none of these are in any way linked to one another, and there is absolutely nothing to learn from them, but “oh well”:
Why is the Washington County Sheriffs Department being so tight-lipped about the drive-by shooting in Slinger Saturday night? Shouldn’t they be telling us everything about it in an attempt to figure out who did it?
Why would I want to buy a mattress designed by fashion mogul Vera Wang? What advantages of sleep could a fancy and frilly “designer” mattress possibly offer me?
Not being one to say, “I told you so”, I must point out that I predicted that the NASCAR Nextel Cup would be short lived. This year, they have now changed it to the NASCAR Sprint Cup. What will it be next year…the NASCAR US Cellular Cup? Dale Earnhardt must be rolling over in his grave as he grips his seven Winston Cups.
Why do companies like Coke and Pepsi continue with so much advertising and marketing? We all know they exist, and we all have our favorites. Seeing a Pepsi commercial in no way has ever made me run out and buy one.
In this day and age, could someone please invent a liquid cold medicine that doesn’t almost make me puke from the taste of it?
Why did I pay $120 to go see Van Halen, but will only need to spend $10 to see Styx and Boston at the Washington County Fair this year?
Why do we spend countless hours of our own time, including taking vacation days from work, to hold Rummage Sales?
Why will you only hear John Foggerty’s song “Rock and Roll Girl” on the radio when the temperature is over 70 degrees?
I see the movie “Speed Racer” starts up this weekend. Is there no cartoon or show from the past that will be spared Hollywood’s wrath of remakes? Can we assume “Kukla, Fran and Ollie – The Movie” is next?
Will anyone notice that although I titled this blog “20 Questions”, I have only asked 13 questions?
G’Night G’Town!
There are no foolish questions, and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions. ~Charles Proteus Steinmetz
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