It's so nice here, why would 'they' want to leave?

Leslie and I returned from our trip to Cancun last week, after a week of enjoying the sun, ocean and copious amounts of drink and food. It was a nice respite from the sub-zero weather that we've been suffering through in the Midwest. (A local TV anchor said that this was the harshest winter, temperature-wise, in 12 years). Anyway, it was 10-below when we left and it was 83 when we landed in Cancun. That's a plus/minus that I can live with. (Unfortunately is was 4 degrees when we returned to the Twin Cities).

I'm sorry to say that we didn't spend much time outside the all-inclusive complex. We considered taking a bus to the Mayan ruins, but the 2.5-hour drive in one direction kind of steered us away from that. We stayed specifically away from any sort of culture while we were there. The closest that we came to the native culture was their beer and tequila. All of the staff members were tremendously polite and responsive to everything. "Hello, front desk? This coffee here sucks. Bring us up a carafe of some good stuff. Oh yeah, bring us some of those croissants and juice while you're at it. OK? Goodbye." 5 minutes later. "Front desk? Yeah, this is room 3939. When you bring up the coffee et al, don't forget some beer and some of those good cigars. And hurry."

No complaints from the staff, just "My pleasure, sir." I was wondering if deep down if they were justing hating our guts. During our last day or so, Leslie and I were sitting poolside and half-listening to this boorish, overweight couple from Boston (judging from their Patriots and Red Sox gear) berate a little cocktail waitress. I can't write a Boston accent, but it's sufficient to say that I was burying my head in the book as the bloated one with a beard (the man, I suspect), yelled out specific drink instructions and added some when she was 20 yards away. Nice touch. I didn't see a tip exchanged when she came back with their drinks. Nice touch, sir.

The golf course -- a Jack Nicklaus signature -- was immaculate and literally killed our foursome. The first nine was on The Dunes, which resembled a lunar landscape. The back nine was called The Jungle and had dense foliage with a 15-yard swath of fairway in between. We ran into a large crocodile on the front nine. According to the beverage cart driver, the croc's name was Carlito Jr. We didn't get a chance to see Carlito Sr., but that was a big reason why I didn't get near the jungle to retrieve any of the nine GB Packer logo balls that I lost in the woods. I ended up playing with a florescent 'Easter Egg' on the final two holes. (I didn't have a camera with me on the course, but I'll post a photo of the critter a little later.)

Like I said before, we experienced absolutely no culture when we were there. The irony was that upon returning to Minnesota, we went to a fundraiser at our church for some young people who are heading to Central Mexico this year for charitable reasons. There was a group of Mexican dancers for entertaining. Leslie aptly noted that we had to go 2,000 miles from Mexico to see any of that country's culture.

The shocker in the Minnesota bu-caucus

Double entendres aside, yesterday’s Super Tuesday was a
massive event in which the public turnout dwarfed all expectations. For the
record the black dude beat cankles to take the Democrat race and the Stormin Mormon topped Hanoi Hilton in the Republican race that amounted to little more than a beauty contest.

The flip side of the question, “What if someone held an election and no one came?” is “What if someone held a caucus and too many people came?” That was the reality of the caucuses throughout our frozen state last night. Masses of people braved the weather to fit into various elementary schools and churches to voice their opinions. In the caucus situation, their voices are often unheard as a result of political party stalwarts dominating the action. It was probably disappointing for those wonks to see the turnouts of people who normally don’t attend these functions as their control and domination of topics and tenor isn’t as clear. In my local caucus, I sweated through a 40-minute line to finally arrive at the front of the line and find
out that there were no more ballots available. Good thing I brought a notebook to fill out my national and local candidates. Once there the topics that people were trying to get on the ballot were guaranteed pension funds for school teachers and the rights of undocumented immigrants.

I encourage anyone who has never attended one of these caucuses to take in the spectacle if they can pull themselves away from the Hungry Man dinners and reruns of CSI. Like I said before, the caucuses are set up to be run by the zealots who feel their importance towers over the unwashed masses that have other interests outside of politics. I didn’t win too many friends in the zealot community when I had the temerity to question the appropriateness of guaranteed pensions considering they're going away in the private sector. I suggested that much more far-reaching changes were needed – particularly in secondary education – and the steps and ladder method of paying teachers was too much of an obstacle for younger teachers just entering the field. A 30K job with student loans and a car payment doesn’t allow much to set aside in the 401K, and I made that abundantly clear. The pay issue for newbies is an impediment to people who might start a secondary career in teaching after spending much of their lives in the private sector. A few hisses and furrowed eyebrows emerged from my comments.

What I love/hate about the election cycle is the inability of candidates to be honest with people. In order to get elected, candidates are everything to everyone. Even when not in candidacy mode, our elected officials can’t turn off the bliss faucet. Except for those people who have had family members sent to Afghanistan or Iraq, has anyone really faced any sort of sacrifice for the “conflict” that we’ve been involved with for six years. At least in previous war periods we’ve had to collectively tighten our belts. Not so much this time.

Which brings me to this idea: This country is up for some pretty harsh comeuppance. We’ve grown fat and lazy and have no idea how hard the scrubs in India and China are working to kick our ass. Read Tom Friedman’s “The World is Flat” to understand how the developing world is chomping at the bit to get at our bloated carcass. Between the people who insist that it’s government’s job to keep us financially secure and make sure that my idiot kid goes through 13 years of school and gets a degree without the ability to read critically or write coherently, and the waterheads in their McMansions who plan on dying with their greenbacks sown into their shorts, I think we’re in the deep stuff. Here’s an analogy for what it’s worth. A state rep in Louisiana was working on a bill that would fine restaurants for serving obese people (by serving I don’t mean that they are the main dish). Of course the bill won’t make it out of committee and it’s a clear violation of rights, but the point that we’re entitled to unrestricted gluttony is obvious. On Sunday I went to the Gopher/Wisconsin basketball game at Williams Arena. The venue is one of those old, dated places with wooden bench bleachers – no seats. When my friend and I arrived after spending a couple minutes too long in the local watering hole, the bench was completely taken up by butts. My seats 13-14 were taken by the people in 15-16 and respectively down the line. After about five minutes of looking annoyed I finally announced to the group, “Listen, you got 15 inches of ass room on this bench and if you need to take more, then buy another ticket. Now sit on your numbers and move the hell down.” There were more than a few evil stares – of course this is Minnesota and no one would actually confront me – before a great shuffling ensued and the tubby lady on the end put the pop and the popcorn down by her feet so we could sit.

I’m not bigoted to heavy people and understand the issues that they face every day, but it points to something larger. Our bloated, single-issue voting, entitled, what’s-in-it-for-me population is going to face some tough belt-tightening choices in the next couple years regardless of who’s elected.

Oh yeah, and the Gophers got their asses handed to them by the Badgers.

Where is "Old" Ulm?

New Orleans has Mardi Gras and Rio has Carnival, both of which are OK if you like beautiful people in exotic locations and tons of public nudity. But, if you’re more in the mood for drinking bock beer outside in freezing temperatures in nowhere Minnesota, well then New Ulm’s Bockfest is the location you’re seeking. Granted the aforementioned other festivals have their charm, but where else can you see a wide variety of overweight Midwesterners wearing animal pelts and being greatly over-served?

For the second straight year, the Herkimer Bar sponsored the bus ride from Uptown to New Ulm – about a 90-minute drive. We filled up two buses and couple of beer kegs brewed by the Herkimer’s finest.

The plan once we got the fairgrounds was simple. Get beer tickets, wait in line for beers, get in the line for the bathrooms and repeat. The highlight of standing outside drinking is getting, er, “poked”. In the middle of the grounds is a bonfire and those attending the fire have large iron pokers that they stick into your beer. The result is a carmelization of the beer. As far as highlights, though, it isn’t much of a highlight.

After about three hours of drinking with the folks from Mankato, LeSueur, St. Peter and Owatonna, we got back on the drunk bus and head back north on 169. En route back to the city we stopped at the “Crow Bar” – several drunks on the bus were quick to note the double meaning of the bar’s name. You can’t beat it when 150 drunk idiots descend upon a bar in the middle of nowhere. A bartender at the bar tried to get us to take some drunk home who had been left there by another group stopping by. Apparently this individual was “from the cities” and it was natural that we would want to take this guy home with us and find out where he lives. I imagine that this guy was pretty pissed off at his friends for leaving him when he woke up on the floor of some bar Sunday morning 100 miles from his house. With friends like that, who needs enemies.