Soup Talk with Mr. Soup

I just realized something… I didn’t make any friends in college. I went to UW-Milwaukee for 4 ½ years and I don’t have a single friend from those years. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember a single name of anyone I met in college. That’s pretty sad. In High School I made lots of friends. I knew lots of people’s names, but for one reason or another have not kept in contact with any of them… but in college, I can honestly say I can’t remember anybody. The people I remember from my college days are those friends I already had in High School. I came to this sudden realization after I spent last Friday touring UW-La Crosse with my wife and son. We were there checking out the college Ryan will be attending in the Fall. We spent most of the day listening to facility and students talk to us about how great life is at UW-L. After the listening session, we took a guided tour of the campus and then had an extended tour of the science building and it’s labs. I believe the main reason I never mad...

OK… So I got really scared this past weekend. Last Wednesday I noticed a discoloration on my abdomen that looked like it could be a bruise, but didn’t hurt like a bruise or seem to have the same coloring as a bruise. I tried hard to think back and remember me bumping into something or getting hit by something, I couldn’t recall anything that would have caused this. I watched the color get darker and redder over the next couple of days, and noticed that this discoloration was surrounding a small mole. This was really bothering me. A work friend of mine died a year or so ago from Malignant Melanoma (i.e Skin Cancer). I remember clearly one of the last conversations I had with her. She told me to make sure I immediately have myself checked out if ever I see something out of the ordinary. She waited a little too long, and as a result, she lost her battle in only a few months. I think she was in her early 50’s with a couple of kids still in High School… way too young. Saturday I checked the...

About 15 years ago I saw a commercial, or read an advertisement in a magazine related to learning how to write. It was for a mail-order school where they give you assignments, you mail it in, and a week later you get your corrected assignment back in the mail. Something in the back of my mind has always been telling me that I would be good at writing. During college I would look forward to the essay questions because I knew I could easily fill up that little blue test book. My only problems are that I am terrible at spelling and my grammar usually sucks. And I don’t always know where the next paragraph should start… see… Well, I decided to call that 800 number and have them send me some ‘no obligation’ information about their school. A couple weeks later I received my packet. I read it over and just like so many other things in my life, I decided to pass on it. That didn’t stop the company from sending me even more information about their school. Over the course of th...

This past weekend we drove up to Wisconsin Rapids to listen to a concert by the Wisconsin Chapter of the National Band Association. Ryan was selected to play in the All-State band. I think there were 90 students from 45 cities in that group. That band was incredible. Probably other than the President’s Own Marine Band, this was the best band I’ve ever heard. The director they flew in to direct this thing was outstanding. Over the short two days of rehearsals, somehow he brought all of these strangers together to make an ensemble that jelled like nothing I’ve experienced in my life. The dynamics, the accuracy and the overall feeling of the music was so uplifting. After something like this, I sure hope Ryan continues on with music in his adult life. If he doesn’t, at least I hope he takes all of these lessons he is learning about working together and uses them to help with all of those life problems he is sure to run into. It’s strange… people use to say to me, “these are the best years ...

Here I sit in my hotel room in Utica, MI. The sound of the dishwasher is trying to drown out all the other non-familiar noises of this hotel.. Occasionally I’ll hear someone running down the hallway. Occasionally I’ll hear a door slam. A few minutes ago I heard what sounded like a whole pack of dogs barking and howling. I didn’t think they allowed dogs in this place. It’s a nice suite hotel. I suppose families might be living in some of the rooms waiting for their house to be completed or something…. Oh well, doesn’t bother me any… I got a package delivered to my house today. My wife called me to tell me about it. I asked her to open it… I guess I’m a little kid that way… She opened it and tried to describe what it was. She tells me it’s a wood piece about 13 inches by 8 inches. On it, burned onto the wood is the word HONDA and under that is a drawing of a wild boar. A guy from Florida sent it to me. Last winter I sent him some Wisconsin snow (all sealed in a jar). ...

Today I turned 43. Where are all of the years going? It seems like just yesterday, I was a boy crossing the street at Honey Creek Parkway on my way home from Third grade (the second time through). I remember thinking to myself… I can’t wait until I’m 16 and then I’ll be able to drive. Then I remember the afternoon I graduated from 9th grade. I was on my bike riding around the teachers parking lot at Alexander Bell Jr. High. I remember thinking to myself… the next time I step into a school, I’ll be in High School. Then I remember freshman orientation at UW-Milwaukee. I was confused. The guy taking us around asked, “Do you have any questions, like where’s my locker?” I thought to myself… yeah, where’s my locker? I didn’t realize that we weren’t going to have lockers anymore. Then I remember graduating from college. I had a job lined up in Fond du Lac. I remember walking down the isle at the Arena when I saw one of my teachers sitting right next to the isle. He said ...

I had a great weekend. It actually started Thursday afternoon and lasted until Monday afternoon. I went on a mini motorcycle vacation with my brother and nephew. Our destination was Corbin, KY to meet up with a bunch of Sport Touring guys. We weren’t planning on hanging out with them, but it was a convenient excuse to ride around that area of the country. Thursday evening we made it down to southern Indiana and spent the night at a Lee’s Inn. We’ve stayed there twice before. This time, the lady checking us in was one of the least helpful people I think I have run across in the hotel business. We asked for a Roll-away bed. Her response was “We don’t have any.” Then, as if thinking we would mention that we knew they had roll-aways, she said… “They are all being used.” By the looks of the parking lot, we could see that they only had about 6 rooms booked that night… I guess everyone had a few roll-aways reserved. We are pretty laid back people. We didn’t make a fuss and ...

I’ve always been a nervous person who thinks something is going to go wrong. I work myself up to the point where I honestly think my bad vibes actually cause things to go wrong. Take my computer for example. My wife or kids can turn the computer on and everything starts up just fine. Me, when I press the power button, thoughts shoot through my head like… it’s going to lock-up, the blue screen is going to come up again, the disk is going to have errors…. And you know what? Something bad usually happens. I have problems with my motor vehicles as well. Twice now I think I willed my car to have problems. My wife told me that she needed to add oil to her van because it was low. I instantly started thinking that my car needed oil. Wouldn’t you know it, the next time I started my car, the LOW OIL light came on… What’s with that? Then, on Christmas as we were coming home from our holiday visits the Low Coolant light came on in my wife’s van. That thought was running though ...

Oh how I hate it when people don’t keep commitments or even bother to tell you that they won’t be doing something. I have problems with this in my personal life and my work life. I’m sure you have probably been in this situation… you talk to someone about a project or a task and all indications are that that person intends to follow though and do what they have indicated they will do… Then a couple weeks later you realize the task hasn’t been done and when you bring this up with the person who has failed to follow through with their commitment you get a blank stare, or worse a statement like… I didn’t mean I was going to do it now… or… something else came up and I decided not to do the thing we were talking about. Maybe the problem all comes back to me. Maybe I’m not specific enough, or feel like I’m hounding the person if I make them tell me exactly what they are going to do and exactly when they will have it done. I tried this once with my wife and learned not to do that ag...

Where is all of this rain coming from? It seems like every time I look at the weather station, the forecast is for rain. Rain is good... but not all the time. I've got stuff I need to do outside and doing those things in the rain is NO FUN. Last night I cut the grass. I actually had to push the mower thru water that was a couple of inches deep in some areas. The grass needed to be cut because of the forecast for rain throughout the remainder of the week. I couldn’t wait for my son to do it because he was at work… and any ways, I really need the exercise. I have a problem with some of my gutters and downspouts. The gutter in the far back of the house seems to get clogged and water pours over. The dirt in the back of my house is washing away. I ended up buying a 32’ ladder so that I could get to that gutter to clean it out. The problem now is that the ladder is too heavy to easily move around. I’m so glad I have a wife that is willing to help me no matter how much ...

This Blogging thing seems to be a very interesting way to let the world know who I am and what makes me tick. I found a reference to this service while reading my PDA news and thought I would give it a try. Hopefully I can share with you some of my thoughts, some good recipes and possibly a little humor... Soup's on!