The Dow Is Up!

I had a pretty fun weekend, isolated from humanity. The Wife had a bridal shower and bachelorette party, so I figured I'd take the opportunity to head up to Wisconsin for the weekend. My family has a cabin on Lake Winnebago. I like to head up there every few weeks to get away from it all. In this case, though, I didn't really get away from much because I took Luke and the dog with me. (The dog puked on the way up, of course. Good way to start the weekend.)

I drove up Friday night in 30 MPH headwinds. That was great for my mileage. The BFT, which normally averages 16-17 MPG on the highway got closer to 13. God. That just makes me want to shoot myself. Or get a Prius. Not only was it windy, but it was COLD. The thermometer in my car read -7 when I arrived.

Thursday night, our place in WI got about 10 inches of snow. But with all the wind, there were quite a few snowdrifts. Our driveway is 3 cars wide. The northern side had almost no snow. The southern side had drifts of 2-3 feet. Fortunately, with the BFT, I was able to launch myself into the snow with no problem.

I got out of the car and got Luke's pack-and-play (a portable crib) out and set it up inside before taking him in and putting him to sleep. I headed back outside wearing just a thermal fleece. It was literally no more than 30 feet to my car. I only made on trip. I felt like Luke Skywalker on the ice planet Hoth. I could just picture myself trying to make the trip from the truck to the house and just collapsing, reaching out, screaming "Ben" and then being saved by my son riding Mocha, who he sliced open and put me in to keeep me warm.

Anywho. I decided to put a coat on to grab the few remaining things from my truck. After a couple of trips, I sat down inside and turned on the TV. That's when I noticed that my hands were tingling. From just a minute or so outside. Scary. I turned on the news and found out that the wind chill was -35. Brrr Green Bay!

Since it didn't warm up much on Saturday or Sunday, I didn't spend much time outside. Luke and I just played around inside the house. We did venture out to the gas station/restaurant to buy a lottery ticket. The jackpot was $365 million and I couldn't let that just go by. (Of course, some jerk in Nebraska won it instead of me. Jerk.)

I love this gas station by the way. It's in Stockbridge, which has a population of a couple hundred people. It's THE gas station. The only one for miles, actually. And of course, it has a full diner in it. It's where all the locals hang out. And it's run by an Indian guy. He couldn't stick out more if he tried. I'm not a racist guy. I've been coming to this house in WI for 30 years now. It's quite a rural area, filled with rednecks. And one Indian guy, who runs the gas station. Did Citgo move him up here? Did he draw the short straw? I mean, how does an Indian guy end up in rural WI running a gas station? These are things I want to know.

Anyway, it was a nice relaxing weekend for me, even though I didn't win the lottery. The good news, though, is that the Illinois game, Megamillions, is creeping closer and closer to $200 million. I still have a chance at becoming a multi-millionaire. Because we all know I'm not going to get there through hard work.