Green Bay 21, Chicago 15...

The weekend started with a trip down to Platteville (because it is so on the way to Green Bay) to see Mark's parents. We ate at Uno's, not the chain, and it had some of the best deep dish pizza ever. Went out to downtown Platteville and I can't understand why UW-P isnt the top university in Wisconsin. They had a Brother's Pub....Anyway, on Saturday we went to see the world's largest "M", it stands for Mining.

We went up to Oshkosh to see a buddy on Saturday. He was at a Bacon party so we met him there then went to the campus bars later. At the end of the night, like most nights in Oshkosh we were at Toppers. Sunday we drove up to Green Bay to tailgate before the game, so with a 30 rock of Keystone Light and some paint we got busy.

We had two Packer fans, a Bears fan and a Vikings fan (all we needed was someone to paint themselves in Blue and Silver, but we didnt have any takers). After the picture below we put on some numbers (6 for Cutler, 85 for Jennings, and 4 for Favre, Ray was a goal post) and played some older tailgaters in a game of two hand touch. We won.

The seats were pretty good, 25 yard line, 15 rows up on the Bears side of the field.

I'm sure everyone knows how the game turned out but if not I have a video that pretty much sums it up.

After the game we were cheering and ran into Green Man. Apparently that guy gets paid by Always Sunny to go to games. Pretty nice gig.

In the end it was an awesome weekend and I think it took me until late yesterday or early today to recover from it.

A book review/suggested reading...

I'm sure you have seen in the past year the commercials for the movie with Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx about a reporter/columnist who meets a homeless man and they become best friends. The movie is called "The Soloist" and after being led on about a night out in Minneapolis with some friends I havent seen in awhile, I went to McDonalds and searched the movies in Red Box. That one popped up so I decided to give it a go. Tried watching it with my mom the next day but she was out within ten minutes of the movie starting so I sat there and basically watched it myself. It was a decent movie and I knew it was based on a book so I decided to look into it more. There were some interviews and a "60 Minutes" special on it and I felt that the movie didnt give the whole story justice.

I had just finished "The Prisoner of Azkaban" and had to go into Minneapolis for a meeting, had time between the meeting and a grill out some friends were having so I went to Target to pick up "The Goblet of Fire." Sold out. I looked for "The Soloist." Dont carry it. So instead of paying 8 bucks for it I had to pay almost double at stupid Barnes and Noble. Anyways good thing "The Goblet of Fire" was sold out because when I got back to Hudson it was waiting for me on my desk (I got my mom hooked on the Harry Potters series too).

I dont know if it was because I wanted to finish the book really quick so I could start the next HP or if it was just a really good read, but the pages just flew by and I couldnt put the book down.

Steve Lopez works for the LA Times and finds himself befriending a man, Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, who happens to be homeless and have paranoid schizophrenia, he also was a student at Julliard in the 70s and can play any string instrument amazingly along with the piano, trumpet and flute. Mr. Ayers loves music and when he is playing or listening his mind is clear and everything is at peace. However he isnt always playing or listening to music and thats when the schizophrenia kicks in. Their friendship grows as Mr. Lopez slowly tries to help Mr. Ayers treat his disease and at times seems like all is lost when Mr. Ayers lashes out. It not only is a story of two men but points out that LA is home to 90,000 homeless people, many of which are mentally ill and the system in place to help them isnt.

I also like the way Steve Lopez wrote the book. He doest try to romanticize the situation or Nathaniel's condition. He tells the story and his feelings the way they happened. For example, Nathaniel likes to go on rants and string together random thoughts, and after a long rant cited in the book the next line states, "Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into."

Anyway, it was a good read to me and I usually pick up a book, read half of it and never finish it for whatever reason, but this one (and the HP series) seem to have me finishing books in 2-3 days tops.