Ace Wisdom

Tomorrow marks the birthday of Grasshopper No.4. I won’t give away his age but I remember the Thursday in 1972 very well. It was an early morning birth. It was a typical summer day. Blue skies and warm temps. As I recall, I had the perfect reason for not going into work. But, I did go into work. I handed out cigars. Call me stupid. Happy birthday No.4.
Tomorrow marks the birthday of Grandson Nevin. I think he turns 25. Happy Birthday Nevin.
Your Mom and I went to see the play “War Horse” at the PAC. It was a lesson on how to make full size horse puppets seem real. There were times during the performance that you forgot that it was a performance of puppets. Because the story was set in England, English accents were used. It was tough to understand especially when my hearing isn’t all that good in the first place.
The racing sausages used during the seventh inning a Miller Park in Milwaukee during Brewer games celebrated 20 years since inception. It started as 3 sausages (hot dog, bratwurst, and polish sausage). They since have added the italian sausage and the chorizo. What the hell is a chorizo? Something about peppers and junniper berries. No, chorizos don’t interest me.
This last subject “freaks me out”. A couple named Christy and Micheal got married 15 years ago. They were buddhist meditation teachers. Their pledge when they married was to live the rest of their lives within 15 feet of each other. Always within 15 feet. Forever and ever. For example, if they were to fly somewhere, they insisted on seats in the same row or they would change flights. Talk about a vow from hell. I love your mother but always staying within 15 feet? Really. What about bathroom duties? What about personal hygiene situations? What about poker with the boys? What about deer hunting? What about baby showers? What about shopping all day at the Mall? The questions are endless. The situation plays out as you would expect. The couple is now divorced. Dah!
Week end weather forecast is great!
Love,
Dad

For several days last week Grandsons Dominic and Thomas (yes that is Tommy’s real birth name) helped your Mom create something like the City’s Botanical Gardens. Getting rid of weeds. Re-arranging plants. Cutting hedges. And spreading mulch (40 bags worth). I was exhausted watching them.
I got my Green Bay Packers financial information. I am invited to the annual meeting in July. It is held at Lambeau in the stands. Last year it was hot and humid. The year before it rained. No, I am not going. The Packers never listen to my recommendations anyway. I see that David Kohler (of Kohler Company fame) is on the ballot for Packer Board of Directors. Does David know anything about football? I guess I am just jealous. Doesn’t anybody with “blue collar” credentials like me ever get elected to the Board.
Country Music USA begins today in Oshkosh. Just as house trailers are a “lightning rods” for tornatos, the Country Music 5 day concert draws rain. It is always plagued by rain, wet grounds and hot weather. Yep, this year will be the same. Remind me to never buy tickets in advance.
Grasshopper No.4 got to visit his company’s manufacturing plant in Louisiana. Word is that the plant will never be the same after his visit. The plant is in the same city that features the home of the “Duck Dynasty”. You know that Discovery Channel TV series that features red neck millionaires that sell Duck calls and sport long ugly beards. I think they belch and fart too. Grasshopper No.4 picked up hats featuring Duck Dynasty for Dominic and Tommy. Prize possessions if you will!
Go forth and make me proud!
Love,
Dad

This is the longest day of the year. From now on, the days start getting shorter. Really?
Your Mom’s birthday came and went. She was surrounded by lots of friends that took her to lunch and showered her with cards and tributes. One of the friends wrote new words to Doris Day’s hit song, “Que Sera Sera, Whatever Will Be, Will Be”, substituting, “Whatever Shel-by, Shel-by”. There were 3 separate verses. Clever. For a day in time, Mom was the center of the universe. Of course, Mom is the always the center of our universe.
Years ago, I got a gift of Calvin Klein shaving products. Included was an after-shave balm, which has a moisturizer. I like the balm. I don’t want to say it is expensive stuff, but the Government is thinking about dropping any “gold standard” and inserting “Calvin’s Shaving Balm” as the standard for money. I am running out of the balm and the last purchase was 5 ounces at Younkers for $50. Whoa! So the words of Grasshopper No.5 rung out: “Dad, check Amazon.com”. So I did. Yep, I had a choice of 3.4 ounces of balm for $20. I am not a math genius, but I can get 70% more for my money on Amazon. I am waiting for my new order to arrive.
I know most of you don’t follow the stock market closely, but yesterday was “ugly”. The market was down 2-3% in value, which is a lot. In the midst of all the doom and gloom was one stock which reached new highs. It was Gamestop. Grasshopper No.5 works for Gamestop. She told me 9 months ago that “gaming” stocks do well when the stock market appears gloomy. If only I had listened! The big reason Gamestop is up is that it is growing exponentially on hand held, internet connected, mobile devices. Dah!
If you like “hot and humid”, enjoy the next week.
Love,
Dad

This week your Mom celebrates her birthday. It is sometimes on the longest day of the year (technically, June 21 is the longest day). Her friends are taking her to lunch. Here is wishing her a very Happy Birthday.
Father’s Day came and went. Thank you to Grasshopper No.1 and Tom who fed me. I also got lots of phone calls. I got to watch the end of the U.S. Golf Championship. It was a very good day!
I have been reading about Obamacare which gets implemented in a major way in less than 7 months (Jan.1, 2014). Lots or rules and procedures have not been written.
Next month, July, 2013, details will be released on the Medical Insurance Exchanges mandated by Obamacare. The exchanges are an optional to other forms of medical insurance. I do know you need to have personal medical insurance or you will pay a $95 penalty in 2014 which escalates to over $600 per year several years later. The exchanges are run by the Federal Government, State government or a combination of the two. Lots of small companies are considering dropping medical insurance because of all the requirements of the new law. Nobody is talking about costs of medical insurance and what insurance will cost through the new exchanges. The subject is so complex that confusion is sure to rein.
I always figured the medicare retirement option through Social Security was a good option. Most retirees are on Medicare purchase “supplement” insurance that pays for expense that Medicare doesn’t pay for. The whole retiree plan requires that doctors and hospitals accept Medicare insurance. The government in it’s wisdom is reducing what it pays through Medicare for medical care. In some cases, doctors and hospitals are refusing Medicare patients. Now follow this. I really am forced into the Medicare program assisted with supplement insurance. The Obamacare program is causing less and less doctors to “not accept” Medicare insurance. So I ask you, what good is my Medicare insurance program going to do me? What are my options going to be? I’m going to have to move in with my kids!
Are we having fun yet? Enjoy the week.
Love,
Dad

First a correction. I indicated that Grasshopper No.3 purchased a new Volkswagen “Touareg” SUV. It is not the Touareg model. It is the Volkswagen SportWagen. It is equipped with a 4 cylinder, turbo-charged diesel engine. The turbo boost creates a quick response in acceleration. It is rated 42 miles per gallon on the highway. Grasshopper No.3 let me drive the new car. Now there is trust. Letting your “73 year old man” test drive your new vehicle.
Mom and I got to see pictures of new great-grandchild Myla. Her Mom and baby look vibrant and healthy. Myla might even look a little like her namesake “Nana” when she was a baby.
Yesterday was tense. At 12:43 PM, I was entitled to purchase parking tickets to the UW football games. Essentially after all the big UW “givers” take all the good parking spots, I finally got to choose from what was left. I was notified by e-mail 6-7 times that my turn was coming to request parking acommodations. Get ready, get set and log on to the UW website. Follow the instructions and “voila”, I have my parking spot. I brought up the website at precisely 12:43 PM, followed the instructions and nothing happened as it was supposed to. The screens were wrong. No instructions. Damn! I tried the website a second time with the same result. So I picked up my trusty telephone and called the UW ticket office. They indicated other patrons had similar problems. I did get parking tickets reserved. It seems I had to go to a secondary website dedicated only to parking to order properly. The instructions don’t say that. Yes, I can read. So 12:43 PM became an memorable moment again this year. Something similar happened last year.
Happy Fathers Day to all you Dads. HuHot has a “free” lunch when accompanied by a family of 50 (or some large number). Good luck getting in the door. Better yet, Hooters has free “holiday chicken wings” for all dads. That sounds like a great deal. Wait, Hooters just closed the doors here in town. Just my luck.
Love,
Dad

I walked out the door this morning to go to my health club and it was beautiful. 65 degrees. Sun shining. Light, light breeze. Wait! What is this? Little white fuzz balls drifting around everywhere. Then I remembered, God created cottonwood trees to shed millions of white little floating blobs to clog our car radiators, rest on seats of open cars and cling to screen doors. I think it is God’s sense of humor lest we forget snow is only 5 months away.
What is a “touareg”? Grasshopper No.3 is driving a brand new touareg. It sounds like a beer keg with tires and a steering wheel. Actually it is a Volkswagen station wagon. It comes with a V6 turbodiesel. Imagine that! It goes fast and gets great mileage from the diesel. I’m told that 42 miles per gallon is possible on the highway. The road excavation business must be really good.
Okay, now a little about R E S P E C T. A former football player, Chad Johnson (who changed his name to Chad Ochocinco and then back again) was in court because he had violated his probation on domestic violence. He had “head butted” his wife and was in danger of losing his freedom. He was facing 30 days in jail. Ochocinco is an arrogant, self-righteous sports star that thinks he is above the law. Ochocinco appeared in court with his lawyer and had reached a plea agreement to do community service and avoided doing “hard jail time”. As Ochocinco was leaving the court, he patted his lawyer on the ass. The courtroom erupted with laughter making a mockery of the whole event. The female judge wasn’t amused. She slapped Ochocinco with the original sentence. 30 days in jail. Yep, jail time. Good for her. It wasn’t about being funny or wanting attention. It was about respect for the woman he head butted. It was about respect for the court. It was just being a little bit sorry for what he had done. Jesus! Is that so hard? Good for the female judge. What is sad is that Ochocinco still “won’t get it”.
There I feel better. I got to do a rant on treating people with human decency. I get sick and tired of the glorified, rich athletes being treated different from you and I.
I’ve got to get me a ride in one of those touaregs.
Love,
Dad

I created a “time machine”. It is named the “Blur”. It allows me to go back in time by just entering the date and location. The Blur allows me to take one person (you) along with me. So, come along with me. Here we go.
Our time machine has landed in Bridgewater (Somerset), England. It is 1582 and we have landed on a farm where the birth of a new baby boy has just taken place. He is Henry A. (“A” is the abbreviation of the family name). Henry A. happens to be my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. It is a time of unrest in England, as the Church of England persecutes the citizens and many flee to “the new world” (the colonies of the United States).
I “inch” my time machine (the Blur) into the future by jiggering the software. I’m just in time to see the birth of Henry A.’s first son, also named Henry (I don’t know if they used the “junior” in names or not). The location is Daventry, Northhaptonshire, England, and it is now 1608.
Soon, thereafter, in 1620, the Mayflower sails with infamous Pilgrims headed west across the sea to the new world. They land at Plymouth Rock and establish the Plymouth Colony.
I don’t know if Henry Jr. was part of a religious sect, but somewhere around 1635-1640, Henry Jr. took the journey to the new world with his family, including his new son, John.
I want to know what happened to Henry Jr. and son John once they got to the new world. So, I “jog” my software in the “Blur” in time to witness Henry Jr.’s son John’s death and burial in 1679 in Boston, Mass. I explore Boston by horse for awhile and found that Boston is only 50-75 miles from Plymouth Rock. My ass is sore from horseback riding and I am hungry for bratwurst, so I head home to Wisconsin in the Blur. Enough for the first trip.
What have I learned? The biological family with our surname beginning with ‘A’ leads back to England. Our family came to the colonies in the early 1600’s. They established roots in the vicinity of Boston. Eastern Masschusetts would be home for the next 150 years. I have no evidence of religious affiliation.
I’ll have to refuel “the Blur” for another trip, another day. I’m tired.
Love,
Dad