It's San Fermin Festival Time

It's a beautiful sunny 84 degree day and Coco's mom bought him a dog. A sweet little collie named Chloe. She's 3 months old and so well behaved. No incessant barking, biting, chewing or accidents. Almost the perfect puppy actually. They are both hanging around my house today.

The do-nothing Congress actually seems to be taking a deeper slide. Their approval rating has slipped from the low teens to a whopping 9 percent. Even family and friends are starting to bail out on this miserable bunch.

I'm going to give Summerfest a solid B for the 2014 festival. The bar has been set so high the last 10 years with simply great festivals year after year. The addition of the giant ferris wheel was certainly a nice touch. Who doesn't like a ferris wheel? The view was spectacular and I took some breath taking photos up there.

The Marcus Theater feature acts were excellent and offered at least one night for every music genre. I thought some of the sidestage feature acts were a bit weak compared to past years. Naturally, a lot of the selections depends who's currently on tour.

The Milwaukee area bands were exceptional this year and the food was great. A special kudos to A.J. Bombers with huge lines but excellent service and food. Beer lines seemed shorter this year although attendance looked a little down this year. Nothing but iffy weather to blame for that and it was still a solid turnout. I'm not sure how parking was as we walked or grabbed a bar shuttle. Living close has it's advantages and we made it down there 6 times.

Pamplona, Spain is on my bucket list. More specifically, the San Fermin Festival. Even more specifically, 'The Running of the Bulls.' It's happening this week and I check out various websites to follow it each day. I was scheduled to go one year but a serious event made me cancel my trip. It's the ultimate race for a old school distance runner like myself. Ernest Hemingway made this event over the top famous with his 1926 book, "The Sun Also Rises."

It's actually a 902 yard run in the street with 6 bulls released amongst the participants. People do get hurt every year and some have died. I'll run it very shortly and I'm confident of that. Hopefully, I 'll take my son along some day and run it with him. If I can hang on long enough, I'd like to do it with him and any child of his someday. Hopefully, he'll have kids sooner than I did or I might end up a statistic!  

Later

Chloe

Taking a Snooze

The Milwaukee Trifecta

We closed out saturday night at Summerfest in a pretty strong fashion keeping our reputations in tact. We saw Chasin Mason a Milwaukee area country band who put on a great performance.

Then, onto the Jo Jo's Martini tent to watch the Love Monkey's another Milwaukee area band with a very strong following. Those guys must never drink anything as they never took a break and just played forever it seemed.

We made sure to get a Cherry Crisp at my favorite dessert place and then took the Sky Glyder to the north side of the grounds where we grabbed a cab home around midnight.

No rush to get up early this morning but we did make it down to the AVP finals at Bradford Beach where a large crowd showed their support. We hung around the Tiki Hut bar for a while before heading over to the Nomad to check on a special clothing order.

Krissy is a bit tired so we ordered Lisa's Pizza before calling it a night. If you like pro beach volleyball, world class soccer bars and the greatest music festival in the world, Milwaukee was indeed the center of the world this weekend!

Later

Krissy and I enjoying our final night at the fest

Out shuttle to summerfest driver was also an attentive bartender. Gotta love Milwaukee

 

fun side stage at summerfest

Burger from AJ Bombers 

APV  finals at Bradford Beach

Noticed this "beer garden" on our way to the beach this morning  

Shower Beers

Today is almost an exact replica of yesterday. Last night wasn't a replica of thursday night. We made it out last night to Jamo's Tavern for one and I mean exactly one. No big deal. Thursday night was so much fun and I spent 5 hours cleaning out the basement so we were tired.

We still made it down to Bradford Beach around noon for lunch and the AVP volleyball tournament. Angela and John joined us later for a while. Lots of great play down at the beach today. One of my favorite Chicago Bulls, Jimmy Butler was in attendance. He's a former Marquette player so he received a nice hand.

At this point I'm hoping Butler is still with the Bulls this season. He's been mentioned in trade rumors as the Bulls attempt to acquire Carmelo Anthony. I'm just as happy if they keep the roster together and bring over Nikola Mirotic from Spain. It looks like it's going to happen and if he was in the draft this year, he probably would have been the first player overall drafted.

The Chicago Cubs traded 2 of their best pitchers to Oakland for a couple of good prospects. I still don't think they received enough but Theo Epstein has done pretty good at the tradeline so far.

Well, I'm drinking a Corona Light for my shower beer and getting

Jimmy Butler Above Me

At the Tiki Bar

ready to head down to Summerfest with Krissy. It will be our 6th and final time this year. The festival ends on sunday and by tuesday I'll start making a band wish list for 2015!

Later

Ziggy Marley "True To Myself"

Wow, what a night at Summerfest last night. We arrived there at 6pm and saw De La Buena whom I've seen before. Just a tremendous Latin Jazz type of band with a lot of horns.

Then, at 8pm we saw our local favorite Reggae band, RAS Movement. Brilliant as always and we never had to leave the Briggs and Stratton stage. We stayed at the same table all night for 3 unbelievable bands.

The feature band was one of my all time favorites, Ziggy Marley. Definitely he has been the highlight of Summerfest for me this year. "True to Myself" is such a heartwarming song. I've been to Jamaica several times and it's truly a beautiful country!

A lot of people have misconceptions about Jamaica as being a large violent slum. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It's full of warm, friendly and compassionate people. It's a country that has never started a war and takes care of their less fortunate. The worst  thing you can say about Jamaica is that they like their reefer and have a soft spot in their hearts for pirates. Hell, in the United States we just call that place Key West!

Have a Happy 4th my friends!

Later

My Marley Shirt

Clair, Julie and Allen

Now It's Hurricane Arthur

We finally have a beautiful day. Last night was a different story as we had a bit of drizzle and fog at Summerfest. Overall, we really made the best of it and had a great time.

I went down early with Coco. We saw the Booze Brothers then watched a soccer exhibition with the Milwaukee Wave. Onward to the Tiki Hut stage for a while then over to the Bridgestone Tent where Coco won a promotional game for a couple of dandy prizes.

Finally we met Krissy, Jen, Holly and Michelle to watch Oumar Sagna put on a great drum performance followed by King Solomon. Coco and I cut out a bit early to ride the sky glyder and the ferris wheel. Throw in some root beer, ice cream sundaes and lemon shake ups and the night was quite fun for us!

The feds release the June job report and it was quite a good one. This is the best 5 month period since 1999. The second half of the year could be quite a good one economically.

Tropical Storm Arthur is now a category 1 hurricane. By the time it reaches North Carolina it's expected to be a category 2. Let's pray for the best for our east coast friends.

Enjoy the photos. The first one is from Krissy's birthday. Back to Summerfest tonight for Ziggy Marley. The tough get there early and the weak hands fold!

Later



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Let Them Lick Cake

View from the skyglider!

Brave girls on the skyglider

U.S. Bank from the Ferris Wheel

Summerfest smiles

Holly & Jenny

   

Jenny, Michelle,Cole and myself watching Oumar drumming! 

Cole dancing to the drums

 Great afternoon with Cole at Summerfest!

Alice Cooper Is Back

We woke up to more rain and 50 degrees again. So much for the summer drought with heat waves that I predicted after a miserable winter. We're going to Summerfest late this afternoon and it looks like I'll be wearing pants again.

I ran some errands this morning and noticed that they are getting ready to set up for Bastille Days next week at Cathedral Square. It's always blistering hot for Bastille Days so maybe this year will be different.

Krissy took Tammy and Maddie out shopping this morning. Jen came over and we cooked out for lunch. Just waiting for Holly now and we'll be off for Summerfest. Coco is very excited to be going.

Fabien Cousteau emerged from his underwater habitat today after 31 days of living below the ocean surface near Key largo. As you might remember he was the feature of my blog on May31st. Welcome back to land!

One of the morning radio shows were talking about Alice Cooper this morning. Not only have I seen him in concert 3 or 4 times but I've met Alice. In fact, he was sitting directly behind me at the Bally Indoor Games in Chicago once. It was an elite track meet at the time and Alice was an old school distance runner like myself.

He's a really great guy. He signed my program. He gave autographs and took  photos with everyone really. We talked about about my favorite album of his 'Welcome to My Nightmare.'

Originally from Detroit, Michigan he got caught up in the rock n roll life for quite a while. He decided to quit drinking and took up golf. Seriously, he plays 365 days a year and became a 4-5 handicap since he took up the sport late in life for a golfer. He opens at Summerfest July 4th for Motley Crue. If you go golfing on a nice course in the Milwaukee area this week keep an eye out for Alice. He's truly legendary!

Later

The Key Lime Festival

Last night was one of the worst storms in the last decade with massive power outages to over a 100,000 area homes. Today has been fairly nice overall with a pleasant breeze for those attending Summerfest. We're taking the night off.

Maddie and Tammy drove up this morning from Illinois. Krissy dropped them off at the Summerfest grounds to see One Republic tonight before they come back to spend the night at our place.

It was a tough day at Wimbledon for a couple of tennis legends. Serena Williams bowed out with some kind of viral illness and Rafael Nadal just plain lost to a teenager from Australia. Wimbledon was my mom's favorite sporting event and it really made her holiday week back in the day.

The USA soccer team lost out to Belgium today 2-1. A tough way to get eliminated but they played a gallant and entertaining World Cup to make everyone proud.

It looks like Tropical Storm Arthur has picked up a bit of energy and could hit the Carolinas sometime on thursday.

The second annual Key Lime Festival runs from July 3-5 in Key West. It's complete with a 9 foot diameter key lime pie on Greene Street. I'm a little biased since key lime pie has always been my favorite but nobody does it better than Key West. There's a key lime pie store every few blocks and key lime pie on a stick is great on hot days. My personal favorite is at Blue Heaven where they make it with 8 inches of crispy meringue! Simply heavenly!!

Later