One day last year, amidst the shitstorm of a job and life I was living in the city of Chicago, I IM'd my buddy, Josh and told him that I needed another trip to the Boundary Waters. I wanted to check out from technology, humans, the city, insanity, everything.

A trip to the Boundary Waters, a complete wilderness area absent of all civilization, modern conveniences, and man made structure seemed like exactly what I needed. This is a place where canoes and feet are the only modes of transportation, paper topographic maps are the only way to navigate, and you only take what you can carry. There are no cell phone towers, electricity, roads, running water, man made structure, and minimal human contact. In short, you treat a trip to the boundary …

Well, you may have noticed that I've been completely off the grid for a few days. At least, you must've noticed that your internet was slightly less clogged with my nonsense. That's because I've been camping, canoeing, and hiking the boundary waters with Josh, Chris, Will, Scott, and Cal.

No phone service, no internet, no toilets, no running water, no electricity - just straight wilderness. In fact the area we were in doesn't allow motorboats or even wheels on land. Add in a few of our own rules like "no watches" and paddling miles a day - you start to question whether or not you're really on a "vacation."

So last Wednesday we started our adventure by driving to Voyageur Outfitters in Cook County, MN. Josh's sister and her …

Well that was another successful Bock Fest - filled with drinking and laughing until your face hurts.

Despite how awesome it was, Rico had to drop out at the last minute, which was LAME... however Cedric stepped up and stood-in for him. Tobbie also tagged along since she's been fitting in with our crew so well.

So this year I felt more prepared than ever. First of all I wasn't sick... But we seemed to have all the right gear - including my giant beard and Kari's 4WD vehicle. The drive for real took us about 2 hours longer than normal with complete white-outs all over. It was a rough, rough drive... However, we prevailed, pulled into Morgan, grabbed a beer at Josh's, and met everyone at Front Street.

The first night was all …

So, Josh's wedding was last weekend and I was fortunate enough to be a part of the ceremony. Jeff, Nathan, and I actually all got to stand in it, which is awesome.

The rehearsal was Thursday evening, so Jeff, Iulia, Nathan, and I drove up that morning - straight to Front Street Bar and Grill in Morgan. We each had a couple beers then went over to the church for the rehearsal. Rehearsal was pretty smooth despite the 18 person bridal party - seriously... 18 people.

Then after rehearsing we stocked up at this liquor store across from the casino called The Ditch. We had never been there before - in fact it was brand new, but as we walked in the owner shouts at Nathan, "Hey, I've seen you on the internet!" Turns out the guy plays …

It's Tuesday after Bockfest and I think I'm finally awake enough to blog.

So.. Bockfest was good again; not sober, and everything a beer celebration should probably be... and more. Maybe even a little too much more.

Friday, we (Me, Nathan, Jeff, Rico, Chuck, and Nick) took Kari's grandpa's old minivan up to Josh's new place in Morgan, MN. As usual we were way too excited to see each other and went completely nuts - all night long.

First, we walked to Front Street Bar & Grill for dinner and a game of 7-14-21, which is, of course, a drinking game played with dice. I told Josh before we came up, "no shots on Friday night" ...yeah right. That worked out real well.

After Front Street we walked over to the City & Country …

Man, I really haven't had the energy to blog... but I suppose it's time to write about last weekend.

So, Nathan, Josh, and I met up in Minneapolis for another big going-out fest, similar to what we did last year for Josh's birthday. The plan is basically to go to Minneapolis on Friday and come home on Sunday - that's it. Everything else just sort of falls into place, which is generally chaos.

We first walked into our hotel, right next door to the greyhound station and a salvation army home, to find that a goth festival was going on. There were tons of goth/metal kids and all sorts of "Crypticon" gear - the name of the festival. It was pretty hilarious.

So after checking that out, we decided to venture downtown for dinner. …

All in 1 weekend. Ahhh, this is nice.

Friday, Kari and I checked out waterfront deli, went to a party at Fry's for a bit, and then headed downtown to take part in some Drake relay festivities. Plus, Lindsey was in town, which always makes for a hilarious evening - when she calls us anyway...

So, Last night was Jody/Matt's wedding in Minneapolis. It was really a nice wedding. And the reception was also quite ridiculous.... Kari's friends are a blast. Pics coming soon...

And now, I'm currently sitting in the MSP airport waiting to go to Orlando for an RFID conference. I'm pretty excited.

Via hiptop...

Last year I didn't really blog about bockfest because I came down with a bad cold directly afterwards. This year I'm not making that mistake. Instead, I got my cold the day before. With a little Zicam, Sleep, and Water, I prevailed and I am now blogging.

Friday around noon Nathan, Jeff, and Rico met up with Kari and I and we busted out to Redwood falls. The drive was decent... aside from riding 5 people in a Malibu, with a little bad weather along 90.

We showed up, hung out at Josh's for a minute, grabbed some food at Chumly's, then went to the VFW for some drinks, games, and mass nakedness. It was a good time. We then told old college stories and laughed about memories past.

Saturday we drove out to New Ulm (late, again) …

Minnesota is so freakin... I can't think of the word. It's not hick. However, it's similar to hick, with better people. It's so... wilderness or something. See, everytime I go to Chicago I think, "Des Moines is so small town." Then on the drive to Mankato, and up 169 to the cities, I think, "Where do these people shop? eat? go out?" and then I realize that Des Moines is actually a big city compared to a lot. Everywhere I've been in Minnesota is so small town, with smart and friendly people. Then when I get back to Des Moines I appreciate my "big city." Shortly after this roadside pondering I reached rush hour traffic just outside of Minneapolis on 494. Then I saw the skyline off in the distance and went back to thinking Des …

Welp, as most of you know, Nathan, Chuck, and I went up to Minneapolis this weekend, which started out as a birthday bash for Josh, but ended up being a celebration of all our birthdays. Mine's in August... Nathan's is in June, and Chuck's is in November, haha.

On the way, we ended up making a last minute pitstop into Clear Lake to pick up Monica and drop her off at her BF's place just outside of the cities.

We got to our hotel around 9ish, which was in a pretty rough part of downtown - greyhound station, dudes getting handcuffed, etc. Actually we saw people getting cuffed on 3 separate occasions right in front of our building, haha.

So, we quickly threw our stuff in the room and walked straight to Gluek's bar. As soon as we …

Welp, Rochester was pretty rad. We tried to hit all the hot spots in 1 night, which made things quite insane. It ruled though because everything was pretty much within walking distance.

So we started the night off by eating at Newt's. I had heard that Newt's has the best burgers in town. So we went in expecting to order their burger - a normal, but really good burger. We didn't realize that they had a several awesome burgers with special recipes. I had this burger with Jalapenos and garlic ground into the meat prior to cooking. Zach had a Cheyenne bleu cheese burger, and Nathan had a burger with eggs and bacon on it. Seriously, best burgers in town... or maybe even the country!!! (chalk another one up for Minnesota, Josh).

Oy, I'm home sick - it's lame. I'm all bundled up on the couch with 2 laptops, juice, and cold medicine, looking for some mindless things to do. Maybe it's a good time for a blog.

First of all - this weekend. So much fun. Nathan and I rode up to MN with Rico. He was visiting his family who happened to live 20 minutes from Josh... so it was obvious that we should ride along and visit our buddy.

The plan for the weekend was to attend Bockfest at the August Schell brewery in New Ulm - which was a blast. A lot of things happened and I've already told the story about 10 times... plus I don't feel like writing a whole lot - so I'll let the photos tell the story. It was a great time, I met a lot of people, got to hang out with …

What a fun weekend. The days were sorta weird due to messed up sleep patterns. It kinda seemed like one long day. But anyway...

Friday, Kevi, Kari, and I drove up to Morgan to meet Josh Lueck for a Birthday Bash. We got to his house at 11:30pm, picked up Jolene and then met Josh at work (@ Jackpot Junction). Kevi and I played some Pai Gow poker, which is a really fun game and Kari found out that she hated casinos, which was funny. Once Josh got off work (@ 2am) we drove up to the cabin we'd be staying in at Leech Lake. On the way there we saw the temperature get down to 29 degrees, wtf. We got there at 7:30am and napped til about 1.

After that there was lots of hanging out with the family that owned the cabin. We played …

This weekend Nathan and I went to Minneapolis for a couple Heely demos. For the most part it was pretty fun, but it was also sort of annoying. The roads around the Twin Cities suck... bad. Seriously, 35w does not mean 35 west, wtf. And it sucks even more that the people living there can't give you good directions to anything.

Friday night we decided to go to Mystic Lake (one of the biggest casinos in the midwest). The guy at the front desk of our hotel gave us directions that got us completely lost. It took us over an hour to get somewhere that was 15 minutes away... It made us both annoyed, frustrated, and pissed off. Once we got there we stayed for about 30 minutes... I've never really gone to a casino other than to eat... …