Why are windshield wiper controls so different in every vehicle? Seriously. I somehow wound up driving a LOT this weekend, in 4 different vehicles. Between Kari's SUV, mom's new car, dad's SUV, and Jeff's truck. By the end of the weekend I was almost taking Jeff's truck out of gear just to clear some rain off the windshield.

Anyway, Kari and I visited the QC to visit some family and celebrate my birthday this weekend. It was nice to see everyone. However, this new "splitting up time" thing is really draining.

So Friday, we met my mom, Juliet, Jeff, and Nina for dinner, which was a good time.

Saturday we woke up and went to Galena with Nina and Juliet. I really don't remember Galena being so big. I imagined it more like …

Mother's Day this year was pretty fun.

Friday Jeff came into town then we got sushi @ Taki, went to Court Avenue, etc. Pretty routine night. Definitely good.

Saturday, Teresa and Vic showed up, we cooked some homebrew, then we all went tailgating at the Iowa Cubs game. This time I didn't have a 102 degree fever!

The actual ballgame was pretty fun as well. It started off good with the cubs in the lead, then went about 7 innings without a single run, then all of a sudden syracuse jumped up to 11-3 in the 9th - so tons of people left. Then the cubs suddenly rallied it and brought in 5 runs for a final of 8-11. It was hilarious. And since we'd all had a few drinks, we screamed various obscenities at the blasted 3rd base …

Riverbend Pizza is this awesome place that I worked at from the time I was 15 until sometime during my senior year of High school. Aside from mowing my grandma's lawn, it was my first real job - and it ruled... a lot. So here's a huge collaboration of some of my memories. This is going to be long and I'm not a terrific writer, so I'm sorry if it sucks.

I worked with a lot of people while at Riverbend, so let me preface by introducing them. The most memorable/prominent were Krut, Shirley, Randy, Joey, Boone, Wingert, Morris, Tom, and Bunky. Yeah there are a couple nick names there - we had nicknames for everything really. The giant machine that we used to knead dough and grind cheese was named "Grog." The knives and dough cutters …

One day Krissy and I decided to drive past my old house on Old Ranch Road in Port Byron. I was feeling pretty sick so I had her drive. In fact, I started to really feel like crap so I took my seat belt off so that the pressure wouldn't be on my belly.

Right when we passed my old house we came up on this car driving 40mph in the 55. Like any normal person, we got real annoyed. So she waited for the passing section, then passed. When we got right next to the car I looked over to realize that the people we were passing were my neighbors (really old farmers). And then I noticed that the car was turning into us to get into their driveway. They were totally oblivious that we were even there. So needless to say, the huge Continental …

When I was in High School, 3 foot blowguns were pretty popular with my friends and I - the ones that you blow into and shoot a 4 inch needle out the tip. We all became incredibly good with them, we could hit pop cans from 30 feet away, etc.

One day Nate Sels, Ray Terhune, and I were on the way to play a round of golf at Byron Hills when Ray decided that he needed a new blow gun. So we swung out to Discount Tool in Silvis to pick one up. Discount Tool was a weird place; it's about 1/2 car stereo equipment, 1/4 weapons, and 1/4 tools. So he got a 3 footer, some darts and we went golfing. Upon arrival, Ray was dying to play with his new gun so he took it out and put it in his golf bag - no big deal, there are plenty of trees, benches, …

Throughout High School lunch, my buddies and I always goofed around in an immature fashion (imagine that). It was usually Me, Jeremy Ludin, Jeff Ballard, Boone Ebel, Kyle Wells, Luke Gochanour, Andy Mead, etc. First of all, we always mixed everything that was left at the end of a meal into some concoction. Every day there was a new name for it too like, super stinky dumpy, ultra gross jomblination, mega nasty sloppy, barfy dumpy pukey, etc... but overall we called it "Ultra Sloppy Barfy" It ruled so much. Then we'd put the tray with everything on it on top of all the other trays. Everyone would always look at us like, "omg those guys are so immature." Whatever.

Lots of things happened in our lunch room. Grub stole milk a lot and …

I guess I should start with the first time I started Soaping. I was at my buddy, Hugh Hermes' New Years Eve party my Jr year of High School. He had some Soaps and a practice rail so I decided to give it a shot. I fell really hard but loved the feeling of grinding.

Anyway, about 2 years later in October of 1999 I wanted more soap stuff, mainly new grindplates. I didn't have a credit card at the time so I sent an email to Soap asking for a catalog. This way I could order some products by writing a check. They didn't get back to me for a few weeks so I sent them another email, and then another, and another. Then I gave up.

In February, I got a call on my cell phone from the CEO of the company, Chris Morris. I was super geeked when he …