I bet you had no idea it was so hard to find a clay chiminea (locally). Well it seems fire pits aren't in vogue as much as they were in years past. So the selection has dropped considerably.
I found this out when it was time to replace my 6+ year old clay chiminea that lost it's cover over winter and took the brunt of the snow, thawing and freezing cycles.
I bought this chiminea at home depot so hey lets go back for another one.
2 Different Home Depot - Nothing, 2 Different Steins - Nothing, Lowes - nothing. Really? One Home Depot had no fire pits or rings at all.
Tracy spotted one at Menards. Said it had a 'face'. Thinking Kokopelli or some Sun face of some sort, you know, Mexican south-westy. Oh well ho bad can it be.
Welcome to the Brady Bunch Happy Time Chiminea:
Yea, its a Tiki. South Pacfic is what I think of when I think of clay fireplaces. It's short. It's also not the best design, but once it gets cooking it isn't too bad. I got it just in time too: When I attempted to move the old one...
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Congrats to Joel and Kewsaskum Varsity Tennis Team! Joel and 1 other players had sub sectional tournament wins. Both move on to state sectionals.
Well its that time of the year where a young mans fancy turns to camping overnight to get Great Taste of the Midwest Tickets.
So Saturday Me and the boys (Glen, Tim, Paul, Perry) headed out to the fine town of Lake Mills and Tyrenena brewery. Set up camp and waited. Nothing like early May camping to make you feel young? old? not sure. We had a table, ate dinner:
Played cards, drank beer until the told us to go to bed at 4:00 AM.
Next Morning rise and shine to break down camp and sit and wait, some more.
Mind you there are only 400 tickets to be had and each person can buy 2. Sad to say some of the later arrivals were not getting any tickets. The line snaked all the way around the grounds, to my right and down the side of the building behind me. All seemed well until the storms started showing up. We all got moved into the actual brewery floor because there was serious lightning in those storms.
Pretty nice of them to let us do that. A hoard of people among hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment. At noon they started selling and we were on our way home.
Where do I start? I know, a lovely child-less dinner at Tomasos pizza on Friday night. Nice. Saturday rolled around and it was time to brew. Newly educated all-grain brewers, Glen, I and a cadre of wanna-be brew masters all huddled in the chilly Schroeder garage for an afternoon of brewing beer. Cream Ale.
Being the jet setter I am, I bid adieu to my craft-brew clan around 2:30. I know they could handle it.... I had another party to attend. In Ixonia. Just Kiki and I. While we munch on birthday cup cakes, Tracy is at a bridal shower (snore). Joel is off to Prom.
This is Junior Prom so it's more informal for this group of seniors. Good looking bunch of young adults.
Being the awesome dad that I can be, I let Joel take the Mach Five instead of the Mystery Machine (some old school cartoon references for ya). Of course I had an auto cross event the next day. I hear to Mach Five rumble into the garage around 2:30 (yea that's AM). Three hours later I am in the garage putting my racing tires on and am off to Miller Park. I did not even wake Spritle up to help change wheels. Thanks Pops!
A long and cold day ensued. Racer X could only pull a 3rd place in class, with my best run of 72 seconds.
That's ok, it's all about consistency. That's how I won this last year:
Yep - all the talk and now I finally picked up the hardware to go with it. Award winning driver. That's me. Anyway, over 12 hours later I get home, tired and wicked wind/sunburn to boot. Cloud cover and 45 degrees you never even think about sunscreen. Oh and because I am being super awesome, on the way home I picked up a huge bag of Oakland Gyros for dinner. Hero right there. And that was the end of this busy weekend.
Shout out and thanks to my brother Jim. He came out in less than nice conditions to watch me make a few runs. The support was nice to have. I think we may get him out there in the Mazda this year!
