Marcus has hit the US main land, little over an hour ago!!!!!......he
will be enroute to his decontamination area in the next 2 hours....and
hitting Iowa most likely next week.....and RAGBRAI, probably Humboldt

He said he could smell where it had rained and it was exhilarating.

5 days until RAGBRAI XXXV!!!
Training miles: yeah right!...how about getting the bus ready?

Marcus is somewhere between Kuwait and WI. Should be officially back next week in IOWA!!!!!! It's been a long wait for him and Laura......

Austin had his last bb tournament Friday and Saturday….lost both games Friday night, but I skipped out after the first one as I was suppose to work Summerfest.

Summerfest was a blast Friday night…I didn’t actually work, but I had my connections for alcohol. Toaster was good….alot of talent walking around too…Went down to the Clipper afterwards, it was packed….in fact about 40 standing outside waiting to get in. That was a good thing, as I needed sleep before going to the game at 8am…..Thinking I need to stay away from Carla and Nicole...they can be dangerous....of course Gary can try to be a bad influence too....luckly I'm smarter than that...it's that used car salesman......

I was dragging most of Saturday through 3 baseball games…we won the first one….then lost the next 2 in the tournament…they were close too…..Off to Summerfest.

Saturday night I actually worked, that was fun. Standing Hampton played, seen them several times, The lead singer does an excellent job…they play all covers from the 60’s-90’s…..…They will be playing in Humboldt on Ragbrai. Not sure why but VF just despises me….oh well her loss…..Wow Cindi was smashed, she was basically carried out on Saturday night. Julie was somewhat intoxicated, but didn't need carried out...just in.

Got home Sunday about 1pm with Blaise…I tried to just rest most of the day…did a few things around the house nothing on the bus!!!! I know RAGBRAI is Saturday!!!!!!

This week mostly getting the bus ready, house cleaned good enough for a week, clothes packed, Spamalot on Wednesday , maybe a few miles on my bike Thursday……and more bus stuff…..

Deep Thought of the Day: A good way to threaten somebody is to light a stick of dynamite. Then you call the guy and hold the burning fuse up to the phone. "Hear that?" you say. "That's dynamite, baby."

Nudge, nudge, your wife, is she, eh, is she a sport? Know what I mean, know what I mean, nudge nudge…..

This morning on my drive to work I reminded myself to look at the scenery as I flew by it and it was extremely relaxing and quite beautiful. It’s always hard to remember to just enjoy what nature has to offer when you come back into the city with everybody going a million miles a minute…..people just don’t realize what they are missing……

Added one of my favorite Reggae songs Shame & Scandel by Madness ...check it out!
Lunch yesterday with Gary, Jesse, & Kyle from Team Kamikaze was great...we discussed pros and cons of Wet T-shirts on RAGBRAI...wondering what the cons are?...and we called Nicole #1 giving her a hard time about going or not going.....sounds like she'll be going for a while.

Last night was quite, baseball practice then went home and did nothing…..

Forgot to mention Tuesday night Andy’s softball team was ruled by a team being pitched by Bill M.

Very little sleep last night…mind is back into thinking too much about too many things….It’s going to send me into a premature death…..well at least I won’t be thinking…..

Apparently car washing etiquette doesn’t allow you to wash your car in the morning?…thanks for that information Crack-Whore Stacy….who comes up with these rules??

Tonight baseball games in Carlisle then I’ll be serving at Ankeny Summerfest.

Saturday…more baseball then Ankeny Summerfest again and sometime in between some sleep at home…I hope

Sunday stuff…Blaise at 4 as Austin will be a Cub Scout camp for a week…..I won’t see him for 2 weeks…not very happy about this…..Probably start working on the bus Sunday.

Deep Thought for the Day: Anybody who has an identity problem had better wise up and get with the program!

9 days until RAGBRAI XXXV!!!
Training miles: have a few, added 30 last night.....

We lost our overnight place for Cedar Falls, so if anyone has connections….

Going to lunch today with a bunch of the Kami’s

Baby Mammoth found intact! ...just wait till they clone it...

Great, do we need Karaoke 24/7?

Wednesday afternoon I actually put some miles on my bike….I had to be back into work at 8pm for some production code moves, that eventually would be rolled-back because some one missed 5 reports…(Not me) It was the official tunnel ride on the Great Western Trail…which I hadn’t made the last two years because of other commitments. I rode to Martindale hoping I would hit everyone at the tunnels on the way back. Well when I got back to trailhead they were still at Orlando’s. I had about a half an hour, enough time for one beer. Met one of the new girls riding with our team, Barb. I assume they rolled out of there between 8-9…sure to be a late night for most, this sleep thing is becoming more important to me…of course if I didn’t have work the next day…..Nicole had a sweet shirt on…some hot guy had given it to her some time back Passed crack whore and bouncy Beth towards the end of the ride...haha, they were just getting started...

Idea of what happened last night on the tunnel ride:
Is everyone as tired as I am? I'm surprised there haven't been emails flying back and forth today about last night. So, I'll get it started with a little bit of math humor - if there is such a thing.

Last night I got to Orlondo's about 6:30, left around 8:30 and got back to Orlondo's around 2:00. So, if you do the math on that it took me 7.5 hours to go 8 miles. An average of 1.07 miles per hour. If you want to be generous and not start counting time until I left Orlondo's then it took me 5.5 hours - or a pace of 1.45 miles per hour. SLOW DOWN!

Yesterday in the Tour de France they did about 147 miles in 6 hours 38 minutes - 22.16 miles per hour. If you take the "fast" pace from last night it would take me 101 hours to do that 147 miles - or 4.21 days.

Just thought you all might find that interesting.
Tom Spaulding

Tonight will be the last baseball practice for the year and probably go home and feed the dogs, get the mail, & other domestic stuff……Austin has the last tournament this weekend…which slightly interferes with Summerfest...but I will still be a serving Friday and Saturday....

Deep Thought for the Day: Any man, in the right situation, is capable of murder. But not any man is capable of being a good camper. So, murder and camping are not as similar as you might think.

Stolen from TheSneeze.com....

Hobos rock. They're like homeless guys you can feel good about.

Someone recently sent me a link to Hobo Soup suggesting it as a possible Steve, Don't Eat It -- which actually wouldn't work out that well because I have since tried the soup and it tastes great.

But right now, we really need to talk about the can...

Would you look at this can? LOOK AT IT! It's beautiful. It's magnificent. It's tickling my balls as I type. Forget about the soup, I want to eat the can. Whoever designed it should be in charge of designing everything, everywhere.

It's like a Wacky Packages sticker, except it's the actual product. (I'm pretty sure if you tried to create a Wacky Pack for this soup, the universe would implode.)

They sell the soup on the site by the case of 24 for $50, which might be a little more soup than you'd be interested in. (Especially if you're an actual hobo.) But that's what brings us to the Hobo Soup T-shirt.

I haven't decided for sure yet, but I might need to be buried in this shirt. And it was only $16.50, including delivery!

Jim at Hobo Soup was very nice on the phone, but I think he runs a very small operation. (In my mind, he's the guy on the can, but I'm an idiot.) He was pleasantly old school, had never heard of PayPal and I don't think he takes credit cards either. I'm not even positive email makes it there, so my advice is to make it easy on everyone and just blast out a check in the mail to the address on the site. (If you do speak to Jim, please be extra nice. That's how we roll at The Sneeze.)

Finally, here's the Hobo Soup story from the can:

Hobo Soup was "born" in the restless, creative mind of Lem Kaercher, a small-town newspaper publisher from Ortonville, Minn. In 1953, Lem went into the "Jungles" of Ortonville in search of a feature story on Mr. Hobo, long an American legend. At conclusion of his visit, Lem was treated with some old-fashioned original, homemade Hobo Soup. A Hobo himself as a young man, Lem felt the world should share in this fine cuisine. For years, a proper Canner was sought, and finally in 1960, Lem and son, Jim, finally saw a dream come true... Hobo Soup on the Grocer's shelf - "A Jungle Recipe, Fit For A King!"


Let's keep the dream alive. The official Hobo Soup website is right here .