Vesuvius Times: Special Edition

Chicago, Ill

The Chicago Bears defeated the Seattle Seahawks 27-35 and won their first playoff game since 1995 when the Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings 35-18. Many have sighted the improved play of Quarterback Rex Grossman as the reason for the win. "It felt great to have a game like this." Grossman threw for 282 yards with one touchdown and one interception. "I'm the reason for the interception." Stated Muhsin Muhammad (WR) "The ball hit my pads and I'm the reason for that mistake."

What was not reveled during the post game interview was the technique used to improve Grossman's play. "I mean that guy helped out a lot, I would have never been able to play that well without him." The man Grossman is talking about does not have any NFL experience or did not play any college football. He actually is a imitation TupperWare sales man. "He came to my door and tired to sell me some storage containers and he noticed my football memorabilia and we just started talking." Coach Lovie Smith's chance encounter may have saved his teams Super Bowl chances. "All I can say is Thanks Uncle Rico."

"Hey, I knew what was wrong and came in an showed this kid Rex what he was doing wrong." Uncle Rico Dynamite of Preston, Id spent the entire week improving technique, accuracy and distance. Hell one day we were eating steak and told me about a time he hit his nephew in the face with a steak 50 yards away while he was riding a bike. Dude in the face!" Whatever these secret are it was definitely what Grossman needed. "One of the things I can tell you about was the tapes we watched." Grossman recalls "At first I was thinking what was Lovie smoking? This guy sucks, but I kept watching and the next thing you know I'm throwing a ball over some mountains."

We attempted look into Uncle Rico's past playing experience but were not able to find any instance when he played. "You see my skills were so good that no one could it. I was way ahead of my time." Even back when he was in high school he felt he was slighted. "You see we were in the state playoffs and we were loosing by 50. All the coach had to do was put me in and I'd win the game. I bet he's wish I played now."

With Grossman's new and improved passing abilities Lovie Smith and the Bears are looking to secure Uncle Rico as a commodity of the Bears. "I've heard that Pittsburgh is looking to bring him in for Roethlisberger, but we are going to give him a staff position." Uncle Rico is even trying to get jobs for his family members to secure his services. "My nephew Kip tells me he is training to be a cage fighter so he might be able to help that Urlacher kid with his tackling and my nephew Napoleon, well, we might let him help with the dance team or draw a new logo for the Bears."

SUNDAY: Drive, drive, drive

Wilson once again fixed a wonderful meal. This time it was apple Cinnamon pancakes that was unbelievable. We could not stay long because we had a long drive ahead of us. The Wife's sister was having a cook out for the family in Troy, Ohio on the other side of the state. It takes us three hours to get there. With the wonderful drag we are getting from the bikes we are going to have to fill up again for the return trip home.

It's pretty obvious The Wife biological family and I don't quit see eye to eye on a lot of things, but they are now my in-laws so I have to deal with it. Today though nothing really happened that made me want to leave five minutes after we arrive. We ate hamburgers and then played volleyball for a couple of hours. Every trip to the biological family needs to set up this way.

We once again fill the gas tank up and now have spent almost $100 just in gas. We finally get home and end our trip. We spent too much money for what we were doing, but we had a good time. hopefully next time we learn from our mistakes and will do better.

SATURDAY: A day that started bad and ended ... OK

I woke up first and decided to clear out some bad pictures in the ole digital camera. I start deleting when I get to a black picture. DELETE, then something bad happened. It didn't go away right away, instead it said processing. What the hell was it processing? Well I found out it some how deleted EVERY PICTURE! The drinking, the canoeing, some pretty flowers... EVERYTHING. I was devastated and luckily the night before I loaded some of the pictures onto Wilson's computer.

We go take showers, break down Ft. Baker because it's suppose to rain most of the day and head out to a meeting The Wife has needs to go to. We get there late she does her thing and that leads to a fight. I will not say why we argued but we did. This trip is starting to take a turn for the worst. It got so bad we didn't get lunch.


We head to my parents house for more of well non-camping activity. We mostly sat around talked and watched two movies, A river Runs Through It and Fallen. Both are good movies and made the day go by fast. A huge thunder storm rolled through and I am glad we broke down the Fort. It's about dinner time and we take mom to Toro Loco. She loved it and will be taking dad some day when he is not working.

We then head back to Wilson's where we decided to spend the night. The ground was too wet and he had some extra beds. We ended the night with yet another movie Last of the Mohicans. That ends the camping part of our vactation. The Wife actually wants to do this again, well maybe more in the fall so we can do more, and over all it was a good trip.

FRIDAY: The day after

We awake around 8:00am and you may wonder "How did you get up so early from all that drinking?" Well when you get that drunk by 9:00pm, you are usually OK by 8:00. I slowly start figuring out where I am and what we are going to do. We go down to the Pick N Save for some needed supplies and things we forgot. On our way out we find a voice mail. It's Wilson he sounds like he had a bad night of drinking... Oh yeah he did. His message says he is going to run 14 miles and will be back later if he does not fall down and pass out.

We have a lot of time to kill. We head back to Ft. Baker and take a shower... of sorts. Now I have seen some pretty bad camping showers. These how ever where not too hate full. The stalls are pretty small and there are only two, but we are the only ones using them. It took me a minute to figure out the system. You had to push a button and water came out. To get warmer water turn the knob and wait 3 minutes. Now that may seem pretty simple, but it looked harder at the time. Also another trick was the fact you had to keep pushing the button in every two minutes so the water would not shut off. We head back to Ft. Baker and do a little napping, reading, poker and all around nothing.

Just after noon we got bored and wondered where Wilson is. We head to his cabin and see he is still not home. We break out the bikes and try to go for a ride. As you may have noticed I said try. We go about 10 minutes and everything is uphill. The wife is not use to this so we only went on for another 5 minutes then we turned around and went back to Wilson's.

Still no sign of the guy. I'm starting to think he is in some gutter wishing for death, but I'm hungry so we go out to eat. Ironton actually has restaurants now! One of them happens to be a Mexican restaurant named Toro Loco. For Ironton this was really good Mexican! I am shocked that this has happened. For years the closest decent restaurant was in another state 10 minutes away. I hope Toro Loco continues to do well so we can go back. As we are leaving I get a call from Wilson, he has finally made it home, he's going to take a nap and will come back to Ft. Baker when he wakes up.

Once Wilson has arisen from his finally drunken stooper we arrives at Ft. Baker and we go back to his place for some awesome Italian chicken and dirty rice.

For the first time on our trip we actually go and do something campy. We get a canoe and go out on the lake. It was a fun our and a half which included a little rain shower and us sitting under a tree leaning out over the lake. It was a great way to end the day.

THURSDAY: What just happened?

With football starting up soon I decided to take a few days off before I have to work almost every day from now till December. The Wife wanted to go camping so we went to a Lake Vesuvius just outside my home town of Ironton.

We got up late because we are on vacation and its going to be hot and didn't want to sit around in 90 plus weather with 100 percent humidity. We finally got the car packed by 11:00AM. I got the bikes on the car. This was the first time we had two bikes on the bike rack that I have had since 1995. Well the rack did not sit well. We started driving and it got real bad after I went over a set of speed bumps. So we had to head to Dick's Sporting Goods and spent WAY too much for a new rack. It's now 12:30 and I'm started to get frustrated. This trip isn't going well and we have not left Columbus.

We get on the open road and I notice the new bike rack sits a lot higher on my car and well, it's causing massive draft on the back of the car which forces the Mazda to suck gas. A trip that normally I can do on just over a quarter of a tank, Well it took over a half a tank. We almost ran out of gas. We took the back way in which is very rural and not a lot of gas stations. We actually passed one station selling gas at $3.15, not too much of a problem but when I know that in Ironton it will be $2.70 I'll try to make it and I barely did.

We fill up and head to what I called Ft. Baker, yes Ft. Baker, if there is a Ft. Wayne then I can have a Ft. Baker. With the help of Wilson we find a suitable site that is close to the bathrooms for the wife, but kind of way from other people. We picked the site and then found out Wilson had bad memories of this site, you can ask him about it if you ever get to meet him. After we set up we then head to his former ranger house for dinner.

I have a new found respect for old man Wilson, THAT MAN CAN COOK! He got some beef from his cattle raising parents. He opened the package, unfolded the beef and then unfolded the beef once more. These steaks are FREAKING HUGE! We ate like kings and a queen. Beef straight from the butcher is better than any steak you can buy at a store or a restaurant.


After dinner we put on our smoking jackets and sat around discussing world politics and how we can better society... Who are we kidding we drank out ASSES OFF! IT got ugly and early quick. It started off with wine and Guinness, then it went to the mother of all drinks the Black and Raspberry which shall be referred from this point on and forever as the Vesuvius Special. Wilson and I had three of them and then more Guinness and then the hard stuff. Some special rum from the Caribbean and some Italian death drink. All I have to say is enjoy the picture show.






Wilson seems to be very relaxed.

Vesuvius Times Entry

*WARNING*

This post is mostly for my friends "down home." We like to make fake newspaper stories about each other. If you EVER see the title Vesuvius Times Entry... RUN!

Man things Orlando Bloom wants to be him.

COLUMBUS, OH

In an article in the Columbus Dispatch it was quoted in the life section that if Orlando Bloom was not an actor he would be a wartime photojournalist. Jeremy Baker a 30 year old photojournalist for "The Network" believed that Orlando Bloom wanted to be him. "You see I am a photojournalist right? So we are in a time of war correct? So that makes me a wartime photojournalist and YOU KNOW IT!" Friends are not shocked that Baker would jump to that conclusion. "You see he's always try to make his job bigger than it is." Claims Gypsy moth catcher Adam Wilson (1,001 years old). "You take the word of Wilson?" Yells Baker. "He runs around a field with a giant net, a tutu and wings catching gypsy moths!." Even though Wilson does appear to be look silly in leggings and a tutu others claim Baker is just a little misguided. "After he won that award for a story he did we had to call him award winning photojournalist for a month! Can you believe that a month, now that whole Orlando Bloom this is making work hell." States fellow photojournalist Micah Riffle.

Jeremy Baker has been seen around the state wearing sunglasses and trying to hid from "fans" and "popuratzzi." He signs autographs to people who wonder why he is in their neighborhood shooting a story. "It was the oddest thing, I just wanted to know what all the hubbub was and that guy over there hands me a photographer with his signature on it... Just wired."

Even his wife thinks its a little much. "I really like Orlando Bloom and Jeremy is no Orlando. Oh yeah he keeps making me call him the pirate of my Caribbean, I have no idea what that means."

We tried to get a comment from recluse Joe Bowman but all we heard was "Damn videographer!"

Next Time Brokeback Wilson, Gypsy Moth love not allowed under Ohio Law or Man doesn't Leave trailer for 7 months