Obviously I'm quite open and honest; but you didn't REALLY think I was going to tell you about my sex life did you?

Geez! Perv!

I've been playing bass along time and I've probably been getting compliments about it just as long.

I'm a decent bass player, sometimes I actually even impress myself, but for the most part it always surprises me when somebody mentions it.

There was a post on the American Blues Scene page asking who is the best bass player of all time.

I narrowed mine down to Tommy Shannon.

A few hours later I get a notice that our guitar players brother also commented and I clicked the notification to see the picture below. It Just blew me away. Even though I know it's somebody who knows me and has a close connection to our band, it just blew me away to be mentioned in the same post as the greatest bass players of all time.

Here's what that ended up looking like:

Me: So as good as my day has been it just got better. I look over on my side bar and I see Bill "commented on American Blues Scene". I think "Wow, I didn't know he knew about that"; Of course Marks brother would know about that.. Then I saw his comment and, being me, especially after my comment about my guy, well, it just blew me away for a second to see that. Thanks Bill!

Awesome.

This weekend I had the extreme privilege of hanging out with my two youngest boys in Wausau for Scott W.'s State Bowling Tournament. But that's a different story.

This story is about the other kids I got to observe at that Tournament.

There were literally hundreds of kids and they were al so well behaved, it was just a great example of a bunch of kids being great.

A few of them stood out to me.

I have this habit of observing kids and wondering how right I can be about their personalities as I see them or imagine them, and what the reality is between what I see and what they're like at home.

Sometimes I just make stories up for people, but it's really entertaining when it's kids.

So I didn't really notice any one yesterday, but today four kids in particular really knocked me out. I even had to share my observations with my son Josh and I've NEVER done that with anyone!

The first was this cute as a button little dude with a red baseball cap, a plaid shirt and jeans & tennis shoes. Classic All-American little boy. Probably 5 or 6 years old.  And quite the little man too as he carefully, yet proudly lugged the big order of food from the snack bar that he beat his parents into buying for him.

He was a joy to watch. Very neat about cleaning up the mess too.

And then I thought about what he's probably like at home.

And I decided, "yeah, this is a boy who has tantrums that make his parents wish they'd have dropped the extra coin on some condoms that one night".

At least they can take him out in public!

The second kid was a young girl, maybe 13 or 14 if I had to guess. And I do have to guess because I have no clue by looking at someone how old they may be.

Anyway, she was really pretty, blonde hair in a pony-tail and these cool "executive woman" glasses. She was a decent bowler and it was the bowling I noticed first.

She was bowling against Scott W.'s team and she has a great approach and follow through. Very slow and deliberate. If she'd get a strike she'd celebrate in a mild way, but if she got anything other than a strike, she'd stomp her foot and act like it was the balls fault and not hers.

Then she really made me smile.

After a turn she came up past Josh and I and grabbed some food from the snack bar and went back to the lane. Her turn again.

After she bowls she comes back and starts eating. And doing her nails with nail polish!

I sh*t you not.

Then took her turn again and when the ball slipped off her greasy hand and she got a gutter ball she didn't stomp her foot. She checked her nails.

What a girly girl!

The third kid was awesome. Another little dude in the 4 to 6 range.  A little on the chunky side, with extremely curly strawberry-blonde hair about collar length.

He was the opposite of the first kid. He was nuts! Had some extreme cartoon or gamer T-Shirt on and he was wearing these clear goggle glasses and running around like he thought he was a super hero or something.

Happy as could be. Zipping around the place full tilt with his bug eyes. He was a Kraft Macaroni & Cheese commercial waiting to happen!

I told Josh, "the only thing that ticks this kid off is if Mom forgets the Twinkies" , Josh tried real hard not to laugh.

The fourth kid was a young girl of 11 or 12 on Scotty's team.

I met her yesterday and had the strangest feeling that I knew her.

Couldn't place her for anything though.

Today I ask Josh if she looks familiar to him, and she doesn't. I tell him I know her from somewhere.

Moments later it occurs to me. I do know her!

A year or two ago a guy comes into the store with this little girl who has to do a school project about something and she picked: Harley-Davidson Motorcycles! So of course I told her what I could that would mean anything to her and let her get her picture taken on a bike. Another Harley story! :)

So I go up and ask her if she remembers me. No.

I ask her if she remembered her school project. "I think so; I don't know".

Blonde girls.

Gotta love 'em.

And you have got to love other peoples kids. They're awesome!

Like a lot of Harley Riders, I have a leather vest. It is adorned with pins and patches that I have collected over the years. Most of them have a story of some sort, some are there just because I liked them. I have some custom made ones that are mostly "In Memory" patches of friends and relatives. I also have an amusing one.

I've also started this thing about making up silly nicknames for my friends and family that ride and if I like it, I get them a patch made for their vest with the nickname.

I'm just going to give you a quick picture and the story behind each patch that I have made. Starting with mine since I have pictures of them.

I've considered this as a topic before, but what brought out the stories is that I just ordered a new one looked for the guys Facebook page and there it was. Somebody posted a picture of some patches he had done, an he thanked the person because he likes to hear about what the patches he makes are for and what they do after he sends them out.

Of course I decided to make him happy so I posted a picture and told the story of two patches.

I'll start with that one since it's all copy & paste!

I just ordered another patch and decided to see if you were on Facebook and here you are! I also saw that you like to see what we do with them & why.

Well I have a bunch and they all have a story an I'm in fact starting a section of writing about my patches & things so I'll share this one with you: My dog Max was the son of a dog I had. I had him from cradle to grave. 

First time I ever experienced that. Great dog, great friend. So I got theses two
patches from you. I also found a heavy duty chrome document tube, had it engraved with the same info as the patch and it's attached to my bike so Max rides with me now since as a Doberman he was too big when he was alive :) Well, that and he was scared to death of the roar of a Harley :) Thanks for being a part of that and a bunch of other stories!

This is the first nickname patch I ordered for some one and it's my favorite because it is my girlfriends. Although the one I ordered last night is a real close if it turns out the way I want!  

Kris had never experienced riding on a Harley until she met me. And she loves it! So for Christmas I got her a vest and got her an Associate Harley Owners Group Membership. And ordered this patch to put on it and stick her with my favorite nickname for her.

Of course I had it sewed on the vest before I wrapped it.

Well where that comes from is, Kris is something. She's a fireball. A million miles an hour doing a million things she wants to do. Sometimes in the process of all that activity, things get dropped, left in weird places. She can have the kitchen looking like, well, like a hurricane went through it. Or the bathroom. Or whatever area she happened to blow through.

It is the cutest thing in the world, and the fact that she's short and blonde just makes it fun.

So I started calling her Hurricane Krissy, and when it came time to get her patches for her vest, well, the choice was clear. It had to be there. And it is, and she even likes it!

So much so that a year ago she had never been on a Harley; It was only 9 months ago that she took her first ride with me, since then she felt her own dream of riding coming back and just a couple of days ago she found out that she owns her own Harley since I bought it for her, and she wants her license plate to be HRCNE which fits the 5 letter limit for motorcycles in Wisconsin.

Now I can just picture her riding so happy & proud of herself once she takes her riding class. Wearing her leather vest and her Hurricane Krissy patch.

I can't believe I don't remember when it happened but it was May or June of 2005.

The patch is a pretty big understatement, but there wasn't enough space to write "I Cut Off My Thumb-Couldn't Ride". Because that is the real story behind  this patch.,

Long story short, I was helping a friend on his farm (insert your own "farming accident" joke here) and I was taking a big piece of cattle panel back down the road to the barn. For some dumb assed reason I will never understand, since it was too big for the truck bed, I decided to tie a piece of twine to it and hooked it over my thumb.

So the cattle panel drags, swings out into the road and a truck clips the panel, burning the twine instantly through my thumb. It was only attached by a piece of skin.

Then the story got long, so we'll skip ahead.

This also happened at the worst possible time. Lisa and I were just about to tackle two big events in our lives. We were about to move into a house that her parents were selling us on Land Contract as a wedding present, and about to have said wedding.

I learned how to do ALOT of things one handed being in a cast for a year. I re-injured that thumb awhile back and doing things one handed came back like riding a bike. And the female PA who stitched up my thumb came in and bought a bike from us! But that's another story too.

This particular group of patches represents my annual trek to the Wisconsin Biker Mecca known as the Tomahawk Fall Ride.

I've gone everyone of the last ten years without fail. It's the one thing I insist on doing every year and take off from work without a guilty conscience. It's my vacation and my mental health break before taking on the next year.

And I always get an "I Rode Mine" patch to differentiate between myself and those who trailer theirs. Well 2005 I couldn't ride, but I wasn't about to not go. So I got this patch made so there wouldn't be a skip between 2004 and 2006.