ChrisNeuendorf.com

Instpundit has a list of places you can donate to hurricane Katrina relief..

Catholic Charities is already involved and that’s my charity of choice, but head over to Instapundit and check out the list and donate if you can!

So tonight I was in my garage and holy smoke, there was a bat flying around in my garage.. Pretty cool cause bats eat tons of insects.. Last summer I got to see the worlds largest urban bat colony.

One of the most amazing sights in Austin takes place every evening from March to early November, when 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats emerge from their roosts under the Congress Avenue Bridge.

It is very cool… anyway, so I went to get my camera to take a picture of the bat in my garage… not sure why, it was just a bat, but anyways by the time I got back it had flown out of my garage…. or so I thought…

Later on that night about 11ish I was watching some Stargate SG-1’s that I had DVR’d and all of a sudden I notice something is flying around in the living room… It’s that damn BAT!!!

Well, I run down the hallway and shut my daughter’s door tight.. She’s not quite two yet and get me wrong, she would probably think a bat flying around is pretty cool.. but I did not want to have to deal with waking her up if it flew in her room.. I also woke up my wife and told her, just because I knew she would kinda freak.. she took it pretty good, much to my disappointment.

Here is one of the pictures of it.. After I turned on all the lights it was not too happy and landed on the wall. Freaky.. sorta..

Now, I could have killed the thing, but in a lot of states it is not legeal to do so.. In Iowa bats are protected by law.. i think.. anyway, bats eat bugs bugs bugs… which I hate, so that’s good… So I captured the thing against the wall with a trash can, but the first time it got away.. the second time I got it and made Tracey get me a piece of cardboard to use a lid and i let the little dude go outside.

Here is me with the bat in the trash!!! Victory is mine!!

So now my house is bat free!! I’m not sure how the little bugger got in.. but now he is gone.. It’s weird because over the last week, two coworkers have told me how they have just had bats in their houses..

Later
Chris

Another picture from Dave’s sister’s wedding. I was trying to pose for a nice civil picture, but Dave (the dude on the left) was putting the moves on me.. I’d say it was pretty bold of him considering his girlfriend was the one taking the picture… That’s Dave for ya… Not that there is anything wrong with that.

But on a more serious note, if you see Dave, please to not approach him. He is to be considered dangerous… If you see him, please contact the proper authoritahs!

Walken 2008… Need I say more?

If you’ve seen the Captain Morgan commercials you will get this. For some reason they make me laugh. Dave’s sister got married this weekend.. a fun time was had by all.

Ok, so I’m in Madison, Wisconsin for a few days and for supper tonight a few of us went to Quaker Steak & Lube. On Tuesdays they have all you can eat wings. For those who don’t know I love chicken wings more then anything. Well, they have several flavors of wings.. all are pretty damn good.

Now, they have some pretty hot ones. There is a unit of measurement called Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) that measures how hot stuff is. Below is the chart of their sauces. Their 3rd hottest, Badger BBQ, is 5000 SHUs, Suicide is 30,000 SHU’s and Atomic is 150,000 SHUs!!!!!! 150,000 is way hella hot and they make you sign a fricken WAVER just to be able to eat the wings.. Well, I took the plunge and had the Atomic wings… MAN, they were damn good and damn hot!! It was totally worth it and I got a bumper sticker that said I survived the Atomic Wings!!

Check out the chart…

Well, this past weekend I traveled down to Dubuque, Iowa to get together with some friends from High School. We decided to do this after the funeral of our friend Brian Gienau, who was killed in Iraq Jan 27th of this year. We had lost track of Brian and each other and decided we should not allow that to happen any more. I traveled down to Dubuque with my friends Vicki and Kim. (Vicki lives in Waverly and Kim lives in Des Moines.) We traveled to our friend Anne’s house and on Saturday Laura drove up. I ended up being the only dude cause Dave and Pat were unable to go.

So we hung out Friday and drank some martini’s and stuff and Saturday drove around Dubuque. We went up this lift/elevator thing that went up at a sharp a$$ angle up this hill that has been around for a long long time. It was old and kinda creepy, but we survived. Here are some pictures:

Then we decided to stop into the Greyhound Park and Casino to do some gambling. First we watched/bet on a few dog races. (I lost..) Then we went to the slots… I blew like $10 in the quarter slots in 10 minutes.. Anne and Vicki lost like a dollar, and then there was Laura… She didn’t gamble at all until right at the end where she stuck two quarters in a slot machine and got nothing.. then she put two more in and BAM she won $50. So damn lucky. Right after that Kim gave Laura two of her quarters in the machine and BAM $10 winner. Pretty sweet. Here is a picture of Laura and her winnings.

It was a good weekend, now on Monday I had to go up to Madison. (I’m in my hotel room right now.) and since Dubuque is on the way I stopped at the casino and went to the same slot machine hoping it would treat me good… Unfortunately luck was not with me. Maybe I’ll give it a go on the way home.. who knows. Well, until later…

-Chris

P.S. oh, I took this picture of Kim at Walmart where she found a Patrick doll but she renamed it to Mulva.

Gross is all I have to say about this Chinese Crested dog.. it is so damn ugly…. UGLY

Click here for the story about the 3 time ‘World’s Ugliest Dog’ champion.

Ok, it’s not a movie.. for those who don’t know, it’s a bike ride across Iowa… but it is so much more. Think of it as a 15,000 person party that makes it’s way across the great state of Iowa in 7 days. Some people go for the cycling. (Trust me, Iowa is plenty hilly in parts) Some go for the food.. (pie, pie, pie, some other stuff, more pie) and others go for the partying. For me I’d say it is about 33/33/33.

Anyway, now that I think about it.. They absolutely could make a RAGBRAI movie. I guarantee you a RAGBRAI movie would have Wil Ferrel, Vince Vaughn and at least one of the Wilson brothers. Christopher Walken would make a cameo.. of this I am certain.

The ride started Sunday, July 24th in Le Mars, Iowa. Le Mars is French for ‘run away’, I think. Anyway, myself Dave and Meg got there Saturday the 23rd at around 5 PM. It was hella hot and humid. We found our team. [We go with Team Bayard, we are a group of like 15 folks. Most from Iowa, but we have one dude from Nebraska and a couple from California] So, we ate some lasagna and tracked out team down who somehow requisitioned a pool in someone’s backyard, so that was cool. That night was hella hot and hard to sleep and I had the idea to wake up early to get going to beat the heat the next day, cause I am that damn smart.

DAY 1: Le Mars to Sheldon
Easy ass day.. Even though it is like high 90’s and humid as all get out, you don’t really notice it while you ride. We got like 50 miles into the 65 mile day by like noonish, then all of a sudden off to the left I saw this farm house with this 100 foot water slide. It was very tempting to stop just for that reason, but we were actually going to continue on until I saw a little sign taped to the mail box. “FREE BEER”

Now, there are not that many rules on RAGBRAI, but one of our team rules is if you see FREE BEER you must stop. No mater what the weather is like you must stop for FREE BEER. And stop is exactly what we did. So, after like 3 hours, many beers and many trips down the waterslide (NOTE: you can see the waterslide pictures by going to http://www.chrisneuendorf.com/ and clicking on RAGBRAI 2005) we headed to Sheldon.

So in Sheldon it was still hella hot, and the beer was wearing off and the heat was starting to get to me. I think it was Charlotte who suggested we go see a movie. It turns out that was the best idea ever, because myself, Tandem, Charlotte, Jackie and Troy went to see Wedding Crashers, which is the funniest damn movie ever! Not only did the movie kick ass, but the theater had some nice AC going.

On a side note, there was like a 10 minute preview for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. Seriously… how can they make a sequel to that.. HOW?!?!? Also, you know the movie will suck when they can’t even show one funny thing in a 10 minute preview… Unbelievable.. Next summer Howard the Duck II: Howard’s Revenge is coming out..

Alright, this post has been way to long and I only covered like one day of riding. I put some more up tomorrow, and I promise I will try to condense it.

However… to get you to come back, the RAGBRAI XXXIII expierence will continue where we left off that night in Sheldon with THE STORM OF THE CENTURY!!!! The Perfect Storm ain’t got nothing on that night.

-Neuendorf