Monthly Archives: August 2002

No e-mail address

Well, it’s come to this. I’ve officially removed all traces of my personal e-mail address from this web site. For a while I had the actual address posted on the e-mail page for everyone to see. I have been getting a few unsolicited e-mail advertisements and paranoia has forced me to take it off so scum-sucking spammers won’t be able to harvest my address. For my e-mail page, I also found a secure, form processing script that lets you hard code your address in the script, so it’s not listed anywhere in the form.

It’s pretty sad when you have to do things like this just to keep the annoying ads from entering your mail box. The worst part of it is, the spammers can send millions of messages at little cost, yet our Internet service providers have to purchase more mail servers to keep up with ever increasing volume of unsolicited e-mail ads that are coming through. Who do you think is paying for that?

Those X-Cleavers

What is it about the music of your youth that makes it the best you’ve ever heard? Is it because when you hear the soundtrack of those years it floods your brain with memories (most people look back quite fondly on those times). For me it was my early twenties. I think that’s when I did the most “growing up” and considered myself an adult.

The other day in a used record store, I discovered a CD from my favorite local Milwaukee band from that time (the early 1980’s), Those X-Cleavers. When I got it home and popped it into the CD player, I couldn’t believe how good it sounded. If I close my eyes when it’s playing, I’m at those old hangouts with all of my friends from that time. It almost makes me wish I could time travel. The music of Those X-Cleavers has a new wave / punk feel to it. The compact disc I bought includes two albums: Those X-Cleavers, The Waiting Game and also a few bonus singles from that time. I don’t think it’s available new anymore (no, I won’t sell mine) but if you can find this CD, you too can hear such excellent songs as Silence The Critics, 18 (And Unprotected), Skip A Beat, Nice Legs (Shame About The Face) and Do The Confusion.

Waswagoning

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One more entry related to my camping trip. Learning about Native American culture has been a fascination of mine for quite some time. While I was in northern Wisconsin, I visited Waswagoning, a recreated Ojibwe Indian village. They’ve got things set up there as the Ojibwe lived before the Europeans came to this area. The tour guides (from the Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe tribe) do an excellent job of showing you how their people lived during that time. The folktales they told also made their culture come alive as the tour progressed. Definitely an excellent place to stop while you’re traveling through the north woods.

Camping with Loons

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One of the best things about being in this area of Wisconsin are hearing the loons calling at night. There’s nothing like falling asleep while listening to that haunting wail they make. One night I woke up about 3am (my bladder was calling me). After I finished my urgent business I must have stayed awake 20 minutes or so listening to the loons. No, they weren’t keeping me awake, I wanted to just lay in my sleeping bag and listen.