June and July 2023

My brother and his family came up to visit us in June, so I left the day before to go to Boston. I wasn't avoiding him, I just had better things to do with my time, ha.

The best vehicle I've rented in my 13 years of traveling out there. It was difficult to take it back.

My coworkers in Product Operations.

We went to a music festival in Milwaukee and saw Foo Fighters and a bunch of other bands. They also had a motocross track:

Then the Foo Fighters! This was near the beginning of their first tour after losing Taylor Hawkins. They put on an awesome show.

Then we learned a fun fact about Milwaukee: it is in the top 10 cities in the U.S. for car theft, averaging 31 car thefts per day. The Kia Boyz are a gang who steal almost exclusively Kias and Hyundais in Milwaukee. Unfortunately, we had a Hyundai, but that ended when we returned to our parking spot. Long story short, the cops had recovered the car before we knew it was gone, but it was destroyed. So now we have a different car (not a Kia or a Hyundai). A long night in Milwaukee:

Our car was in the impound lot with about a thousand other cars. Some people must never claim them.

The windows were smashed out, there was minor damage to the exterior, but the dashboard was smashed up, the steering wheel had holes stabbed in it, and they ripped out all of the wiring under the dash and stripped the steering column. The front seats were messed up as well. So insurance decided that the cost to repair it wasn't worth it.

Also, we got solar panels! So no more utility bills and during the summer we produce enough power for 7 houses. Nifty!

Foo Fighters and Robot Fighting

We went to Des Moines to see the Foo Fighters, who put on an amazing 2.5 hour long show! You'd think after 2.5 hours it would get kind of old, but Dave Grohl is one entertaining dude. Super fun show that went by too quickly. The Struts–from Derbyshire, England–opened for them and I was surprised at how many of their songs I actually knew. 

The next day we visited all of our old haunts like Grays Lake, our old house, the Drake hood, the Brass Armadillo (everyone is talking about 'em), Cynthia's old house, the Salisbury neighborhood, downtown where we used to work, and the place we used to housesit. So many good memories! It's crazy how many things have changed/disappeared, but it's cool to see how much some of the parts of town have improved. Our old house definitely hasn't improved... unfortunately the people who bought it from us have really let it go. But they're raising chickens in the backyard, so that's... cool.

And for your viewing pleasure: vintage robots fighting.