#175 Know When To Fold 'Em

Gearing up for the Fourth of July celebration I looked at the flag we have and realized I don't know how to properly fold the flag. So I learned how to fold the American Flag from this site.

#174 For The Birds

Today the kids and I made a birdhouse. The kids painted it afterwards and it ended up looking very cool, psychedelic, Peter Max-ish. The kind of birdhouse that will attract some very laid back hippie birds.

#173 Roller Derby

Now with my newly shaved head I thought it might be time for a little counterculture sports, so I went to a roller derby. Milwaukee's very own all-girl Brew City Bruisers took on the Tampa Bay Tantrums. Knowing very little about the sport, I considered it to be about as valid as professional wrestling. But after having seen a match I have to say that it was hardly what I expected. The match was highly competitive and not scripted at all, and with names like Becky the Butcher, Pound Anya, and Ann T. Social, how could it not be entertaining?

#172 Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

Today was one of the harder things I've had to do mentally. I shaved my head. Part vanity, part insecurity, I wasn't fully prepared for this. But with a little peer pressure from my father-in-law Mac and his friend Nick, there was no way I was going to get out of it after I mentioned I was thinking of doing it. Off it went, and after the first look in the mirror I thought why in the world did I do this, but after an hour or so it started to grow on me.

#171 No Man's Land

After getting the "all-clear" I ventured into the place I probably haven't been into since I was a little kid, I used the women's bathroom, in a fairly busy restaurant bar. Thanks to a co-worker who stood guard as I went inside, my first impression was what a mess it was in there but then the tranquil pink walls took their calming effect on me and I was taken to another place and it didn't matter anymore.

#170 Tuvalu Honey

Tonight I researched the most obscure country that I could think of, and in terms of land area the 4th smallest country in the world is Tuvalu. It's right behind the Vatican City, Monaco, and Nauru. Located in the Southwest Pacific Ocean it has a population of 12,100 and a land mass of 10 square miles. It consists of nine islands that are actually atolls, islands formed by coral that surround a lagoon. The most interesting fact is that Tuvalu has been able to earn several million dollars a year by marketing the .tv suffix that it owns for internet addresses. Because of it's unique suffix, it has become a very attractive to televisions companies all over the world.

#169 Enquiring Minds

It must have seemed pretty odd to the little old gray-haired lady behind the counter as I entered the store at 10:00 at night and made a beeline for the tabloids in front of her. Feeling her stare, I perused the aisles to find an excuse to buy something else. I bought a beverage and a pack of gum to soften the embarrassment that I bought a National Enquirer. Besides the typical celebrity gossip, I was lucky enough to buy the issue that featured "The Blue Orb" that was infused with the positive energy of a psychic and was somehow transferred into the ink of every single copy. It's amazing power will bring me good fortune. I'm still waiting.

#168 Bucket List

I haven't seen the movie yet but I thought it was appropriate that I made a bucket list since it is all the the new things I wish to do someday but probably won't be able to do in the scope of this project. In no particular order here is a list of things that I want to do before I die.

Go scuba diving.
Go on an African safari.
Take a cruise.
Write and illustrate a children's book. (and get it published)
See The Pyramids.
Hold a monkey.
Visit all 50 states.
Go whale watching.
See the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
Go to the Superbowl.
Skydiving.
Visit all seven continents.
See a tornado (from a distance)
Be a guest at the White House.
Swim with dolphins.
Lunch with Neil Diamond. (I can't really explain this one)
Go to an Irish Pub in Ireland.
See the Great Wall of China.

#167 Primal Urge

Within every guy there is an innate urge to see how far you can launch an object. It's almost unavoidable. It can be a rock, a spear, a discus, a ball, just about anything is launch-worthy. It's why goat tossing exists in Spain. It's pretty simple, It gives us great delight to see how far we can make things go. That's it. And because I'm not impervious to this, I fired a water ballo0n launcher. It was fun, they went far, we laughed.

#166 Mad Scientist

For my son's birthday party I had a Mad Scientist come to our house (in all fairness it was really my wife who did all the planning) Complete with tesla coils, slime, fire, twelve screaming kids and much more. Fortunately the house remained in tact, with the exception of a screen door that was run through within the first five minutes.

#165 Twiddler on the Roof

Because I needed to do something new desperately, I twiddled my thumbs for fifteen minutes. It's a lot harder than I expected and after five minutes I was wishing I had decided to thumb-twiddle for five minutes instead. I recommend stretching your fingers ahead of time, or better yet, don't try doing something this stupid in the first place. Incidentally, I read that the longest time someone had done this was twenty hours, but I could not confirm this on Guinness. I just might hold the world record.

#164 Ujjayi Pranayama

Today I learned a new breathing technique called Ujjayi Pranayama. Used for yoga and meditation it is sometimes called the "ocean sounding" breath or for those of us less in tune with nature at the moment, is best described as "Darth Vader" breath. After much practice I can't say I was anymore relaxed than when I started, which is probably more of a comment on my own state of mind and not the breathing technique. The only real effect on me was a serious case of light headedness.

#163 Personal Handler

I'm not really sure exactly how to explain just how surreal this night was, other than by saying at the end of the night I was riding around in a limo with Fonzie and Shirley. Yes, the Fonz from Happy Days and Shirley from Laverne & Shirley. I also was hanging with Leslie Nielson who even at the age of 82 had us all laughing hysterically because of a hand held whoopie cushion that he kept squeezing every time he posed for a picture. For a good part of the evening I was the personal handler for Mark Metcalf (best known as "Niedermeyer" from Animal House or "The Maestro" from Seinfeld) At one point I was in the middle of a Blue Man performance, at another I was speaking to a Cher impersonator. All very surreal. This was all part of a grand opening of a new section at the Potawatomie Casino in Milwaukee. Through a friend of a friend, (thanks Erin and Gino) I was able to be a personal assistant with a couple others to a group of celebrities that were making appearances that night, including the before mentioned Henry Winkler and Cindy Williams.

#162 Tell me Something New

What did I do today? I ordered "Something". What did I order? I have no idea. I do know that it will be coming in a box and I ordered it from the Somethingstore.com. I also know it cost me $10. It will be one completely random thing from their inventory. It could be an ipod , it could be something completely useless (more likely).

#161 Adventure Day

Today was the second last day of school for my son, and I volunteered for Adventure Day at my son's school. It's a day when the entire school gets to participate in all sorts of activities in various "stations" Unfortunately it all had to be moved indoors because of the enormous amount of rain we've had. I was in charge of Rhythm Stick Hockey, the long and short of it; give a bunch of grade school kids some sticks and a bunch of balls and let the mayhem ensue. Fortunately, no one was injured on my watch.

#160 Pandora's Box

Here's a great site I heard about years ago in it's testing phase, but not until now did I set up an account on Pandora.com It's an online radio station that only plays music you like. Tell it a song or artist that you like and it uses a number of variables to determine other music you might like. Give each song a thumbs up or down and it defines the music you like even more. The great part about it is the other artists that I've found that I've never heard of before.

#159 New Thing For Old Man

Finding time to watch a movie these days has been difficult, so because I had nothing planned today I opted for the easy way of accomplishing something new, I watched No Country For Old Men. Great intense movie, full of suspense . The entire movie was great right up until the last couple of minutes when...

#158 Micro Lending

I found this site from another new thing a day person who I believe found out about it the same way. The site is called Kiva.org and it specializes in connecting people from developing countries who are trying to become entrepreneurs and lift themselves out of poverty with people who are able to give them small micro-loans. It works like this, they apply with certain lending institutions that are partnered with Kiva and request the amount they need to get their business off the ground. Kiva posts their request and in turn visitors to the site can loan to the person of their choice in increments as small as $25. For every person that gives a loan, the closer they get to their requested amount. All money is then agreed to be paid back in a certain time frame. Along with a group of almost 45 other people, I loaned some money to a group of women from Senegal who are trying to get supplies for their business in which they make and sell clothing. Here is their photo and story.

#157 Rabbit Season

I can do a pretty mean shadow puppet of a dog when I have to, but today I stepped it up a notch and I learned how to do a rabbit shadow puppet. It takes a little bit a of finger contortion but with a little practice it can be done.

#156 Facebook

Not really knowing what to do with it or why, I joined Facebook. I know what it is and I've heard plenty about it, but as someone who hasn't even joined myspace, I'm not really sure how much I will be using it. Time will tell.

#155 Add the Kraut

One of the last remaining foods that I’ve managed to elude since my child-hood has been sauerkraut. This has required a great deal of mental fortitude or more likely, stubbornness. It’s no easy task to grow up in a German family living near Milwaukee where sauerkraut is almost as abundant as water. So despite the smell and the name, I ate sauerkraut, on a bratwurst.... Say! I like sauerkraut! I would eat it on a train in the rain, in a boat with a goat, on a yacht with a brat. I will eat it here and there. I will eat it anywhere!

#154 All-Star

To the baseball purist the fact that I voted for my choice of players in the MLB All-Star game most likely goes against the integrity of the game and they’re probably right. And I apologize. Number one I only voted for Brewers in the National League. And for the American league it was based entirely on name recognition. I also may have left a number of “hanging chads” on my ballot.

#153 Go For The Juggler

I've been able to juggle 3 objects for a while, but nothing more. I considered trying to add a fourth for today's thing but I believe that would take more than a day to do, so instead I learned to juggle with a behind-the back-move. It took a while to get the hang of, maybe 2 hours total, but I was able to do it with some consistency now.

#152 Sprecher

Milwaukee is known for a lot of things and depending on who you ask (and the time of evening) you're likely to hear about the beverage very near and dear to our hearts – beer. It is seems only right that I took a tour of Sprecher Brewery. Sprecher is a micro brewery that makes a fine selection of craft beers as well as a killer root beer and other sodas. The best part of any brewery tour is of course the sampling. I highly recommend the Abbey Triple – a Belgian style ale. And for the soda enthusiast, the Cherry Cola made from Wisconsin's very own Door County cherries.

#151 Barbershop

Cutting another person's hair for the first time ever can be a pretty nervy experience, but not if you make that first person your son. He was the perfect guinea pig because at his age he really doesn't care what he looks like yet. So I gave my first haircut and I completely messed up. I took a huge chunk of hair out from behind his ear as I was trying to sculpt around his ear. So what started as light trim, ended up being a full fledged "summer haircut" to help blend in the missing chunk. As expected, he really didn't mind.

#150 Typo

I've wanted to do this for a long time now but procrastination and being a complete sissy about needles have prevented me from doing this – I donated blood. It took only 45 minutes at the local Red Cross and it was not at all as bad as I thought it would be. And the cookies afterward didn't hurt either.

#149 Frankenstein

With whatever we had lying around the house I "invented" a new drink. Here's what you need to make your very own Frankensteins.

2 oz. Rum - the cheaper the better.
3 oz. Orange Cream soda - not easy to find, especially when it's buried at the back of the fridge.
1/2 box of grape juice - must be from a juice box for authenticity.
3 oz. Iced Tea - just because
Splash of lemon juice

Combine ingredients over ice, preferably in a mason jar to give it that moonshine look. Now this is important... Garnish with one lime flavor ice pop. Enjoy.

#148 Star Bright

According to sources like the IAU (International Astronomical Union) the naming rights to a star or any celestial body can't be legally sold or even recognized for that matter. Despite what they say, I had a star named. Somewhere out there a stars got the name "365 Daves" . The official information is as follows:

This is to register the Star designated as 240067 with Magnitude 9.8, type A0, located at the coordinates: RA 12H 34m 18s, and Declination -58° 43m 2s, to be known and named:
365Daves
Here's a link to it on Sky Map.

#147 Memorial Day

Today we headed out to Elm Grove, Wisconsin and I went to see a Memorial Day parade. Lots of great antique cars, fire engines, marching bands and unfortunately, a few clowns (for me they rank up there as one of the more freaky things in life) Despite the clowns, the weather was beautiful and the parade was a great time.

#145 Groundbreaking

Not eventful, not exciting, and not very cool but it was necessary – I used a rototiller. Just one of the things you find yourself having to do out here in the 'burbs. My arms payed the price and as I heard someone else describe their rototilling experience, "it was like trying to hold on to a runaway bull"

#144 Brain Calisthenics

The New York Times and Time magazine both have done articles about aging and the importance of exercising not only the body but also the mind. It might be a little premature for this, but I did some "brain calisthenics". Time has a 20 minute workout in which you can work on memory recall, sound tracking, and other focusing skills. There's also a number of other sites out there that have offered an online service for mental workouts such as the HappyNeuron.com.

#143 School Play

Being a relatively new dad the opportunity for new things really occur almost daily, like today I attended my son's first school play. It was The Three Bears and he played a mushroom. I'm not really sure how I would have played a mushroom, but he did a great job as "a poisonous one"

#142 Air Zooka

One plastic garbage can, one shower liner, one really big rubber band. That's all that was needed and I made an AirZooka. It also doesn't hurt to have a fog machine to shoot out really cool smoke rings. Take the liner and cover the trash can opening as tight as you can, like you would to make a drum. Wrap the rubber band (I got one at the local hardware store) around the edge so it holds the liner in place really tight. Cut a smaller hole on the bottom and you're done. Just tap the liner end with your hand and it blasts out a puff of air that can reach at least 20 feet away.

#141 Thanks for the Memories

This one I have to preface by apologizing to great friend of mine. He knows who he is. We've had a lot of good times times together, especially in college as roommates for over four years. But the one thing he has forever scarred me with is incessantly playing certain songs over and over back in college. This was particularly hard to escape during the times we we lived in those 20' x 20'dorm rooms. So in his honor, I put together an iMix on iTunes called "Songs My College Roommate Has Ruined For Me". Here they are in no particular order:

Burn Down the Mission – Elton John
Tighten Up – Archie Bell & The Drells & The Drells
Moonshadow – Cat Stevens
Landslide – Fleetwood Mac
Monkey Man – The Rolling Stones
Both Sides Now – Judy Collins
Three Babies – Sinead O'Connor
2000 Light Years from Home – The Rolling Stones
Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) – Looking Glass
Le Freak – Chic
Moonlight Mile – The Rolling Stones
I Can See Clearly Now – Johnny Nash
Sweet Caroline – Neil Diamond
Tusk – Fleetwood Mac

#140 Harry Potter

Today was the day I started reading Harry Potter to my son, it's also the day I may have started the process of turning my kid into a science fiction nerd. Which is fine by me I guess, because I loved this stuff when I was young and I think I turned out all right. Maybe he's a little young for it, but he was really excited about reading it, so were giving it a try and finding out what all the craze is about.

#139 PugFest

What is PugFest? That's what I wanted to know. Well, I attended PugFest and it's basically a couple hundred pugs and their owners walking around sniffing each other, I'm speaking about the dogs. Amazingly ugly, but somehow they pull off being cute. Most noteworthy is the difference in size some of these things can be, from small and petite to grotesquely obese hunchbacked monsters. There were black pugs, grayish pugs, pugs with Packer jerseys, pugs with tutu's on, pugs with giant spiked collars, you name it they were there.

#138 Top Album

I intended to listen to the entire album of Thriller by Michael Jackson but I was surprised to find out that it was not the number one selling album of all-time, which is okay with me, it was the Eagles Greatest Hits. How did this happen? Are there really that many people who want to listen to Desperado? Nothing against the Eagles but how is this possible, it doesn't even have Hotel California which I would venture to guess is their top selling song. Regardless I listened to the top selling album of all time The Eagles Greatest Hits.

#137 The Freshmaker

Here's a cool experiment that was made popular on youtube, I made a diet coke and mentos rocket. All you need is one 2 liter bottle of diet coke and seven mentos, drop them in and watch the fun begin. I bought the tube with trigger pin at a local hobby store, but you can find it at this site along with more info than you need to know about coke and mentos.

#136 Pop the Clutch

With the help of some coworkers I attempted to pop the clutch on my car. I use the term "attempted" because after seven tries I was only able to get the car to start briefly before it stalled. I also use the term "I" in the sense that I really didn't do much other than lift my foot off a pedal when I got the cue, while Joel and Jeff did all the hard work of pushing. I was really determined to get the car to start this way but I didn't have the heart to ask them to try an eighth time as they stood there out of breath. Thanks again to all three for helping me on this one.

#135 Whigmaleerie

While wanting to widen my word selection on a whim, I read every word in the English language that begins with the letter "W". Webster's of course. Here are some words I found to be worthy of writing:
wahine
wallaroo
wamble
waterzooi
wheedle
whiffet
whigmaleerie

#134 Chucks

Arguably the most famous shoe of all time, the Converse All-Star Chuck Taylor. They started making these in 1908 and later paid homage to basketball player Chuck Taylor by putting his name on them. Nearly 100 years later I designed my own Chuck Taylors. You can go to their site and design your own shoe in a variety of styles, colors, and they will send them out in 2-4 weeks. I just hope they fit.

#133 Batting Cage

One of the great things about this whole new thing a day stuff is that I can fill in the gaps some pretty ordinary things that I've somehow managed to avoid doing my entire life. For instance, I went to a batting cage. My wife even took part, and I have to say with the exception of missing a couple, she was hitting them pretty good. If you haven't done this yet, go out and do it. It's fun. More fun than I expected it to be, if I had a pocket full of tokens I would have used them all. The kind of fun that kids throw a fit over because they don't want to leave.

#132 Mother's Day

Given it’s Mother’s Day it seemed like the appropriate time to do something that probably was long overdue, I visited my Grandmother’s grave. She passed away when I was away at college in 1992. She was born in 1908 along with her twin brother and had 8 siblings in all, two of which passed away when they were children. My memories of her are of a very independent Polish woman who was an avid reader– especially on history. She was a sports fan, and I remember her teaching me how to shoot pool. I also remember her driving around many of the other elderly people in her building so they could get their errands done. Below is my favorite photo of her, to me it says a lot about the type of person she was.

#131 Me Make Fire

Fire. Realizing that you can't even provide yourself with one of the most basic needs of survival is a humbling thought. So just in case I get stranded in the middle of the wilderness, I made fire without using a match or a lighter. Hopefully if I'm ever in that situation, I just happen to be carrying one of these nifty little blocks of flint. It took a few tries but eventually I was able to get a pretty good flame going.

#130 Esperanto

I've learned a few phrases in Klingon, a completely fictional language. I've learned some Swahili, a real language. Now for the last of my new languages suggested by a post from Bill, I learned how to speak some Esperanto. This is a language that falls somewhere in between. It's not fictional, it's a real language that was developed in the 1870's. It's intention was to be a universal second language. It is a neutral language that has a very simple structure and pronunciation. Many of the roots of words are similar to the Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages. It has a 28 letter alphabet. All nouns end in "o". Add a "j" to make a noun plural. Adjectives end in "a". Here's a simple intro to esperanto. And to add to my list of languages I can say "Plian bieron, mi petas." and "Kie estas la necesajo?" – Another beer please. Where is the bathroom?

#129 All By Myself

Tonight I went to see a movie all by myself. It was a little awkward and I felt a little self-conscious about sitting there by myself before the movie started as people chatted with each other. The “lonely guy at the movies” was made even more noticeable by the fact that there were only about 15-20 people in the theater since it was a 9:40 pm show, so it’s not like you could just blend into the crowd. Also missing was the post movie talk that usually takes place afterward. It might have gone a little like this:

What'd you think?

Yeah I know, really cool effects. It took a little while to accept the premise, with all that building the Ironman in a cave and stuff.

How 'bout that guy behind me making all that noise with his popcorn? Yeah I couldn't wait 'til he was finished either.

Wow, it's past midnight already. I'm going to be really tired tomorrow.

#128 Othello

No I haven't dove into Shakespeare yet, but instead I played the classic strategy game Othello. It was invented in the late 1800's by two Englishmen and the original version was called Reversi. It consists of black and white playing pieces and a grid. Here's rules and an online version.

#127 Tarot Cards

In as little as five minutes I was able to do a tarot card reading with the help of this very cool illustrated set of cards I bought at the bookstore. "Uncover today's secret and tomorrow's promise" was the what the box stated. Here's what I learned:

The Moon card: "My intuition is very strong right now, but I'm still likely to be deceived. This is not the time to start anything new" – Great. It's a little late for that!

Eight of Cups: "Count your blessings and try to be content with what you have"– What I don't have is the eight bucks that I paid for these cards.

Two of Swords: "Aim for cooperation not confrontation"

Queen of Wands: "Dealings with authority figures will go well"- Is that why I got a speeding ticket?

#126 Card Cutting

One thing a guy should know how to do is learn how to shuffle a deck of cards the right way. That way when you're playing poker and attempting to pull off the biggest bluff of all– the fact that you actually don't know how to play poker very well– you can at least look like you've been around a deck a cards a few times. With this in mind I've improved the charade and I learned how to cut a deck of cards a couple new ways. The first being the Charlier Cut (pronounced Shar-lee-ay) also known as the one-handed cut. The second is the Pivot Cut. Now I can at least look good as I hand over all my money to my friends.

#125 Balloon Launch

Today the family and I held a balloon launch. Ten balloons all attached with a laminated card that directed the receiver to this blog in hopes that we can see exactly how far the balloons had traveled, the odds are pretty slim that someone will find them but you never know. The kids thought it was pretty cool and were hoping one would go as far as the North Pole.

Update: One of the balloons was found in Maniwaki, Quebec! That's over 650 miles! Most likely it traveled over two of the Great Lakes. A big thanks to whoever found it and took the time to post the comment. I would love to know more about how you found it?

#124 Trip the Lights Fantastic

Some friends of ours have a band called Roshambo that we went to see and despite their best effort to get me up on stage to play the tambourine I managed to avoid my music debut and hang out in the back by the soundboard. I was too busy bothering the soundguy to let me control a handful of the hundred or so buttons and knobs that he was responsible for. He was completely accommodating to the barrage of questions I had for him and he gave me a pretty good run down of how it all works. I did manage to break him down and negotiate that I control the light show for the band. It was only for a brief time, but it was during the introduction of each band member and I managed to put the spotlight on the guitar player as the drummer was being introduced and playing his solo in near darkness.

#123 Swordfish

Today I grilled swordfish. I didn't prepare it in any special way, no sword or anything – just the basics, fire and meat. It's not very appealing before it's grilled, some might argue not even after it's grilled. The taste was pretty good and it was really tender, like a good steak.