Lifeguard

Tired out after patrolling the deck of the pontoon while we swam. He does NOT like it when we go in the water. Not at all.

Tent

Waking up in a tent in Indiana with my kid. Granted, this is a super creepy picture if you see it out of context, and I'm not totally sure why it's upside down. I just went outside to pee and have a sweet hydrochloric acid sting from my right ankle to knee after carefully stepping over each nettle plant, except the last one. It will fade, just like this moment, which is why I broke the laws of nature and used this fancy phone to sear it onto the Internet forever. Seemed like the right thing to do, and the only way to justify taking a really creepy photo.

Birthday

The kid got his little brother for his birthday; the gift that keeps giving... and talking.

1977

It was a big day in September of 1977.  I secured my place in history as the Punt, Pass and Kick champion of Dubuque, Iowa.  At the same time, in a hospital in South Carolina, a skinny baby girl took her first breath.  Little did she know this stud would be waiting for her 30 years down the line.

Phone

I think I could do this from my much simpler phone years ago, but now i can do it with an app! And pay 300% more for it! Sweet! But after an awesome day at the zoo with my friend Violet, it's all worth it.

wife

My lovely wife gets on me about not writing more. Just haven't been feeling it for a while, apparently not since December 3rd of last year. But I really want a happy wife, so here you go, dear. Funny picture. Alaskan mountains with a strainer for panning gold in my left hand. If you look my right, it hand holds something more valuable than all the gold in the world.

Awwww.... I love you, wife.

miss

Just realized I never posted this entry. I wrote it a month ago. The concept of missing someone or something seems a heck of a lot different now.

I've missed some things in my life, but never to this extent.
About a year ago I bought a coat. The thing is absolutely hilarious; puffy, yellow and rated to Everest. I always had a vision of me in a coat of this caliber. Preparedness. Right.
Tonight it snowed, probably a little harder than it usually does on an early December night in Minnesota. Maybe it was the snow, maybe the barometer, maybe my current state of mind, but damn it I wanted to put that coat to the test. To the test means a couple beers in the pocket and an ipod in my hand, but whatever. I kicked my way through the white, feeling incomplete, like I have for the last couple months. I'm a self-admitted drama queen. Walking through the blowing snow listening to a playlist of songs that intensify the amount I miss my kid was some odd self-flagellation. I sat on the swing in the park across from our house, just sipping and swinging, feeling sorry for myself that my kid is in a different country. They don't get him like I get him. They don't need him like I need him and he doesn't need them like he needs me.
It was a Honda I think. I watched its ass-end swing out, then back the other way, like a slow motion dog who's really, really excited to see you walk through the door. Then it stopped, right there on the low-grade slope in front of me and my wallowing. Stopped.
To make a long story short, there I was in the middle of a Minnesota street, wrapped in my Everest-ready yellow coat, pushing a car driven by my Chinese food delivery kid, who had absolutely no idea how to maneuver through a couple inches of fresh North American snow. I'd push, gain momentum, and he'd stop to say thank you. Over and over again. Push, momentum, stop, thank you.
He never made it up that hill. He backed up and took the plowed street. But you know, standing there in my ridiculous coat, I felt a little more in touch than incomplete.

dumbo

Just realized I had this picture of the old guy. Pretty sure it's the last one ever taken of him. I took him to my friend Ronda's farm to stay for a couple weeks while the rest of us traveled south. He liked car rides, but we didn't think he'd be welcome on Beale Street, Bourbon Street or most of the other streets we visited, so he had to stay behind. I knew he didn't mind because he loved Ronda and loved her farm. In payment for a couple weeks of dog-sitting i agreed to help cut thistles out of her pasture. There are a lot worse things I could do on a hot June day, fresh into vacation and ready to start the summer with a good sweat. We loaded up her truck with tools and headed into the field, five dogs rambling through the tall grass along side us. We worked hard and the few hours passed quickly. Work is easy when vacation has just started. The old fella wandered a bit, but mostly just laid in the grass and watched us pull the fat thorn bushes from the black dirt. On the way back to the house I sat on the bed of Ronda's old Ford, sipping water, invigorated by midwestern dirt on my skin. As the truck sputtered its way up the grassy hill, I saw his old black body emerge from the grass and follow along. As we picked up speed, so did he. To my amazement, his gait quickened from a fast stroll to a slow trot to a full on run. Here was a dog who'd been in our lives for over a year and I had never, ever seen him run. Seriously, never. The closest we'd seen was an ill fated trip to the park to introduce him to the concept of "fetch". We threw the ball a few times, only to have him saunter to it, pop it with his old teeth and lay down, comfortable and content. Here was our aged friend, sprinting along side a pickup through a Wisconsin field, not far from the place he wandered into our lives a year before. His tongue flopped out of time with his ears as he bounded puppy-like through that green field. I remember thinking how happy he looked, maybe as happy as I'd ever seen.
Ronda and I sat on her deck for a few hours, sipping fruity summertime drinks and chatting about upcoming travels and adventures and love of the summer months. Duke sat by our feet, sleeping mostly, with the occasional jerk from a dream, probably dreams about his days as a puppy.
I walked down Ronda's gravel road to my jeep with the old guy close behind. I opened the door but he didn't try to get in like usual, he just stood there looking at me, mouth open, tongue out, eyes wide. I cupped his hard head in my hands and rubbed my face in his. I told him I loved him and if he needed to go, he was in the right place to let go. Ronda asked why I would say that sort of thing, but I had no answer. It just came out because, I suppose, it felt right.
A few days later while driving through Mississippi we got the message he let go. On a Tuesday afternoon he walked back into this pasture with Ronda, laid down in the afternoon sun and gave up his old lumpy body to stay in the puppy dream. Logic says an old dog just dies, without much thought or circumstance. My romantic side says he knew it was his time and was hanging on, waiting for me to tell him it was ok, which I did that afternoon on the gravel driveway. Regardless, taking his last breath in the summer grass under a Wisconsin sun, feeling as loved as he'd probably ever felt, is a damn good way to go.
Today under the August sun, vacation adventures over, emotional roller coaster at its deepest trough and consumed with questions of love and life, I miss his hard head and bad breath and simplicity. I miss his uneven patches of black and gray, his selective deafness and even his clumsiness. But most of all, I miss his love. The give and the take of his pure, wide-eyed uncomplicated love.
I hope that puppy body is drinking cold spring water and chasing bugs, old buddy.

success

Ha ha ha ha....
I made it to the North Pole!
Read on...
http://troyhenkels.blogspot.com/2010/04/chuck-at-north-pole.html

80

Apparently, when fishing in the Louisiana bayou, dressing like it's 1982 is acceptable and highly encouraged.
Troy, I want you to print this picture and take it to the North Pole with you. When things really suck, when your team is cold and dismal and hungry, pull it out. Tell a long story about the grit and sheer will of this individual and how he overcame adversity in his struggle to become a man. Since none of them speak English I'd imagine you'll keep them enamored by the flow of the story, possibly just long enough to momentarily distract them from the fact they're walking to the fucking North Pole.
Don't forget sandwiches, my friend.
http://thenorthboundquest.com/