Friday, September 25, 2015

Good morning crew,

This new master we have at the martial arts school is a bit more...I don't know... 'woodsy' might be a good word for it, than the last master.

This weekend he wants to take all of the instructors to Starved Rock State Park for a little field trip, of sorts.

Starved Rock is located about 80 miles south-west of the Chicago area and is made up of some 2,600 acres of woods, canyons and rock formations on the Illinois River. It's quite beautiful, actually, especially in the fall.

There is a huge lodge right at the entrance to the park and the wife and I briefly entertained the idea of having our wedding reception there.

I guess the master's idea is to go on a day hike into this 2,600-acre wilderness, and then create a bonding experience by having us all practice martial arts together while standing on some large sandstone butte, or something, just like in the movie Best of the Best 2.

Well, who am I to criticize? The only thing is, other than me, the other three instructors are all teenagers.

A bunch of teenagers wandering around the woods on precarious, isolated trails...sounds like the opening of a horror movie to me.

I'll let you know next week if we get attacked by a machete-wielding maniac, or a mysterious sasquatch or something.

And then, if I'm feeling particularly reckless, there is another Oktoberfest right here in our little neighborhood Saturday night. But I don't know if I am going to have the motivation to sing 'Ein Prosit' all night after having spent the day hiking through the woods so I can perform Poomse on top of rock formations.

We'll see.

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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"I saw that top congressional leaders sent a statement to the House and Senate with guidelines for Pope Francis' visit. In addition to 'no shaking hands,' Congress was given a lot of rules about the Pope's visit. First, there's 'Don't fake-sneeze just to get an easy blessing out of the Pope.'" -Jimmy Fallon

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"Yogi Berra, Hall of Fame catcher and manager for the Yankees and Mets, passed away yesterday at 90 years old. A great catcher and a great character. He had so many classic quotes. Yogi Berra is the guy who said, '90 percent of the game is half mental.' He also said, 'It's deja vu all over again,' and 'It ain't over till it's over.' He was known as much for screwing up metaphors as he was for baseball. " -Jimmy Kimmel

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"A pair of Ohio teens were caught this weekend using a beer bong to drink full two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew. It's a rare case where the punishment is the crime." -Seth Meyers

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I spotted several pairs of men's Levi's jeans at a garage sale. They were sizes 30, 31, and 32, but I was looking for size 33. So I asked the owner if he had a pair. He shook his head.

"I'm still wearing the 33s," he said. "Come back next year."


*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
My sister didn't do as well on her driver's ed test as she'd hoped. It might have had something to do with how she completed this sentence: "When the ___ is dead, the car won't start."

She wrote: "Driver."