buckingham94

"The Umpire Strikes Back" by Ron Luciano. I think it's out of print, but you can get it used on Amazon, and it's hilarious. May beat out "Catcher in the Wry" as the funniest baseball book I've read. I read "Crazy '08" recently and it was very good. Granted it's about the Cubs winning the World Series, but it does a great job giving an idea of what the game was like back then. I found it rather satisfying reading about how the Cubs last championship was so long ago that horse carriages were parked in fair territory in the outfield during the games. "Ball Four" is a classic, though its significance is rooted in the fact that it was so shocking when it came out. It is hardly shocking at all anymore, but still an easy, enjoyable read.

A Wisconsin-Minnesota game at MP would be incredible, although I believe the UW Athletic Dept and the Packers had trouble playing nice together in planning the FTHC, so the UW might not be to keen on doing that again. I don't imagine there's enough interest in the NHL for a pro game in WI, but the FTHC was an absolute blast.

Highs in the 20's, 50% chance of snow showers, <1% chance of cruise missiles or suicide bombings. Enjoy Tel Aviv. Actually it's plenty low chance of bombings -- it's been a really long time since any of that stuff has hit Tel Aviv, and couple that with the fact that, terrorism notwithstanding, there's virtually no violent crime in this country, I'm feeling plenty safe. I'm enjoying it just fine.

I agree that if money isn't too much of an issue, then you shouldn't have to choose. I graduated UW in May of '07 and I'm now on a post-grad volunteer program in Tel Aviv and absolutely love it. I'm keeping relatively busy, I enjoy the work I'm doing in schools in poor neighborhoods and feel genuinely good about it. Try looking around and seeing what kind of post-grad programs there are -- you can probably find some scholarships for most of them -- so that you can enjoy your time in Madison and still get the going abroad experience. In my case, I didn't want to miss a moment of my four years in Madison so I decided to wait until after graduation to go abroad and I couldn't be happier with the decision. But at some point definitely take this time to travel because soon enough when the pressures of career and family take hold, you won't be able to (at least that's what they tell me). Oh, and if it helps you make your decision, where I am right now it's sunny and about 70 degrees. How's the weather back in Wisconsin?http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Also true of Ibuprofen, which includes Advil, Aleve and Motrin, but if you drink a full glass of water, or better yet eat something with it, you should be ok. Of course, the best hangover cure is to just not stop drinking.

Jewish guy to the rescue: Braun is actually not technically Jewish, according to the information I have, which is that his father is Jewish and his mother is not. According to Jewish law, your Jewish "status" is dependent solely on your mother's side. Could be why his mother gets prickly about the issue, though it still would seem strange. Most "halfers" that I know consider themselves Jewish regardless of which parent is Jewish, and some would be offended at the idea of being considered "half a Jew." To each his own, I suppose. Yom Kippur will occasionally wind up in October (dates vary because of the difference between solar and lunar calendars) but it is usually in September -- as another poster pointed out, it is in September this year. When in October, it would likely be in early October -- sounds like it's a non-issue for Ryan anyway. As for Matt Bernstein, the story from the media was that he began his fast an hour before sundown on Erev Yom Kippur (Yom Kippur eve, if you will) so that he would end his fast an hour earlier the night of the Penn State game. He ate a meal in the locker room and I believe got some intravenous hydration (you can't drink either on Yom Kippur, which is really the more difficult part of the deal) then proceeded to go biblical on the Penn State defense. I would say the overwhelming majority of Jews are willing to bend the rules or even outright ignore them, though usually Yom Kippur gets more special treatment by even the least observant of Jews. I may be mistaken but I believe the contention by the Ethiopian Jews is that they ARE ethnically Jewish but got separated a long long long time ago from the rest of the tribe (we Jews have been spread out around the world for quite some time now) and over the course of many generations their brand of worship ceased to resemble mainstream Ashkenazic (eastern European) or Sephardic (mostly northern Africa) Judaism because it developed in isolation. The assertion is practically impossible to prove one way or the other, but isn't necessarily all that crazy as all of today's forms of Judaism barely resemble Jewish practice at the time the Jews were dispersed, about 2000 years ago. There is another tribe in Africa (I forget where, but I don't think it's in Ethiopia) that converted to Judaism within the last couple of centuries after making contact with some Jewish traders. I believe I read somewhere that Kevin Youkilis skipped out on a game for Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashannah (generally considered the second most important holiday) within the last couple of years. If you convert to Judaism with an Orthodox Rabbi, their position is that you were always nationally-speaking Jewish and just didn't know it. I'll leave my own opinions on that out of this, I'll just say I'm more of an ethnic Jew than a religious one. I just love brats, I can't help it, and I'm not going to temple on Saturday during a Badger football game.

Yeah but it's a hybrid. Probably would make more sense for him to drive a Prius though.

tickets for shows at the Marcus (i.e. not grass seats) do indeed include park admission. No, it wasn't an act of generosity by the fine folks at Summerfest, they just started tacking on an extra surcharge a few years back. But considering how much you'll already be paying in surcharges to Ticketmaster, you'll hardly notice! As for grass seats, availability really depends on the show. For huge shows like Prince, or The Dead a few years back, they charge for grass seats, but they are still free for most shows. For smaller shows (like the inevitable and inexplicable annual BoDeans show) they don't even bother checking grass seat tickets, they just wave you in. For other shows (like Tom Petty a few years back) you have to get there right when the park opens to get free grass seats. As for the side stages, for most bigger shows people will camp out all day in the front rows to save seats, so that might be an issue if you care about that. Otherwise hop up on a picnic table and enjoy. And check the promotion schedule. A lot of times you can get in free with a few bags of frozen vegetables or a stack of old books or whatever, but you usually have to enter the park by a certain time. And as far as who Summerfest is catering to, it is old people and hippies, because, according to my friend who has worked in the main office at Fest for the last several years, old folks and hippies buy a ton of beer and don't cause trouble.