The View From Wisconsin

• Since I purchased my Wii, I've struggled a bit with the Wii Sports game that comes with the console. I've done a pretty fair job of being able to use the remote in baseball, but in Tennis and Golf - ugh.

Then, I found the Nerf Sports Pack for Wii. Basically, it's a hard plastic "handle" in which you put the remote, and it has three attachments that connect to the handle. One is a foam baseball bat; a second one is a tennis racket head; the other is a small golf club.

Believe it or not, the golf club has helped my Wii game immensely. I've actually hit par my last few times playing Wii Sports Golf. I have not, as of yet, used it on Super Swing Golf, but anticipate it to be just as helpful. Of course, my expectations are very low - I have so many snowman scores on SSG that I got no Pangaya points from my first round on the course.

• Giant Revive bike update: I had a minor problem add up to a medium-size one, and now it's a major one. I decided to try one last trek down the Lake Country Trail along the southern shore of Pewaukee Lake. This required me to put the bike on the carrier and drive over to the trail head by Country Springs Hotel.

As I started off down the trail, I inadvertently reset my bike computer, and had absolutely no idea how to re-program it for the right wheel size. Both of my guesses were wrong (I forgot the simple circumference formula of 2πr in my calculations), so I got the odometer and speedometers all messed up.

It got cold, so I didn't go as far as I wanted; I ended up turning around by the church on the lake and came back to the trail head. That was where the fun began: in trying to get the bike back on the rack on the back of the car, I cracked the chain guard plate. It's now in two pieces, which forced me to drive over to Wheel & Sprocket to see about a replacement. I also told them about my inability to get the bike on the rack. I purchased a bike "bar" that allows the bike to sit on the rack for transport... but there was about three inches of clearance between the front wheel and the road.

This wasn't entirely a huge issue, of course; the front wheel has a quick-release hub which allows it to be removed for such a situation. However, to release the wheel, you have to release the front brake as well. Doofus me didn't watch as the tech at the Delafield W&S undid the brake clamp, so I now have an inoperable front brake on the bike.

• Dad update: He got through the second surgery okay, this one to remove an apparently-benign tumor on his kidney. The doctor who removed it was pretty sure it wasn't malignant, based on his past experience and that he didn't see anything else on either the scans, the x-rays or when he was doing the surgery.

He's been trying to get up and walk a few times today, and it looks like his bowels are trying to start back up again - though it's difficult with nothing for them to work with. Today was the first day this week I didn't go up and see him, since I needed to have some time doing stuff for myself and I wanted him to rest.

• The diet hasn't been doing so well this week, mostly because of the situation with my dad. I'm back over 160, but I'm also back on the diet and on the physical activity bandwagon, as was seen above.
  

In a strange change of events, I actually had a grilled chicken snack wrap from McDonald's today - and forgot to special order it without the lettuce. For anyone that knows me, this is a huge thing. Not that I actually ate all of the lettuce, of course, but I did eat most of it.

• The cable went out suddenly after the top of the third in game one of the World Series last night. It was off for a good chunk of the night, and came back intermittently the rest of the night. Good thing, because it really sounded like that first game was a stinker after about the fifth.
  

What I haven't seen is why a good chunk of Waukesha County lost their cable signal for that length of time - nor why I still had my Road Runner account still up and going. Normally, RR is the first thing to go when there's an issue with the TV picture. RR was still working (as far as I could tell).