August 25, 2019

And Summer 2019 is Coming to an End


And Summer 2019 is Coming to an End
Todd Swank's Diary Entry for August 25, 2019


It's August 25 which means summer is soon coming to a close.  It has just flown by as it feels like my kids just came home from college and now the second one is going back tomorrow.  Kind of crazy.

All right, I want all ducks to face the left and turtles to face the right.  Go.


We thought it would be fun to have one more boat ride with the boys and some of their friends before they left.


We even pulled the tube out for one last hurrah before going back in storage.  This dang tube appears to be un-patchable because the darn back keeps deflating and no matter what we do to fix it, it still loses all it's air.  The kids don't seem to mind though and still have fun when I whip them around the lake until one of them goes flying in the water or they conk heads.


The best part about summer ending is it means that football season is ready to start firing up.  And that means Fantasy Football is back in Season!


My buddy, Steve "Cuds" Cuddihy is an incredible league commissioner and throws an incredible party for our draft night.  It's an auction style draft and we even have an auctioneer who we affectionately call Curtis.  I'm pretty sure that's actually his name also.


This year was personally special for me because it's the first time my boys attended the draft.  Luke is a pretty big fan of fantasy sports and we are waiting for an opening in the league to get him in there.  This year he & Avery drafted a team for a player who couldn't be there and it appears so far at least that they did a pretty darn good job.  


This is the trophy that we're all playing for.  Sadly, my name hasn't been added to it since 2010, but I think this is gonna be my year!!


4 hours later, our draft was complete and a good time was had by all.  Now we're ready for some football!


Happy end of summer to all of you!

August 18, 2019

The Countdown For The Return To College


The Countdown For The Return To College
Todd Swank's Diary Entry for August 18, 2019


The boys are almost ready to go back to college so we need to wrap all of the things we need to get done in the summer.  That includes a visit to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester for Luke to get his 6 month check-up on his heart and liver.  We are pleased to report that Luke's check-up went excellent with no new concerns about the nodules in his liver and his heart is still working as well as someone with a regular heart!  So we get another 6 month hiatus before we have to go get things checked out again.  It's like music to our ears!


I'm always fascinated with new technology.  So despite Luke's protests of taking his picture during blood draws, I was so impressed by this new device they were using that I couldn't resist.  Both Luke and I are considered to be "tough sticks" which means the nurses always have difficulty finding veins in our arms when drawing blood.  So multiple pokes are often inevitable.  This time, though, the nurse pulled out a new "Vein Finder" which uses infrared light to make the veins appear highlighted on the surface of his skin thus easier to get the needle in there on the first attempt.  Pretty cool stuff!


To celebrate the good news from Mayo, we went to our favorite restaurant, Benihana.  We just loves that Teppanyaki Cooking!


We're big fans of sushi.  This week we discovered a new favorite....Chili Shrimp Rolls!  Loaded with crab-meat, cream cheese, seaweed tempura in a spicy chili sauce topped with crab, shrimp, and a jalapeno pepper, it tastes like someone flew over your head and dropped a little piece of heaven in your mouth.  Which is what I look for in an appetizer.


Continuing through the checklist of things we wanted to do one last time before summer was over, on Saturday morning we thought it would be fun for a family foursome of golfing.


Sadly for me, most of my family beats me in most sporting types of activities.  Really any activities that involve moving your body I find they have the upper hand on me.  But that doesn't stop me from getting out there and giving them a go in the competition!


Miss Sheri is never a very flashy competitor, but very consistent in her performance.  She just wears you down until you start slipping and then she goes for the throat.  Needless to say, she pretty much beats me in everything we do.


No matter who won or lost, we all had a great time being together and enjoying the beautiful day.  Oh, who am I kidding?  Avery crushed us all as usual.  But it was nice to be able to enjoy the beautiful day


On Saturday night, we crashed the bonfire and birthday celebration of Luke's room-mate, Jackson Walters.  Now that's a fire!  Happy Birthday, Jackson!

August 11, 2019

Kid Rock at Treasure Island Casino


Kid Rock at Treasure Island Casino
Todd Swank's Diary Entry for August 11, 2019


Luke snapped this shot of a dog in someone's pickup truck.  Not a big deal really, I was just really impressed with how clear the shot turned out despite the fact he took it while they were passing the truck at about 50 miles per hour.  The dog looks pretty happy to be going for a ride.


On Thursday night, it was time for the August get together of the Prior Lake Empty Nester Club.  We went to the new McCoys Copper Pint in Shakopee which was a great place.  They have this really cool rooftop bar we were excited to see.  It looked like a lot of fun.  Unfortunately we had too many people there to actually be able to sit at the rooftop bar, but it looked really fun from a distance.


The Korkowskis had to show up later in the evening so they missed the group picture, but I couldn't go a whole month without highlighting their presence at the event!


On Saturday, we headed to the St. Croix River to go on an adventure down to the Mississippi and then beyond to Treasure Island Casino for an evening of fun.


 We went on the cruise with our good friends, Captain Karl & Tina Zitzewitz.  It was a bit chilly on the ride down for the middle of August, but we had a ball all the same.


Of course, we had to snap a few dozen pictures of all the awesome wildlife we saw along the way.  We were again amazed by the number of bald eagles we saw along the shores.  They're actually becoming a pretty common sight any more, but I still remember when they were endangered when I was a kid.  I never saw one in the wild for like the first 30 years of my life, so I'm still pretty fascinated every time we get the chance to encounter these majestic creatures.


We saw a couple scavenging dead fish near the water which seems a little beneath them, but I'm not going to judge.


Not sure what was happening here, but it looked like some pretty important business was taking place.


Another common sight along the river is the trains which we also always seem to go out of way to photograph.  I think Karl thinks we are crazy for continuing to take such boring photos and videos, but I think they're cool looking.


After a three hour cruise, we eventually arrived in Red Wing, Minnesota and at our destination:  The Marina at Treasure Island Casino.  We were there to spend the night and go see Kid Rock in concert!


Kid Rock attracts some people with a pretty specific political affiliation and they are quite outspoken about it.


We watched the forecast all day and were hopeful the 50% chance of rainstorms would go our way.  They didn't.  We got poured on for a good two hours during the show which got to be a little miserable at times, but certainly made for a memorable evening.


The opening act was a band called A Thousand Horses.  I hadn't heard of them before, but then again I'm not really a fan of country music so I guess that's to be expected.  They were fine, but I'm not rushing out to buy any of their albums or cassettes.


Kid Rock came out with a bang.  He's a very talented musician and performer and despite the inclement weather we were all experiencing, he put on a heck of a show!


Of course, he played a lot of his new stuff which was great, but he really started rocking the place when he played his classics like Picture and Bawitdaba.  He skipped a couple of my favorites like Cowboy and All Summer Long, but all in all it was a great show! 

August 4, 2019

A Quick Trip to the Farm


A Quick Trip to the Farm
Todd Swank's Diary Entry for August 4, 2019


A busy few weeks of traveling for work brought me to Boston on Monday.  I was only there for a couple of nights for a training and it was really, really hot.


I've never driven from the airport in Boston before so I found myself a bit surprised when suddenly I was in several miles of tunnels.  My surprise turned into a bit of claustrophobia when I looked at Google Maps and realized I was under water at the same time.  So naturally I had to grab my camera to try to capture my moment of fear.  Glad I didn't run into a wall while I did this because that would have been quite a walk.


August 1st brought Luke the opportunity to move into his first apartment at college with a couple of his buddies, Andy and Jackson.  I think these guys are going to have a pretty good time this year.


Luke's excited because Andy had brought his new puppy to come and live with them.  She's a very sweet dog, but definitely still full of that puppy energy.  Ought to be an interesting experience for all of them.


Thursday also brought me the opportunity to go see Avery at his summer internship.  He's working at a company called Trimble doing programming work for them.  They had their annual "Summer Bash" for their employees and the interns were all allowed to invite a guest so I jumped at the chance.  I gave Avery a hard time because he's been working there for a couple of months already, but hasn't done much to decorate his cubicle.  I guess he's a minimalist.


It's a really neat company.  They had set-up a bunch of inflatables and games for the families to play.  I had just come from a client meeting so it was a good opportunity for me to play soccer darts with Avery while wearing a suit.  I still crushed him.


This weekend, Miss Sheri and I traveled to Iowa to visit Grandma Leona at the farm.  It's always a fun chance to get out and enjoy the country.


All week long, I got Blue excited by telling him we were going to the farm to get the kitties!  By the time we actually were there and outside, he was worked up into a frenzy at just the sound of the word kitties.  Needless to say when we actually saw one of them, he took off like a rocket after it to try to introduce himself.  Somehow the kitty was able to disappear in the brush which made for one frustrated dog.  He just wanted to play with him!  Unfriendly farm kitties!  


On Saturday night, our sister-in-law, Laura, and her daughter, Karli, invited us to the local drive-in in a nearby town.  I loves me some burgers and shakes!


Miss Sheri bumped into one of her high school classmates while we were there.  April had told me she and Sheri had played on the high school basketball team together back in the day.  It was fun meeting one of Sheri's classmates.  She went to a tiny high school with a graduating class of only 78 people so that doesn't happen to us very often!