Video of Owen

Owen Edward Radcliffe (named "The Future" for our Brucefest purposes) came into the world Jan. 17, 2012 at 9:57 p.m., weighing 8 pounds 11 ounces and measuring 21 inches long. He's been home since Jan. 21. Some video of our little man.

Brucefest: Six-ish months later

So we have all moved on to our respective walks of life since the great Brucefest Adventure (mostly the same walk of life, since we hang out and what not). Two of us (well, Liz and me...me being JR) bought a house in October. Want to take a tour? Here, then. I tried video but it doesn't seem to upload property, so stills will have to do.

Also, we're having our child (a very early version of him came with us on the Brucefest tour) sometime next week probably. More pictures to come.

Take me home, highway road



That's a big river. Guess what's
on the other side?

After hours of driving, we are in fact safely back in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A chorus of angels cascaded song downward as the RV made its final descent on the Moorland Road exit in New Berlin. After a quick unpacking session, we were free to return to our lives at sea level. There was plenty of oxygen -- way too much in fact, with heat indexes projected well above triple digits in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the midwest.

 The ride home was quicker than the ride out, complete with cribbage games, a brief stop in Omaha, lots of gas stops and assorted periods of sleep.



Road Rage gets personal with the
flow of air conditioning.

Special thanks to all the people who made this trip ridiculous. The Murphy and Frizsche families offered up their homes and their vehicles for the past several days, and thanks to Fast Times (Adrienne) and Whine and Die (Maggie) for spearheading the trip particulars, with some itinerary consultation from Caitlin (The Architect), of course. More appreciation to our drivers, Mike, Adrienne and Maggie, and our financial planners The New Guy (Dan) and Caitlin. This wound up being a wildly inexpensive vacation relative to the amount of things we did and fun we had.

Also, special thanks to Air Force One (Boyd) for his unreasonably good brownies and peanut butter thingies. And kringle!


We found the Bruce, which was the goal of Brucefest, but we collectively decided it was best to re-release him into the wild where he belongs. Word in the wilderness is that The Bruce may find his way to our own Motherland sometime in the next two weeks. Keep your eyes peeled. One never knows when they'll see The Bruce.

Cozad, Nebraska: you suck

For those of you retracing your steps on Brucefest: do not stop in Cozad, Nebraska if you need gas late at night. The one gas station there is probably closed, and the attendant on duty, inexplicably sitting in the lit-up interior? Well she doesn't much care what you need.

So the RV had to get back on the highway and hit up the next booming metropolis of the Nebraskan countryside. I can't believe this is the state we're excited about inviting into the Big Ten. The only thing Big about Nebraska is the reek of its bovine and ovine denizens.

But as we continue our plight back home, things have gone fairly smoothly. We remain a few hours from Omaha, where we will bid a tearful goodbye to Air Force One and his deep baritone perfect-for-narrating-movies voice. Allegedly, our good friend Boyd has a 7 a.m. meeting -- which is in less than six hours -- so he's going to have a tough turnaround. I'm still dreading our 6 p.m. softball game, and that's nothing by comparison.

The Architect was disappointed that my last post offered a bare minimum of information. So as an additional note, I should point out that the Architect's new shorts are very cute.

Stuffed animals to avoid

Departure! After our farewells and distribution of Wisconsin related food stuffs as gifts to our gracious hosts, we have boarded the RV and begun the slow trek east back to Wisconsin. First stop for gas came in Fort Morgan, CO, where they were trying to sell "Lubies" stuffed animals, basically small, fat, overpriced rodents.

The sign proclaimed that the toy was pronounced "Luh-bies," and while I'm no marketing expert, I'm guessing if your signage includes telling people how to pronounce the toy, you might need a new name. Consider "Cuties."

We're going to flight school

Just by posting this picture, the
Brucefest blog has been flagged
by the military.

 Our final day in the Colorado mountains involved a behind-the-scenes tour of the Air Force Academy just oustide of Colorado Springs, courtesy of the Bruce -- himself a graduate and probably the reason why each of his first two children have the initials "AF."

The lanscape is pretty cool, and we also got to check out the as-yet-unopened Holaday Center, which will be dedicated in mere days and serves as the future practice home of the football team and other athletics programs. The New Guy ran a 40-yard dash that was clocked at 4.15, which would have made him an NFL hopeful until we realized that was actually a 30-yard dash time.



Holaday cheer



The Air Force insists on participation in athletics, either intercollegiate or intramurals, and the facilities for such things are ridiculous. It's basically an endless plain of athletics facilities and then some dorms.

Before we go, it's time for some World Cup (we're heading to overtime!) and our final hours at the Murphy and Fritzsche campus.

The Brucefest BBQ

This would be the right moment
for "Higher Ground" by Winwood

I feel sacreligious saying so, but whatever hippy sausages they have in Denver, they're honestly better than the brats you can get in Milwaukee. With The Bruce at the controls, tonight's barbecue featured some seriously amazing bratwurst, not to mention some lawn games, bad Brewers baseball (but a win, so I guess that's something), and visits from various friends in the Bruceosphere.

Tonight's observations:

1. It appears Michigan Left and The Mechanic have become supreme rulers of the cribbage universe.

2. Road Rage is terrible at croquet, just as he was back in fourth grade -- the last time he played.

3. Babies are fabulous conversation centerpieces.

4. Second Half, who will be joining us on tomorrow's RV trip back home, could potentially develop a career as a tightrope walker.

5. Previously mentioned Janella, whose named I spelled wrong in a previous post when she graciously saved me from watching Harry Potter, shall hereby be named Janella "Woman on Wire" Smith, since she REALLY has a career as a tightrope walker waiting for her. Some of the extended Fritzsche family has a knack for such things and brought a cable to the BBQ, attached it between two trees and demonstrated their inner Flying Wallenda. It's not weird. It's Colorado.