Football - 'Tis the Season

Saturday we had tickets to the Badger game, which was homecoming. It was good to be HOME. And the beautiful thing about this season is our location - we walk to the game!!! Katie and I stopped for a brat on the way.
























We sat with Matt and Amanda at about the 5 yard line.













Then since we didn't get enough of the Cranney's (and b/c we don't have cable), Katie and I went to their place Monday night for Brett Favre Day - I mean Monday Night Football. Did you see that game?!?!?! Some people were a little critical of the Brett Favre Love-Fest, but I can't get enough of him. Think about it - he's going to be gone very soon and then everyone's really going to miss him. He's a living legend.

Adventure One on YouTube

Last April I documented a little bit of our trip to Europe. Well then I got home and put together a video and posted it on YouTube. I thought I'd link to it here.

Adventure One

Fair warning -- it's 10 minutes long, but the music is great.

Kitchen Essential - Custom Apron

A man's place is in the kitchen. Sure, Katie is 10 times the cook that I am (ask for her jambalaya). But men need to feel comfortable and proficient in the kitchen. When I purchased my cast iron skillet and chicken fryer, I started to look at cooking in a whole new light.

Well cooking can get messy. So an essential item is an apron. You don't work in the garage in your best jeans and collared shirt, do you? An apron is the uniform of the kitchen, and it's as manly as you make it. Fortunately I have an unbelievably talented wife, so I had her make me a custom one.












In my kitchen, breakfast is sacred. Eggs, sausage and hashbrowns are usually on my skillet to start my day.

Singletrack

About three years ago, I bought a mountain bike with the consultation of a good friend, Andrew Tainter. He and I found a bike at Budget Bike Shop for about $600. Andrew said the components were really good, especially for the price. The bike was a really good deal, especially for an entry-level bike.












The next three years I used the bike occasionally for commuting and leisure rides around town. I knew I had this performance bike that was not being utilized. Then Matt Ehn called.




He said he and his roommate were going mountain biking in Kettle Moraine. I joined them for my first single-track experience about a month ago. We had such a blast! The John Muir Trails are considered by most to be the best in the state. Mens Journal calls it the best in the Midwest.

Single-track is the term for mountain biking over an area of... single track. At the John Muir Trail, they have 4 or 5 different routes from 3 to 10-mile loops. The single-track takes you through open prairies, and then into the woods. You go up and down hills of varying degrees with a few obstacles in the way: branches and limbs laying across the trail, pits filled with mud, tree roots, and all shapes and sizes of rocks.












This time when Matt and I went, we got better at picking up good speed. But when speed and obstacles come together, you have crashes. We both fell a couple times, but no big injuries. Matt's shoulder took on a small tree - the tree won.

We only got a couple pictures b/c we're still so excited to be on the track, that we don't pull off to the side and take some better action shots. Hopefully there will be better shots of the single-track in the future.

For an excellent workout, take a mountain bike on some single-track. I can honestly say that those two rides were some of the most fun I've ever had. Matt and I were laughing the whole way and extremely "stoked" when we got to the bottom of a big downhill run that was littered with boulder-moguls as you weave in and out of trees and around hairpin turns.

Inaugural Trip to Lambeau (regular season)

There are some things in life that I just get "geeked" about. The Packers and Lambeau field are right at the top of the list. The history of the Packers is fascinating to me. Did you know that Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the U.S., doesn't have an NFL team, and Green Bay, the 257th largest, does?!?! That is so awesome (thanks Rick Reilly).












My dad and I went to Lambeau quite a few years ago for a pre-season game on a Monday night. They played the Browns. I'll never forget my first trip to Lambeau field. As cool as that was, pre-season just isn't the same as the regular season.

Two weeks ago I successfully bought tickets from a friend at work. Katie and I made plans for the Sunday night game. I could write for pages about our experience. If you've ever been there, you know how cool it is. Let's put it this way: Katie started to get REALLY excited about the atmosphere - she ended up admitting how cool it is there, it's just special. She went on to say Badger fans are lame - Packer fans are where it's at.

She's right. Fans tailgating at Lambeau are just different - in a cool way. All that green and gold never looked better. Everyone's really nice. It's fanfare at it's best. We at at Brett Favre's Steakhouse - good burger. Our seats were fantastic. Ok, they were average, but I would sit anywhere in that stadium.





John Madden was doing the game for NBC - here's his famous touring bus.








Here we saw A.J. Hawk getting dropped off and entering the stadium.


So they're playing the Bears, which made this sign the biggest laugh of the day.












So we've all heard about the season ticket waiting list. If you put your name on the waiting list today, you would be number 74,659. An average of 70 people give up their tickets every year, which means you'll have your tickets by the 3074 season.
Luckily you'll still catch Brett Favre's last year.







Sadly, we all know the Pack lost its first game of the season to the arch rival Bears. But I can honestly say that my first regular season game was so memorable and special - there's extra excitement around the team this year with their great start. And Brett Favre is a living legend. Even if I had the opportunity to get season tickets, it would be hard - the time, the money, and the impossibility all are stacked against me. But getting to Lambeau once every couple years would be the way to go for me.

Four Pillars of a Man's Heart

I just finished reading a book I put down four years ago. I was given Four Pillars of a Man's Heart in 2002 and for whatever reason, I never finished it. Boy, am I glad I picked it back up. When I read, I'm an underliner - everything that catches my attention gets some ink. It really helps me so I can re-read sections and cement it into my head. And this book got it's fair share of my ink.

The Four Pillars, described by Stu Weber, are foundational for men to hold in balance. As men, we need to carefully discern which pillar needs our attention at any given moment, with any given person, for any situation.




-- A man of vision and character... a King.
-- A man of strength and power... a Warrior.
-- A man of faith and wisdom... a Mentor.
-- A man of heart and love.. a Friend.


Here's a little synopsis of the book. I don't like giving things away, but if this gives you a good idea of the content of the book, then mission accomplished. Fantastic book!

Weber's background is in the military and he's an outdoorsman, so he's got some great stories. For any man looking to learn about four Biblical pillars of manhood, check out this book.

Rappelling at Devil's Lake

Earlier this week my cousin Brad invited me to go climbing and rappelling with him and some friends at Devil's Lake. My experience in the tree business has gotten me comfortable hanging on a rope and swinging through the air. But it took me a little bit to get comfortable in the rappelling setting. All the principles and even techniques are similar, if not the same. But with the trees, so often you have branches to hang onto and even stand on. Today, the context was a little different - just a face of rock to push against, and certainly nothing to stand on.

Nevertheless, my first rappel was safe and controlled. The second one was a lot faster - I had the figure-8 hot from friction when I got to the bottom.

Here, Scotty's getting Brad set-up for a descent.













Brad took these of me coming down.

Labor Day Festivities

Katie and I have been looking forward to this Labor Day weekend for quite some time. We've just moved into a new place, and we've still been busy around town. So a quiet, extended weekend was highlighted on our schedule. Well Sunday night Katie started to get a cold, and it got worse Monday morning.

Nevertheless, we still managed a nice day on the water and experimenting with our new cast iron cookware.

Lake Wingra Boathouse is about a 10 minute walk from our place. We rented a canoe and soaked in some of the last good rays of the season.

The project for the evening was to make our initial attempt at fried chicken in my new Lodge cast iron chicken fryer. We had concocted a rub for the chicken earlier in the morning. Once the oil was hot, we breaded the pieces in some flour and began the cooking.

We couldn't have been happier with the results. Katie and I really get into these kinds of things - southern cooking, classic recipes, fun and different ways of cooking.

(Breading the chicken, in the fryer, and the finished product.)

Game Day!

Theres' something special about the first Saturday of the football season. Sure, a few teams kicked off the 2007 season on Thursday night, but let's be honest - the season starts today. After a back-and-forth week with tickets, I thought Game Day for me meant meeting my brother and his wife at Lucky's for pre-game. Then Katie said she'd join me for the game -- "oh by the way, we have tickets!" A doctor from work gave her possibly the best seats in the house - 25 rows up on the 50-yard line.

Life is good in the Schiefelbein household this fine Saturday morning. We just had a great breakfast made in the aforementioned cast iron skillet. Katie made her signature tube-top from an old Wisconsin shirt of mine, and I'm ready for that walk to the stadium.







This place off Monroe Street is great - it reminds me of the college days of "park at my house and walk to the game." It's not like we're downtown like the college students, but we're within striking range - right where Katie and I like to be.

The Cast Iron Skillet

Katie has noticed something about me: I am certainly passionate about certain things, and I get really excited about camping, traveling, and even cooking. But what she's noticed is that when I get excited about something, I want to get all the gear necessary to make this new hobby or adventure the best it can be.

Around our house, Katie does most of the cooking. And it's a good thing b/c she's really good at it and she really enjoys it. I'll cook once or twice a week, and the grilling season is always fun for me.

Well I just read an article in a favorite magazine of mine and they talk about how men need to take over (and ownership) of their kitchen. It's a place, like the garage, where manly things can happen. And think of all the tools that you'll need...

And the first tool they said was an essential was the cast iron skillet. Now my father-in-law has told me numerous times that his cast iron skillet is his favorite tool in the kitchen. He's seasoned it over the years, and food continues to get better and better.

After convincing Katie of the necessity of this tool, I went looking for the non-seasoned cast iron skillet from Lodge, widely recognized as the best in the business. Well thanks to the yuppies who want everything done for them, Lodge is discontinuing their non-seasoned line. So I snatched up an 8" skillet and a 3qt. chicken fryer. Since then, I've done some research and have found a 12" skillet that I'll be getting soon.

I'm so proud and excited about my new hobby. In a different magazine, Katie and I found an article about a man who makes the best fried chicken in his cast iron skillet. Too many things falling into place at just the right time...

So here's me opening my cast iron skillet and fryer - cookware that I'll have for the rest of my life: (skillet, and fryer)












So next I had to season it by putting a light coat of cooking oil over the entire piece, inside and out. Putting this in the oven at 350 for one hour seasons the cast iron so that it becomes the original non-stick skillet.

During the process, the original finish starts to get baked to it's final color - black. Here it looks more brown, but I repeated the process again today and now we're starting to get to the final product. But like I said, continued use means continued seasoning, which translates to better and better flavor. I'm very excited about this new hobby.

Back By Popular Demand

Well, there hasn't exactly been popular demands for me to return to this blog, but it sounded like a good comeback line

It's been three months and a day since I've posted on the Game Plan. I had just finished my first marathon. Like my running habit, my blogging habit fell by the wayside. Summer was very busy for Katie and me. We've had a lot of fun at weddings and grilling out. I've played some golf and we had our first garage sale. We made it to Summerfest, a Brewers game, and have enjoyed my favorite show, West Wing, on DVD many nights.

At the end of July, we decided not to renew our lease at 6314 McKee Road b/c we had found a house to rent off Monroe Street. I'll update with some pics later on.

I guess the other big news for me is that I've decided to officially step away from college ministry. I have been a part of things since Blackhawk hired Matt Metzger to be the pastor for this ministry. I could go on and on, but again, I'd like to give it some time and write at a later date.

So I can officially say that I'm back. Summer just got really busy. Now I've got this great office to work from, and life just seems more organized. Looking back on some of the pics, I'm realizing we really had some fun, so I'll certainly get back to recap the summer. Until then, here's a few moments: