Big Bad Bill

I went up yesterday to Gaylord to hang out with a friend, co-worker and snappy dresser, Bill Belanger at his cottage. Bill and I have worked together for the past 13 years at two different companies together, but we're friends first, co-workers second. Bill's one of those guys who you know has your back no matter what. About four years ago, Bill, Brad, Noel, Will and I all went on an amazing Men's Retreat out in Colorado together, hence the connection. Another co-worker, Ron Reyhl, was up there also and Brad came down from his cottage in the U.P. Bill was on vacation and was kind enough to invite us to hang out with him. The picture on the left is of Bill with his overalls, the one on the right is of Bill on a conference call negotiating a contract for a big deal (while on vacation) standing outside. If you look closely, you'll see that Bill has a large band-aid above his left eye. He got it from an icicle. He was knocking them down for the fun of it and one came down and hit him in the head, giving him a nice big gash.

Ron and I got some work done, but we spent a significant amount of time outside burning stuff. Bill had a giant burn pile covered in snow and we spent about five hours trying to burn this huge pile of wood and snow.

As you can see from Brad pouring lighter fluid on the fire, it didn't burn easily. We used old tires, buckets and assorted other materials to try and get it hot enough to burn big. We would stand around the pile, moving stuff into it, shifting things around, and then talking deeply about the impact of that shift and how it would impact the fire overall.

In the big scheme of things, we didn't really accomplish much, but we did burn a lot of stuff, and in my mind, that always makes for a good day.

It was beautiful up there with about a foot of snow. I found out that snow+real wheel drive doesn't = great control in the snow, but I made it out ok.