Nine-hundred and change photos at 5 MB or so take a lot of time to migrate from a laptop to a desktop, and with the apartment office still a mess, more stuff to go claim from home and the onset of a cold people are waiting longer and longer for honeymoon pics. The hope is to start busting out albums tomorrow starting with Sunday (since there will be, like, five pictures…if that) but there can be no guarantees, especially if this Sudafed knock-off I got from behind the counter at Walgreens doesn’t do the trick tonight.

Damn meth users. I want the real Dayquil back stat.

• I’m waiting for the whole Chris Benoit mess to really settle in my mind. I haven’t watched pro wrestling regularly for a few years, but between 1988 and 2004 the industry was a passion of mine. Not necessarily the pageantry and typical Hulk Hogan-stomp-the-mat-fake-punch bullshit that non-fans think the “sport” is, but the more technical and high flying exhibition brought to the table by grapplers such as Bret Hart, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, et cetera. Of course it’s fake, but they can make it seem real, working together to create the illusion of two men fighting for the pinfall.

Oh, and who could forget the best technical wrestler of them all, Chris Benoit.

The highlight of my wrestling fandom, which I share with many others, was the end of WrestleMania XX in March of 2004 when Benoit, after years of being the too-short, low-charisma underdog, made Triple H tap out with the crossface and won the WWF Heavyweight Title, and then he and WWF Champion Eddie Guerrero embraced in the ring. Part of my lack of interest after that, besides the lackluster matches and inane plots, was the fact that I didn’t know how they could top that moment.

Now Benoit’s murdered his seven-year-old son, his wife, and then himself, all in a gruesome, merciless manner.

There’s no apologizing for this, or the industry, the life the wrestlers lead on the road every week of the year, and the increasing demand the fans have on the performers who work harder than they ever have on more dates than in history. It’s not easy what they do, sacrificing their bodies; the hits aren’t all real, but many of them are, and when Benoit would come off the turnbuckle with a swandive, his body absorbed a hell of a hit, night after night after night. With every new move introduced and every hardcore match that takes the violence a step further the fans ask for more to satiate their appetites, and it kind of makes me happy that I haven’t been a fan for a few years and that I haven’t given the WWF any of my money since that WrestleMania XX pay-per-view. The fans are as much enablers as Vince McMahon or anyone else in the industry, and as long as things stay the same horrors like this can’t be avoided. No one can say for certain why Benoit snapped, but the combination of steroids, painkillers, multiple concussions and very little time off to take care of family issues is a dangerous combination. All that exists to keep the fans happy, and this has to change - now.

Will I be able to watch his old matches and enjoy them like I used to? I don’t know, but, to be honest, I don’t care right now. He killed not only his wife, but a seven-year-old boy. His son. Who really gives a damn about my, or any other wrestling fan’s, ability to watch a Benoit-Malenko match and enjoy the exhibition?

• We have Mediacom cable here in Effingham, and for just $60 we get all the analog channels (including three NBCs, two CBSs, three PBSs and a crapload of other locals,) Starz and Encore, a DVR, and 8 Mbps cable internet (which, divided up amongst all the users, is comparable to 1.5 Mbps DSL. But for the price I can’t complain.)

Anyway, this is the first time I’ve had access to On-Demand, and it’s the Deal. The ability to pull up movies and TV shows at random and pause, fast-forward, et cetera is awesome; I always knew about it but was never able to experience it. It’s like a DVR, except you don’t have to record the damn thing!

We have a three months of Showtime and The Movie Channel for free, and right now the movie Waiting… is playing on demand for the second time (since little else is on.) It really isn’t a good movie, with writer/director Rob McKittrick taking a good idea (making a film from his experience working in a semi-casual Applebees-type restaurant) but he doesn’t have enough story to wrap around his few amusing anecdotes and instead kills time with poorly developed, meaningless characters and jokes about penis games. It’s really not worth much of your time.

It got me thinking though about the core story, though, that of Justin Long’s character. His situation reminded me of a lot my few years trapped in retail, particularly at Best Buy, where people were sucked in to their job as a menial electronics salesman (who didn’t make much of a living salary) and often gave up college or abandoned whatever future plans because of the young party lifestyle that the job afforded. Get up late, close the store after dark, go drinking and partying, get to bed by four, rinse and repeat; just killing time at a low-stress job with no worry about real career advancement and plenty of time to party with friends and co-workers seems so attractive that I saw people drown in the habit and waste months and years there. There are plenty of exceptions: those that finish school and quickly move on, those that get fired and are forced to change, and so on. But the film’s story of a young man lost in this seemingly innocent but realistically harmful vicious circle of employment, lackluster as it was, was in part a true reflection of a lot of what I saw at both Best Buy and Circuit City, especially the former. It resonated with me, even if most of it was boring filler.

The Wife and I headed through Wisconsin and Michigan for our honeymoon, and there’s literally about 500 to 600 pictures. Not all of those will make the Facebooks, but plenty will come soon. Until then, some fun details and a few pictures.

What follows is over 2800 words long, and it’s much easier - and entertaining - to take in the audio version. Download the MP3 and listen to all sixteen minutes of the following; trust me, it’s far better than I make it sound. The file is about 15 MB, which for anyone with broadband should take five to ten minutes to download at the very most. Dial-up need not apply (it will take an hour and a half or so.) As I said, it’s an .mp3, so it’ll play in any major audio player. Even Windows Media Player - ugh.

*****

By far, the most important thing for the hot tub novice to remember is that the water level in the tub needs to be at least several inches above the top of the jets before you flip the switch to enable them. Otherwise, anything that lies directly in the path of one of the jets, such as a laptop, camcorder, digital SLR, a hotel television and a hotel electrical outlet, might end up soaked and just barely escape being permanently disabled by sudden, extreme water damage.

Just a word of warning.

Otherwise, having a hot tub in your hotel room is something I’d highly recommend.

The Lake Michigan Circle Tour purports to be a scenic drive, but would be better classified as a four state wide treasure hunt. Long stretches of the road deviate from the lakefront, following either generic six-lane interstates or lonely, secluded US highways that offer a better view of hundreds of green and white British Petroleum signs than the deep blue waters of the Lake. Even better, these far off roads are rarely signed with the green Circle Tour logo, leaving motorists to occasionally wonder, “Did I miss a turn? Thirty miles back?” It seems the only time the various Departments of Transportation feel the need to sign the Tour regularly is either when the drive turns onto another road or when you’re within a stone’s throw of the Lake and such reassurance is hardly necessary.

When you can see the signs - and thus, the Lake - it is a magnificent cruise, well worth the time lost detouring away from the water. With air some ten degrees cooler than back on the unsigned portions of the Tour, the windows come down, the oldies music goes up and it is simply utter bliss. Utter bliss and a lot of seagulls.

Perhaps, though, they that decide these things might be on to something. After all, wouldn’t it get old? Upon first sight the lake is wonderful, its contrast with the concrete and commercialism that dots most of your drive, and especially the peaceful lull of the waves and the feeling of the cold air inviting you to throw off your cloth and embrace its calming, if chilling, power. After a few miles, though, it’s still the Lake and the grim reality starts to set in that this water goes on for hundreds and hundreds of miles, and though there is oxymoronic beauty in the combination of its constancy and in the subtle differences that each region brings to the natural wonder, in your eyes right now it is still. just. a. lake.

Maybe you need a break every so often, even if it consists of begging Interstate 43 to give you that Dairy Queen sign so the alphabet game can move on to the letter P. By the time the Circle Tour winds back to the Lake your gasp tank will be refilled and you’ll be truly be ready for the same old astonishing beauty all over again.

I can understand the reluctance of someone who has relaxed in nothing but the chlorination of the suburban in-ground pool their whole life to sacrifice their body to the dirt and grime of a natural body of water, but for someone like me who grew up swimming in the crud and crap of a rural family pond, any aversion to the northern Great Lakes is puzzling. Fearing Lake Michigan at Chicago is understandable; the pollution that laps up against the lakeshore around the museum campus has mutative properties that could fuel a thousand Marvel titles. Michigan has none of this sludge, though. Just a lot of algae. Algae I can handle. I guess.

When you’ve spent all of your life shackled to the chains that are the Land of Lincoln, the amount of shallow water in the Great Lakes shocks you upon discovery. Bodies of water in Illinois usually take the form of a steep bowl, with a quick descent from the shore into the depths. Stepping into Lake Michigan at its most northern points, you find not only remarkably clear water but also the ability to wade out several hundred feet before the Lake rises up past your waist. This makes swimming impractical, but you find doggy paddling with your fingers touching the sand while you desperately try to stay under the water’s surface in order to avoid the chill June winds quite easy. God help those who brave Lake Superior.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore lines the southern border of Lake Superior in Northern Michigan - in the U.P. to be shore [sic] - and its as if God decided to build Six Flags Upper Peninsula and assemble every natural feature he could think of in a forty-mile stretch. Beaches! Waterfalls! Giant colored rock formations! Marshes! Forests! Spending just the afternoon is a crime, as every hike brings you upon another marvel and draws you further and further into this greatest hits collection of natural wonders. This water, lapping up from the bottom of a lake larger than Scotland or South Carolina (thank you, Wikipedia) is remarkably clear and - I cannot stress enough in this writing - breathtaking. The combination of the Superior blues and greens with the light brown rocks and cliffs of the shoreline has a Caribbean attitude to it that betrays its Michigan homestead, forcing you to question why anyone would spend thousands to visit the waters of the Pacific when for so little one can spend time here in the cool breeze of the Great Lakes, relaxing and swimming and taking in this spectacular landscape, especially when such diversity can be found in the forests and hills just a mile or two inland.

Having never visited the waters of the Pacific, maybe I should shut up.

Travel an hour south through the lowly populated woods of the U.P. and you’ll find the Big Spring, so named because there’s a big spring. I know. The cliche “this has to be seen to be believed” is true here, as video and picture cannot capture the awesomeness - I use that term literally - as you look down upon forty-five feet of completely clear water and watch ten thousand gallons of liquid pour in from the floor of the small lake disrupting the school of giant fish that inhabit it. Save a drop of rain here and there, all the water in this body comes from the spring, ensuring an amazingly clean lake that, even after you’ve viewed the clear waters of northern Lake Michigan, comes as a shock to you. Eight bucks to get in; worth every penny.

Hiking on sand sucks, okay? Wear sandals, as I never do, and your ability to walk a mile and a half is non-existent. Wear tennis shoes, as I did, and the gait you carry on your trek is a mix of “let’s move as fast as we can to get out of this heat” and “shit, I got more sand in my shoes. Ugh.” Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was named for a sand dune that once (dunes change over time, but only when wind blows off the lake. So make that every day) looked like a sleeping bear but now looks like a large clump of sand. Which is what it is. Ten dollars admission gets you a view of virgin sand, collected by the elements and untouched, for the most part, by man as small reeds grow up through it in an attempt to see Mr. Sun. To be sure, it’s actually far more beautiful than I can describe it.

Even near the eastern shores of the Lake it remains hot as the sun bears down upon the sand and reflects the heat up at your face as you imagine this is what it feels like to be lost and wandering hopelessly through a desert (if only the desert was about forty degrees cooler and there was a clearly marked trail. And a remarkable view of a Great Lake.)

Off the trail and closer to the Lake you can walk out on a boardwalk to view the dunes that dot the shorelines as well as the four-hundred foot slide from the cliffs to the water. The fun of this drop is that man could easily survive it; the grade is precarious but not necessarily fatal, and though one would not enjoy the trip it would be more of a roll than a fall and therefore gravity could take little toll upon your body. What would be less possible is the climb back to the top as you traverse the few hundred feet of steep sand with no rest in sight. Many signs warn you of this stark fate, but that didn’t stop the children of an idiot control freak mother from Wisconsin of testing the border between the boardwalk and the slope. Go ahead, kids. The world needs fewer mouths to feed.

One of the best ways to get odd stares in Northern Michigan is to attend a Traverse City Beach Bums baseball game. In their second year, the novelty hasn’t worn off yet for this Class A independent team and they draw almost five thousand fans a game, second in the Frontier League to the Southern Illinois Miners. It helps to have such a beautiful stadium, with the concourse area designed like a beach house to honor the lakefront that makes Traverse City Michigan’s second most popular tourist destination behind the Mackinac area. Umbrellas and bleach white beach chairs crowd around concession areas, while the light blue walls with their white roof peaks that rise up above the grandstand and support the press and luxury boxes help sell the idea of the ballpark as yet another beach getaway in this resort town. Amidst the usual cookie cutter nature of most cute little minor league parks, this one stands out as something rarely seen - original.

I should clarify something. No one will give you those odd stares if you merely visit the wonderful facility to partake in a ballgame. Instead, you should be sure to wear a Saint Louis Cardinals jersey, particularly within a year of that team defeating the Detroit Tigers in the World Series since, after all, Traverse City is very much Tigers country. It also helps if the game you attend is one where the Gateway Grizzlies are the visiting team, since they’re the Frontier League club you root for, and you can wear your Grizzlies hat and be literally the only person in the stadium clapping and cheering for the visitors, not a common sight at all in non-affiliated Minor League Baseball.

Then when your team loses seven to two, run immediately across the street to Culvers to drown your sorrows in a custard sundae.

Baseball games on your honeymoon is yes. Baseball park tours on your honeymoon is apparently no.

Miller Park is larger than you’d expect, with the usual height of a modern ballpark dwarfed by the large spaceship residing on top that occasionally closes its cargo doors allowing no rain to fall upon the field while the baseballers play. Residing away from downtown in a field of concrete, the structure would frighten time travelers from the fifties into thinking the Martians had declared war on America by crushing the Polo Grounds.

Inside it is a rather average stadium, and the Wife and I endeavored to step onto its natural grass and sit where manager Phil Garner once sat before he became an idiot and lost the 2006 All-Star Game for the National League by leaving Miguel Cabrera in to play “defense” in the ninth. Alas, his stupidity had spread north from Houston and there was no tour guide for our 10:30 trip, just a promise that we could take a tour, gratis, at 1:30. With bigger, more successful Dairy State fish to fry, we moved on, robbed of our ability to rob Prince Fielder of his batting gloves.

The Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field was more accommodating, with two tour guides ready to show us the luxury boxes and bleachers of a stadium you can’t usually see the inside of unless you inherit tickets or take this tour. Renovations of the turf prohibited us from exiting the tunnel and walking onto the field, but it wouldn’t have been the same as at Miller Park anyway. Curse ye Brew Crew and your lackluster preparedness.

Swimming on your honeymoon can be anti-climactic when the best pool you wade into is the one you spend time the morning before the wedding.

Pools are so shallow these days; are we turning into a nation of midgets? Before the wedding, relaxation was found at the Best Western in a mammoth pool featuring six foot deep water, allowing your writer to actually, you know, swim. None of the hotels on the honeymoon would feature water deeper than five feet, though, and some had even less. On the flip side, the future stops would feature hot tubs not frequented by jailbait in way too small bikinis, making your author highly uncomfortable.

On his wedding day.

You might think that the cheaper the hotel the worse the pool, and for the most part you’d be right. Motel 6 in Traverse City has a small and quite over-chlorinated pool, tempting you to dress in all your dirty whites before entering the water in order to save some quarters on laundry. While you’re at it, bring your supper dishes into the hot tub; the mass of suds bubbling up completely obscures the water, and an uninformed visitor might confuse the hole for the destination of a bus boy in the middle of his shift. All this trumps the cheaper Motel 6 in Milwaukee, though, which sticks its smaller pool outside along the Wisconsin state route bringing travelers from the airport, all of them gawking at your shivering body’s attempt to avoid the masses of leaves and crud floating in the poorly maintained four-foot-deep-at-the-deep-end water. This might be why we skipped this pool.

Bump up the bucks to the AmericInn in Menominee, Michigan and you get a perfect hot tub and pool combo complete with adult swim between ten and midnight. Go up too high, though, and you’ll find yourself without a pool altogether, as with the Holiday Inn along the lakefront of Manistique, Michigan. Popular opinion would deduce that a hotel so close to the crisp, clear northern shores of Lake Michigan would not require a pool, but that didn’t stop the AmericInn, which is even closer to the lake than the Holiday Inn, since no US highway lies between its doors and the blue water. Just forty feet, in fact. So take that, Holiday Inn Manistique and your free popcorn and in-room hot tub. And your Big Boy. And Hardees with forty-nine cent roast beef.

There are only two Wal-Marts within one-hundred miles of Manistique, Michigan, and this Upper Peninsulan town shows it. Even with an economy based primarily on tourism, the two block long downtown stretch shows signs of life rarely seen in most Midwestern towns of its size. Partially obscured from most of the Fudgies flying by on US Highway 2, the strip features several mom-and-pop electronics stores (complete with DVD rentals,) a Ben Franklin and local clothing store sharing one entrance, a quant little two-screen movie theatre and several restaurants that close their doors quite early on a weeknight. Vacancies are tough to find here, as the local populace, scant as it is, supports the shopkeeps in lieu of a massive discounter that won’t do much business in a region of the country so sparsely populated that it would be last in the Union upon admittance. Being so removed from the rest of the nation and its wonderful widgets probably gets old pretty quick, but for a minute or two you silently wonder what it would be like to live there. Everything is so patently classic American, a quaint throwback to the forties and fifties with more than enough modern amenities thrown in to placate the short attention spans of the modern citizen. Or is it just a facade covering the same issues every small town has, its problems masked by the false nostalgia experienced by tourists that don’t realize they’re the only source of income this remote land has?

The Yoopers seem to do good enough, ya?