patrickdaley.com

The Mifflin Street Block Party began many years ago as a means of protesting the Vietnam War. (A more substantial synopsis can be found on the Badger Herald’s website). Nowadays the party is more closely related to having fun one last time before finals begin than to anything of a political nature. I suppose it is a shame that the reason for its existence is most likely lost on many students, but it is still a lot of fun nonetheless. Three of our Michigan alumni friends made the trip to Madison with us to see what the #1 Party School is all about. Yes, that is an official title that has been bestowed upon the UW by the Princeton Review and Playboy. (Wisconsin is also one of the top public universities in the nation). Upon arriving at our Best Western across the street from the Capitol we were presented with an unpleasant surprise. Our double queen room turned out to be some type of meeting room with nothing but a Murphy bed. They claimed they could not switch our room that night so we had a cot brought up to our room; Cindy and I took the Murphy bed, Betsy slept on the tiny couch, Carol took the cot, and Ben slept on the floor. After talking to the manager the next morning we were able to get our room switched. On Saturday we spent some time at the farmers’ market around the Capitol before heading over to my brother’s place on Mifflin Street. The day started off ok, but by early afternoon it started to pour and did not stop so that kind of ruined a lot of the day. The awesome Madhatters concert at the Overture Center, Ian’s, and the Nitty Gritty made up for the weather, however.

The past two weekends have been somewhat uneventful compared to the two before them. For Cinco de Mayo Lauren and Nick had a fun party at their apartment. This past weekend my dad was up here to move Rob home for the summer and I finally got around to setting up his campaign website. Other than that I did a little shopping and not much else because the weather was terrible.

As many of you may know, my job with the Minnesota Legislature is temporary and will end when session is finished. I have been interviewing for jobs so hopefully I will have some good news to post soon.

I have finally broken my “no supplements” rule by taking whey protein before and after my workouts. I have not seen any significant gains in size or strength for a long time and I decided supplementing with protein would be closer to bending my rule rather than breaking it. I am also trying to lose some body fat right now so it might be hard to tell what effect the whey protein is having, if any.