Life is tough. Work is hard. Sometimes you just need to take a break from it all. I was feeling really burned out and needed to get away from the World that was bringing me down. When I decide that I need to hit pause and click restart, there's only one place on Earth that allows me to do that. Tim Reck said it best, "There's only one place left to go - it's Afterglow." My Dad had reserved a cabin for the weekend and I took off of work Thursday and Friday to join him up there. Unfortunately I would once again have to leave Major Korben Dallas behind but he would be in the care of my Mother who loves him dearly. So I said goodbye and hit the road for an adventure.

I am a slave to technology. I live my life on this website, my blog, my Twitter account, Facebook and I can't go a day without texting Jenny Reck. My job involves me spending 8 hours online and when I get home I do the same thing. It had reached a level of overkill. So I decided to pull the plug and get off the grid for a few days. Aside from my Dad, Jenny and Kevin, no one knew that I was up here. I shut off my phone, avoided Twitter and Facebook and went back to a time where you just lived life without telling everyone about it. It was great and I went up to KK with a beer, a cigar, my Timmy candle and seemingly every mosquito in the Northwoods. The bugs were really bad up here this week and they were driving me crazy, but nothing, and I truly mean nothing, can stop me from raging. Just you try and stop me pal. I'm a man on a mission and I'm raging for two. Better luck next time. I will rage. Until the wheels fall off.

It is a very nice drive up to Afterglow. The weather was perfect and I drove my convertible with the top down. On the way I drove through Oshkosh and the UWO campus, which I haven't been to since I attended college there from 1999-2000. Brought back some crazy memories. I met Dad and Kathy at the Pick N Save in Eagle River but now it was time to Rage for Timmy.

By now you should be aware of the concept of Raging for Timmy (RFT). Since my little brother is no longer with us, the rest of us need to rage on his behalf. While we generally do this all day, every day in our lives, coming up to Afterglow outside of that week in July has come to be known as a RFT adventure. The first Rage for Timmy was in October of 2011 with my Mom, Jenny, BK and Kevin. Kevin and I went back in April of 2012 with my Dad for Rage for Timmy II: The Secret of the Ooze. In the Fall of 2012, Jenny and I would return to Afterglow with Mom for RFT III: The Bee's Knees. I took a year off in 2013 but returned in June 2014 (meeting my Dad, Kathy and the dogs) and I decided to use Kevin's suggestion of Fletch is Working Overtime for this latest Rage for Timmy Adventure.

We had one of the worst Winters in recent memories here in Wisconsin. Because of that we had a very mild Spring and even though it is early June, Summer isn't quite here yet. But that didn't matter to me because I was going to go swimming. Damn the weather. I was going to Rage for Timmy and Rage for Myself by doing what every one else in the World would call insane.

They got a new HT this year. Frequent visitors to this site will surely remember the old old HT that was sunken into the floor and could hold all of the cousins at once. And then in 2008 they got a new one and it could barely hold 4 people but we still tried to cram everyone in there. That one broke and they have a new new HT that seems bigger and deeper. Although it wasn't filled with water yet, I still jumped in there to test it out. It's kind of like a "dry" trial run before everyone else would be up here this Summer in about 7 weeks.

I didn't leave home until after 11am and took my sweet time to get here. Although the leisurely drive was the perfect medicine for my current illness, it also meant that my first day at Afterglow would be over before it even began. But I didn't mind. I would be up here for a few more days and was planning on taking full advantage of my time up here. That having been said, I wasted no time in getting the fire going at the Lodge. Even though I was alone, I had my guitar and some whiskey. So in reality, I was never really alone.

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