Catfish Bait

In celebration of a 3-day weekend and the 4th of July, Chris, Kasia and I hit up Shangri-La.  For those of you unfamiliar with this magical place, Shangri-La is located in Custer Park, IL.  The home to Art and Ellen Nachowitz, parents to Jess, Mark, Doug and Craig Nachowitz, Shangri-La is an opulent and exclusive piece of land.  Fit with the Kankakee River flowing at the property's edge, a swimming pool, a myriad of artillery, an 80's Corvette Stingray and lots of room to blow off fireworks, Shangri-La is practically the Great Valley from The Land Before Time.

Geared with camping equipment, fishing poles, water panties and a Wal-Mart bag full of half sticks and mortars, we hit the open road.  I was a little nervous to bring Kasia for the following reasons:

1.)  Ticks
2.)  Possible inexperience swimming
3.)  Taking a dump on the floor due to loud explosions
4.)  heat exhaustion
5.)  not get along with Sadie the border collie

Much to surprise, Kasia was an old pro at the great outdoors.  She swims better than Christina Wright (record setting swimmer from Lahser High School), didn't freak out from the fireworks and played very nicely with Sadie Girl.  Though she now smells like a mixture of old cheese, campfire and dirty shoes, Kasia had a blast.  In fact, the entire time we were at the river, Kasia didn't sleep.  With too much excitement and stimulation, Kasia endured like a Nachowitz and pushed through the pain.

I took away from the weekend a crazy, unquenchable thirst to put in an above-ground swimming pool.  Am I crazy?  The idea of cruising around on a zebra-shaped raft on a hot July day sounds awesome.  I wonder if I can convince Chris of this?  Plus, I'm awesome at vacuuming pools.

NOTRE DAME

For those of you that actually read the newspaper, there were a few articles over the weekend concerning Notre Dame and its integrity as an institution.  First let me say that ND fans piss me off and they are right behind The Bowling Green School of Cosmetology in terms of football excellence.  With the facts out of the way, ND has recently been tried with a handful of powerfully horrific events.  The death of Declan Sullivan, videographer for the school's football team, followed by the suicide of Elizabeth Seeberg.  (Seeberg's death is directly associated with being allegedly sexually assaulted by a ND football player with no acknowledgement by the school)  Both fatalities could have been avoided by stronger procedure and protocol from the school.

The twist in all this is ND's inability to compromise and admit fault.  Sorry South Benders, apparently all things aren't golden like your dome when it comes to internal reviews of incidents.

"It doesn't take a federal investigation to see what's going on at Notre Dame, only a clear view from a different zip code" wrote David Haugh from the Chicago Tribune.  No longer are the Fighting Flatulence above the law. 

At the end of the day, I hope all colleges and universities can look at ND's poor handling of the past year's happenings and do the opposite.

CASEY ANTHONY

I don't know which is worse:  Having to return to work after a fun weekend at Shangri-La OR waiting for the Casey Anthony verdict.  I have followed this case from beginning to end.  The allure of the Anthony trial has put all of us followers in this odd flux-capacitor-time-continuum-matrix vacuum.  Personally, adding up all of the lies that Casey admitted to and the amount of time that lapsed before reporting her child missing...... something isn't right here.  I know we are innocent until proven guilty however, the pieces don't match.  I feel an awesome bestseller on our hands or better yet, a made for TV movie (starring Tiffani-Amber Thiessen).