11/10/07
Welcome!
It seems that everyone is blogging these days, so here's mine. Actually, this is a joint project with my wife. I should introduce us: Dave and Sue Tindell, and we live in northwest Wisconsin, between the towns of Rice Lake and Birchwood. For those unfamiliar with our great state, we're an hour north of Eau Claire, about 90 minutes south of Duluth-Superior, and about a hundred miles north and east of the Twin Cities. Milwaukee is five hours by car to the southeast, in the opposite corner of the state. Since travel is one of the main topics we'll write about on this blog, and since you might by now be curious as to what we look like, here we are on a visit last September to Venice, Italy:
We're standing on the Ponte Rialto, the famous bridge that spans the Grand Canal. Sue is wearing the pink Italia sweater she'd bought the night before in St. Mark's Square, while I'm in my Wisconsin Badger polo shirt.
About our day jobs: Sue owns and operates the Carlson Wagonlit Travel agency in Rice Lake, and I'm a claims representative for the Social Security Administration, working out of the Rice Lake office. While Sue's been in the travel industry for most of her professional career, I've been in a couple different fields---after getting a degree in radio/TV broadcasting, I worked in radio for 20 years, then a year as a car salesman---bear with me, I threw out my plaid sport jacket when I quit---before getting back into telecommunications and then, in 2003, joining SSA. In our spare time, Sue is an active member of Rotary International, and I teach martial arts.
It was Sue's idea to start a website in which we could talk about travel, life on a lake in northwest Wisconsin, current events, and she said I could also have space to discuss my various passions: martial arts, Badger sports, and history. We hope you visit us now and then to share your views and links to other interesting sites.
By the way, the title of this blog borrows from one of my personal heroes, Theodore Roosevelt. Every now and then I'll be writing about TR and other great leaders. TR was certainly one of our greatest presidents and led the ultimate "strenuous life", including a few years as a cowboy in what is now North Dakota.
Until next time, I'll leave you with today's score from Madison: Badgers 37, Michigan 21!