The Society of Plastic Engineers' Annual Technical Conference is, for some reason, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Also known as the land of badgers, the danged things are all over the place. Everywhere from the ever present roadkill to the state lottery called Badger 5 to travel agencies (Editor: Crap! They travel?) to a scheduled appearance of Bucky, the U. Wisconsin Badger, they're here. Not the polite shy English badger, but the American one that mugs your dog, eats your cat, chews on your tires, and stalks your kid with a crowbar for his lunch.

 

I'm better now. Milwaukee's downtown has made quite a come-back since I was here years ago. As if to make up for Pabst, they have a ton of micro-breweries and the beer is really good. It tends to be lighter than the mircobrews I normally favor but its all tasty and the darks are delightful. It may be a good conference.




I wandered around for a bit before dinner, ending up down by the river where I saw the cherry trees starting to bloom and paper birch. I miss paper birch trees, with real apples, sugar maples, and the rest of the northern trees. I love Texas but the trees aren't my friends like they were in the north.





Dinner wasn't sausages like Ben wanted - most kids want stuff from trips, but mine ask for food - but was German food. I found a place called Maden's that was actually very good. It looks like a tourist trap but the weiner schneziel was excellent and the beer came in large quanities. The Barvian Black, a local, was very similar to our Shiner Double Bock.  The resturante was filled with armor, dead animals, and weapons. The boys would have loved it.



Less garlic and more parsley than the version you find in the hill country and the noodles were fried.  Otherwise it was great if a bit pricy.