A little background on tractor Pulls. They began with farmers gathering on Sundays to see who had the best tractor. Farmers took turns pulling a flat stoneboat or sled onto which men jumped as it was pulled down a dirt track. When the weight was too much and the tractor stopped, the distance was measured. Tractor pulls took off as a sport with the advent of the modern “sled,” which gradually adds downforce weight.
The Wileman brothers started a small tractor pull in Edgerton in 1995, Kraig says. “Kurt and I built the track and ran it for a few years.”
When the 140-cow dairy herd of Crazy Acres was sold in 1998, the Wileman brothers got serious about tractor pulling.
A year later the boys were competing in local and statewide events with the Badger State Tractor Pullers Association. Their big boost came when they began using better engines.
Monthly Archives: April 2005
Department of Defense Budget Authority: 1945 – 2005
A rather illuminating chart from Defense & the National Interest. PDF Version.
Did you know that we are spending as much on defense as we did during the height of the Cold War? Yet many of our military leaders tell us they don’t have enough money and that we need to buy more modern and expensive weapons to assure our national security.
Time to rethink…
Local & State Taxes in 51 American Cities
Data compiled by the District of Columbia. Milwaukee is 8th (I wonder where Madison would fall?).
Lexis/Nexis: Data on 310,000 People Stolen
An investigation by the firm’s Anglo-Dutch parent Reed Elsevier determined that its databases had been fraudulently breached 59 times using stolen passwords, leading to the possible theft of personal information such as addresses and Social Security numbers.
Common Cause: Doyles Hypocrisy on Campaign Finance Reform
There is an enormous difference between Jim Doyle, the candidate for Governor in 2002, and Jim Doyle, the Governor. As a candidate, no one spoke more forcefully or more often about the need to restore integrity to Wisconsin’s state government through campaign finance reform. As governor, no one has put more distance between his campaign rhetoric and his actual performance on this issue.
Property Owners Burden Rising
“What is all the money going for?” the 60-year-old translator wondered last week. “I’m not seeing it in better services. Homeowners are becoming cash cows.”
The spectacular boom in Washington area real estate prices over the last five years has been accompanied by staggering increases in home tax bills as many local governments have spurned significant tax cuts in favor of reaping billions more from homeowners.
Judging by the number of “Madison Property Taxes” inbound searches recently, this is a topic on many local homeowner’s minds.
People Who Make Our World Work
Flying around these days can be a real hassle. Periodically, though, one has the opportunity to choose the road not taken. In this case, rather than using a rental car, I chose a 4:15a.m. shuttle from Santa Fe to the Albuquerque Sunport.
These conversations make up for all the hassles.
The tale begins in 1881, when a Barcelona native stopped in Santa Fe on his way to settle in Colorado’s San Juan Valley. Locals told him about something called a homestead opportunity. Finding the scenery and people of Santa Fe agreeable, he never completed the journey north to Colorado.
“Very smart, but not educated“, the immigrant settled and built a business in his garden. Growing and selling jalapenos, carrots (“this big!”), corn, peppers and more, he married and raised five sons. The boys carried water to the garden from a nearby river seven (7!) times per day. Buyers quickly snapped up his two annual vegetable crops.
One of his sons (the shuttle driver) served our country in the marines from 1949 to 1969, starting at Camp Pendleton, moving to El Toro, Korea, Vietnam and Okinawa, becoming a DI (Sargeant). He served in Korea in 1950 and Vietnam from 1960 to 1965. It was “hell”. “I have nine lives”. A traveller asked what was the favorite part of his military service, “there must be one”: “Furlough – getting out of hell, I could see my family”.
Today, this 75 year old veteran spends his time driving a few shuttles each day from Santa Fe to Albquerque’s Sunport, fly fishing (catch & release) near Taos, making an annual visit to relatives in Spain and checking up on his daughter and grandchildren.
As I left the early morning shuttle, he proudly mentioned that he starts the day with 100 pushups and shows off to younger guys by doing 25 one arm pullups.
50 Years Ago: Jonas Salk Conquers Polio
 |
Joe Palca:
|
Gladwell: The Ketchup Conundrum
Many years ago, one mustard dominated the supermarket shelves: French’s. It came in a plastic bottle. People used it on hot dogs and bologna. It was a yellow mustard, made from ground white mustard seed with turmeric and vinegar, which gave it a mild, slightly metallic taste. If you looked hard in the grocery store, you might find something in the specialty-foods section called Grey Poupon, which was Dijon mustard, made from the more pungent brown mustard seed. In the early seventies, Grey Poupon was no more than a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year business. Few people knew what it was or how it tasted, or had any particular desire for an alternative to French’s or the runner-up, Gulden’s. Then one day the Heublein Company, which owned Grey Poupon, discovered something remarkable: if you gave people a mustard taste test, a significant number had only to try Grey Poupon once to switch from yellow mustard. In the food world that almost never happens; even among the most successful food brands, only about one in a hundred have that kind of conversion rate. Grey Poupon was magic.
Physicians & Drug Abuse
“Medicine tolerates behavior that in any other industry would be unacceptable,” said Lucian Leape, a physician and expert on patient safety who teaches at the Harvard School of Public Health. “There are patients’ lives at stake . . . and that’s more important than a doctor’s career.”