Ride Your BIke to Work

This morning I decided to ride my two wheels to work instead of driving.  It is amazing to be up that early getting loads and loads of fresh air.  People were friendly as we wished each other good morning as we passed.  It was good to see lots of other bike commuters on the streets this morning, the culture is slowly beginning to change.  As my wheels bounced down the pavement, all the stresses of the drive to work were removed and filled with the sounds of cardinals up in the trees.  I arrived early for work with a little extra spring in my step.  I feel good all day long knowing that even though I am sitting at a desk, my heart rate was elevated.  If you want to save money on gas, lose some weight and feel good the whole day through, I recommend biking to work at least once a week.

To Crawl or not to crawl that is the question.... Pub Crawl that is

Pub crawls have been going on for years in downtown Oshkosh. May locals know that during the day of pub crawl you want to be as far away from downtown as possible. The streets are filled with hundreds if not thousands of college students along with some other who are brave enough to venture out. I happened to be one of those brave souls. I knew a ton of people on teams and they told me it would be a ton of fun. Since I work for re:TH!NK, know a number of police officers, and teach students how to make responsible life choices, I sat and contemplated whether or not I should go. 10:00pm rolled around and I decided that I needed  to experience the pub crawl first hand.


I walked into the first bar which had a waiting line outside. When I finally got in the door I could barely move and could not believe the amount of empty beer cans and plastic cups thrown everywhere. I found my friends and we headed out to crawl. The next bar was over capacity and once again we had to wait to get inside. While waiting in line I saw a guy pass out on the curb, a guy throw up in the street, and two people peeing on buildings. At 10:30 people were already extremely intoxicated and a number of people incapacitated. This bar was trashed pool tables wrecked, bathrooms covered in toilet paper, vomit on the floor etc.


I could not believe that people were as drunk as they were.
 During my two hours our I talked to number of bouncers though out the night and the discussion was similar each time. They all said that once people put the "Pub Crawl" T-shirts on they have now acquired the right to be completely careless, dangerous, and out of control. Even though I did take part in being out and about on pub crawl night it worried me seeing people behave the way they did.


If we are going to change the climate of the drinking culture to make people appreciate and enjoy alcohol responsibly it seems like thing such as the pub crawl strongly work against us. This is not to say that the pub crawl should not happen, it just needs to be done responsibly.

News worthy:Check out what schools are doing to reduce high risk college drinking.

Even an earlier start for alcohol purchases in WI?

Some misguided legislator introduced a bill to allow people to buy alcohol at 6:00 AM instead of the 8am official start time. This provision is up for hearing in the Assembly Homeland Security and State Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/121026684.html