Autumn is a great season. Honestly, things cool off, a couple last rounds of golf are squeezed in, days get shorter, sweaters come out, the leaves change, and we finish it all off with a ridiculous party with costumes… how can you not enjoy this?

October was a good month. We kicked off the festivities with Matt Eckl’s wedding to the lovely Nicole “Niki” Clouse, in Pittsburgh, PA. We’ll title this one, “18 Hours in Pittsburgh: The Eckl Nuptials.” I grabbed a 6:30am flight out of Madison on Saturday morning, and was into PIT by about noon. I checked into the airport Hyatt… that’s right, the airport hotel… grabbed lunch, and hopped on the express bus to downtown… that’s right, the bus. The PIT airport is an easy 30 miles outside of the city… rental car? No, I’ll be drinking. Taxi? $50+, no thanks. I was in my suit, as I only brought an over the shoulder carry-on for the trip, and was a bit overdressed for the bus clientele… but all was good. I ended up going to the furthest stop on the line and getting off near Carnegie Mellon University. From there, I proceeded on foot for about 8 blocks until I came to the church. Arrival time: 3:15. Total cost from the airport = $2.50. Once inside the church, I was fortunate enough to be graced by the presence of CAS all-starts Brian “Monty” Montgomery and Dave “This Guy” Caloia, both of whom I hadn’t seen in about two years. After a expeditious ceremony, we were on our way to The Pennsylvanian, a ornate and historic train station that served as the site of the reception. Despite horrendous acoustics, our table had a good time giving the impression that two guests who did not make it, were in fact there and required more food, and naturally more wine; ahh, the good times of having a second 8oz filet. Now, around midnight, it was time to roll. I hailed a taxi, headed to the airport, slept off some of the gin and tonics, and grabbed the 6:15am flight out. 18 hours in Pittsburgh… congratulations, Eckls.

As a resident of Madison, and as a graduate of a university with no football team, I’ve adopted the UW Badgers as my team of choice. I’ve got the gear, I know the players, and I even hate Ohio State like any other fan of the non-OSU Big Ten schools. So, when Ohio State was coming to town, ranked as #1 in the nation, and it was the ESPN College Gameday nationally televised night game… I had to be there, and I we all had to party. Tailgating in Madison is not easy. In fact, it’s a pain in the ass. There aren’t parking lots, the roads surrounding it are all residential, and overall it’s often not worth the hassle when most games kickoff at 11am. But a night game, and a big one, and many people attending… well, there’s a time for everything, and it was time to tailgate. We ended up securing an excellent location, two blocks off Regent St., were surrounded by other revelers from OSU and UW, and went through nearly 80 brats and burgers… with what I would assume was a 2:1 ratio of PBR’s to meat products (generally a good rule of thumb for any Wisconsin event). Despite a good tailgate… how ‘bout them Badgers? Throughout the entire game, Wisconsin owned OSU. Driving down the field, dismantling the OSU defense with passing and running games, and shutting down Terrell Pryor’s offense… it was an upset from the beginning and I’ve never seen Camp Randall so frenetic. Two minutes prior to the end of the already decided game, the announcer called out “Please remain in your seats when the game ends; please do not rush the field.” … um, yeah, that didn’t work. We eventually made our way out onto the field as well, and stood out on the 50 yard line among the insanity. What a game.

The next day, I was on a flight to Sweden to start a two week Sweden-Israel review. As great as it was to get back to the motherland again, it was cold, and I saw the first snow of the season coming down. Now, cold is fine with me, but when you’re packing light for a business trip that involves an average high of 30 degrees in one country and another with 90 degrees… you sort of pack for 60 degrees. That being said, I was a bit cold on the rainy and windy walks to restaurants around town, but hit up all the classics: La Terrazza, Dinner 22, Magnus & Magnus, Hello Monkey… the list goes on, and Gothenburg had its quarterly US stimulus delivered. The week flew by, and I was soon boarding a plane through strike ridden Paris to get myself to Tel Aviv. Despite the media hype about stranded planes at Charles de Gaulle airport, all systems were go for my Air France flights and we were on time. In fact, it made for a relatively empty Air France lounge and left open a number of the PlayStation3’s that they have in Terminal E for people to play. Yeah, so I was sitting next to a bunch of small French kids playing video games… no big deal.

Israel… not cold, hot. I landed around 11pm in TLV, grabbed my rental car, programmed in the Galgalatz radio station, and was off to the Sheraton. There wasn’t much time for fun though, because in Israel the work week starts on Sunday morning. We had great reviews with the team there, and as always they showed great hospitality. I was sure to visit the falafel, shwarma, and hummus shops in Tel Mond for lunch, as you simply can’t match what they do outside of the small village in the center of Israel. Honestly, I want to hire the falafel guy to just hang out in my kitchen at home… it’s ridiculous. The trip ended on Wednesday night when I boarded the flight back through Atlanta and headed up to Madison for the end of October festivities...

Halloween: a fun little thing for kids in most the US, a time to go nuts for adults in Madison. I don’t know why Madison gets so into Halloween, but they simply do, and if I’m living in Madison, WI for Halloween, I’m going to go nuts as well. Bring on the full Panda costume. That’s right, everyone’s favorite bamboo-eating-China-representing-endangered-and-cuddly -as-all-hell bear was my costume of choice. So, the Panda, the Zoo Keeper, Cap’n Crunch, the Triathlete, the Shooting Star, and a set of 1950’s tourist headed over to the Barrymore Theater party on Friday night. Good times, oh yes, good times. The panda awoke with a small headache… too much bamboo juice… but there was a mission, and it was to complete a bike race in full costume. Yes, the Alley Cat bike race of Madison was on the schedule, and I ended up taking part. My buddy Space Ghost (aka Gordon) and I decided to partner up for the race which hit five different checkpoints all throughout the city of Madison on what was about a 15 mile course. The day was gorgeous, and there were thousands of people out and about… which meant citywide panda sightings were quite an event. “PANDAAAAA!” people would scream as we went by… children would call out to their parents to “Look at the panda!”… and every other car in the town honked as kids pressed their grubby little faces against the windows. I must say, the reaction to the panda was downright absurd. The icing on the cake was certainly biking through the student union when multiple “Panda!” screams were accompanied by a young co-ed shouting, “I wanna tackle him and squeeze the shit out of him!” Sorry babe, this Panda has a race to win, and this big fuzzy head isn’t making me go any faster. Space Ghost and I were hauling through the course, and had already hit our last checkpoint when there was a miscommunication on direction and the panda ended up flying over the handle bars and landing on the concrete bike path. Did the panda hit his head? Yes. Did the panda’s oversized, soft and fuzzy, multi-layer head prevent what could have been certain disaster? Yes, again. After I had shook off the fact that the panda costume doubles as a safety suit, and straightened out the badly misaligned handle bars, we were off on the home stretch. Panda and Space Ghost finished in 7th and 8th, respectively, out of a field of 40 racers. Not bad for a sloth like animal and cartoon talk show host.

And that was it… October ended with days that were nearly two hours shorter, temperatures 20 degrees cooler, leaves all colored brown and off the trees, and one sore shoulder to remember it for the next few weeks. Autumn is a great season.