My Last Time With Paul
By: Mike Vande Ven Jr.
Last revised: 09/09/2005


Friday, July 15th, 2005

I got off work early on Friday so I could meet Mom, Dad, and Paul at Miller Park for a game against the Washington Nationals. I was very excited about this game because we had good seats, and Ben Sheets was pitching. This was the first time I went to a game in which Big Ben was the man on the mound.

I arrived at the stadium around 5:00 p.m. While I was heading towards the gates, I got a call on my cell phone that Mom, Dad, and Paul had just arrived. I waited in the parking lot for them, and we went inside.

We got there early on purpose, so that we could watch some batting practice, and hopefully catch a long fly ball. Unfortunately, the only ball that game our way was hit so hard, it completely left the stadium. After batting practice, we sat down to enjoy the game.

With the brewers down 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th, Carlos Lee came to bat. He hit a booming home run down the left foul line which tied the game, and sent it into extra innings. In the bottom of the 10th, the Brewers had a guy on first and third, when the Nationals brought in a pitcher for his major league debut. Before throwing his first pitch, he made a pick off move towards first that was called a balk, and the Brewers won in possibly the weirdest way imaginable. We all had a good laugh at that.

Paul decided to ride with me on the way back to my apartment. Unfortunately, we got stuck in the exiting traffic (there were over 40,000 fans there that night, so it was pretty packed). While in the traffic jam, we tried to find a good radio station to listen to. Somehow, 105.7 WAPL was coming in, so we listened to that. The funny thing was, it would come in better or worse depending on where the car was, so we would often stop or creep ahead until the station came in better.

When we finally got out and onto the highway, Paul called Mom and Dad to find out where they were. They were lucky enough to get out of the stadium parking lot fairly quick, and were a good 20 miles ahead of us.

A little while later, Mom called us back. With Paul relaying the information to me, I figured out that they took a wrong turn, and were heading away from Madison instead of towards it. After I got them straightened out, and Paul hung up the phone, we both agreed that they were "Dufusses."

Later on in the trip, we switched the radio over to 101.5 out of Madison. "Nights with Alice Cooper" was on, and Paul and I had a good time listening to Alice. He's a pretty funny guy. We finally got back to my apartment at around 1:00 a.m. After unpacking the truck, we got some much needed sleep.

Saturday, July 16th 2005

Saturday morning we got up fairly early to beat the heat. The plan was to go biking, and the forecast was highs in the 90's, so we wanted to get out early. We ended up leaving by around 9:00 a.m. and road for 7 miles in random directions. We stopped at a few rummage sales along the way, and eventually made our way back to the apartment.

Once back, Paul got on my G5, and launched up Unreal Tournament 2005. I was anxious for him to get his own computer that could run that game, so we could pay together, but that will never happen now. After playing some normal modes, I instructed him to play a deatchmatch game with a mutator that forced the only weapon in the game to be a shield gun. Thus, the only way to kill an opponent is to power up the shield gun, and run into them, scattering theri body parts all over. He had a blast playing it that way, and I had just as much fun watching him.

After he was finished playing, we decided to head to the Wal-Mart on the east side of Madison to do some shopping. Since Paul was with us, we got a 10% discount on everything we bought. That is the only time I ever got to use his discount. We went to this Wal-Mart because we were told that the Cheeseburgers in Paradise restaurant was near there. Unfortunately, our directions were way off, so we ended up eating at a Hardee's instead.

As long as we were on that side of town, we decided to go to Governor Nelson State Park on the north side of Lake Mendota. It was getting very hot out, so we all got our swimsuits on to go for a swim. Upon wading in the water to see how warm it was, we found out why not many people were swimming. The water was very warm, had a silty bottom to it, and there were weeds floating all over.

Paul and I decided to brave the water, and went out to swim anyhow. The water stayed shallow, and warm for quite a ways out, and the silt disappeared sooner than expected. When we got out there, we swam around for a bit, and started to make our way back to shore. On our way back in, we acted like speed boats. Putting our hands out in front of us and running through the water.

Paul didn't have enough water, so he convinced Mom and Dad to come out with us. They weren't so sure about it, because of the initial water test, but they caved, and we all went out to swim. We spent some time out there, and came back in refreshed. We then proceeded to gather our belongings, get our clothes back on, and head back to my apartment.

Once at the apartment, Paul decided we had not done enough swimming, so we went to the pool. There happened to be a hose filling the pool with cold water. Of course, we couldn't resist the chance to spray each other with it. During our bike ride earlier in the morning, we found a squishy green ball that we brought to the pool with us. We threw it around for a while, until we tired of that activity. I then put the ball in my pocket, swam to the bottom of the pool (about 8 feet deep), and pulled the ball out of my pocket. To my surprise, the pressure was enough to push the ball in quite a bit. After I informed everyone else of this, they all had to try it too.

After we were done swimming, we went back to the apartment, got changed, and found some good directions to the Cheeseburgers in Paradise restaurant. We decided to go eat there for dinner. The portions served to us were quite big, and I had a hard time eating all of mine. Paul just had his gall bladder surgery about a week before, and had not been eating much before then. But he was certainly recovering, because he ate almost his entire plate.

Upon arriving back at my apartment, we turned on the Brewers game for a bit, and then popped in the newly purchased Cabin Fever DVD (I was going to get this for Paul on his birthday, but I couldn't wait, so I got it a few days before the weekend). I knew Paul would really enjoy it, so we gave up watching the end of the Brewers game to watch this movie. Once the movie was done, it was getting fairly late, and we were all exhausted, so we decided to go to sleep for the night.

Sunday, July 17th 2005

Similar to Saturday, we planned on going for a bike ride, so we got up early to beat the heat again. This time, I mapped out a path to go to Verona. We rode over there, and toured a bit of the town. While in town, we stopped near a small park. Paul got off his bike, and made Mom go with him to slide down a small slide. After that bit of tomfoolery, we were on our way again.

This bike ride a bit longer than the day before, about 13 miles, so it started getting very warm on our way back. So, Paul and I decided to ride through every sprinkler we could. Many people were watering their lawns because of the dry conditions, so this turned out to be quite a few. We even took roads that led us to more sprinklers which were not on the normal path back. Later in the ride, we stopped near a house that was giving away stuffed animals they no longer wanted, so we picked up a few for Fetch.

We got back to the apartment, and decided to go swimming in the pool yet again. This time, we didn't bring the ball and there was no hose in the water, so we had to be a bit more creative. I started walking on my hands under water, and soon, Paul and I were trying to see who could walk the farthest on their hands in one breath. We were hand walking right near the drop off, so we kept falling down the "hill," but we still had a blast. While sitting at the side of the pool to dry off, Paul decided to start peeling off the tape over the cuts in his stomach from surgery. I reminded him of when he was in pre-school, and picked all the stitches out of his eyebrow.

When we finished swimming, it was about time for lunch, so we went back to Verona to find someplace to eat (this time in the truck, not on our bikes). After riding around town for a bit, we found a Figiro's pizza place. Figiro's is where Paul's best friend, Timmy, worked before dying in a car accident on December 31, 2004. Again, Paul ate a lot of food, which was good to see after he became very skinny from eating barely anything for a few months.

When we got back from lunch, we decided to pop in the DVD we bought at Wal-Mart the day before. We had picked up Desperate Hours for $5.50, starring Anthony Hopkins. It was a story about a guy who recently broke out of jail, and was holding a family hostage in their own home. It was a fairly good movie; I just never thought it would be the last one I would ever watch with Paul.

After the movie was done, we packed up the truck so Mom, Dad, and Paul could head back home to Green Bay. They left for home, and that was the last time I ever saw, or talked to Paul. Dad told me "aren't you going to say 'I Love You' to your little brother?" Of course, being brothers, we would always shy away from saying stuff like that. Now, I wish I would have said something to that effect.

To end the weekend, I was asleep by 7:30 p.m. that Sunday, and slept until 7:00 a.m. the next morning. That's probably the most sleep I have ever gotten in a single night. It's too bad we will never have a weekend like that again to rival the sleep time.

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