Downtime

The sun is just beginning to clear the horizon when Bill Mitchell fires up the 200-hp Merc motor, backs his 20-foot Ski Brendella away from the Lake Poygan shore and heads up the Wolf River, past Page’s Slough, toward Fremont. At this early hour, Mitchell’s boat is the only craft in sight and the river is smooth as glass – perfect water for barefoot skiing.
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From 2,000 feet over the Fox Cities, we take in the green, lush fields, the vast sparkling lakes and the neat grid of Wisconsin highways and roads. The world literally swirls around us, like a 360-degree movie. All is quiet and serene … until the pilot in our balloon blasts a burst of hot air skyward. Read More...

To be out on the open water, to feel the sun on your face, the wind in your hair, the spray on your fingertips. To bob lazily with a fishing pole or a book, a cool one in your hand and friends and family at your side – it doesn’t get any better than this, right?

Actually, a lot of boaters know it could be a whole lot better, if only they didn’t have to trailer their boat, wait their turn at the launch, fill up with fuel and then hope the engine turns over while the passengers get fidgety and the sun rises higher in the sky on a short weekend of an all-too-short summer.
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They come from all walks of life, but for an hour every week they’re all working for the same goal – to win.

Welcome to bar league volleyball. Playing on sand trucked inside a facility the size of a field house, teams gather every week no matter what the weather to see who’s the best. It’s not only a good way to break a sweat, it also provides a unique networking opportunity for one group of professionals who gather at The Bar on Lynndale in Appleton.
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Jeff Mirkes has already run a couple of Cellcom Green Bay Marathons. Mirkes is executive director of Downtown Green Bay Inc. For Molly Vandervest, DGBI’s marketing and events manager, the half marathon she runs  this month will be by far the longest distance she’s run in her life and she’s determined Read More...

AFTER SPENDING THE WEEK BEHIND HIS DESK, Denny Lamers, president of McMahon Engineers/Architects, likes to de-stress by getting behind the wheel of his race car and hitting the track at Road America at about 180 miles per hour.

“It’s exhilarating and just plain fun. I get behind the wheel and the stress just melts away,” says Lamers, owner of Lamers Motor Racing, which has won several national championships, including one in 2009.
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The twang of blues guitar and swish of a snare beckon visitors in the big art barn, past the colorful displays of fused glass, up the stairs to the ceramics workshop.

It’s 7 p.m. on a Friday in the dead of winter, at the epicenter of activity on this night in Door County. The Hands On Art Studio in Fish Creek is abuzz with people painting white wear and glass as they munch free pizza, sip beer and bop to music by the Big Mouth Trio.
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Debbie DeLeers, an attorney at Stellpflug Law in De Pere, says she signed up for the Executive Edge fitness competition “just to get healthy,” but it doesn’t take much prodding for her to admit that she wouldn’t mind beating out a few colleagues in a fitness contest. “I thrive off of competition,” she says. “I have two other people from my office signed up and I’ll admit that I’m planning to do everything I can to top them.”
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Sticks clack against sticks, skates scrape the ice and padded bodies bang into the walls on their way to the bench. It’s another Sunday night at the Oshkosh Community YMCA ice arena – a scene not to be missed through the winter season by three professional guys in their 50s and their teammates on the Blue team.
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