It was nice while it lasted

Not sure what to write about today. The weather in this winter of fantasticness seems redundant, though it topped 50 degrees today with more awesomeness forecasted for the next few days.

Today Bill the Bear tried to schedule a weekend up at Ricardo's cabin in Wisconsin for our group of guy friends.Why would Bill be scheduling a weekend at Ricardo's cabin you might ask and you'd be just in asking such a question. The reason is that we would NEVER get up to Ricardo's cabin for a guys weekend if Ricardo was actually put in charge of scheduling. Ricardo is notoriously bad at communicating via email or vmail, so we either take charge of these types of events ourselves or include Ricardo's wife on emails so the message gets through.

The crazy thing is that while we're trying to schedule a snowy, winter fun weekend, which means prior to St. Patrick's Day, I only have two free weekends between now and then!! What's up with that? There's a trip we're taking to Ft. Myers, my mom's 75th birthday, Blackhawk tickets, VIP tickets to see Jim Gaffigan in Joliet and a softball tournament in St. Louis. That's a busy couple of months. Might not have the relaxing type of weekend that we just had for some time.

Tough week on the waistline coming up

Maybe it's the lack of snow this year, but the weekends seem much more relaxing this winter than they have been in the past. LL was living with me last year, so that's not it. Softball (on Saturday nights) starts next week and I never play in the first season (which ended two weeks ago) so that's not it. I don't think I can put my finger on it exactly, but our weekends are just more relaxed and less....eventful? I don't know. This weekend was a birthday party in the burbs for E-Money from my softball team on Saturday night and LL's parents came downtown tonight to take us out for LL's birthday which is Tuesday. Even with all that, it seemed like a relaxed weekend.

So yes, Tuesday is LL's birthday and we're going to dinner with our good friends Terry and Sandie from Mokena down at one of our favorite restaurants, The Maple Tree Inn. The food is southern style and they have big mardi gras celebrations, so this is a fun time to go down there. Plus we don't get to see Terry and Sandie as much as we'd like to so this is extra special. Next weekend we already have dinner plans with some friends of LL's and then Sunday is the Super Bowl! Good times!!

Friday night mixture

My birthday is coming up in two months and I was contacted by the State to renew my drivers license. This time though they told me I could renew through the mail because I had such a good record (makes sense as I'm fully aware that I'm a good driver and most people I see are idiots). But I was sort of surprised that they would do it through the mail. If you didn't have anything really change and you're fine with your picture, then it's a no-brainer. So I filled out the document and sent it in. Got my license in the mail yesterday and I'm good to go! No DMV for me!

By the way,if you're into watching the Super Bowl and want to buy a square, my softball team is doing a fundraiser for $20 a square. The payout is $250 a quarter with a $50 payout for the reverse winning numbers. The final score numbers payout $500 with $100 for the reverse numbers. Just let me know if you're interested.

Somebody tried to rain on my winter weather parade today by saying we are actually only a few inches below normal snowfall amounts so far this winter. On average, it appears, by now we have had about 20 inches of snow. While there's little to no snow to be found on the ground, we have had three big snow falls that probably accumulate about 15 inches. The big difference is that it has all melted! Plus one night it rained really hard. If that were snow, we'd easily be over the average and instead of melting the snow, it would have added to the base.

It's Christmas Card Time!

Well, it's not THE official Christmas card voting time yet, but it is time for me to select the best card I received this year. Lots more family cards this year than in the past, including one accordion type card that was very cool. A few lines of text accompanied each picture on the card. Another card was a pull out card that should get some mention just because of the detail involved.

But here are the finalists for best card:
This card has shiny little flecks that never show up in the scan, but is very pretty. It comes courtesy of my childhood babysitter of all people!






These two cards tickled my fancy as well. Frosty's card on the left came from friends of LL's in Michigan and the card on the right was courtesy of Smitty and wife.

And this year's winner! My sister Bee sent it and even wrote inside that it was going to be this year's winner, though I think she meant my the winner of my parents' competition. Having had a bull dog in the past, I'm partial to the subject matter! Congrats Bee!!

My buddy Chrizzo sent me this card via email as a joke. He thought it might make the list....and it did! Ha!

Another fantastic day in Chicago. Upper 30's, low 40's, and I was able to walk down the street in sneakers and my hoodie. Just awesome!!

Running with the Hawks

Last night we headed to the Hawks game for the first time this year. We have three sets of tickets this year and the other two games are in March. Even though we watch almost every game at home, even more so now with the HD hookup being fully functioning, we haven't actually gone to a game yet. It's tough now that they sellout every game. After about eight tries, I was able to take this picture.

That's my Patrick Kane Olympic jersey. LL has on her autographed Patrick Sharp jersey. Good times!

Future headline: Dow Jones tops 13,500 for first time since December of 2007.

This headline I thought of today as I considered the market and the current economy and where the Dow is currently (12,757). The fed also said they saw low interest rates through 2014. The combo seems to point upwards for the stock market. Now some of you, who might be marginally talented at math, might say "Hey, that's only 743 points higher from where it is now." True, and it's only 5.8% higher from this level. All true. The psychological impact of just crossing 13,000 is going to be a tough nut to crack. Tack another 500 points on top of that, plus the election year mudslinging that will be going on over the summer and it's a pretty iffy headline.

Today was a tough running day. My legs just didn't have it....maybe it was because of the Hawks game...I don't know. BUT, I powered through! Yes, I ran for 30 minutes, about 2 3/4 miles and finished off the last 1/4 mile with a brisk walk. When I run I have a dual goal: run for 30 minutes and do 3 miles. On Sunday I was able to to run both for 30 minutes AND 3 miles. Today though it just wasn't going to happen. Still, I was proud of myself putting in the effort. Yay me!

Monday Night Project

So the snow came over the weekend and then it rained like a banshee on Sunday night and melted most of it away again. Outstanding. This is my kind of winter!!

There was no post yesterday for no reason in particular. Laura went to her office and had dinner plans with a friend so I was on my own all day and evening. By the time she got home, I was immersed in a project that kept me occupied until bed time, which was earlier than usual for Laura as she had trouble sleeping the night before. Why? Molly, our 13 year old dog, didn't like the thunder storm we had. Yes, thunder....in January. Awesome! But not awesome that it kept Molly up and going crazy until we were able to give her a doggie sedative.

The project I was working on involves.....wait for it....baseball cards! Yes, I'm an avid collector and have complete sets dating back to the mid 60's. While migrating files from one computer to another I ran across an excel file that listed cards I needed from 1967, a set which I thought I had finished. After taking a look at the list and the cards I had, I came to the realization that the list was old and inaccurate. However I also realized that some of the cards in my set were not in the greatest condition and that I should replace them with better cards if possible. As with any collectible, the condition of the card is paramount. So after reviewing the entire 660 card set, I made another much shorter list of cards I wanted to replace and went on ebay to check them out. So yes, it was a busy night!

Tonight we have Blackhawks tickets so we're very excited!!

Also, my softball team is raising money by selling Super Bowl squares. $20 a square with a payout of $250 a quarter and $50 for the reverse numbers and $500 for the final score with $100 for the reverse final score numbers. Let me know if you're interested!!

Working it

First, on the food front, we had oven fried chicken tonight (really baked but it tastes fried) and spinach. Delicious. That was tonight and over the weekend we ate leftover lasagna and leftover stuffed peppers. It was an eating fest all weekend and I still lost weight! How could that be you might ask? Well, I started a workout regimen that follows a certain pattern: lift weights day one, run day two and rest day three. So in any seven day period I'll workout 5 days, but in any calendar week, it could be 5 days or 4.

Today was a running day and I ran 3 miles doing roughly 10 minute miles and was on the treadmill for 35 minutes total. It was a good workout and the run was easier than past runs over the last few weeks as you might think. Saturday was a good workout as well where I've tried something new. Instead of just doing my reps in any one exercise, I've been mixing them up. For instance, I'll do a set of bench presses and then do a set of curls. As long as the muscles are different, it's fine to go this route. But not only is just mixing them up, it feels like going this route is actually making me stronger. Good stuff.

The day of rest seems like maybe it's not necessary as we all know people who run almost every day. Maybe I can work my way up to that, but until I drop some weight, every day running seems unlikely.