All over the board today

Greetings from my computer, which I didn't have access to for a good chunk of the afternoon due to walking out my front door without my keys. While I do have a back up plan in place for just such an event, that was thrown asunder after I had temporarily given my extra keys to Manual Labor Mike. Ugh.

Gar, one of the gents who sits in front of me at the game, took this picture of MWrigley and me on Sunday and sent it today. We had stopped by Gar's tailgate on the way into the stadium (we just happened to see his crew by pure coincidence) and they adorned MWrigley with the purple beads. It's a nice look I think! She was a hit with the guys in the section and they made sure to make light of me at every opportunity. When the public address announcer came on with the phone number for obnoxious fans, no fewer than 8 people in my section pointed at me as they started looking for their cell phones. Bastards.






The metal girder right behind my head makes a great thumping noise if you hit it with your hand or fist. It's our own noisemaker! Sam Adams Oktoberfest was the beer of choice at the game by the way.




El Supremo de NM is in town tonight and for the next several days, so you know what that means kids: lots of eating and drinking. To be fair, I could refrain from doing either to excess, but to lay blame, I usually only go to excess when he's in town.....plus it's fun to rib him about it!!

(sports talk)
Griese was not particularly good on Sunday, but not as bad as the untrained eye (or drunk eye) might think. He threw four interceptions, three of them in the endzone. Certainly not good. One ball was tipped though and the defender made a nice play. One was just a really bad "Grossman-esque" throw. The third seemed to be the receiver's fault as he looked at Griese on the line of scrimmage and shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands like he didn't know where he was supposed to run. The ball came his way, generally, but he was definitely not where Griese thought he should be. The fourth interception was a weak effort by the receiver to either catch the ball or knock it down. Two of his throws were with defensive players in his face or at his feet which prevented him from stepping into his throws. Not an excuse, just saying.

I do think that Griese read too much of his press clippings this week though after winning offensive player of the week last week. Instead of managing the game, he tried to do too much and win the game instead of just not lose it. If just the endzone interceptions are turned into field goals, the resulting 9 points would have tied the score.

What I'd like to see is Orton named starting QB now. Why? Grossman isn't the guy, we all know that. Griese isn't the long term guy either; we all know that too. So why not see what Orton can do with a reasonable amount of talent around him on offense? At 3-5 now, you really have nothing to lose this year. Making the change now gives him an extra week to practice with the bye week off.

Finally, Danieal Manning had an absolutely horrible game. The guy couldn't tackle Stephen Hawking and had a miserable pass interference call for about 35 yards on a critical play. Boooooo Manning.

Shopping and Tailgating

Saturday did indeed turn out to be a pretty sweet day. It started with me heading down to MWrigley's around 10 and we headed to brunch at Flo, where I had a chorizo scramble that was really tasty.

After eating our fill, we headed to Hoffman Estates to the new Cabela's store out there to find some warm tailgating clothes for MWrigley in case the weather on Sunday was as cool as the weathermen predicted.

On the way home, we stopped at Woodfield Mall to do some light shopping, or so I thought. We ended up and Nordstrom's where MWrigley displayed her shoe shopping fetish. Fortunately I had my Starbucks and a comfy chair, so I just sat back and watched. Though externally I was supportive, internally I was definitely happen when she passed on the $250 pair of European flats that the sales person brought out for her to try on in addition to her requested, more reasonable pair of Steve Madden's.

Once we got home (after a quick stop at White Castle for a snack to tide us over until dinner), we headed to Jewel and Whole Paycheck to get the ingredients for Sunday's tailgate. On the menu: the usual breakfast sandwich (English muffin, Candian bacon, cheese and egg), bacon wrapped barbecue shrimp, bacon wrapped figs, and cheese filled hot dogs topped with, for the first time, three-pepper three-meat chili. Yep, THREE kinds of meat: beef, Italian sausage and bacon. Mmmmmm, it was delicious.

Today started early with the extra stop to pick up MWrigley, which was only kind of on the way. As it turns out though, we got to the tailgate about 15 minutes earlier than I normally do. So at 9:15 a.m., we set up the grill, chairs and table. The weather was a little nippy(mid 50's), but not as cold as the weathermen predicted (mid 40's with a high of 51).

We started with the breakfast sandwiches (which were delicious) and then moved onto the bacon wrapped shrimp and figs. It's been a while since I've had the figs and damn were they good!! Wow! Since that was already a ton of food, we opted to hold off on the chili and chili dogs until after the game. When we finally cooked them up though, they were great too!






The group in our little corner of the Waldron Deck parking structure.











The ladies, Kleveland Kim and MWrigley. Not sure what they were talking about, but I'm sure it wasn't good for me!












Naperville Greg and me after the game as we wait for the chili to heat up.








I'm holding off on any discussion of the game as I'm wayyyyy too unhappy about it.

Friday Golf

Friday was much fun as I was able to go golfing and enjoy the beautiful day with three good friends: T-Rex Tim, Joe D (who got married in Sarasota earlier this year) and my ex-upstairs neighbor Mike. We tried a new course, Glenview Park Golf Club, because I had won a free foursome there at a charity outing at some point this summer. The course wasn't bad at all and we walked it since the weather was so nice.

While we played relatively well on the front nine, we really sucked it up on the back. It was the first time most of us have played in a while.

(camera resting on a divot repair box)

After golf, we headed to a bar called The Yard which has 170 beers on tap, or some outlandish number like that. Pretty cool. Appetizers were half priced, so we got a barbecue chicken pizza for $5 and woofed it down.

MWrigley was out late on Thursday with co-workers, so we didn't see each other on Friday. Big plans on Saturday though with brunch, a trip to Cabela's and then preparing for the tailgate on Sunday to which I invited her, Naperville Greg and Kleveland Kim. Should be a great weekend.

"I kicked him three times and he didn't move." Alternate Title: Another Frenchy Restaurant??

Yes, Amercian Lakeview Coffee Joe ended up at his THIRD Frenchy restaurant in the last month. Wow. Who would have thought? Fortunately my dad doesn't read my blog every day. Whew.

The first restaurant was Cafe Matou on Milwaukee and I went with Ricardo and el supremo. The food was quite tasty and, with the exception of the sommelier who I thought I might punch at any moment, the experience was very pleasant. Then, while in Albuquerque the group of us went to Le Cafe Miche. The food was again very, very good. So the odds of me going to a third Frenchy restaurant that actually had: 1) good food 2) reasonably priced 3) not girl portions; was slim and none. I was wrong.

Yeah that's right, I admitted I was wrong. Enjoy it.

So this restaurant was Bistro Campagne on north Lincoln in the Lincoln Square area of town. While not inexpensive ($20-$25 entrees and $7-$10 appetizers), it wasn't too bad. I had the French onion soup (couldn't help myself, I just love it) and then baked chicken over a mushroom sauce of some sort. It was a huge chunk of chicken and very, very good. All three entrees at the table were almost licked clean. Good stuff. Wine seemed expensive, so I went with beer.

Pictures to follow soon.

Ricardo went over to Dominick's yesterday to pick up lunch (I brought mine) and on the way back in he saw a guy passed out/unconscious on the sidewalk down the street a bit. After coming inside and telling me about it, he went back out to check on the guy. Apparently, in an effort to determine if he was sleeping/coherent/(un)conscious/dead, Ricardo kicked him three times to see what would happen. Garnering little response, he came back in and called 911 (and in Chicago I'm sure they love these calls). The police and an ambulance came fairly quickly. The three cops who should up first were just kind of standing around him as if to say, "I'm not going to touch him. You touch him. " "No sirree, I'm not going to touch him." Pretty comical. Won't know what happened to the guy, but at least Ricardo did something!

Dinner Report

Well, good news on the dinner front. The catfish turned out great!! The recipe called for pecans, but while at the Whole Paycheck, I realized that I wasn't sure I even LIKED pecans all that much. So instead of pecans, I used crushed pistachios which I already had at home. MWrigley had cornmeal, which I was going to substitute out for crumbs since I couldn't find them at WF, but that would have been a bad move on my part.




The side dish is my signature acorn squash with a brown sugar, butter and raisin sauce. Mmmmm was it good.

The wine was a Cabernet Sauvignon (70%) and Carmenere (30%) from Chile. It was pretty tasty.



(You can click on these pics to blow them up.)





As an appetizer, I bought some Dolmehs (rice and spices wrapped in grape leaves) and then made some Caprese, but added sliced Italian salami. Both were delicious.











Someone has to clean up right? Actually I think I was still cooking at this point.












The catfish was cooked at 500 degrees and I didn't flip it like I normally would. It came out really tender and tasty and fully cooked.

Post dinner was pool lessons for MWrigley. All in all, a good evening!

Tonight I'm hooking up with some ex-coworkers and heading up to Lincoln Square for dinner. We try to get together every couple of months just to catch up. Should provide good fodder for tomorrow's entry!

As the weather changes, so do The Days of Our Lives.

Big change for me today!! As most of you know, I read the comics every night before I go to bed. Unfortunately, I travel, sometimes I get drunk or am way too tired to read and just plunk down and fall asleep. All of which causes me to miss days of comics. However, I save the comics so that I don't miss a single day if possible. This practice has led to me being over two months behind on comics!! Yes, I have them stacked up next to my bed on the lower shelf of my nightstand.

To combat this ever growing pile of paper, I've decided to read the current day's comics in the morning and then read a back issue at night. In two months I'll be all caught up! Just in time for Christmas!!

MWrigley and I had a great evening together last night eating Thai food and laying on the sofa watching t.v. She's trying to get me into watching Bones and Law and Order: SVU. These are shows that I typically don't watch because: 1) they don't really "entertain" me in the way that The Simpsons or Family Guy does. 2) unless they create some really weird-ass scenario (like the victim was buried in a compost pile that generates internal heat of 175 degrees), I figure out what's going on in about 15 minutes leaving me with 45 minutes to say, "Really? No shit. Where were you 30 minutes ago when I figured that out?" 3) dramatic television acting is HORRIBLE! Freaking Ice-T is God awful and that blond prosecutor broad (Yeah, I said it!) is the worst.

Tonight I'm cooking for us and am making Pecan Catfish. Seems fairly simple. I'm hoping that my acorn squash with brown sugar and raisins will go well with it. We'll see. Of course, MWrigley just appreciates the effort.

In order to make dinner, I had to head to the grocery store and today I opted for the new Whole Paycheck right around the corner from me. Under ground and heated parking was a nice start to the trip, but clearly there isn't enough and it will be a zoo once people realize the store is there and is open. The trip should have been short since I really only needed three things: catfish, pecans and corn meal. A trip to WF's is never short though.

Here's my mental dialogue:
Where's the meat counter? Oh, back there. Ok....meat....pork....chicken...more meat.....even more meat. Where the hell is the fish? Oh, there's a whole OTHER counter for fish? Geesh. Ok, one ingredient down. Corn meal next. Couldn't find the corn meal. Looked everywhere, no corn meal. Screw them, I have something at home. Next is pecans. Every freaking kind of nut on the PLANET and no pecans. Oh, there they are. Hmmmmm, not sure I like pecans. Maybe I'll use the pistachios I have at home. Yeah, that should work. What should I serve as an appetizer? How about mozzarella balls and tomatoes? Mmmm, sounds good. Are those Dolmehs? They are!! Sweet, I'll take a few of those too.

What I left out of my dialogue is all the stuff related to organic food selections. Good Lord people, get over yourselves. Do we really need four kinds of organic egg plant? And the doofis hipsters that are running around that place are absolutely retarded! Not to mention the ultra-pretentious J.A.P.'s. Ugh. Made me reconsider holding the stock.....until I paid for my stuff.....$25. Good Lord. I'm going back to Jewel.

Who am I? Who are you? (not a kid friendly entry)

If the Steelers don't blow their game against Denver on a last second field goal, I would have won my confidence pool two weeks in a row!! Thanks black and gold. Bastards. That doesn't count as a sports entry. It's more of a gambling comment.

Here's an article on a study of identity theft. They researchers studied 517 cases that were closed by the Secret Service between 2000 and 2006. The FTC claims 3 million people have their identity stolen each year. So you're going to tell me that these researchers can legitimately claim a sample of 74 cases a year is statistically significant and can be extrapolated out over a 3 million person population size and relevant conclusions can be drawn from that data? You have to be fucking kidding me!

First of all, why only 517 cases in seven years? Please don't tell me that's all that were actually solved out of the 21 million cases of identity theft. The real conclusion should be that if your identity is stolen then you're fucked because apparently nobody in any position of authority can stop the thieves. Unbelievable. Don't even get me started on tearing apart the other conclusions they drew. For example, 80% of the cases involved the thief working solo......or with one other person. Well then they aren't fucking solo are they, so why even mention it?!? Good Lord. I hate researchers. Maybe I should devote a blog just to ripping them.

Seems like maybe I'm a bit ornery. Not entirely sure why.

In the spirit of Motherrocker, I'm going to go through my closet this week and toss stuff that I don't or won't wear. Actually I'll take it to my folks' place for a garage sale or drop it off with the Salvation Army. Either way, it will be out of my closet!! Look out malls!!

Weekend wrap up

(Sports discussion first)

Saturday was the final local softball tournament of the year for our team. It was actually with competition a level higher than we normally play. We ended up going 2-2 in the 10 team tournament having lost to the second and third place teams as it turns out.

The big moment on the day for both me and the team, came in the bottom of the last inning of our last game. We were trailing 10-9 and got our first two batters on base and I was up to bat. A base hit and we'd tie the game. On the day up to that point I was 5-8 with a triple and two doubles, so things looked good for us. Unfortunately I didn't deliver and instead hit a fly ball to center field. The runner on second tagged up though and went to third, putting the tying run 65 feet away. Also unfortunately, the runner on first decided (late) to tag up and try to make second as the throw went into third. He was called out though he was actually safe from my point of view. So we went from runners on first and second with nobody out to a runner on third with two outs. Our leadoff hitter was up next and he continued his struggles on the day (5-13) by flying out to left. Shoot.

Not delivering in that situation really made me feel terrible. Sure, the runner on first shouldn't have gone (or shouldn't have delayed) or the guy after me could have delivered and there were plenty of other opportunities in the game to get a run (I was left on third once at least for instance), but I still felt like I let the team down.

(end sports discussion)

Sunday was a pretty great day. All weekend the weather was phenomenal with not a cloud in the sky and warmer than normal temperatures. After going to mass, I headed out to pick up MWrigley to go to a bar/restaurant to watch the Bears game at a location near the United Center where Bruce Springsteen was going to be performing. We were out there at about 2:30 and were met by my friends from Mokena, Terry and Sandie, at about 5 or so. The Bears game was pretty remarkable culminating in a 97 yard drive by Bears QB Brian Griese. And yes, he's the same guy who I said should have been playing the last half of LAST year. The Lombardi Trophy would reside in Chicago if he had been tabbed as the starter in week 9 of last year.

Regardless, the game was great to watch and the food, drink and company were all outstanding. We headed over to the UC at 7 and decided to hop in a cab, which turned out to not be the best idea because parking in the lots was only $15 and the cab ride was almost $10, plus we had to walk back after the concert because there were none to be found.

Our seats, $95 each but free to me, were behind the stage. I'm not entirely sure that mattered all that much though. Bruce still really puts on a show and Sunday was no different. Unfortunately I don't know much of his rather copious discography, but he did play several songs that I knew. Hints for going to a concerts:

1) if the entertainer has 15 albums over 25 years, try to know more than just a few songs.

2) try not to drink alcohol for the six hours before the concert (two bloody mary's, several beers) unless you have a huge bladder or one of those crazy astronaut chick diaper systems set up.

3) if you bring a camera, turn off the red-eye reduction light. If you don't know how to do that, don't bring your camera because you're probably an idiot and the picture won't turn out anyway.

4) unless you are within the first four rows of the stage, Springsteen is NOT pointing at YOU. Don't be stupid.

5) don't make the "horns" hand sign unless the band you're seeing is akin to Metallica.

In addition to Bruce, it was pretty cool to see the likes of Max Weinberg, Clarence Clemmons and Steven van Zandt aka Silvio on The Sopranos.

Pics from Albuquerque

Here's a nice, easy post. Pictures!!! These are from my trip to Albuquerque. Thanks to Ricardo for remembering HIS camera, which I apparently couldn't.

Off we go:






Straight out of birds! The sun comes up behind the mountains in Albuquerque, so there is indirect sunlight for some portion of the morning while the mountains throw shade on the city. Makes for great pictures though!












The specs are balloons in the distance. The whole week was balloon fiesta week. Fun stuff.












Look at that blue! More balloons are in the distance.













The sun rising over the mountain. Seemed interesting to have the Chinese restaurant in the foreground. Not sure why I thought that....














Day one meeting. Notice Joe at the end of the table....probably blogging.














A view of the room from my end of the table.














Dinner time! A Frenchy place?!? Joe is not happy.














Ok, fine, I'll make the most of it. At least we had the Chef's table!! Nice job el supremo!! Craig1 in the foreground, Ricardo to the left, Mrs. el supremo, then el supremo and new recruit MH is next to me.
















Our hosts for the three day excursion!














See!! Told you it was the Chef's table. Here's the Chef. He did a great job.














The food was sooooo good, that I draped myself in the french flag momentarily.

















Ricardo actually went to the Fiesta fairgrounds for these balloon pictures. I woke up 45 minutes later and el supremo and I went to a nearby Starbucks to watch what we could.





























Here's Ricardo with a cool balloon being inflated in the background.


















Look at all the balloons!!




























Cool pic from right underneath one as it rises.













They aren't all typical balloon shapes.














I don't even WANT to know what the hell this thing is. The red/pink striped thing is a lizard though.












"So I go to the balloon fiesta with my new bumble bee balloon and don't you know that bastard Nate had to bring HIS bumble bee balloon. I was so embarrassed."










Many balloons have corporate sponsors.















Look at them all in various stages of inflation and flight. Seems like anarchy.













But they are actually lined up pretty well.





























You need to have a truck/van to own a balloon apparently.
















This would be MY balloon if I had one.














Day two meeting room. Not as nice as day one, but still good.


Recruit MH, Craig2, me, AirForce Leslie, Ricardo, Craig1, el supremo and Mrs. el supremo.










Tighter meeting quarters=more productivity.































Me and AirForce Leslie. She's a commercial pilot, shes in the reserves, is a single mother and wants to do more. Good Lord.









Dinner at el supremo's. Notice my soup. One half is Vichyssoise and the other half is like tomato basil cream or something. It was a great mix.











Cheers to the end of the meetings!!















We decided to get up a little early and hike this trail before we headed to the airport. One hour out and one hour back.












Looking back from whence we came. The sun was in our face while hiking out and at our back while hiking back.

Just some piles of rocks. Cool pic though.
















The main trail with Ricardo's shadow.































el supremo and I. We used ski poles as hiking sticks. They really work well and I was ready to use mine to fend off bears!!

Ricardo and el supremo.















Me trying to get a signal so I can text MWrigley during a water break. I wanted to let her know that I hadn't been eaten by bears yet.


Soon I would fly home!

Nobody likes The Boss

In a stroke of luck and good karma, I've recently come into four tickets to see Bruce Springsteen at the United Center this Sunday. Obviously the first two tickets went to MWrigley and me, but who should we invite? Well, I happened upon the tickets through a buddy who is starting a money management business and needed an office temporarily and from time-to-time. At one point, while he was still working at Morningstar actually, I was helping him think through his alternatives and such. After he made the move to start the business, I let him know that we had an open desk in our office (with Ricardo) and that he could use it for a while and if he became successful and used it often, then he could pay some rent. He came upon these tickets and offered them to me as gratitude and quasi-rent.

So of course I invited Ricardo and his wife first since he's obviously involved in the office space decision as well. But they are going to be in Wisconsin at their house up there and can't make it. Up next, my buddy Joe who got married down in Sarasota in May, which I attended. He and his wife Kendra have a young Boxer dog which has recently had some heart trouble, so I thought they might like a night out. Nope. No good excuse either really. They just want a weekend at home after 4 days in the ICU at a Vet's last weekend and a trip next weekend. I guess that's a good excuse in the end.

Next up were a couple who were friends of MWrigley. The relatively newly pregnant wife was all about it and very excited. They had tried to get tickets, but found them too expensive. Perfect right? Nope. The hubby has to fly out early Monday morning and he reminded her that she gets tired and pissy around 9:30 at night anyway. Very funny.

One more invitation was sent out tonight, this time to Terry and Sandie who I know love concerts and they invite me to their Memorial Day party every year down in Mokena.

Who is up next if they don't accept?? You?? Maybe.

If you're going to dismember someone, do it around Halloween.

Quasi-gory entry today, but interesting nonetheless.

While Kenny was in for the weekend, we happened to hear a story on the tube (being sick, I watched a LOT of the tube) about these two feet that were found in the middle of an intersection the day before (Friday I think). So someone FOUND these FEET just sitting in the middle of an intersection (some street and Vollmer Road if you know the area). The initial report is that the feet were separated above the ankle. No body.

Several people passed the feet laying in the middle of an intersection, but none of them did anything about the feet. They didn't called the police. They didn't dial 911.

Now Ken is from Jersey so we immediately thought and said, someone is sending a message. Don't know if it's a gang or what, but someone is sending a message.

Well the story continued to unfold.

About 12 miles away, a footless body sat under some brush. Several people passed by the body....and did nothing. They called no one.

Why the inaction from what should normally be an involved public on the far south side of Chicago (technically a suburb actually)? Well, several people who drove by the feet and footless body thought they were just Halloween gimmicks!

OK, but what happened? What is it indeed a gang message? Well, the victim turns out to be a guy who constantly walked around the neighborhood and was actually nicknamed "Walking Mike". Apparently, he would walk down Vollmer Road to a gas station almost every day and then would often just walk back and forth on his street for really no reason other than to walk.

Allegedly, some kid in his early 20's hit Walking Mike with a car. He hit Mike so hard that now footless Mike shot over the hood, through the windshield and into the car. Scared out of his mind, the young driver took off looking for assistance from his apparently less than helpful girlfriend as the best idea they could come up with was to partially hide the body along ANOTHER road under some brush.

As the story developed, it turns out the legs were actually severed beneath the knee. Now how do you confuse, as a reporter, severed above the ankle and severed below the knee? That has to be a two foot difference at least.....................get it? Two foot difference? Groan.

Test of wellness? Eat Chili

Good news today as my appetite returned and there were no races for the bathroom. After my regular breakfast of cereal and coffee, I decided to be a little adventurous with lunch. No, I didn't want to go ALL THE WAY to the preservative laden Lean Cuisine lunch, but I felt homemade chili was a reasonable test. Reasonable and delicious!! And delicious it was. Plus I passed my test with flying colors, even allowing myself a few Ruffles potato chips. Mmmmmmmm.

Dinner was shared with MWrigley (first time we've seen each other in almost 5 days) at her abode where leftover pizza and her homemade soup (chicken with a ricey-like pasta). Again no stomach problems to report. Yay for me!!!

Many of you know I play in a fantasy football league, which I run also, but you may not know that I'm also in a confidence pool. A confidence pool is pretty typical in offices around the country where you pick who you think will be the winner of each NFL game for a weekend and assign them a ranking from most confident (16 in a full schedule weekend) to 1 for the least confident. If you pick the winner, you get the number of points that you assigned to the game. The person with the most points wins. Since I had the flu (or whatever it was) I wasn't really checking on who I picked or how I was doing. As it turns out, I won!! Whoo-hoo!!

Eating chili and winning on football!! Not a bad day!

Joisey Ken, Pepto-Bismal and the Porcelin Throne.

Well, my weekend started out innocently enough. Friday morning I had a meeting with a client and then it was off to the airport to pick up Joisey Ken. Fairly uneventful so far. I thought it would be a good idea to get our tailgate shopping done on Friday since we were going golfing on Saturday afternoon and had a party to go to on Saturday night. No worries still.

In a fit of practicality, I decided to call Gibson's Steak House just to confirm what I thought were 7:00 reservations, but what could have been 7:30 reservations. Much to my dismay, there were no reservations at all!! Ugh. Ken comes from Jersey and they lose my freaking reservations that I made on Monday (right after I made golf reservations by the way so the memory was vivid in my mind). So we went to the grocery store and would decide what to do while shopping. As it turns out, we decided to grab some porterhouse steaks, potatoes and asparagus and cook at home instead. Fine and dandy.

So after shopping we came home and started preparing the tailgate food. Ken was working on the bacon wrapped shrimp (which were all eaten so I guess they were good) while I started to work on the chili and preparing dinner.

Now for you grillers out there, there are many ways to cook a steak. Many people, Ken and several professionals as well I'm sure, profess the "one turn" method of cooking steak. You put the steak on one side and only flip it once before serving. Myself, I prefer to sear both sides to lock in the juices and flip two or three times. Well, Ken was having none of that. I'm not saying he gave me botulism, but I'm not saying he didn't. :-)

Everything was very good and we were stuffed.....maybe that was the problem. Then we played some pool (9-ball) and drank several Smithwicks. Maybe THAT was the problem.

(a little gross in this paragraph)

Whatever the cause: the steak, the Smithwicks, the Pepto-Bismal I took after the steak and Smithwicks, the airplane ride on Thursday, being at the airport on Friday, I woke up at about 3:00 a.m. and hurled like I haven't hurled in some time. In fact, I don't really remember the last time I threw up and it may have been when I had an inner ear infection almost a decade ago. Regardless, this was a triple flusher.....yep, three flushes. Yowza. And no flush was cheated believe me.

(end grossness)

Anyway, when I woke up Saturday, there wasn't much I could do. Our tee time wasn't until 12:50 though, so I thought maybe I'd recover and we headed out to the course after sleeping in (plus it was too late to cancel so we were paying the $110 for the round regardless). Well, I was struggling on the practice range and I didn't get better on the course. After nine holes, I had to send Ken out with the other two-some and I headed back to the car in the parking lot to sleep. I was cold, every joint ached and I was desperately exhausted just walking. Picture me sleeping in the reclined front seat of a 2002 Camry with a Mexican blanket in the parking lot of a $110 a round course. Pretty freakin' funny if you ask me.....though not while it was happening. No one bothered me surprisingly.

Needless to say we couldn't make the bachelor party to which I was invited Saturday night either, nor the Oktoberfest/house warming event. In fact, at around 10:30 I called my buddy Benny "the drunk", to see if he would go down to the game with Ken and do the tailgate thang with him two of my other softball buddies. He gladly accepted and the game was afoot as they say.

Sunday morning found me feeling little better, so I was happy to have made the call Saturday night. For Ken to fly out and then not make the most of the weekend was upsetting enough for me, so Sunday had to go well. The food, I guess, was good as was the booze and the four guys who went so the day was successful. Kenny said he had fun and the weather, despite a drizzle, was much better than the sub 10 degree weather we had last year when he came out for the Vikings/Bears game.

Today, just in time for the work week, I was feeling much better, though still not able to eat all that much. I've continued to get better as the day wore on and hopefully tomorrow I'll be closer to 90%.

Lack of postings due to Flu

Sorry folks, I've been sick all weekend with some kind of flu that makes eating unappealing yet leaves no residue in the form of a fever. Very odd. I was within a degree of 98.6 all weekend, but felt like crap and was achy.

I'll catch up hopefully later today.

Travel Day

Thursday was a travel day for me and a surprise visit with MWrigley upon my return. Originally it was going to be 12 days between seeing each other, but we were able to spend a nice day together on Sunday and then this evening as well. So now we're down to the next four days....which doesn't seem like much right? Joisey Ken will have to keep me occupied!

That's right, Joisey Ken is coming into town tomorrow and we have some kind of weekend planned. More on that later though.

To finish up my New Mexico entries, I need to discuss dinner at el supremo's abode and our hike. Of course, I forgot my camera, but Ricardo took a ton of pictures and has promised to send them to me. I'll post them promptly. Dinner was quite the event with various cheeses, wines, a meat paste spread (said that just to piss off el supremo with my lack of description), fresh squash from the garden, various sausages and sauerkraut and finally, another garden item, watermelon. It was all delicious and we ate wayyyy too much. Oh, I even prepared the squash!! Yep, lil 'ol me. We had acorn and butternut squash and I served them with a dressing of brown sugar, butter and raisins. Good eating. That was clearly the most nervous moment for me all week!!

This morning we woke up relatively early and hit a trail with which el supremo is very well acquainted. The mountain we were heading up had the sun rising just behind it, so it was in our face most of the time during the first hour. While this was inherently bothersome or warm, it did limit the amount of wildlife and floral viewing I could do because, well, the sun was right there in your face. Otherwise it was a great way to spend the morning and quite the workout. You really do use different leg muscles even than when you are running. I even ate a prickly pear seedpod, or at least part of it. Not bad. Very sweet.

Anyway, Ricardo seemed to come down with what I was fighting off the first half of the week and slept on the plane while I watched the movie 1408. I watched Vacancy on the way out to NM. Today's movie was much better, but both were watchable.

Another post from New Mexico meetings

Another day of meetings for me today, but it started off interestingly enough. Ricardo and others got up early (5:30!!) to go see the balloons lift off at the balloon fiesta. I opted to sleep in until almost 7 and el supreme and I went to a strategically located Starbucks that had a view of the balloons floating around though at a distance. The early risers actually went to the field to see them up close.

Happy Birthday to MWrigley!! Yay for her, but sad for me as I’m in New Mexico. Congratulations to my parents on their anniversary too!!! Let’s see, what number is it….1959….2007….what is that….48 years. Holy shit. My mother put up with my dad for that long. Good Lord.

Had a great dinner last night at a French restaurant of all places. I had the escargot and the “Road Kill” special, boar, elk and foul of some sort. It was all good and a reasonable portion. Ricardo took some pictures which I’ll upload once I get copies. Forgot my camera AGAIN!!!

Surreptitious writing

Well, I made it to Albuquerque and am in all day meetings. In fact, I'm in a big meeting right now as I write this, but no one cares about what I think or what I'm doing, so I can write as necessary. Yes, it's stealth writing. Surreptitiously pecking away.

Yesterday I had two disturbing hair dryer experiences. Yes, the definitely thinning, nearly bald guy had two hair dryer experiences in the same day. The second incident occurred on the train on my way to the airport. These two young women, in their 20's probably, were standing near Ricardo and I. They seemed like high maintenance women, but then I saw confirmation of my suspicions. One of the women had this huge blow dryer in her purse/handbag. It was huge! Now, it was 4:00 in the afternoon, so this woman took her hair dryer to work just to make sure she looked a certain way throughout the day. Not for me thank you.

The other incident was truly disturbing. As I was going to be out of town most of the week, I wanted to get in a trip to the gym. So I rode my bike to the gym and hit the locker room real quick for a potty break. As I walk into the locker room, there's a guy whose butt naked except for a pair of bikini briefs right in the middle of the room and in front of a mirror. This dude had a hair dryer pointed down his briefs drying his nether regions. Good Lord. NOT something I wanted to see. Ugh.

Ok, people are looking at me for input on topics, so I better get back to my meeting!!

Bears win and Joe called it!!

MWrigley, as you might have guessed, works for the Wrigley company. By her front door is a bowl full of gum, mints and the like. I thought that was a nice thing to have and wondered what I could put by my front door. Maybe one page reports on mutual funds that I'm currently recommending or a list of them altogether. Can you see this stack of paper by my door:
"Oh, can I have one of these?"
"Sure, take the Dodge & Cox International fund....it's spicy."

Follow up to my prostitution sighting/solicitation. Katie, who lives up in the area of solicitation, followed up with an email to me relating this info:

The prostitute that approached your car was probably at the bus stop at Belle Plaine and Broadway. This woman is over 50 years old and she used to get around via walker but now the social service agency that works with her gave her a wheel chair. Somehow she stays in business – we’ve actually seen people solicit her, how sad is that... I think her name is Sue and I’ve heard that she used to be a nun before she started living on the streets.

Now, this was NOT the prostitute that approached me (mine was actually fairly young looking) but I thought the info was funny/sad/noteworthy anyway.

Today I head off with Ricardo to visit el supremo in Albuquerque. When I come back on Thursday, I'll just enough time to do laundry before Joisey Ken comes into town on Friday. Should be fun as always!!

(sports themed entry the rest of the way)
The Bears won last night up in Lambeau Field for the fourth straight time. The previously 4-0 Packers were favorites, but I smelled an upset. Key points/comments:

-Griese really only made a few bad throws and made several really good throws. He hit Des Clark IN STRIDE for a touchdown, a play that would not have been a touchdown if Des has to stop for the ball. He also threw a great ball in pretty much the only place he could for Olson to score a touchdown. I tell ya, if he had been the QB since week 7 last year, we'd have another Super Bowl championship in this town and would probably be 4-1 right now.

-Cedric Benson is the real deal......real bad. He's terrible. He runs with no authority whatsoever. What did he have last night: 27 carries for less than 60 yards?!? That's terrible.

Before the season started I said Grossman would be benched after week 4 and Benson would be out with an injury by week 3. Grossman was benched and Benson PLAYS like he's hurt. Put in Peterson and Wolfe.

-The defense is doing what they can with a patchwork of players. Anthony Adams was running around like a madman filling in at DT. We were getting pressure from the front line and our DB's started covering in the second half.

-Tillman was outstanding. I ride him a lot, but he stepped up last night.
-Briggs, 16 tackles. 'nuff said.
-The Packers refused to kick to Devin Hester resulting in the Bears starting outside of their 35 on every single kickoff. He's huge even when he doesn't touch the ball!!!

Quick catch up entry

Thursday night, Ricardo, Ricardo's wife, MWrigley and I went to dinner at Fogo de Chao. None of my three guests (all celebrating recent or upcoming birthdays) had never been to a Brazilian style steak house before, so they didn't know the debauchery of meat they were in for. Actually, at Fogo, they have a great salad bar as well and you could easily fill up on just the vegetables and cheeses and such. But you don't, because you're going to have tons of meat. Our wine of choice was a malbec from Argentina which was pretty good. All of it was pretty darn tasty. Even though we were full to the gills, we decided to get the cheesecake with strawberrys and split it between the four of us. Our waiter, Raoul, knew we had birthdays though so he brought out a piece of Key Lime Pie as well, gratis.

The restaurant might not have been the best choice for me personally though. It'll be at least 12 days before I even get to SEE MWrigley again due to my traveling and then guests coming in the following weekend. A nice romantic place for the two of us would have been a better choice in retrospect, not to mention we might not have eaten so much and maybe not have felt like just going to sleep after dinner. Ugh. Anyway, absence makes the heart grow fonder right? No, that's bull shit. Absence at this stage of a relationship just plays on insecurities and takes away from getting to know each other even better.

Friday I headed off to Owensboro, a seven hour boring drive down I-57. We got there about two hours before our first game, which was another bad draw for us as the team we played had won this tournament within the last two years. Ugh. They whooped up on us and sent us to the losers bracket. To get to Sunday, we would have to win 8 games on Saturday. Yikes. We won our first game on Saturday 11-1, but lost the next game 9-8 after leading most of the game. We had some base running mistakes, errors in the field and four really bad calls by the umps that went against us. One of them involved me tagging out a sliding runner at second. He was out by so much that I just started heading off the field. The ump called him safe and I couldn't believe it!! After we all calmed down, the runner looked over at me at shortstop and mouthed that he was out. The bad part is, on judgment calls, you can't even complain to the tournament directors.....they won't listen. Like I said though, even though the umps cost us probably 4-5 runs, we also had some errors that would have taken the game out of the umpires' hands.

Soooo, today was another seven hour drive back. Ugh. Fourteen hours of driving in two days. Soooo tired right now. Off to bed.

The Passing of My Bagel Source

Had lunch today with dejesus freak after seeing him and JC (softball teammate) last night at a new bar called Brody's (it opened up where Twisted Spoke was on Roscoe and Clark). Always good to have a casual lunch with df, but we don't do it often enough. He's going back to school at Northwestern and is taking two classes currently.

One of the classes he is taking is sports sociology which is the same title of a class I started to take at U. of Ill. but had to drop because I couldn't follow what was going on. It was weird. The class was filled with football and basketball players (and other athletes) and I was clueless. It was like the professor was teaching some OTHER class that everyone else knew but me. In retrospect, it probably was the basics of some other class that they really had already taken....a nice way to get them passing grades. I dropped the class like a hot rock!!

On another food related note, Samuel's Deli, the nice Jewish deli around the corner from me, closed up shop just out of the blue! After asking around, it appears a new restaurant is going to open up with a bar attached. It's supposed to be nice, but we'll see. So to my relatives, my bagel source has dried up. Now I have absolutely nothing to bring on holidays.

The Cubbies lost last night and I was ticked about Zambrano being pulled after 6 innings. If the guy is on, and he was, let him pitch until he drops. Lou says he wanted to save him for game four, a game that isn't even guaranteed to occur!! A month ago they tried to pitch him on three days rest and he sucked, so now they pull him from a start so they can do it again! Ugh. Very frustrating. Need Ted Lilly to step up tonight.

What we need is a Springfield Tire Dump!

With a nail in one tire, a chunk missing out of another one and 60,000 miles on them all, it was time to finally replace my five year old rubber friends. My Toyota dealership quoted me over $500 for a new set including valves, installation, balancing, etc. One fee it included was a tire tax as well as a city tire disposition fee. If we lived in Springfield (on the Simpsons) I'd just be able to take them down to the tire dump without any charge at all. Anyway, I ended up going to Just Tires instead as they were about $75 cheaper for the same tires.

The whole tire replacement trip was relatively uneventful, until my trip home. On the way back (coming south on Broadway), I stopped at a light next to a bus stop. As I was a little tired from the day, I leaned over the steering wheel to stretch my back and arms and glanced out the passenger window. There was a woman at the bus stop looking right at me (and only about 10' away or so). She gave me this shrug as if to say, "Should I get in?" Yikes!! I'd just been propositioned!!! Holy crap. I laughed out loud for a second and then caught myself because I didn't want to offend her (after all, hookers are people too). Fortunately the light changed and I didn't look her way again. Crazy.

Speaking of NOT crazy, I was over at MWrigley's last night where she masterfully cooked some chicken marsala for us with zucchini. It was really tasty. I contributed by buying a good portion of the ingredients. Funny story about that, I initially thought these cucumbers were actually zucchini. Thank goodness they were labeled. I fear I wouldn't have heard the end of THAT one!

Tomorrow, dinner with Ricardo and wife and MWrigley. Friday I'm off to Owensboro, KY for a huge, end-of-year softball tournament. Should be fun!!

Bears Suck, Cubbies in the Playoffs!!

Turns out the two teams we lost to Indy finished first and second in the tournament. If you're going to lose, at least lose to the best I guess.

Since my Bears are sucking soooooo bad, I have to make some comments about the baseball playoffs (despite the incendiary comments sure to be posted by dejesus freak). As you probably already know, the Cubs made it in despite winning only 85 games (which means if they had lost 4 games that they won, they would have been at exactly 81-81). Not impressive, but not miserable, though they have the fewest wins of any team in the playoffs in baseball this year. That said, anything can happen.

A few comments about other teams of which you may not be all that aware. Colorado won 14 of it's last 15 including a stretch of 11 in a row to win the wild card spot. Most people I know didn't even include Colorado in the discussion regarding the playoffs and wild card in the National League even 25 days ago. San Diego had a firm hold on the west, but went 15-14 since 9/1 while Colorado tore it up and Arizona went 15-11 shutting San Diego out of the playoffs. Ugh.

The Mets of course, had the biggest collapse. They went 15-20 over their last 35 and pissed away a good sized lead to the Phillies. The Yankees, Joisey Ken's team, did the opposite and came back from dead in mid July to secure a wild card and almost with the division. At one point I know they were 11+ games behind the Red Sox and I think something like 7 games out of the wild card (when Seattle was in the lead for the wild card) and they fought back to make the playoffs with 94 wins! That's four more than any team in the National League. Yowza.

Anyway, it should be interesting to see how the Cubbies do. The games are on late this week, 9:00 cdt, which means lots of staying up late for me and not much sleep.

You shouldn't have to get up before sunrise to play softball.

(Warning...sports talk first)

No, you shouldn't, but that happened yesterday down in Indy. We had a light practice at 8 before our game at 9 against another team from Canada and at 7 (even 7:30 I think) the sun hadn't risen yet. Ugh. Our team was decimated with injuries after day one and we didn't have any subs really to fall back on to begin with. We had an outfielder who couldn't throw because of a bad arm, another one who couldn't run because of bad knees, another one who couldn't run because of his back. Oddly enough the oldest outfielder was the only healthy one!! On the infield our first basemen ripped up his ankle on day one when he hit the side of first base wrong while running out a hit. Our third basemen pulled his hammy. Our pitcher and catcher were both slow/hobbled to begin with....it's just their natural state of being. It was not pretty.

We were game though and took a lead on the Canucks and only needed to score one run in the fifth to end it by slaughter rule. It didn't happen though and back they came.....couldn't think of a war analogy where Canadians came back from anything. Actually I couldn't think of a Canadian war analogy at all. Anyway, they ended up taking the lead in the top of the seventh, and last inning, 16-15. In the bottom of the inning we loaded the bases with nobody out. Guess who was up to bat? No, not me. I was on deck. It was the same guy who popped out before me in the last game on Saturday. He again took a swing at the first pitch and hit a chopper to third. It could have been a double play but the ball took a bad hop, hit off the third basemen's knee and hopped over the fence in foul territory out of play. By rule, the runner on third and on second both get to score and the game was over! That's all we had in us though and were hammered 17-4 in the next game. I joined the ranks of the injured by that time as my calf muscle was re-strained. Ouch.

After starting the tournament 2-7 and going 0-3 in the last game while hurt, I put together a string of 10 for 13 including a triple to finish 12-23, slightly over .500. We always say that we try to find hitters that on a BAD day will at least hit .500. Adjusting to this style of pitching was hard for me after Orlando. In Orlando the strike zone was 3'-9' and most of the strikes were called in the 3'-7' range. Here the zone was 6'-10' with most pitches coming in at the top of that limit. Not an easy adjustment to make.






Our team. I'm in the front row, second from the right.







(Sports section is over.)

After our second game (we finished 4-2 and in fifth place), I raced by to Chicago while listening to the latest Bears debacle. My only consolation is that Pittsburgh also lost, so Bee can't post an obnoxious Black and Gold comment.

Instead of going home though, I went straight over to MWrigley's condo. I was too late for having lunch (which I was supposed to bring anyway....doh!) but she was still up for making dinner after watching some football on the sofa. On the menu was a porkloin brazed with some olive oil and spices (I know lemon peel and parsley), a rhubarb chutney, baked but crisp asparagus and mashed potatoes (the Yellow Gold kind...yum). It was all very good and guess what I'm having for lunch?! MWrigley cooks like they do on the tv shows where all of the ingredients are prepped well in advance and put into little bowls for easy mixing. Like most cooks, you don't want to get in the way while she's doing her thing. I was happy to sit at the kitchen counter sipping a rhubarb wine (from Galena) and watching tv while periodically helping to clean up. It was a full day!