What a day

The morning alarm came ungodly early today: 5:00 a.m. The early hour was compounded by my lack of sleep, even though I went to bed at a relatively early hour (before 11). Just tossing and turning and thinking about getting up early and did I have everything or not. Ugh.

So I got up at 5 and was ready to leave the house by 5:30. LL was awesome enough to drive me to Midway. She's unbelievable!! That's why I love her.....or at least one of the reasons. My 7:15 flight to Phoenix left a little late and we got into Phoenix a little late, but overall a fairly painless trip.....oh yeah, except for the absolutely AWFUL movie I rented from Redbox and watched: Machete. You may think it was a hacker type movie, which it was, but it starred the likes of: Robert De Niro, Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson and Lindsay Lohan. Seriously! And the movie SUCKED!! You can see why I thought it would be worth a dollar though.

Brian the Pollack picked me up at the airport (he took an earlier flight so while I was arriving he went and rented our car). We headed straight to the golf course, thanks to me changing into my golf attire while waiting for my bags. The course, like most of Arizona, was pretty dry except for the fairways but played really nicely. We really enjoyed the course and ended up playing with a guy from Chicago and in fact near where Brian lives! Weird coincidence.

Not only was it my first round of the year, but I was also trying out three new clubs and a new putting stroke. Though I struggled with the distances on the clubs, my putting stroke, courtesy of a Phil Mickelson instructional DVD, was working really well. On the back nine holes, I only had 13 putts on my way to four over par. The front nine was more of a struggle, but it was mostly my new clubs going a lot further than I was expecting. It was a fun round and I shot 85 while Brian shot 87.

Tomorrow is a TPC course called The Stadium. The pros held a tournament there just last month, at least I think it was last month....well, recently at least.

Getting Better

Sorry about missing yesterday. Not much to report unless you're interested in my use of tissue and the products with which I fill them. Yeah, it was that kind of day. After 11 hours of sleep on Monday night though, I felt a bit better this morning. The medicine for the day was 3 ibuprofens and icing my back. Oh, didn't I tell you? I hurt my back on Sunday night.

How could that possibly be? You're sick. What the heck were you doing?

Well, the team with whom I'm heading to Arizona later this week had a practice on Sunday night in a dome. The practice didn't start until about 9:45, so around 7 I sucked down some Dayquil and headed out. The Dayquil kept my symptoms under control, but unfortunately, towards the end, my back started to spasm. It was awful and I couldn't even bend down to pick up a ball. So around 11 I had to call it quits and head home. Fortunately I already had a chiropractor appointment and massage scheduled. Serendipity!!

Before my appointment in the afternoon, I took some more Dayquil because all I could think about was how my sinuses were going to be during an hour of having my face down on a massage table. Again, Dayquil came through for me! The stuff works!

After my adjustment, I sat waiting for my massage therapist. Then this guy shows up and says, "Joe?"

Yeah.

"Hi, I'm so and so (I don't remember his name). I'll be doing your massage today."

Um, where's Rachel?

"She doesn't work here anymore."

Now I've only had 4-5 massages in my life but they've always been by a woman. If I have a choice of someone rubbing their hands on me, I prefer it to be a woman. But I was in pain and I have a big weekend coming up with two rounds of golf and a softball tournament, so I needed relief.

Well, the long and short of it is that the guy did a great job. More than half the time was spent twisting my legs like a pretzel to stretch out my lower back in various ways. By the end of the massage my back felt great. It was a little sore this morning, but I've continued the ibuprofen and ice treatments. Wednesday I'll go back for an adjustment and probably electric stim since the masseuse is booked already.

Hopefully tonight I'll be able to sleep well again and at least my cold will be gone. First thing Thursday morning, I'm off to Phoenix!

Cold has settled in

Two straight nights of little sleep for me as my cold has taken root. Ugh. Being sick sucks.

Last night though was a good night as my parents and LL's parents got to meet for the first time over dinner. We met up at White Fence Farm, a big restaurant specializing in fried chicken. Seven of us, including LL's sister, sat in a huge booth and chowed on chicken and corn fritters. Even though I was sick, my symptoms were under control with medication, so I didn't feel awful. Today though I feel much worse, probably due to another night of fitful sleep.

LL is staying out in Joliet with her folks as she goes through a weekend of wedding dress shopping. Since I've been up coughing and hacking all night, it's probably for the best. Here's hoping tomorrow brings some relief.

Allergies

The changing weather caused a flare up in my allergies and gave me a sore throat which has made me feel a bit under the weather the last few days, hence the limited posts. Hopefully it will clear up today and my energy will recover this weekend.

The average temperature for all of February is about 38 degrees and we're running slightly ahead of that mark for the next few days. After a day or two in the 50's and 60's, I don't think I can go back to weather in the 20's anymore. It would just be too deflating.

Random Thoughts

The other day, just after the gym, I looked down at the odometer in my car and it said 111,333. Not significant in any other way other than an interesting number. The car continues to run well and I'm hopeful of getting another couple of years out of it, maybe to 150,000. I really like not having a car payment!!

February 4th, which was two weeks ago, has the most number of below zero days of any day all winter, at least in Chicago. Today it was 52! On February 4th here it was again close to zero, but probably closer to 10 degrees. Still, a nice two weeks which included two feet of snow!

Someone commented on Facebook about seeing a robin the other day. Some time ago I remember telling a buddy of mine that it's no big deal to see a robin in the winter because they stick around. Then I found out that they actually migrate south. Now I find out that while many migrate, many also don't. Seems kind of odd behavior for a bird. Shouldn't they do one or the other??

V-Day in Pictures.

Sorry about the delay in getting my post up today. Just too damn busy. Guess that's not a bad thing with this economy. Part of my being busy was due to going to softball batting practice at some cages in the suburbs (about an hour away) and a church meeting this morning at 7 a.m. That early morning meeting is only once a month and it totally messes me up. Fortunately I was able to take a 20 minute power nap which seemed to catch me up.

On to Valentine's Day pictures! We went to Yoshi's Cafe, right around the corner and where we went for our first Valentine's Day dinner.

They had a fixed price deal going where you get to choose from various dishes and dessert is included. Also included was a rose! They have them right up front and give them to the ladies (or the guy who seems the most feminine) on their way to the table. It's a nice touch.

Here's the menu. Hopefully you can click on it and get a better view. We chose the sushi and shrimp tempura as an appetizer over the Japanese dumplings under a dome of Parmesan cheese. Seemed like we made a good choice.

As an appetizer, LL chose the duck with little round potatoes like eggs in a nest of fried noodley things. Pretty cool display and it was delicious. She couldn't finish so I got some!!

I had meat and meat! Beef ribs and sirloin steak. Delicious!!! The veggies weren't really good, but they were a minor part of the dish.

And here's our dessert! Chocolate cake in a bed of raspberry sauce with a white chocolate covered strawberry. Awesome!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Pictures to come tomorrow!

Christmas Card Picking 2010 version

First things first, Saturday night LL and I hit the Ditka Dome in the suburbs to collect money for the Super Bowl squares fundraiser my team had (I was the big winner!!) and to play in the dome for the first time this season (which started in November I think). Anyway, I sucked in the field, which is why I don't like playing in the dome. The lighting is awful and at third base the light is directly in your eyes so the ball is backlit which makes it look like it's in a slightly different position as it approaches you. So I didn't make a single play at third. Ugh. My shoulder held up fine and I throw with very little discomfort now.

The second batch of ribs which I made on Saturday didn't turn out quite as good as the first batch on Friday. The problem, I think, was that I put in a bit less juice on Saturday because there seemed to be too much on Friday. Why mess with it when you have something awesome? I'm not sure. They were still better than anything I've done on the grill though!!

Sunday was Christmas Card Picking Day at my parents' house. If you don't recall, this an annual event they've held since 1973. The family gathers and we vote on the best Christmas card that they received that year. Family picture cards are eliminated and usually cards with writing on the outside are eliminated. The winner receives a letter of congratulations and the card is then framed and hung on the wall at my parents' house. Yes, they have 37 or so cards hanging on the wall.

Bee, my sister, talked some smack last Monday in my blog about winning this year. As it turns out, Bee was the runner-up. My other sister has started her own competition and Bee was runner-up with a different card there as well. Always the bridesmaid.

The winner this year was the card Laura and I sent! Laura separately picked out and sent them a nice card too and it made the final 11 or so, but didn't make the cut to the final three. Since we both signed each other's names in the cards, we really had two entries. Perfectly legal by the way.

So here were the final two combatants. The card I sent is on the left, the picture of the dog. Dogs always beat deer Bee!!

Now THAT'S the way to spend a Friday.

It was a pretty good day I must say. Some work was scattered through the day, as usual, but LL works from home on Friday, so those days are always better. We had a nice, high protein breakfast of eggs, a little meat, beans and cheese. The usual, but still delicious. Lunch was a high protein bar to give me enough energy for my workout, which followed in the late afternoon.

Before I left for the gym though, I prepped and started cooking a slab of ribs. It would be hard for me to tell you how good these ribs were tonight. Fall off the bone delicious and clearly the best ribs I've made by far (the track record is rather short however). The recipe I used combined three or four recipes including my mothers of all people who was hiding her recipe from me for some reason. More on the ribs later.

My trip to the gym was great because it started off with taking the buckets from someone who was trying to save their parking spot because the poor baby shoveled it out a week ago. Don't worry, I was responsible though: I put the buckets in a recycling bin down the street. Ha!

The protein breakfasts and lunches have given me some pretty good strength at the gym. Last week I bumped up my bench pressing 10 pounds on my first rep of 10 (after 5 reps at a lower weight to warm up) and 10 pounds to my second rep of 10 as well. Overall I do 35 reps and I've really gotten stronger in just a few weeks! The weight loss has come along yet, but if I have more muscle mass, the weight loss will come.

Back to the ribs. So I cooked these bad boys in the oven and cooked a sweet potato as well. The spud went along with the ribs very well. So here's the recipe:

Cut slab of ribs in half.

Apply your favorite rub (I kept the same recipe for mine).

Place each half in it's own pan (bones up to start) with enough apple juice to just cover the bottom of the pan with the ribs in it. Yes apple juice. You can use water, but I like AJ.

Cover the pan with tinfoil.

Cook for 90 minutes at 250 degrees.

Flip ribs and check fluid level in the pan.

Cook for another 90 minutes.

Flip ribs. Apply barbecue sauce liberally to the ribs.

Take off the tin foil if there's still a significant amount of liquid in the pan.

Cook for another 30 minutes but up the temperature to 300.

Flip ribs. Apply barbecue sauce liberally to the ribs.

If there is still a lot of liquid, drain some off, but not all of it.

Cook for another 30 minutes but up the temperature to 350.

That should be it! Fall off the bone deliciousness.

Now the Blackhawks are on TV!

Mish-Mosh

Every once in a while I think of this song and just crack up. Today someone posted on Facebook that it was running through their head. Love it!

Today I had a business lunch downtown with a banker and made a fatal mistake: I ordered the lentil soup. See, it's freezing here so soup was a natural. And the soup was good, that's not the problem. What I failed to think about was the sodium content. Ugh. My tinnitis has been going CRAZY this afternoon because of it, to the point where I'm not motivated to work....or do much else. Sigh.

The day was jinxed from the get go as I received a call from Ricardo telling me that the heat was out in the office. That's twice this week, so a call was made to the landlord instead of just the maintenance guy. We'll see if the problem is solved, but I'm working from home tomorrow anyway.

The Mad Greek

Not sure if you're a fan of Zack Galifianakis or not, but I find his dry humor absolutely hysterical. Well, I just found out that he's got a short series of internet episodes called "Between the Ferns with Zack Galifianakis". Absolutely hysterical. If have a few minutes, watch a few of these. There's nine of them I think.

It's super cold in Chicago again today with a high around 15 or something. Ugh. This evening I'm heading out to Naperville to see my folks and have an indoor softball practice, though it's mostly just batting practice. In two weeks I'm heading to Phoenix for a tournament, so the swing had to be down.

Just a short entry today. I think the cold is numbing my noggin' a bit.

Family Jewels

Not sure if you saw this video or not, but it took me by surprise. It's one of those CBS Cares commercials, for a somewhat odd topic: testicular cancer. Now, there's nothing funny about testicular cancer, but this commercial was a little over the top. When the guy says, "Why give a diamond when you can give the family jewels?" I almost lost it. There had to be a better way to deliver the message.

For her birthday, LL got one of these alarm clocks. I have to say, it's pretty damn sweet to just have to open your eyes to see what time it is. No need to turn your head or focus; it's all there on the ceiling. Now we need one that will tell us the temperature outside too!

There haven't been any signs of people trying to save their shoveled out spots with chairs or anything in my neighborhood. However, there was one woman over by my gym who did it. I parked across the street in another free spot, went over to the two spots that she saved (possibly someone else saved the other spot, I'm not sure) and I tossed away the buckets and 2x4's she used to save the spots. I've gone on record as calling this an indefensible position. Show me your permit from the city. Can I just block the street in the summer too? Where's the line drawn and what's the logic behind it? Indefensible. If you don't want to deal with shoveling snow and losing your spot, either A) get a parking spot in a lot or B) don't move your car or C) move somewhere where it doesn't snow. After my workout, I saw the woman put a bucket on the car that was parked there. My only regret was that I didn't take the buckets!

Super Bowl.....yech.

Had a fine gathering over for the Super Bowl yesterday, 15 folks altogether. There was plenty of food, but not a ton of leftovers. Plenty to drink, but less than a 12 pack left at the end of the day. Excellent! Here's a picture of the gathering with the overhead lights on so the picture would turn out. It doesn't look like I got everyone in the picture, but let's see if I point folks out: left to right, my neighbor Emily (her husband Henning was just left of the photo I think), Ricardo in the back, Smitty next to the sofa and his wife Beth next to him on the sofa, Nadine (wife of Bill the Bear) in the back and it looks like Bill was upstairs on a beer run, JC next to Beth on the sofa and his wife Carol was gone too, then Kleveland Kim and Naperville Greg on the sofa on the right. Fun times, but I'm moving slow today!

And boo Green Bay. I've said it before and said it yesterday too, Jordy Nelson is awful and if your defense can't cover him, you don't deserve to win. Aaron Rodgers was simply en fuego yesterday and for the final 6 games of the season. Just unstoppable.

Christina messed up the national anthem, the Black Eyed Peas were mediocre during halftime, the commercials were pretty uninspiring with only a few somewhat funny ones. Overall, meh.

But it all ended on a very happy note as 10 minutes after the game, someone suggested I check the squares numbers for the final score to see if any of us won. The pool is run by my softball team as a fundraiser and I think I sold the second most squares on the team and many of the people in attendance had squares. As I traced the numbers, 1 for Green Bay and 5 for Pittsburgh, I realized I had won!! $500!! Sweet. There are other squares that are winners as well and I had one of them for $200!! $700 bones!!! Laura had already won $150 on past playoff games so we did pretty well.

Snowy update

Good news!!! Finally yesterday, after I called the city 4 times for a collective 40 minutes, the car in front of our building was towed and the street was plowed! I'd like to think I had something to do with the towing, but since it happened about an hour after I called, me thinks my call was just overkill.

Better news!! After visiting the company who runs my parking lot (all three spaces in this particular "lot"), my lot was cleared of snow!! Yay!!! Unfortunately, the path to the street was NOT clear, so I bundled up, grabbed a shovel and headed out. Actually, I didn't know the lot was done, so I was going to clear that snow and then found out it was already done. Since the alley to the street wasn't done, I started working on that. Fortunately, the front loader that was clearing the lot across the street (and owned by the same people that run my lot) saw me and came over to clear the remaining snow. Nice!!

As I walked back home, I saw a neighbor and his wife clearing some snow from their driveway to the street. Since I was dressed for the job and these folks were nice, I went over and lent a hand. Interestingly enough, the husband (a big, burly guy but older) was all, "Oh no, we're fine. Almost done." But the wife kept saying,"Thank you! We'd love the help!" Too funny. They thanked me again today when I saw them. Good folks.

Old Snow

The snow thing is getting old now. My car is still stuck in it's lot and the street in front of our house still has not been plowed. A car, with Arizona license plates, is still stuck in the middle of the street, preventing the city from plowing. The side street near the parking lots has been plowed once though, so except for a 5' berm of snow on each side, it's passable. LL's lot finally was plowed so I think she can get out if need be. Not so for me though. The people responsible for the lot, and several other properties in our area including lots and buildings, were out working all day and cleared away a big lot (mine only has 3 cars in it), so I'm hopeful that I'll be freed tomorrow.

Most of the sidewalks in the area have been cleared finally so walking around isn't too much of a problem. Sunday though is the Super Bowl and since I'm having people over, I need to go get supplies. Some of the stuff I can walk for (food) but other stuff (beer) is going to be too heavy to carry....oh wait, LL can drive me. Sweet!

So did you see The Social Network? Though I thought Jessie Eisenberg did an outstanding job, I was intrigued by another character...actually two: Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, collectively the Winklevie. Turns out that the character twins were played by the same actor: Armie Hammer. Now I have to watch the movie again with my new found knowledge. One of my favorite lines was from one of the Winklevie: "I'm 6'4", 220 lbs and there's two of me." Outstanding.

OK, this was some crazy ass snow...even for Chicago.

Yesterday I was somewhat belittling those that were running around like chicken-little's thinking the sky was falling, stocking up on food and generally panicking. My bad.

We got a shit storm!!! Yeah, it was crazy. Third worst blizzard in Chicago history. Here are just some of the pictures:

Over by my car, it was about 20" of snow. Actually on my car though, because of the wind I think, there was only about 5 1/2". The wind was sustained at about 35 with gusts up to 70. Absolutely freaking crazy. If you were in any of the multiple wind tunnels around the city, you weren't there for long. Your ass was gonna get blown over in a hurry.

In front of my house this morning. Doesn't look impressive because there isn't much reference except for the car. The snow plows STILL haven't made it down our street yet.

So this is on Lake Shore Drive. Yes THE Lake Shore Drive. In the early stages of the storm, during rush hour, a large bus (with the accordion section) jacknifed and completely blocked traffic. In a span of about 20 minutes, there were two more accidents within 6 blocks of each other. That led to these cars still being stuck on LSD today!! Yep, these picks were from noon today.

Look at this! Basically 300 plus cars and at least two buses. All of the people were running out of gas so they abandon their cars and LSD was shut down. Most of the people were taken away by the police, firemen and some warming buses that were brought into the area. Just crazy.

Tonight and tomorrow is supposed to be absolutely awful cold: negative 20's windchill. So guess what's going to happen to all of the snow? Yep, turning to ice. Yikes.

Today I dug out my car and LL's. Our parking lots aren't plowed (yes, we're in separate lots) and the street attached to the lots aren't plowed and the street attached to that street isn't plowed. But the streets attached to THAT street ARE plowed. Three degrees of separation from being able to drive our car. Ha!

Freezing

Some of you already know, but Amy Freeze's contract has not been renewed by our Fox affiliate. She is going to be replaced on air buy some gal from Tampa who used to work in Chicago both at NBC and at Fox. The chief meteorologist position is being filled by a guy from Phoenix. Phoenix?? Really? How freaking hard is it do predict the weather in Phoenix? I have no related education and could get the weather right probably close to 90% of the time there. Ridiculous. Anyway, I'm wishing Amy well in her future endeavors wherever she may go. Good luck!!

We're supposed to get a crap-load of snow tonight and tomorrow and then plunging temperatures on Wednesday night and Thursday. Should make it pretty miserable, but some people are going a bit crazy and actually stocking up on supplies! LL was just at the store, in the burbs, and pretty much all of the meat has been snatched up except for some pork chops. Nice suburbanite panic. Now I'm kind of hoping it gets crazy.

Snowpocalypse

This morning I headed to Starbucks, as usual, and there were a few people in front of me in line. One of the guys was a large somewhat scary looking black man (I'm done with the African-American thing by the way. I don't want people calling me Irish American or Austrian American...just American if ethnicity is important and just white if you need to use color. I've never even been to Ireland or Austria and they probably haven't even been to Africa.) Anyway, I was thinking that I hadn't seen him at my Starbucks before and was somewhat surprised when this scary looking guy ordered a "low fat very berry muffin" and a "caramel machiato". Ha! Nobody can look tough ordering a low fat very berry muffin. It's impossible. It just cracked me up.

Of course, I laughed to myself.

We are two days away from snowpocalypse here in Chicago. It's supposed to snow starting Tuesday afternoon and keep snowing over night. We could get 18" to 24" of snow, so I'm already adjusting my schedule to be ready to be home bound for the day.

Happy Birthday to LL!!

Food filled weekend

Without a Bears game (or even football) to watch and with no softball yet, it was a rare weekend without much going on....except eating. Yeah, it was tough with the diet and all, but it's LL's birthday on Monday so some birthday dinners were on the agenda.

First, on Friday, we headed down to Blue Island to dine at The Maple Tree Inn with my sister and brother-in-law. The food there is southern, I guess you can say Cajun, and very, very good. It's where I've gone for my first crawfish boil and recently a crabfest. Once again the food did not disappoint. We did try their bread pudding though to compare it to Sapori Trattoria's and there is no comparison. Sapori is still the hands down champ.

After doing some squats, since we ate so much, we watched Inception. Apparently it's received mixed reviews from those who are not critics, but I actually liked it. The stereotypical bad guy misses with 180 shots and the good guy hits within 3 got a little old though. Hey, it's his dream I guess so whatever.

Saturday another fun day that started with a nice, lazy morning and a high protein breakfast of scrambled eggs, cheese, beans and sausage. Good eating that kept us full until an early dinner with LL's parents at Wildfire. Though I've only been to this place a few times, it's starting to grow on me. There's LOTS of steak places in Chicago, but they have a fillet, wrapped in bacon with horseradish crusting that's just outstanding. Their sweet potato rubbed with barbecue spices was pretty awesome too and I might try that at home.

Interestingly, LL's parents brought gifts over for LL's birthday and gave them to her. That's not the interesting part because you would probably expect that. However these gifts weren't wrapped! Yeah, they don't wrap their birthday gifts for some reason. The stated reason of "would you rather have more unwrapped gifts or fewer wrapped gifts" doesn't fly with me. What's a roll of wrapping paper cost? $5 tops? C'mon, what gift are you going to buy for $5???

Anyway, after her folks left we headed out to Glen Ellyn for a birthday party (about an hour away) for a softball buddy of mine (E-Money) and stayed until 12:30 I think. All I know is that we didn't get to bed until 2 and we slept in very, very late. Which meant another late breakfast and no more food until dinner (because we weren't hungry not because of the diet). In the late afternoon I even got a great workout in at the gym. It made me wonder if the protein diet is helping with my weightlifting if not with my weight. Possibly.

For dinner we had pork chops, brussel sprouts and eggplant. Yeah, eggplant! LL went out to the store while I was working out and bought a little one, quartered it and baked it with the sprouts. Good stuff!!

Short and Sweet

It looks like the Mexican drug cartels are going old school. You just can't stop these guys. Gotta give them some credit with the tunnels and now this.

Tonight starts the weekend of Laura. Her birthday is Monday so we're going out for dinner tonight with my sister, tomorrow with her parents and Monday with some friends. Very busy and it's going to be tough on the diet. Speaking of which, we had a great, high protein breakfast and a protein bar for lunch. Good eating! We'll see how things go over the next week.

The sun was out today and what a difference it makes on my mood! Sooo much nicer when the sun is out regardless of the temperature (within reason I guess).

That's about it for today. Have a great weekend!

Movies and Fat

Tuesday night we tried to rent The A-Team from Redbox and were successful, but it didn't work past the first 15 minutes or so. Ugh. You get all set to watch a movie, finished a nice meal, had beverages, then it starts and then it just won't work. Very, very frustrating. I'm sure I'll get refunded the $1, but that's not the point. We even tried to run it in two DVD players, but there was an obvious crack on the edge of the disk so it wasn't going to work in anything.

Tonight we rented RED, a pretty good action movie. Highly recommend it if you like action.

Tuesday I started an interesting little diet change. It came from Tim Ferriss, the author of The Four Hour Work Week and most recently, The Four Hour Body. In the book, Ferriss apparently covers many topics, I haven't read it, but did see his visit on Dr. Oz while I was working out. The upshot is that you can burn more fat by doing some simple things. One of them is to have a breakfast within 30 minutes of getting up and making it have 30 grams of protein. That's the equivalent of 5 eggs. It's also two eggs, a half a cup of cheese and some sausage. Pretty filling. But the key is what your body does with the protein, or how it processes it, versus non proteins. Another segment talks about taking cold baths and showers and stuff that I think is a little crazy. The third thing they talk about in the videos (linked under Dr. Oz above), is that after you have a big meal, within an hour but not necessarily right away, do 1 to 2 minutes of squats. The science is that it engages your muscles which then take energy from the blood stream instead of it all going to the fat cells for storage. Interesting. We'll see how it works. It's a long term change that I'm willing to try.

Doritos vs. Alcohol

I can hear you through the computer: where is Sutton going with THIS topic. Well, it hit me yesterday while I sat in the kitchen getting ready to eat my dinner of yogurt and granola (in an effort to lose weight). Though the planned meal was going to be sufficient, probably, I ALWAYS snack on something while preparing my food or deciding what to eat. For that purpose I have dried apricots and dried bananas available, but sometimes I hit the cheese and crackers and sometimes, just sometimes, I go after Doritos. Do I buy Doritos? Only when there's a Bears game. Love them or hate them, they are a great chip for tailgating. But the entire bag is rarely finished (though it usually comes close). After Sunday, I had about an eighth of a bag of chips left. And I ate them. All.

It got me to thinking: here this bag has been in my house for two days and I couldn't stop myself from eating them. Meanwhile I've had beer in my refrigerator every day for years and I could go a month without drinking one of them. Good beer too: Goose Island and Chimay. So which is more addicting? Clearly it's Doritos. And Doritos are much, much worse for you! Are there any Doritos anonymous groups out there? Lumping them in with people who just overeat in general seems to belittle Doritos. Sure driving after overindulging on Doritos isn't much of a problem and your liver isn't impacted by Doritos like it is with alcohol, but Doritos can make you fat and clog your arteries. They'll kill you just the same!! Sadly, I can't eliminate either entirely from my life.

Of Snow and Copper

When Andy, aka Sausage, Benny Baseball and E-Money came over before the game on Sunday to drop off some stuff for the tailgate, there was another 3 inches of snow on the ground from an overnight flurry. The guys also helped me pack the car; a much easier job with 5 people than just the two of us (or me alone last weekend!). After we finished, Sausage asked why the guy with this big honking snow blower stopped after finishing my neighbor's sidewalk instead of just strolling down and doing in front of my place too. If you live in the burbs, this would be an odd thing to see (even though Sausage lives downtown, he's from the burbs...as am I really). But downtown, everyone focuses on their own sidewalk and it's really rare for someone to venture across property lines. The biggest reason is that everyone has a maintenance person to remove the snow because the buildings are multi-family dwellings: either condos or apartment buildings. Since they are only paid to clear snow in front of their own building and don't live there, they have no incentive to help others. A little sad.

Remember those new light poles that were installed on our block? Here's the latest story. Yeah, people are busting open the poles and stealing the copper wire!! How insane is that? Or smart...I'm not sure yet. Guess it depends on how much money they can get for the wire at a scrap yard.

Time to start thinking Super Bowl!

No, the Bears are not going to the Super Bowl, but it's time to start thinking about where I'm going to be for the Super Bowl. It's a big day for me when I usually start watching TV around 11 and put in a good 10 hours. Granted, I'm not sitting in front of the TV doing nothing all that time, but it still sucks up the day pretty well.

So what to do this year? Doesn't sound like the softball team is having a fundraiser this year, so I think the day is free. The last two years we have had fundraisers, but there seems to be some uncertainty about the team organization (who plays on what teams and in what leagues) so there's nothing scheduled yet.

Do I have people over? Prior to the fundraisers, I would have a few people over and we'd enjoy the game in front of my 50' plasma screen with two other TV's in the house set up as well. Certainly an option as LL and I haven't really hosted an event yet.

Should I go to someone else's house? No invitations yet and I haven't really done this in the past except for maybe once in the last 10 years or so. While it's nice to not have to cook ALL of the food and make sure everyone's getting taken care of, often my friends don't have a good viewing situation for the game (either the TV is too small or there aren't enough seats).

So I'm leaning towards having people over and maybe having them bring a dish to share. That would be fun. We'll see. Only two weeks to plan!!!

Tailgate and Taxes

By now you know the bad news....the Bears lost. They didn't play well which was really frustrating and were down 14-0 at halftime. Even though they won the coin flip, they deferred taking the ball until the second half which I thought was a HUGE mistake and in my opinion ended up costing them game. Seems dramatic? Hear me out:

All week the Packers and their QB, Rodgers, have been planning and scheming about how to make their offense effective against the Bears defense. By deferring, you just give them a chance to put all of that to work with field position and everything in their favor. Plus your defense would have had to face their offense one less time before half. The result? They ran off plays of 20+ yards and 15+ yards on seemingly every play as they marched down field on their opening position to score a touchdown. The margin of victory? One touchdown.

Not only that, the Bears get the ball down 7 points and the pressure is all on their offense. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The Packers offense only scored 7 more points, reinforcing how dumb it was to defer. Ugh.

The tailgate was fun though as we parked next to my buddies, the Punke's (pronounced Punk-ee). There probably ended up being 10-15 people at the tailgate all totaled. Mr. Heater was going in full force providing us a nice break from the chill. Interestingly though when we got to our seats, I ended up not having my coat on until the third quarter when the sun set. It was great to be warm while sitting up there....or standing and screaming.

Last night, just before bed, I realized I missed paying my estimated tax payment. Crap. Not sure how big of a penalty or fine I'll get, but it was supposed to be postmarked by last Monday and it completely slipped my mind because of work and the Bears. Oh well. I'll send it off tomorrow and I'm sure they'll fine me something for the week. Sucks, but what can you do? Actually, if I could finish my taxes and file them before 1/31, I wouldn't have to make an estimated payment in January. That's not going to happen though. This is only the second time I've missed a payment in probably 8 years.

Because I was thinking about the taxes before bed, I ended up having these very frustrating dreams. One was in a resort in Mexico and I couldn't find my room amongst the thousands of rooms. It's a dream I've had before and I hate it!! There was another dream that was similar in nature, but I don't remember it. Just a frustrating 24 hours overall.

Back at Softball?!?

The other night, a bunch of guys and I got together for a softball practice at an indoor facility in Glen Ellyn. It wasn't really a practice though as there wasn't enough room to take ground balls or anything like that, just hitting and some throwing. It's been a few months since I threw a softball and at the start of the practice session, my shoulder experienced the same discomfort that I had most of last season (save for a scant few throws in the summer when my shoulder had no discomfort at all). On the hitting side of things though I was hitting rockets. If you can hit in softball, there will always be a team that wants you to play with them.

This group of guys, with whom I'll be traveling to Arizona at the end of February, was mostly from another team which is actually sponsored by a strip club. Too funny. They do have pretty awesome uniforms though and no, they aren't g-string related. What was originally going to be 8-10 of our my regular team and 2-4 of their guys has flipped to only 4-5 of our guys and mostly their guys. It should still be fun, but probably not as much fun as if it were just our guys.

Before we play ball down there I'm going to get a few rounds of golf in on Thursday and Friday. Should be fun!

Getting cold!

First off, my entry yesterday was inspired by a conversation with Joisey Ken, for which I failed to give him credit. Thanks Ken! He actually asked the question about whether it was true that the Bears and Packers haven't played each other in the playoffs since 1941 and we were both somewhat amazed as to how that could be. I heard today that the Bears and Packers have only been in the playoffs in the same year four times. Tough for them to actually meet with only four chances.

The temperature here is dropping to -6 degrees tonight with windchills of -30. Guess who is not going outside? Yikes. Thanks Minnesota! This crap better leave before Sunday!

Work has been kind of crazy and today was no exception. Pretty much all afternoon I was either on the phone or working on a spreadsheet. As such, my interesting thoughts have been limited. Actually, that's not entirely true as I had some good topics earlier today, but LL and I shared a bottle of wine that I bought recently (92 points for only $8) and I seem to have forgotten the good topics. Hopefully I'll remember tomorrow!

A little more Bears/Packers!

One of the reasons I wanted to bring up the Bears/Packers yesterday was to point out that the two teams have not met in the playoffs since....1941. Yeah. Wow. It's really odd seemingly until you look at how the playoffs were run throughout that timespan. From 1933 until 1966, there were only two divisions and the winners played each other for the championship and that was the only playoff game. The Bears and Packers were in the same division, so their one meeting was the result of being tied during the regular season of 1941 and so a playoff game was played to determine who would play for the championship (the Bears won and won the championship as well).

From 1967 through 1969, two conferences were created, each with two divisions. Again the Bears and Packers were in the same division and only the division winner's made the playoffs. From 1970 until 1978, a third division was added to each conference and a wildcard team was added in each conference to allow four teams to make the playoffs in each conference. Finally a chance for the Bears and Packers to meet in the playoffs. But it was made more difficult because if they both made it into the playoffs, the wildcard team would play another division winner, regardless of records, before they would play a team in their own division.

So now we're in 1978 and there's been very little chance to play each other. Now another wild card was added in each conference and the two wildcard teams played each other while the three division winners had a bye. The wildcard winner then played the #1 seeded division winner, again unless they were in the same division. So unless both the Bears and Packs were the wildcards, one team would have to win TWO playoff games while the other won one before they would play each other. Again, not great odds.

That lasted until 1990 when a third wildcard team was added in each conference and one division winner would lose their bye. Again, unless the Bears and Packers were both wildcards, they wouldn't play each other in the first or second round.

In 2002, the current system was put in place where there are four divisions in each conference and two wildcard teams. The wildcard teams no longer play each other, but instead play a division winner. There is no current regard though for a wildcard team playing their own division winner. So it's really only been since 2002 that it's even been reasonable for a Bears/Packer match-up to occur. Ironically enough, the Packers have won two games and the Bears won one to get the match-up, the exact situation that for 33 years made the tilt unlikely.

Bears/Packers!!!

So the Bears and Packers are playing on Sunday for the honor of going to the Super Bowl and there's a great buzz going on around the city. Tickets for the game are starting at around 5x face value, which I have to say, made me stop and think albeit briefly. The game is at 2:00 which means we can show up at 11:30 or so and have a great day of it. Not sure yet what kind of food I'll be cooking up...but it's gotta be good for such a huge game.

It'll be interesting to see who shows up, but regardless we'll have fun. LL is in town so she'll be joining me this time for sure along with Benny Baseball and Andy "The Sausage King" or just Sausage for short. Sausage was at a bachelor party in Michigan last weekend so he couldn't make it. There was a question in my mind for a brief period of time about whether someone who would go to a bachelor party instead of a playoff game was worthy of ticket, but Sausage is a good guy.

Wedding planning is moving full steam ahead....if it were an 1800's steam locomotive. We're struggling with location and date, the two biggest things really so it's not that bad to be struggling with them. Part of the problem is my attendee list drops from over 100 to probably less than 30 if we do a destination wedding. LL's guest list is mostly family, so they will probably go anywhere. My list is mostly friends and it's just harder to commit the time and coin to go see a friend get married. Completely understandable. In the end, as long as LL and I are happy and have a happy event, that's all that matters. There's just a big part of each of us that just want to have everyone have a great time and that's a really tough chore to accomplish.

Happy Day!

It was a tremendous day at Soldier Field yesterday and not just because the Bears thumped the Seahawks 35-24 (though they were up 28-0 at one point). It was also a great tailgate, both before and after the game and I got to hang out with a lot of friends. The Punke family, who sit next to me at the game, got to the lot early and saved a parking spot next to them for me. So in addition to them, I had: Benny Baseball, George Randall, E-Money, Mrs. E-Money, another friend of theirs and my buddy Tom. Tom is also a client and we had a blast. For a change at a playoff game, Benny didn't get so blitzed that he couldn't walk.....always a good thing!!

Also stopping by was Terry and Sandie, from the Memorial Day barbecue, and Skinny and his boy Ben, with whom I used to share Bears tickets until he moved to Maryland. Lots of food and drinks were consumed. Good times!

The weather cooperated too as it was around 20 without any wind. Not bad. To help take the edge off, I broke out Mr. Heater, the 28,000 BTU propane heat provider.

The shield was constructed by yours truly back in 2008. It blocks the wind and directs the heat at least a little bit so you get more of the warmth from it. It worked like a charm both before and after the tailgate.

Next week the Bears host the much hated Green Bay Packers.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the 25th anniversary of the holiday. Do yourself a favor and listen to his "I have a dream" speech on Youtube.

New Chili

A few weeks ago, I decided to see how much sodium was in the chili I make. Though I always thought it was pretty healthy (fresh green and red peppers, fresh onion, meat, kidney and pinto beans), it turns out to be very high in sodium. In my best nerdy accountant-type, I put together the following spreadsheet of info:

	servings	Sodium per	total sodium
Tomato sauce	7	280	1,960
Diced tomatoes	7	320	2,240
Chili beans	3.5	400	1,400
Kidney beans	3	340	1,020
Pinto beans	3.5	350	1,225
Chili spice mix	4	210	840
Sausage	5	440	2,200
Total sodium			10,885

Depending on how many servings a pot of chili makes (10? 15?), it's a LOT of sodium per serving. So I set out to find a lower sodium chili. First and foremost, I found recipes that called for no salt added tomatoes and beans. Well, where the hell am I supposed to find those?? Turns out, right around the corner! Whole Foods carries all sorts of things without sodium added: tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, kidney beans and pinto beans. So tonight I went shopping and came up with the following results:

	servings	Sodium per	total sodium
Tomato sauce	7	10	70
Diced tomatoes	6	15	90
Chili beans	0	0	-
Kidney beans	3	10	30
Pinto beans	3	10	30
Chili spice mix	4	210	840
Sausage	0	0	-
Total sodium			1,060

A dramatic reduction!! But does it taste good? Well, that's why I made some tonight. The result? Interestingly, it needs salt. Sigh. So close. In this batch I left out the chili beans (because I couldn't find a low sodium alternative) and the spicy breakfast sausage (I opted for additional ground beef). My thought is that I can cook up some of the beans and add them to the mix, doubling the sodium content, but still reducing the overall sodium to less than 25% of what it was. If adding the beans improves the taste, that would be awesome!!

Ringing ear

Tonight we rented Social Network. I have to say, a freaking awesome movie which you should absolutely run, don't walk, to go rent if you haven't seen it. Very fun. We rented the movie from Red Box and it made me want to know what the story was behind Red Box. And also whatever happened to Sean Parker, the guy from Napster who advised Facebook until his arrest on cocaine possession? Turns out he's on his way to be being a billionaire again. I love Wikipedia. The Red Box story could be compelling too.

The last couple of weeks my tinnitus has been acting up like crazy. If you don't recall, tinnitus is a ringing in the ear. Fortunately I guess, only my left ear rings (which is actually fairly common with tinnitus sufferers.....to just have one ear ringing not necessarily the left one). But it's been ringing very loudly compared to normal. To create background noise (white noise if you prefer) I run a floor fan outside my bedroom door, a habit I picked up as a Resident Advisor in college which would drown out the noises of people on my floor acting up. Actually, I slept through more than one false fire alarm because of the fan. But I digress. Because my ear is ringing, I can't actually hear the fan! That's how loud it's been. Why? It's tough to determine. The disease or condition if you will, is not very well understood. Caffeine, salt and alcohol all impact it negatively, which is why I'm constantly ranting about sodium levels in restaurants. For some reason I don't rant about alcohol though...hmmm. Anyway, as this is my journal and not just a blog, I wanted to make a record of it so next year I can check back and see if my ear was ringing. There does tend to be some seasonality to it ringing, but again, I don't know why.

One last thing, as I know people don't often check my blog over the weekend, I wanted to remind you that Monday is Martin Luther King Day and it's the 25th anniversary of the holiday. As usual, I'm pretty sure, I'll reprint his "Dream" speech. Have a great weekend!

Tough Time of Year

No, not because ESDNM was in town (he left this afternoon after a very productive two days) and not because of the weather, though it doesn't help. It's tough because Christmas starts a barrage of presents and romantic dinners due LL! There's Christmas and NYE, followed by our dating anniversary (yeah, we still celebrate that...what of it?), her birthday and then Valentine's Day!! While I like to fancy myself as a pretty good gift giver, that's a lot to ask from a guy (not that she asks at all and is probably appalled that I'm writing any of this). But so far I'm doing ok on the gift side of things. Hopefully I won't run out of ideas before Valentine's Day!

The Bears playoff game is coming up, just three more days of preparation before the big day. Since it's a noon start, I'll be cooking breakfast and hopefully some celebratory post game grub. It's tough to hang out in the parking lot if we lose though. Pre-game should be awesome. LL is going out of town so I'm taking a client who is also a buddy of mine. Should be fun. Benny Baseball and E-Money are going to be there as well, in addition to Mr. Heater, the propane heating unit I pull out in the cold weather. Can't wait!!

The Return of Snow

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, ESDNM came to Chicago and brought with him the snow. We haven't had snow in Chicago for two weeks or so, but got hit with a bunch today. It wouldn't bother me too much, but we had clients to call on today which meant traveling around the city and cleaning snow off the car several times.

No visit from ESDNM would be complete without a visit somewhere crazy and tonight he held up his end of the bargain by convincing LL that we should go to Sun Wah BBQ, a Korean restaurant... I think. Unfortunately the link to Trip Advisor provided by ESDNM had the wrong address, but fortunately they had only moved around the corner. Doesn't seem so bad unless it's twenty degrees outside and snowing while I'm trying to find the email, link and address. Brrrr. But we got there without much problem and the food was pretty good: dumpling soup with noodles (do NOT get this if you are trying to share as the noodles do not cooperate), bbq duck, bbq pork, bok choy and egg plant (which doesn't have as much yolk as you might think). I think ESDNM is going to put pictures of the food on his blog, so check his out.

One more meal the bad influence from New Mexico. I'm hoping to survive.

And so it begins....

ESDNM came into town tonight. Since that time all I've done is eat and drink. Just stating the facts. It was another trip to one of our favorite restaurants, Sapori Trattoria, for their family style price fix menu. Great stuff. As we drove there, I mentioned that we might see my softball buddy John and his wife Carol there as they recently moved into the neighborhood. And they were indeed there!! Once again LL mentioned that we have to get together with them more often because "Carol is so nice". Can't argue there.

Four inches of snow on the way, which isn't too troubling but it makes the day more annoying. Tomorrow is our big day of seeing clients and we park and walk throughout the day so the snow just makes it a little more difficult.

Starting to get excited about the Bears game on Sunday!!

Bread and water

Heard this song Saturday and though I've head it before, I actually listened to the lyrics this time. The song is "Nothin' on you" by B.O.B with Bruno Mars. Here's a real line in the song that made me actually laugh out loud: baby you the whole package plus you pay your taxes. Seriously? If you're comparing your gal to women "all over the world", I'm not sure how far down the list I would have to go before I got to the "So do you pay your taxes?" box.

After a very busy Friday, the weekend started off pretty laid back. We decided just to rent a movie from Red Box, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Different movie than I thought, but entertaining. LL made chicken cordon bleu. Very tasty!! On Saturday we ran a bunch of errands, mostly stuff I had to do, then I hit the gym. For food we had leftovers, a loaf of bread and a small bag of chips. Yeah, a little weird huh? This bread we bought at Jewel was da bomb! It wasn't completely cooked, so you take it home and bake it for 20 minutes. It was hot and delicious so we had tuna fish sandwiches and then later on in the evening just ate the bread after dipping it into a mixture of olive oil, Parmesan cheese, garlic and seasoned pepper. Uber good.

Well isn't that nice?

So the other day, LL needed to get up early for work and set her alarm for 6 a.m. Yes, that's early for her and for US. After her morning routine, she was running late and was somewhat irritated (there were issues with "getting ready" process). On her way out she came in and hurriedly gave me a goodbye kiss (I was still in bed...no comments) and had not much to say before leaving.

About an hour later or so, the phone rang. It was LL. She was feeling bad about being a little grumpy in the morning and felt like she took it out on me. It was really nice because I had noticed that she was grumpy and felt a little bad about it. So she explained why she felt like that, apologized and it was all good. In fact, I went and took care of one or two of the problems that contributed to her mood.

If you've been checking the web news recently, you've heard about the mass animal extinctions going on around the world. That kind of thing really interests me, especially when the far right starts talking about "end of days" crap (and then try to pin it on Obama). Here's a link to a short, solid explanation for a lot of the prevailing reason why.

How Facebook impacts my life...and yours?

As you know, I'm a softball player and I'm fairly outgoing. Both seem like positive things, at least I think so, generally at least the latter is seen as good. Being a softball player might be a mixed bag! Recently however, I've started to encounter an.....issue. Not necessarily bad or good, but an issue nonetheless (I love typing that word by the way "nonetheless"...seems like it needs to be more than one word but it isn't). Even if you don't play softball, if you're involved in any social events, you probably run across this too....if you are also on Facebook.

See, the guys on my teams are usually 10-15 years younger than me and not all are married. Many are though, so that's fine. The others however have....what? Girlfriends. And the girlfriends come to the games. And they come to our tournaments when we go out of town. And Joe talks to them because he's an outgoing guy and likes to meet new people. Plus I like to take an interest in my teammates personal lives because it's more than just softball.

Then Facebook comes along and now I get friended by these softball teammates' girlfriends. Fine.

Until they breakup.

Right now I'm friends on FB with no fewer than three women who have dated guys on my team, oh wait, just remembered a fourth. Four. Now these folks are nice and all, but now what's my real connection with them? Is there a chance that I'll even see them again? I guess it's no greater or less than many of my FB friends to tell you the truth: people from high school or ex co-workers.

Without FaceBook, these people would have disappeared from my life.....so I guess FB is a good thing. It just impacted me in this odd way.

Weird Day

Today was one of those days that just seemed to drag on...without point....without much energy....just sort of there. It was weird. The funny thing is, I was meeting LL and a couple for dinner and then the Blackhawks game. It was going to be a very fun evening, but the day was just blah. When I have days like this, I just try to do little things and accomplish SOMETHING because I know anything big is out of the question. So that's what I did today until it was time to head out for the game.

My mood turned dramatically as I left for the game and was very happy to see LL in her new Patrick Sharp autographed jersey and our friends. They actually gave us their 300 level tickets since they were gifted 100 level seats. But our vantage was pretty good, even though ALL six goals and a penalty shot were at the other end of the ice. The last two minutes were at our end and it was exciting to watch, but the good guys lost 4-2. Well, it was still fun and I'm hoping tomorrow is more productive!