Super Saturday

You asked for them, you got them! Pictures of the baby's room!! Okay, you didn't really ask for them, although I guess at least one person did. Plus my parents want to see them I bet. LL had a chick day where she and a friend went out for mani-pedi's, had dinner at a swank (Michelin rated!) place in the burbs, and took in a movie, so after making us breakfast, I had the day to work on the baby's room. The task involved cleaning out the room, putting down and trimming the rug pad, putting down the rug, assembling the crib, assembling the chair, assembling the shelf and then moving it all into place. That's a day let me tell you. The Hawks were playing at 6, so I wanted to be done by then, but that didn't happen, so I DVR'd the game and started watching around 7 or so.

On to the pictures!

First, the before. Actually, this isn't totally the first before since we had already moved a cabinet and bed downstairs and had done some painting.













The radiator turned out really good. Very happy with the color. Just another before picture though.

And here's the finished closet shelf that I did the other week. I promised to post a picture of it.

And here's the finished product! The chair was refinished (from blue) and will serve as a nursing/sleeping chair. I slept in it for two weeks after shoulder surgery, so you know it's comfortable. Reupholstering it was not cheap, but cheaper than a new chair.

The shelving unit and crib which I assembled. Doesn't seem like much, but tons of pieces and annoying allen wrenches for each. Thank you Ikea.

The crib from the door. The rug is 8x10 and covers a crap load of space!!

LL's parents had painted this monstrosity a month or so ago and I did some finishing touches. It used to be completely dark brown with brass handles. Much more feminine now!

So to reward myself for a good day's work, I broiled a porterhouse with a blue cheese crust on top and made myself a whiskey and ginger ale with which to watch the Hawks game. A very relaxing evening at the end of the day.

Diet update

As you know I was trying out a gluten free diet (of sorts) since the beginning of the year.  Not much has happened in the way of weight loss though as I've come to the conclusion that I don't really eat too much in the way of gluten (though I was having PB&J for lunch most days) and that my real issue seems to be: 1) need to get back to cardio workouts 2) need to stop snacking while MAKING dinner and 3) just need to eat less in general. My weight has been the same and I mean REALLY the same, to the tenth of a pound (!) for about two weeks. So I'm going to work on the cardio side of things and see what happens.

A dusting of snow hit Chicago today along the lakefront, but nothing major. Tuesday it's supposed to be 55 degrees, so whatever is around then will be gone! Since I had PT yesterday and tomorrow, I was going to just hang out at home today. Ricardo called though and said he had a free ticket to a conference that was going on out by the airport and wanted to know if I wanted to join him. With the cold and little bit of snow going on, it was easy to say no, but the a few of the sessions seemed interesting and talked about the market into which we often sell. So I sucked it up, shaved, changed into worky clothes (dress pants/shirt/jacket) and made the trip. Ricardo and I arrived almost simultaneously so it was great timing to start things off. Lunch was first and was followed by a guy with some interesting info, but he just read the slides. Ugh. That was a tester as far as staying awake. Next up was a panel that discussed forecasts for 2013 and beyond. The consensus was that as long as unemployment is above 6.5% and inflation is in check, the Fed is going to keep interest rates at historical lows and that should be the case until 2015 at least. Interesting stuff.

The last panel was going to be followed by networking time, presentation of companies that are for sale, dinner and the keynote, all of which happened between 3 and 8.  Ricardo and I decided that 3 hours was good enough and bailed to beat traffic. Mission accomplished! It was good to hangout with Ricardo again (we used to work together every day) and we concluded that we need to do that more often.

Radiator painting takes place Friday morning and then I'll be putting together furniture for the baby's room over the weekend. Pictures to follow!

Cold, cold, cold!

If the sky above you is clear tonight, check out Jupiter and how close it is to the moon. Should be cool.  (Okay, I was supposed to post this yesterday. Hopefully it will still be close!)

No progress on the baby's room this weekend as we're still waiting for the radiators to get painted. Granted, we just picked up the right spray paint on Saturday morning, so hopefully this week that gets done and we can put together furniture. The spray painting could get messy, so we don't want to assemble too much just in case. No pictures yet, but they are sure to come.

The cold weather has landed in Chicago! Bitter, bitter cold with a high of 10 degrees means I'm staying inside without feeling guilty.

On MLK Day, LL and I took in a matinee, Zero Dark Thirty, and got some sushi at our favorite place, realizing that they would be slow due to it being Monday and cold.  When it's slow, we get to talk to the owners more who are pretty nice people. There were only two other tables being occupied while we were there, so we were right. It was tasty and fun!

Busy, busy week

Wow, I've really fallen behind in the writing. This week I was using most of my spare time to work on the baby's room. There were four primary tasks: get spray paint for the radiator, paint and install handles on the chest, build a shelf and clothes rack in the closet and then finish the dresser with some acrylic to make the paint a little more durable or show less wear.

Most of the projects have gone well, though they all took more time than I thought. As it turns out, I don't need to use high temperature paint on the radiator as they don't get hot enough to make it necessary. That revelation, from two Sherwin Williams dealerships and the internet, made the search for spray paint a bit easier. We are hesitant to put together the rest of the room before getting the radiator spray painted due to the potential mess.

Since we have a bunch of baby clothes already, we're focusing on how to store them all. The big 9 drawer chest will hold the bulk, but there's still more to hang up, so we figured we'd add a hanging rod a little more than half way up the closet and then I put a shelf on top of the brackets. Since baby clothes are so small, we can easily hang twice the clothes now.

Thursday night we had batting practice for our new team out in the burbs in a training facility, so LL asked me to pick up a shelving unit from my nemesis store: IKEA. I make no bones about it: I don't like IKEA products because they are cheaply made and difficult to put together. Yeah, maybe you can save some bucks, but I'd rather have a solid piece of furniture that will last decades than something that won't last til the end of THIS decade. Anyway, this piece will look good in the room and do the job at the same time.

If you haven't been to IKEA, they have everything on display and then you go to another area of the store to actually pick it up. LL did her research and gave me the aisle and bin numbers to pick up the shelving unit, so I only got a little lost. When I arrived at the aisle and bin, the unit was in two boxes and they were huge.....and heavy. Doh! After a lengthy checkout process due to someone a few people ahead of me having problems with their bank, I took the unit out to the car. My Camry fits a lot of stuff, especially when you fold down the seats, but this was going to be trouble. After struggling with them for a while, in the cold, I managed to get them in car. It was a snug ride home.

LL is doing well, though we have to keep an eye on her blood pressure which has crept up a few days over the last two weeks. She's at 32 weeks on Sunday and we had a good ultrasound today. The baby is about 4.5 lbs which would translate to about 8 lbs at birth, though there can be a lot of variables. The big thing is to keep LL's blood pressure down, so we'll work on that over the next few weeks. Maybe getting the baby's room done will help!

Stress?

Last Tuesday we went to our second baby class at the hospital. This class is the first of three and discussed labor, pre-labor, giving birth, etc. for two and a half hours. Wow. It was....a....lot. As with any trip to the hospital, especially this year, there's a risk of getting sick. Getting sick I did, sort of. Wednesday night I had the shivers and Thursday morning my nose was running something fierce. As I braced for what was clearly the flu, something strange happened. I didn't get any more sick. By that evening, though a little tired, I had no symptoms, except for some heartburn. The next day, after sleeping pretty well, I was pretty good again, except still for some heartburn. Really, after the shivers and the runny nose, I was only a bit tired and had heartburn. Sweet! I did indeed have the flu shot a couple of months ago and if this is what happens if you catch the flu after getting a flu shot, everyone should get one!! Actually, you definitely should anyway as it has been shown to reduce your chance of having a heart attack.

The heart burn seemed like an odd symptom to attribute to the flu though right? Is that a normal thing? Though it's easy to find a bunch of stuff on the web about the stomach flu and heartburn, I didn't really see anything that linked the flu to heartburn or a heartburn-like feeling. It got me to wondering: could the heartburn be from something else?  What if the heartburn was from the stress of the birthing class on Tuesday. Was it a coincidence that the symptoms showed up when they did?  Correlation or causation?  Normally I wouldn't have linked the two, but I remembered the scene at our wedding reception when I couldn't eat the great food that we had picked out because nerves/anxiety/stress took over in anticipation of me singing to LL (as a surprise). If I got that messed up over a song that I had sung a hundred times, how might my body react to having a baby as we get closer and closer to the due date?  Could heartburn result? I'm thinking that's reasonable. We'll see. Another class on Tuesday!

Chillin'

I went to bed last night and was relatively quickly hit with some shivers. Though I was fully covered and the room was running somewhere in the 70's (along with a humidifier), the shivers didn't stop until I put more clothes on. At the time, I thought it was just cold air from a small window being open in another room.  Alas, it was really me fighting something off.

So this morning rolled around and my nose was running...pretty much from the time I got up until I got coffee later...even in the shower!! With the flu going around, my first thought was that I was getting the flu which has been crushing local area hospitals. But if it is, at least so far, then my flu shot a few months ago maybe is helping to fight off the worst of it. Not sure. Today I'm a little tired, nose stopped running, appetite is good, drinking lots of liquids. It's not too bad. Wouldn't mind a nap, though that's pretty standard.  Just to be safe, I cancelled my physical therapy appointment for this afternoon, just so I wouldn't have to go outside for that long and then go through all that work.

Yesterday, while shopping for my no salt added black beans at Whole Foods, I decided to see what kind of gluten free snacks they carry. The first thing that grabbed my eyes were yogurt covered pretzels! Obviously the pretzels were made out of something other than wheat, but boy did they look delicious. Then there were just the regular gluten free pretzels. And finally, at least for me, popcorn. But not just ANY popcorn. Noooooo, bags of Chicago Mix popcorn: caramel corn and cheese corn mixed. Yum. These guys, G. H. Cretors, make several kinds actually. It seemed to compare very favorably to some of the better known popcorn places in Chicago like Garrett's. Cretors was $2 for 6.5 ounces, or $.31 an ounce. WELL worth it. Garrett's, sold online in 1 gallon containers (the smallest size at least) is $.33 per ounce (with shipping), so it's not a bad deal either. Just had to share this find with you! Delicious!

Alien life

Is there alien life forms out there? Carl Sagan posited that the numbers imply it's inevitable. In one of my two college astronomy courses, we went through the best numbers available at the time and they indicated that not only is life of SOME sort out there, but there is intelligent life out there somewhere.  The professor also noted that there is virtually NO CHANCE that we would ever come in contact with them as the sun will expand and swallow all the planets out to Mars before mutual contact is likely to be established.

So with that knowledge I read today that the current estimate is that there are 17 billion earth sized planets in OUR galaxy. 17 billion! I don't remember how many we thought there were 25 years ago in class as there were a lot of 10 to the nth powers being thrown around.  I think we were talking about 10% of suns having an earth sized planet and this revised figure indicates the number is closer to 17%.  Regardless, that's a pretty big number of planets the size of earth in just our galaxy. There are estimated to be 125 billion galaxies in the universe (don't get me started on theories of how many universes there are).  So math says there are 2.125 trillion planets the size of earth (given the assumption that other galaxies are similar to ours in size and relative density of earth sized planets.

So is there life out there? Yes. Is it like ours? Maybe. Will we establish contact with them? Well, it seems a bit more likely knowing there are likely 17 billion earth sized planets relatively nearby.

Baby Steps

It was a pretty busy weekend, but most of it took place on Sunday. I'm finding that LL and I will put off until the last "comfortable" minute pretty much anything we can. We won't wait until the LAST minute, just the last minute where as long as things go right, we'll finish in time. So Saturday we met up with our friend Anu and her brother and his friend at The Bongo Room again.  LL hasn't had many cravings at all, but the one she has had is pancakes so we satiated that craving for a bit I hope. After that, we generally didn't do much. In our defense, we were supposed to go over to Smitty's house for their annual 3 Kings celebration, but Smitty was getting over the flu so we were going to meet out. With the prospect of a "real party" off the table, Ricardo, who had been getting over the flu himself and is currently on the wagon until St. Patrick's Day, opted out. Then Bill the Bear's wife, Nadine, hurt her back so they couldn't make it. Party postponed. So as I said, I hit the gym and managed to strain a muscle in my upper back, the very muscles I was trying to work out and strengthen. Ugh.

Oh, Thursday I went to my first "dry needling" appointment. Some softball buddies of mine have done this to help stimulate muscles that have become dormant due to herniated discs.  My first session was fine, but not much progress. We'll see what happens in the follow up sessions.

Sunday, while I was at church, LL took down the Christmas tree decorations. We put a bag on it and I took it to the recycling center over by Wrigley Field. Very smooth and easy. I followed up that trip with starting to cook two racks of ribs. Yum!! They ended up being one of the best batches I've ever made. Awesome.

And finally, we solicited the help of my neighbor, Henning, to move our guest bed and some furniture downstairs to clear out the baby's room. We're at 30 weeks now....only 10 weeks left. LL goes back to work tomorrow and we had two weeks to move all of this stuff downstairs, but waited until today. The last comfortable minute of her vacation.

Speaking of her vacation, it's been awesome hanging out with LL everyday. Can't wait for retirement!!

Change that calendar!

Not much for the weekend posting, so I'll leave you with some pictures.

Our Christmas tree in the night! I post this because we are taking it down on Sunday. :-(  The Feast of the Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, is the traditional day when we take it down. So January 6th is the day! Though we may take it down on Saturday as we have to get the baby's room ready as well this weekend and there's only so much time!!

Here's one of our many Christmas gifts: another calendar of our wedding pictures! I love to look through these every month. It was an awesome event and the pictures of it bring back great memories.

We like them so much in fact, that we got two!! Now we have one upstairs and one downstairs. Yay us!! In this collage of pictures, our driver for the week, Jaime, is in the middle. Coincidentally, he texted us a very personalized happy new year's message which led to a nice text conversation. Hopefully we'll see him in again in the next 18 months. We'd like to take a trip back to Puerto Rico, maybe in the spring next year.

Happy New Years!!!

Well, I hope my readers had a great holiday break!! Relaxing has been the order of the day for the last week or so here at the Sutton household. Maybe we have one thing scheduled here or there during the day, but for the most part we've been laying low. It's great!! Real vacation like. LL is off all this week too, so we have.....nothing planned! Yay!!!

Last year, if you recall, I went 8-2 on NYE and New Year's Day college bowl games and won the coveted Sutton/Bailey Bowl Game Chalice pictured below. This year, LL started out a strong 4-0 on NYE, but I was within striking distance at 2-2 along with LL's sister. Her brother-in-law was a dismal 1-3 and finished at 1-9. Ugh. As the games went on, two games made the difference: South Carolina/Michigan and Wisconsin/Stanford.  While I picked the winners in both games, we play like we're in Vegas and you need to beat the point spread. South Carolina could have kicked an extra point and tied the spread at 6, but they went for a two point conversion instead and missed, handing me the loss. Then Stanford won 20-14, but were favored by 6 1/2 points so they didn't cover. Ugh. So LL went 7-3, her sister 6-4, me 5-5 and BiL went 1-9.  LL won the chalice!!

So I didn't retain the chalice, but it stays in the house at least.

We had a pretty tame NYE. We went to our favorite sushi place again and brought LL's friend  Erin along. Erin and I drank a bottle of champagne, while LL had some sparkling juice of some kind. Very low key and safe. Am I getting old??




Going forward, I'm looking to try a gluten free diet (though I may just do a reduced gluten diet) and see if I can lose 15 pounds over the next few months. We'll see how it goes. No beer (but wine and whiskey....I think), no pasta and cutting out the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at lunch. Lots of good protein, dairy, veggies and fruits. Should be healthy!!

Some Christmas Pics

Oh what a busy few days!! Saturday morning we had brunch with Naperville Greg and Kleveland Kim down by their house out The Bongo Room. Great food again! That was our only meal until dinner with my folks for my dad's 76th birthday at Allgauer's in Lisle. The food there was pretty good, but the soup (which I normally avoid BECAUSE of the sodium) was loaded with sodium and it wasn't inexpensive by any stretch. Mind you, it served the dual purpose of pretty good food and relatively quiet, but I think we can do better in the area. We just need to find it!!

On Sunday, LL went to wrap gifts with her family (including cousins) in Joliet while I watched the Bears game and wrapped gifts at home. On Christmas eve, after a hearty breakfast pictured below and a trip to the gym, we headed to Joliet to spend the day with LL's parents, her uncle and aunt, their daughter and her boyfriend (who is from Uzbekistan!!).

I saw this dish as a post on Facebook from Pintrest. You make a ring (or four) out of a pepper and cook an egg inside of it. The pepper acts like an egg ring of sorts, but it's edible! We decided to throw it on an English muffin with some cheese and had some Bob Evans links with it. Awesome.

Last year we went to LL's church in Joliet, she's Presbyterian, so this year we went to my church.  Being pretty worn out from the day and the last two weeks really, we opted to get up in the morning for church instead of going to midnight mass, which actually starts at midnight at my church as opposed to ending at midnight; big difference.

Christmas day then, after we opened gifts to each other, we headed out to my folks to spend the day with them and my sisters and their family. The highlight of my gifts to LL is in the attached picture. It's a Joe Sutton original!! I purchased a ring from my folks which had this emerald and 6 marquis diamonds and changed the ring into this beautiful turtle necklace. LL loves turtles and loves the necklace. Pretty awesome!! I was concerned that maybe it wouldn't turn out well, but the jeweler to whom I took the ring said yeah, he could make it work and it should look pretty cool. Awesome!







 One of my many gifts, is this hardcore, work-site boom box which I plan to take to tailgating with us next year. It's got it's own roll cage!! Sweet.

And this is just a picture of me and Molly. I have no idea why I took this picture, but why not share it??

Merry Christmas!!

Details, pics, useful information to follow. For now, Merry Christmas!!!

Crazy Eyes

In an ongoing effort to use up our FSA funds before the end of the year, I went to the optometrist today; the first time in a decade. Though I knew I needed to go for a check up, there seemed to be little reason. It seems less meaningful than a dental visit, but it really shouldn't be. So today I went and got the full battery of tests done. On top of it all, they took a picture of my eyes (with the blood vessels and all) so we have a baseline for how my eyes look physically now, when they are healthy. If there's a problem in the future, they'll be able to take another picture and tell where the changes have occurred. Good stuff.

 The problem with having your eyes dilated is that you can't focus on anything up close. Oddly enough, driving is no problem, if you have sunglasses. So at a stop sign, with no traffic around me, I snapped this picture of my pupils. They're huge! I couldn't tell if the picture was focusing on my eyes or not, but it turned out ok. Funny stuff.

I saw this sign while going to pick up LL's car from the mechanic. Seems redundant.*










*I always thought a Trojan WAS insurance. :-)

Tupperware

Whoa, another long drought between posts. Ugh. So tough during the holidays with everything going on. Thursday night we saw Jeff Garlin do stand up and he was okay. I found him funnier than LL did, but we both liked the theater a lot. We were in row C after having bought the $25 tickets rather late and we really were in the third row. Though we were on the side, we were so close it didn't matter. Very awesome. Good to know for future shows: neither of us had ever been to Steppenwolf!!

Friday night we had my client's, and good friend's, company party at a swank restaurant, Belly Q. Silly name right? But the place was PACKED and NOT cheap. The location is where Jordan's restaurant used to be: One Sixtyblue. Jordan actually teamed up with a chef on this Asian BBQ concept. Interesting. The food was pretty good I have to say. I had the pork chop and it had to be 3" thick, which of course led it to not being cooked as thoroughly as I like, but I survived. Afterwards, karaoke was in order! They reserved two rooms that connected so we had appetizers and drinks in one room, ate in the other and then came back to the first for karaoke. Good times. It's a smaller company, so there was maybe 25 people there or so.

Saturday morning, I drove LL to the airport (very early unfortunately) so she could go visit her sister and new nephew for a few days. On Sunday, the Bears played at home against the Packers so I couldn't join her. The rest of the day I shopped and cooked and prepared for the tailgate early Sunday morning. The weather wasn't too bad and it was fun, though most likely our last home game of the year.

LL was supposed to come home tonight, but weather has stranded her in D.C. As such, I can write my blog without being harassed about doing so. :-)  It's not her fault though, she just wants me to spend more time with her snuggling. Seems acceptable. Anyway, I'm taking advantage of the time by doing Christmas cards, finally, and wrapping some gifts (still arriving daily).

I now have four pieces of Tupperware that are not mine. Why am I randomly stealing Tupperware? I'm not. People have brought it to my tailgate, when it contains food, and then have no desire to take it home or leave right after the game instead of stopping by to continue tailgating (crazy people and their "lives"). So now I have a bag of Tupperware to return "at a later date" since it's not the cheap stuff.

Christmas tree time

Another crazy week this week with: dinner with neighbors, infant CPR class, Season Ticket Holder Advisory Group meeting for the Bears, Jeff Garlin doing stand-up and a great client party this week. Throw in taking LL's car to get fixed and there's not much time to blog. So here are some pictures of our $17 tree from Home Depot.

The lights are red this year!! We ran out of white lights and the upstairs neighbors have a white light tree in their window. LL did a great job with the decorations.

I HAD the tree looking like this, but LL moved the Bears helmet to a lower branch.

My favorite ornament though!

It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart was on TV the other night. It used to be that you could watch it pretty much at anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but not since NBC became the sole licensee in the US to the movie. I joined the movie after George Bailey realized he was $8,000 short and was very rude to his family and daughter's teacher. He got clocked by the guy in the foreground of this picture for yelling at the teacher, this man's wife.

Shortly thereafter, George contemplates suicide and his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody A2 (Angel 2nd class), jumps in the river. You know the story.

Whenever I see this movie, I think about how the world would be different if I were never born. It's an interesting exercise. You can never figure out all of the ways you have impacted people, but I bet there are a few things you could identify.  First, if you have kids, they wouldn't exist. Would your spouse have married? Would they have been able to have kids? How about pets? Parents?

I can only think about sections of my life at a time before I normally move on to something else, maybe I have ADD, but this time I thought about my professional life. What would have been or could have been different? Well, there's that one company where I found a secret checking account used by the controller while I was an auditor. That certainly would have gone on for some time most likely. I'd like to think Morningstar's development would have been delayed by a bit at least. I hired quite a few good people there and recruited at least one person from Morton Salt who is still there and his life would be completely different, since he met his wife at Morningstar and they had triplets. The other folks I hired certainly fared better I'd like to think because of me.

The real estate agent who collected $500k in commissions (over time) for being our broker at Morningstar certainly appreciated my existence and selecting him. Similarly, the architecture firm I chose was on the verge of going out of business as it turns out and our job really helped save them. One of the owners eventually started another company, which employs about 20 people, so that's influenced by me as well! The two companies I helped turn around and sell probably would have been sold anyway, but for not as much money.

My current business partner, ESDNM, would certainly be poorer since our Chicago business wouldn't exist. And the clients I've helped here wouldn't be as well off I'd like to think.

Okay, my ADD is kicking in and as usual my thoughts turn to my personal life instead of work. LL would probably be better off without me, but she might not be pregnant!! And if she was, the baby would obviously be different than the one we are having. And of course, you wouldn't be reading this blog!

Newspaper returns

Yesterday I called the Chicago Tribune to cancel my $400 a year subscription. The longer the call went on, the more they were willing to concede on price. We finally settled on a $15 credit towards the money I "owed" for November (no way I was paying this anyway) and a rate of $130 for 6 months instead of $195. So I'm paying $.71 a day, which seems acceptable. It's certainly better than $1.10!!

Friday night was a great party with a client and included four people who came down to our wedding in Puerto Rico. It was held at a local restaurant called Sola. They serve American fare with a hint of Hawaiian goodness. Good times were had by all. It's hard for me to remember all of the people's names at the company though as I only see them once or twice a year. They know me of course, because I'm the one outsider whose name they have to remember. It's not fair. It's too fun to turn down the invite though!!

Party week!

Yes, the holidays bring about parties galore and they kicked in with full force this week. Unfortunately, ESDNM was in town as well, which meant I also had to call on clients and generally be professional during the day.  Maybe it was actually fortunate as I basically HAD to be good and not consume too much alcohol or other bad things that would hinder my ability to work.

There was a party Tuesday night, Wednesday night, tonight and tomorrow night, not to mention Saturday.  Next week our nightly schedule is dinner with neighbors, baby cpr class, Bears season ticket holder advisory group meeting at Halas Hall, going to Steppenwolf to see Jeff Garlin do stand-up and then wrap it up with a client party before LL goes to DC for a long weekend. Wow.


The first party was thrown by a bank in a building lobby. The bank was the one I recommended to two of my clients, before they were taken over by the current bank. Still, they are good folks it seems and throw a heck of a party. Lots of suits and ties, but a party in a lobby doesn't get me into a suit and tie or even a tie. ESDNM couldn't handle two nights of these events in a row, so he set up his own networking dinner and got loaded with him in a quieter environment.

Next up was our annual trip to a private club downtown for a law firm's party. For THIS party, I put on a tie, but I still shied away from a suit, which I'll save for funerals. The food and drink were very good and we even networked! One of the attorneys we knew was awesome at setting up people who could actually help each other in business. Then he would quietly dismiss himself.  What a skill. Anyway, it was good fun, but LL couldn't join me and ESDNM.

No pictures from the church party tonight, but it was fun as well. The boyfriend of our choir director used to work with me at Morningstar and we have the same hatred for a now ex-employee, Tao (yes, I have no problem mentioning him by name!), who was the primary reason both of us left. A story for another entry.

But the party introduced me to the new Beaujolais which was delicious!

And none of this has anything to do with our December calendar picture which is here on the left.

Here's the new bed our pooch Molly has claimed: my softball bag complete with jerseys and such. Molly has really aged this year, including turning 14, and doesn't jump up on her chair as easily. We've purchased little steps for her to get on the sofa and have steps on the way for her chair. Poor gal.

This was most of my dinner one night: a huge bottle of Delirium Noel, their winter brew. Pretty tasty.


Finally, happy 15th anniversary to my sister Lori and bro-in-law Steve.

Technology

In 1979, my dad won a television as part of a sales promotion. It was one of those bigger TV's with speakers at the bottom and stood about 3' high, maybe 4'. They STILL use that TV every day. Yep, 33 years later, the TV still works like a charm. It got me to thinking about the last time I had a TV go bad. The things are pretty amazing when you think about it; snatching signals from the sky and converting it to a picture. Does anybody REALLY know how these things even work anymore? How many people on the planet could actually build one and know that it's going to work? And what about creating the images that the TV decodes? Guess that's a whole other entry.

Currently I have four TV's in the house and they are all new flat screens. They replaced bulkier TV's that still worked and are currently working for my parents in their house in Naperville and up in Michigan. The technology is just crazy to me and how dependable they are. Granted, I've probably just jinxed my entire family, but after owning probably 8-10 TV's over my life, not one of them has broken down. Way to go TV industry!!

Tired tonight, post coming tomorrow.

Sorry, it was a long day of eating and drinking at the Bears game. More tomorrow!

Where were you 4/20/86?

Sort of a crazy topic for my post today, but there's actually a reason for it. Today while driving around listening to sports radio, the date above was mentioned as the date the Bulls took on the Celtics in the playoffs and Michael Jordan scored 63 points. He would later say it's the game that really made him feel like he belonged in the NBA and could dominate. 

In Chicago, it was a rainy, cold day. How do I know that? Because while verifying the date on Google, I came across this bit of awesomeness. While I'm writing this entry, I'm listening to the audio of the Cubs game. Tremendously awesome. I love technology. The game was suspended after 13 innings due to darkness since the Cubs didn't have lights for over 2 more years. 

So I thought about what I was doing that day, a Sunday in the second semester of my sophomore year in college. Somewhere I'm sure I have my schedule for each of my semesters, but I don't have them on hand so who knows for what I was studying.  Studying I was though I'm sure. Not being a huge basketball fan, I probably wasn't too concerned about the Bulls and I'm not sure I would have been watching the Cubs if there was studying to do. 

Just a little flashback. 

The rest of the story

Friday morning came lazily after our Turkey Bowl victory and way too much food on Thursday. What's for breakfast after Thanksgiving? Around our house it's potato pancakes made from leftover mashed potatoes from my mom and dad's homemade applesauce. Very good stuff, though not incredibly healthy.

It wasn't long after breakfast that I needed to race to the airport to pick up Joisey Ken. Fortunately he was arriving (and departing) at times of the day where traffic isn't too bad (around noonish both times). But his flight was 30 minutes early and I was barely out of my neighborhood when he said they just landed! Doh!  Isn't that the way?

After we got back home, we gathered ourselves and LL and headed back to Kuma's Corner for another great burger. This time, the waitress said it was a 2 hour wait!! She must REALLY not want me there as the waiting time escalated from 90 minutes, which was really only 45. As it turns out, we were back home in 2 hours, so her time was off again. This time though we snuck into the seats at the bar, so our wait was only about 30 minutes or so.  Even if we wanted a table though, it was nowhere near 2 hours. Anyway, the burgers were delicious again and we were very full...a theme repeated most of the weekend.

Friday night was the Party at the Punke's, the guys who sit next to me at the Bears games. They had their company party and invited us down. It's at a bowling alley and they have music and food as well as a ton of booze. The catch? It's a solid 90 minute drive to get down there to Dwight, IL. Worth the trip though. Not only did I bowl a 204 and 211, but they had the "ring of fire" again!

Here you go! The ring of fire around the horseshoe shaped bar. It really got warm in there!!















And yes, I did indeed try to get a 600 series by throwing a third game even though my thumb was swelling and my elbow hurt (I haven't bowled in a year). I just remembered my grandpap, my mom's dad, bowling well into his 70's and telling us about his most recent 600 series over the phone. This was my first legitimate chance at one (at least I think) and came up well short throwing a 159 in the third game. I missed a 7-pin spare three times, which was brutal.








By the time we got home from the Punke's, it was after midnight and we were beat. We were beat most of Saturday as well, but had to go shopping and start prepping for the Bears tailgate the next morning. But first, more potato pancakes!! Then we had some leftover chili from my last batch and just decided to stay in and have Pequod's pizza for dinner.

Sunday morning we were up at 6:30 and packing up the car to get to Soldier Field by 8 a.m. We were a few minutes late, but not too bad. Mr. Heater was out, but it was borderline whether I needed him there or not. People seemed to appreciate him. Benny Baseball and Sausage were at this game, as they are every time Ken comes to town. Great fun.
I took this panorama shot with my iphone. Not bad.






And here's the four of us in the early morning with Mr. Heater on the left, Sausage, Benny, me and Ken in the Vikings gear. I made cheesy, sausage bread again along with hogs in a blanket. Someone brought donuts and we had bacon wrapped shrimp, dates and a few figs courtesy of LL. She also made the corn muffins to go with the new batch of chili I made on Saturday. We ate it all!!!  I weighed myself when I got home and then the next morning and I lost 4 pounds over night. Ha!

The only dinner we had was leftover pumpkin cheesecake from Thanksgiving. Delicious!

Monday morning, Ken and I went to breakfast at Ann Sather at the end of the block and then I took him out to the airport to catch his noon flight. It was another great visit with Joisey Ken and he again showed up bearing gifts; this time a Bears knit hat, two Bears shirts (actually Decatur Staley shirts, the Bears predecessor) and two boxes of Pro-V1 golf balls. What a guy!!! Thanks Ken!

Part one of two for Thanksgiving

What a long week and weekend!! It's all good, but busy and included Thanksgiving as well as a Joisey Ken visit, which is part of why I haven't posted in a bit. We're beat after the Bears win today though, so while he sleeps on the sofa, I'm writing here.

The holiday weekend started with dinner at a new local establishment that specializes in Mexican fare and steaks. The steaks seemed a bit pricey and the meet I did have was a bit salty, but the plantains were fantastic, so we'll probably go back again. Wednesday was also the 21st which was our two year engage-a-versary; celebrating the day we got engaged in Vegas. After dinner we met the gang out for drinks, the gang being Ricardo and Jodi, Smitty and Beth, Bill the Bear and Nadine. They were eating there as well, but we went just for drinks, or A drink as it turned out.

The reason it was only one drink was that we had to get up early Thanksgiving morning to head out for the Turkey Bowl! The weather was nicer than last year, but there were also a LOT more people, so instead of the 7 on 7 we had last year, we had 11 on 11 with subs!! That's too many people. I played QB in the first half and threw a TD and a pick as we went into half tied at 6. In the second half, people from another game joined our game and each team probably had 4 subs each, which really was a pain. I switched to defense and got a big sack on the second to last play of regulation, but on the last play the other team threw up a prayer and it was answered to tie the game. We went into OT, playing college rules, and we won. Here's the new coach's trophy!

Thanksgiving at my parents' house was great as always! Another auction was held, but this time we couldn't open our won items until the end of the auction. An odd change, but no problem. So the bidding goes on as normal until the last gifts are won. My dad opened his first gift and it was baby shoes! Ha! Very funny. My niece opened the next gift and it was another baby item. Then my sister opened up a gift and it was another baby item. The jig was up then! ALL the gifts were baby items, except for a random stapler that's decidedly NOT a baby item, and they were all for us! It was a non-baby shower. Thanks family!! They planned and kept the whole thing secret.

So that gets us through Thursday. Tomorrow I'll cover Friday and the weekend with Joisey Ken!

Weekend results

 It was quite the woodcutting weekend. We started off with lunch at Kuma's Corner where I opted for the original Kuma's: a great burger with an egg, bacon and cheese on it. Delicious. When we arrived at 12:30, I was told there was a 90 minute wait, but it was only 45, which was fine since it's a bar as well. Great way to start off the weekend, though we ended up scrapping our dinner plans for Friday because we were still full!

This picture was apropos for our Saturday morning as the fog outside matched the fog from our drinking Friday night.













Here's the "before" picture of the non-existent wood stacks. Guess you need to check out the other pictures to make more sense of these.

It's harder to see, but the wood piles were starting to take shape and lots of wood was being prepped. It was my hope that I would have many more pictures and do sort of a time-lapse thing, but I only took three pictures. Doh!

 And here's the finished product. Lots of wood!

The weekend was not without it's crazy events though. It started when Ricardo need the tractor jumped and was convinced that the labeling on the battery was actually backward because of an "event" a few years back where it almost blew up. So we hooked them up like he wanted.....and it melted my jumper cables. Awesome. Fortunately I had my jumper box with me that also inflates tires and acts as an outlet. I hooked it up the way I wanted to hook it up and the tractor started right away. 

That helped us in the short term as we were using the tractor to drag logs to the splitter. In this picture, Bill the Bear, on the left, drove the tractor down in the ravine and while trying to turn it around without driving it backwards over the ravine edge, hit the gas and drove it up the other side of the ravine and wrapped the wheel around a tree, which we had to cut down (you can see the stump in the foreground). Eventually we had to get friends of the neighbors who have a pick up truck (after their four wheeler couldn't do the job) to pull the tractor out of the ravine. The oil pan was damaged and all the oil drained out, so we couldn't drive it out once it was eventually straightened out. Not often that you end up treeing a tractor! We were smiling in the picture, but mostly because nothing happened to Bill. It was close as the tractor got closer and closer to a 90 degree angle. 

Paperless society

Earlier this year my credit card expired and the bank diligently sent me a new one. That seemingly innocuous event caused much havoc as there are a bunch of automatic charges on my credit card that go through every month or periodically, like most people. Fortunately I keep pretty good records and making the changes wasn't too bad.

About a week ago though, I received a call from The Chicago Tribune asking for the new card number to renew my subscription. The guy on the phone was somewhat suspicious sounding though, so I said just mail me an invoice and I'll re-up through there. It was completely fine and I was just being overly cautious as I got the invoice the other day. The cost? $180 for 6 months for seven day a week delivery. That's $360 a year and almost a buck a day! Do I get $1 a day of enjoyment out of the newspaper? I really don't. Maybe I read the sports page and check out the front page, but that's about it (I do save the comics and puzzles for later).

So the decision was made to stop delivery! No more newspaper. LL and I used to do one of the puzzles and read the comics while laying in bed, but now we watch TV in bed (and are much happier since LL can fall asleep). I will miss the comics and puzzles, especially when taking airplane trips since I use them during take off and landing. I'll get over it though. It also means no more paper to recycle, which means more space in the pantry. We'll see how it goes. Subscribing online is an option and cheaper.......maybe I'll go that route eventually.

Long weekend

A little health update: I've been able to workout pretty well and run 3 miles without much pain in the neck and shoulder area. The heat, stretching and PT exercises go a long way to mitigating the herniated disc.

I'm feeling if I get a start now on buying presents for the holiday season, it will all be less stressful. Yet another day passed by though and I didn't buy any. Ugh. I really don't want to wait until after Thanksgiving to make progress. Tomorrow doesn't seem to be a promising beginning either as I'm heading up to the cabin in WI on Friday for a wood cutting weekend with Ricardo, Smitty, Bill the Bear and Markakis.

Wood cutting weekend involves two or three days of hauling fallen trees, cutting them up and then splitting them into firewood. Then the wood is stacked so it will dry before it's used next year. It's a lot of work that ends up with a sore lower back usually, some nicks, some scratches and possibly some weird other ailments. It also means lots of food and drink. The Bears game isn't until Monday night so we'll probably all stay until Monday and then drive home. Plus we are starting the weekend with lunch on Friday at Kuma's Corner, one of the best burger places in Chicago. Should be fun!

Pictures to follow I'm sure.

Where have all the giraffes gone?

Last night was the Bears game and the weather (and the result of the game) was a little rough. Tailgating started around 3:30 with JC subbing for LL. We had dinner with JC just Thursday, but he won the sub lottery.  Unfortunately, around 5:00, it started to rain and kept raining for most of the night. On top of it, the temperature started to drop during the game. It got a little uncomfortable, but not too bad. Our seats are shielded from the rain for the most part as you can see in this picture. 

The overhang shields the last two of three rows, so it's pretty nice. Nothing shields you from the cold though!! Games in December can get a bit chilly, but this year the temps have started to fall early.

The Bears lost, but they had three turnovers in the first quarter, dropped a touchdown pass, hit the upright with a field goal and lost their QB to a concussion in the first half. With all that, they lost 13-6. Ugh.













































These giraffes are on the corner of the street next to our condo. They stand probably 8'-9' high and sit on a 4' cement base. Apparently they are owned by the guy who owns several of the apartment buildings in the area. Unfortunately, he just sold those buildings to another company, but that shouldn't impact the giraffes should it? They've been there for at least 20 years.

Well, we were surprised on Sunday when they came and hauled them away!! 

Now we just have the cement bases. Yech. 

On a happier note, this pretty red tree is in our backyard. Wish I could have a more lifelike shot though. Such great color.

















And this disturbing image was taken at a local hardware store last week. Christmas trees!! Already!!! A little early in my opinion.

Changes afoot?

Been reading some interesting things the last few days. One of them was in regards to the passing of  marijuana legalization laws in Washington state and Colorado. By my count now, there are 16 states where it has been decriminalized to possess it (meaning you just get a civil fine) and two states where it's just flat out legal. Whatever you stance on the subject, Mexico is up in arms. At least they claim to be. They are stating they have been good partners in fighting the war on drugs being shipped to the US and now one of the very drugs they've spent a ton of money trying to prevent from being grown and shipped to the US (unsuccessfully I might add), is legal in two states and just garners a slap on the wrist in 14 others. Needless to say, they aren't happy. The recession hit Mexico too and marijuana can add billions to their economy if they reversed course.

A concern that I have is that 65% of cocaine in the US comes through the Mexico border, though it's created in Columbia. Cocaine is currently cheaper and more easily accessed than 25 years ago, so the war on drugs has pretty much failed. I just wonder what the vote will lead to in terms of our border with Mexico. Will Mexico temper their enforcement efforts on their side?

On a lighter note, LL and I went to our favorite Italian restaurant last night with our pals JC and Carol. They have a 13 month old baby and we were talking about babies a good chunk of the evening. They also offered us plenty of baby paraphernalia, which is always welcome!! And the food of course was awesome as always and we had our favorite waitress, Jenna, who is studying to get her masters in nursing and only works there one day a week. We used our Groupon, so the meal was going to be pretty inexpensive for us, but JC and Carol picked up the tab anyway! What a nice surprise. It was the first time in a while that I've had wine and boy did I feel it later on. Not so much in the sense of being drunk, but the histamines caused a sneezing fit and runny nose! Benadryl to the rescue fortunately. 

Cans for Joisey

They make crap beer, but they can make a great can of water. Kudos to Anheuser-Busch.

Joisey Ken is getting back to normal after the storm cut his power out for several days. Fortunately he purchased a generator and it seemed to at least "take the edge off" the misery. They still have long lines for gas, but not as bad as they used to be. Glad you made it through Ken!!

The Chicago Bears are 7-1 but have played teams with a significant losing record when combined. The really tough team they played, the Packers, mauled them. Next Sunday night they take on Houston at home in a huge, nationally televised game. Can't wait!!

Friday was our 20 week ultrasound, though now we're at 21 weeks. Here's a pic of our baby girl!! I have some videos too, but they wouldn't load. Her tiny little hands are up by her face already. She was a bit camera shy and was doing her best to hide from the ultrasound.

Softball in November?

Yes, I played softball this weekend. Yes, for most of the day the temperature was at or below 44 degrees, mostly below. We were out there for batting practice at 1:30 and we finished up around 9:30. It was an hour plus away, in Waukegan, so I was gone from noon until almost 11 pm. Mr. Heater was out in force to help us warm up a bit in between innings and save the people on the bench from frostbite. It was indeed the last tournament of the year for us, the world series for a new organization called GSL, Global Softball League. Different rules than other organizations of course, but the only thing that really impacts me is the pitch height: 5'-10'. Pitchers generally pitch to the lower end of the height limit which I like, but most hitters don't. When the pitches come in higher and slow, I tend to get my weight going forward too soon and am just swinging with my arms. I know it happens, but it's tough to correct. The tournament before Halloween when I hit so poorly was a 6'-12' tournament which really threw me off and led to a 5-18 hitting performance. Ugh.

Saturday's games started off similarly with me going 1-3 in the first game and only hitting the ball hard once. Not good. The second game I was 1-2 before being pinch hit for in a game we lost. So when the third game came around, I needed to show some improvement. The game was tight and the 7th and final inning rolled around with us trailing 14-13.  Up to that point I was 1-3 and had hit the ball hard once and walked. We tied the game up and then had runners on first and second with two outs and I was on deck. The batter before me walked to load the bases. Dramatic huh? Since the pitcher walked that last batter, I was taking a strike before I would swing. We start with a 1-1 count and he threw ball two first. Then strike two. Now I was swinging if it was a good pitch, and it was. I laced a single to right field and knocked in two runs. That's all we would score, but we held them in the 7th to win 16-14. Felt good to end the season with a game winning hit!! Or almost end the season as we played another game and got shellacked. Still, it was a good memory after some not so good hitting.

Shower thinking

At some point last night I heard that W. Bush won the election against Gore by "stealing Florida". I'm not sure if it was a setup for a joke or what, but it didn't really register with me, or so I thought. This morning while in the shower, where I do my best thinking even though oddly it's before I have coffee, the thought popped up in my head again: Bush stole Florida. Here's what went through my head:

How did Bush steal Florida? Well there was that dangling chad issue. And all those elderly Jewish voters in that one district that were confused and voted for Buchanon of all people. The courts decided the election, probably because it was getting close to inauguration and then who knows what would have happened. Jeb Bush was governor of Florida, so it wouldn't surprise me if he purposefully made the ballot confusing. Those Bushes....Sr., W. and Jeb. Why didn't Jeb run for office? Maybe too many skeletons in his closet. More than W. though? That clown was drunk and on cocaine for the entirety of his 30's! He ran an oil company and couldn't find oil in Texas! He owned and ran a baseball team under monopoly protection and LOST money! I wonder how the Kane County Cougars got so close in proximity to our baseball team in Chicago when there's monopoly protection? Shouldn't Chicago have two baseball teams like New York.......oh wait, we do. That's silly. How did I forget that?? 

Delayed post

I started this post on Tuesday and then all heck broke loose with work and other things. One of those things was going over to Pam's new apartment (LL's good friend who just moved into town and took LL's old job) for dinner on Wednesday night. While Pam cooked dinner and talked work with LL, I was to put together an IKEA TV stand with drawers. The only thing I dislike more than IKEA furniture is putting together IKEA furniture. But Pam is less than 5' tall and weighs about 75 pounds, so it was a pretty daunting task, plus she said she had a hammer (which is almost never needed with IKEA furniture) so I was afraid she was going to hurt someone or trash the stand.  So I put it together pretty well, one screw up which happened in step 4 of the 30 steps so retracing was out of the question. It was more of a cosmetic issue so Pam was fine with it. By the time we got home, around 10, we were ready to hit the sack.

Do you remember Mr. Taco?  It opened up around the corner in what used to be an Italian restaurant last and a Einstein Bagel before that. We've eaten there several times and the food isn't bad for fast food Mexican.

Yeah, they closed up shop this week. Ugh.  Not sure what's going in there next. Hopefully something.













On another taco note, did you get your free taco on Tuesday from Taco Bell? They gave them away because someone stole a base during the World Series. The taco shell is made out of Doritos and it was pretty tasty actually. First time I've ever had one.












Here's a sculpture that sits outside of a marina and is entitled Windsurfer. Doesn't it look like a boat that's sinking? Just seems odd to point outside a marina!!














I shot this video off of Belmont Harbor on Tuesday during the rage of hurricane Sandy. Pretty crazy. The spray of water would get 30, 40 sometimes 50' high and go 75 yards down the water's edge. Pretty awesome to see, but very, very cold. I had to have my winter coat on with gloves and a wool hat!