Getting stressed about being stressed.

This week hasn't been bad at all from a work perspective, a nice break after last week being busy. Today though I looked at my calendar about NEXT week and started to get stressed. Actually, next week starts tomorrow! Yep, on Thursday. My niece (and later her parents) are coming to town and she and I are going to pal around for a good part of the day.

After getting her a hot chocolate at Starbucks, we're going to go to the Sky Deck on the Sears Tower in time for the sunset. Should be awesome. Then we'll hook up with her parents and LL for dinner in the west Loop before going to Fox Studio for a tour and to meet Amy Freeze!!

Friday, Joisey Ken comes in and we go straight from the airport to the golf course!!! It's supposed to be in the upper 60's. Saturday is up in the air because the weather is supposed to change dramatically. Then Sunday is the Bears game.

On Monday, I literally go from dropping Ken off at the airport to a meeting!! Ugh. Then possibly another meeting in the afternoon. Tuesday is my 7 a.m. meeting at my church followed by a trip to the far west burbs for another meeting. Wednesday is an all day meeting and then Thursday we're off to Vegas.

Holy Crap!!!

Flaw in the Plan

As you know, I've got a new workout regimen: lift weights, take a day off, run the next day, then lift again. At least that's what I thought would be a good plan. Yesterday I ran for the first time, as I wrote yesterday, and today I hit the gym to lift weights. It was pretty tough on my legs I have to say. I'm not going to give up the regimen yet, because I think it will get better as I get used to running. Still, pretty beat today.

Had a great evening of beer tasting set up at Binny's Beverage Depot tonight with Ricardo and Bill the Bear (who is less of a bear as he shaved his beard, but that's a story for another time). So here's the emailed ad to which we were responding (though I was organizing):

WINTER BEER TASTING Tuesday, November 9, 6:30-8:30pm Get wrapped up in the holidays and sample over 70 limited edition seasonal craft and import beers! A variety of holiday gift packs, many including custom glassware, will also be displayed and available for purchase. $15 W/Binny's Card / $25 non-members. Call 773-935-9400 for more information. Chicago - Lakeview Binny's Ivanhoe Castle & Catacombs Tasting Room | Chicago | 773-935-9400

Seems pretty clear cut right? You show up, pay $15 (as members) and we taste beer for 2 hours. Unfortunately, what the message doesn't say is that they took reservations and space was limited!!! WTF??? Why would I think space wasn't limited? Well because on the same page of ads for events, they had these messages:

This event fills up quickly! Reservations are reccomended. $50 with Binny's card / $60 non-members.

See, now if I wanted to attend that event, I would know that I need to make a reservation. Unbelievable. Fortunately there are bars in the area and we headed to The Duke of Perth and had some food and beer. Still, a very stern letter is going to be issued to Binny's for their handling of this event. I will be heard!!!!

First day of running

Today was my first day of running per my new schedule. It went pretty well as I put in 3 miles in just over 30 minutes. Though the pace wasn't up to snuff, it was intentionally slower since it's been a while. Tomorrow it's back to lifting weights.

If you live around Chicago and are interested in my chaise lounge, it's for sale! Only $250. It's 40" wide at it's widest and 6' long. Let me know if you're interested.

I love the extra hour.

The weekend was an even more welcome sight than normal after a busy work week. After eating out two days in a row, we stayed in and cooked on Friday night which was very relaxing.

Saturday was a lazy, sleep in morning after which I cooked cheese and chorizo omelets and maple sausage links. After watching a little football and digesting my breakfast, I hit the gym for a nice workout. My new strategy for working out is to leave three days in between to allow time for my shoulder to fully recover. Starting this week I'll incorporate running on day two of the rest. Hopefully it's a schedule that will keep me in pretty solid shape during the winter months.

After working out, we headed out to see LL's parents in Joliet who had just returned from a two week trip to China. They told us all about their travels and the group with which they traveled while we visited and then went to dinner. Interestingly enough, we went to "The Lob". The Lob is Red Lobster and it was a place my family frequented for celebratory dinners when I was a kid. Unfortunately I have a love-hate relationship with The Lob. While I crave the food, it's loaded with sodium and isn't cheap. You can easily eat at a small restaurant in Chicago where you know the chef in the kitchen for the price they charge.

Today was another lazy start with the same breakfast as Saturday. You can't have enough chorizo!! Then the Bears came on and eked out a win after losing two three-point games. Their future opponents: Vikings, Jets, Patriots and Dolphins did not look good in their games, so there are signs of hope. I'm such a Cubs fan!!!

Can I just say that I wouldn't mind having us "fall back" every Sunday, especially during football season. It would be awesome to have an extra hour before the games start. I really like when the Bears have the 3:00 start times, but we don't have any this year.

Here's a picture from one of those small restaurants in Chicago: Tratoria Sapori. They serve Italian food as you might imagine and it's very high quality. The chef, Chef Anthony, who is also the owner, came out to meet the patrons. Though I know he doesn't remember me, I stopped him as he walked by (ok, I yelled "Hey Chef Anthony!" as he walked by) and introduced LL and ESDNM. Our dinners were delicious and he sent out this beauty for dessert.

Yeah, that's one big, ass piece of Tiramasu. The three of us, already full, ate almost the whole thing. I had ESDNM put his hand up for reference. Awesome!!

No Post Thursday

Thursday was a work day for me so I didn't have time to post. Actually, I had time to post, but chose to relax instead. Updates to come including a picture of the largest piece of tiramisu I've ever seen!!

The Count Down Begins

Ms. Amy Freeze wrote me back about visiting the Fox Studios and I'm looking at some day next week! Trying to figure out whether I'll do it when Joisey Ken is in town or before. We'll get a tour and then watch the 9:00 news live! Should be fun!! There are 10 spots and I have about half of them filled. Let me know if you're interested.

And it's only two weeks until I hit Vegas again! Whoo-hoo!! Vegas is awesome and it's LL's first trip. Very much looking forward to it.

Finally, this picture has been making the rounds on Facebook, so I copied it for the blog. It's a reinforcement of what I discussed at the last election: NOBODY can fix the economy, no matter what they attempt, in the next 4 years. At the time I told you (if you're a Democrat) to vote Republican to make them deal with problems they created. Not enough people read my blog though and now this election is seen as an indictment on Obama, even though (other than universal healthcare) he's done no more or less than any other President would have done.

Some Pictures

Just thought I'd throw up some pictures today. Hope you all got out and voted!!!

Ricardo managed to sneak into this pic from last week. He was hammered!!

At the McDonald's anxiously waiting for our McRibs.

Success!!! LL is as excited as I was!!

Mmmmm, McRib goodness.

Culinary delights

Despite the cold weather this weekend, LL and I went for ice cream one night. That's not particularly remarkable, nor is the fact that LL got the birthday cake flavor. By the way, if you haven't had it, the birthday cake flavor tastes like you're licking a birthday cake. I mean it doesn't taste LIKE birthday cake, it IS birthday cake. Unbelievable. So I tried the pumpkin pie flavor. Guess what? Yep, it's as if you have a piece of pumpkin pie sitting on top of your cone. Unbelievable.

The other culinary delight we indulged in this weekend was the McRib. I'm not sure if it's available everywhere or not, but if it is available near you, make sure you get one. Awesome. I don't care how bad it is for you, you have to have one before they go away again.

The Bears had the weekend off and they still looked bad. How could that be if they didn't even play? For one, the lowly Oakland Raiders beat the snot out of Seattle, who beat us by 3. The Cowboys, one of our few quality wins, went to 1-6 after losing to Jacksonville, a team which was surrounded by discussions of losing its franchise. Then the Lions (who really beat us in week one if not for a properly applied awful rule) beat the Redskins by 12 who beat us by 3. The weekend just made us look even worse.

I need more weekends like this

It was a pretty uneventful weekend: no softball, no Bears game, no golf, no traveling. It's kind of nice as I don't have too many of these weekends where I'm just hanging around the house. Friday though we went out to dinner with Ricardo and wife Jodi. On of our favorite places to go, Roll-a-Polooza, a BYOB sushi restaurant around the corner from us was the destination. Afterwards we had a beer at a pub at which a friend of Jodi's worked, but wasn't working this particular night. Then we headed back to our place where we played the Seinfeld version of Scene It, a DVD incorporating board game. Good fun, but tough to play while drunk. It's amazing what you forget after a third bottle of wine.

Because of the third bottle of wine, we took it easy on Saturday. The only thing on the agenda was a trip to my parents where they were having a garage sale with a lot of the stuff we had brought out. Unfortunately, though the weather was warm in the afternoon, the morning was fairly chilly so they closed up shop early. Still, they made over $400!! Whoo-hoo!! Plus we have more stuff for them for their next one.

Sunday was another relaxing day. After I went to church and after LL did some grocery shopping, we continued to put stuff away in the kitchen combination project. To the best of my knowledge, it's finished! Progress!! Plus we hung/took down/moved several pictures and mirrors. Still some work to do in the wall hanging area, but again: progress! Plus we swapped out the entertainment cabinets (hers instead of mine) and hooked the TV back up so it's working.

A nice relaxing, but productive weekend.

Brushes with Stars

In case you missed some of the comments from the other day in my post about the Bears game, Amy Freeze left a pretty funny comment. Well, my tour of FOX Studio still needs to be ironed out, so I'll be meeting her soon enough. Ironically, the folks at the studio are waiting to hear from her about her schedule before I can book the date.

So that was brush one. Brush two happened tonight at a charity fundraiser for an organization called Kaleidoscope. They help underprivileged kids and one of the cool indirect ways is by getting them involved with art classes. Tonight they displayed a bunch of their art and it was auctioned off (most of it was silent auction). Fortunately I ended up buying two pieces! Here's what I got:

For some reason I can't rotate this picture, but it's going to go great in the condo. It's a picture of the Wells Street bridge sign. I love the matting and the frame too.

Here's the 15 year old photographer, Paul. Nice guy.

Here's the second picture: Piglet!! It's going to look great in the guest bedroom and LL loves pink.

Ricardo's wife, Jodi, used to be on the associate board of the charity and that's how I came to be there tonight. LL was having dinner with a friend of hers from the burbs. The hors devours served were themed from our childhood: PB&J rolls, pigs in a blanket, flies on a log, sloppy Joes in a phyllo dough cup, fish sticks with a dipping sauce, chicken nuggets and bbq sauce and to drink, a rum and rootbeer float (no ice cream). It was outstanding. So the big draw other than the charity, food, drinks and art? Christopher Knight a.k.a. Peter Brady!! He married a gal from Joliet and his wedding planner is on the board of the charity.

Me and Knight. He is actually a pretty nice guy and very accommodating. Jodi took this picture after three other people refused to take it! WTH?? All they have to do is hold the camera and take the picture, but three adult humans were too embarrassed to do it. Seriously? It's Peter Brady not Jesus.

Knight was helping with the live auction items.

More of the same

First, did you see this video clip? It really, really looks like a woman talking on a cell phone. The problem? The film clip is from 1928!!! The hosts say they think it might be a hearing device (like a horn), but it LOOKS like a cell phone and she's TALKING into it!! Weird.

AT&T finally fixed the cut phone lines which the city managed to chop through, probably mistaking the rather large line for a root, though shouldn't they have been avoiding really large roots too?? My service came back up late in the day yesterday, but my wireless router wouldn't talk to my DSL modem so I can only access the internet by directly hooking the DSL modem to my computer. Which means no wireless access in the house and LL uses it when she works from home (not to mention ESDNM would like to use it when he comes in next week I'm sure). The reason I bought this new one, a Cisco Linksys E1000, is because it was supposed to be easy to set up (it was) and it was faster than my old one (it is) and that it hopefully wouldn't crash my computer when I use it (it hasn't so far).

But like my old router, I find myself in the position where I can't use it. Tech support, here I come!

Bears putting people in the Hall of Fame!

Yes, the Bears are managing to put people in the Hall of Fame, even during a bad season. Actually, especially because of their bad season. The Hall of Fame called the Bears opponent from Sunday and asked for the jersey of the guy who picked off Jay Cutler 4 times to set a record. Nice. They send players to the HOF, just not their own players.

On Saturday one of my car headlights went out. Not a huge deal for a handy guy like me right? Well, I'm not THAT handy, but still, it's just changing a bulb. Once you know what you're doing, it's actually very easy. When you DON'T know what you're doing, it could take you a little bit though. I kept trying to figure out a way to take the bulb out. Makes sense right? Unfortunately, here's the light I was trying to replace.

As you can see, if I were to try and take out the bulb, I'd really be missing the point. Once I realized what the deal was, after looking at the manual, it took me about 45 seconds to swap it out.

Lesson learned.

Starbucks is good for more than just coffee.

No, I'm not talking about the scones (though they are delicious as well). I'm talking about free Wifi! Though I don't have much use for free Wifi, it is nice when I'm traveling or when the city (who is installing street lights on my block) screw up the phone lines and knock out my phone and internet service. Unbelievable. So here I sit at the Starbucks at the end of my street remembering again one of the benefits of living where I live.

As you recall from yesterday's post, I had a very busy weekend. After softball on Saturday, we were off to a party thrown by an ex-coworker of LL's. This woman, also named Laura, lives not too far away and lives in a genuine house. Yes, mucho denero. Last year we went to the same party and the food was just as good then. Good times, though we drank a little too much wine.

Which segues nicely into Sunday morning and loading up the car for the tailgate for the Bears game. It was an early wakeup call as we had to gather stuff up and load the car and then drive down to Soldier Field to get there as close to 9 as possible. We were a few minutes late, but it was due to Andy (AKA Sausage) being 15 minutes late. He blew out his achilles though and has a handicap placard, so I took it easy on him as we were allowed to park next to my friends over in the handicap section.

It rained a bit on Saturday though the forecast was for extensive rain all day. The forecast for Sunday was pretty much the same, which can ruin a tailgate because they don't let you put up a canopy of any kind. Fortunately we only had a little bit of rain in the morning and that was it for the day.

After some good eats, we headed into the game. Once inside the United Club, I looked for the service counter where they have the lineup cards with players names and numbers on them. When I curse at players from my seat, I like to make sure I'm cursing at the right guy (whether they can hear me or not....but I know they can). As we headed towards the stand, I noticed a woman who looked a bit like Fox weather chick Amy Freeze. If you're a long time blog reader, you'll remember that Amy actually commented on my blog when she first came to town about 18 months ago or so. Anyway, we somehow passed the stand and had to double back. This time I pointed out the woman to LL and said, "She looks a bit like Amy Freeze." LL confirmed it, but also only thought there was a resemblance. Then we get to our seats, look down to the field to where Amy sets up shop for the game (she sits on the sideline for most of the game and does at least two weather forecasts from there) and realize that Amy is wearing the exact same outfit as the woman we saw!! It was her!! Damnit!! I walked right by Amy and didn't even realize it. What a dope.

Then came the Bears game. All I can say is a big fat UGH! Another vastly inferior opponent that we let beat us because of ineptitude. This time the QB decided to help the other team's defensive back set a record for interceptions in a game. What killed me is in the post game interview, the QB said he's played against him before and would throw at him again with no problem. The guy just picked you off FOUR times and set an NFL RECORD!! How freaking delirious are you??? Still, he's not as delirious as our head coach is incompetent. In short, what pissed me off was when Lovie challenged whether a completion for us which was called down at the one yard line was a touchdown or not. Who cares? You have 3, maybe 4 shots from the one yard line. Even though you're 0-9 from the one yard line this year, you just lineup and hand the ball off to your big back that you signed in the off-season and are paying gobs of money to and make him earn it!!! But no, Lovie challenged it, lost the challenge and a time out. Nice. The very next play (a QB sneak of all the stupid plays) was a fumble and a play that should have been challenged, but Lovie has admitted that he didn't want to lose both of his challenges and timeouts so early in the second half. That screwed us....temporarily at least until the next set of turnovers by our pompous QB.

Hollywood Story??

It was a crazy busy weekend due to a softball tournament on Saturday and the Bears game on Sunday. Since we also had a party to go to on Saturday night, we had to prepare for the tailgate on Friday night. That meant cooking chili and preparing various appetizers including bacon wrapped shrimp and bacon wrapped dates. So at the end of the day on Friday, we were pretty tired. The weekend tournament started with pool play on Saturday (3 games) followed by a single elimination tournament on Sunday. Since I was going to the Bears game on Sunday, Saturday's games were going to be my last for the year and I really wanted to see if my shoulder was better with rest. It was!! I could actually throw pretty well.

Saturday morning was a bright and early start for me as I had to be at the fields (about an hour away) by 8:45 or so. We were looking forward to our three games on Saturday Unfortunately there was the threat of it raining all day. In fact, just as I pulled up to start taking batting practice (which had already been going on for 20 minutes or so) it started raining. It kept raining for the next hour or so plus and our game was stopped in the fourth inning with the score tied. After about 40 minutes or so, the rain stopped and we started up again. Though I was 0-2 to start the game, I came through with a 2 run, 2 out single to help us win. Our second game was a blowout as we won by slaughter in four or five innings.

Our last game of the day was against a team from the Quad Cities. We jumped to a large early lead, 10-1 or something like that, but they slowly edged back into the game at we found ourselves down 3 going into the bottom of the last inning. We tied it up when the guy who hit in front of me hit a 3-run homer. I singled to keep it going and we eventually loaded the bases with one of our best hitters up. Unfortunately he flied out and so we headed to extra innings. In this organization, we start with a runner on second in extra innings. I'm not sure what happened in the first extra inning, but I think we both scored 2 or 3 runs and remained tied.

This time the guy in front of me made the last out and I was leading off the bottom of our second extra inning. They scored one in the top of the second extra inning, so we had to scratch at least one run. Fortunately I laced a single up the middle to put runners on first and third to start our inning. The next guy hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game, but I was still on first. The next guy drove a ball to right field which the outfielder misplayed and it got by him. Now, I'm not the fastest guy on the team....in fact, I'm closer to the slowest, but I raced around and scored from first with the winning run. Yep, I scored the winning run in extra innings in my last game of the year. Is it a good enough story for a Hollywood movie? Nah, but it was a fun way to go out. The guys won their first game Sunday morning before losing game two, so we tied for third out of 28 teams. Not bad.

Tomorrow, angst from the Bears game.

The week is flying by

Is it Thursday already? Saturday brings a 3 game softball tournament, though it finishes on Sunday while I'm at the Bears game. But the whole weekend could be a wash as it's supposed to rain a good part of the weekend. If it rains during softball, no big deal. The games will be delayed or we'll keep playing, no problem.

But if it rains before or after the Bears game, it plays nasty havoc with my tailgate! If it rains during the game, there's really no problem for us because my seats are protected from the rain, plus we can always go inside the United Club if needed. But if it rains before or after, there's no where to hide. How can a guy cook in the rain?? Interestingly, I don't recall a day that's it's rained before or after the game when I've been present. One game it rained and I was in Vegas for softball. Another day it rained, but I got the flu or some 24 hour virus.

Another neighborhood update: the war on the rats seems to be over! Yep, Basra has seen no activity. And there's nothing going on outside my building either. The pest control folks next door seem to have really worked. It frustrates me a bit to know that it could have been this way for the last two years if the owner wasn't running a slum building. Whatever. At least progress is being made!

The light at the end of the tunnel

There's some construction work happening on my street this week and for a little bit longer probably. New street lights! Interestingly, our much smaller neighboring street has had the new light poles for a couple of years, but our well traveled street had none. The light pole directly outside my condo is going away, not to be replaced at all. The city is going to use a different spacing scheme for the lights and it does not include the current location. I think that's ok, but I'm not sure. There won't be a light shining in my front room anymore, but I think that's good and bad. The street light also lights up our steps and the whole area around our building which is nice.

Can't stop change though.

These two pics are of the old street light positioned in front of my condo.

Here's what the new street lights will look like. Not bad.

Just another day

First off, RIP Tom Bosley. Loved you in Happy Days and on Charlie's Angels. Great work.

Unfortunately I was up at 5:45 in the a.m. today...ugh. I'm just not a morning person and when it's still dark outside, I'm less inclined to be happy about it. But it was my once a month finance meeting at my church and is necessary for good leadership. The meeting went well, our Oktober Fest was a huge, huge success and made more money than any year in the past. That's good, because with a 100+ year old church, we have a lot of expenses! Afterwards, I decided to actually go to mass since I was there already and probably not going to go back to sleep since my cleaning lady was scheduled for the morning.

This afternoon though I was able to get a pretty decent workout in and am looking to get in another one on Thursday. Saturday is my last softball tournament of the year, to my knowledge at least, so hopefully a week and a half of working out will help how I feel about my play. We'll see.

Early mornings.....ugh.

How do you people do it on a regular basis? How did I do it for a decade plus? This early morning stuff is for the birds. This morning I was up before 7 so I could leave for the suburbs by 8 so I could to a meeting by 10. Fortunately traffic was, I can only assume, relatively light as it only (ONLY) took me an hour and 15 minutes to get about 50 miles (since I drove 104 miles on the day I assume it's about 50 each way). The meeting went well, about two hours, and the trip back went much faster since there was no remnants of rush hour.

But the work day was far from over as I headed down to my restaurant client for lunch with LL. While there, I spoke with my client about the recent financing proposal we received. It's really going to help this guy out and in a time when getting financing (especially for restaurants) is not easy. Lunch was great, as usual, and free as the owner bought it for us. Nice!

And the work day continued. Another bank was in the process of submitting a proposal for the restaurant, but their process sort of stalled. After a few messages from me putting pressure on them, we spoke for about 20 minutes and hopefully got the process on track again.

And my work day STILL wasn't over as I was referred a potential client by a bankruptcy lawyer and I had to give him a call to do some fact gathering. Thirty to 45 minutes later, I wasn't sure we were a good fit (he didn't have any money to pay us!), but we still might take him on since there's value in his business being sold.

Throughout the day there were many other work emails and conversations (mostly while driving) related to work so it was a pretty productive day. One that I'm ok seeing come to an end. Unfortunately my monthly church finance committee meeting is tomorrow morning (at 7 a.m.) so I'll be up bright and early again. Ugh.

Piss Poor Bears

What a piss poor game the Bears played today. Ugh. We had a chance this season if we could go 7-1 to start, since it was likely that we'd go 1-7 to finish the season or possibly 2-6. Now we're 4-2 though and we lost to the hapless Seahawks; a game that would be considered a win on most teams' schedules. Now we have the Redskins next week, an iffy game if we can't beat the Seahawks, followed by a bye week and then Buffalo in Toronto. Then the tough part of the schedule hits when Minnesota rolls into town. Ugh.

The tailgate today was fun though as we had 8 people there and weren't far from my good buddies Gar and Jason (who sit in front of me at the game) and the Punke family who sits next to me. It was my first chili tailgate which is always memorable. The chili contains two kinds of meat, two peppers, a sweet onion and three types of beans. Very tasty, though one of my spicier batches. For breakfast we had the regular breakfast sandwiches and sausage with a bloody Maria (made with tequila instead of vodka) chaser. A very good breakfast.

Unfortunately I have a client meeting in Aurora tomorrow morning at 10, which means I have to leave around 8 to make sure I get there on time. Crap. Why did I agree to that meeting??

A day of golf

Today I spent almost the entire day golfing and hanging out with my golfing foursome. The host was a great guy who is now business partners with two other buddies of mine. Good stuff. The club to which he belongs is very nice and relatively close to downtown. If I were going to join a club ($60k initiation and about $10k a year) this one would certainly be in the running.

Unfortunately, I played like crap (again) and what was worse was that I THOUGHT I was going to shoot well. Since I don't have an official handicap, I had to come up with a number (similar to bowling Terri!) that I thought I'd shoot. It turned out that I was the "low man" so I had to give strokes to the other players on certain holes. Then I proceeded to play like crap on top of giving them strokes. Ugh. We were playing for a quarter a point with 6 points up for the taking on each hole and we rotated teammates. One rule in golf betting is that the team who is behind can "press" the bet meaning the point values double for that and future holes.

It came down to the 18th hole and I was trailing everyone by at least 10 points. My teammate and I already had a press on, so we pressed again making the hole worth 24 points and if you birdie the hole, it would be worth 48! The closing hole is a par 3 and I was the only one who hit the green and my teammate and I ended up with winning 20 points. All in all, I ended up winning a dollar, which is better than paying out money to everyone else!!

It turned out one of the guys in the group, Kris, was from Detroit so I couldn't resist telling my Ernie Harwell stories. Good fun.

LL comes home tomorrow!