The battle details

So Monday or Tuesday of last week I started developing the signs of a cold.  While I was thinking I successfully had fought it off, Friday everything turned on its head. Unfortunately it started while I was at the Bears practice being held at Soldier Field. My friend Laurie had to suffer along with me while my nose refused to stop running all of the sudden. Then it got worse as I wasn't able to really sleep Friday night, which was unfortunate since I had to get up at 5:30 a.m. for a softball tournament in Rockford. 

We had a reduced team (missing 7 guys by my count) and we were playing up a level in competition, so we lost both games for an early exit. Still, I was 4-6 hitting despite my lack of sleep. It started to catch up with me on the way home though and I ended up spending most of the rest of the day in bed. Saturday night was a little bit better with the help of Nyquil, but Sunday has been tough still. I'm going to try and make it through the day without Dayquil and then probably take Nyquil again tonight so that at least LL will get some sleep. Monday night is my 40 and over tournament, so hopefully I'll be rested enough for that and next weekend is a big tournament as well as Bill the Bear's wedding. Busy, busy, busy!!

Lost the battle

The cold has won. I feel like crap and sound worse. Ugh.

Joe weighs in on Chick-Fil-A

I had some different things to write about, but then someone posted the following on FB. Since it is a timely topic of what's going on, I thought I'd add my comments. Sorry if you're offended!  My comments are in red. By the way, I have many, many GLB friends and have lived in a GLB friendly neighborhood for 20 years. But I've been an American for 46 years and I absolutely support our right to free speech and to run a business. Here's the post:

Nothing highlights privilege and apathy more then (sic) hearing people complain about being overwhelmed by the 

coverage of the Chick-Fil-A situation and suggesting that people simply not eat there if they don't care for Dan Cathy's views.

Really?  You can’t think of any analogy that better embodies privilege (which I’m not sure has anything to do with this topic at all) and apathy than this issue?  Me thinks you’re not really trying too hard to come up with examples.

 In 29 states you can be fired for being gay. In 75 countries it is illegal to be gay. In 9 of those countries, being gay is punishable by death.

Other than the states issue, which you can be fired for any reason at all in Illinois and many states, it’s not the US. Not that we shouldn’t care, but we can’t solve the world’s problems. Women don’t have rights everywhere either.

Dan Cathy from Chick-Fil-A has donated $5M to two organizations in the US who have been seeking to criminalize same-sex relations.

Sorry, but there are tons of problematic organizations out there who get money from all sorts of people. It’s a free country. You can't legislate crazy.

This is money that he has received because of consumers purchasing food from Chick-Fil-A.

Consumers expressing their RIGHT to buy food where they want. And boy are those sandwiches good.

This is more than a first amendment issue or a same-sex marriage issue, this is about taking a stand for human rights. Dan Cathy is spending millions of dollars specifically to deny certain humans of their rights, not the other way around. I have yet to hear of any same sex couples donating millions to deny rights to heterosexual couples.

Are there any anti-heterosexual couple organizations?  Seems like a ridiculous comment. 

To suggest that both sides are at fault is like saying that a bully and their victim are both to blame.

Who is saying both sides are at fault? I think the argument is that Dan Cathy has a right to do what he wants with his money, as long as it’s legal. And what a horrible analogy. It gets worse though.

It's a form of tacit approval for systematic oppression. We didn't tell the Jews to leave Germany or complain that they were "whining" when they were forced into concentration camps and we didn't suggest that African Americans move from the South when they were denied the right to vote, we supported them.

Umm, what?  Did you really just try to equate the oppression of homosexuals to the oppression of Jews in WWII or slavery??  Yeah, you might want to rethink that discussion just a bit. Homosexuals aren’t being bused to extermination camps or routinely killed in the street.

So in conclusion, this is personal, because personally, I'd stand up for you if your human rights were being denied. If you don't like hearing about this, then step outside of your privilege and try to understand how it feels to have your human rights questioned.

Aww, how nice of you to try to make it personal! I doubt that you really would stand up for me personally if my rights were being denied (my gun rights in Chicago are currently being violated by the way, but that’s a separate issue).

Wassup?

Wow, I'm late with both writing and reading blogs!! Ugh.

We had Bill the Bear's bachelor party this weekend and we went golfing on Friday and Saturday. Sunday was supposed to be a relaxing day, which it was, and we played a legit game of Risk, the game of world domination. Good fun! I was in good position to win until Ricardo and Markakis joined forces in a truce which meant they only had to fight and protect against two people instead of three. Oddly enough, they would have been eliminated early if they hadn't, but ended up finishing first and second.

I drove home on Sunday night in order to go golfing again on Monday morning with some softball teammates from the past. Good guys and good fun, despite me playing like crap.


Here's the group! Blind Mender is on the far left. Yep, he golfed!!

My swing doesn't look too bad here.









Unfortunately, Smitty was sick up at the cabin and I've come down with eerily similar symptoms. Ugh. I haven't been sick for almost 2 years and one weekend up there got me sick. Crap. Now I'm just fighting off the cold as best I can. Today though I had Cubs tickets which are too nice to let go to waste, so I went and probably drank too much. Let's hope tomorrow I recover more!!

Some pics

Wow, just busy, busy, busy. Tomorrow morning I head up to Baraboo, WI for Bill the Bear's bachelor party.  My golfing buddies and Ricardo will be there, so it should be fun. There will be much eating and drinking and golfing. Good times.

Had the third and final walk through in the office today for potential movers. They come in and basically say, "Is this it?" Ha! Yep, it's not a lot, but it's all useful.



Here's my desk! Thought I should take a picture for posterity sake.  Lots of sunlight in our space. We have 8' windows lining both two walls in our triangular space. And yes, that's a safe door to the left!







Here's the view from my cube. You can see the windows and the triangular shape here.











Azure Stone Consulting!
















 Saw this today at the store. It's an end-cap with the same problem on each shelf.

Here's the problem. The shaving cream is on sale from $2.19 for......$2.19.  Only through tomorrow though!!!

Closing up shop

Big things going on at work that are keeping me way too busy. We're closing our office of...boy...six years? This business is where Ricardo and I do the "back office" work for a software company and work has been slowing down for the past two years. It's unfortunate for all involved because it was a nice paycheck for us and of course the software developers were happily making money. Things change though, so the decision as made to close down our Chicago office. At first though, another company with whom I'm involved was going to take it over. Unfortunately, things have not gone as hoped there either, so they have had to back out. The only real problem is that the lease is up at the end of July. The landlord has recently agreed to extend us a few more days though, for $50 a day, that will allow us to get everything moved out. That was a relief as I couldn't get movers in by the end of the month to pack stuff up and ship it. They get booked pretty far in advance as you might expect.

But we're not just moving our stuff out, as that would be too easy. Nope. We're packing it up and shipping it to Oregon! Yep, Oregon. We outfitted the office with good furniture and such, so instead of just buying new stuff for this new office in Oregon (different but related company) it was decided to investigate packing it up and shipping it all. So now that the landlord has extended us, I've been scheduling moving companies to come in and provide a quote, as well as packing up personal stuff which I'm going to have to find a home for, much to LL's chagrin.

Closing up shop is easier than opening it up, but there's a lot of details that need to be worked out. It's keeping me busy!

Problem solved

The last issue in my master bath renovation was the minor issue of the door not being able to be closed with the toilet seat down. Obviously that was very frustrating, especially given that it's only about 1/4 of an inch that was causing the trouble. Well, last Sunday while I was playing softball and LL was out of town, some waste backed up into the master bath tub (like it did before, but this time the toilet was in place) and some water wept through seals in the pipe (long story, but this is actually acceptable according to code) into our basement again through the same (unfinished) hole in the ceiling. So I called the plumbers back to discuss what happened and possibly to clear the line again. They wanted to jump right in with tearing out the master bath toilet, but I was very hesitant given the trouble that we had putting it on in the first place.

The plumbers weren't sure if the line was open or not, but the only way to find out would be to pull the toilet and send a camera down there to verify. I wasn't sold. Then I mentioned that the door wouldn't close because of the toilet seat and that it was difficult to get the toilet reset. One of the plumbers said he was 95% sure that he could reset the toilet and move it back about 1/4" so the door would clear the seat. Done! Moving the toilet back requires a flange that allows for it (which I had) and some skill with stacking wax rings. They did a great job though.

Now the line is clear AND my bathroom door closes! Good stuff.

You were warned!

More people should be reading my blog apparently. From 5 years ago! And the story today.

It's a matter of scale

Today I had my second six week follow up doctors appointment with my cervical spine specialist.  The last visit went well and the doctor basically said that as long as my left triceps keeps getting stronger AND I don't feel pain, then I can avoid surgery.  If however, either my muscle doesn't get stronger or I feel pain in my neck (or related muscles) then it's under the knife for me.

In the short term, the surgery option is awful. Softball is going well. I'm practicing my new golf swing. We have tickets to go see Joisey Ken in August. Bill the Bear is getting married in August and we have his bachelor party planned out (which involves golf as well). So a lot of things would be changed for the worse if I had surgery. In the long term though, my strength would most likely come back 100% at some point down the road post-surgery. It wouldn't be guaranteed, but it was likely.

So, a lot was riding on my office visit today. The doc came in and started his assessment, first feeling my triceps for atrophy.  Afterwards he posited, "Now which one had the weakness?" "My left." I said, along with, "Well that must be a good sign if you can't tell!". He muttered about it not being conclusive and went through the usual battery of strength tests, though he repeated one of them several times. At the end he said, "Well, you were a 3+/4- early on; then a 4/4+ and now I'd say you're probably a 4+/5-." Oh, I thought to myself. That's not very good. We had a discussion about how I was concerned that my strength wasn't a plateau, but it's slope was very shallow and I'd hoped for a steeper improvement curve.  That discussion didn't seem to interest him much and I wondered if he's not into math.

Anyway, he agreed that I didn't need to do anymore formal physical therapy (a recommendation from my therapist) and that I should continue strengthening it on my own. I asked if golfing and playing softball could be impeding a quicker recovery and he said it shouldn't unless I was experiencing pain (which I haven't been). And that was it. We shook hands and out he went. Briefly I felt like Charlie at Wonka's factory when Wonka says good-bye to him and Grandpa Joe, before Charlie turns in the Everlasting Gobstopper and inherits the factory. A little confused.

"Should I set up an appointment in six weeks?"  I called after him.  "Nope. No need to come back unless you re-injure it."  Oh happy day!

After lunch, I went to my last PT appointment and discussed what the doctor said including how I was only a 4+/5-.  "Well, the scale only goes to 5 you know right?" said my therapist Lauren. "Um, no. I kind of assumed it was a 10 point scale. Who uses a 5 point scale??" Apparently therapists and doctors!

My triceps is by no means that close to 100% of what it was, but it is stronger and there's hope for a full recovery.  Much work ahead though.

Weekend results

This weekend really started on Thursday night with golf with the boyz which bled into golf the next day.  While I played awful on Thursday (due in part I think to going to physical therapy in the morning), I played pretty awesome on Friday shooting an 81 (42-39). Have I turned a corner with the golf swing? Stay tuned.

Saturday was an early, early morning since I had to be Byron, IL by 7 a.m. and Byron is 90 minutes away.  Amazingly, I got up before 5 and was on the road early. There's no traffic at that hour of the morning, as you would expect, so I got to the highway in about 10 minutes instead of the usual 20+. Great start. Then, a screeching halt. An accident about 150 yards past the split of the highway at 90-94 was closing all four lanes. ALL of them!!  C'mon!! So I took 94, instead, got off on the first exit and tried to get on at the next entrance ramp past the accident. Nope. Cop blocking it there. Damnit!!! By the time I got to the next ramp, about a half an hour had gone by and now I was late. It didn't get much better after some missed turns and bad directions near the fields, so I got there about 15 minutes before the game. Ugh.

Anyway, we went 4-0 on Saturday winning three games by the slaughter rule. The fourth game we won 16-14 against a team a level above us in this organization (USSSA). Since they were a level above us, they had to give us 2 runs but they got to be the home team, supposedly making the teams equal. If that's true, then we were really equal as we would have tied without them.  Sunday was a later start as I didn't have to be there until 10. Fortunately there were no accidents this time and I was on time for batting practice.  All the teams left now were a level above us, and we played the eventual champion right off the bat. We had an 11-8 lead in the bottom of the seventh and they hit a grandslam to win it. Ugh. We won the next game though 14-11, again against a higher level team and got matched up with the same team we had just lost to with the task of having to beat them twice. We pulled it off the first game, 14-12, and then lost in the last game 13-3. The team was pretty well spent by the time the last game came around. It was toasty and muggy.

Upon my return, LL was home from her trip to Iowa. It was great to see her again as she had been gone since Thursday morning! I miss my Sweetie when she goes away.

Golf, golf and oh yeah, softball.

Busy couple of days, so I've missed my posts. Yesterday was golfing with the Boyz (Bill the Bear, Smitty and Markakis).  Unfortunately, I had physical therapy in the morning and my swing was crap the whole round. In fact, on the front nine, I only hit two fairways with my drive and both of them were off of trees!! Just awful. So when I got up to go golfing Friday morning (for business purposes), I had low, low expectations. On the practice range I tried to work on just a few shots, 3 clubs, and got them all to "work" the way I wanted. Out on the course, I played pretty well shooting a 42-39. The three over par on the back could have been two strokes better had I been able to hit two short, four foot putts. Ugh.

While we were merrily golfing, storms surrounded the area and enveloped Chicago proper. In fact, there was something like a 3 hour rain delay at the Cubs game. Nary a drop fell on us at the golf course though. We actually heard storm sirens, but decided to ignore them since nothing seemed imminent near us, though there was a quick confirmation of the radar using our cell phones.

The rain came down so hard and fast in my neighborhood, I'm told, that the street was covered sidewalk to sidewalk in water. Yikes! Fortunately part of the problem was debris blocking the sewers, and once cleared, the water drained pretty well. Happy to report there were no problems in the basement!!

Softball tomorrow and Sunday in Byron, IL at Byron Fest. Should be a good time.

Happy Anniversary!!

Three and a half years ago I went on a date to Starbucks on a Sunday morning. As I was now an experienced eHarmony customer and dater, meeting at Starbucks or for a drink at a wine bar or something was my initial meeting go to plan. Both options were relatively short in duration and an easy exit if they turned out to not be as described or there was no chemistry. This date however was very promising so I asked her if she wanted to go to brunch at a nearby diner.  She said yes, despite the extreme cold of that January morning and we enjoyed a thoroughly enjoyable meal as well as each other's company. She offered to pay, which I thanked her for but of course refused. We walked to her car said goodbye with an appropriately nice kiss. 1) nice to talk to, 2) offer to pay, 3) kiss. She met all three requirements for a second date....and as it turns out, much more.

It's tough to believe it's been 3 1/2 years since my first date with LL. Time really does fly when you're having fun.  It's been ten months since we got married, which seems like last month! Crazy.

 Anyway, it's our date-aversary today and we're both very happy!!

Suckered

Over the last 10 years, Redbox has really changed the face of dvd rentals (just ask Blockbuster and Netflix). If you aren't familiar with them, they have a limited selection of movies and games, maybe 50 per kiosk, and charge basically $1, depending on taxes and such. You get the movie for a day and can return it to any Redbox kiosk.

It's worked well for us over the last few years since they've been in the area, but I've noticed a disturbing trend.  When a new movie comes out (in the theaters), Redbox will offer a movie with a similar title or an earlier version of the movie (like Ironman if Ironman II is in the box office).  While there are certainly good reasons to offer the prequel to a current movie (some people just want background info on the current movie), it seems....a little underhanded. Do you really want a business model that relies in part on confusing your customer for sales?  Seems like a pretty bad idea.

Yesterday, after getting groceries for dinner, I texted LL to see if she wanted to watch a movie and presented her with two options. One of the movies was Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies and while it sounds awful, the commercials we've seen for it look pretty good actually and some people have reviewed it as good as well.  So what the heck, we'll take a flyer for $1.30.  Unfortunately, the movie we were thinking of was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and it's still in the theaters. Doh! A.L. vs. Zombies was absolutely AWFUL and we didn't even finish watching it. We got duped and I shot off an email to Redbox today. We'll see how they respond. NOBODY should watch this movie!! I would venture to say that nobody rents this movie because they actually think it's going to be a good movie or because a friend recommended it. The ONLY reason to rent it is by mistake. Can't be good for business long term.

Fish and crabs

It was a busy Monday filled with running errands and such, but when the end of the day came around and LL came home, I started cooking dinner. It was later than I wanted, since we've rented a movie, but we ate shortly after 7 which isn't too bad. Though I told LL I was making the trout with mushrooms and rice recipe I've mentioned before, I neglected to tell her that I was also steaming some Opilio crab that was on sale.  Both turned out very tasty and LL was very happy, especially since she changed clothes and took a little nap while I cooked. Yay!!

That's it for me today!

The bathroom project

The new master bath is indeed done! Sort of. Well, it's mostly done. Just some minor things to get done, but first let's go to the pictures. Oh, there's a video at the end if you'd rather go that route.



So let's start with the before. I almost forgot to take "before" pictures, as evidence by the tile removed.

There's the old vanity, medicine cabinet and toilet. Above the toilet used to be shelves, but I took them down a few years ago when I thought I was going to start the renovation.












And now the "after" pictures! Note that the tile extends around the room and well past just the bathtub area which is all that was tiled before.

The ceilings are 10' high, so I can't get everything into the pictures. These show you a good portion of it though. The floor tile is the same as in the guest bathroom. The color scheme is the same as well.












Those are towel rods sans the towels. The medicine cabinet is about the same size as the old one, but I put up a new storage shelf above the new toilet.

Oh, there is the storage shelf. Note the decorative switch plate that handles the light on the ceiling, the light above the vanity, the exhaust fan, the light in the exhaust fan and a night light in the exhaust fan.  Cool set up!









Here's the shower complete with curved curtain rod and I've raised the shower head about a foot or so.

I also put a towel rod on the back wall of the shower, where I had one before, just because I like to have it there. The two nooks provide space  for shampoo, soap and anything else you want to put in there.

 And here's the video tour.

In case you couldn't get the video to play, the only problem so far in the room is that the door won't close!! That's right. Actually, it DOES close, but not like normal. Remember that toilet that I had to pay $100 extra to get because it wasn't stock? Well, it added enough length from the wall into the room that when the toilet seat is down (which I also had to special order to get the color to match) the door won't swing past it. Ugh!!! We've decided MLM is going to use a router to round it out to match the edge of the bowl and not extend past it (which it currently does by about 1/4") and then we'll stain the cut area to match.

It's always something!!!

Sometimes, you need to take a step back and look at the forest

Things can always be worse. In general, I live a pretty privileged life and should count my blessings much more than complain about my woes. Yesterday for instance, I had some running around to do including a 9:30 physical therapy appointment and a 1:30 oil change appointment. Though I wanted to get some time at the gym in, I also have a 5:30 happy hour appointment with my buddy T-Rex Tim, whom I haven't seen since he had his second kid. The oil change takes 90 minutes, instead of 60 as promised, and then the weather went nuts dropping 25 degrees in about 3 minutes and the rains and wind swept through the area. So instead of going straight to the gym, I wanted to stop at home to get my umbrella first. In doing so, MLM informed me of a problem with the plumbing which required me stopping at Home Depot on the way to the gym. I also got an odd blocked phone call that I let go to voice mail.

Now it was about 3:30 and I was rushed if I was going to get a good workout in before happy hour. First to Home Depot though. Oh, I better check that message too. Oh no, I left my wallet at the oil change place. Ugh. Now I was really behind!

So again I cut down my run to 2 miles in just over 20 minutes and then lifted some weights before showering and heading home to change and then off to happy hour.

Seems hectic, and it was, but let's take a step back:
-I lost my wallet!! It fell out of my pocket in a room full of people and I got it back without anything missing.
-I was able to work out.
-The time pressure was self imposed to meet a social obligation.

All in all, that's not only not too bad, it's pretty damn good. Sometimes though, you just have to take a step back and look at the forest.

Odds and ends

The huge delay in MLM finishing our bathroom, which may happen on Friday, has been more than just an inconvenience of not having the bathroom to use. Noooooo. It's more than just having a contractor in your house for two months, one month longer than projected. Nooooo. There are side effects of the job, aside from the toilet issues which caused issues in our basement. Here's a few picks of the "other issues". Mainly it's the unavailability of our pool table and the area anywhere near it.

Organized chaos. The area is completely unusable, but it has to be staged somewhere.

On a happier note, to kick off the July 4th holiday, I made LL some lobster tails. I've never made them before, but they aren't difficult to make! Here they are on the pan, ready to be broiled. We bought them at Whole Foods and they were relatively inexpensive. Good eating!! I followed them up on July 4th morning with more fresh fruit crepes!! Yum!

While LL and I were out walking about, we saw this are piece on a corner not too far from the house. Pretty compelling. There's a figure inside the ball if you look closely. Pretty cool.

The latest entrant on OUR corner is this piece. Not bad. Actually, pretty cool. I'm happy that our Alderman is supporting this kind of work.

More than Ruffled Feathers

Yesterday I went golfing with my buddy JC out in Lemont at a course called Ruffled Feathers. Probably 4-5 years ago, it was a pretty upscale course, and it's still good, but after a management change, the course has run into some disrepair. There are potholes on the cart paths that would make the city of Chicago proud. And the sand in the bunkers more closely resembles dirt than sand. Both are fixable issues, but they detract from the overall experience, which for $90 should be pretty good.

Bathroom update: still not done. We are now at week 8 and the bathroom isn't done, but the finishing touches are being applied. MLM is painting now and then the fixtures go on: toilet, vanity, closet, towel bars, toilet paper holder, etc. Hopefully by the end of the week we'll be good to go.

This is where we are at today. MLM's leg is in the picture on the left. The one missing tile is where the TP holder fits. Had to go online to find a special switch plate cover for that light switch.

Here's the back wall with tile going up about 3-4'.    The tile goes all the way around the room.

The shower, which I've already used BTW. The shower curtain had to be taken down while MLM finishes his work though.

Here's the new ceiling fan. It's bigger and stronger than the old one and will have a nightlight as well as a regular light. Not too shabby.



















This picture is a little old as well (the ceiling is all painted now), but it shows the floor tile....at least most of it.

Ribfest? Why yes!

Every Fourth of July, my home town (at least since I was 10) conducts an awesome Ribfest with not only ribs, but good music and fireworks.  In the past we've seen Huey Lewis, Joan Jett (pretty much anyone from the '80's) and others. This year, on Friday, Steve Miller Band was going to be playing and we thought that would be the trip we'd make to Ribfest.  This year though, they upped the prices based on the day and the music, so Friday night was $25 pp!!  That's insane! Last year it was $10, which I thought was a bit much for the right to pay too much money for not enough ribs (a half slab was running like $18 or something). For those of you who don't know, you can get a rack of ribs for $12-$15 depending on the weight. So, instead of paying $50 just to get in on Friday, I went out and bought ribs and cooked them for us for Friday night. As usual, I made two full racks so we had plenty of leftovers for the weekend. They weren't my best effort, LL liked them, but they were decent. Between Saturday and Tuesday you could get into Ribfest for $10-$20 depending on the day, but with the heat, we felt it better just to stay home in the a/c and eat the ribs I made....at a table....with our beverage of choice....and with sweet potatoes. We'll catch Steve Miller and "fly like an eagle" another time.


Saturday morning, the start of another weekend without softball, I made crepes again since I was able to buy some good looking strawberries to go with the blueberries, blackberries and Nutella we already had on hand.  Good eating!! 


Saturday afternoon was a gym day for me as I had a day of rest from my physical therapy and no softball to play on Sunday.  Unfortunately I also had a time crunch with a planned trip to Joliet with LL to hook up with her niece and nephew (and their parents).  So I did the best I could with the time I had: I ran two miles in about 20 minutes and then used the ten minutes or so that I would have used to run that third mile to go lift weights and do PT exercises. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing!

Sunday I ran errands, which included a trip to Lowe's to return tile and drill bits. I tell ya, as bad as my experience was buying the stuff it was that GOOD returning it. They scanned all of my receipts (5 or 6 of them) and then everything I was returning and it matched them up and printed one return receipt (for about $200)! Very nice.

Sockeye Season!

Yes, it's that time of year! The salmon are running and Sockeye is available at your local grocery. It's not cheap, $13 a pound here, but it is delicious.  How do you prepare it?  Well, I would normally grill it on a wood plank, but seeing as it's hovering around 100 degrees here in Chicago today, I opted for broiling.  Here's the recipe I used, sort of. I didn't add salt and didn't have lemon zest, so I just used lemon pepper and maybe a little less brown sugar. It was delicious! Now, in the last minute or so (I cooked them for 7), the brown sugar that has melted off the salmon will start to burn, but don't freak out. It's not a problem and the brown sugar that doesn't run off and burn adds another texture and taste that's awesome.

The toilet is fixed and back running. Other than the ceiling in the basement having yet another hole in it, it wasn't a huge deal.  The problem was that the nuts holding down the toilet had become unscrewed somehow and the entire toilet shifted to one side by about 3/8ths of an inch and caused the wax seal to be compromised.  After MLM and I assessed the situation, I went out and bought a new wax ring and another set of bolts and had MLM install it.  Yes, I probably could have done it myself as it's not particularly difficult, but since he was already here I just had him do it. After he finished the install, I cut away more of the ceiling and sprayed it with bleach to kill off some mold. Maybe I didn't get it all, but I got a bunch of it.

Why do you have three toilets?

....because at some point, two of them could be out of order!! As the renovation of the master bath continues, there was additional usage of the guest bathroom toilet.  Guess what ended up leaking and causing damage to the ceiling in LL's bathroom?  You guessed it.  Now we're down to just the downstairs toilet.  Tomorrow morning we'll determine if it's a wax ring leak or something else that is causing trouble. Regardless, the ceiling in the bathroom has to be repaired now and painted. Ugh. Fortunately(???) the ceiling hasn't been repaired yet from when the master bath toilet leaked, so that can all be done at one time. LL is NOT happy. Can't help but think if the master bath renovation had moved along more quickly, we wouldn't have had so much use on the guest bathroom toilet and it wouldn't have leaked.....

More Gluttony (blame ESDNM)

ESDNM is in town so that means two things: 1) calling on clients and 2) gluttony. So far however, it hasn't been too bad. We've only had one full on business meeting and one prospect meeting. After ESDNM got in on Monday evening, we went to the grocery store and I bought some fish and mushrooms and made my Trout with mushrooms recipe.  Turned out pretty good! This morning maybe I went a little over the top by cooking breakfast (for LL too). For some reason I decided to make buckwheat crepes with Nutella, blueberries, blackberries or bananas. Pretty tasty. For lunch we went to Fala-Fil, which is a falafel shop, as you might expect. Dinner though was sort of a stumbling block. We made a return trip to Sun-Wah, a great Chinese barbecue place that ESDNM original found for us.  Ricardo joined us, which didn't help, and we had a table full of food. It was all good, but just too much. We'll see how tomorrow plays out.....

Catching up

On Friday I decided to hit the links as it was a pretty nice day and I haven't been golfing enough lately. Plus there was no softball this weekend, so golfing on Friday was an option. I don't like to golf before a softball tournament as the swings and weight-shifts are different and can cause problems.  Anyway, I played absolutely terrible on the front nine, granted, without any warm ups, and picked it up on the back.  Afterwards, LL and I had Mexican food at our favorite place in the area, Garcias, and watched the "new" Sherlock Holmes movie. It's new to Redbox, but came out last year. Pretty good flick!

Saturday morning I cooked breakfast for LL: crepes with Nutella/bananas/blueberries and breakfast sausages.  Pretty tasty! It was mostly a relaxing day, so I decided to cook dinner for our neighbors, who are about 8 1/2 months pregnant. We ended up hanging out with them on the back porch from 6:30 until 10! Good fun.

Sunday was the Gay Pride Parade in the neighborhood, so we decided to head out to Naperville instead of hanging around for the massive celebrations. Actually, LL had made plans with a girlfriend to get pedicures and I had a softball game at 4, so we both went out early and saw my folks and I did some shopping for new bathroom stuff. Then we took my parents out for Father's Day to Catch 35, which is a really nice seafood place.  

When we got home, there was no problem getting into our parking spots. Last year, the police wouldn't let us down the street even 5 hours after the parade was over!! Finally, after 20 years of parading, they changed the route so it was more or less a continuous path instead of a circle around our block. The old route more than just inconvenienced us. It endangered parade watchers and inhabitants within the parade "circle". If there was an emergency inside the parade route, they would have (and have had!) a terrible time getting help inside with any urgency. This new route lets us come and go (east at least) and provides access (from both east and west). 

So all in all it was a nice, relaxed weekend. A shame it had to come to an end!

Bathroom update

So is the master bathroom going to be done tomorrow?  No, it is not. Will it be done next week sometime?  Geez, I hope, but probably not.  Yes, it's been...what...5 weeks?  Well, when it's done it will look nice.

Even though I put in an extra week+ of time for MLM to do his work, it wasn't enough. My calculation error came from a few areas: 1) Memorial Day (forgot about it) 2) the anniversary of unrelated neighbors of a friend of Ricardo's (yes, I'll wait while you try to work through that again) caused him to miss another two days 3) he got sick for two days 4) I didn't have him working longer days earlier in the project (he's been working 9-5 the last two weeks instead of 10:30-3:30). Oh well, it's getting closer.

This wall is where the vanity and toilet will be.














This bad boy caused a day delay: it's an exhaust fan that is 30% stronger, but unfortunately is also bigger and caused MLM to freak about the positioning and getting it installed. My bad for not getting one the same size.

Here's where the shower head will be. The grout is in and I'll be able to use the shower come Monday, but that's about it.










Most of the floor is in, but the edges haven't been finished yet. Plus the trim has to be stained and installed as well. Yeah, there's at least another week's worth of MLM work to be done.

Changing topics: here's our new piece of art at the end of the street across from the Starbucks. It's one of my favorites so far.

Date night....only better

A lot of couples have a date night. Maybe it's weekly, maybe it's monthly, it varies, but a bunch of married people I know have them.  I've always thought it was kind of dumb: what do you do on NON date nights?? Not hangout with your spouse?  Since LL and I spend pretty much every night together, we haven't really ventured into the date night world. Sometimes we eat out or we go to a comedy club or whatever, but I don't see that as a date night. Maybe that's the difference: other married couples (maybe because of kids!) DO see those nights as date nights. I just call them Tuesday.

So last night LL was very excited about having a date night with me (mind you last week we went to 3 comedy clubs, a baseball game and had a pizza night with friends).  I took the bus down to her work and we went to a movie: Safety Not Guaranteed.  If this movie opens ANYWHERE near you, you should go see it. Very good. Anyway, before going to see the movie, we walked by Garrett's popcorn and picked up a medium bag of Chicago Mix: caramel and cheese corn. OMG was it awesome. Anyway, we snuck it, as well as a bottle of water, into the theater courtesy of LL's large purse (I knew it would come in handy some day!) . Garrett's wasn't any cheaper than getting popcorn at the theater, but it's wayyyyyy better. 


The movie was at 5:40, so the popcorn was a nice appetizer that tided us over until dinner. After the movie, we headed down a few streets to a good Thai place and had a nice dinner.  So a movie and dinner, I guess that's a date night, but as I told LL: it's better. Why?  Because I know LL's not crazy whereas that's always a risk when you go on a regular date!

Pizza Crew

Last night we had our first successful "Pizza Crew Outing" with two of our favorite couples: Ricardo and Jodi and Naperville Greg and Kleveland Kim.  The restaurant, Ciao Napoli in Logan Square, was suggested by Jodi and it turned out to be a winner. We ate and ate and ate and drank and drank. It was mucho fun. I'm not sure why everyone but me is wearing a black shirt in the middle of June when it was 85+ outside, but whatever. Made me stand out a bit!  We ate outside since it was so nice, though the sun did end up shining in our eyes for a bit just before it set.  They had Pranqster on tap, which is one of my favorite beers.  Next up for the crew is Coal Fire Pizza on west Grand.  We're trying to go to places we haven't been before and KK was good enough to save a magazine which had a "Top 25 Chicago pizza restaurants" article in it. That's where we got Coal Fire Pizza from...I think it was top 5. We'll see!! It's really tough to get dates for this group though. I have softball many weekends, KK is a flight attendant, NG likes to hunt up on his farmland in WI and Ricardo and Jodi have a place in WI where they go many weekends as well. We came up with this idea back in March at my birthday dinner and it took us a while to get it scheduled. Hopefully we'll be able to get July on the books soon!

Who didn't get the black shirt memo??

Pranqster served in a Chimay glass.....an awesome combination!

Busy Saturday

Not golfing on Sunday morning turned out to be the best thing ever for me. OK, well, not the best thing EVER, but a pretty good decision. Softball on Saturday ran long, no big surprise, but I was home in time to shower, eat and go see Nick Offerman at The Vic. His show actually wasn't all that good and we didn't get to bed until about 1. If I were to golf at 8:15 in Naperville, I would have gotten about 5 hours of sleep. Instead I got almost 8 hours and then made crepes for LL.  This time the selection was blueberries, bananas and Nutella. They were delicious. Throw in some coffee and it was a pretty great, lazy Sunday morning.

Saturday was a much different story though.  I was up before 6 and on the road by 6:30 to get to Rockford by 8 a.m. for batting practice. Our first game was at 9 and started on time, but the rain started mid-game and caused a 2 hour delay before the 7th inning could be started. After we played the last inning (and won the game!), we had another 2 hour break. Our next two games were back to back, but by the time I left the complex, it was about 6:30, so I got home around 8. It was 13 1/2 hours away from home. A long day and it wasn't near being over. LL had made delicious stuffed peppers, so after showering, I wolfed down a few of those and then it was off to see Offerman.

The tournament in which we played was a state tournament for teams a level above us in USSSA. There were four teams in the tournament at our level, which was half the field, so in the first game they matched up a higher level team against a lower level team.  We screwed things up by winning the game though 16-14! One of our better players had to leave after that first game (because of all the delays he only played the one game instead of at least 2 and possibly 3) and we were missing some other folks not to mention some injuries which limited our crew, so we ended up dropping the next two games, though both games were one run affairs through at least 5 innings.  I played pretty well hitting a robust .850 (11-13) and making some good plays at third. One interesting note (to me at least) was that I don't think I walked at all! Nor did I have any extra base hits. All singles. Odd.

A rarity

Since when does Joe bail on golf?  Until now, it pretty much had to be due to a LOT of rain or really cold temperatures. Sunday though I had to bail on my buddy JC for other reasons. Saturday morning I have to get out to Rockford by 8 a.m. for a softball tournament and then we're seeing Nick Offerman at his 10:00 p.m. show. JC wanted me to golf with him at 8:15 at a course that's close to an hour away. So that would mean two days in a row of getting up at 6 a.m., followed up with only 5-6 hours of sleep after a day in the sun. Probably not a recipe for success at golf on Sunday and I'd probably just not really enjoy it as much as I'd like to, so JC and I are going to try and hit the links another day.

Last night we saw Patton Oswalt perform and he was pretty funny.  Tell you what though, the guy that opened for him was hysterical! His name is Kyle Kinane and he actually headlined his own show earlier in the week! It was like getting a two-fer! The show was at The Vic Theater, which is known best me as the venue for Brew-n-View, where we bought quarter beers and watched classic movies in a very boisterous environment. When we walked into the general admission seating first floor, the center seats were pretty full and most of what was available was along the sides. So we decided to head upstairs to the balcony and we got second row center!! Nice! The show on Saturday is at the same venue, so we'll probably try to get the same seats.


Here we are at Park West getting ready for Amy Shumer.

Outside Park West and inside The Vic.

Credit Card Payback

Last week sometime, I called my credit card company to question a charge on my account. They could only tell me exactly what I could already see online: it was a charge from a company with whom I have not done business and it was for "periodicals or printing". Neither made any sense to me and the fact that it was a Wisconsin company made it even more odd. They couldn't give me a vendor phone number, physical address..nothing! WTH?? How can they not have that information readily available? So, finally, one of the people with whom I spoke said I could Google the name and maybe I'd find more information that way. It was a shot in the dark since the company name was "Ram", which seemed pretty general to me. Combined with the bit of data with them being from Wisconsin though gave me enough information to remember the charge and that it was valid: it was for jerseys for the softball team (I'm the team treasurer)  and the company I dealt with was Shirts and Logos, Inc. Weird.

The bank asked me to fill out a questionnaire based on my experience and I basically tore them a new one because I thought it was ridiculous that they couldn't give me any useful information about the charge. Yesterday I got an envelope from the bank, which I opened today. In it was a new credit card because they believed my information "had been compromised" and the new card was in the name of security.  Hmmmm, on the surface, they want me to think they are looking out for me. The reality?  I have to call/go to no fewer than eight companies for which I have automatic billing to change my account number. It seems to me that the person whom I ripped on the phone probably just pushed a button labeled "send new card" and thought we were even now.  Unfortunately, they actually came out ahead. Payback's a bitch.

Last night kicked off our week of busy nights of entertainment with the Cubs/Tigers game. Tony Campana is one of the Cubs' lead-off hitters and is super fast. Going to the game is a little more fun watching him wheel around the bases and haul ass down the first base line. He's fun to watch!!  And yes, we're wearing Bears gear as it got a little chilly when the sun went down.

Comedy Galore!

Tonight, LL and I are going to the Cubs/Tigers game. Should be fun.  We didn't have any tickets in May,   so this is the first game in a while and it was the first game I chose at our ticket draft back in March. Since Detroit is in the American League, they don't play here very often (2006 was the last time) and it's a rematch of the the 1945, 1935, 1907 and 1908 World Series.  The Tigers won the two former while the Cubs won the two latter.

Wednesday we are going to see Amy Shumer. She's a pretty funny comedian and is here as part of Justforlaughschicago, which is an event sponsored in some way by TBS while Conan is doing his show from Chicago.  Thursday we are going to see Patton Oswalt and then Saturday we're going to see Nick Offerman. There are so many good comedians that we could see two performers a night easily. They are performing all over town, so it'll be interesting going to the different venues as well.

And we'll probably be going out to eat before the shows as our refrigerator has conked out! Yep, it just stopped working last night. I didn't notice that it was no longer cooling anything, but I did notice that the ice dispenser wasn't working. I thought that was the only problem, but obviously not. The compressor is still under warranty so if that's the problem, at least it won't be a ton of money to get it fixed. Until it's fixed, we have a cooler filled with ice to keep some refrigerator stuff cool and some ice to use for drinks. Just like a tailgate....only in our kitchen.

Dinner with Joe (not me Joe, another Joe...though I was there too)

Everything went pretty well this weekend with the many events going on.  The ribs we had for dinner on Thursday and Friday were delicious. Saturday we hit the Ribfest on Lincoln avenue and then Nick Markakis' apartment for a party celebrating the arrival of his new roommate. After a few hours there, it was off to dinner with Joe and Kendra from Highland Park, a northern burb. We met them up in Evanston at a place called Stained Glass. It's a ritzy place, but interesting because the "stained glass" wasn't like church stained glass. Nope, it was like WINE stained glass. Very cool logo of a glass stain on a napkin or table and they made sure to just slightly miss-pour their wine so that it left a circular stain on your table paper/linen. Very cool.  The food was VERY good, but like I said, not inexpensive.



Here's Joe and Kendra! Joe got the Tuna, Tuna, Tuna dish which, as the name implies, serves you tuna three ways. Kendra got the barramundi. I forgot to ask her how it was. We had grilled calamari (good), bacon and eggs (delicious) and salad with smoked trout (awesome) as appetizers. You need to check out the menu for the descriptions.

And here's me and LL. I ordered the filet mignon with a side of short rib pot-au-feu for dipping which was awesome. LL had the free range chicken (forgot to ask her too...I was very involved with my own meal!).  If you go, get the flights of wine. They are 3 glasses and EACH glass had a pour that is slightly smaller than a regular pour, so you come out way ahead for only $5 more!

We love Joe and Kendra dearly, so it was a great way to finish off a very fun day!!

Ribs and more ribs

Yesterday I decided it was time to finally make ribs, which I hadn't made in I don't know how long. The plan was to make enough ribs for dinner tonight as well, which I did.  Unfortunately, I found out later that this weekend was a rib festival just down the street a bit. Shoot. So either we're going to have ribs three days straight, or take a pass on the festival. Not sure which at this point!

Saturday night we have dinner plans AND a party to go to, so that's going to require some juggling as well. Also on Saturday night, unfortunately, is a naked bike. That's right, a naked bike ride. All these people, men and women, get on bikes, naked, and ride around until about midnight. Of course NONE of the people are people that you would WANT to see naked, but even if they were, it's tough to look good naked on a bike. A few years back, I got stuck driving in the middle of it. Ugh. I'm hoping to avoid that fiasco this year.

Sunday has a double-header in the burbs with my 40 and over softball team. The games are early, noon and one I think, so the rest of the day will be free.....maybe to go get more ribs!

Round and Round

As I mentioned yesterday, I was at Halas Hall for my second Advisory Group meeting on Monday. We discussed a bunch of topics: a kids' club (the benefits, how much it would cost, one time or renewal, etc), a womens' club (same topics), the benefits of our stadium club seats, some marketing stuff....it was good. All except for one....small.....event.

First, some history: about 7 years ago the Bears drafted Cedric Benson with the fourth pick of the first round. My buddy, Mike, who has since moved to New Jersey, and I went to Soldier Field to watch a practice.  At the time, Benson still had not signed his contract and was holding out for more money. At the draft he stated he wouldn't hold out, so it was pretty annoying. The Bears had been notoriously cheap with their players and many fans, myself included, were upset with them for not signing him to a contract to get him ready for the regular season. He held out and missed all of training camp before eventually signing a 5 year deal worth $35M.

So at this practice, I was VERY audible about the Bears paying Benson his money and to stop being cheap. During one of my public rants, a Bears employee pipes up from behind me that "maybe Benson doesn't WANT to sign!"  Well of course he doesn't want to sign, I snorted, the Bears are too cheap to pay the market rate he wants. "Their current offer is for $17M guaranteed, which is more than what the fourth pick got last year." At this point he seemed very unhappy with my arguing, so I let it go (I didn't want to jeopardize my relatively new season tickets).

Back to Monday night at Halas Hall.  They showed us the images on the tickets which had a different player on every ticket. The first ticket was of Henry Melton, a defensive tackle that started 15 games last year, but is really just a rotational guy with three or four other guys. "So what do you think of the look?" we were asked. "Well, is that Melton on the opening day ticket?" From behind me came a voice saying, "Yeah, what's wrong with Melton? He's starting."  So I turn around and say, "Well maybe he is starting for us, but I don't know about an NFL starter."  And then I get the feeling that I've met this guy, a Bears employee, before. Yep, it's the same dude from 7 years ago. His name is Adam and he's been with the Bears since 2000.

When we went to our breakout session I asked him if he remembered our "discussion" from 2005. He did not as apparently he's pretty opinionated himself and it surprised nobody with the Bears that I would have had such a conversation with him. Too funny how stuff comes around like that.

Halas Hall Visit #2

Monday was our second Season Ticket Holder Advisory Group meeting. It's a haul up to Lake Forest for the 5:45 meeting, but they provide dinner...and it's fun! This time we talked about various marketing plans and even got to see the ticket design for this year (Bears confidential: What's up with Henry Melton on the opening day ticket??). Once again they seemed to really like various ideas I and the group provided.  We were split into two groups based on where our seats are located: Club Section and non-Club.  There was only 5 or 6 of us out of the 20 that sit in the Club section, so the discussion was pretty involved. Good stuff.




Here's the nice sign outside the hall in which we were meeting.

Here's the uniform for the Bears through the ages.....

You can blow these up to see the players.....

Same here.....

Work Continues and Neck Update

Work on the bathroom continues and MLM is starting to tile today (I believe). Over the weekend, LL and I went up to Wheeling to a bagel place that makes great bagels as well as bagel, egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches. Just delicious. Right down the street from the restaurant is ABT Electronics, where I usually go to make electronic purchases. On the list for Sunday was a TV for the bedroom and a wall mounting bracket.  Also was a wireless receiver for the TV that would hook into our DVR so we can operate the TV by remote control and have the DVR in the closet instead of under the TV or out on display. It's a pretty clean solution for not much money. The product is call an IR Repeater, so check it out if you want to hide your DVR.

As a side note, I'm watching the Transit of Venus on two different feeds online....just amazing what technology allows. If you get this soon, you can check it out here or here.

I don't want this to get lost either. My softball team is ranked 4th in the country in one organization! Here's the link. We're team Next.

Today I had my six week follow up with my cervical spine specialist at the University of Chicago. My first visit was somewhat disturbing as his resident was pretty gung-ho on surgery. The visit was so disturbing that I sought out a second opinion for the first time in my life to my knowledge. That second opinion, at Northwestern University, confirmed the need for surgery if recovery wasn't coming relatively quickly. Fortunately, we stepped up my physical therapy sessions (the work during the session) and some progress has been made!  The doctor today verified that I was indeed stronger, but not where I need to be though strong enough to avoid surgery for the next six weeks as long as I have no pain. So that's where I am physically, though mentally I'm prepared for surgery. LL may not be though!



















Here are two pictures of the same flower in our front "yard". It bloomed, then closed up, then shriveled, so I got it at its peak!

Some Sushi

Saturday was a pretty relaxing day that ended with LL's parents coming into town for a belated Mother's Day meal of sushi at Rollapalooza with Minnie and Eric. Minnie....she's Korean, as is Eric....I wonder what her REAL name is?  It's not Minnie is it?  Probably not. Eric's probably not Eric either. Interesting. Sorry, I digress. We had a better than usual meal there on Saturday. "How can the be?" you say as we always have great food there?  I don't know. LL doesn't either, but for some reason the mixture of food we have was just better. And maybe it's because we had four people so we ordered a variety of things as opposed to just a few, that all of our tastebuds were being stimulated. Interesting.

Today was a double-header in my over 40 league in the suburbs that takes over an hour for me to get to, even on a Sunday afternoon. That part was frustrating. Another frustrating part is that since I play with people in their 20's and early 30's in tournaments all the time, I feel like I should dominate this league. But I don't. At least not the way I envision myself dominating. Am I faster than most of the guys? Yes. That's not a problem. Do I field better than most of the guys? Yeah, probably. Do I have a stronger throw than virtually everyone? Yes. But I just don't dominate in the hitting arena.  Really I shouldn't think that I should since I'm a high on base percentage guy and don't kill the ball in my regular tournaments, there's nothing to indicate that I would dominate hitting here either. But I tell you what; I do try to have as much fun as possible while I'm out there. And the double header today was pretty fun. My buddy, Fedor, joined for the first week and I haven't seen him since a tailgate during the Bears season. He had a rough day of it (and playing catcher of all things) and took a header on his way to first that was absolutely hysterical to watch, mostly because I did essentially the same thing in my first at bat last year in the league. Too funny. I think we both were just trying to hard and ended up with similar results. Ha!

Friday night softball

Thursday night we really wanted to go to the local Maifest, a German outdoor festival filled with the typical German delights: beer, sausage and pretzels.  However the weather did not cooperate as the temperature plunged and it rained. They do have a huge tent where much of the action takes place, but it can often be difficult to grab a table. So LL and I opted to get some carryout and hang out in the warmth of our home. In the end, it was probably a good call as I was playing softball late on Friday, so no need to overdue it.

Friday night came and we had an unusual tournament, yes tournament. There were only four teams in the tournament because it was a C level tournament, whereas we play D. We were the only D team of the four and there aren't many C teams actually in Illinois. The higher up you go in competition, the fewer the teams, as you might expect. But we won our first game anyway, and pretty decidedly, and were leading in our last game by four runs in the bottom of the last inning. The first guy up for them lined one up the middle and our shortstop dove and had it tip off his glove. Just missed. A few batters later, they hit a routine fly ball to center where our outfielder camped under it and promptly dropped it. Ugh. They scored a run and then we finally got a few outs (one on a dropped fly ball by our right fielder who then threw home and got the guy at the plate). A few batters later, their pitcher was up to bat and took what was a very obvious third strike which the umpire did not call. He eventually got a hit and they eventually went on to win the game, all with two outs. So we had a chance to win, but didn't get it done. It definitely bodes well for us though to play so well against teams a level above us.