Of Sports and Television

June Jones is the football coach of the 12-1 Hawaii Warriors (previously the Rainbow Warriors) who were undefeated until they lost their bowl game. A dream job right? He was making $800,000 a year to coach football in Hawaii. Southern Methodist University, SMU, located in Dallas Texas, lured JJ away from paradise by offering $2 million a year for five years. Hawaii countered with $1.6 million. JJ went 75-41 since going to Hawaii in 1999. Since 1989, SMU is 58-153-3 including a 1-11 record this year. Me thinks JJ has gone loopy. Leaving Hawaii for Dallas for a mere $400k a year? Well, it IS 25% more money and I don't think there are state taxes in Texas....not sure about Hawaii. Still, it's freakin' Hawaii!!!

Have you seen these commercials for "Moment of Truth" on Fox? It's a show where they hook you up to a lie detector and ask you questions like: are you disgusted by fat people? (asked by a fat person) Do you really care about the starving kids in Africa? Would you donate a kidney to your father? (asked by the father). It looks AWESOME. I would totally go on the show because I really don't give a crap what people think about me....at least for $1 million. Unfortunately MWrigley has sensed my enthusiasm for the show and has forbade me from going on it. Booooo. :-(

Two other shows to discuss briefly are both hosted by Drew Carey: The Power of 10 and The Price is Right. First, I have to say that I've loved DC since seeing him doing stand-up probably more than a decade ago. That said, he sucks as a game show host. I'm sorry all you other DC fans. Maybe nobody could do a good job hosting TPIR after Bob Barker, but I was shocked when DC accepted it (while on a night time talk show by the way-either Letterman or Kimmel). He just doesn't seem to have the presence on stage for that kind of thing. Maybe he'll grow into it.

That said, The Power of 10 is a pretty good show. You have to guess the answer in percentage terms, to a question where the nation is polled (think of TPIR's price range game). You get larger percentage ranges to guess in early on (20%-30% I think) but you have to be within 10% when I saw a participant trying to get from $100,000 to $1 million. DC's still bad as a host, but the show is good.

Cleaning house and owning up

Even though the weather was so nice on Sunday evening, I opted to clean out my closets and drawers....a little spring clinging in the winter if you may. Of course, I was watching the football games, so I had reason to stay in. I'd have to say, I was pretty productive. Here are some pics:









Here it all is: 9 bags of clothes and other stuff including a bag of curtains and two pairs of shoes.













In addition to those clothes, I had 5-6 coats that decided to get rid of. This one on top is a classic and I'm sure it will fetch a pretty penny. Click on the picture and blow it up to see why it's valuable. (Hint: I may be the last member.)





Here are the funds that I recommended last year and how they did in 2007. The last entry is the S&P 500, which returned 5.5% in '07, slightly better than a money market account.

Weitz Hickory WEHIX (-13.1%)
Dodge and Cox International Stock Fund DODFX +11.7%
Dodge and Cox Income DODIX +4.7%
Mairs and Power Balanced MAPOX +4.3%
Mairs and Power Growth MPGFX +4.9%
Stratton Small-Cap Value STSCX (-2.02%)
Oakmark Select I OAKLX (-14.04%)
Oakmark I OAKMX (-3.6%)
Oakmark Equity & Income I OAKBX +12%
S&P 500 5.49%

As you can see I had some double digit gainers and double digit losers. In 2008, I'd still recommend almost all of them. The only iffy fund is the Oakmark Select fund. They had a large exposure to Washington Mutual and some other bank stocks associated with the sub prime mortgage fiasco. It's a good time to buy the fund, but not everyone is up for that kind of concentrated risk.

Great weather in Chicago!!

It was an outstanding weather day in Chicago Sunday and even Saturday was great for January. All of the snow is gone now and that's great in my book. Two more days closer to Spring!!

One of the things I wanted to do this weekend was to go to Hot Doug's Hotdogs with MWrigley (as recommended by el supremo during a visit with stef). They are only open Monday-Saturday from 10:30ish until 4ish, so we chose Saturday to go for lunch. Unfortunately, EVERYONE else decided to do the same thing. The place isn't big to begin with and on top of it there were about 40 people lined up down the block just to get in. Now, it was nice out, but I'm not waiting in line to get a freakin' hotdog. MWrigley wasn't feeling well anyway, so we bailed and went to option B for lunch.

Tough weekend for all my Steelers brethren. They were the only team in the playoffs that I wanted to cheer for so I'm not sure what I'll do now. Maybe I'll cheer for the Patriots or.......good Lord....the Packers. The Steelers lost after their QB, Roethlisberger, ran the ball on 3rd and 6 with 2:36 left instead of throwing or giving the ball to a real running back. I blame the offensive coordinator for being too conservative with the game on the line. The other key play was a "phantom" holding call on an offensive lineman, though the announcers and yours truly couldn't find the actual infraction even after watching the tape twice. On the play, the Steelers converted a 2 point conversion which was nullified. On the next play, they threw incomplete. They lost 31-29.

Huck-a-what??

Mike Huckabee?? Really? According to OntheIssues.org, he has the following stances/comments:

-Hate abortion, but to allow it is like hating slavery but allowing it. (May 2007)
-Certainly good day for America when Roe v. Wade is repealed. (May 2007)
-Respect gay couples but no gay adoptions. (Jan 2007)
-Death penalty is necessary part of criminal justice system. (Sep 2007)
-Drug education fails; drug punishment works. (Jun 2007)
-Impeach judges for barring legislature prayers to Jesus. (Sep 2007)
-Wal-Mart is case study in genius of American marketplace. (Jan 2007)
-To reduce spending, get rid of IRS & revamp DHS. (Nov 2007)
-Energy independence: let Saudis keep their oil & their sand. (Nov 2007)
-Kyoto was a mistake, but "Earth in the Balance" is not. (Jan 2007)
-Follow Boy Scout rule: leave earth better than we found it. (May 2007)
-Change tone of Bush's arrogant bunker mentality. (Jan 2008)
-Demand accountability from Pakistan for our $10B. (Nov 2007)
-It's not OK in Pakistan; bin Laden is hiding there. (Oct 2007)

I guess that flies with the evangelical right of Iowans. A little scary to me though. Bush has similar stances, which makes the Iowa results even more scary!! In the spirit of taking responsibility for my beliefs, I highlighted those stances that I actually agree with. The Wal-Mart one could be taken out of context. I'm not saying Wal-Mart is GOOD for our economy or our marketplace, only that it was a very smart plan that was well executed.

In my previous posting I forgot one resolution:

-I resolve to stop making contributions to my church for the rest of the year if at any point a new case of pedophilia comes to light. I'm just tired of this shit and have been for some time. It's time to start castrating priests if they don't have any self control.

Sorry about the less light hearted entry today. Just some things getting under my skin.

Resolutions....how I hate them.

First, it's mo-fo cold here in Chicago. -3 this morning.....damn. This weekend though it's supposed to be 55 for a high!! Sweet.

For the new year, I'm resolving to get a better cell phone and plan. Currently and for the last several years, I've been on a pay as you go plan with Virgin Mobile. It's been fine since I was only using it for emergencies or quasi-emergencies. On average it was costing me about $15 a month originally, but then went to about $30 a month and was there for about a year or so. Now though, with the advent of coordinating with MWrigley and because of work, it's gone to somewhere between $65 and $95 a month. So it's time to get a new plan and a new phone. I'd love to hear about your phone and plan. Do you like either? Hate either? Both are good pieces of information to have. Right now I'm looking at a Blackberry, either the Curve or the 8800 series. Thoughts?

Regarding resolutions, I normally don't make them or believe in them. You should make improvements to your life throughout the year or whenever possible. However, it'll make useful blog material in a year! That said, here are some other resolutions:

I resolve to keep my weight under 200 lbs., preferably in the low 190's.

I resolve to get new carpeting in the basement and solve, to the best of my abilities, the flooding issue. This will be quite a challenge!!

I resolve to have my guest bathroom completed by the 4th of July. It's only been....oh....13 years.

I resolve to take at least one vacation to a warm place and one vacation when it's warm up here.

That's about it....I don't want to make too many resolutions and then not do them!

Anti-Dick Tracy Entry

We had some snow on New Year's Eve and here are some pics from out my window.







I just love how all the branches are covered.























Yesterday was filled with football, as it should be, and I was over at MWrigley's so I didn't have a chance to post. Briefly, the games did not have my desired outcomes for the most part. Wisconsin was the early game against Tennessee and they lost in a close one. I tend to cheer for the Big 10 unless it's Ohio State, so I wanted Wisconsin to win. Then Michigan was up and beat Florida by three, but the game wasn't really that close. The Michigan running back fumbled twice at the goal line and lost both fumbles. Illinois was up next in the Rose Bowl. They got smoked by possibly the best team in the country, USC. Finally, the last game of the day pitted the 12-0 Warriors of Hawaii against Georgia. Except for having UGA VI as their mascot, a great looking bulldog, I have no reason to cheer for Georgia. Unfortunately, they smoked Hawaii, so I was 1-3 on cheering for teams. Boooo.

On another channel was an outdoor NHL game. Buffalo played Pittsburgh in front of 71,000 cold fans. Unfortunately I didn't watch the game, but I heard it was pretty cool to see. Plus it snowed during the game!!

Big epiphany for me on New Year's Day by the way: I've decided to actually watch the Rose Bowl Parade from now on. All of the visible parts of the float have to be made with organic material. It's really freaking amazing what they do. I've hated parades ever since having to march in a Memorial Day parade as a kid when it was raining and 40 degrees out and have avoided them like the plague ever since. The Rose Bowl Parade could help me turn the corner though.

A no smoking law went into place yesterday in all bars, restaurants and public work places. I'm VERY HAPPY!!! Couldn't be happier in fact. No more having to wash everything I wore out to dinner or to a bar just to get rid of the smokey smell. Ugh.

I thought I mentioned this before, but I haven't been able to find my entry about it, but for those of you who read the comics you probably already know that the Dick Tracy situation is completely out of control at this point. He went into a "haunted house" a few days before Halloween and as of yesterday it's still just the day AFTER Halloween. It's two months later and all they wrote about was one freaking night when nothing really happened. I might start a grass roots movement to have it removed from the Tribune. Who is with me??

Happy New Year ('s Eve)!!

Happy New Years to all my readers!!

Sunday turned out to be a great day to tailgate and take in a football game. The temperature got up near 40, topping out at 37 or so I believe. I had Mr. Heater on, but mostly just because I had gone through the trouble of bringing it.

We had 10 people at the tailgate at one point, so I was basically a short order cook. Lots of eggs going for breakfast sandwiches and a lot of coordinating with the Canadian bacon, muffins, cheese and eggs. It's all good though. I enjoy entertaining even if it's in a parking lot in near freezing weather.

The breakfast portion was followed up with chili and hot dogs (or chili dogs for most people). It's pretty basic, but I didn't think people would have their gloves off, so I didn't make appetizers. Oh well, everyone had a good time.

After cleaning up and finishing the last bit of food, MWrigley and I missed the opening kickoff and first few plays. The game was fun to watch and we had a good time, but Gar and the Boyz who sit in front of us weren't there and the usual suspects who sit to our right weren't there either.

We stayed until the end of the game, but then left instead of tailgating afterwards. Turns out that a few of the guys gave MWrigley a hard time for having us leave the Denver game which ended in a 14 point turnaround for the Bears to force overtime and then the Bears won in OT. On the way home from that game, MWrigley said she was secretly cheering for the Broncos because she didn't want to be the reason I missed the end of a great game. So THIS time she stated several times that we weren't leaving another game early. Lesson learned!

Six of the guys at my tailgate were doing the Bears game and then going to see the Black Hawks at night. They thought I was going to stick around and tailgate after the game too, which I have done in the past about 80% of the time, but I had other plans this time. MWrigley's mother and step-dad had been in town for a week and finally left Sunday morning. That meant she and I haven't had much alone time for the last 10 days or so since she was sick briefly prior to their arrival. As a further result, we decided to go out for a quick dinner (sushi) and then stay in for NYE, light a fire, watch a movie and have champaign. A very nice, quiet evening.

Coming soon: how my recommended funds last year performed and what funds stay on or fall off the list for 2008.

Confidential for Steve: Congrats on the new job!

Happy Birthday to Joisey Ken! He's a great guy and an even better friend.

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum.....

How long do you leave your Christmas tree up? The city of Chicago recycles on the 12th of January, but that seems like a long time to have a tree up. Don't most people take them down around the first of the year? Hmm, seems like the 5th would have been a better recycling day.

I don't think I wrote about it, but if you had waited until the Saturday before Christmas (maybe even the Friday or Thursday, I'm not positive) you could have bought a Christmas tree at Menards for $5!! Any live tree they had left. Fir, Balsam, Spruce....$5. That's a thought next year for you Chicagoans trying to save money.

I just love this story. What kind of message are we sending our youth if this prize is allowed to stand??

Sunday is another Bears home game, the last one of the season and I'll be out there tailgating at 9:30. The weather should be much better than last week....how could it be worse??

A White Dusting

We were supposed to get a nasty snow storm today in Chicago, 3"-6" of snow and it was snowing at 8 a.m. when I woke up. It snowed most of the day until about 5 or 6, but it hasn't really amounted to anything here downtown at least. Good for us!

With the impending "storm", I recalled T-Rex from Basra. He had be out the last two nights with steak gristle as bait. Unfortunately no kills or much movement at all from what I could tell. With the fresh snow though, I'll be able to see which holes are active. Maybe T-Rex will be redeployed tomorrow.

Comics status update: I didn't get quite caught up. As you recall, as of Christmas I was supposed to have been all caught up in my comic reading by reading an additional day's worth of comics in the morning. As of today, I am only four days behind, so not caught up, but not bad!

Read in the paper the other day about inventors who died during 2007. I wonder if it was an odd year for this sort of thing or if 2007 was extraordinary? Inventors who passed away invented these things:
Nautilus exercise machines
The remote control
Foosball
Modern hot air balloon (with liquid propane burners)
Gatorade (after wondering why members of the Florida Gators football team didn't pee after practices)
Rice-a-Roni
Benadryl
Instant Ramen Noodles

Question and answer session

What's the best "deal" that you've gotten on something you bought before Christmas (but FOR Christmas) or in a post-Christmas sale?

As one might expect, pre-Christmas I didn't get too much in the way of deals. There was a coat from Eddie Bauer that's supposed to be really warm and it was down to $100 or so from over $200. Oh, and I bought a gel bicycle seat cover and it only cost me $10. I don't think it was on sale, but I felt really good about it!!

Is anyone really working this week?

Why were there no football games on Christmas day? Anything would have been nice.

What percentage of your gifts did you have to take back? I think I'm at about 20% or so......it looks like 3 out of 15 or so.

Does anyone have luggage that they would actually recommend to someone else to buy? I'm pondering just going to Overstock.com and buying something from there.

What are people's plans for NYE? I have like four parties to go to, one out of state and two in bars that are larger group events (the kind where you can drink all you want for $85 or something) and I'm not sure what to do. MWrigley has left it up to me to decide.

Sunday is another Bears tailgating day! MWrigley will join me this time as well as two guys from my softball team (Sausage and Benny Baseball) and a co-worker of MWrigley's will probably stop by as well. Let's hope for very little wind!!!


Final Holiday catalog count: 24 (a little down from 30 last year)

More Christmas

While writing this I'm watching my recording of the Bears game from Sunday.

Shit was that cold. I must be crazy. One of the stats coming out of the game though was that Kyle Orton, the Bears QB, was 8-14 for 101 yards and a QB rating of 103. So all you Grossman lovers out there who continually fall back on his three October 100+ rated games from last year as reason for him to start in the Super Bowl after sucking for most of the year and as a reason for him to start this season, just about anyone can get a 100+ QB rating. Orton didn't do anything on Sunday except not throw a pick. I'm really intrigued to see what the Bears do at QB, RB and OL next year.

Back to Christmas. Last night, MWrigley and her mom cooked four or five appetizers and that's what we had for dinner. Now, I had already had a ton of food at my folks place: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes laced with Bush Mills whiskey, salad and pie. So appetizers were about all I could handle at this point. Here's a picture of the festivities:







The main sweets: my mother's "wreath" and cherry wink cookies.











The whole crew sans Joe.















The small tree this year. Ma wasn't feeling as "Christmasy" this year so she didn't toss up the big tree with tons of decorations.











Boy does it look nasty at that game......the Bears just fell on the GB punter after he dropped the ball.

The appetizers we had were as follows as best as I can remember. I did not take pictures unfortunately. Sorry. What I liked the best was bacon wrapped bits of chicken in some kind of rub. Wow was it good and I KNOW things wrapped in bacon. My second favorite was a teriyaki shrimp dish. Some of the folks liked it the best actually. Third on my list were MWrigely's mom's famous egg rolls. They are lighter than traditional egg rolls and they made a sweet sauce for dipping.

McClover just blocked a punt at the five yard line.

The fourth appetizer was crab cakes. Again, the ladies made a sauce for dipping. Mmmmmm.

Orton just put the ball between Muhammad's 8 and 7 in the end zone on 4th and goal from the three and he dropped it. Ugh.

The last appetizer, which was still very good, was a vegetarian cake of sorts with mushrooms, onions, lettuce and some other stuff. It was actually pretty good, but I guess it was a lot of work to put them together and relative to the other appetizers, maybe it wasn't worth it so I don't think it's going to make the cut next year.

Ryan Grant just ran for a long touchdown and the Packers lead 7-6....what would be their only lead of the game.

Another shanked punt by GB.

Some clarifying notes on the clothes MWrigley bought for me after we talked about the day (not just our gifts) last night around midnight for about an hour or so. SHE likes on men the following: khaki's with no pleats and no cuffs, a certain style of jeans, pullover/sweaters with zippers at the top, untucked dress shirts and doesn't like a guy in jeans and tennis shoes. I like pleated pants (they just fit my body better) with cuffs, baggy jeans, crew neck sweaters and tops and I'm ok with jeans and tennis shoes, but rarely wear them short of to a ball game in the summer. So what did she get me as gifts? Khaki's without pleats or cuffs, jeans worn by guys on Entourage (seriously, they actually say that on the tag), two zipper up pullovers, a dress shirt designed to not be tucked in and a pair of shoes that I can't even begin to describe but were given with the thought of wearing them with jeans.

So were these gifts for HER or ME? It's akin to me buying her two tickets to opening day at Wrigley. Sure, the tickets are for her, but who really enjoys them? Were the tickets something SHE really wanted? I think that explains it pretty well.

Tillman just blocked a punt and the Bears ran it into the end zone. Sweet.

That all said, I don't want to sound like an ingrate. Just the fact that she invited me over to meet her folks and spend Christmas eve and Christmas evening with them really was the only gift I wanted. We had a wonderful two days together and I look forward to 2008 with her. She's already talking about how she's going to pay more attention to things I want during the year so she can get those types of gifts next year.

Here's my sole Christmas decoration this year:







My mantel upstairs with most of my Christmas cards. I left off a good number of the family picture cards and cards that are just pictures of the kids. They are appreciated too of course, but they don't sit up well.








Urlacher's interception and touchdown....the icing on the Christmas cake!!

Merry Christmas to all!

Had a very nice time with the fam today out in the 'ville. Everyone seemed to enjoy their gifts, especially Bee (fourth row tickets to Blue Man Group on a Saturday). Mom and Pops were happy too with their dinner at Catch 35 and 36" television (ok, it was really my old one....shhhh). Just kidding, it was my old one but they knew about it and it just happened to fit perfectly where they had a 27" one previously. The 27" is now going to their place in Michigan. The food was delicious and I'll post pics of the event tomorrow.

I've been up since 6:30 (to hit 7:45 mass) and didn't sleep well. Met MWrigley's parents last night and this evening. It was a little hairy for a bit last night, but all was good today. They even bought me presents! I'm not sure how often I'll be able to see M this week, but I'm hopeful. She loved just about all of her gifts. Almost all of her gifts to me were clothes that she likes, so apparently she doesn't like the way I dress. :-P

Here are trees from around the world, courtesy of Joisey Ken.

The Capitol Christmas tree in Washington, D.C., is decorated with 3,000 ornaments that are the handiwork of U.S. schoolchildren. Encircling evergreens in the "Pathway of Peace" represent the 50 U.S. states.

Moscow celebrates Christmas according to the Russian Orthodox calendar on Jan. 7. For weeks beforehand, the city is alive with festivities in anticipation of Father Frost's arrival on his magical troika with the Snow Maiden. He and his helper deliver gifts under the New Year tree, or yolka, which is traditionally a fir.













The Christmas tree that greets revelers at the Puerta del Sol is dressed for a party. Madrid's two-week celebration makes millionaires along with merrymakers. On Dec. 22, a lucky citizen will win El Gordo (the fat one), the world's biggest lottery.

A token of gratitude for Britain's aid during World War II, the Christmas tree in London's Trafalgar Square has been the annual gift of the people of Norway since 1947.

"Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree": Even in its humblest attire, aglow beside a tiny chapel in Germany's Karwendel mountains, a Christmas tree is a wondrous sight.












The world's largest Christmas tree display rises up the slopes of Monte Ingino outside of Gubbio, in Italy's Umbria region. Composed of about 500 lights connected by 40,000 feet of wire, the "tree" is a modern marvel for an ancient city










In addition to the Vatican's heavenly evergreen, St. Peter's Square in Rome hosts a larger-than-life nativity scene in front of the obelisk.













The largest Christmas tree in Europe (more than 230 feet tall) can be found in the Praça do Comércio in Lisbon, Portugal. Thousands of lights adorn the tree, adding to the special enchantment of the city during the holiday season.









A Christmas tree befitting Tokyo's nighttime neon display is projected onto the exterior of the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka.










Before the ball drops in Times Square, the Big Apple turns on its holiday charm with the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. This snow-globe-worthy scene celebrates its 75th anniversary this season.

Against a backdrop of tall, shadowy firs, a rainbow trio of
Christmas trees lights up the night (location unknown).

Now THAT was cold!

If you happened to watch the Bears game on TV or live in Chicago, you know what kind of weather we had on Sunday. In a word, brutal. It was cold: a high of 20 or so. And windy: 40-50 mph gusts and a sustained wind above 25 mph. That's pretty damn cold when you get the wind chill involved.

But we were still out there tailgating!! Yes, my softball buddy, Sausage, joined me for breakfast in the parking lot followed by chili dogs. It was so cold, even my Newcastle beer was more like a beer slushy.

When I had feeling in my fingers, early on, I took some pictures to share with you. Actually I wasn't too cold at all. With my layered clothes, hand warmers, toe warmers, Mr. Heater pumping away and The Cadillac Club at half-time, I was in pretty good shape.

On to the pictures!!





Here's Mr. Heater working away. When it's windy, the flames can get blown out. In an effort to fight it, I bought a piece of metal duct to protect the heater. I clamped the duct to the heater to keep it secure and it worked like a champ! Nice going Joe!!









Here's how windy it was. Those are pretty big flags! See the U.S. flags in the back ground? It's like they are starched.












Here I am with my Bears Santa hat on over my face mask hat. Oh, and I'm standing next to Mr. Heater and the piece of duct.













My buddy Sausage. He's not looking too happy at this point. He didn't complain about being cold at all though.

A little of this, a little of thwack!!!

Here's a cool link about medical myths. Even I thought that turkey led to sleepiness. Not true, at least relative to beef or chicken.

On Thursday, a fairly significant event happened in sports that probably went unnoticed by most folks, unless you were watching ESPN. Marian Gaborik of the Minnesota Wild in the NHL, scored 5 goals in one game (two of them he knocked out of mid-air). In the NHL, that has happened 55 times (the last time in 1996). Similar events in other sports: a player scoring 60 pts. in an NBA game has happened 59 times, a quarterback throwing for 450 yards has happened 44 times, and a MLB player has hit two home runs in one inning 52 times. However, these stats don't incorporate how many games have been played in each of the leagues to obtain these marks. There have been far fewer football games for sure and many more baseball games as well. The number of NBA games could be comparable though.

Today the high in Chicago, that I heard at least, was 47 degrees! Awesome for late December. Unfortunately, overnight tonight, the cold is-a-coming. Tomorrow's HIGH is going to be 27 with super high winds. Spectacular. I'm going to the noon Bears game with my buddy, Sausage. We're going to meet one or two people too, but mostly it will just be the two of us. If it gets too cold to tailgate, even with Mr. Heater, we might head in early. In preparation though, I have my patented two meat-three pepper chili and we'll have Nathan's hot dogs too. Because of the winds, I've bought some four foot pieces of duct to provide a barrier and possible a way to retain some of the heat from Mr. Heater. The wind can blow out the flame, so hopefully this metal box idea will work. I see a serious burn in my future though.

T-Rex struck again last night in Basra!!! Due to the warmer weather this week, I decided to set him out on Friday night. He provided an early Christmas present for me and the neighbors. Kill #6 in his latest trip to Basra. It's been almost a month since his last kill, but I haven't been setting him out because of the snow and ice. Oh, the bait dujour is.......cheddar cheese. Too funny.

Busy Thursday!

Sorry folks, had a really busy day Thursday that culminated in a trip to a steakhouse for a Christmas dinner with the fellas'. The restaurant du jour was Sullivan's Steakhouse downtown on Kinzie. The atmosphere is, well, smokey. There's no other way to say it. Upstairs is a bar area where cigar smoking is allowed. We found out that you could also smoke at the bar downstairs. The restaurant is in a third room where, while there was no smoking per se, plenty of smoke made it's way. I didn't think it would be too bad, but my clothes wreaked of smoke when I got home.

The funny thing about me wreaking of smoke, is that I spent virtually no time in either bar area! Ricardo and I left from the office, valeted the car and went in to find one of the boyz. We did and so I left Ricardo, a cigar smoker, in his capable hands while I went to find stocking stuffers for MWrigley. Upon my return about 45 minutes later, our fourth arrived and we went to eat.

The wine was unbelievably overpriced! A bottle of Estancia was $50 and there was nothing less expensive on the list (and few choices for under $100). We went with a Stag's Leap Cab I believe, which was a 1.5 liter bottle for $175. Still, yowza! The escargot and French onion soup were very good and the steak was pretty darn good...even at $38.

The most interesting part of the meal happened when someone who just arrived two tables over, fell backwards in their chair and toppled into the table next to us. This table had 8 people at it and the force of the guy falling caused their wine and all their drinks to spill. The maitre d' rushed over with several helpers. First, they checked on the guy who fell. Turns out he was drunk and they ushered his party (of 6!) out. Then they turned to the party of 8 asked them to move to the bar for a few minutes. In that time they stripped down their table, changed everything, brought out new drinks and new food, all in about 10 minutes. Pretty nicely done. So the restaurant, while smokey, does get kudos for service.

Where have all the horses gone?

Least surprising tidbit of information of the year: Lynne Spears' parenting book put on hold.
Second least surprising tidbit of information of the year: Jamie Lynn Spears (16) is pregnant.
Good Lord. Those Spears girls are pretty and all, but are they really THAT much of white trash? Guess so.

It's that time of year again. Sure, there's gift giving and good spirits, but I'm talking about the time of year to taken by swindlers. Number one on my list: the International Star Registry and it's mouthpiece Rocky Mozel. This ass-clown advertises on the radio almost exclusively about "giving the gift of a star" to someone you love. So these guys pick a star that's been charted and allow you to name it after a loved one. They then put the star and the name in a book and file it with the U.S. Copyright office. All for only $54 to $480!!! This, my friends, is a miserable scam.

Only the I.A.U. has the authority to name stars. "Filing" a book with the U.S. Copyright Office provides no protection to you, the "star holder". It only protects the publisher from someone stealing their content. Sounds good though doesn't it? Or at least official. Unbelievable. That people still get sucked into this scam, which has been going on for almost 30 years now according their website, is amazing and depressing to me. Can't they be shut down?!?

My picture of the day is a Christmas card that I received from my cousin in Pennsylvania:

Nothing out of the ordinary huh? Maybe even a bit trite. So why would I post it? Well, for almost 20 years now, I've received a Christmas card from this cousin and EVERY SINGLE YEAR, without fail, she sends a card which in some way has a horse on it. She used to own a horse and did for a long time, so she loves horses. This year, no horse. Whazzup with dat?? I had to look at the card twice just to make sure it was actually from her!!



Next, from poster Bee, we have a picture of T-Rex's next victim. Holy smokes, look at the size of that thing!!!






I had one of these today with lunch. Actually, I had the Creamy Red version. Pretty tasty stuff. It was a total impulse purchase as I walked through World Market this morning. My grandfather, while walking through the woods with me in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania, would strip off pieces of bark for us to chew on to get that birch flavor. A good memory for me.

Further explanation

As so often happens with my missives late at night, I'm not sure I tied my subject matter in to my title in yesterday's entry. Yes, the weekend did go better than I could have anticipated, but why?? Did I think we would have a good time together (MWrigley and I)? Obviously. Did I think we'd enjoy the outdoors together? Sure. Did snuggling by a roaring fire sound appealing? What, am I suddenly gay? Of course it did. So why was it better than expected?

Well, for starters, I'm kind of a low expectation guy. If you keep your expectations low, then you're less likely to be disappointed. My expectations were easily exceeded.

Second, the trip up there itself was really enjoyable. We didn't even turn on the radio for the 3+ hour trip. We just chatted away and commented on various things we saw and generally just enjoyed each other's company. It didn't hurt that we both had somewhat eventful things going on at work and in our personal lives that were comment worthy. I didn't expect the ride to be that much fun, but it really was!

The highlights of MY weekend were the little moments and when she did nice things for me. For instance, she had prepared all of the ingredients (or almost all of them) for three dinners from food she just had in her house. That's pretty amazing to me, being a fairly typical guy in the amount of food I have that can be turned into a meal that's not chili. Another example is when she would wake up in the morning and I had a roaring fire going in the living room and she would wander out in a daze with her pj's on and just curl up in a ball either on me or next to me. That's just nice!

The highlights of HER weekend were when I did little things for her like preparing breakfast when she got up and having the firing going. Leading the way on our hikes, nearly tragic as they were, was also something she found appealing. And preparing the cheese, sausage, crackers and wine for our pre-dinner snack.

It was all just so nice and Currier and Ives-like. Though we did have a disagreement or two (dejesus freak will be happy to learn that she finds my anti-chair-in-the-snow policy very unappealing as well), but we worked them out rather quickly and nothing lingered. That was refreshing. When we were at the bottom of an icy ravine with no sure way out and her claustrophobia setting in despite being outside, not so much as one derogatory word was uttered. Similarly, while looking at piece after piece of a puzzle over hours and days, nary a mean spirited word came from my mouth. Neither case was as much about self restraint as it was about caring for the other person I think.

So THAT's why the weekend exceeded my expectations.

Weekend in Wisconsin......Better Than I Could Possibly Expect!

Hello all! Yes, I missed you too. That's ok. Absence makes the heart grow fonder at OUR stage of our relationship (as writer and reader). While I had no computer access, I still did think about things that I would write and pictures I would take to show you all.

The trip actually started with a little stress as there was a lot of snow and ice up in Merrimac, WI over the last few weeks. As it turns out, the "driveway" to Ricardo's cottage house (which is about 75 yards long or so) had 6-8" of snow on top of an inch of ice which covered a few more inches of snow. This was going to be impossible for me to traverse in my Camry. Fortunately, his very help neighbors, Dick and Mary, know a guy (Len) who, though being 85, is still out clearing driveways. Best $100 I ever spent! I didn't reach Len until Thursday morning, but he was on it first thing on Friday. Whew! When I arrived at the entranceway and started heading down the driveway, it was like being in a bobsled.....or at least how I would imagine a bobsled being....where as long as you have locomotion, you're going to end up at the bottom of the driveway because there was no moving left or right. Pretty cool actually.

So now the weekend in pictures! I'll throw in a story or two as well.







This is what we left for Ricardo for allowing us to use his cottage for the weekend! Thanks Ricardo! I'll tell you where we hid it so "other" people don't get it first.
















Yeah, the picture is dark, but you can see MWrigley in the corner chilling on Friday late afternoon if you blow it up. This is the main living room of the cottage.









Yep, that's me in my "wood gettin' " outfit. The main fireplace is right behind me in this pic. There are two other wood burning stoves in the cottage and I had all three going on Friday. By Saturday I was already down to just the main fireplace as it was really the only one that impacted our temperature much.










Here is dinner on Friday night. Mmmmm. It was a garlic and herb, tri-tip roast (I think that's right at least) and veggies. Very tasty. It looks like we had my favorite wine as well, a sweet Hungarian wine. MWrigley had brought all the ingredients for our dinners and lunches and I took care of breakfast. The food was great all weekend!





For entertainment we played Trivial Pursuit, The SNL Edition with DVD questions. Very fun, but we both struggled to come up with the names of characters and products on the show.

The other activity was puzzling! We had a 750 piece puzzle of a box of chocolates to put together. It took us until about 2 a.m. on Monday morning to actually get it done! I'm not particularly good at puzzles, but I started off strong. In the beginning, it was 65-35 as far as putting pieces together in favor of MWrigley. After a bit I faded and she did most of the work, maybe 85-15. Then I came on strong at the end again with some good contributions, maybe 70-30. MWrigley is a little OCD with that kind of thing, so she was all over getting the puzzle done. This picture is the puzzle mostly disheveled.







The finished puzzle!!










But we didn't stay in all day. On Saturday we went hiking, more about that later. On Monday, we decided to go snow shoeing before packing up and heading home. Here's MWrigley out on the trail doing her best Suzy Chapstick.










So on Saturday we decided to go for a little walk into the woods after seeing Dick and Mary (the neighbors). One neat aspect of the land around the cottage is that a river runs through it and there's actually a cool water fall. So I was taking MWrigley to what I believe is the highest point on the property where there was a nice view of the falls. While up there, I thought it might be fun to slide down the snow and ice to the bottom of the steep hill we were on. So I went down and MWrigley followed. It was indeed fun, however, we found ourselves at the bottom of a very steep hill and the other side, which didn't look steep from atop the other hill, turned out to be VERY steep as well.....especially when covered with 6+" of light, fluffy snow on top of ice. Suddenly, this "walk" took a nasty little turn.

After much walking to find a shallower slope to ascend, we finally bit the bullet and tried to scale the hill just past the end of Ricardo's property. It was very slippery, as ice tends to be, and it was slow going. About half of the way up, I realized that if I really stepped hard with my heel, I could crack the ice beneath the snow and create a little foot hold. MWrigley could then follow my prints without a little less effort. Though we joked about nearly dieing out in Ricardo's "back yard", we both knew that while dieing wasn't an outcome, a long cold night certainly was. I'm not sure how far we would have had to walk until we found flatter, more easily traversed land. And then we would have had to walk back from there! Ugh. Still, we went snow shoeing on Monday.......guess I didn't scare her enough with my outdoors skills!






I'm not sure how this picture ended up here.....or am I??

Decorating time!!

What happened to my Wednesday post? To tell you the truth, I'm not sure. I thought I wrote an entry and.......I guess I just didn't! Part of my reason for messing up might have been that in the early afternoon I drove el supremo to the airport and I called MWrigley on the way back. Turns out The Wrigley Company gave everyone the rest of the afternoon off for making something like $5 billion for the company. That's worth an afternoon off I think.

Anyway, MWrigley and I were going to get together anyway, but this pushed the schedule up a few hours. What were we going to do? Well decorate her Christmas tree of course! And decorate we did. Here are some pictures.





Here's the new tree before the branches "fell". Ricardo turned me on to using hot water in the base to start with. I think it worked well.





















MWrigley messing with some garland strings. She eventually took them off the tree completely. I didn't like them anyway and haven't had garland on a tree in years. Just lights and ornaments for me!


Oh, and she was pissed at me for taking the picture. Doh!










The completed tree in the dark before the presents were brought out.



















Nothing better than a lit tree WITH presents!! I'm told that most of them are for me. Yay!!


















Here's the tree using the flash. It still looks pretty!












I'm going to be away from a computer at Ricardo's cabin in Wisconsin until Monday, so my postings are going to be on hold for a bit. I'm already looking forward to writing when I get back though!!

Fukudome: What is it?

There seem to be many possible answers. Here are three:
1) A perfectly natural sexual act conducted in an indoor sports arena;
2) How Katrina victims now refer to the New Orleans Super Dome;
3) The new right fielder for the Chicago Cubs.

I'll let you figure out the right answer.

Last night we held our wine tasting event at a new venue, Randolph Wine Bar. We moved from Just Grapes because of their lack of entrepreneurial spirit and unwelcoming attitude.






Lots of professionals were supposed to attend, but the threat of nasty rain/ice/snow made for some last minute cancellations. Still, we had about 20 people there altogether. Ricardo made name badges!













Several tables were reserved for "Richard". No last name, no Podolny Group, nothing. Very odd.














Champagne and seven bottles of wine set up for the tasting. I really enjoyed almost all of them!













One crowd picture after Ricardo made me go take a picture of the crowd. He's so pushy!












Moments later from a different angle. Is that Mrs. Ricardo?? It is! And dejesus freak is in this shot too.















Last group shot from the other side of the room.












Here's a cool, romantic corner taken with the flash on.

















Same corner with the flash off. Somewhere there's a happy medium for my basic Cannon digital camera, but I don't know enough to figure it out.
















This is at Alahambra restaurant not to far from the bar. Overpriced middle eastern food, but the decor is awesome!!
















Stef's main dish came out in this container. It was scallops and they were outstanding (I had one).












el supremo had a similar dish set up, but he had the leg of some animal. Can't remember which one.