The Summer of George

literally.

2007-07-15T11:12:00.000-05:00

wow. time is flying by. literally. wait, no... figuratively i guess. i'm not good with words.

here's the recipe in pictures:

a little swimming with the baby girl..

a couple days of water sports..
(mixed with some rock and roll, apparently..)

and lots of cheese..

once settled, add in some camping, a trip to michigan (with a night at a ska show.. skanktacular!), a couple poker games, tattoos, and an album (almost finished). serve warm. like 90 degrees warm. it's hot out there!

looking ahead: cubs vs. barry bonds, the decemberists at millenium park (!), more camping, and a poker main event. plus: can a teacher go the entire summer without cutting his hair?
.....
the riddle of the hour:
take me out and scratch my head,
i once was black, but now i'm red.
what am i?
.....

Third Paint Job

2007-06-21T18:40:00.000-05:00

last night i painted a coat of primer on the bathroom walls, with the door closed. the smell was slightly strong. marc was pacing between the bathroom and baby room, saying "It smells really strong. i mean i can smell it all the way in the living room* do you think the smell will wake the baby? look, i think he's waking up. he's moving. it smells really strong. look, i think he's waking up. he's moving."

here's a riddle: if a baby moves and no one is hovering around to see it, does the baby sleep through a bit of smelly paint?

*living room is two feet from the bathroom

and it's on.

2007-06-18T22:07:00.000-05:00

so i'm back... round two for summer of george, baby...

i've been off for a week, officially, and my apologies for not posting yet. although i'm not sure who reads this besides myself and marc. does john even? or annie? not sure who's going to post this summer.

anyways, great week so far. golf, poker, running camp, cubs brawl... things are starting off nicely. already a little busy this summer... got a daughter now, who happens to be the cutest of the cute. but i'm dealing with a disc issue in my back. hm. kinda feel like an old man-- a kid and a back problem. funny emoticon here.

got a poker table for father's day. awesome. first father's day also saw the family go gamble on horses, where i feel i made a very dad-esque move in bypassing traffic with some inside, back entrance knowledge. it's just what dad's do, i guess. wasn't as lucky as marc and others at the track though. shoulda bet my money on the bobtail nag. somebody bet on the bay.

then i put in a new mailbox today.. another dad move there. but alas... i also got to relax and get some music stuff done. here was my view in the basement all afternoon:

and a screen shot of the work in progress...

i think my new thing this summer may be to make stuff interesting... how about a reason to read..? besides wanting to know the intimate details of my summer, of course. what about a riddle? riddles are fun, right? here goes...

....

a black dog stands in the middle of an intersecton of two black cross streets.

the dog is licking his rump, as most dogs do when they're bored.

none of the street lights are working due to a power failure. probably a small, broken down town like bourbonnais.

a car with two broken headlights drives straight towards the dog. again, probably bourbonnais, so the headlight thing makes sense.

BUT NO WORRIES: the driver veers off in time to avoid hitting the poor doggie.

so what's the question...? how could the driver have seen the dog in time?

.....

alright... more soon. for now, i'm dog tired. ha! but that's not a clue. sorry, losers.

Lake Shore Sunday Driving

2007-06-11T14:17:00.000-05:00

The wife and I have been ultra busy with projects around the house. Earlier last week we put up a gazebo on the back patio. Also, we planned on cleaning out and organizing the garage on Saturday, but totally got to it on Friday afternoon while our little man slept inside. After a trip to Brookfield Zoo on Saturday, we had time to relax on Sunday. Originally, we were going to take a walk, but the landfill in Hillside was stinking up the area, so we decided to take Cam into the city for a Sunday drive on Lake Shore.

It was beautiful, and while he fussed in and out of sleep, we still had time to enjoy the views and the old memories that returned when we turned towards Logan Square. We hooked up with Jenn and Keith and took him to El Cid II on Milwaukee and Diversey for Coronas, limes, and burritos. It's funny to remember that the last time we were there, Scott and Libbi were telling us that they were pregnant, and here we were, roughly one year later, posing our baby with beer bottles in front of him.

I love this picture, btw. He just woke up from a nap and was ready for some lunch of his own. Also, he peed on me while we were there. I can't believe how totally okay I am with that.

An Old School Blog*

2007-06-03T20:56:00.000-05:00

My wife and I were given a gift certificate for Pizza Hut a few months back at a baby shower for us hosted by my co-workers. We've tried one other time to use it, but things didn't work out. Apparently Pizza Hut and Pizza Hut Express are two completely and totally seperate entities. One gift card for one does not guarantee food from the other. I drove away from the Pizza Hut Express drive-thru with one of their large Fruit Punch drinks in my drink holder, and spent a few moments in their parking lot pondering whether or not I should return it, seeing as how I failed to pay for the merchandise. I did. I walked in the front door and handed it to some lady at the counter who tried to tell me to keep it. I shook her off saying, "No thanks. I didn't pay for it, and I don't need to be reminded of that when I drink. I don't want to feel guilty."

So, fast forward to today, and I find myself in Melrose Park at an actual Pizza Hut picking up an order I was able to place online.** The clerk who checked me out was younger and female. I'm guessing she was maybe nineteen or twenty. Definitely old enough to be out of high school, though not old enough to get into a bar. She seemed somewhat out of it. She grabbed my order just fine, but distractedly thanked me for my business without giving me my 2 liter of Pepsi. Either way, the transaction went down more or less without a hitch.

As I was putting the food in the car, though, I heard an argument taking place behind me. There was my clerk, being yelled at by the much older, much larger female manager of the store. The clerk kept saying "I'm sorry" and "Please listen" over and over again, while the manager kept shouting statements like "No! You get your baby and you get out!" and "You don't care about anyone but yourself!" and "I'm not dealing with this shit anymore!" again and again. In fact, the manager, after she got back in her car, nearly hit me as she pulled out in a blind rage, screaming at the clerk who was still holding onto the car.

It was surreal, and it reminded me to be mindful of how quick I judge people. I have a tendency to do that. I see someone forget part of my order at a restaurant, for example, and I think "What an idiot! How hard can it be to remember to give me my Pepsi?" I'm the idiot. I should realize, at some point, that I'm just like the clerk in a lot of ways. If something is frustrating or bothering me, I can't help but internalize it and struggle with it and let it frustrate me.

I think about the last few weeks or school, for example, and I remember how short I was with some of my juniors because they were not reading The Great Gatsby. Now, part of my frustration was my own doing - I like Gatsby, and therefore I expect my enthusiasim to spill over to my kids. It just didn't happen. The other part, though, is where I have to watch out. I don't know what's going on in a lot of my students' home lives. They could have unstable families, unstable living conditions, and be dealing with the general drama and day-to-day madness that is being a teenager. So why should I be so impatient with them over a book that they may or may not be reading?***

The strangest thing about the whole confrontation to me is this: I was driving down North Ave. in Melrose Park at 7pm on a Friday night in the "middle" of summer and, as a result of watching a Pizza Hut manager and a Pizza Hut clerk get into an argument about living conditions, I was thinking about my students. Something is wrong with me. Could I possibly miss them already?

Oh. One other thing. I was pulled over five minutes after that because my wife has not put her license plate on the front of her car. Second time in three weeks that has happened. No ticket, though, just like last time. I'm a lucky guy.

**********************************

* My posts may be a bit sparse on pictures both today and in the future. We have a kid now, and he gets all of the face time with the camera, as he should. No one really wants to see my ugly mug anyways.
** Ooh... how fancy and modern today's world is! Online poker. Online grocery shopping. And now ... *drumroll please* ... online pizza delivery. That is assuming, of course, that you live close enough to a Pizza Hut, which we don't. So, I guess it's more like online carryout pizza.
*** They totally were not reading it, btw. I wish I was able to post some of their journal responses. Yikes.

The Summer of Dads?

2007-05-30T14:35:00.000-05:00

In last year's Summer of George season finale, I forgot to give you the cliffhanger... my wife was pregnant! Now, ten months later, the show is happy to welcome - amongst other new friends - our little buddy, Campbell. There we are at the moment of my triumphant return home from my last day of school. There's nothing better than having a happy little family greet me as I walk through the door.

Also, there's nothing better than starting the summer off with a Cubs game. Ironically enough, summer started off the same way last year, minus the kids, of course. I tried very hard to push some runs across with my lucky Cubs headband, but alas, they ended up losing 9-4.

If it wasn't for the beer at the ballpark, I don't know why anyone would go. True to form, the Cubbies loaded the bases with only one away in the ninth and the tying run on deck, only to have Cliff Floyd and Derek Lee strike out in craptacular fashion.

I tried to give the little girl in front of me a high five, but, upon turning around to look at what I was doing, she thought I was making some sort of gesture that she should repeat. So, she quickly turned around and gave the Nazi salute to the visiting team as they came up to bat. "No, no," I quickly muttered. "High five!"

That was close.

and so it is.

2006-08-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

well, with my summer officially over, this will be my last summer of george post as well. i think it was a great idea to chronicle the past 3 months. nice work, marc. i say we do it again next year. right here on the same website. so what if the url says "2k6"... bookmark this shiz and let's keep it going.

lots happened this summer of george. i think i put in some of my best musical work thus far. i can't wait for people to hear the songs we created. the samples on the lois lane webpage are nice, but it'll be cool to put it all on a full length. and to play in front of people. soon enough, i guess.

besides making music, i played poker, golfed, saw the cubs suck it up, grew a beard, shaved my beard, played more poker, went to 4 weddings, traveled the midwest, did a triathlon, played some more poker, slept in, tore marc up in pop-a-shot basketball, and found out i am going to be a dad. awesome times.

i found this shot from a while ago... here's to next summer...

The End

2006-08-13T17:55:00.000-05:00

Annie and I spent a solid week camping in the forests of western Wisconsin with her extended family. I never thought that I would ever do anything like that, but it's just like anything else - once you get used to falling asleep in a tent in the middle of the open sky, you just as quickly get used to waking up in a tent in the middle of the open sky. I wouldn't have had it any other way. Camping was beautiful.

I was able to play around with the camera for a bit, and got off these two shots. The top one is looking back downstream towards the rest of the campground. I did a color shot, too, with the same settings: aperture opened as much as possible and a 15 second exposure. The second one is my favorite. I turned away from the campfire at the tail-end of the sunset and was able to rest the camera on the arm of my chair to get this shot. It looked out right over a bow in the stream at our campsite. Felt more like a small lake than a stream, if you ask me.

One of the great things about camping is having the ability to sit around the fire at night and just talk to one another with little to no distractions. Most of Annie's cousins have small children, so once they were finally put down for the evening we'd break out the beers and shoot the breeze until we got tired. I only made it up past midnight one night. Too much oxygen in the system, I guess. I love the sparks shooting off the fire in this shot. I wish long-exposure shots weren't so emo.

Ethan, Annie's second cousin, took a backpack ride up Sand Mountain, which we hiked on our second to last day. It was a pretty steep incline for the entire trek up, which I guess wasn't that far, though it seemed like it to me. I must need to exercise more often, I guess.

But, as you can see, we made it okay. In fact, this was only our first stop. We trekked on for a bit afterwards.

The whole camping trip signifies the end of my summer, and to a smaller extent, the end of my writings here on Summer of George. I loved this summer. It felt like I was a kid again, and I did things similar to how a kid would do them.

I loved playing Dollar Day Poker (DDP) with Scott and John and Jesse and Zach. Scott really cleaned up the last two weeks, which was nice for him.

I really enjoyed the fact that Annie had summer days this year, and that we got to spend quite a bit of time together whether it was while we were looking for a house or doing home improvement projects on our house or at Home Depot shopping for items with which to complete home improvement projects on our house. My favorite memory is of she and I running down the access ramps at Wrigley as Neifi comes to bat in the middle of an intense rally.

I loved playing poker all summer long. I'll put it like this - Matt Fast said to me once, "Dude, your website is just pictures of chips and cards." I wouldn't want it any other way, Matt.

I loved the Adventure Days. We'll have to do it again next year, Pike, with more sponsors.

I loved everything about this summer. I wish it weren't ending.

I'm excited to go back to school, though to be honest, at this point, it just feels like I have a million things to do again. I'll miss my free time.

So, I bid you adieu, for now. Don't be suprised, though, if you see another Summer of George website pop up next year.

Goodbye for now.

michigan

2006-08-03T22:05:00.000-05:00

took a little vacay to northern michigan this past week. relaxation at its finest. here's what it looked like..

yep, just a couple z's (after some pbr's of course), humping turtles, and sitting around. i like that last pic even though there's not much to it. just a forlorn cubs fan, i guess. which reminds me... we tried to see the game last night, but of course mother nature stepped in.

hm. probably did us a favor. but nice work today guys. 1 for 2. and way to trade away the only guy that's been consistent for you lately. what about getting rid of wood? humping turtles could make better decisions than hendry. and do. hey-yo!

The House

2006-07-25T22:03:00.000-05:00

Jenn: As requested, I will make it my mission over the course of the next eleven days to post one picture per day, and eventually showcase all of the rooms in the
house. The living room seems like a good place to start. Apparently Annie decided to take a picture of me the morning after we moved in as I was rummaging through the book/DVD section of the room. Luna Carpet is coming next Monday to install new carpets in the pad, so we can't quite finish this section of the room, which is killing me because it's all dead space with unfilled bookshelves and boxes upon boxes of books.

The living room is huge and cozy, and we bought a new coffee table (as evidenced above) and a new entertainment stand (as seen here). It's wonderful to sit on our couch and just zone out after a long day of organizing or painting or car-buying or whatever. I call this photograph "The TV is my God."

I broke my anti-lawnmowing pledge. I tried to figure it out the other day, and I am pretty sure that I have not mowed a lawn since 1996. I think my brother took over the lawn-mowing full-time by that point, or at least my sisters were doing it. I'm not sure. But, I digress. I mowed our lawn on Sunday morning. It was actually kind of fun. Mowing lawns is one of those chores that I hate to have to start doing, but while I'm doing it, I'm totally okay with it. In fact, I even kind of like it. It's like a puzzle almost.

Owning a home, in general, is pretty sweet. We are amazed at how quiet it is out here. The first night we slept here we couldn't hear any noises from the neighborhood or from the main road (St. Charles) which is about six or seven lots away. The only thing I can hear at night is the faint sound of train brakes in the distance. I love it.

Here's a funny story: Jesse came over yesterday afternoon and picked me up to go to a Sox/Twins game with he and his parents. They had an extra ticket and were gracious enough to offer it to me. Plus, I hadn't seen his parents since our wedding last summer, and thought it would be nice to catch up with them as they are two of my favorite people. So, we spend some time in traffic from my place to his in Forest Park, then walk to the CTA Blue Line, which we use to catch up with the CTA Red Line, and make our way to the ballpark. We walk almost all the way up that pedestrian ramp, as the seats were upper-deck, find his parents, get a couple of beers and a couple of brats. We eat the brats, begin the beers and get settled. My phone rings. Annie, who was just getting home from her first new commute to the house is locked out because the Home Depot keys we bought don't work. So, mid-way through the first inning I stand up, say thank you very much to Jesse and his parents, and make my way out of the ballpark, back to the Red Line, back to the Blue Line, and end up meeting Annie at the Damen Blue Line stop where she picks me up and we head home. What a bummer.

So, until tomorrow, I bid you adieu.

Sing a Song of Six Pence a Pocket Full of Rye

2006-07-24T17:45:00.000-05:00

the kids were sitting around the table working on some art (just in general, art) when i asked what song should we sing? a common question, answered with the common twinkle, twinkle or the ABCs. today a little girl said that we should sing the number six song by gabriella.

i said oh geez i dont know how that goes. can you show us?
so she gives us her very best rendition of the number six song by gabriella. she sang every single word along with a nice addition of verbrato in some parts-- the parts where it was needed.

so she gets half way through the song and hits the chorus. she closes her eyes and really lets that song have it.

i was keeping a pretty decent smile on my face up until this part. my eyes started to water because i was trying so hard to contain my laughter that i had to get up and "wash my hands". it was so hard.

after the little girl was done i applauded and said wow. you are a wonderful singer. she said i know i tell my mommy that i have gabriella's voice and she has mine.
then a little boy said i want to loose a tooth so the tooth fairy will come to my house.

me me me. i heart me.

2006-07-21T00:53:00.000-05:00

so with these pics, it's obvious that i got through everything that i told you about earlier this month. weddings, triathlon, poker, sleeping, etc. in about 9 hours i help marc and annie move into their new home. good stuff. then i play more poker. even better stuff. then i sleep.

bottoms up to that...

thumbs up to that...

covers up to that...

butts up to that...

The Hungry Brain

2006-07-19T12:16:00.000-05:00

On Monday night I was playing around with my camera again. I was trying to capture the view from our living room window. This was taken at about 11pm, just before the storm rolled in.

With the help of some friends I was able to begin moving stuff into the new house yesterday. I am amazed at how many books Annie and I own. It seems as though, every time I turn around to start packing a new box I run into a fresh pile of books that have been hidden away. For example, there's a stack that I can clearly see now, ranging from Twain's Huck Finn to Bronte's Wuthering Heights to Rhodes' Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb to a collection of essays by David Foster Wallace. And that's after we moved a few hundred books yesterday. I somehow managed to get all of my musical equipment there, too. Now I can begin setting up the recording studio.

I think it goes without saying that I was excited to play some Dollar Day Poker (henceforth known as DDP) in my basement. I should print out a copy of this picture and frame it - my first poker game at my new home. I did fairly well in this game. I never had to rebuy, and I walked away up three bucks. John and Scott did not fair so well, and went bust on the last hand to Jesse.

The day's big winner had to be talked into rebuying with about seven hands left to go. In the end, we split the winnings ($5 to Jesse and $4 to me). Definitely awesome to play in my house at my table with my friends. Loved it.

ZK, Scott, Annie, and I went out to Dunlay's on the Square for dinner, and had a few laughs over some very large Fat Tire Ale's (though I was experiencing an IPA brew) before ZK, Scott and myself made our way to the Hungry Brain, where we met up with Jeff, Matt Fast, and Joe Hall. It was a fun night, and we obviously spent quite a bit of time mugging for the camera. I think Scott said it best yesterday when he claimed that "hanging out with Marc is like hanging out in a movie. I know he's documenting everything, so it makes me want to do cool things so I can look at them later and say, 'I did that!'". Indeed. I'll let the photographs speak for themselves.

The Artwork of Matt Fast:

The Whiskey Shakes

A Ghostly Presence

The Tale of Two Sittings

Gathered Around Galaga

Lighter

El Jefe

Must... finish... packing. Too overwhelming.

Like Flies on Shit

2006-07-19T08:17:00.000-05:00

on my way to work, i passed a pile of poop. the flies scattered and one landed on my lip.

Painting, Tequila, and Rainer

2006-07-17T09:33:00.000-05:00

Saturday - Painting

It has recently come to my attention that quite a large percentage of my extended family may be reading this - thanks, Mom - so, as promised, here is a picture of the new house. The happy couple takes a moment to stand on their new front stoop and wave to the neighborhood. We figured that Saturday, the hottest day of the summer up to this point, would be a good day to go in and repaint two of our bedrooms and strip the wallpaper from the kitchen and the bedroom. What we initially liked about the place was that we didn't have to do too much work on it. That notion has been turned on its ear.

Jenn and Annie's sister, Elizabeth, helped us out, while my parents took care of the bathroom wallpaper as best as they could before my mom nearly passed out. By the way, this is quite possibly the most disgusting picture of me you'll ever see in such a public forum. I just wanted to give you some idea as to how hot is was. And, I'll begrudgingly admit this, I need some kind of forum to show off my ridiculously intense guns. Two tickets, please... two tickets to the gun show. Check.

Saturday Night - Tequila

On the way to our new favorite neighborhood restaurant, El Cid II, we passed this on Milwaukee Ave. in front of Tianguis. Looks like someone had too much to drink prior to 7:30pm. Maybe he or she consumed a little too much of the below? Either way, it was totally gross, but keeping in line with my documentation purposes for this website, I was forced to photograph it. In fact, this is a picture from far later in the evening. Scott and I decided that, unlike my first attempt at capturing this monstrosity, we should give it some kind of perspective, so Scott volunteered to stand next to it. What size shoes do you wear, Scoot? 12s? 13s? Ick.

We pretty much closed the open-air dining area down by the end of the night, and not before I got to practice a bit with our camera. Jesse was showing me some tricks on it during our last Adventure Day, and I thought I'd try some motion capture shots here. Most of these shots consist of the camera balanced on the neck of a bottle of a Corona bottle. Jenn's shot, above, I love because she looks like a ghost. And Libbi's picture, below, is awesome because she was able to stay perfectly still for 15 seconds while the exposure captured all of the movement around here. I'm not going to pretend that I actually know what I'm doing, but I did get a pretty big compliment from my wife, who said, "You're getting pretty good at taking pictures." She of the art degree approves. Ego, you may inflate.

Matt says: "Dude, did you play poker today. I just assume that you're always playing poker. Your website just has pictures of faces, cards, and chips on it. Poker blows."

Poker rules.

Sunday - The Nuhr and Family

We went out to visit Rainer and his parents on Sunday afternoon/evening, and were astonished at how often he lounges male-model style in the below pose. That kid is going to be a lady-killer in the very near future. I tried to play with him, but just the same as the last time I visited for our fantasy baseball draft, he began to weep uncontrollably most of the times I got close. He liked Annie and Libbi, though, which is nice. Kid sure knows how to make nice with the camera.

And, for the record, he does not like carrots.

After the little guy went to bed for the night, the marrieds moved down to the basement for some good, old-fashioned couple vs. couple Trivial Pursuit. The Ks ended up cleaning house on K-Family rules - landing on a color and giving a correct answer gives you a pie for that color. They cleaned up on the literary questions, for sure. Annie and I came in second, and the Ts placed a distant third, primarily because Scott was too busy spilling water all over the used question cards, which had to be dried out on the carpet.

We then moved on to a game of Matt Fast... er, I mean poker. Ryan, as mentioned in a previous post, had a bad experience with cards at another event, so we wanted to show her what a real game looked like. She ended up finishing fourth out of six people, and said that she enjoyed herself. During one of the early hands, I thought I had her with three 8s. She flipped over her hand - full house, 8s full of Qs - to take down the pot. Kudos.

Eventually, I ended up besting Scott to win the match. I eliminated both Zach and Ryan on the same hand just before that. The above picture is a shot taken by ZK of his stack. He was reluctant to change out his $100 black chips for $500 white chips because he thought it looked cooler to have more chips. I can't say I disagree with him. I love poker.

Matt, you didn't seriously think I was going to go a whole post without a picture of some poker chips, did you?

The Week

2006-07-14T22:14:00.000-05:00

Tuesday - Dollar Poker Day

We went in a different direction regarding the typical poker portrait shots for Tuesday's Dollar Poker Day. Scott and I were thinking of recording that day, until his sump-pump gave out with a loud beep-beep-beep, so recording was out. We audibled into Dollar Poker Day that afternoon. God, I love these days. Three-handed dealer's choice, and this time we played a lot of wild card games. Scott had four-of-a-kind in three consecutive hands and ended up losing two of them to better hands - a straight flush and a better four-of-a-kind, I believe. He had to rebuy once and ended up losing everything by the end of the game. I, too, had to rebuy once, but ended up making it back on the last hand.

John, the Poker Ghost, ended up walking away two dollars ahead that day. I swear to you, this guy is a poker machine. He's so quiet and unassuming at the table, you hardly notice he's there. Next thing you know he has all of your chips (or money in a cash game). He's the only two-time bracelet winner in our monthly game, and I think he's my bet for the player of the year for our upcoming 2006-2007 season. He should go pro.

Wednesday - ???
I have no idea what I did on Wednesday.

Thursday - Adventure Day

Jesse accompanied me to my walkthrough at the new house that morning, and we spent the rest of the day tooling around the near Western suburbs looking for boxes for me to move with, and bracelet-like materials for the monthly poker game. Obviously we were successful on the first account, though we did not find anything cheap with which to make bracelets.

We did have an interesting poker discussion, though, prompted by Zach and Ryan's story about Ryan being put all-in on the first hand of a game. The question:

Is it ever justifiable to go all-in on the first hand in a poker tournament?

Obviously, the guy response is "yes" it is justifiable if you are holding a hand that absolutely cannot be beat, and if you have a player that you believe will call your all-in. Check the 2004 World Series where Sam Farha puts Kate Hudson's brother all-in on the very first hand of the tournament. Both had full houses - Farha, As full of 10s; Hudson, 10s full of As.

My answer is a little less straightforward, and I think it goes back to how I play at the table: I say "no," it is usually not justifiable to put a player all-in on the first hand, for a few reasons:
(1) In a friendly game, such as the one Ryan encountered, the motivation for playing should not be money. It should be socialization first, money and competition second and third, or vice-versa. This is especially true when you are playing with people you are marginally friends with, and you are simply getting together to get to know one another more outside of your comfort zones (i.e. - work). I have no way of knowing if the above situation fits Ryan's predicament, but in that case, I would not put someone all-in on the first hand. Where's the fun? Where's the camaraderie? What happens, then, to the person that ultimately loses that hand? Do they have to sit at the table and endure the rest of the game without chips, without cards, and without a vested interest in the goings-on? I think it's a garbage move, frankly.
(2) Betting precedent. Scott and I have talked about this before. Obviously, the blind and ante structure is very rigged in any poker game. For example, our monthly game starts off at $1/$2 blinds and doubles on upwards to $500/$1000 blinds. Also, we all start off with $1000 in chips. When the minimum bet at any hand is $2, what sense does it make to push $1000 chips into the pot? It's overbetting and it's a bit reckless, in my opinion. Instead, I would much rather make value bets at a pot. I would be worried that, should I have a decent hand, even after the flop, if I were to push my opponent(s) all-in, he would immediately fold, thinking that the amount wasn't worth the call. I would like to take a lot of that person's chips, instead making bets in smaller amounts which I think that would be called as each round of betting progressed. Jesse's argument differs with mine at this point. He says, "Why not go all-in and double-up and play from a position of strength throughout the rest of the game?" Fine, if you can, do it.

In reality, his idea is ideal, though it works more often than not in theory, not in real life. Also, he called my thinking "pansy" betting and playing more to be "friendly", which I had to explain to him repeatedly was not the case. Any thoughts, please post in the comments section below.

We talked about some of this playing catch, in some of the stores we hit up, and at a Denny's on Harlem in Oak Park.

Friday - Homeownership Day

Annie and I officially own a home today. We closed this afternoon and made it to the house in the early evening to tear down some wallpaper. Tomorrow we paint with the help of some friends and family. I'll take more extensive pictures then.

The closing thing took three hours. Everything was smooth as could be, according to both of the lawyers and the realtor that were present, though the person actually doing the closing for some title company didn't quite have her stuff together. We signed all of the documents in one hour and sat around for another two waiting for her to finalize everything. So we talked and talked and talked about everything from poker (shocking) to Soviet submarines to boating to traffic.

I still cannot believe we own a home.

Lawn boy.

2006-07-13T21:14:00.000-05:00

I spent all day Tuesday tending to my spread. I:

---mowed the grass
---raked the clippings (my mom made a comment last time she was here, something along the lines of, "enough with the leaving the clippings," and she has a greener thumb than Martha Stewart, so the dude abides.)
---pulled approximately 72 weeds
---pulled the grass from between the cracks in the sidewalk
---picked up five (five!) bottle rocket sticks from my back (BACK!) yard. (Side note: I'm convinced that one of the kids that lives across the street has it in for me and that he spent most of his 4th of July sneaking out of his house at three a.m. to try to burn my house down with a sparkler.)
---threw said sticks into my negligent neighbor's front yard (or at least at their front yard, since throwing a thin stick of wood over seventy feet is like really not that easy)
---picked up said sticks from my yard and, with great discontent, threw them in my garbage can
---threaded plastic wire into my weed wacker. No. Tried. That shit ain't easy.
---spread about seven bags of mulch
---cursed at the fact that twelve bags of mulch can't cover half of the trees in my yard
---cursed at the humidity, which was so bad I soaked through my shirt even with three ten-minute A/C breaks
---received eleven mosquito bites, including three on my back, through the shirt. I thought we had a deal with the mosquitoes? Through the shirt, boys? There's a line!
---hit my leg with the wire from the weed wacker, which doesn't hurt so much as cut holes in your skin
---listened to the same audio cassette four times (I still have a tape player, a rather expensive little Sony that runs on one battery and picks up WGN like a dream, but somehow doesn't have that little function that was super-sweet in the late 90s where your tape automatically turns over so you don't miss a sweet moment of ________________)

So every time you complain about your landlord or your nextdoor neighbor's penchant for ass sweat tofurkey, remember---at least you're not pretending to know how the fuck to tend a lawn.

My wife hates poker.

2006-07-12T14:46:00.000-05:00

So theRy wanted to play poker last night, just to get some practice. She got me a chip set last year for my birthday, so we cracked it open and decided to play with about $1000 in chips.

Ry does not like to lose money. Even fake money. She liked the idea of antes, but every time I bet she shuddered to think: "Why is this husband of mine trying to bankrupt me?"

So I slowly bet her into submission, and she has about 400 "dollars" left. All night she'd only been betting when she had a good hand, so it was easy to know when to sing the Kenny Rogers song. So she has 400 left and she gets this look on her face and shoves all in.

Now, a good husband can make two choices here, depending on his marital read:
1. Fold the cards you have slowly, and with deliberation, and let her have the pot.
2. Stay in the hand, knowing that if she's willing to go all-in you're likely not going to win.

Each choice here has it's ups and downs. I was holding King-Queen suited, so I had a damn fine hand. Option 1 looked good, except there was basically nothing in the pot and I thought she'd be disappointed not to win some chips. But Option 2 also looked good because I was pretty sure her hand would beat mine, if she was willing to go all-in.

So I called her. She flips over pocket Aces, all smiles.

The flop? Oh, you know. Jack, Queen, King. I flop two pair. She's not happy, but I think to myself----PLEASE GOD GIVE HER THAT TEN. If she loses with pocket Aces she'll never play again.

Another Jack.

Another King.

My wife hates poker.

Florida & the 4th of July

2006-07-09T18:14:00.000-05:00

Let's see... Where to begin?

Wednesday - The Last Day
It dawned on me on the train ride towards Kankakee that Wednesday night could very well be the last night my family all lived together in the same state. See, I've already talked about my sisters moving to Florida, but I haven't talked much about the fact that my parents have sold their house effective next summer, and they're considering moving down towards Tennessee or North Carolina. I grew up in the same house from two years old. My sisters both moved out of there permanently this past weekend.

I thought that, since I left after lunchtime, I'd be able to avoid most of the packing duties that would have otherwise been mine. And, while I did miss a lot of the small stuff, I did happen show up in just enough time to lend a hand loading (and unloading and reloading) the big stuff. Not cool. My brother also had me and my dad come with him to load a set of stairs in a trailer at the festival grounds. My life flashed before my eyes briefly as I could feel the weight of the stairs begin to break my strength. I should really start to work out more often.

The family then went out to Chicago Dough, our old stomping ground, to scarf down some pizzas and have a quiet chat for a bit. Some people at the table next to us were talking about loose stool.

The whole neighborhood then came over to say goodbye to Lindsey and Erin. We laughed and joked, and we collectively readjusted a few more things in the moving truck, and...

my grandpa conned a ride in a hot sports car from my parents' next door neighbor. My grandpa is a speed freak, by the way. He's been pulled over twice in the past two years - once in Kentucky and once in New Mexico - doing 92mph both times. I guess he figures that, at the age of 82, he better get things moving along as fast as possible.

Before we went to bed, I taught my sisters and my brother how to play a little Texas Hold 'Em. Lindsey won the game, though we weren't playing for cash. She cleaned up on the final hand with a fours full of fives full house. She also knocked out Erin, my other sister, with a straight to Erin's set of kings. Congrats, Linds.

Thursday - The Drive

We were out and on the road by 6:30am, and made our first pit-stop at a Starbucks in Kankakee. We had two cars and the moving truck, which was towing a third car for their new roommate, who is moving into the apartment next month.

Lindsey and I shared the first drive, and asked Erin and Andy to hook us up with some chocolate milk chugs from a gas station along the way. They get the genius idea to buy quart chugs instead of pint chugs. It was one of the rare times in my life where I had more chocolate milk than I could drink, and I thank them both for that.

Typical passenger responsibility on a 19-hour road trip: sleep. Lindsey, above, demonstrates the proper passenger-seat sleeping position - head against window, arms folded across chest, eyes closed.

Andy thought he was hot stuff because he drove the truck for quite a bit of the trip. I optioned out of that responsibility as soon as we hit a patchy spot five miles into the trip and the car on the back of the truck looked like it was going to bounce off the trailer. I didn't want to deal with that kind of responsibility. So they let this guy do it instead. Again, another genius move.

We stopped at a rest area in Tennessee, and it was completely and totally packed. By far the busiest rest area I've seen in my entire life. Mind-blowing, to be quite honest.

I closed out the first day's trip with a foot-long chili cheese dog at some Dairy Queen in southern Georgia. We still had about an hour-and-a-half until we hit the hotel. I scarfed it down in five minutes, though everyone else left us behind. We told them we'd catch up, and kindly asked that they give us updates if they saw state troopers along the way. Wouldn't you believe we ran across five squad cars sitting in the median in the middle of the night with their running lights off in the span of about thirty miles? I'm amazed I made it through without getting a ticket.

Last note about Thursday: the cab in the moving truck, we discovered during a late-night rainstorm, let water flow through in quite tremendous amounts. My dad and my little brother were soaked. The next morning, as we made our way through Florida, my dad and my sister got soaked.

Friday - The Move

We arrived at their new pad at about noon and we had them all moved in just before 2pm, thanks in large part to the fact that we were able to back the moving ramp to the stoop which lead directly into their living room. How awesome is that? We sandbagged quite a bit of the smaller items and only teamed up on the larger things like mattresses and furniture.

It was kind of surreal having to come to terms with the fact that my little sisters are both half a country away now, and that I may not see them again until Thanksgiving or Christmas at the latest. I am proud of them and I know that they will thrive in their new environment. This picture's for you, kids. Enjoy.

My flight left Orlando at 6:15pm and I was back at my apartment in Chicago by 9pm. It's amazing to think that it took us about 19 hours to drive there, and less than four to get me all the way back again.

Side note: I do not miss flying on a weekly basis at all.

Saturday - 4th of July Party
Now why, you are probably asking yourself, did he rush to get back home so soon? Well, it was Annie's family's annual 4th of July Party in Rockford. Nothing but fun, games, and food, that's all.

Every year there is a red, white, and blue contest. This year the contest was to create a red, white, and blue-filled basket. Annie filled up a trash can with red, white, and blue trash. Her sister took a small basket and filled it with red, white, and blue clay hands along with the word "HELL" crafted from clay - Hell in a handbasket. Quite clever, both entries. They received honorable mentions. Pictured above is their cousin Todd's entry: a "Red, Wheat, and Blue Beer 'Basket'" (aka Beer Garden), which he erected in the back corner of the year. He had a large metal bucket filled with Red Seal Ale, Blueberry Ale, and Wheat Ale, and, since everyone at the party wears red, white, and blue clothing, his "beer basket" was also filled with appropriately-dressed patrons, as well. Infinitely clever. He got my vote. First prize was a lawn chair complete with a sun umbrella, pictured above.

Bingo's one of the big games everyone plays with prizes for pretty much everyone. I took in this mosquito head net for completing my BINGO during the second round. I'll wear it faithfully during the camping trip at the beginning of August.

Did I also mention that there's enough food there to feed a small country, too?

All-in-all, it is one of my favorite family functions of the year. We just got home today, and are trying to recup from all of the motion over the course of the past week. Now I guess we just have to prepare ourselves for our own big move.

Target

2006-07-07T11:41:00.000-05:00

The other day I was at target and just as I walked by this mother with her 12-13 year old daughter the mother leaned over and said:

Mom-While we're here do you need to pick up anything for your PERIOD* concerns?

Girl- MOM! GOD!

Me- (chuckle, loud enough that they could hear)

* Italic since it was a whisper, Caps because the whisper was twice as loud as her regular voice.

happy birthday america

2006-07-05T21:39:00.000-05:00

go usa. you did it. happy days.

i'm also happy because i finally went to a cubs/sox game where the cubs came out on top. you can't see it, but in the background the scoreboard says white sox 11, cubs 15. don't worry, no long winded play in 3 acts about this one. let's face it: their season is over. and it's a lot easier not to care too much one way or another. other cubs fans can understand.

things i'm excited about within the next week:
my 3rd wedding in 7 days. that's not a misprint. sat, mon, and now sat again.
new pirates of the carribean movie. yeah, that's right. i'm into them.
a bachelor party golf outing. more golf is always good.
my sprint triathlon. we'll see how in shape i am for this one. at least it's short.
sleeping in. good gravy i love sleep.
poker. online and otherwise. i may not be as addicted as marc, but it's close.

Poker

2006-07-04T23:10:00.000-05:00

Not much to say about the last few days. My family had a barbecue to celebrate my sisters moving to Florida. Tomorrow afternoon I will make my way down to Bourbonnais via the Metra train and stay there overnight before we head out for the FL at like 5 or 6 in the morning on Thursday.

Today was a great day. I've been playing poker online, and I've been doing a fairly decent job of it. I won't say how much I've won. I don't want to jinx it.

Annie is sleeping now. I'm about to go in and join her. I started a new book yesterday - The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night. I've been eyeing it in the bookstore forever, so I finally took the leap the other day. It seems okay so far.

Sorry there's not much to say. I'm sure I'll have pictures for you tomorrow night. They'll look fantastic. Promise.

The Taste of Chicago

2006-07-02T00:16:00.000-05:00

Okay. I've officially decided that, barring anything spectacular happening at the laundromat - and I'm talking man-on-fire-running-into-pack-of-nuns type spectacular - I will no longer post pictures of my laundry at the laundromat.

Or, at least not after this one. So what? It's my boxers. Big whoop. These are, by far, the ugliest pair of boxers I own. They came in a 3-pack that I bought a year or two ago, and they were like that crap, useless pair that's shoved in between the other two, much more attractive pairs of boxers. I try not to wear these, but as you can see, sometimes I have to. Ick.

Saturday - The Taste of Chicago

I had never been to the Taste of Chicago until today. And let me tell you this: it sure is crowded there. It's like everyone - and I mean everyone - decided that today would be a good day to have dinner with three million of their neighbors.

One thing you have to give the Taste props for, though, is their waste management. We never had to wait one second to get into a port-o-john. Nice work, folks.

The food was pretty good. Only one major flop that I can think of: the cheese ravioli. Here's "Taste of" menu that Annie and I tried today (in order):

Breaded Steak Sandwich

Rib Tips

1/2 Slice of Watermelon

Fried Cheese

Gatorade - Lemon Lime

Budweiser

Breadstick stuffed with mozzarella cheese

Eli's Famous Cheesecake

Funnel Cake topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup

Budweiser, Bud Light, & a bottle of water

I liked the rib tips the best, though the fried cheese was pretty good, too. I was saving room in my stomach for the funnel cake, but was increasingly annoyed at how difficult it was to eat with a crappy plastic spoon. Annie loved the watermelon. The breaded steak sandwich was good on the first two bites, but the taste wore on me the last few. I didn't have any pizza while we were out. Or tacos, for that matter. What's wrong with me?

A parting shot of the city skyline from Grant Park. It was nice to sit back and relax and let the wind blow over us this afternoon. Eventually we got up and walked from Grant Park to Annie's parents' condo on Michigan Ave. and then back to the Blue Line stop at Clark/Lake. My legs definitely got a workout.

Off to bed now. Didn't quite finish Eats, Shoots and Leaves last night. It turns out it's a bit longer than I thought it was. Heading to my parents tomorrow for various birthday parties, and for my sisters' going-away party.

Poker at the Clearwater

2006-06-29T23:38:00.000-05:00

School Work - Wednesday

I worked the early morning until the early evening on Wednesday on some curriculum stuff at school. I was so pumped up after completing my unit that I decided to flex my muscles a little for the crowd. Work is fun.

Poker at the Clearwater Theater - Thursday
Before I get to the Clearwater tournament, let's start at John's house at about 2pm. We decided last night to have a mid-afternoon poker session. $1 buy-in netted 100 chips. We played until 5:30pm. If one of us went out, we could re-buy 100 chips for $1 more. The game was the dealer's choice. The person with the most chips at 5:30pm walked away with all of the cash. Here are your participants:

Jesse

John

Scott

Marc

This is my ideal afternoon, to be totally honest. We played five card draw, seven card stud, seven card stud (High Spade, Low Hold), Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo Split, 7 & 27, Texas Hold 'em, and Nighttime Baseball. I love mixing it up like this. I may not be very good at it, but I still enjoy it. I'll explain it like this: John won $14 on from an initial $4 pot. Scott had to re-buy twice. John had to re-buy three times. And I had to re-buy six times. Kind of pathetic, I know, but I would like to point out that I rebought at 5:15pm, with only fifteen minutes left to go, and I was the chip leader for the last hand. That's pretty impressive. Jesse, in an even more impressive feat, was knocked out of chips at about 5:15pm, even though he didn't have to re-buy once. That's poker, baby.

John ended up winning that last hand (and apologies, John, but this picture of you is absolutely outstanding) because Scott pushed all-in. We were playing High Spade, Low Hold, which has the possibility of a split pot. If the pot were to split between the two, I'd win the money. I could sit out and let them duke it out. But, if the pot didn't split, it was guaranteed that one of them would beat me easily. So, I had to call. John ended up winning the whole thing, obviously. The pot didn't split. He had a full house and the high spade down. God, I love that picture.

Onto the Clearwater. Apparently, the Clearwater Theater in West Dundee has a No Limit Texas Hold 'Em tournament every Thursday night. It's absolutely free, so we decided that the afternoon poker would be a warm-up for the evening's main event.

This was a picture of the room before the field showed up. At the start of the tournament there were 48 people on eight different tables. Scott, John, and I were all on a table together. We were hesitant to push each other around, so instead we beat up on everyone else at the table, which took a while. By the time we mopped up at our table, we split up: John and I went to one table with two seats open and Scott waited for one seat to open up at another table.

Playing with people I've never met before is fun to me. Typically, they don't know what to expect from me, and I don't know what to expect from them. Long story short, at that table I turned my 6600 chips into 16500 chips (the initial chip count for everyone was 2500). John held his own for a while at the table before being put out in 10th place. Scott went next at 9th place at his table, which allowed me to take a seat at...

the Final Table!

My heart was racing every time I pushed all-in, or every time I faced a big decision, which was weird because, after all, this was a free event. I didn't have any money at stake, whereas earlier in the day I kept going all-in and losing and putting another dollar in the pot that John eventually took home. I ended up finishing in third place at the Clearwater, which is pretty respectable. The blinds kept eating me up, I wasn't getting good cards, and the Red Woman - who also knocked Scott out, coincidentally - was on the rush of a lifetime. Every time someone pushed all-in she either had a high pocket pair - Queens when I pushed all-in with 9/10 of spades - or she outdrew them with over cards.

Overall it was a really fun experience. I'd go again next week, but I'm moving my sisters to Florida. I am proud of my crew, who all finished in the top 10 at the tournament. I think the MPG Crew is ready to take over the... West... Suburban... Free... Poker... World?

Off to bed. I may try to finish Eats, Shoots and Leaves tonight. Fascinating book for all you grammarians out there. Tomorrow will probably see me back *gulp* at the laundromat. Gross.

she loves me. she loves me not. she loves me!

2006-06-29T21:56:00.000-05:00

so a little 4 year old girl says to me, "i love you ms annie! i love you more than all the days!"

the cubs game: a different perspective

2006-06-28T15:22:00.001-05:00

so the cubs game last night.... in one word? disappointing.
here's why... in a not so concise manner.

cubs vs. brewers, 06.27.06.
a play in three acts.
from the viewpoint of the two 29 year old women that sat in section 240, row 11, seats 13-14.

the cast:
woman 1 (the complainer)
woman 2 (the listener)
scott (the cubs fan in section 240, row 12, seat 14)

act 1, scene 1:
innings 1 through top of 5. brewers go up 3-0 on pretty standard effort from the cubs. w1 and w2 are engaged in the same conversation throughout, over the course of 2 beers each and a combined 3 glances to the field and/or scoreboard. cubs are obviously losing because of the atmosphere of the crowd.

w1: ...and i'm just floored... i mean i'm devastated, you know? so i finally told him that i love him more than he loves me... and i'm like, 'you're just in love with love, you know? you don't want to meet my dad, do you? you don't care like i care...?!'
w2: no....
w1: yes! and so i'm telling him all this, and it's like he's not even listening. so i don't talk to him for like two days, and he calls me up one night, and we get talking, and i finally ask him to come over for dinner and to talk about 'us'...

act 1, scene 2:
bottom of 5th. zambrano homers (2) on a two run fly to right field stands. incredibly, henry blanco was on base, and the cubs get 2 back. cubs fans are on their feet. w1 and w2 stay seated, engrossed in discussion about evil boyfriend over beer number 3. it's obvious to background cubs fans that as the only player that cares about anything, zambrano should be in the line-up every game... maybe in left field? 2nd base? as D.Z. (designated zambrano)?

w1: ...and it just kills me to say this but we talked and i felt better about things until the next day when i called him twice and left him an email and he never got back to me.
w2: oh... honey, it's just not worth it.
w1: i know! but then he finally did call a couple days later, you know after i've just gone through 48 hours of suffering... but we talk again, and end up going out last friday night to this party...

act 2, scene 1:
innings 6-7 jacque jones, surprisingly, doubles (14) on a fly ball to center field. ronny cedeno scores. tie game, 3-3. w1 and w2 leave their seats for an apparent bathroom break and maybe some food. they will not return for 2 1/2 innings... just before the 9th. brewers immediately get one back as jeff cirillo singles on a line drive to right field and damian miller (ex-cub of course) scores. 4-3 brewers.

w1: (on the way down the steps) it's just unbelievable because i know i shouldn't even bother, but i can't help it...
w2: (following w1) um-hmm...

act 2, scene 2:
cubbies bring new and, naturally, false hope to the game by having what seems to resemble a major league 8th inning. aramis ramirez homers (14) to center field. todd walker later singles to left field, scoring pinch runner matt murton. 5-4 cubs.

scott: alright!

act 3, scene 1:
w1 and w2 return before the brewers' 9th, still deep in conversation about evil boyfrield. after sitting with their new pretzels and beers number 5 or maybe 6, they resume conversation.

w1: ... so i just figure, 'tonight, just one last time, i might as well get *blanked* because, i dunno, i should just go out with a bang you know!!
w2: ha ha ha.... nice! hey, people are excited... what's the score?
w1: i don't know. what inning is it?
w2: ... it's tied! yay! no wait...
w1: how can you tell?
w2: up on that thingy. they've got the score up there by innings i think.
w1: one.. two.. three... four... they have four scores, right?
w2: yeah, four to...

this interaction goes on for several minutes. brewers make the cubs and their respective (but not very respectful) fans look like complete idiots. gabe gross hits a sacrifice bunt. corey koskie scores. throwing error by pitcher ryan dempster. corey hart reaches on fielding error by shortstop ronny cedeno. damian miller scores. rickie weeks hits a sacrifice fly to center field. gabe gross scores. 8-5 brewers. w1 and w2 leave, maybe after figuring out the score, maybe not.

scott: (sigh).

the end.

Lincoln Park Zoo & Wrigley Field

2006-06-27T23:15:00.000-05:00

I played in two poker tournaments late last night at the time I usually post on SOG2k6. In the first, I put in an absolutely miserable performance and ended up something like 2500 out of 3500. Frankly, I'm amazed I outlasted 1000 other people. In the second tournament I fared much better, and was even 22 out of 2400 at one point. I was on my game. But then a cold streak hit and I wasted all of my chips, and my patience decided to go, too. I ended up 359th out of 3500 total, and even won $.18, which is $.8 more than I posted to get into the tournament. I was so upset, though, that I slammed my headphones down, turned off the computer, and went immediately to bed. So, as a result, I missed...

The Lincoln Park Zoo - Monday

Annie had the day off Monday because she has these awesome new hours where she only works four days a week (albeit at ten hours a day). She gets either Wednesday, Friday, or Monday off once a week, and on the weeks she gets Fridays off, she gets the following Monday off, too. Hooray for four day weekends!

We did a lazy little jaunt around the place, stopping at the must sees: seals, gorillas, new African Apes exhibit, lions and tigers, and the small mammal exhibit. The tiger above is doing her best impression of the Chicago Cubs. Spot on.

Really, though, the whole trip was just an elaborate excuse for ice cream and root beer floats. Mmm... root beer floats. Kind of a strange name, though, don't you think? Doesn't the ice cream actually float? Best not to think about it, I guess. The whole trip was highlighted by the fact that I got a killer parking space on Lincoln Park West, and we only had to walk a smidge to the front gates. Free, close parking spots do not exist in Chicago, unless you're riding with me.

Brewers 8, Cubs 5 - Tuesday
Tonight's Cubs game was a mirror image of my day. They pussy-footed their way through innings one through four, giving the Brewers a 2-0 lead. I pussy-footed my way around the house from 10am through 3pm, doing absolutely nothing at all, though I know I have a zillion tasks to finish in the very near future. In the fifth and sixth innings, the Cubs scored a total of three runs to tie the game 3-3. At 3pm I reheated last night's spaghetti and garlic bread and had a decent lunch for once. Also, I watched the news while I ate. They failed to score a run of their own in the seventh, though they did allow the Brewers to take the lead 4-3. I failed to complete a mission in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City though I (a) played it five times, and (b) have beaten the same damn mission before when I was in college. In the eighth, the Cubs went ahead 5-4 on some clutch hitting. At 4:45pm, I realized that I better shower and get my stuff together quick-fast-and-in-a-hurry because I was supposed to meet Annie downtown at 6pm for the Cubs game. In the ninth, the Cubs blew it all by allowing the Brewers to score four runs to win the game 8-5. Annie and I had a wonderful time at the Cubs game, only to eventually have our hearts broken in the ninth when the Cubs allowed the Brewers to score four runs to win the game 8-5.

Guess who we saw there? Just guess. Scott and his dad have partial season tickets in the right field seats. Check out Scott's new hat. He wanted it last time we were there, though they didn't have it in his size. Our wardrobes, thankfully, are starting to diverge.

Our seats for today's game were in left field. In fact, we messed up initially and sat one section over until a couple came and gave us the "you're sitting in our seats" look. We shyly moved away and took another stab at where we thought we were supposed to sit. Eventually, I calmed the fear we both had about having to go through the same embarrasment again by checking with an usher to make sure we were in the right seats. If you look very carefully you can see Scott in this picture, just to the right of the right field foul poll. You see him?

It was wonderful to see Derrek Lee back in action, though he did go 0-5 for the night. I can't blame him, though. He probably came back a week too soon, don't you think? Honestly, and it pains me to say this, the Cubs are a bad, bad, bad baseball team. Who would have thought that just before Spring Training? We added Pierre. Murton was supposed to be solid. Jones and Cedeno were two question marks, though they've both turned out to be the de-facto top dawgs for the moment. Ramirez is slumping. The Walker/Perez/Womack/Bynum/Hairston thing isn't quite working out (which is sad because Todd Walker should be the EVERYDAY starting second baseman. Neifi got the start tonight. Ick!). Lee, Prior, Wood, Bynum, and Womack are all hurt. Pierre blows (and he's killing my fantasy team, too)! We suck. That's all there is to it. We're a bad baseball team.

At least we have good old Wrigley Field, which is a strikingly beautiful place to be able to watch a ballgame.

And at least we have Carlos Zambrano, who got the crowd on its feet with a two-run homer in the fifth inning. Vive la Zambrano!

Off to bed. I am quickly making my way through Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Highly recommended. Tomorrow I am going to work early. I have procrastinated for too long.

title?

2006-06-26T18:38:00.000-05:00

Thank god Marc finally won a bracelet in the MPG. My hats off and utter congratulations to him. If he didn't win this week I was worried things were going to start to break in a fit of sacrificial frustration.

Since I'm not a teacher like everyone else here you'd think that I don't get a true Summer of George, but since the wife is one her's blends on to mine. A couple mondays ago I got to paint our dining room. A couple tuesdays ago I got to paint it again. Later this week it looks like it may be time for the hat trick.

My brother has the studio booked out all week so I have nothing to do but make some cables for stage one of our major summer upgrade. Maybe this would be a good week to finally get in some poker at the Clearwater Theater?

The Weekend: MPG III & the Friendship Festival

2006-06-25T23:10:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was jam-packed with fun and excitement and activities, so excuse me if the commentary is a bit short. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. Shall we begin?

Monthly Poker Game III - Friday Night

The night started for myself, Scott, and Jeff at 7pm with a $1 game of H.O.R.S.E. Jeff was the victor. As everyone else arrived at around 8pm, we played a game of Around the World in Scott's driveway. I thought it was great that nine dudes in their late-20s were playing (and getting excited about) a game they all learned at around age eight.

Also, Baker has, hands down, the ugliest basketball shot this side of Mars. It is a sight to behold, though he was able to eventually able to get to the top of the key.

Poker started off with a bang this month. We had nine players in attendance, including Jesse, who obviously takes his game very seriously. Both of the sanctioned games were $5 No Limit Texas Hold 'Em games, and I was able to take a few small pots early in the first one before...

I started unneccesarily chasing hands that never seemed to come to fruition. The worst was a hand against my brother-in-law, Chris, who called my pre-flop raise (I had Ace/Queen) of $40. The flop came Ace-Ten-Six, no double-suits. I bet $75 with top pair and a pretty good kicker. He calls. Next card comes Jack. I figure that I've got him beat at this point, so I lay out a $200 bet. He calls, next card is nothing special (like a 3) and he checks. I can't figure out what he has, so I mistakenly check and reveal my Aces. He flips over a ten and a Jack and takes down the hand. I should have bet big time on that last card. It's been killing me ever since. At that point I was the shortest stack at the table, by far, so I decided to take a few snapshots of the hands that came my way over the course of the next hour. Here it is, the anatomy of a poker player's stack throughout the course of a friendly neighborhood game:

Obviously, I did not win the first game.

Congratulations to Jeff, who did win that first game in his first appearance at the Monthly Poker Game. He deserved to win that bracelet.

I won my first bracelet in the second game, edging out Jeff in an intense heads-up match at the end that lasted about forty-five minutes. We didn't finish the second game until 2:30am.

After that, Scott, Jeff and I played three-way five card draw, where Scott cleaned house.

After that, dice. We played this until around 5am, when the sky outside started to lighten up. We decided, at that point, that enough was enough. Time for bed.

The Friendship Festival - Saturday
I grew up in Bourbonnais, where the Friendship Festival is held every year in June. I try to go down every year to check it out. Fond memories from childhood, and all that jazz. I play the same games every year:

Skee-Ball

Fast Pitch, and my personal favorite...

Horse Racing. This game, by the way, is totally rigged. Only hot chicks, like my wife (pictured above) and Jesse's (he's there, too) girlfriend, seem to win, no matter how few and far between their good rolls are. Totally and completely rigged.

The main attraction for the 21+ crowd on the weekends, though, is the beer tent, which I like because the whole town, in essence, goes out drinking for two nights a year. This is the pile of EMPTY kegs they had stacked up in the back.

My little brother, Andy, is one of the head honchos at the place, and was able to take a few minutes out of his busy schedule to stop at the beer tent fence (he's not of-age quite yet) to say hello to his mother and me.

Westphal even came in from Wisconsin. She and my sister, Lindsey, were able to catch up before Linds makes the big move to Florida in a couple of weeks.

My other sister, Erin, is also making the move to the Sunshine State, so it was real nice, for me and Annie, to get to spend some QT with the both of them before they move away... forever.

And, in case you were wondering, my family exclusively endorses the open-mouth smile.

Cooties

2006-06-23T19:14:00.000-05:00

a lady sitting to my left had a startling, dry cough. for each cough, she would cover her mouth with her fist. using a fist to cover your mouth for a cough or a sneeze or a yawn is only a detour for the germs and/or breath. instead of escaping center stage, they escape to either stage left or stage right.
therefore, majority of the lady's dry, startling cough landed neatly on my shoulder and cheek.

The Long Room

2006-06-23T02:28:00.000-05:00

Important News: As some of you know, we recently launched a new myspace page for our group, Kimball. We'd love for you to stop by and check it out and ask us to be your friend. We are slowly working towards playing some shows, and are much more rapidly working towards recording an album. Thanks to everyone who has said hello or stopped by already. We appreciate the support. Always keep an eye out for new songs and new information in the near future. We'll be working diligently on it as time progresses.

I need at least two days to mentally prepare myself to do laundry, and that is why I sighed when asked if I would do it today. To be honest, I steadfastly refused every time Annie mentioned it, yet when she got home from work the cold-wash was drying on our new rack, and the other clothes were all clean and neatly folded away in the drawers.

I was even able to get a bit of work done at Dunkin' Donuts over a sour cream 'n onion bagel and a chocolate milk. I'm taking a ton of Lord of the Flies-related pre-reading and putting it into ACT/PSAE format. Not the most interesting of tasks. I also spent quite a long time this morning searching out World War II photos and info on the internet.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I did the dishes, picked up the wifebeaters from yesterday, and even made dinner just in time for Annie's arrival. She can imply that I'm lazy all she wants, but I want it to be known, here and now, that I am not. I'm a good house-husband.

The only exceptions being those times that I'm out until two in the morning hanging out with the fellas. Scott and Jeff were laughing at some kind of Matt Fast nudity story. There's so many to tell, honestly, that I couldn't possibly narrow it down.

Awwwwwkward...

Scott and I stopped at Rick and Matt's place to pick them up. Rick apparently does not like to be photographed. When he is being photographed, he closes his eyes to pretend that it is not happening.

Matt was telling jokes. I haven't seen these two for a while now, which is quite the testament to my summer so far. It was really nice getting to sit back and relax and tell stories and jokes with these guys. Matt was giving Scott and I flack all night about our new band name - Kimball. He thought we should call ourselves the Fast Bros. I kind of like it.

Greg Static even stopped by. He sat down for a while and we had a nice chat. Turns out he's having his own little Summer of George. I encouraged him to run a Summer of George Sister Blog. I think it would be really cool to organize a whole bunch of these badboys into a Summer of George network. We could do all kinds of things: group Adventure Days, group ticket prices for Wrigley Field, flash mobs, etc. Bueller? Anyone?

After we left the bar, Jeff, Scott and I randomly decided to stop at that little diner on Irving Park just east of the Long Room. I even figured out how to take timed pictures with my camera. I kid you not, we heard the following conversation take place:

Drunk Dude 1: It's going to be your favorite meal ever!
Drunk Dude 2: I love my favorite meals ever...

My favorite meals ever.

Off to bed. I have to be at my new home inspection in seven hours. Must sleep. Tomorrow means the above and the finalization of the loan. T-minus thirty-some days until the big move. We should probably start packing.

Lazy

2006-06-22T11:53:00.000-05:00

i said, "hey marc. can you do the laundry today?"

marc said, "i can't believe you would ask that. i wasn't planning on doing laundry until next week. besides, i am going to work on lord of the flies and then i might see if scott wants to hang out."

i said, "can you do some laundry at scott's?"

marc said, "sigh."

Lazy

2006-06-21T22:38:00.000-05:00

I took the parents and Manny, one of my former bosses, to Piece Pizza in Wicker Park today. Originally, we tried to hit up Dunlays on the Square in Logan Square, but they don't open until 4:30pm. So, I decided to take them to Piece, where I had eaten once before with Jesse and Angie and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Manny and I split a white, ham, bacon and cheese pizza. It was fantastic. We watched a little bit of the World Cup on one of their many plasma tv's, and we talked a lot about baseball. My mom loved the pizza, though she (and Dad) did not love the parking ticket they found on their car when they returned. I failed to pay attention to the rush hour parking signs on North Ave. Whoops. Sorry, Mom and Dad.

Meanwhile, I took the train home. I thought briefly about heading downtown to hit up the big Office Max store (I'm jonesing for a wireless, USB mouse for my desktop and my laptop) and to meet Annie as she got off work. But, alas, I decided against it. Instead, I thought I might go back into the neighborhood and browse some of the lower end retail chains to find myself some wifebeater shirts. I bought a pack a few months ago, and they ended up being too small, so I gave them to Annie. Last week, midweek I think, it was ridiculously hot, so I stole one out of her dresser drawer and wore it around the apartment for the day. It was comfortable. So I thought I might try buying some again.

I got off at the Logan Square stop, headed towards the north end of Milwaukee, made my way into the PayHalf store just around the corner, and found the wifebeater section. I browsed around for a few minutes, carefully selected my package of shirts, stood up and made my way towards the register when suddenly BAM! the lights go out. And I mean out, as in all across the neighborhood. I'm standing there with my shirts and my cash, ready to go, and they can't sell them to me because their computers are down. What a disappointment. They are just around the corner from Spaulding on Milwaukee. The Gap Outlet store on the corner of Diversey, Kimball, and Milwaukee and all the stores in between were all also without power. My building was shut down, too. So, I started out by reading, then took a brief nap, and then I realized that my laptop was totally juiced, so I finished up parts of "Falling Out Falling In."

Scott, John and I are working on a band name. We have a new MySpace page ready to go, pending said band name, and we'll be on our way. By our count, we have somewhere between 12 and 15 songs that will fit together on the album we're working on. We've also talked about starting to play shows soon, though I'm not quite sure how we would go about doing that. We're excited, and working dilligently to not suck.

Off to bed soon. Annie's already asleep. Our schedules are way off. Tomorrow will see me actually getting some of my work for school done. Lord of the Flies, watch out. I'm going to butcher you up.

Graceland Cemetery

2006-06-20T22:32:00.000-05:00

For anyone who loves Chicago and would like to know a bit more about it's history and origins, please go to Graceland Cemetery. Read Devil in the White City before you go. It'll give you some perspective on who some of the more famous people buried there. The above is the Palmer family monument. You may know of them from the Palmer House Hotel. It was incredible to look at this monument, and others, that these people built for themselves to mark their passing. Talk about needing to be recognized for your achievements! This was the largest, height-wise, of all the monuments in the place, it seemed to me. To give you a bit of perspective on the size, I had my pal Rick stand in the middle.

Or some people take the much more interesting sculptor route, such as this one entitled "Eternal Silence" by a sculptor named Lorado Taft. It marks the site of Dexter Graves and his family. I went with my friends Rick and Kylie. They told me to pose like the statue, so I did. I interpretted what I thought he was doing with his feet underneath the robes. I think I got it right.

This was another Taft piece, entitled "Crusader." It marks the final resting place of Victor Lawson, who owned the Chicago Daily News. This was actually my favorite marker throughout the entire cemetery because it didn't have Lawson's name, or any of his family member's names, anywhere on the sculpture. Instead, there was simply a quote that read, "Above all things truth beareth away the victory." I think that simply leaving your belief in your final resting place defines you much more than your name and the dates that you lived. That's your accomplishment. That's the way this guy lived his life, I would hope. And he didn't need to pump up his own ego by marking his grave with his name. Instead, he marks his grave with his belief. I love that.

Daniel Burnham, the architect of why much of Chicago is the way it is (i.e. why the lake shore is open green space instead of industrial space, not to mention his architecture firms many works), has by far the most peaceful and serene plot. He and his family are buried on the only island in the middle of the only lagoon. Their grave markings are small and unembellished. I don't think they needed a mausoleum. It's almost as if they are entombed by nature and serenity. It's really quite beautiful.

That's the thing that struck me the most about Graceland - it's peaceful beauty. There is so much history and so much sadness to be seen there, but all in all, the views and the architecture and the artwork are all strikingly beautiful. I would have to say that it is one of the most unique places I've ever been.

This is the tombstone of William Hulbert, who, according to the map we picked up at the front gate, was the "founder of the Cubs and the National League." I took my cap off at the site and had a brief talk with him about what we could do to possibly turn the fortunes of this year's team around. I hope he was listening.

This is where the Baggins family is buried.

This is a picture of my friend Kylie trying to read a piece of lettuce. She told me that she desperately wanted her picture to appear on SOG2K6. Here you go, Kylie. Mmmm... lettuce.

Off to watch the final minutes of the Heat-Mavs game. Can't decide if I should go into work tomorrow, or if I should try working from home. I'll probably pick option B.

real cute.

2006-06-20T16:05:00.000-05:00

i just got a text message from my sister that read:

"i smiled at a little 2 or 3 yr old girl in the store and then she grabbed her chest one hand on each boob and said WHATEVER LADY."

Five Alarm Glass

2006-06-20T00:24:00.000-05:00

I spent about half of my day and most of my evening working on "Five Alarm Glass." It was one of the first songs that Scott and I worked on together - excepting a cover of Britney Spears' "Everytime," of course - and we wanted to rework it to make it fit in better with our most recent work. You can actually download an older version of the song here. It should be the first song playing. The thing is, I love that version of the song. John, our close friend and producer, worked really hard on mixing that song together, and we don't want him to hate us, but we think that what we came up with today is just as good, if not better.

Let's put it this way - there's a full-fledged chorus on this version of the song. Jenn from around the block came over and laid down about six vocal tracks for us, coupled with about two sets of vocals apiece from Scott and myself, and suddenly a simple, slightly anthemic chorus melody turns into a chorus. It sounds totally awesome, and I'm extremely proud of it. Again, if anyone has space for me to host some of these tunes to be able to put them up here, that would be awesome.

I also kept myself busy this morning with various projects associated with Annie and I buying a house! It's kind of hard to believe. We will own our own home in mid-July. We've signed the contracts, our bid's been accepted, and now we've got to get through all of the legwork. We hired a lawyer while our real-estate agent contacted the home inspector, and we also have an appointment with the bank to finalize the loan. It's all very exciting, and very nerve-wracking at the same time. The largest purchase I've made in my life was my car, which I bought off of my own mother, so it's not like I was getting completely hosed on the deal. This is way different.

Long story short: we had a real estate agent, she showed us this house that we loved, we told her we loved it, we set up another appointment to see it again and double-check some things, somebody else put a bid on it, our agent didn't have her stuff together, we didn't get the house, we dropped the agent, we got a new agent (who happened to be the guy selling the house we loved in the first place), the original bid for the house fell through, we found out that the original bid fell through, we said "We want that house!" and we got the house.

It's in Berkeley, Illinois, just near where I-290 meets I-294. It's got two bedrooms, a living room that is rather large, a kitchen, and a fully finished basement with plenty of space to put in a recording studio/office! There's a garage and a fairly decent-sized backyard. I think that we're going to be comfortable there. There's plenty of place to store our stuff. There's plenty of room to expand into over time. And, as an added bonus, it comes with this killer pool table. The lining is cream and the felt is this rust color. The basement will definitely be the spot to play poker.

I'm excited, and nervous, but as time goes on, I get more and more excited. It's a change of lifestyle, or so Annie says. It actually makes me feel like a grown-up. Very few things make me feel that way. Maybe that's because I occupy myself with the same things that 12-year-old boys occupy themselves with: video games, sports, guitar, and playing with my friends. No joke, Annie spent quite a while talking to a 12-year-old at her center about his intentions to spend his summer doing the exact same things. But he couldn't buy a house ... not even if he wanted to.

My Father's Day

2006-06-18T16:23:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning at my in-law's house. I was alone, except for Rainer, who was alternating MA-MA-MA-MA's with this little half-giggle, half-scream he does when he's waking up.

See, we went "camping" this weekend.

And one thing about me that is without question is that I am not the outdoors type. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like air. I like Wrigley Field when it's almost dusk and there's a breeze. I like bar-b-ques and outdoor parties and the like.

But I'm not a huge fan of camping, especially when it's 95 degrees outside.

And Rainer doesn't like it either. My sweet boy. He refused to stop crying on Friday night, causing me (with this like totally killer fake disappointed look on my face) to have to take him back to the in-law's house (where the A/C was cranking for the three beagles who live there----don't get me started on the fact that the dogs were sleeping better than I was).

So my weekend of "camping" was mostly spent: shuttling Rainer back and forth b/w campground and house (about ten miles, but we're talking rural, two-lane highway miles, the kind of driving man was intended to do); sitting and watching TV in the A/C while Rainer took 2-4 hour naps (MAN IS SOCCER BORING; MAN IS WALL STREET A DATED MOVIE; MAN DO THE CUBS SUCK; MAN DO THE CUBS SUCK PART 2; MAN DO THE CUBS SUCK PART 3); sleeping in a bed with sheets and a fan while everyone else slept in tents and miserable clusters of daddy-long-legs and gnats.

I think Rainer might just be the greatest thing to ever hit the streets. It's like when I'm down or need him to come through for me, he always does. He's like the anti-Aramis. Or the anti-Prior. Imagine when I can start telling him to do things and he'll listen. Rainer, Daddy needs you to pretend that watching the Cubs game with daddy is more important than Daddy taking out the garbage.

Pics forthcoming. Having a 56K modem puts a damper on PHOTOBLARGing.

The BBQ

2006-06-18T01:03:00.000-05:00

Today was kind of a strange day. I woke up long after Annie had left to go meet up with Libbi. They went bargain-hunting at garage sales throughout the western suburbs. They found this little gem, a totally operational organ for the bargain basement price of $5. They say that Scott and I have to share it, but we know who's really going to be using it the most, don't we? Exactly, Scott probably will. Have fun with it, my friend.

I say today was kind of weird because I showed up at Scott and Libbi's at about 11:30am and let myself in their house. I was all alone. I brought my guitar with me and I messed around on Scott's piano a bit. We're working on reworking some of our original songs to make them fit in better with some of the stuff we've got going on lately. I was tinkering around with "Five Alarm Glass." It was super hot in their basement, and I had a big sweat stain from my guitar. Oh well.

Eventually Scott came home from his track meet, and the ladies came back (with the organ and plenty of other great finds) from the garage sales. We had a nice lunch before we decided to unpack the car. After that, Scott and I started a quick game of H.O.R.S.E. on his driveway. He had "H.O." and I had "H.O.R." right at the time where Annie and Libbi decided we were going to be late for a BBQ at John and Julie's house in West Dundee, so they nagged us like we were the teenage sons to their stressed-out mothers. Eventually we gave up the game to head inside to get ready.

Once we got to the JB's place, we did what you would all expect us to do - we played poker. John and Scott are seen here during the seven card stud game (with a $1 buy-in). We mixed it up a bit. Played some Texas Hold 'Em, some stud, and...

...lots of five card draw! This is quickly becoming one of my favorite poker games. How do you possibly figure out what the other person might have when you have no clues beyond their facial and body expressions? Sidenote (and this is a question you can feel free to discuss in the comments section): do I look weird wearing a headband? I've been collecting them over the past year or two - I have four now - and I love wearing them, but I hesitate to wear them in public because I believe they will likely bring unneccesary attention my way. What do you think, family and friends? Would it be considered strange for me to wear headbands in public? Please discuss at your leisure.

We rounded out the night with a rivetting game of Trivial Pursuit. And yes, you do see money being passed around in the middle of the shot. It seems I can't do anything without a gentleman's wager anymore. I am willing to take practically any interesting $1 wager on if there can be a clear cut winner and a loser. It just makes life that much more interesting, don't you think?

Off to bed. We have an appointment with a new realtor tomorrow morning in the 'burbs. I'll bet anyone $1 that this post sucked. Any takers?

Beat the Heat

2006-06-17T00:52:00.000-05:00

Today was one of those days where I found myself drifting from one project to another. I woke up a little before 9am to a raging hangover that kept me homebound all day. I could not function well enough to do anything but sit at the computer for the first part of the day. I won a $50,000/27-person tournament in the process, which was kind of nice. It totally boosted my self-esteem.

After that I got bold and decided to tackle the dishes in the kitchen. I always talk about how much I hate washing dishes (which I do), but in the end, when all is said and done, I realize that I kind of enjoy the mindlessness that comes with the project. The little details always captivate me. I find myself setting up a process: utensils, bowls, plates, cups, pots & pans. I like to go from small to big for the drying rack we have. Then I work on the cups, because there is never any room for them in the rack, and then I make my way to the bigger items because I normally let them dry on the stove. At the end of the project I always find it immensely satisfying to look over and see a rack full of clean dishes.

After dishes I tackled cancelling my AOL account, which I've had since I began travelling for work in 2000. This clip on Break.com actually inspired me to make the leap. Annie and I have been talking about cancelling it for awhile now, but it just seemed like a huge pain in the ass to have to go through all of the services I use on the net to change my email address. I finally made the leap today and spent about an hour and a half going through them all and putting in my new address. It felt refreshing, even though my phone conversation was very similar in nature to the clip from above.

Now, I know that Annie made a big deal about picking me up yesterday, so I want to let it be known that I pick her up from work all the time without prompt or provocation. I made my way downtown this evening to pick her up. She's in the red walking towards the car. Unlike her, I give her rides out of love. It'll actually be kind of sad when we move out west of the city and her job won't be on my way home from my work. We always have time to talk and decompress before the long night ahead.

We stopped by Jimmy John's on the way back, and we ran across this guy. He was roller-skating down the sidewalk wearing parachut pants, and his skates had no laces on them. Every time he hit a bump his skates would wobble a bit on his feet. Plus, he was obviously on something. He was one of the real fluid skaters who moved from side-to-side and in-and-out very smoothly, and would kind of seem to float down the sidewalk. We were so intrigued by him, we actually followed him for a few blocks trying to get good pictures of him. At one point, we pulled into the Target parking lot on Logan Blvd. with Annie standing with her head out of the sunroof. He was coming right for us, and he smiled and waved at her as she tried to grab a shot of him. Brilliant.

Libbi and Scott stopped in later tonight. We'll be heading out there tomorrow. Annie and Libbi are going to hit up the garage sales in the 'burbs, Scott's going to a track meet, and I'll be in their basement laying down some new tracks.

Annie proudly displays her new handy-work on her bike. Notice the seat, which still remains firmly attached. Also, check out the new crate safely secured to the back of the bike. She took it from the grocery store around the corner this evening as we pulled in from picking her up. It made me nervous taking it without permission, so I made her throw it in the trunk before we zoomed down the side alleys towards home.

Fight fire with fire. That's always been my motto. Libbi, Scott, Annie, and myself stopped over at Dunlays on the Square for food, drinks and conversation. It's always nice to sit out on the boulevard late at night and gab away. Somehow we ended up having a conversation about boobies and boys in junior high. You had to be there for any of it to make sense, so I'll spare you all the details.

Off to bed. Maybe I'll read a bit, because I don't think I'm going to be able to fall asleep easily in this heat. Tomorrow means recording and a bbq at the Baird's household.

The Cubs Game - Post 12 Rows Behind Home Plate

2006-06-16T11:33:00.000-05:00

thursday morning i got up at 6:15am. i was at work at 7:30am. i had lunch at 11:00am. was at work until 6:00pm. walked in the apt door, hungry and tired, at 6:40pm. recieved slurred phone call from marc, needing me to pick him up from rick's place because he didnt think he could make it on the bus all the way home without pissing himself, at 6:41pm. picked marc up at 7:15pm.

as marc's DD, i had to listen to the following over and over and over again:
1. baby give me a kiss. come on. please just one and i'll leave you alone. (no)
2. how was your day? (fine.)
3. im really drunk. (i know i can smell you even with ALL the windows open.)
4. look at these pictures (marc, im driving i cant look at pictures right now.)
5. baby give me a kiss. come on. please just one and i'll leave you alone. (no)

The Cubs Game - 12 Rows Behind Home Plate

2006-06-15T23:42:00.000-05:00

I've been hyping up this game for the past few weeks, ever since my pal Rick told me that we got hooked up with FREE Cub tickets just nine rows behind home plate. Unbelievable!

I'll start from the beginning.

I took the Addison bus all the way to Rick's place from the corner of Kimball and Addison, and after the driver dropped off the rest of the Cub revellers, he looked up at me in his mirror, raised his finger and said, "Hey! You going to the game, right?"

"Eventually," I replied. "For now, though, I'm going to Lake Shore." It was easily the most embarrasing moment I've ever had on public transportation.

This is where Rick lives, along Lake Shore Drive near Wrigleyville. His pad is on the 45th floor.

I took these pictures from his personal balcony. It's really unbelievable up there. You can see Wrigley Field, and even probably get somewhat of a hint as to what's going on if you paid close enough attention. I tried to get a shot of Matt Fast's building from up there, but it was just too far away.

The party started at Rick's place at around 11am. Rick's in the top picture. He looks intense, I know. I cannot believe he was able to hook us up with such amazing seats at a Cubs game. Vive le Rick! Bill's with me in the second picture. His wife bought him that outfit from WalMart for Father's Day. In real life he's a White Sox fan, but he put all that aside for the day and rooted for the Cubs. "I'm a Chicago fan," he claims. Nice guy, that Bill.

This shot was taken from our seats. I was sitting down. I didn't have to move a little closer. I didn't have to hold the camera up high. This was it. It is amazing how close we were. We could see all of the movement on Zambrano's pitches. I could tell, right off, that Pierre was going to steal three bases every time he took a little step off of first base.

We all thought the seats and the game totally ruled!

I kid you not, Bill had a money clip at the end of the long afternoon holding one single, solitary five dollar bill. That's the kind of day we had. It ruled. We had pizza at a bar afterwards. I called Annie and (amazingly) convinced her to come pick me up at Rick's place. Totally awesome.

I apologize for any incoherentness evident in this post. Like I said, it was an great day.

You De-serve a Break To-day

2006-06-14T11:18:00.000-05:00

10:05am decided to go and get mcdonald's McBreakfast.

10:10am getting McDressed quickly to beat the 10:30 McDeadline.

10:15am walking McFast, marc McTrailing, marc McYelling for me to McSlow McDown.

10:22am McBreakfast menu was still on the McBoard. McOrdered.

10:30am enjoyed a wonderful McBreakfast of warm fluffy McPancakes.

Laundry Day/Adventure Day III

2006-06-13T23:07:00.000-05:00

The day started off innocently enough - two glazed donuts, one chocolate milk and a good book at the Dunkin Donuts next door to the laundromat. After all, I was waiting for the rinse cycle to finish up, so I had the time. There was this guy sitting two tables over from me attempting to sound very important on the phone. He kept saying things like, "I know, I know, I know. Jill's going to work up the numbers, though, and she's going to get back to me with them. I promise I will call you as soon as I get the numbers. Trust me, okay?" It was super-annoying.

Onto Adventure Day III, sponsored by my dad, Wayne. He took us out to the Bon Vivant Country Club in Bourbonnais, Illinois, where we played a solid eighteen holes of golf, except for Jesse, who only played nine because his girlfriend was making dinner for him. Pansy. Myself, Jesse, Scott, and my dad were all in attendance. Notice Scott's "golfing shorts," as he liked to call them.

Wayne and I shared a cart, which was nice. We got to talk about strategy quite a bit throughout the round. I kept saying things like, "Dude, I think I'm going to try to hit it into the hole." He would wait a moment, and he would look rather pensive before his typical reply, "Good idea."

Action shot. Notice the trees. I don't think we played one hole where everyone hit the fairway. In fact, if I had to wager on it, I'd say that there were only a very small handful of holes where just one of us hit the fairway at all off of the tee. I was probably the worst. I've got a slice like you wouldn't believe. Suprisingly, though, I didn't lose a lot of balls. And I always managed to hit it past the ladies tee. Phew!

Three beers for three sun-soaked and thirsty dudes. Adventure Days should always be sponsored. My mom cooked up a killer bratwurst and baked beans meal afterwards. It was like finishing a round of golf and going into a clubhouse where they served all of your favorite foods - bratwurst, baked beans, macaroni salads, chips 'n dip, and ice cream!

The best thing about ice cream is a nice, cold glass of milk immediately afterwards. The milk you see here is my sister's. She got up from the table after she finished her bowl, went into the kitchen, picked out a cup, walked back onto the porch where we were all eating, and set her cup down in front of her bowl. I immediately grabbed it and drank it down in one gulp. After that, she went through the whole routine again - up, walk, kitchen, cup, walk back, sit, cup down. I point out towards the window behind her as I yelled, "Oh my gosh, look at that!" and lunged for her cup as she (and Scott - what an idiot!) turned to look. I was so impressed with myself, and laughing so hard, though, that milk came spurting out of my nose as I tried to drink it down. Scott yelled, "Milk just came out of your nose! Seriously, I haven't seen that happen since grade school!"

Off to shower. Must lubricate tattoo. Getting scabby. Tomorrow equals Annie Day, as she begins summer days at work and has the entire day off. Fun!

My hood

2006-06-13T20:01:00.000-05:00

Hello, Summer of George. The fact that I don't have a picture posted doesn't mean I can't post, right?

I'm turning into Mr. Wilson. There are kids who play soccer in my front yard. There is an empty field next to my house (we live at a dead-end) that can accomodate probably thirty to forty full-on soccer matches. I'm willing to paint some lines and pay to have some nets installed, because these little turds play on the street in front of my house rather than the glorious, lush green fucking pasture that sits not even twenty feet away.

This means that their soccer ball spends 25-30% of its time in my yard, specifically in some flowers that I just planted. I've resorted to the dirty stare, after over a year now of just silently stewing.

And the worst part is that with every passing day, more kids start showing up. Last week, they left about thirty Italian Ice wrappers in the street, which, as you can guess as a brilliant reader with knowledge of the wind patterns in Northern Illinois, mostly ended up in my yard.

So today, there were five of them playing three different games. Two soccer balls and a basketball.

An aside: One of the kids rides a low-rider bicycle and refuses (refuses!) to ride it anywhere other than the direct middle of the street. Passing cars get staredowns, as if to say, The fuck you looking at.

So they're playing in front of my house just before I go on this long walk, listening to The Twilight Singers on my cassette player (took an hour and some real embarrassment at Office Max to rangle up two blank audio cassettes), which by the way if you don't own their new album (or his new album, shall we say) Powder Burns, you should really just go and find it somewhere.

So I walked for an hour or so cos the Nur was sleeping and the Ry was, too. And when I get back they're still there. And so I decide I'm going to water some plants/flowers and just let them know I'm there. So they're kicking the ball, going all out as usual, and they make this little chubby kid play goalie and just devastate him with line drives, and when he stops those they'll pound him with one lob and one line drive, and it just makes me long for the days when torture wasn't condoned publicly by a vice-president with "other priorities."

Not that these kids could even tell you what that vice-president's name is.

So one of them lines one right at the goalie and he makes this sort of stunning save, his arms outstretched. He catches the ball and in a sort of celebatory glee punts it full-force. Right towards me.

So I have the hose running, as I mentioned. And the ball lands about five feet from me. And instead of being the good neighbor and kicking it towards them or at least pretending to make an effort to help them out, I decide to turn this moment into a Gauntlet Thrown.

And I spray the ball with the hose for as long as it takes the kid to run across my yard to grab it.

Maybe that's wrong, but the Beast within all of us rejoiced.

Didn't Do the Laundry

2006-06-12T21:38:00.000-05:00

That's right. The title says it all. It explains my day.

I woke up late for a meeting at work this morning. 8am rolled around - I was supposed to be in the car and on the road at that point - and I leaped out of bed, into the shower, into some clothes, and onto the road. I even had to stop for gas and still made it virtually on-time. I ended up working for about four hours this morning on a summer curriculum project.

I saw two seagulls (I think) fighting like crazy in the parking lot at Burger King after I left work. The one in the background with his mouth wide open drove the other bird away from the flock and proceeded to squak in circles throughout the rest of the parking lot for at least another three minutes. It was crazy.

After that, I ordered food.

I bundled up the laundry at about 4pm this afternoon, and I ended up watching television and playing video games until Annie got home from work. After that, I decided screw it, I don't want to do the laundry today. It always takes me at least one full day of mentally preparing to do the laundry before I'll actually get up and do it on my own. So, tomorrow is going to be laundry day. I'll have to get up early, which stinks, but que-ev, right?

Now I'm playing poker. I've been on a killer streak on-line lately. I had nearly $500,000 in chips before I bought in to two $50,000 tournaments on Pokerstars.com. I'm not doing so well tonight, but that's okay. I always bounce back.

Off to read now. Tomorrow means laundry (obviously) and golf in Bourbonnais with Scott, Jesse, and my dad, who has graciously decided to sponsor Adventure Day III.

The Party

2006-06-11T23:02:00.000-05:00

Kegs! Holy crap! If Sean Baker were at this party, I guarantee he would have yelled "College!" at the top of his lungs... repeatedly. Total college party at Jesse's pad in Forest Park. His roommate doubles as his landlord, and everyone in attendance probably goes to UIC in the city. College.

Scott was less than impressed with the flatness of the beer in the first keg. So was I. They had a whole keg of untapped pale ale just ready, waiting to flow, and they tapped the flat, crap keg of light beer first. Sheesh.

It drove this guy nuts. He kept pretending to be a rooster, or something. I don't quite remember. All I know is that he is some kind of chef at some restaurant somewhere, and he made a mean barbeque with bratwurst and tacos. Odd combination, I know, but it was fantastic. Especially the tacos.

John B. even showed up. He's listening to the new tunes from the recording session the other day, and I believe he was impressed. Why shouldn't he be, right? Those songs are dynamite. If anyone would like to host them on a webpage for me, that would be awesome. I'd love to put a link up here to show them off. Please?

The real reason I showed up at this party was poker. I played horribly, to be totally honest. I was getting crap cards, and I kept getting raised on crap hands. I think I played a total of four hands in about fourty-five minutes, and I never won a single hand. I was A/7 against A/6 in the hand I decided to go all-in on, and Rooster Boy from above ended up hitting his six on the turn to put me out. I was just barely able to contain my rage, though, so I guess everything worked out. Nothing like losing $10 to a bunch of strangers and not being able to enjoy yourself one bit in the process. Damn you, poker.

Off to bed. Still reading about the English language. Tomorrow equals work for my school district.

i made it.

2006-06-11T16:01:00.000-05:00

so my summer of george has officially begun. marc has definitely been keeping us up to date on things, but just so you know-- my first week, or half a week actually, has lived up to the hype. not only did i finish school, but among other things i had a birthday, went golfing, received my master's diploma, recorded some great new tracks, slept in, and watched the cubs sweep a series. that stuff doesn't happen often. now i'm about to play some poker. this is gonna be a good summer, baby.

what, are you using my babies now?

Did You Know?

2006-06-11T13:58:00.000-05:00

a woman's threshold of pain is greater than that of a man's.

The Anniversary

2006-06-10T23:03:00.000-05:00

We started the day by going house shopping. It went much better than earlier in the week. I'll keep you posted about it in the future.

Annie woke me up this morning by suggesting that we get tattoos to commemorate our one year anniversary, which officially takes place tomorrow. So we did. We got each other's names tattooed on the shoulders in hearts. Awww... it's so freakin' adorable, isn't it? The above is an action shot of me and my boy, Nex, at Tatu Tattoo in Wicker Park.

The final product. My wife sends daggers through my heart every time I look at her. That's what this tattoo reminds me of.*

This is Annie's piece. It isn't a great shot, but she's sleeping right now, and I couldn't stand not having a picture of it. I still cannot believe that a woman on this planet got my name tattooed somewhere on her body. She must really love me, and she must seriously be under the impression that this thing we've got going on is going to last.**

Off to bed. Going to read. Tomorrow equals breakfast at the Golden Nugget and poker at Jesse's pad.

* Just kidding, baby. Love you.
** Just kidding. You know I love you, sugar. Smoochies.

The Studio (in Scoot's basement)

2006-06-10T00:13:00.000-05:00

Scoot and I tackled two behemoths today, and I am happy to report that we came out on top. Above is a screen capture from "Of Youth," which will be prominently featured on our upcoming album. Disregard the group name. We're struggling to come up with one. Any suggestions, please post in the comments section below.

Today was a day for Scoot to shine, both vocally and musically. We finally re-worked a song called "Falling Out Falling In" (or vice-versa, I can never remember), which we had not touched since the middle of last summer. It is a heavily piano-reliant song, and we were nervous about using Scoot's piano as it has seemed slightly out of tune in the past.

No worries, though. The piano sounds turned out just fine.

The guitars and the bass sounded good, too, thanks to yours truly. I have to say that I am incredibly proud of what we pulled off today. Two songs that clock in at just under twelve minutes total with lots of good melodies, plenty of solid harmonies (including a three-parter), a fair amount of musical embellishments, and tons of depth. I would venture to say that it is the best work Scoot and I have ever produced as a team. I tried to find a way to post it on here, but I can't seem to get into an old FTP site that I thought I had access to. Apologies.

I didn't end up leaving the 'burbs until close to 10pm, and came home in time to have one beer at Jenn's around the corner. On the way over, I walked past three dudes getting busted by the cops, and apparently someone lost 'it' last night on one of the buildings in the neighborhood (and I'm not referring to vomit). I had the small beer, in case you were wondering. It did just the trick. I'm exhausted.

Off to bed. Have an early-morning appointment with the realtor again. Hopefully this time we'll see a few more houses with basements. Seems to be a key selling-point.

i've been burgled!

2006-06-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

last month moved my bike half a block to jenn's building (due to landlord's demand) and locked it up.
next day recieved call from jenn, bike was stolen. i loved that bike.

my minlaw graciously gave me hers.

last night jenn and i somehow put air into the tires and adjusted the seat to fit just me. we rode to the park, sat on a bench, drank 40s, peed next to a tree x2, and had our very own night of george. went back to jenn's, secured the new bike with a kryptonite lock and said goodnight.
today recieved call from jenn, bike seat was stolen. wtf.

Adventure Day II

2006-06-09T00:41:00.000-05:00

Sorry about not posting yesterday. I had to go to work early. This is my desk. The picture in the middle is of my friend, Rick, who wrote around the frame, "Dear God, please let me be this cool some day."

Adventure Day II started off with a 45-minute game of checkers at the chess benches near the North Avenue Beach. It was, hands down, the most intense game of checkers I've ever played.***1*** The shot above is the turning point of the match. I was blue. Jesse was red. After this round of moves I was left with one king. He had two. He somehow put himself into a double-jump situation at the end of a 45-minute game. I was on the ropes most of the time.

After checkers we played catch. After catch we walked downtown to ESPN Zone to cash in our $60 worth of gift certificates, which we found on Michigan Avenue during last week's Adventure Day. Anywho, we blew $40 on the arcade. Jesse was 2-1 against me in air hockey. That was the only highlight of this part of the trip for him.

I dominated Pop-A-Shot, going 13-0-1. Jesse was desperate to beat me, but he couldn't. I had one off game, shooting 38, and he managed to tie me. My high was 69 points. We played it for so long because Jesse kept saying, "One more. I'm not going to quit until I beat you." He ended up using the rest of the points left on his gaming card.

From Pop-A-Shot we headed to the bar. From the bar we headed to the subway, where we watched a guy draw a portrait of another guy sitting on the bench. It was unbelievable how detailed the drawing was, and it only took the guy six or seven minutes to finish. We were just making fun of some tourists on Michigan Avenue earlier in the day because they were getting crappy portraits made. I didn't even ask the guy to do me. He noticed me watching his first drawing, and as soon as he finished up, he started drawing me. He did this is four minutes. I love it.

Adventure Day II spending total = $15 = $7.50 per person.

Off to bed soon. Recording session all day with Scoot tomorrow at his crib in the 'burbs. I will try to post mp3's.

***1*** Btw, we played it with poker chips.

Busy/Work Day

2006-06-06T21:50:00.000-05:00

Summer of George, Kelly. Kelly, Summer of George. We work together and got to spend all morning learning how to play ice-breaker games for freshmen orientation next year. One game involved a speaker twirling a long piece of string around his or her finger and that speaker was not allowed to stop talking until the string was all the way wrapped around his or her finger and that speaker had to talk the whole time about his- or herself the WHOLE time and it was kind of difficult and sometimes the speaker would get embarassed and pause for a moment... and think about what to say next... and he or she would stop twirling the twine until he or she would remember something else he or she had to say... Oh! My twine's finished. Next?

This is Max. He was there with his mother, and for the most part he hung out in a side office and drew pictures and listened to his IPod. During the break, though, Max and I got to talk shop: video games! I highly recommended LEGO Star Wars to him. After all, he said, "My favorite ones are action-adventure games!" Well, Max, you are sure to enjoy it. Afterwards, we had a good time pretending that the balloon you see there was a big blue booger.

Work at school turned into working on the desktop with Pops. I told you these pictures would be thrilling! Look at how excited I am! We put 256mb more RAM into the old bird, and we had the chance to clean out the cat hair from the inside. This day could not have been more perfect.

Pops even sprang for Jaenicke's for lunch. He had two deluxe hots, while I went for two red hots with chili sauce and cheese. My side order was fries, and I washed it all down with a famous Jaenicke's root beer float. Can anyone say "yummyache?"

After all of that excitement, I picked up the wife from work. This is a picture of the buildings crowding Dearborn St. in the Loop. It reminds me of the cavern run at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope, so I thought I'd take a picture. We hit up Annie's parent's condo and had a nice meatloaf dinner.

Today was a great day.

Off to bed soon. Tomorrow equals househunting with our realtor. Exciting!

A Feast for my Queen

2006-06-05T21:38:00.000-05:00

The main course was beef and cheddar taquitos.

The piece-de-resistance (pretty sure I messed up the spelling there) was chili-cheese dip. One can chili with beans. One brick cream cheese. One big bag of cheddar cheese. Heat in oven at 400 degrees for roughly 8-10 minutes. Serve with Tostitos or Fritos scoops. Mmm... scoops.

Here's what the feast looked like all laid out on the living room chest. Yeah. Chest. That's where we eat dinner every night.

Got through two more season two episodes of Entourage during dinner.

Beat Episodes I, II, & III in LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game. Laugh if you want. It's a fantastically fun little game. It covers the entire prequel trilogy, and the gameplay is far superior to any other Star Wars game I've ever played. In fact, it almost feels like a throwback to the old Zelda and Mario Bros. games. The controls are very simple. The levels are large enough to explore, but compact enough to master quickly. The enemies are fun. And the movie sequences are short and hilarious. The game receives my full endorsement.

So, so much for recording today. No time tomorrow, either.

Off to bed soon. Waiting for the wife to come home first. Tomorrow I will be working and stopping by my parents house to keep my dad company and to work on upgrading the desktop computer. Those pictures should be thrilling.

Haircut Day

2006-06-04T23:36:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning with this mop on my head.

In a moment, I will be falling asleep donning the above 'do.'

The wife is pleased. She finally got me to agree to the cut she's been wanting to give me for months now. It's summer. It's shorter. My new Cubs hat fits a little better. It makes the beard look fuller, which is a good thing.

By the way, I'm willing to take on bets, online or in person, concerning the beard. I will challenge anyone to a $10 bet that I will not shave the beard for the rest of the summer. I believe school resumes, for me, August 14. I will be shaving it off on August 13, most likely. I have $20 riding on myself. One $10 with the wife. Another $10 bet with the wife's friend's special friend. I think I may have also made a drunken $1 bet with the brother-in-law on poker night. So, maybe it's $21.

Bets, large, small, or otherwise, will be a large part of the Summer of George. Today I won a grand total of $3 on the Cubs-Cardinals series. $2 for the two Cubs wins, and $1 on the series wins for Chi-town's lovable losers. I will spend the money tomorrow on something for myself. Something pretty, to be sure.

Spent the day with the wife trying to keep her mind off of the fact that she has to go back to work tomorrow. We watched the entire first season of HBO's Entourage, followed by a late afternoon showing of V for Vendetta at the Logan Theatre. Both were fantastic. Couldn't help but think that V was an overly-dramatic allegory to the world we live in. The wife had that thought out-loud first.

We ate burritos and tacos, beans and rice, ice cream and Cheerios today. The stomachs are full, and they are happy.

Off to bed. Tomorrow = new video games or recording. Can't quite decide yet.

Video-Game-Face

2006-06-04T14:46:00.000-05:00

new PS2 games added to marc's summer roster:

1.Ace Combat 5 - The Unsung War ("i've beaten the other four. i've never beaten this one.")

2.Gran Turismo 4 - The Real Driving Simulator ("this one is two player! i got it so you can play! i mean anyone can play a racing game.")

3.Lego Star Wars - The Video Game ("it's supposed to be awesome.")

Poker is for Everyone

2006-06-03T14:36:00.000-05:00

Went out to the bro-/sister-in-law's house to play the Monthly Poker Game. It's capitalized. I meant to do that. As you can see, the winners receive the obligatory monetary rewards. They also receive bracelets, too. This month's bracelets were hand-crafted by the sister-in-law. They looked much better than the rubber band & ink pen job that I concocted for last month's game. The bro-in-law, seen above, won the No Limit Texas Hold-em' game.

My wife finished second in Texas Hold-em' and third in Omaha Hi-Lo. She knocked me out in that game. I wasn't polite about it. I'm never polite to anyone who puts me out of a game, cards or otherwise. I hate losing. This is a picture of her hand raking in a pot.

John won the No Limit Omaha Hi-Lo game. He's the first person in the long history of the Monthly Poker Game to become a repeat bracelet winner. He won a Texas Hold-em' bracelet last month. We've only been doing this for two months now.

I ended up beating my bro-in-law in a heads-up game of five-card draw. It took a while to knock him out. He was dealt a straight up Aces full of sevens full-house on one hand. I tried to get a bracelet out of the deal, but none of the other participants thought that I deserved one seeing as how I was just playing Chris one-on-one. I'm not bitter about it. I won $1 from it. Totally worth it.

We stayed in the 'burbs last night and got up early (10am) this morning to go to the Barrington Public Library book sale. Finds include A History of Philosophy, Decorating the Kitchen, and The Middle Ages: A Popular History. I also picked up a ton of books on writing and grammar for my students. I'm pumped.

Off to Annie's cousin's high school graduation party. Must... put... on... collared... shirt... NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Thursday = Adventure Day!

2006-06-01T21:39:00.000-05:00

Jesse and I have decided, seeing as how we are on limited budgets, to create one Adventure Day per week. Spending limitation = $7.50. That's how much I spent today. $2.50 on a bottle of water. $5 on entrance into the newly opened Freedom Museum on Michigan Ave. It wasn't that great.

The day started off with a trip downtown on the Blue Line. There were many empty benches on my car. The woman on the left, though, decided to crowd another passenger for no reason. I would have been pissed.

Before Adventure Day began in earnest, we met up with Annie on her lunch break. There's a really nice bench in front of 525 N. Michigan Ave. with a planter full of trees behind it. A girl was dancing in the background. She would change her hat depending on the style of music she danced to. For example, bandana = hip-hop, sweatband = 80s pop, cowboy hat = country music. It was super lame.

Jesse and I then headed off to Millenium Park, where I proceeded to tear the shit out of the inner lining of his mit. That's right. I've got a gun. Make no bones about it.

Here's a picture of us at the bean. I've got the maroon shoes. Jesse's in the whites.

Next stop, Navy Pier. We thought we were going to ride the ferris wheel, and maybe make out a little once we reached the top, but one ferris wheel ride costs $5 per person. Too much. Totally not worth it.

We hit the Freedom Museum next, and decided to meet Annie as she got off work. Along the way, Pike found three ESPN Zone gift certificates lying on the ground. In the Summer of George business, we call this "Funny Money." Guess who's going to the ESPN Zone arcade next week on Adventure Day?***1***

Tomorrow equals monthly poker game. Apparently, the sister-in-law is working on the bracelets. I hear tell that rhinestones are involved. Brilliant.

***1*** "Funny Money" totally does NOT count against the pre-approved spending limit.

heartache vs. stomachache

2006-06-01T08:32:00.000-05:00

scott and marc decided that if they could finish their hot dogs before we arrived at our seats, the cubs would definately win...

Reds Beat Blues

2006-05-31T23:26:00.000-05:00

Scoot, Zook, Annie and I went to Wrigley to watch Neifi Perez suck it up for nine straight innings. Juan Pierre had two hits, though. He tried to steal twice in the first inning, but Neifi screwed the pooch both times.

Ryno did a little turn on the catwalk above the terrace reserved section in the lower deck. He stopped and waved to the crowd momentarily. Zook and I gave him a standing ovation. We had the following discussion: Top 5 All-Time Favorite Cub Players. Mine, in no particular order, are:
1. Ryne Sandberg
2. Andre Dawson
3. Mark Grace
4. Greg Maddux
5. Shawon Dunston

Basically, I love the '89 Cubs and would give anything to relive that season. Please discuss, at your leisure, your own Top 5 in the comments section of this post.

After the game, we crammed into the CTA Addison bus. It took us over thirty minutes to get to Kimball. It took another ten minutes for that bus to show up. Scoot and Zook have to work tomorrow. Annie does, too. She's sleeping now.

I think I'm going to play my new poker video game. Montly poker game on Friday. Must practice.

The Summer of George Has Begun!

2006-05-30T20:42:00.000-05:00

This website will be home to the chronicles of the participants in the Summer of George, 2006! Welcome!

Monday, May 29: Cubs win! Beat Reds 7-3!

Went to the game with Scoot, the Lib, and Scoot's Dad. Ate a brat and a malt cup. Drank a bottle of water and a large lemonade. Todd Walker hit a home run. So did Matt Murton. Vince Vaughn threw out the first pitch. Jennifer Aniston was there with him. That's why flashbulbs were going off all around the third base side of the stadium.

We went to a bar called Justin's afterwards, where we met up with Scoot's sister and some of her friends. We drank a few beers. Scoot's sister and her friends were waiting for The Break Up premier to begin down the street (Southport Ave.) at the Music Box. We walked by there next. It was crazy.

Got a ride home. Met up with the wife, her friend, Jenn, and Jenn's boyfriend, Keith. We drank lots of beer. I stuck to Bud Light. They finished up the 312 and Coronas. We went to Puebla Restuarant on Milwaukee Ave. I had a steak burrito. It was fantastic. Went home. Eventually fell asleep.

Tuesday, May 30: Back to work!

Long story short - cleaned my classroom, started to clean my desk, picked up the wife from work, currently watching Domino. Trying to fight off a stiff neck. Going to another Cubs-Reds game tomorrow.