Cuckin' Fubs (I surrender)

Cubs are 0-2 at games I've attended. I'm not ready to jump off any bridges, just a little disappointed. It's a long season, but it's not going to be the romp through the NL Central that everyone predicted.

108-54

Mehhh, that's a little better. 2-1 after 3 games; we'll take it. Just keep winning series, and maybe the Cubs will win one in the playoffs this year.

162-0 *

*- With just 161 games to go, the Cubs are on pace for the first undefeated season in Major League Baseball history. Congratulations, men. Keep up the good work, and go Cubs.

Dude's Day

There's really not much I can add to this picture that you can't already figure out for yourself. Jarrod's wife and lone daughter were off visiting friends Saturday, so he and I had Dude's Day with his boys. The original plan was for me to come down on Friday Night, but Nora crashing her face into the sidewalk on Friday altered my plans. I drove to Peoria Saturday morning, and got Dude's Day started with a flash. I met another good friend for breakfast (3 eggs, hash browns, bacon, biscuits&gravy and toast. I even finished her breakfast....there's no shame in my game. I stopped at Hooters (aka The Hoot or Hoo Hoo's), and picked up some refreshments for the big day. I had a craving for chicken wings, and I didn't figure we'd be able to take the boys. However, when I got there, I learned that Peoria Hooters must be a family friendly place or something. 2 out of 3 tables had at least one kid under the age of ten. Who knew? Got the wings, and headed to the Stocks. Nobody answered the phone when I called. I figured they were out back playing. I walked around back and found no one. I rang the doorbell, heard little footsteps, then saw Michael's eyes peering through the window. Moments later, Jarrod, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, answered the door. We sampled the wings to make sure they were ok, did some catching up, and watched the rest of the race. At suppertime, we had Dude's Supper, complete with Dude Napkins (paper towels). There was some question over whether the wings would be for supper or to eat while watching basketball that night. Upon hearing there were 50 wings, we decided we could do both. Long story short, there weren't any wings left after supper. Who knew Michael could eat so many? We didn't take a picture of the bone plate, but you can see Andrew having Dude's Dessert (rice krispie treat). The girls came home, the boys went to bed, and Mama went shopping before hanging out for the end of the last game. She even got to hear the "Do It for Jarrod" story. Always good times!!! The wild party broke up around 10:30.

Dude's day was a success, and the next time we have it, there will be t-shirts with a slogan and everything.

Spring in Chicago

Ummmm, yeah. This is as of 11:30 the evening of 4/5/09. The White Sox cancelled opening day tomorrow. More pics here.

More Great News for the City of Chicago

My favorite Wrigleyville pizza place, Bacci Pizza, now has Sausage & Pepperoni pizza. Lemme explain. About 20 paces from the Wrigley Field el stop, there's a pizza place in an old brownstone. You can get a huge slice of pizza and a pop for $5, with tax. In the past, you had your pick of sausage, pepperoni, or cheese from pizzas they already had made. You can imagine my delight when I walked in today and saw they had added sausage & pepperoni slice to their pre-made lineup. It's on the way to Wrigley, and the fine folks in the Cubs organization will let you bring in outside food, so it's a good fit. In other outstanding news, Bacci had done away with their wax paper envelopes for carry-out, and come up with a slice-sized box. You can now carry your slice into the park and not worry about the ingredients sliding off while you're in transit. This is indeed a glorious turn of events.

I've been on vacation this week, and today was my last day with the girls. They like riding the train, so we parked at Forest Park and took the train(s) to Wrigley. We ate at Bacci, then began our annual "prayer-walk" around Wrigley Field. We stepped onto the block where the park sits and hadn't taken 50 steps and I hear a loud smack followed by much weeping and wailing. My precious little Nora had been skipping with her hands in her pockets and took a dive on the cobblestones. She was behind me, and I didn't see how bad it was. I gave her a cold bottle of water to put on it, and suggested we get on the train and go home. She wanted to stop at the souvenir store to replace the Cubs pin she'd lost. We stopped in there, it's across the street from the pizza place, and picked out our pins. (Nora is holding the water bottle to her face and weeping openly the entire time.) I'm paying for our stuff and took the water bottle away from her face to have a look, and there was a collective "Ooohhh!" from Maggie and Grace. Her face was swelling from just above her eyebrow to about the middle of her cheek. We high-tailed it out of there and got back to Bacci to make up an ice pack. There were 3 paramedics headed in for lunch while we were there. They looked her over, suggested we ice it down, and take her to her regular doctor (talk about providence, huh?). I take my still crying child on the train where everyone proceeds to look at me and speculate about what I might've done to my child. About 10 minutes into the train ride, I take the ice off, and she stops crying. We talk a little bit, she tells me it doesn't hurt, she's not scared, but she misses her cat. I figured she was doing fine. We got back in the car and headed to Naperville. I was in no mood to deal with the Peds office on Friday afternoon, and we've met the deductible, so we went to the ER. We've got a pediatric ER, and it's glorious. Cool docs and nurses, and we were out in 25 minutes. Nora had good pupils, movement in her eyes, feeling in her face, and her jaw was working just fine, so they said she was good to go. I forgot to mention that at that point, she was Chatty Cathy. Aside from the ginormous bruise on her face, you'd never know anything was wrong. We got home, and she and I had some serious cuddle time. I felt terrible for her, but she was happy as a clam. Now, I devote a fair amount of my time to Cubs baseball. I hope they don't win the whole thing this year; because I'd hate to have to take her back there next year and push her down to bring back the luck.

I Gues Alot of Bears Fans are Excited

Maybe I should be excited too. Da Bears finally have a franchise quarterback. Jay Cutler, who was unhappy in Denver and made everybody miserable in an attempt to get traded, got his wish and is now a Chicago Bear. And really, the Bears only had to give up their starting QB and 2 #1 draft picks in exchange for Cutler and a fifth round pick. Yippee. Hopefully, he's far away from whatever was pissing him in off in Denver, and he can get back to being the standout QB he was with Vanderbilt (SEC, BTW). A word to the wise....get Kyle Orton on your fantasy team, he's bound to do better in any other offense.

In other news, NASCAR is in full swing. Kyle Busch has won 2 races, and his Gibbs teammate Denny Hamlin is also planted squarely in the top 12. The girls are struggling with a new driver in the Home Depot car. They still want to cheer for Tony, so now we cheer for the Stewart-Haas Racing Old Spice Office Depot #14 Chevy Impala SS.

After a comment about Old KY Home clip, I did a little research. I had informed Int'l Mikey that we originally learned the words as 'the darkies are gay'. I went in search of the original lyrics and got a whole history lesson. I figured with KY's ties to the south that there were some slavery references in there, but had no idea it was so closely tied with "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Crazy. Take a look for yourself. It's a good read if you've got a sec.

My Old Kentucky Home

From what I understand, the sun just might be shining a little brighter in "My Old Kentucky Home". The Big Blue has a new headmaster, and he goes by Coach Cal. I haven't been the biggest follower of the Cats since my relocation out of the sunny south. Believe it or not, they don't show all the UK games up here like they do back home. People are more concerned with Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, and the rest of the Big 10. I'm on vacation this week and got to see quite a bit of the press conference as it was being aired live. I'm actually getting a little excited, and this season isn't even over. The guys on ESPN speculated about which recruits might come with Coach Cal and suggested the Cats could even be a pre-season top 5 time. Then they showed the stats of Calipari's first seasons with his new teams. With Memphis, the Nets, and UMass, his first years have all been worse than the previous guy's last year. So, maybe we should get ready for a 15-loss season next year. Anyway, I knew it was a special day when the cart pusher at Sam's Club, who was wearing a UK t-shirt, and I had to have a talk about the big news. Yep, it's gonna be a fun year. Here's a little youtube clip (1988?) to help it all sink in. You may listen sitting down, or stand if you want to be respectful.

Just Get it Out!!!

I've never been pregnant, but I've been around some pregnant women in my day. After last night's hot dog eating contest, I can't help but think this is what the final days of pregnancy might feel like. There's something inside of me, I must get it out, and I must get it out now. Yep, this is exactly like pregnancy, except without all the joy of bringing a new life into the world. O, there will be joy, but it just won't be the same.

A Friendly Competition (updated)

A friend from work wrapped up a "Biggest Loser" style contest yesterday. In honor of his accomplishment, he wanted to have a hot dog eating contest at work today. Unlike most competitive eating contests, this one is a marathon, not a sprint. We all got to work at 6 PM and started at 7 PM. We're wrapping up at 5 AM tomorrow morning. I can't think of a better way to spend a Tuesday evening, although I can think of better ways to spend Wednesday afternoon. I have a secret weapon....Metamucil. I self-medicated before I left for work. I'm feeling a little full from the Metamucil, but I fully anticipate it paying off in the end....literally, my end.

Update: The contest ended at 0225 when we ran out of hot dogs. My plan was somewhat successful. I had six hot dogs, went to work out, then put the hammer down....sorta. We started off with Vienna Beef hot dogs. I had one at 1900, 1910, 1930, 2000, 2115, and 2138. After jumping rope and a half hour on the treadmill, I had hot dogs at 0035, 0055, 0125, 0200, 0205, 0207, and 0225. Truth be told, we ran out of the Vienna Beef brand and switched to Ballpark franks around 0100. They weren't as thick, but they were full bun length. Either way, they went down quite a bit quicker. At 0225, I was tied with the guy who suggested the contest. We'd both had about enough, but we had to address the lone remaining dog (Hello, lone remaining dog.) We split it and the prize money. That's right, I've now officially eaten food for money.

Bromance is in the air...

Midnights are going just swell. So swell in fact, that even on my off days, I sleep like I'm still working midnights. The plan tonight was to get to the gym in time for the UK game at 6 PM. I didn't make it. In fact, I was off the phone and getting ready to go at 10:15 when I decided to check my facebook account. 3 hours and some good chatting later, I was finally out the door. I had a nice little workout. I came home to make some eggs and watch my TV shows (DWTS, How I Met Your Mother, and This Week in NASCAR), but I stopped to check my Facebook again. Next thing you know, I'm on Youtube watching videos. I'm going to post this and be done. I found these guys while looking for a performance of Rawhide one night. They're fairly talented and seem to have a good time playing. I may be developing somewhat of a man crush on their talents. They've got some other good stuff with obscure instruments.....and, check this out, I had no idea there were so many videos of people playing the ukulele on Youtube. It's amazing...I want to learn to play after I accomplish all my other goals in life. I should be able to start learning sometime next week.




Oh heck, here's another one. I could totally see myself playing at a nursing home. I'm not sure that's where this is, but could be....

Friday Entertainment

Not much I can say, but I find the talents of some people amazing.

Everybody Needs a Thing

I can't run....never have been able to. I can climb steps. I'm not particularly fast at it, but I enjoy getting to the top, looking out at our fair city and thinking "I got to the top of this (insert your own term) all by myself!!" I've done climbs for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Children's Hospital of Chicago, and another for the American Heart Association....or some other kind of health-conscious group. Those climbs were anywhere from 83 to 103 floors....start at the bottom, finish at the top, boring climbs. This Sunday at 10:00, I'm taking on a new challenge.

The American Lung Association is sponsoring the inaugural Climb Chicago. Rather than climb the steps at one really tall building, we'll be climbing all 4 of the 45-floor Presidential Towers buildings in Chicago. From what I understand, only 700 people have signed up. Evidently, the perceived difficulty of the climbs has kept some people away. I won't be the fastest climber, and there's a very good chance I could be the slowest.....I mean the one who enjoys the stairwells the longest. Anyway, it's what I can do to help out a cause....it's my thing.

Oh, and I have to raise $35 more dollars by Sunday....if you've got a couple of extra bucks, it'd be cool if you could make a donation. Here's a link.

Bi-Monthly Post

So, my home computer crashed....like 18 months ago. That's my excuse for not posting anything in the last 2 months. The last posts took zero effort on my part, so I'm not sure they even count. Either way, I might be back.

Back to the computer. The CN Board of Directors saw fit to take some of the 2008 profits, that's right, we made more than we spent, and give a little something back to the employees to say thank you for their efforts in 2008. So, I found a deal on a new laptop and procured it. I took apart my old computer and sent the hard drive to Andy, and he got my pics and music off of there for me. I've been going through it today and found some good stuff. I uploaded a bunch of old pics to my flickr page. They are mostly of the girls with some of dad and trains thrown in for good measure. I think there are some cuties out there. My how far we've come.