I am not that interesting

New blog site

2007-02-06T11:35:00.000-06:00

Since I can not figure how to transfer my old blog to bloggers new version I figure I would just post a redirection post. Please check out
http://waronlogic.blogspot.com.

I only have one post and but I plan on starting to blog again.

2006-11-18T16:12:00.000-06:00

I decided to take a short break from working on my homework. I have a final project due tomorrow and I have been working on it all week. I took yesterday off with the intention that I would have it already done to relax and play FFXII but I ended up working on my homework from 10:30am till 6:30pm. I gave up after that and ordered pizza and played my game. Today I have made some pretty good progress though I have been testing it along the way. When I run it on my pc I have no issues but when I load it to the school server I get a really weird error when trying to run it. Not good.
I have the OSU/MI game on in the background and during a break there was a commercial for a movie. TK was talking to me and I made him stop because I saw a dragon on the TV. Yeah I am really that big of a dork. Well I found out that the movie is called Eragon. I was shocked. I read the book in the last year or two and the second book just came out earlier this year. So for them to make a movie this soon is pretty huge. I looked it up and John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons are both in it. Jeremy Irons must love dragons since I know he was also in the Oscar-snubbed film Dungeon and Dragons.
The movie comes out December 15th and the books are kind of geared towards kids but they are really entertaining. Should be interesting to see what they have done with this movie. Go check it out.

Not to shabby of a day

2006-11-09T20:45:00.000-06:00

Overall the work day was pretty good. Then I had class tonight which I am currently in. I finished the lab in class early so I was able to complete the homework assignment that was due at midnight tonight during class. I didn't have much left to do but I was going to have to do it when I got home around 10pm. I also found out that this is my last class of this quarter which I had thought we still had one next week. Now I still have a final project due on a week from Sunday though I plan on spending much of Sunday working on it. I would love to be all done early. Then I am off until after the new year. You have to love the quarter system. So I believe if I finish my Final project early this week I am going to treat myself to a day off on Friday and play the new Final Fantasy all day since I have not had the opportunity yet.
I have a family wedding this Saturday which should be a blast since my whole family will be there and its in the City so no driving is necessary. Have a great weekend if I don't write till after.

Calling all Stair pushers

2006-11-09T16:12:00.000-06:00

Work has been really crazy today but its 4:00pm and I feel like I accomplished a good amount. So instead of taken lunch I decided to play a game that I think Pablo sent out a few months ago. For a while we all tried to get the highest score and then started doing the reverse.
Here is my lowest for today. 143.
Not bad for my first day back in months. I have thrown down the gauntlet. Lets see who is up for the challenge.

Bates motel

2006-11-07T14:51:00.000-06:00

I think I stayed at the original hotel that Psycho was based off of. I am travelling for work and currently at the airport on our way home. Down side is that its 1/4 to 3 and our flight was scheduled for 4:04 but the guy at check-in said its 1.5 hours late. So I have plenty of time to kill.
Back to the hotel. We all pulled in the parking lot and was shocked by what we saw. To continue the place had a strange smell. I took a picture of the burn hole that was in the bed spread on one of the twin beds. One of the guys I was here with was battling a beetle( I think it was a cockroach) in his room. Worst nights sleep I have ever had in a hotel. I guess this is what the customer that I work for had as their preferred hotel choice. I am guessing price had a big deal with it though it was not worth it at all.

I bet they show this on "The Ocho"

2006-10-31T16:36:00.000-06:00

Before I get to the post, any of you xhtml guru's know why my links now sit at the bottom of my posts instead of even. I tried to look at the template but they are using the

where I am not really sure whats that for. I thought it was simply a column ender or something like that was removed but they are not using that form of html. Its to advanced for me.

On to the post. I get an email from "The Onion" each week about special events they have in chicago. Usually they involve stuff with free beer for an hour at a bar to who is dancing this week at the Admiral.
This week one of the deals is for a beer pong(Beurit) tournament. The winner gets so prize but also get a trip to the WSOBP you ask? Why it is the World Series of Beer Pong. I believe this will be broadcasted live on ESPN 8 "The Ocho". The fact they have a world series for this gives me hope. Since my favorite drinking game is "Asshole", there might be a WSOA tournament out there somewhere. I always dreamed of winning the world series when I was younger and maybe this is my chance. Let me know if you hear of any qualifying tournaments.

I am back!

2006-10-29T20:12:00.000-06:00

Yes, I feel like hutch though he has probably blogged more recent then me. I have not been blogging or even reading them for a while. I feel like I am so busy with everything. I have three more classes until I am done till the new year. At that point Final Fantasy 12 comes out tomorrow. I know Keri is thrilled with the thought of me playing the game all the time.

My decision to return was based on Halloween. I decided to finally watch the movie Saw. I have been putting it off for a while because in my older age I have started to get more afraid. Not just of movies but life in general. I finding myself taking less risks then I did years ago. I think about the future more. I am see it as a sign of maturity but there are times where I also see it as a sign of fear. Its strange how you really need to balance life between being safe and taking risks. I guess the older you get the less risks you take. I spent a good amount of my early life taking lots of risks. Stupid ones mostly but still risks. As I sit in my apartment with no one around I find my self debating turning off Saw because my mind tends to play games with myself. I used to love horror movies. Though I will admit I used to watch them mainly with Lynn. Her and I would get a whole bunch of wine and have horror movie marathons. It was fun and its definetly not as scary when you have someone else watching with you.

Are you supposed to stop taking risks as you get older? Is taking risks what make us feel alive?

Why does music touch the heart?

2006-09-22T00:08:00.000-05:00

I just got finished watching the season premiere of Gray's Anatomy. I also watched the pre-show recap of the last season. At the end of the recap they had a video by The Fray "How to Save a Life". I have loved the song for a while but never seen any video by the band. The video was filled with clips of GA. The clips fit in perfectly with the song which leads me to wonder whether it was written for the show. It was used in the last seasons GA season finale so maybe it was.

However that is not my point. Songs like these seems to touch me in a weird way. When I hear them I feel like I am reconnecting with the world, or I am the only one left in the world, or I finally understand the true meaning of love. Music can make you feel so many strange emotions. It's not even genre specific or band specific. I love a song called Konstantine by a band called "Something Corporate". I do not know a single other song by them. However Konstatine will forever remind me of Keri. Songs become memories in a way. I remember a lot of my past almost like a movie, with its own soundtrack. I can actually pick certain songs and tell you what period of my life I was at. If you have ever seen "High Fidelity" with John Cusack, he organizes his records autobiographical. I have that same idea with music.

Something about music has that ability to just get into those level of your soul that sometimes are not open. It can fight its way through and touch you were you didn't think you needed it.

I have lost my music fascination over that last few year. I haven't owned a car in about 4 years. I don't have a cd player in my room. I have gone through numerous mp3 players overs the years but busted each of them within a few months. Now I have a phone that is Itunes capable, however I have not changed the songs in over a month.

I have gone through numerous fetious over a variety of music styles. The weird part is I still like them all. My current taste is always my favorite but once in a while I just love to relieve the past. I went into Jimmy Johns today before class and they were playing Tool. I am guessing its Tools new album, but they are a pretty unmistakable band. The voice is pretty hard to miss. I went to their concert back in Highschool during junior or senior year. The place was so packed that I actually was able to lift my feet off the floor because I was being crushed by the people in front and behind me. Also this was the concert(if you have heard the stories) where out of now where some guy started punching me in the back of the head. A fight never really broke out because when I turned around and talked to him he was laughing his ass off( I am also guessing he was pretty high on something by his look). I looked at him and knew he just hit me . I said what the fuck. His response was fuck you. At that point the whole crowd shifted and the guy fell away with the crowd. The rest of the concert I was a little on edge looking out for him but he was always far away. I still thought about walking over and just start punching him in the back of the head. I never did but still enjoyed the concert.

I got a little off topic. I would like for people to post songs that remind them of periods of time in their lives. I will post a few here:
Pour Some Sugar on Me- Def Leopard 3rd or 4th grade gym night
Any GNR or Motley Crue song - 8th grade
Nirvana-Smells Like Teen Spirit and NIN-Wish- Freshman year
Chloe Dancer/ Crown Of Thorns-Mother Love Bone-Sophmore Year
Fee-Phish and Least Complicated and Blood and Fire, and Closer to Fine-Indigo girls-Senior Year
Onslaught-Blues Traveler and Crucify-Tori Amos- Freshmen Year
After that I can just list songs. The list gets smaller but I still love to hear them.
Konstatine-Something Corporate
District Sleeps Tonight-Postal Service
I Will Follow You into the Dark-Death Cab for Cutie
How to save a life-The Fray

I know I could go through my cd or mp3 collection and find more. However these stand out in my mind at this point in time. Everyone of those songs have gotten me through a time in my life or kept me going on the right path or reminded me of something important in life that sometimes I forget. Either way music definitely effect me. I am not sure if it effects you in the same way. If it does please feel free to point some songs that hold meaning to you because I would love to hear them.

Beer Mapping. You know for kids!

2006-09-21T15:05:00.000-05:00

Nice!

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/restaurants/060825/

2006-09-17T11:09:00.000-05:00

I went to the Guinness and Oyster fest yesterday. We saw this band called Powder. They were insane. The music was pretty good but the show they put on was awesome. The lead singer is wearing these crazy outfits and she does a gymnastic routine.
The picture is from my cell phone from about 40 ft away so its not very good. However there are two ring suspended in the air and the lead singer and another girl up that doing routine. If you have a chance to see them I highly recommend it.

Check out one of their video's to see how bizarre they are.
http://www.atomfilms.com/landing/landingIndex.jsp?id=powder&mature=accept

Time to relax

2006-09-15T20:17:00.000-05:00

I had some homework and a lab assignment due tonight at midnight. I had been working on it a little bit this week but really focused on it last night. I got to a point where there was only a few small problems that I have left. I got home from work and spent two hours trying to get my files off the ftp site so I could work on them. After that it took me only 45 minutes to update them and finish them. I called Fitz for a brief question since my class is geared towards what he does for a career. So now I am done for the night. I just ordered ton's of Chinese foods from Jia's(best chinese food in the city). I am going to pig out and watch crappy television.

On another note. I picked up the book "A Scanner Darkly" a week or so ago because I have wanted to see the movie. Its not a big book about 250 pages. Its really quite an interesting read. Half the time you don't have a clue whats going on but its kind of the point. The book is about a junkie. So you really get to understand how bouncy the mind can be in that state. Its also got a somewhat funny bit to it because the junkie is being monitored by the police. The cool part about the book is it talks alot about the mind and how it works. The book was written in 1982. It talks alot about how the mind has two independent hemispheres though the left one is dominant. What would happen if the connections between them begin to deteorate or close. Could your mind keep going? Would you have two totally different thought patterns?

BSG Fans

2006-09-09T13:54:00.000-05:00

BSG fans. In case you have not been rewatching the second season as its been replayed on Sci-Fi on Friday nights then you might not be aware that starting this past Tuesday is 10 new webisodes airing on Tuesdays and Thursdays prior to the start of the new season. Who knew the web could make the tv even better.

Check them out at http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/.

Best thing in Denver

2006-09-09T13:33:00.000-05:00

During a commercial for Sam Adam's I stumble across this little jewel in Denver Colorado. This years is the 28-30 of September. In the heart of the movie Beerfest, I believe this is the true beerfest. I already have plans for the 30th and since I just got back from a trip I doubt going to it this year. However next year is the year. Sign me up. Click on the picture to see what I am talking about.

When I grow up I want to be.....

2006-09-06T22:01:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to the cubs game. With that I spent a lot of time afterwards talking to a friend about a lot of things going on in our lives. The one thing that came up that has been part of my mind for a while was that we are growing older. I know that may sound stupid. I am almost 30 which should mean that I should be an adult. However; I still feel like a kid at times. 3 of my ex girlfriends are married and with children. I am not saying I want that life., now I am very happy with the way my life is and I have made choices to bring to where I am. I still kind of feel like not an adult at times. I can not really explain it though. I look at the way my parents are and I think being an adult i should be at their point but I am not. However the one thing I have come to terms is that I am not their and I think I will get there on my own time. I have help but i believe she is already aware of how much help I need.

2006-09-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

I must apologize for not blogging for almost a month. I kind of feel like Hutch. Though at least my last post was after his last post.

I have a lot to say but I won't say it all. The last few months of the summer were killing me. Work has gotten crazier and I have come to loathe my supervisor. It might be me but I really do not need supervision at work like some of my co-workers. I am constantly finding things that will improve the area that we support. Also I have a second responsibility of my job that started back in Nov after the outsourcing. In this role I am the only person that does it and I report directly to the second line manager of our department. I still usually keep my first line manager in the loop of most of the things so he has an idea of what I am doing.

My team-lead(supervisor) however seems to think that he needs to be involved in everything. Which recently has become a bigger problem for my job. I believe I have spoken on this before. I briefly spoke to my first line manager about possibly moving out from under my team-lead. Hopefully I can follow through in the next few weeks to figure out a plan. Its either that or move completly out from under my first line manager though I really get along well with him so I do not want to have to do that.

Another reason that I was so crazy was schoo. I know this is going to sound really strange coming from the guy who dropped out of college after his first year but I really want to do well in school. I was completely stressing about how I was doing in the last class I took this summer. It has a lot to do with the first homework assignment which I spent over ten hours on and still gave up and got an 84%. I know that 84% is a B and I should be happy. However; going back to school now for me means that I really waited until I was ready which means I should be able to get the best grades possible. In the past the worst grade I have gotten for a class was a B+ except for on class which I never quite finished. That class really F's up my GPA but the class was about how to plan your path in school in a program that I am not longer with. Also that class came during a interesting part of my life. So I basically pretend like that never happened and still consider my worst grade a B+. So based on that I get worried about not getting an A. Not an A- but an A. I need to in order to keep pulling my GPA up but also just because I want to do the best I can.

I am happy to say that after my first homework assignment of 84 I was able to pull off much better grades. It was a lot of work but I was able to pull off the A in the class. I know its sounds really stupid that I am worried about it but I figure that being almost 30 I should understand the importance of school know and getting good grades that most 18-21 years olds don't.

On a much better note. The last week I took Keri on a somewhat suprise vacation to Cozumel, MX. Picture will be posted once I get the camera developed and get photo's from Keri's digital camera. We went Scuba diving so we bought a disposable underwater camera. I am not sure how the picture will turn out but I am sure they will be crappy since my above water photo skills are not that good. It will be interesting. Otherwise there is a long drawn out travel story. Short version we ended up spending the first night of our vacation in beautiful Dallas,TX. We at least got to enjoy a Shiner Bock.

I will try to post the whole story plus the letter that I plan on writing.

Recommendation: If you plan on booking travel it defintly is helpful to book it through a travel agent/tour company. We booked through American Airlines Vacation's and they were a huge help when problems with the trip happened. Plus there was then someone at our destination to contact if we needed assistance.

Overall Keri and I had a great relaxing trip. I loved Cozumel though I really wished I had seen it before Hurricane Wilma hit last year. It will be a few years before they fully recover.

Highly recommend Follia for dinner

2006-08-10T11:21:00.000-05:00

It was Keri's bday yesterday and we decided to go out to dinner after I was done with class. She picked me up from school about 8:30 and we drove over to the west loop. There was two places that she had mentioned about trying. It was kind of confusing because she actually thought one location was the other restaurant she wanted to try. Well we ended up at a restaurant called Follia. It is hidden in the dark meat packing district on Fulton in the west loop. A little scary to walk their at night but we made it fine. The restaurant is almost right next door to Moto which I have heard is pretty good. Follia was a real treat. The waiter with his thick accent was probably just off the boat from Italy. The wine was excellent and the food really good. We got the Italian cheese plate as a appetizer. It went really good with the wine. Keri got a Margherita pizza which is cooked in their brick oven. Keri said it reminder her of the pizza she got while in italy. Quite yummy. I got their special which was a pounded veal chop breaded and fried in vegatable oil(which is fresh for each item). For desert Keri got a chocolate cake thing and I got lady fingers with marscapone cream. So good. Also I am not sure why but they brought us two free glasses of some desert wine to try. Perfect with the deserts.
Its not a cheap restaurant at least as far as wine and their entrees. However the pizza ranges from 12-20 so you could have a good meal for not to expensive. I would defintely recommend it for a nice night out for dinner. I heard it gets really busy on the weekends.

I even think like a geek.

2006-08-10T11:04:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I went down to St. Louis for Keri's neices baptism. A conversation came up about premature births of babys. One of the people who is a NP said that premie's heads look like Toasters. I immediatly thought that she was talked about Cylon's. They have a plan.

Gotta love Tai's

2006-07-29T04:41:00.000-05:00

So as the end of a usual evening we ended up at Tai's. They funny part is that like all evening I do not believe that I am going to end up there. Tonight though we ended up running into a guy from HS. DJ was a guy who I knew through HS but got to know through dating female friends that we ended up double dating. However I have always thought he was a really great and nice guy. Based on this I am hoping he comes to the party that we are all attending tomorrow/today. Life is weird and sometimes I feel that they bring people back together for a reason. I feel like this guy could be a good/great friend if he makes it past this weekend and attends this party. Otherwise I may never see him again except at the next reunion.

Life is confusing and sometimes you just have to go with your best guess. It may not be right but at least you made a choice. From there you can figure the rest out.

I am sorry. I didn't think.

2006-07-29T04:29:00.000-05:00

Sometimes we do things because we are so excited for others that we forget that they themselves want to tell people. We don't do it out of any ill will. Just because of our over excitedness to let people know. I did this recently. Also at no point did I mean to poke fun at any career that any of us would ever choose. I sometime just feel sarcasm is needed to have fun with life. I have some much respect for the accomplishments of anyone who would be willing to just change their career and go after another career that they choose. I think that doing that shows an incredible amount of maturity. I apologize if at any point my sarcasm would be seen at me making fun of anyone's chosen career. I sometimes make sarcasctic comments just to enterain people that read this blog. At no point to I instead to hurt people based on my comments. I would hope that even though sometimes I am sarcastic about serious situations I am more looking to congratulate them. I am sorry if anything I have written would be take badly or I apologize for posting something earlier then I should have. Sometime I just get so excited about people that I love's accomplishments that I can not keep my mouth shut. I do not do this with the intention to hurt anyone.

Little Stevie and his new friend

2006-07-27T06:49:00.000-05:00

Mark informed me that our dear friend Steve went out and bought himself a manly scooter. A Vespa to be exact. Now this new buy of Steve's comes only weeks after his brother just bought a motorcycle. Mark made this lovely picture and had 900 disperse it at work. I guess Steve's mid-life crisis has kicked in a little early. Man am I jealous of him.

How do I get this to happen?

2006-07-26T07:10:00.000-05:00

In case you don't know Hutch and I are taking a rock climbing class. Well on the first day we had to go around and introduce ourselves. This one guy who looks to be around mid to late 20's starts off saying that he's from England but normally lives in Denmark and just sold his company and is not retired. Last night after class we all went to the nearby pub for a beer. I got to talking to him for a bit. He is in the process of selling his company to IBM. He holds 17 international patents on software products/designs that he has done over the years. The crazy part is that he was contacted by IBM for the buyout. He was not looking to sell but they just called him up and offered a hell of a lot of money. He said he will make 500grand a year on interest off of the money from the sale. Talk about crazy.

The problem he has is that he doesn't know what to do anymore. We kept trying to give him idea's however he had done almost everything. He seemed very well read. He has travelled all over. He has a pilots license, has sky dived, is certified in scuba. We went through everything thing we could think of. One thought was him to get his phd and teach at a college, he already has a masters. The best suggestions came from someone else that he become a blacksmith. Wouldn't that be kind of fun to be able to open a forge even though no one will probably need anything from him. I also through out to become a horse cobbler.

Break in class

2006-07-19T19:42:00.000-05:00

My god, So I am taking a class on Database Design that started on Monday. Second class I am really am fighting to not fall asleep. This break could not come soon enough. Teacher just keeps rambling and never actually gets to a point. I am hoping he gets to one before the class is over.

Mt. Everest here we come

2006-07-19T11:16:00.000-05:00

Hutch and I begin our rock climbing class last night. We are learning the basics with rock climbing on an indoor climbing wall at a gym in Chicago. Yesterday it was a lot of fun but incredibly hard. When we got there people were already climbing they made it look so easy. However that is definitly not the case. My forearms are so tired right now. Which I learned at the end of class meant that I was climbing incorrectly. I already have to fix my technique.

Here is a photo of Hutch and I at class.

Who is this guy named Steve?

2006-07-17T15:59:00.000-05:00

NOTE: This is a post that I wrote a while ago and just noticed that I save it as a draft instead of posting. I believe its still valid though.

There is a secret little fact in Hollywood that some of our friends stumbled upon a few years back. So far I have seen no evidence to prove otherwise. On Memorial Day weekend our theory was once again reinforced.
Hypothesis:
If a guy is mentally or physically challenged, completely idiotic, socially retarded, a complete douchebag, or even a donkey then the character will be named Steve.

Initial findings:
We made our first finding of this fact after watching Waterboy and finding of the the donkey or mule that lived in their house was named Steve.

This was reinforced on Memorial day weekend while watching The Ringer. The lead character who is faking being mentally handicapped while trying to fix the special olympics was named steve. I received a phone call the same weekend from Mark stated the same fact.

If your wondering why we would even notice this small little fact then you would need to meet our friend Steve G. Steve is the embodiment of all these characters all rolled into one. Now I do not know whether he has tried to fix the special olympics however I would not put it past him.
Steve stated off as an actor in college. Based on this my new theory is that someone from Hollywood saw him act and has sense then been writing characters with him in mind ever since. Either that or his twin actually lives in hollywood.

Feel free to post your favorite Steve.

I believe Steve's across the world have banned together to save their name with the site below. My point though is further made by the quote below on the site.
"The retarded copy of Michael Keaton calls the real Michael Keaton "Steve."

http://www.chud.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-57887.html

Check this show out

2006-07-14T01:11:00.000-05:00

If you have not heard of it yet but there is a great new show called "It's always Sunny in Philidelphia". Its on FX channel on Thursdays. I first saw it when they were sneeking previewing it on Fox. I find it quite funny and I am not sure if anyone else agrees.

I almost went postal

2006-07-12T14:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I could have killed my team lead and second line manager. I will explain why.
The department that Mark and I work in is a specialized IT group that is not part of the rest of the IT departments. Based on that there is a lot of political BS that goes on up at the manager levels about who supports what. Its become especially more prevalent now at our new company because everyone wants to suck up to the new adoptive parent and make themselves known as the good little children.

There is an application that is going to be re-architected. I guess its a big deal. People are still currently fighting over the scraps on this piece. So backtrack a month ago. I small piece of the pie needed to be fixed sooner. I am not sure where the decision was made but it was decided that this one piece (we will call it reporter) needed two new servers to replace the old one. At this point my department has nothing to do with Reporter's servers or application. This guy who I seriously dislike because he is the biggest ass in the world(though works for the company I support) decides he wants to change the rules to the servers and add additional network connections. Based on this all the current support teams throw their hands in the air and say they don't want anything to do with it and it should fall on our departments. I am pointed as the resource. For the next few weeks however they take it back and then give it back to us. So I do not know whether or not I am supposed to be doing anything only information I get comes from my Team Lead and Second line manager. Fast forward to last Tuesday or Wednesday. I get an email stating servers will be here on Friday and that I need to build them and get them into our DMZ at a different building by Saturday, July 15th. My first question to my TL is whether or not the proper paper work has been put in. In IT if you make any sort of change you are supposed to fill out a form called a Request for Change. Its a good idea however its implemented like a small retarded child at our company.
My TL tells me that my second line manager has submitted everything and they only thing I have to do is install the OS and Nic's on the server and then pass it off. I am thinking this is simple. I get the servers late Friday and start building them on Monday. Tuesday roles around and I realize that I still need more information on how to proceed. I contact both TL and SLM and they respond with they are not sure now whether any of the paper work has been submitted. Also neither of them is in the office this day. So I end up spending the next few hours trying to track down contacts and phone numbers for anyone who knows anything about this application. After talking to about 8 different people I am able to piece a good amount of it together. I know also find out that I am supposed to be doing the application install and then supporting the environment once its live. The old support team has walked away.

So thats pretty much where I am. The up side is that I finally got a grasp of the whole thing yesterday and this morning and I am not stressing as much. I sat both my TL and SLM down today and explained that communication needs to be severely improved going forwarded on projects like these because it only makes our department look bad.

Gotta love working for large companies.

Fantasy What?

2006-07-08T11:52:00.000-05:00

For all of you that know me, you know how I am a big Sports Nut. Okay stop laughing. Seriously. Unless they plan for a chicago team and even then my knowledge is limited, I normally don't even know what sport the player people are talking about plays. In the last two years, I have come in second or third to last in our fantasy football leagues. Well finally I have found something that I may be good at. This also might be good for Joters xmen ability. Check out his comment on M&D's blog. The RedEye had an article about Fantasy movie leagues. You play the movie exec and get to choose certain movies and then based on their box office earnings you get more money to go out and buy more. This is right up my alley. They also reference another site called the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Check them out.

This ones for Mark

2006-06-23T16:54:00.000-05:00

Not sure if your already aware but guess whats coming to Cartoon Network. If you still can't guess click on the link.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-06-07-peewee_x.htm?csp=34

Call me Deepthroat

2006-06-23T16:48:00.000-05:00

Wait on second thought maybe its not the best nickname. So I am not sure how much of this I can say so I will be kind of coy about it.

I got to spend about an hour today review Security video tapes and tracking down information that is going to lead to a federal arrest at work. I feel like I have completed my civic duty for a while now.

The reason I am being kind of sketchy is because I am not sure yet whether the Feds have picked the people up.

So keep that in mind next time your mean to me. I may be sending the Feds after you.

I am a man of Faith

2006-06-23T10:44:00.000-05:00

I am sure I am breaking some kind of Blogging code by posting about someone elses find but I just had to. Joter's post about FSM really got me thinking. I have always believed that there is something greater then us and that somehow this greatness(referred to as TG) is giving us signs to help us through our lives. Now I finally see it. We went to Disney World with some friends back in 1997 for spring break. At the Magic Kingdom( or TG's house) we ended up feeling inspired to dress up as Pirates and entertain the good people of DW. (I am trying to track down a picture). As Pirates we were really felling the holy power of FSM channelling through us. We must all return to our Pirate roots otherwise global warming will continue to consume us. May FSM be with you and that you never have to go without the touch of his noodly appendage.

Spread the word!!!!

You do can be an artist

2006-06-22T12:59:00.000-05:00

Check this out. I am going to quick my job and sell my work on ebay.

I am a geek

2006-06-17T01:57:00.000-05:00

I have spent my life trying to figure out who I am. I just watch an old episode of scrubs that covered JED being the king of the dork. My whole life I have been a middle child. Which for most people might not be a big deal however if you met my siblings its probably understood. My older brother is the suave attractive type of guy. He can sell anything to anybody. He has great friends behind him. My younger sister is the class act of the family. She is both beautiful, intlelligent, driven and social. She is the one that I have not met a single person that has said a bad thing about. Now mind you she had to grow up with John and I before her. So she could watch our mistakes( and just me there were a lot of them). But it's weird being the in-between the two stars. I have been a social person however I do find it hard in certain circumstances. I have always felt like at times I can be a leader however I realize I think I am limited to leading only certain folk. Maybe I sell myself short, not sure since I have proven myself. But its a lot of pressure to be the middle child when both of your siblings have been so successful. Not only that I am the only child to not have a degree. Though I know I am going towards it. It seems weird, that why was I not able to achieve it when everyone else did. I know it nothing to do with smarts. I think one of my biggest flaws is that I think I am smart. I base it mainly on work. People at work seem to not think for themselves a lot. I find myself answering questions throughout the day that could have only taken a few minutes of thought to figure out. Now at one point I am not knocking it because I probably would be looking for a new job if that was the case. This whole rambling comes after spending 4 hours on the phone on a Friday night with work when I wanted to go out. I had to walk someone through how to trouble shoot a problem with an application that has been there for more then 4 years. The employee in question has been with the company and department longer then I have. However people don't ever feel the need to learn things until they are required. This guys is at least 10 years my senior. The funny part is people talk about our generation as being the lazy people. I completely disagree. I think our generation understands more then past generations. Before your job was to focus and learn one thing and one thing only. Nowadays, we are required to know as much as possible about all subjects that is possible. Being a geek I am also required to know how certain function of banking works(that's my industry). But 20 years back that wouldn't have been required. This could seem like someone shit on us and we got the bad end, however I view it as a bigger opportunity. We have the ability to change the entire market place with our knowledge. We no longer have to be limited to be in a one direction job. Instead we move to other avenues of opportunity base on what we know. So keep up the good work and in the long run it will all pay offl

Where in the world is Pablo Sandiego?

2006-06-15T16:41:00.001-05:00

2006-06-15T16:41:00.000-05:00

New weighloss Fad

2006-06-14T22:27:00.000-05:00

I came up with a great new idea for losing weight. I really think its going to catch on. You could lose 10's of pounds a day or week if you so choose. It really simple to follow and in fact most of you already do this. I really hope you all give it a try. It doesn't require excercise except maybe a little pushing. Have I peaked your curiousity?

Well I came up with it yesterday after I weighed myself. Then I proceeded to sit on the toilet and push. Afterwards I weighed myself again and I had lost 1.4 lbs. Think about that if you just sit on your toilet and push you can lose weight. Imagine doing this ten times in a day. I would lose 14 lbs a day. How could everyone not love this idea? There is no strenous excercise needed. No send $25.99 and I will send you my knew book, "Shoot, I will stay on the pot".

also I want to let everyone know that I singlehandedly ate an entire watermelon in a week.

Winner of the Biggest D-Bag award!

2006-06-12T17:03:00.000-05:00

Congrats to TK on his honor of graduating from D-bag school.

Blog changing incident

2006-06-10T11:07:00.000-05:00

I was originally post about my plans for the weekend and the fact that my quarter in school is done. However something happened that changed the original message

Original planned message:
I am really excited for this weekend. I fiinshed my last class on thursday night. With that I no longer have any finals, papers or homework to worry about for the weekend. I wanted to sit on my couch and watch the entire second season of Entourage since the next season starts this week.

New post:
On my way home from work on Friday night. I was still really excited about the weekend. I am riding my bike down Halsted just past Chicago ave. there is a hill that I was going down. I was going pretty fast down the hill in the bike lane. Traffic was backed up halsted which I love as I pass all these cars just sitting. Then the something happened, a blue ford taurus trys to sneek into the traffic by pulling into the bike lane right in front of me. Luckily enough I was able to swerve to avoid him though just barely instead of crashing head first into the side of his car. Instead after I swered I realized that there was a car stuck in traffic right on the other side of him. Hence the Blue Taurus trying to squeeze into traffic. Long story short, I was not able to avoid this VW passat wagon ended up hitting the back corner of it. My handlebars and my hand ended up going through rear brake light.
The next hour was spent waiting for the cops to show up so a report could be filed. Once the cops showed up they took everyone information and then let the Blue Taurus go because according to their view he had no fault. So at this point I am waiting on the VW's insurance company to call me and see what the deal is. Also I think my bike my have gotten a little messed up. I was able to ride it home the rest of the way but the gear don't switch as easy now and the chain slips once in a while.

Also just so Keri nows I was wearing my helmet. The only damage I had is pictured below. I made TK take them when I got home.

Not what I was hoping for.

2006-06-07T22:37:00.000-05:00

This quarter in school I took my first computer related class. The class focussed on the way computers and routers talk across a network. It was really interesting and I really liked the class. After the first day of class I decided that I want to change the school that I was in. Right now the program I am in is called the School of New Learning. The school is geared towards older people who have been working. You can actually write papers to get credit for work experience and other strange things. Its a great program and has gotten rave review for adults. However I feel like I dont really learn a whole lot in the classes. This past quarter they offered a class on yoga. I could have gotten credit for basically taking a yoga class. I guess for some reason I want some more then that. So this computer class really sparked my interest. I looked into the School of Computer Science and technolgy(CTI) at Depaul. They have a program for a Bachelors in Science in Network Technologies. I looked over the curriculum and loved it. I wanted to meet with an advisor and discuss my options. Finally today I was able to go meet with them and the news I heard was not good. I was hoping that all my classes I have taken in the last year would count as liberal studies classes. However the bad news is they do not. Now the classes can count towards electives and there are 9 open electives. Though there are still 37 other classes I would have to take. Based on taking 2 classes a quarter it would take me more then 4 more years to complete. So now I am a little confused as to what I want to do. I think I am still going to transfer but I want to put some more thoughts in and weigh the options. I guess I got a long road ahead of me. I will keep you posted on what my final decision.

Snow in Late May

2006-06-06T01:33:00.000-05:00

Keri and I went for a walk last Tuesday morning. We stumbled across the weirdest pheonomenon that I have seen in a long time. Snow in May.

Actually it was a whole bunch of dandilion fuzz. It was really strange though how it had all found its home on this small section. Even the grass was covered with it.

Later that day, we went to the Peggy Notebart Nature musuem. I had never been there and always had been curious about the place. It was interesting though there was a whole bunch of grade school field trips there that day. Overall the musuem is gears more towards kids. Our second favorite part was a bathroon that they are showing how bacteria can be everyway and on the door it says all your "poops and toots". We both got a big kick out of it. Our favorite part which I would say if you do go you can not miss, was the Butterfly greenhouse. You walk into a greenhouse type room with thousands of butterflies all over the place. They kept landing on me on my shoulder and what hair i have left. It's hard to imagine the place but if you do go then make sure you visit this room.

Weekend in Review-Membership has its Privileges

2006-06-05T01:34:00.000-05:00

Alternate Blog title: Whoever said Cleveland rocks never met Summer. Summer rocks.

The weekend started by Keri and I checking out a restaurant called Trattoria 10. They have an italian buffet for only $12. Its probably one of the best deals in the downtown area. The restaraunt is very nice and the food was pretty good. After that we ventured over the Lasalle Bank Theater for our third installment in the Broadway series. It was a one person show called Golda's Balcony. Golda was played by Valerie Harper. I have to admit that going into this play I was not looking forward to it. First I had no idea what it was about. Second, when I found out it was a one person show that did not bode well. However, it turned out to be suprisely good. Not great but still pretty good. It was based on the life of Golda Meir. I had never heard of her before. She was one of the key people in founding the nation of Isreal and later became prime minister. She was in charge of building Isreals first Nuclear Reactor which was done without the US knowledge. She is viewed as one of the strongest women in history. Afterwards I kind of felt bad never having heard of her before. After the play Keri and I rented "Mrs. Henderson presents" and fell asleep about 30 minutes in.

Saturday we got up and rode our bicycles down to the Musuem of Science and Industry. They have an exhibit on Leonardo Da Vinci, which Wourms and Gwen had gone to see the weekend before so it sparked my interest. Once we got there we found out that a Family membership to the Musuem was $90. That includes us and a guest any time we want to go plus all of the Omnimax movies that they have. So if anyone ever wants to go with us let us know. Special exhibits are still extra but we do get a discount along with food and gift shops. Plus we can get advanced tickets to exhibits before the public. We took advantage that day and went to both currently running Omnimax movies. One was about Ancient Greece and the other was called Wired to Win. Wired was about the brain chemistry associated with the desire to win and focus on riders in the Tour De France. The main focus of the film was on Baden Cooke who took the green jersey in the Tour. The green jersey is for the best Sprinter in the race. Until this film I only knew of the Yellow jersey but found out that other cyclist are also competing for one of four jerseys, green and yellow being two. I am sure all you tour fans will already know that though.
Keri and I discussed trying to get a group trip together for summer of 2008 together and going and watching the Tour.
The Da Vinci exhibit was interesting. I was unaware that he made most of his money off military inventions. The funny part is that he would create an offensive based weapon and then create a defense weapon to combat the offense one. I am not sure if he did this to make more money or sell to both side. I would like to believe its because he did not like the idea of violence or creating these types of devices and like to have ways to nullify them.

On our bike ride back we stopped at an Irish pub called Grady O'Malleys in the south loop. Suprisely the have the best Buffalo chicken sandwhich that I have ever had. Who know the irish could make buffalo taste so good.

Sunday was Laundry day. I did three loads while Keri went to Brunch with her roomates. Afterwards we went to costco. Later we walked down to Lincoln Square and met up with Steve, Chris, Janet and some of their friends at Mayfest. Hung out there for a bit and then headed over to the Davis theater to see the Break-up. For those who do not know, the movie was written by a fellow Loyola Alumni and I actually knew him when I was younger. My brother and Jay Lavender were friends until he moved to Evanston. We bought our first Skateboards while visiting him in Evanston. I enjoyed the film. It was funny overall. It had been built up a lot so I had somewhat high hopes. Overall though I would recommend it.

Tonight and Tomorrow I am covering third shift at work. So I have time to sit write long blogs like this one.

Haunted Hooters

2006-06-04T11:59:00.000-05:00

Friday's redeye and the morning wgn news had a piece on the Hooters in Chicago being Haunted. (click on the link and go to Larry's world for the piece.) This made me think that this would be a great idea for Ghostbusters 3. I guess the hooters in chicago is in a building that was used as the morgue for the 1915 Eastland cruise ship crash which killed 844 people. Biography channel is going to have ghost hunters come in for the show "Dead Famous: Ghostly Encounters". If you interested in this kind of stuff check out Chicago Paranormal Researchers. My favorite is the first line is that they are discreet. "Oh yes, they are very discreet." "Anybody seen a ghost".

I am living in a fantasy word and I am fantasy guy!(song to madonna's Material girl)

2006-05-24T12:25:00.000-05:00

I recently realized that I truly don't believe this world is really all it seems. For some reason the general problems in life are not enough for me. I need to invent fictional ones to either:
a: Amuse myself
b: Scare myself
c: I am just plain nuts
d: or to celebrate Peanut butter Jelly time.

FYI, trying to find a good linke to PBJT I forgot to turn down the volume on the computer so most of my work neighbors want to know what the hell I am doing.

Back to the fantasy world I have created. So the official trigger for todays blog happened on the bus this morning on my way into work. A women next to me sneezed. I said "Bless you". Normal reaction right. Most people doing it to be kind. Ahhh however; I had an alterior motive when I said it. At the time of the sneeze my mind jumped to the movie "12 Monkeys". Why is a mystery? Somehow my mind puts the women sneezing and the virus that spreads in 12 monkeys together and I immediately begin to assume that this women has a highly infectious virus and if I say bless you then she will see they goodness in my and give me the antidote so I don't get infected.

I am not making this up. My mind actually went through this whole scenario while sitting on a bus.

The really funny part is I was right and she gave me the antidote.

Code from the town of Vinci

2006-05-23T11:59:00.000-05:00

Went and saw the Davinci Code last night. If you don't get the

Title reference Davinci actually means from the town of Vinci. So it was not really Leonardo's original surname. I will have to saw regardless of all the hype and poor reviews, I enjoyed the movie. By far its no contest to the book(though I read it about 3 years ago now). However; its an entertaining film. If you have not read the book and went to see it I would love to hear what you have to say since I think you might be a little lost. My biggest problem was that I kept thinking things were going to happen but then realize they were from "Angels and Demons", one of Dan Browns others books(sort of pre-quel to Davinci). I preferred Angels and Demons as a story in general. It doesn't have as crazy of a contreversy surrounding it but as a story I find it much better.

I did some reading about Leonardo about a year or so ago for a class in school. I would have to say that if I could go back in time and meet anyone he actually might be my number 1 choice. The man was gifted in almost all aspects of life. He wrote numerous manuscripts and drawings that until were way ahead of his time. He had produces drawing for both the submarine and hellicopter which were not even invented till the last century. He was also a master painter among about 30 other things. He was the model Renascience man.

Think about the concept know. You may change your career once or even a few times in your life. You might even go back to school to accomplish this. However Leonardo, was doing all these things at once. Quite an amazing man.

Spoiller Alert: If you do not want to know anything about the movie or book then stop reading.

I know there is a huge amount of controversy surrounding this thing. At one point during the movie though Robert Langdon mentions that "why does it take away from Jesus being the son of God if he was married and had kids." I am not saying that I believe any of it either way but it the point does kind of make sense. Is the issue that it makes him seem to human so that he could be capable of flaws or sin? I know there were probably around 100 gospels written and only 4 were choosen to be considered valid. In High school, I remember talk of the Gospel of Thomas which pointed to much to Jesus' divinty and not enough to his humanity. Its the whole dicotomy of human/divine that everyone basis their belief on. So once again why does that change if he got married? I know there is never going to be a right or wrong answer on this topic or anything involving religion but its fun to debate.

Play at words

2006-05-19T12:30:00.000-05:00

Keri and I went to the second play on Wednesday of our Broadway in Chicago series. I do have to admit that whoever gave her the seasons tickets to Broadway in Chicago as a Christmas gift must be quite and amazing person.

So the evening started out magically. I left work a little early and began to walk over to Ben Pao for dinner. About 10 minutes and 5 blocks away from the restaurant is begins to rain. Sorry let me rephrase it because rain just doesn't quite cut it. I beleive Torrential Downpour with a side of hail would be more appropriate. Of course I do not choose to get in a cab at this point since its 5 blocks away. Long story short, I would have been less wet if I had gone swimming in my clothes. To top it off about a block away from the restaurant a cabbie changed lanes to specifically hit a puddle and splash it all over my legs. Normally I would have been extremely pissed but it didn't make me any wetter then I already was.

As I am about to cross the street to Ben Pao, I get a phone call from Keri saying how soaked she is( also it has stopped raining at this time, so future note is to wait 5 minutes and see if you want to go swimming first). I believe I won Keri's soaked contest by a landslide. She actually just started laughing at me when I entered the restaurant. Needless to say Ben Pao would not be serving my wet cold ass dinner that evening. Keri said we needed to go get new clothes. So about 30-45 minutes later and a $115 dollar rain fall for me(all new clothes except for boxes and shoes), we were sitting down to eat at FoodLife. I have been to most of the Lettuce entertain you restaurants but Foodlife it a lot different. Its more like a fancy cafeteria with 13 stations of different food.

The play was really good. Its 1hr and 45 mins with no intermission. The Drury Lane theater is really small so there are not really any bad seats there. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars or a should see. The first half is hillarious and then it drops a little though its still really enjoyable.
Enjoy your weekend.

Pray for a better day

2006-05-12T11:23:00.000-05:00

I am truly hoping today is better then yesterday. Not saying yesterday was horrible but it just wasn't going smoothly. First we have a big test tomorrow at work so I have been spending a lot of time at another site trying to get ready. What should have taken about an hour yesterday ended up keeping me at the site till about 1:30. The tester were an hour late to start and then one environment didn't work at all. A fellow employee was supposed to have made sure it worked. He had informed me that everything was fine. At this point I have pushed it back on him and its still not working as of 11:30am. Then I headed back downtown. While walking from the car to meet up with Keri for lunch my umbrella broke. That was just awesome. Then while on lunch with Keri I realized that my calender on my blackberry updated and I was supposed to be at an Audit meeting. Class at least wasn't that bad. I am just hoping to have a nice mellow even with a haircut and laundry.

The longest Yard

2006-05-04T12:08:00.000-05:00

Updated pics for the backyard. The grass is growing in very nicely. Don't worry that is not a giant green snake with sprinkler for a head. That is just our hose and sprinkler.

Weekend in Review

2006-05-01T14:37:00.000-05:00

Friday afternoon I went to the cubs game. We sat in the new bleachers which are simply beautiful. It was a great game and a great day. I got a little sun burned from being in the sun all day. Cubbies won 5-2.
Saturday I spent the morning recovering from the game and the after party and then went to do a double switch move for some friends. Hutch was in charge of ordering the truck. As you can see to the right he choose a truck way to small. Not sure why the tiger but I think he has a fondness for animals.
So it took one main trip with hutches stuff and then two for Nashs. The whole move went pretty well though with about 10 guys at both places. It was a perfect scenarios. Fasana gets a roomate to help cover his condo costs and Hutch can not longer claim he fell asleep. No we can Cap to be able to kick him in the head to wake him up. Then the guys bought us pizza and beer for dinner. It was a great time.

Sunday went to the game again and it was a crappy day and a crappy game. Keri and I had to leave during the 8th inning to go meet up with my parents. I had suprised them with tickets to Spamalot on sunday so we met for dinner afterwards. We went to Carnivale, which is located at the old Drink. Great food, cool place, not cheap though. Good for a special night out.

Overall a good weekend.

New promotion in the Family

2006-04-27T12:24:00.000-05:00

I decided to create gmail accounts for my entire family today. Not really sure why but I figured that way we could all have the same account format plus I just really like gmail. I even went in and added all of us to each other address book and setup chatting. I sent out an email to everyone telling them about my little plan and also included the fact that I have set up a family blog site though I have not posted anything on it yet.
About 5 minutes after I sent the email my sister calls and tells me that I should be promoted to CIO of the family. Since she is the CCO(Chief Creative officer) and Marketing head I figured that she new what she was talking about. So I would like to formally announce my promotion to CIO of the P Group.

I hope that with my years of expierence I can bring about lots of growth and business to the P group. The P group is celebrating their 37thyear in business this summer. They had some great additions to the company come about back in the mid to late 70's. I was lucky enough to join the company during this time and I have since worked my way up.

So tomorrow in order to celebrate my promotion I will be going to the cubs game and taking a half day. Its good to be your own boss.

TK421-Take 2

2006-04-25T08:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, I am going to try and recreate my literary genuis that was yesterday ruined by Blogger insensitive feelings towards me. I have decided to not take it personal and understand that it was purely based on business reason. I am not going to move on.

Disclaimer: Since this is my second take at this like all Sequel it of course can be no where near as good as the original.

After 4.5 years living with my roomate, I have finally found out what his name stands for. TK stands for Technical Knowledge. On a glorious Sunday afternoon in the recent past my roomate(TK), decided he would like to burn a DVD copy of the game Riven(Myst 2). The file he download was a DDA file which I had never heard of. From there he found some software and which created a third DVD-Rom drive. We were all confused and began to investigate it. During this procedure we found a software called Alcohol and tried to uninstall it. Both times were tried it locked the system up. However, after the second try I tried to go into safe mode to see if it could be uninstalled there. At this point we had successfully caused the computer to go into Blue Screens of Death loop. Bill was of course really excited about this because all of his pictures and resume were on there.

The decision was made to just reinstall the OS onto the drive without removing any of the partition information. This would make sure none of the data was lost. While downloading a completely legal version of the OS, TK treated us to Blizzards at the Local DQ.

We tried installing the OS and the abort codes where called in by Billiam. The drive was showing that the whole thing was free which meant that all of his data was lost.

Stay Tuned later for the stunning conclusion of TK the TechKnow guy.
Same Blog Channel
Same Blog Time

Work meetings-New rule

2006-04-25T08:02:00.000-05:00

You can not cancel an 8am meeting less then 5 minutes before it starts. I specifically woke my ass up early to get in at 7:30 in order to make this meeting. Of course I get a message stating the meeting is cancelled right before I get ready to head to it. Boooo. The PM is on my shit list for today due to making me wake up early.

Blogger-made the shit list today

2006-04-24T16:01:00.000-05:00

Earlier before lunch, I spent about 20 minutes writing a post for today that about yesterday. I went to publish it and I got an error saying server not responding. I tried to go back and at least copy out all the text that I wrote so I could paste it back once I could reaccess the site but all my work was lost. So today #1 on my shit list is Blogger. This middle finger is for you!

Holy Crap Golf Season has begun

2006-04-23T11:22:00.000-05:00

Went golfing with my Dad and Keri yesterday. Here is a picutre of me after putting. Few things I learned yesterday:

1. Keri is a better athlete then me.

2. If I am going crazy I should go golfing. It really relaxes me.

3. Hutch likes dudes.

4. I suck at golf.

5. "God he is the biggest bitch of them all." (South Park)

Sorry Number 5 really isn't true. I plan to live my life from this point forward on these basic truths.

It's merely a flesh wound

2006-04-23T11:13:00.000-05:00

Friday night Keri and I went to see Spamalot. It was freaky hillarious. Basically Holy Grail on stage. If you live in Chicago I highly recommend getting tickets. The music was pheonaminal. The coolest part about Friday's show was that Eric Idle came out and thanked us to the show.

This was the first play that Keri and I will see as part of the Broadway in Chicago series.

Blog roll update-Billiam

2006-04-19T09:55:00.000-05:00

Please welcome Billiam to the world of Blogs. He has posted a great update with pictures and all about the backyard. Bill finally something that you went to me first on. Yes.

Here is a picture of Bill and his lover. I believe he refers to him as his little worm. I have no idea what that means.

Keri's wide world of blog

2006-04-14T14:13:00.000-05:00

Keri has now joined the world of blogging. I could not find a picture of her on my work computer but I figured this would be just as fun to post. Please check out her blog.

Who you going to Call?

2006-04-14T09:09:00.000-05:00

I thought this was a pretty funny clip. Try it next time you have a computer problem.

Did you miss me? Won and OH

2006-04-13T09:16:00.000-05:00

So I am back to blogging again. After a few days off(trust me I needed the rest), I have decided to grace you with an update. My last post became inaccurate a few hours after I posted it. I guess TK got back to our place with Grass seed and a hose. So they started working about 2. I didn't get the vmail till about 4:30 so I joined them a little before 5. We ended up working till 8 that night digging up the dirt and trying to smooth it out then spread the grass seed and fertilizer. Keri then made us some yummy chili cheese dip. MMMMMmmmmmm..

Sunday night I went to my first Cubs game of the season. They simply put kicked ass. So I am 1-0 for the season. Barrett with his grand slam was definitly the play of the night for me.

Monday night Bill and I planted the flowers you see along the brick on the lefthand side of the photo. I will keep trying to post changes as I see that they are noticable. I also want to try and find a picture of how it looked before we started.

Operation Landscape-Aborted

2006-04-08T11:31:00.000-05:00

So for about a few weeks now the third roomate has been saying we need to landscape the backyard. We rent our place so it kind of sounds a little weird to fix up the place but we have been in our place for almost 5 years now. I really dont know much about home repair or landscaping so any little bit I am willing to volunteer to help. Due to inclimate weather the operation has been aborted. I am a little upset but I guess it gives me time to study and just hang out on the couch today. So happy Grab Ass saturday everyone and enjoy the day.

Getting off on the right foot

2006-04-07T08:38:00.000-05:00

So this morning, I am sitting on the bed trying to figure out whether my socks are inside out or not. So once I have step 1 accomplished I move on to my step two. Looking at which foot the sock belongs to. At this point Keri proceeds to tell me I am crazy and ask me where I learn this stuff from. She asked if my mom taught me. I really didn't see the weirdness in this. I had thought everyone did this. So she dared me to take a poll today and see how people put their socks on.
I understand that a brand new pair of socks have not yet molded to a foot though. So this is for socks you have had for a while. Do you check to see whether a sock is for each foot or you just grab two and put them on.

Cubs love Bush

2006-04-05T14:47:00.000-05:00

For the first time in 6 I am glad Bush is the president. Cubs begin the season with a huge rout against the Reds. Bush threw out the first pitch. Now if he could only travel with the team. Sucks they lost today but I am thinking it could be a great season. My first game with be this sunday night.

Lets go cubs!

Thank god its Friday

2006-03-31T16:17:00.000-06:00

I really am happy that its Friday. I have just wanted to leave work since I woke up this morning. I even tried taking a walk for a little bit but I found it boring. I think I have just had to much social interaction this week with starting school. I definitely need some couch time. My head kind of hurts. Its not like a headache pain but a dull cloudiness. I am having trouble focusing on things.

So based on that I am happy its the weekend. Tonight I am going to see a band play and then sleep in tomorrow and there have been talks of going to the casinso's in the afternoon/evening. So I guess we just have to see how the weekend goes. Sunday or possibly tomorrow I need to begin studying. Booooo.

Have a great weekend.

How do you remember someone?

2006-03-30T16:54:00.000-06:00

This past Saturday was the 4 year anniversary of my friend Burt dying. On Sunday Kathleen, Keri and I went out to the cemetary to visit his grave for the first time since the funeral. On Friday night while planning/deciding to go visit his grave sight we got on the discussion of how you remember someone after they are gone.

I don't believe there is one clear answer that will work for everyone. Instead we discussed the ways that we do. Kathleen needed to go visit the grave. Also at least a few times a year she has a movie that reminds her of Burt and she enjoys that with just him and her. I started thinking about times that I remember his memory. I do not have exact situations that I do in ritual format to help myself remember. Instead I find at random times or during random events that either remind me of Burt or things he did or even times where I just think Burt would love it if he were here right now.

I believe that you can never truly forget people that had a significant impact in your life. Obviously everyone will remember them in their own special way. You live on through the memories of others. So keep that in mind when you live your life. Make every memory a happy one.

Half Week in review

2006-03-29T20:47:00.000-06:00

So lets start off with the fact that I went to IKEA to possibly look at/buy a new tv stand. However somehow I end up spending $200 at bed bath and beyond. I fully hate the idea of decorative pillows. Seriously what is the point. They are pillows that are on your bed that tease you to thinking they want to make you comfortable but no they do not. Instead your not even allowed to lay on or touch them. On that note, I bought two new pillows for my bed along with a new duvet cover that came with two pillow shams. I then realize that my two old pillow are now going to be decorative pillows with my pillow shams. My god how they hell did that happen. Prior to this weekend I only ever slept with a duvet on top of my bed. No flat sheet. Now I got the whole kit and caboodle.

Monday night went to the orb show at the metro. This is either the 3rd or 4th time I saw them at the metro. The show was not nearly as intense as the last few. Still a good time but with a show starting at 9pm on a monday but 11:30 we were all tired and headed home.

Tuesday night was my first day back at school since the end of summer. I am taking two classes this quarter. One is Interconnecting Network Technologies and the other Critical thinking. Should be interesting. Based on that I am next to positive that I am going to transfer out of the School I am in and into the CTI program. It sounds like it much more up my idea of learning. It will most likely take a lot longer but at least I will feel like I have learned something. My current program offered a class on yoga. I actually could have gotten credit to learn yoga. The funny thing its not like its considered an elective. No I could have taken it for arts and science credits. We will just have to see how it goes. I emailed the CTI advising people to set up a meeting.

Tonight Keri and I went to Caliente. It a mexican BYOB right near her place. I always yell out the name as I walk past so I was excited to try it. It was not really worth the money. I am not saying it was horrible but I would probably not recommend it to anyone.

Tomorrow is Critical Thinking and then Friday should be Burt's brothers band at Underground lounge.

Trying to get back into this whole blogging thing.

2006-03-29T20:44:00.000-06:00

Below I have a post that I put on yahoo's version of blog because I had completely forgotten that I had created one on Blogspot. I figured I would copy it here to take place of an actual post.

Sept 6th, 2005
First post
So this my first post on the blog. I figure I will try to post at least once or twice a week depending on if anything exciting happens. most likely not.
Last night however was quite a treat. I sitting on my couch where I had become well aquainted with for the last 3 hours when I recieve a phone call from a friend. She is slightly hysterical and saying that the there is a mouse running around her apartment with a glue trap stuck to it. She asks if I can come over and get rid of it.
Her roomate picks me up on the way home. We enter the apartment and she is balled up on the couch and there is a big box flipped upside down on the floor. We ask if its in the box and she replies that it was to fast for her.
We find the mouse with its back legs sitting on the glue trap. I pick the other end of the trap up and start carrying to the kitchen when the little piece of crap leans up and bites my finger. I end up putting him in a plastic bag for the time being and start washing my finger. We then proceed to have both roomates call their friends at different hospitals to find out if I might have rabies.

Well folks the good news is that I do not have rabies. A little fact I was not aware of till yesterday was that rodents don't carry rabies. So go out there and let those mice and rats gnaw on your fingers for bit.

2005-06-02T19:37:00.000-05:00

Had a friends Bachelor party this weekend. It was a blast. Only bad thing was the dog of our host got out while we were lighting off fireworks and took off. We had to go searching for two hours in the dark and still were not able to find him. Eventually we gave up and chilled out. Next day we went golfing and on the way back one of the guys spotted the dog about 3 miles away sitting in a driveway. So the weekend was a hit. The downside was our friend who found the dogs sister died Monday night of a heart problem. I guess it was a birth defect.

I never knew her but she was 31 when she died. It makes me think about how little I have accomplished in my life. Actually not that I havent accomplished much but more that no matter what I do I still feel like I am missing the point it all. I am not sure whats the point of life. It seems like you go to school to get a job, then you work to get money so you can do the thing you want. Is life a series of relationships with other people on our ever spinning planet? I like the way that the books in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. They make it seem that there is no point in life which actually if you think about it can be a lot easier way to go through life. Just enjoy it and make the most of your days. Keep close friends so you can enjoy those times where you hang out or talk or even just get drunk and silly together. Life is truly what you make.

Gum Rememberance Day

2005-03-19T12:40:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Gum Rememberance Day. I believe it was back in 1871 on this day Chewing Gum was invited. 4 out of 5 dentists recommend this day.

Otherwise tonight we are having a party. Should be lots of fun. It will our first party of the year.

Day after St. Patty's day

2005-03-18T15:28:00.000-06:00

I am so tired today.