Wow. You leave things sit for a week and you sure have a lot to write up. I’ll spare you the most mundane details, though.

Back to last Thursday. I went over to daveqat, jimcyl, boixboi, and perro‘s place to watch the first two move in. Or be moved in, as the case may be. I wasn’t much help, really, but it was fun to hang out, ogle the half-naked movers, and give interior design advice. After that, it was over to the Radisson in Rosemont, where I met Takaza as he arrived on the shuttle from O’Hare. Why the Radisson? This gets complicated…

The salesman at the Radisson used to work at the Sheraton Arlington Park. Yes, that’s right, where Midwest FurFest used to be located. He helped Dan and I plan our commitment ceremony there, and was very nice. Linnaeus had contacted the salesman about getting information about the Radisson hosting Midwest FurFest (as Linnaeus says in his LJ: Don’t panic if you’re in love with the Hyatt. It’s part of my job to shop for hotels and get at least a couple of proposals every year. It helps to keep whatever hotel we’re with at the time honest and it’s a good idea to keep on top of what’s out there to make sure we’re providing the best experience for our attendees). When the salesman heard Dan and I would be in town for the weekend, he offered to put us up – obviously as part of his job to romance us over to the Radisson, but it was a nice gesture as well. So anyway, this is how we wound up with a junior king room from Thursday until Monday for free. I ain’t complaining!

So anyway. After Dan arrived, we got together with a few friends for pizza (Dan prefers Gino’s East, I prefer Giordano’s, but hey – he just got into town so it was his choice). Then it was off to bed.

Friday: We had a breakfast meeting and tour of the hotel with the Radisson salesman. In so many ways, this reminded me of those time-share sales things – come down, stay a few days, you just have to come to one of our presentations 🙂 Still, it’s a nice hotel and the tour was interesting. After we wrapped that up, Dan and I headed up to McHenry to spend some time with Giles. Originally, the idea was to throw a bachelor…something. Party? Get-together? Whatever. Anyway, both Giles and Beth were more than a little panicked about their wedding the next day and it seemed that partying was probably not the best of ideas. So we hung out for a bit, helped do some cleaning and painting, and tried to be useful. We then picked up Datahawk and headed south, back to the Radisson, where we also met Linnaeus. We went swimming for a bit, then walked over to Steak and Shake for dinner. I have to say this: their chili is very tasty, but very, very bad for me. Oog. Datahawk spent the night with us on the sofa, and Paul headed off for his own adventures in Wisconsin the next day.

Saturday: Wedding day! Dan and Data and I drove back up to McHenry (running rather late) and arrived to find that, well, everyone else was running late, so it was all good. The weather was perfect for an outdoor wedding: low 70’s, a nice breeze blowing, blue skies. As he did at our commitment ceremony, awfulhorrid officiated the wedding and it was quite lovely. We spent the afternoon chatting with various friends of Giles and Beth as well as Fred and bookwurm under some nice shady trees. I really had a good time. We took our leave at around 3 PM and back down to Schaumburg to the Woodfield Hyatt, where we met up with Roho and Genet and spent some time with TigerWolf (no, not TWIT, TigerWolf) as he tried to see if the wireless network the hotel installed earlier this year was a viable option for the Internet Room (unfortunately, that would be “no”). We had dinner at The Curragh and then Linnaeus, Data, and Dan and I headed back to the Radisson. Some more swimming and hanging out in the room, very nice.

Sunday: Meeting day! Not nearly as fun, but hey, it’s necessary. We met Roho and Genet for lunch at Portillos, then it was over to the Woodfield Hyatt. The usual suspects were there for the staff meeting, as well as a nice surprise addition: Takaza’s mom. She had so much fun helping at MFF last year, she wanted to help out more this year. It would appear that Feren has snapped her up for Art Show staff, so that’s cool. Oh, uh, I suppose I should get those meeting notes out today…

Monday: Dan was up early, but not for his flight out. No, he had a job interview at the Siemens Building Technology branch in Mount Prospect. The interview didn’t seem to go as well as he had hoped, but one of his cow-orkers called to provide an endorsement to a friend who heads up the Mount Prospect branch, so that may tip the balance. We should know the results from that interview by Monday or Tuesday, I should think. After that I dropped him off at O’Hare for his flight back and I retreated to Linnaeus’, where I seem to have become a temporary roommate/houseguest/something. Partran drove in that evening and he and Linnaeus and I went out for stupid amounts of food at Leona’s. Tasty, though!

Tuesday: Partran spent the night at Paul’s place, so in the morning we took the El down to Ann Sather. I had the steak and eggs benedict, and I was in heaven! Just delicious! After that, I played chauffeur a bit, driving Datahawk up to a job interview (which I hope goes better than she thought it did!). From there, I continued the tour of Illinois by heading down towards Feren’s place. Along the way I stopped to kill some time at the new Fry’s Electronics. Imagine Best Buy combined with a really huge Radio Shack and you’ll have a good idea of what the place is like. All I’m sayin’ is, anyplace that not only has oscilloscopes in stock, but a nice variety of them, is OK in my book. From there, it was a lovely drive through a monsoon to Feren’s, where we were joined by Linnaeus, Genet, and Roho. Meat was grilled, gin and beer was consumed (though not at the same time), and a great time was had. We really need to do that again soon, though maybe on a weekend. The midnight drive home was a mite taxing.

Wednesday: Wow. Stuff started popping on the job search. I lined up two interviews. The first is on August 30, in Gastonia, NC (near Charlotte). Ack! Still, it would be a good job. If the Mount Prospect position comes through for Dan, I’ll probably cancel that one, though. The other interview is on Tuesday. It’s another position with Abbott, this time at their North Chicago campus (no word yet on the other position I’d interviewed for, by the way). This new position would be great, since it’s a good chemical engineering position, and the pay is pretty tasty too! I’m looking forward to that interview. I also had a few other contacts, including a job possibility in Morganton, NC (eh – it’s worth checking out, I suppose), and a recruiter trying to sell me on a position with my former employer. Heh. Ah, no, thanks. I joined Partran and Chouette for a late lunch at a fabulous little Japanese place – a real hole in the wall, but just the best food! And a really nice waiter, too. Wednesday night was spent just hanging out at Paul’s place, chatting with Takaza on Skype and relaxing.

Today, there’s not a lot going on, although I have a phone interview with a company that I think is in the Chicago area at 1:30 PM. That’s the problem with shotgunning your resumes out – sometimes you lose track of where you’ve sent them. Anyway, I figure I can get the relevant information later, for now I’ll just do the interview and see how it goes. Partran and I are meeting Linnaeus at Froggy’s for dinner tonight (yum!) – I’m really looking forward to that.

Looking ahead, there’s Milwaukee Irishfest this weekend, yay! I’ll probably be up there for both Saturday and Sunday, since I see a lot of great bands scheduled concurrently on Saturday. Right now, I know that Datahawk, Moryssa, Linnaeus, and I will be there, as well as possibly Rolliebear. Anyone else going?