Category Archives: commuting

Missing In Action?

Missing in action?

I suppose I should recap what happened last weekend before this weekend starts up. Or something like that.

After work on Friday, I drove down and picked up takaza. We were both pretty tired, so any thoughts that we had entertained of going to see a movie were pretty much discarded. We drove down to the southern ‘burbs and checked into a La Quinta to put us a bit closer to our Saturday destination. We originally were going to go to a nice sit-down place, but as we pulled out of the parking lot, we both agreed that fast food would be cheaper and faster, and we just wanted to hang out in the room. So we elected to eat at Wendy’s instead, then stopped by a nearby Walgreens to pick up some items for Dan. While we were there, we rented a copy of The Lake House from the Redbox, but once we got back to the room we instead decided to watch a Doctor Who episode I had on my laptop and go to sleep early. (I tried ripping the DVD, just for grins, but couldn’t figure out how to easily get around the encryption key. I didn’t work very hard at it, though).

On Saturday we headed down to Urbana, where we were to celebrate Candlestick Lane at Mirkowuff‘s. We got in at about noon and hung out at his place for a bit, then ran some errands around town (Mirabelle’s is a mighty fine bakery, by the way!). We checked into the Champaign La Quinta (Bing! Dan scored some free upgrades with that room stay), and ran into Roho and Genet there. Dan and Roho decided to brave the mall for some last-minute shopping, and Genet and I stopped by the grocery store for snacks and libations, then headed back to Mirko’s. A decent crowd started showing up shortly thereafter, and we enjoyed a pleasant evening of good company, tasty food, Christmas lights, and electric sex.

Sunday morning we gathered most of the crew from the previous night for yet another gluttonous breakfast at the House of Lard. I just can’t say no to their huge western omelet, but thank heavens I passed the pancakes that came with it to Dan, ‘cause I couldn’t have eaten them. We bade goodbye to the Urbana-Champaign metroplex after breakfast and made the short drive home, a trip made rather enjoyable by a very exciting Bears game, including a detour to swing by Soldier Field towards the end of the fourth quarter, just because we could 🙂 The rest of the day was spent quietly relaxing; Dan went to take a nap at 5:30 PM and wound up staying asleep until 1 AM.

The rest of this week has been a train wreck for me. The commutes home have been bad, with me getting home at 6:15 or so each night, and then we’ve been heading off to bed by 9:30. Not a lot to time to get stuff done, unfortunately. I’ve tried to get some Christmas shopping done, but unfortunately the one item I was looking for for Dan seems to be out of stock anyplace I go. This time of year is always frustrating and distressing for me because I feel like I haven’t been paying attention all year to what Dan might have said he wanted for Christmas, so when it comes time to look for gifts, I have no idea what he wants. In my own twisted logic, this makes me a bad husband; don’t try to figure it out, it’s certainly not a rational thing. But there it is. So I’m trying to work through that this week as well, and I’ll admit it’s making me a bit moody and cranky.

Looking at the traffic reports right now it looks like it’s another ugly day on the roads. Fortunately, I just got an e-mail from Dan suggesting I pick him up after work and we can get some dinner and poke around the ‘burbs a bit before attempting to fight our way back into the city. That makes it a much better afternoon indeed…

Birthday, Moving Plans, and Commuting

Well, as I mentioned on Friday, I was hoping that we would be heading up to Antioch to hang out at roho and genet‘s place, and that’s exactly what happened. We were joined by linnaeus and datahawk, as well. We celebrated takaza‘s birthday in grand style, with dinner at the local steakhouse, and cake and drinks and good conversation afterwards. It was a delightful evening.

Saturday morning we were slow to get started (as usual), but finally made our way over to our customer brunch stop, Las Vegas Restaurant, where we had a tasty meal. We then parted ways, as Dan, Paul, and I headed back into the city. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching stuff off the Tivo. In fact, Sunday was pretty much a copy of that afternoon, as I declared that it was too freakin’ cold outside, and I didn’t want to go anywhere. So we didn’t! It was nice to have a quiet weekend in. We did get a chance to look at our financials, though, and talk about upcoming plans, and we did arrive at an important decision: we hope to move out to the ‘burbs by the middle of January or so, probably somewhere in the vicinity of Wheeling or Buffalo Grove, as those would provide a roughly equal commute for Dan and me. Obviously, we haven’t had a chance to scope out places yet, and it’s up in the air whether we’ll be renting an apartment, a townhouse, or a house; it all depends on what’s available and what fits within our budget. Once we secure a place and a date, though, look for plaintive wails for assistance to be sounding loudly here!

Yesterday kicked off what promises to be a long week. Dan’s North Carolina driver’s license expired last week and he didn’t have a Social Security card to apply for an Illinois license (he does now, having applied for one last week), but that means that until he can get to a Secretary of State’s office he’s without a license. I’m driving him into work each morning, which surprisingly only adds about 20 minutes to my commute – not bad at all, and the company is nice, even if we are minimally communicative at that hour 🙂 Yesterday was a pretty crappy day for Dan, so instead of him taking the bus/train/bus combination to get home, I went down and picked him up. A friendly face as you leave work is always a nice thing. We’ll see if he needs a lift today – it’s really not too far out of my way, surprisingly enough.

Looking ahead this week, we have my staffing agency’s holiday party on Thursday (at Gameworks! Woo!), then someone’s house (luke)warming on Friday, and on Saturday, Dan’s employer’s holiday party (dinner then a Second City show). We’ll hopefully get Dan’s license on Saturday, too, and maybe drop some stuff off at our storage unit, if we have time. And on Sunday, maybe we’ll get to sleep in, who knows?

Back to this exciting training stuff…

Yep, I’m still here

I’ll be posting an MFF report of sorts sometime soon – I admit so much of the con was a blur for me, so don’t expect anything particularly detailed. There’s the annual Registration report coming too, but that may be a week or two.

So what has happened in the meantime? Well, on Tuesday I started my new job. Like a new job at any pharmaceutical company, the first week or so is spent in training and orientation. Boring PowerPoint presentations and then document after document there I’m never going to remember. This coming week I’ll hopefully get a computer at my desk and can start in on some of the computer-based training as well. Owing to FDA regulations and company policies there’s some fun new restrictions: my cell phone has to stay out in the car during the day, and no food or drink (except water) outside of the cafeteria. But hey – at least there’s a cafeteria. It’s going to take some getting used to, but it seems like a good and challenging gig. It’s still up in the air whether this is a three- or six-month-to-hire gig, but as much as they’re paying me hourly, I’m all for stretching out the contract portion of the job as long as possible.

I’ve worked two days there so far; both times the morning commute has been smooth – about 40-50 minutes in, in clear traffic. On Tuesday, it took me two hours to get home. Wednesday was bad, though – the pre-holiday traffic had the roads choked and traffic completely snarled. I chose the less stroke-inducing option and drive 25 minutes north to Antioch, where I enjoyed some lovely conversation with roho, genet, and shadowstalkerw followed by a tasty dinner at Las Vegas Restaurant. The downside to all of this is that takaza, who was supposed to be on vacation until tomorrow, got a frantic call from his boss and went in to work at about 1 PM. I took my leave right after dinner and drove down the now-blissfully-uncrowded interstate to pick up Dan from work; he got out of there at around 9 PM. We indulged his craving for Long John Silver’s chicken planks on the way home, so at least he got dinner.

Thanksgiving was quite pleasant; we had a late start but we didn’t need to be over at Dan’s mom’s place until 3 PM. Or so we thought, until we got a call at around 12:30 PM saying the food was ready. Ack! We hustled out the door and drove the hour and twenty minutes to her place, where we enjoyed a HUGE meal of a roasted 14 lb. turkey, stuffing, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, mashed rutabagas and carrots, sweet potatoes, corn, biscuits and apple pie and ice cream for dessert. All for just the three of us. Um, yeah – that was a heck of a lot of food, but it was all quite delicious! Needless to say, we took home a ton of leftovers. The post- meal digestive torpor was spent watching a bit of TV and poking around on the net on my laptop. With Dan’s family, just being together is enough – not a lot of conversation, just spending time around each other. It’s radically different from what I grew up with, but it works for them so there’s nothing wrong with that.

Friday we didn’t do a lot. Dan was feeing under the weather, so we pretty much just stayed in, ate leftovers, and lazed around. It was delightful.

On Saturday I got a bit of clothes shopping done, then we met siriuswolfstar and simbalion up in Evanston at The Lucky Platter for a tasty late lunch, followed by a viewing of Casino Royale. I found the movie to be a good 30-45 minutes too long, and I’d give it more of a 70% rating, as opposed to Rotten Tomatoes’ 94%. Daniel Craig is some damned nice eye candy, though! More shirtless scenes, dangit!

And today? Well, once Dan wakes up we’ll need to fetch his car from his employer so he has a way to get to work tomorrow. And hey, that’ll be an excuse to get out and enjoy what is likely to be the last decent day of the season. Hmm, and now to forage through the leftovers for a bit of lunch…