I’ve been accused of running silent for the past few days (hi Mom!) so I guess it’s time to bring everyone up to speed on what’s going on in my life.

First and foremost, I’ve been worrying about my Dad. As I mentioned in my last entry, he’s in the hospital recovering from a repair of a repair of a repair to his back surgery. The good news is that he seems to be recovering nicely, and I’m hoping may be out of the hospital as early as next week. My mom and my sister have been busting their butts keeping him in good spirits, cooking dinners for him, and generally making sure he’s got the best possible care. It kills me that I can’t be there helping, but time and money and circumstances prohibit.

We actually had a pretty busy weekend. Takaza, Linnaeus and I spent Saturday walking around a whole lot in preparation for a event we’re working on in October. Preparations went well and I’m confident that folks will really have a good time. We had a lot of fun but unfortunately I’ve confirmed that I have weak arches or some such because my back was a complete mess by the end of the day (and my left knee wasn’t so hot either). I’m going to need to see a doctor about this sooner than later, and I’m hoping the resolution isn’t going to be more of the “Lose weight ya fat bastard” sort of thing.

I spent a good portion of the day Sunday resting my back, but Dan and I finally headed out late in the afternoon and spent the better part of four hours doing research for the Midwest FurFest Restaurant Guide. The idea was to pare the radius of restaurants listed from five miles down to two miles. Just lopping off the list at the two-mile mark cut about 20 restaurants, though a few were added back (Outback, Gameworks, etc.). We covered about 75% of the area (still need to do Woodfield Mall and its environs) and wound up crossing off 3 or 4 restaurants that closed and added a good 20-30 restaurants that hadn’t been listed before. Yikes! We’re going to have to take a hard look at that list and decide either to cut back the radius or be more selective about the restaurants we list (probably the latter – do we really need to list all four Quizno’s in the area?).

Last night was a nice change of pace. I got a call on the way home from daveqat informing me that I really needed to stop by their place to pick up something. That something turned out to be a belated birthday present, a very nice cheese board, a nice set of knives and little cheese label thingies. It was a lovely gift, and very thoughtful of them. We hung out and chatted at their place for a while, then were joined by tecknow. We all went out to Tom Yum, a little sushi/Thai restaurant a few blocks from our apartment (though Dan and Paul bowed out from dinner). The food was pretty good, the service appalling. A nice reminder of why I only get take-out from there. Fortunately, the dinner conversation was entertaining and I had a really nice time.

As for the rest of the week, we don’t have a lot planned. I might have to work late on Friday (yay overtime!) and Dan might have to work this weekend – we’ll see. I’m hoping to maybe hang out with friends, because I feel like I’ve been a bit of a hermit of late. Who knows? We might even show up at LAFF Bowling this month. And of course there’s also the Midwest FurFest staff meeting on Sunday – lots of fun to be had there!

Well, back to work I go…