Category Archives: friends

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…

‘Tis the Busy Season!

Right. Wow, long time since my last decent update, huh? Anyway, last week found us at Gameworks on Thursday night for my contracting agency’s holiday party. It was exactly what I look for in a holiday party: bring a guest, free food, free booze, fun stuff to do, and no onus to socialize with cow-orkers (who I don’t know, having just been hired a few weeks ago, and they all work at other companies anyway). We had a lot of fun, even both takaza and I injured ourselves playing Hyperbowling (imagine a giant bowling ball going down a crowded city street. “Yay! I flattened a car!”).

On Friday we went over to perro and darkwolph lovely house to celebrate Andrew’s birthday and to help, um, warm their house. Or something like that. We got to meet Chaos, their German shepherd, who has the sweetest disposition of any dog I’ve met recently. The libations flowed freely, and Dan had a heck of a lot of fun playing bartender at their fabulous basement bar (that you can barely see over for all the bottles of booze perched atop it). Good times, great company, and we stayed out later than I have for a while. It probably helped that I didn’t drink much, since I had to drive home.

On Saturday we were going to get up early and go get Dan’s new driver’s license, then take a bunch of stuff up to our storage locker in Lake Villa, then go to Dan’s employer’s holiday party. Well, the first two were scotched by the 2:30 AM bedtime the night before, and Dan had some nasty workplace drama that left him not particularly interested in the evening’s festivities. Instead, we made some short-notice dinner plans and met daveqat and jimcyl for dinner at Cafe’ Bernard. It was a very tasty meal, and I got to try their cassoulet which was…well, not as good as mine, quite frankly (which reminds me – I have a monster post about making cassoulet that’s been waiting in the wings for weeks). The meal was excellent, though, and we had a great time.

Sunday we were just plain lazy, but we did finally roust ourselves out in the late afternoon to stop by Bobtail and pick up some coffee beans for me. While were in the area, we decided to grab a quick dinner at Potbelly Sandwiches, which really hit the spot. After buying provisions for the next few days’ dinners at Whole Food$ (for $6.99/lb., those had better be some pretty damned amazing chicken breasts), we came home and watched some Tivo and did laundry, then spent some time celebrating the birthday of one of linnaeus‘ friends.

And here we are at Monday. Woo. There’s plenty at work to keep me busy, but I’m still learning procedures, and the sequence of projects and spending an inordinate amount of time waiting for assistance from others. Hopefully this awkward period will pass soon and I can start going ahead full speed.

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…

The Con Is Mother, The Con Is Father

As one might have guessed from my last update, Midwest FurFest is weighing heavily on my mind.

Friday I took takaza into work and took advantage of the glorious weather to take some nice pictures in and around McHenry County (well, except for the first one; that’s on Milwaukee Ave. in Niles). You’ll be seeing some of those pictures again come the convention. After driving for several hours I made a big loop and stopped back by Schaumburg and found a good place for MFF to store our stuff for the next year right near the hotel. I’ll be stopping by there later this week to nail down a contract with them. Afterwards I went to Dan’s employer and read the paper and killed some time until he was ready to leave, only about two hours after quitting time. steviemaxwell was over visiting so we had a pleasant evening of dinner from the taquiera and good conversation.

On Saturday I took off early and headed up to roho and genet‘s place where we were joined by neowolf2 and attempted to assemble all of the parts of the Registration server. Things didn’t go quite as well as we’d hoped. Computer geekery ensued, and Unix-y troubleshooting

Oh yeah, I’m still around

Yeah, no posts of note last week. I was feeling kind of down and much feel like posting.

So what did I do? Well, on Wednesday I struck out northwestwards to get some pictures for use by Midwest FurFest. This put me conveniently near the engravers who handle our staff badges every year, so I was able to stop by, chat a bit, and kick around ideas for this year’s designs. I’m pretty happy with what we decided on, and now all I have to do is e-mail him the template and the list of names and titles and we’ll be good to go (and this year I won’t forget the Guests of Honor like I did last year, with that lovely “Oh sh#t!” moment on Wednesday night). Afterwards, I drove down and picked up takaza after work. Last week was month-end for him, and between doing the work of multiple people and the stress of more and more tasks being piled on him, it was not a good week. I hope I was able to help a little bit, anyway.

On Thursday, after I took Dan in to work, I stopped by the MFF storage locker and picked up a few things, and dropped off a few things that had been sitting in linnaeus‘s garage since Anthrocon, as well. I stopped by a printer and got a quote for the attendee badges for this year – we’re going to a new, faster system, but wow, the price of badge blanks just got a lot more expensive! I need to call a couple more places for quotations and see if I can get the price down at all. That was also an especially tough day for Dan at work, so I drove back out and picked up dinner for him (and a tasty milkshake as a special treat), and after we ate I sat at the desk across from him and read the paper while he finished up; he finished up and we left $employer a little after 9 PM.

Dan got out of work surprisingly close to on time on Friday, and in much better spirits too. After I picked him up, we took back roads up to Antioch and had a lovely evening with roho, genet, and the visiting-from-Maryland ottr. We had a delightful evening filled with tasty burgers at Charcoal Grill, a hysterical shopping trip in the liquor department of Woodman’s, drunken Apples to Apples, and the alarmingly rapid consumption of a bottle of Pucker (“How does it taste?” “Blue.”). The next morning, following a typically delicious breakfast at Las Vegas Restaurant (mmm, chocolate chip pancakes…), we all went our separate ways.

The rest of the weekend was spent working on MFF-related stuff: preparing last-minute orders for promotional materials, Dan working on the con book, me helping Dan work on the con book, and other fun stuff. I’ve got a stack of confirmation postcards to go out (and I need to print more of them and buy more postage – great googly moogly, that’s a lot of registrations!) We also took some amusing pictures to accompany the Chairman’s Welcome (I’ll be keeping those for future blackmail material, Paul 😉 Dinner Sunday night was some tasty steaks, and catching up with “The Amazing Race.”

Lots to do this week – hopefully some good stuff going on tomorrow, but in the meantime there’s a ton of orders I need to place and phone calls I need to make. Never a dull moment…

A Random Weekend of Stuff

Well, I’ve been productive enough today, so I guess that means I have time to look back over the last few days and see what’s been going on.

After a small series of scheduling snafus, I picked up lisagems on Friday and we met up with foxish to ostensibly start the moving process early in the afternoon. Well, that didn’t happen, but we did get two loads of stuff moved over to the new place by evening. emrldgirrl was nice enough to pick up gyros for everyone and a very entertaining dinner at the new house was had. Still a lot of work to go on that, but they’re getting there.

On Saturday takaza slept in until quite late, but he had had a rough week and was certainly due the extra rest! He and I ventured out into the burbs and ran some errands, in particular picking up a PCI wireless card for the spare desktop we keep in the bedroom for extra storage and emergencies – emergencies like Dan’s laptop dying. Just because he was using it to make the MFF conbook, that’s no cause for alarm, right? Ack! Fortunately, the card worked great and he is now on his way to getting stuff together for the book.

Sunday, I joined Linnaeus, siriuswolfstar and simbalion for lunch at the Lucky Platter in Evanston. I had the “Omelet #1” (artichoke hearts, goat cheese, avocado, and roasted tomato sauce), and it was just amazing! I loved the food there, and I’d love to go back! Afterwards, I gave Sirius and Simba a life to Beast Buy where we wandered among the slack-jawed and they picks up some needed items. On the way back to their place we stopped by Evil Squirrel Comics to say hi to woodychitwn, then had an interesting conversation about who can and cannot be considered a “hack” furry artist. The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing around the house and getting in some quality snuggle time with my sweetie 🙂

Yesterday…not a whole lot to say. The usual job applications, grocery store runs, etc. Dinner was excellent, and I’ll be posting that recipe shortly since I want to make it again. I did call in Dan’s laptop to Circuit City’s warranty program, since we paid for it after all, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the problems seem to be covered and they’ll be sending a box to ship the laptop back to them for repair.

Today has been quite productive. Laundry has been running all day, and I have put in the orders for our sponsor gifts, Registration bags, and cloisonné pins. In a little while I’ll hit the road out to the burbs to help out with the moving once again; I figure if I can’t be useful here I might as well be useful somewhere. There’s some other MFF-related stuff I need to do later this week. I’ll probably talk about that more later.

Apple-y Goodness!

It was such a great weekend, it took me a day to recover from it before I could write this! (Or I’m lazy. One of the two…)

We had a fabulous weekend, though! On Friday I picked takaza up after work and we headed north to Antioch to hang out with roho and genet. Traffic being what it is, our 6 PM arrival became 7:15 PM, but that’s OK – we weren’t in too much of a hurry and I always enjoy the time spent with Dan. We chatted a bit once we got there and then headed out to a Mexican joint that was…well, a wee bit underwhelming. We need to take R&G to the taquiera around the corner from our place for something a little more authentic. Following a stop by Armanetti’s Liquors, we chatted for a while back at the house and tested some of the Tasty Beverages we had purchased. After a bit, I was shocked by the arrival of datahawk! Yeah, she lives there, but it’s not like they ever actually see her 🙂

The next morning was the usual slow start, but pleasantly so. Eventually we motivated enough to head down to BD’s in Vernon Hills to meet up with linnaeus, feren, and lady_curmudgeon. Tasty stir-fried food was consumed and we had a great time chatting. Afterwards, we returned to Antioch for a quick stop by Antioch Packing House for dinner grillables, then a stop by the house for pit stops. As we were leaving there, I unfortunately managed to step approximately in the same place that Feren did and twisted my left ankle. I imagine I looked pretty impressive staggering around a bit before collapsing to the grass. Ack! I was still able to walk, though, so we pressed on, though somewhat slowly.

And press on we did, to Brightonwood Orchards! This fabulous place is just north of Richard Bong State Recreation Area and only about a 20-minute drive from Antioch. When we pulled in, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the orchard also had a winery! The winery made apple wines and hard ciders, and they had a tour – well, not so much a tour as one of the guys who makes the wines and ciders who just loves talking about it and showing off their shop. I took several pictures, some of which should amuse you homebrewers out there. After the tour, we had a great time tasting their wares and picking up a few bottles of the drinkable apple-y goodness. We were joined by grabstein_69, silverwind, and their daughter Chayla right around then, too.

We walked (well, I hobbled) over to the apple barn where they had a respectable variety of heirloom apples. I grabbed a variety of different apples, though of course now I have no idea which are which but hey – it should be an unusual eating experience. As we were leaving I remembered that neowolf2 had mentioned how good Northern Spy apples were. I hadn’t seen any on display, so I asked the cashier and she said they had some in the cooler. I bought four of them and tore into one as we were hanging around while Giles fed Chayla. OH MY GOD that apple was so good! Slightly tart, slightly sweet, and nice and firm. Just excellent, and very flavorful. I’m glad I bought them!

After the orchard, we had a nice evening relaxing back at R&G’s place, enjoying grilled meat, mojitos, and good company. We capped off the night by surprising Roho with a birthday cake I had made the day before. Yay for surprises! The cake was tasty, too, though a bit dry due to a little overbaking. The dark chocolate frosting made up for that though. Yum!

On Sunday Genet made a tasty breakfast for us, then we said our goodbyes. Dan and I headed south, all the way down to Glen Ellyn, where we helped crim_ferret and wyldekyttin move some of their possessions to their new place in Naperville (if anyone wants to know where it is: Conveniently located just south of The Big N). Unfortunately, between the fact that my ankle was shot and we had an online Midwest FurFest staff meeting that night. we weren’t as helpful as I would have hoped. We got some of their bookcases over, at least. We returned to The City by about 5 PM, which gave us time to grab dinner from the taquieria before the meeting. The meeting was moderately useful and mercifully short, and we spent the rest of the evening working on con-related stuff.

And Monday? The usual – apply to a bunch of jobs, go to the grocery store, run some errands, that sort of thing. Today was more of the same. You see why I don’t write much about my weekdays? They’re boring as heck!

Weekendness

So, I spent most of Friday driving around Schaumburg, Rolling Meadows, Hoffman Estates, and Arlington Heights collecting information for the Midwest FurFest Restaurant Guide. I’ve got a lot of additions, a couple of deletions, and I need to come up with a bunch more restaurant reviews. Fun! That’s something that will keep me busy this week. It was also the end of the financial year for takaza‘s employer, so he was a crispy critter when I picked him up at the end of the day. We came home and we both collapsed, eventually getting around to making quesadillas for dinner.

On Saturday, Dan had gotten some tickets to see the penultimate Cubs game of the season at Wrigley Field. I wasn’t much interested, so he shared the tickets with perro, darkwolph, and woodychitwn and they had a good time. Linnaeus was off hanging out with the visiting saboutlours and carol_kitty (and I hear mirkowuff was around as well), doing the tourist thing, leaving me at home alone. While that’s not unusual given the current state of my employment, it was nice to have a day when I didn’t have to do anything – I watched college football, relaxed, and even dozed a bit. It was a nice break, actually. Come evening, the two groups converged (less Mirko, who had to take the train back to Da Region), and we went to the always-tasty Tre Kronor for a delightful dinner (and abused their BYOB policy with a bottle of Sarah’s Blend and a wonderful pinot grigio, the latter a gift from camstone and mooivos that was very much appreciated!).

Dan and I relaxed around the house Sunday, eventually wandering out to walk around the neighborhood in search of the makings for dinner. The supermercado a block and a half from us had some good produce, but the butcher’s section was mobbed (and I still need to learn what to do with all of the unusual cuts of meat they offer), so we instead wound up at the halal meat market around the corner and picked up some ground beef. The grind was a bit finer than we were used to but it made for some tasty cheeseburgers! Unfortunately, we ate a bit late and the dyspepsia plus worry about miscellaneous things led to a bit of insomnia for me.

And then there’s yesterday: I took Dan in to work, got some promising calls from various recruiters, and worked out at the gym. For dinner, I made a very tasty pork roast seasoned with Argyle Street Asian Seasoning, as well as fried potatoes in butter and olive oil. Arr num num num! As for today, there’s the trip to the gym (ow, still sore from yesterday…) , the usual shotgun-blasts of resumes across the net, a bit of food shopping around the neighborhood, and working on a nice batch of chicken and dumplings, since Dan has had a taste for it lately. Bored? I don’t have time to be bored!

Note to Woody: I don’t EVEN want to hear you complaining about how many links you have in your posts! 🙂

I’m Still Alive, Really

Wow, it’s been pretty quiet here lately, aside from random MFF spammage. Well, let’s see here…

First off, one of the big reasons it’s been quiet is that there isn’t a whole lot to talk about. I am currently unemployed (though looking all over for a position), so a lot of my days consist of waking up early, spending a few hours shotgun-blasting resumes across the Internet, going to the gym, and playing househusband (laundry, dishes, cooking, etc.). Unemployment checks should start rolling in soon, and Dan’s job has us covered with benefits and a good portion of the bills, so we’re doing pretty good on that front. Having said that, I guess I can talk about the few interesting things going on…

I’m writing this from Panera Bread in Arlington Heights, IL. From here, I’ll be driving over to Schaumburg and starting the process of verifying data for the Midwest FurFest 2006 Restaurant Guide – making sure that restaurants are still where we say they are, and adding new ones that have sprung up in the past year. I’ve found some new toys to play with, which make the possibilities of the guide a lot more interesting: I found a nice utility that can take the Excel spreadsheet I have with the guide data and make a Google Earth KML file of is; now I just need to figure out how to easily convert a KML file to something that will work with Google Maps. In the meantime I created this page, which gives an idea of what’s possible: MFF 2005 Restaurant Guide. Keep in mind, that’s data from last year, and only includes the restaurants from the guide and not the services part, with stores and pharmacies and such.

I’ll be taking a break from driving around to grab lunch for takaza, nymphara, and emrldgirrl at Chipotle (arr num num!), then after work Dan and I will probably celebrate his survng his employer’s end-of-the-fiscal-year crunch time by going home and collapsing. For the weekend, on Saturday Dan is taking some folks to see the last Cubs home game of the season, and I might be helping some friends move. And Sunday? No idea. We’ll fake it 🙂

Oh, and because it’s been too long:
COFFEE (AND ICE CREAM) NIGHT!
When: 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM, Wednesday, October 4 (this coming Wednesday)
Where: Bobtail Soda Fountain, 3425 N. Southport, Chicago, IL
That’s a half-block north of the Brown Line Southport station, and the El is by far the easiest way to get there. Street parking is available, though you may have to hunt a bit. Bobtail has very tasty (Intelligentsia) coffee, and excellent ice cream as well. They don’t serve much in the way of non-dessert food, but there is a Potbelly Sandwich Works right across the street. Dan and I will probably hit Potbelly at around 7 PM for a quick dinner if anyone wants to join us there. If you’d like us to save you a seat, just let me know, here or by e-mail!

Now That Is How You Celebrate A Holiday!

Wow. It’s been a while since I updated here, hasn’t it?

As I mentioned last week, we didn’t attend MFM, though from what I hear a good time was had by all. Instead, we had a nice, lazy weekend around the house. I found a new addiction (Jak 3) with which I wasted numerous hours, which was pleasant. On Saturday night we met up with lisagems for some tasty gelato (not as good as Silvia’s, though) and then walked down and hung out with siriuswolfstar for a while at his place of employment. Sunday morning we met up with Lisa, Sirius, and simbalion for a delicious brunch at Tre Kronor. When we got home we collapsed into a food coma, and enjoyed a lazy day around the house, watching TV and playing Jak 3. Monday was rainy and gray outside, so we made the most of it by taking care of some cleaning around the apartment. And that was about it – our Labor Day weekend! Not exciting or anything, but actually quite enjoyable.

Yesterday was an all-day job interview for the company I’m currently contracting with. I won’t say much about it except that I think it went well, but it will be a good month before I hear anything one way or the other. In the meantime, life goes on.

And here we are at today. I’m back at work, for now anyway. In a few hours I’ll be heading out for lunch with the rest of my department to mark a cow-orker’s 30th anniversary with the company, but it looks like I’ll be bowing out from the ensuing golf outing so I can head down and pick up takaza after work. Why pick him up, you ask? (Well, you didn’t really, but pretend you did.) The street where we live is currently under construction, and from what we’ve seen they tend to put up signs about how you must move your car or be towed about 24 hours in advance. I think it would be safer to leave his car at his employer’s while we’re in Maine.

Maine, did I say? Why, yes I did! Tomorrow morning, we wake up at 4:30 AM (ugh) and drive to O’Hare International Airport. Following our cavity search and removal of all relevant and irrelevant privacy rights, we will be boarding a United 737 for glorious Manchester, New Hampshire (along with feren and Lori, roho’s cousin). We’ll pick up a rental car there (AAA discounts are da bomb!) and drive two hours to Portland, Maine, where Roho’s parents live. We’ll be spending the next five days out there, attending (and helping with), Roho and genet’s wedding, plus seeing some of the sights and generally having a good time. We’ll be sharing a vacation cottage with linnaeus, chebuytkin, Feren, lady_curmudgeon, and datahawk. It’s gonna be a blast! According to the listing, the cottage has wifi and broadband Internet, so with luck I may even post the periodic update (probably at the wee hours of the day, when I’m awake and the rest of those slugabeds are still asleep! 🙂

So: some last-minute laundry tonight, then packing, and oh, we have an online MFF board meeting somewhere in there too. Ideally, an early bedtime, too, though I somehow doubt the likelihood of that.

For now, though, time to get some work done!

Is The Week Over So Soon?

Last night was really nice. siriuswolfstar had mentioned the possibility of getting together for dinner. I decided to try to come up with a place we hadn’t been to before, so I turned to my favorite place for Chicago foodies, LTHforum. That led to a neat initiative that they have instituted called the Great Neighborhood Restaurant program, whereby people nominate GNR status for the little local places that they think are worthy of greater notice. eatchicago.net took the last few rounds of winners and made a fabulous Google Map mashup. After looking around, I came up with two choices: Spacca Napoli or Laschet’s Inn. We opted for German over pizza, so Laschet’s Inn it was.

We met up with Sirius and simbalion at the restaurant and I have to say it was a great choice! I had the very tasty Leberkase topped with a fried egg, German potato salad and sauerkraut, chased by a Spaten Optimator. Just delicious! takaza‘s cheeseburger was only mediocre, unfortunately, but that kind of says that you have to play to your strengths. The apple strudel was a mushy mess that couldn’t hold a candle to L. Wood’s wonderful homemade version, but at least the apple crisp a la mode wasn’t bad at all. Following the meal we chatted a bit in the pleasant evening air then headed home.

And here we are just before the holiday weekend. Sharp-eyed readers may note that I have not said anything about going to Mephit Furmeet, which started today; with the wedding in Maine next weekend, there was just no way for us to swing MFM financially. Next year, though, I suspect we’ll be there. I hope everyone there has a good time, and be sure to thank the good, hardworking staff of MFM – they’ve earned it!

So what are our plans for the long weekend? Um, not much of anything actually. Sleep in, do some prep for the wedding. Maybe do brunch at Tre Kronor. That’s about it, really. Hey, if anyone wants to get together give us a shout – maybe a movie, or just hanging out. I expect by Sunday night or Monday I’ll be going nuts for some social interaction 🙂

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend, and if you’re traveling be sure to stay safe!

Your Weekend Recap {tm}

…only a day late.

So Friday afternoon I picked up takaza from work; because it was a Friday afternoon and it was raining slightly, traffic was of course a complete wreck. We opted to take our time heading back into the city, stopping by the Mount Prospect post office and checking out a cute little ice cream parlor nearby. The rest of the evening was a quiet affair, watching some Tivo and laptop-geeking.

On Saturday, mirkowuff came by, and we debated whether or not we would try to attend Irishfest. While it no doubt would have been fun, there was no one on the schedule who I just had to see, plus I wasn’t looking forward to the three-hour round trip. In the end, we bagged Irishfest and instead had lunch at Juicy-O’s (again) with crim_ferret, wyldekyttin, and Linnaeus. The place was as fabulous as it had been the week before, and I again ate way too much. Oog. The chicken and mushroom skillet was quite tasty, though.

After lunch Mirko and I headed over to LAFF Softball, where we wound up just hanging out and chatting with folks. Quite fun. And because we hadn’t had enough punishment, we went to LAFF Bowling, though I mainly just hung out with some friends and chatted (and enjoyed some Tasty Beverages). It’s not quite how I had envisioned spending the day but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I had fun chatting with ramalion, quasiskunk, rcfoot, bullethc, perro and darkwolph.

Sunday brought the Midwest FurFest Board Meeting, followed by the staff meeting. Useful meetings, and we got a good bit of stuff taken care of. Afterwards Dan and I had lunch with roho and genet, making plans for their upcoming wedding, where Dan will be acting as their photographer and I will be providing the music. When we got home, Dan laid down for a nap that became a very long night’s sleep instead; I noodled on my laptop and got some con-related stuff taken care of then it was off to bed.

Yesterday? Eh. Work. Last night we did watch the season finale of Treasure Hunters, the bastard child of Amazing Race and National Treasure, with some Survivor thrown in. All in all, the show was just dreadful, and we watched more out of obligation than anything else, since we had watched it up until then. The idea that the final three teams ended up in a small room that looked like an Egyptian tomb, but was actually in an abandoned factory on Baltimore Harbor was perfectly ludicrous, and the key to the final puzzle was…underwhelming. This is the kind of show where they don’t hint at any production interference, yet it’s patently obvious in places and leaves you deeply suspicious of the whole thing. The “reunion” segments were poorly paced, and their milquetoast of a host (who finally stopped [literally] phoning in his performance) had no control over the contestants; it was quite entertaining to watch him try to maintain order as everyone ignored him completely. Yeah, I suspect this show won’t be back, and if it is I recommend that everyone avoid it. But here’s something to look forward to: The Amazing Race 10 starts September 17! Yay!

And now, back to work…

In cerevisia veritas

Last night was quite enjoyable. Since perro and darkwolph were off playing with Chaos, it wound up just being me, linnaeus, siriuswolfstar, and simbalion at The Hopleaf. That’s OK, though – good beer and good conversation ensued. I am now a fan of Brother Thelonius! After we wrapped up I walked down to the Lawrence bus and hit a taqueria a few blocks from our place (not our usual one) to try them out. The verdict? The carne asada was only so-so, but their horchata was better than what I’m used to.

Planning for our Maine trip continues apace. We’re looking into various vacation rental places since splitting a place with a group of people will be far cheaper than the rather high hotel rates for the area (Motel 6 notwithstanding 🙂 I’ve learned all about how to read vacation rental ads, too:
“Sleeps 6-8” = “Sleeps four comfortably, or 6-8 stacked in layers”
“Near ocean” = “Within 20 miles of the ocean”
“Quaint” = “Dilapidated”
“Cozy” = “200 square foot house”
Also, apparently summer lasts a lot longer in Maine, because Summer Rates appear to extend into October, typically. Yowza. Ah well – we’ve got some good prospects, and hopefully we can figure out how to keep things affordable.

And then there’s tonight. As I mentioned earlier, we’ll be having dinner at Potbelly’s on Southport, then going across the street to hang out at Bobtail and enjoy their tasty ice cream and coffee. Everyone is welcome, but if you want for us to save you a seat, let me know here or by e-mail!

Lovely weekend!

Well, that was a really enjoyable weekend, for all that we didn’t really have much plans initially.

We were just thinking about putting together some kind of dinner on Friday when I got a call from jimcyl asking if we’d be interested in coming over to their place for burgers and poker. Well, heck yeah! takaza and I CTA’ed it over there and enjoyed a great evening of wine, poker, wine, burgers, good conversation, and wine. I’m a complete novice at Texas Hold ‘Em but I acquitted myself quiet well, mainly due to Jim’s going all in on his three queens against my four tens in the first hand. Yeah, that was ugly 🙂

On Saturday Dan and I had a nice, lazy morning then eventually got motivated enough to head out to Hot Doug’s for a late lunch. The selection of gourmet “encased meats” is always fabulous, but I chose the cognac-infused smoked pheasant sausage with truffle sauce moutarde and foie gras “butter” (the latter a nice tweak at the Chicago City Council). I also opted for the duck fat fries of course. It was a delicious meal, but it always is at Hot Doug’s. (Oh, a side note: I came across a cool bookmarklet that lets you tag pictures on Flickr with a link to where they were taken. It’s geeky, but cool!)

After lunch we met up with siriuswolfstar and simbalion and wandered around Boystown for a while. We didn’t have any real destination in mind, we were just enjoying the marvelously cool evening and window shopping. After a while, Dan began to feel a bit ill, so linnaeus was kind enough to drive down to meet us and let Dan take the car back while Linnaeus walked a bit more with us. We found a great (and oh-so-gay) pet shop, where I got to spend time with a very laid-back and amiable black lab and the cutest tortoiseshell kitten, who was having a ball playing with all the cat toys on the counter by the cash register. We walked a bit more down to Reckless Records, which is always a neat place to browse, and then stopped by Intelligentsia Coffee and just sat around and chatted some more. We headed home after that, but it was a really great way to spend the evening.

On Sunday we drove out to meet with wyldekyttin, crim_ferret, and foxish; Crim is thinking about a new car and wanted to test drive my Element to see how he liked it. We took this as a great excuse to grab brunch with friends! We went over to Juicy-O, the restaurant opened recently by Heaven on Seven owner Jimmy Banos. I was hoping for an experience as good as Ho7 and I wasn’t disappointed – the complimentary homemade doughnuts were delicious, and my strip steak skillet was to die for. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the place, and I’m confident we’ll be going back soon. Afterwards we chatted over at Crim and Kyttin’s place as we suffered through our food comas. Eventually, though, Dan and I headed back home and spent the rest of the evening relaxing and watching some TV.

This coming week looks to be a bit busy. Tomorrow we’ll be hitting The Hopleaf with friends, then on Wednesday it’s the August Coffee Night at Bobtail, which I’m sure will be a lot of fun. This coming weekend is the Milwaukee Irishfest, and then on Sunday is the Midwest FurFest staff meeting. Busy busy busy!

August Coffee Night!

We had so much fun last month, let’s do it again!

What: Coffee (And Ice Cream) Night!
When: 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM, Wednesday, August 16 (this coming Wednesday)
Where: Bobtail Soda Fountain, 3425 N. Southport, Chicago, IL
That’s a half-block north of the Brown Line Southport station, and the El is by far the easiest way to get there. Street parking is available, though you may have to hunt a bit (the Cubs are on the road that night). Bobtail has very tasty (Intelligentsia) coffee, and excellent ice cream as well. They don’t serve much in the way of non-dessert food, but there is a Potbelly Sandwich Works right across the street. takaza and I will probably hit Potbelly at around 7 PM for a quick dinner if anyone wants to join us there. If you’d like us to save you a seat, just let me know, here or by e-mail!

Coffee and Friends and Lots of Fun

Well, last night was a blast. We started out with dinner at Potbelly’s Sandwiches with linnaeus, rustitobuck, tecknow, and, in a surprise appearance, lisagems (glad you could make it – I hope the company helped cheer you up a bit). The sandwiches were…OK. I think I prefer Jimmy John’s, but hey, it was convenient. Next month (and we will be doing a coffee gathering again next month), I think we might try Redder, the restaurant just north of the Southport El stop, instead.

After dinner, we walked across the street to Bobtail, and were joined by daveqat, jimcyl, perro, woodychitwn, and luckytheevildog. Much entertaining conversation took place, veering from convetnion geeking to interesting bar experiences to job hunting possibilities.It was great to hang out with a fun group like that. The folks at Bobtail were quite happy to have us there, even if we did take up an inordinate amount of space. It helped that we tipped nicely and cleaned up after ourselves 🙂 I had a really good time, and I look forward to doing this again next month, maybe on the 16th? Also, rumor has it that Linnaeus is thinking about putting together a Happy Hour (to borrow from the Chambana folks :-), which would be a lot of fun as well.

Well, off to go hunting for erythromycin!

Coffee Get-Together-Thingy!

OK, so I’ve been feeling like organizing something, so here’s something:
What: Coffee (And Ice Cream) Night!
When: 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM, Wednesday, July 26 (this coming Wednesday)
Where: Bobtail Soda Fountain, 3425 N. Southport, Chicago, IL
That’s a half-block north of the Brown Line Southport station, and the El is by far the easiest way to get there. Street parking is available, though you may have to hunt a bit (the Cubs are not playing at home that night). Bobtail has very tasty (Intelligentsia) coffee, and excellent ice cream as well. They don’t serve much in the way of non-dessert food, but there is a Potbelly Sandwich Works right across the street. takaza and I will probably hit Potbelly at around 7 PM for a quick dinner if anyone wants to join us there. If you’d like us to save you a seat, just let me know, here or by e-mail!

Edit 7/24/06, 8 AM: In response to a question elsewhere, there is a chance this may become a regular gathering, though it would be monthly, not weekly like before.

A Night On The Town

Man, am I dragging this afternoon. I had a blast last night hanging out with perro and woodychitwn and (all-too-briefly) wipeout_ut; I’ll leave the sordid tales to Woody and Perro’s journals, but it was an entertaining reminder of why I’m not a huge fan of bars, though the denizens therein and the heavy-handed propositions were hysterical to watch. The cosmo I started with was OK, and the Chivas and soda was serviceable. Then Woody’s friend came on shift behind the bar and the margarita I ordered kicked my butt something fierce.It was probably half tequila, but unfortunately we’re talking well tequila here…gah. We had a lot of fun shouting talking over the music and I’d love to do it again, though maybe in a quieter setting.

By the time 11:15 rolled around I knew I had to hit the road. I took my leave of the merry crew as they went in search of quieter digs (and, as it turns out, weak, expensive drinks). The El ride back home was…interesting. When you’re riding the El and you’re tipsy, it’s not a good idea to think about motion sickness. Oog. No real problems, just a bit of nausea. I finally got to bed a little after midnight, then the alarm went off at 5 AM. Not. Enough. Sleep. You’ll understand why I feel like I’m about to faceplant into the keyboard.

So, it appears that we’re going to see Clerks 2 tomorrow night. Saturday, there’s a couple of possibilities, though I’m kind of hoping we might grab tickets to the Gay Games Closing Ceremonies at Wrigley Field, since they cut ticket prices in half and they’re now a much more affordable $25. Also, Carbon Leaf is playing at Sheffield Walk, so that’s a possibility as well. We’ll see what happens, I guess.

Our relaxing weekends sure are busy!

So, as I said in my last post of any substance, takaza and I spent Friday evening off together. He chose the hotel (with some help from steviemaxwell. Thanks Stevie!) and let me choose the restaurant for dinner. I knew exactly what I had in mind, but I wanted to surprise him, so I told him we were going to a good Italian restaurant in Naperville. It turns out that one of his cow-orkers lives in Naperville, so when he asked me which one I was caught flat-footed. LTH Forum to my rescue! Why, it’s Pasta Amore – fortunately, I chose one that actually had a pretty good reputation. Once we parked in downtown Naperville, we walked around a bit then I abruptly turned into a restaurant as we passed. Dan said, “Wait! That’s not the right place. That’s Heaven on Seven.” I replied that yes, it was the right place – that’s where our reservations were 🙂 Dinner was, as expected, completely fabulous. Dan’s country fried steak over garlic mashed potatoes was tasty, though not quite as good as past versions at other Ho7 locations. I had the “Feed Me Jimmy Junior” tasting menu, which included crawfish cake, gumbo, turtle soup, a cheddar-jalapeno muffin, a Voodoo chicken enchilada, beef tenderloin over garlic mashed potatoes, and chocolate pecan pie. Ye gods, that was amazing! Afterwards we retired back to the hotel room to relax.

On Saturday, I let Dan sleep in as I poked at my laptop a bit and got some of the free “breakfast” downstairs. Eh, a bagel works when it’s all ya got. Once we got rolling, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up some things for Stevie then headed over to the LAFF softball game. We hung out there for an hour or so and chatted with friends, then retired over to crim_ferret and wyldekyttin‘s place for Crim’s birthday. We really enjoyed hanging out there, chatting, and the steaks were just delicious! Unfortunately, Dan was feeling under the weather so we had to take our leave on the early side.

Sunday? Sunday was the kind of day where you look at the clock and say, “Huh. It’s 5 PM. I guess we should take a shower.” It was quite nice, actually, and dinner was tasty too (sautéed pork chops accompanied by potatoes roasted in goose fat. Yum!)

I didn’t sleep too well last night, and we’ve had a bit of surprising news today that has me a bit off-kilter and stressed. Nothing bad, just…wow. More on that soon, I’m sure.

And Bingo Was His Name-O

Well, after Anthrocon and a very trying week at work, racing against deadlines, we came to the weekend. What would one want to do to recover? Hey, how about relaxing at home? Or maybe going to the Chicago Pride Parade? Or catching the Pride edition of Too Much Light?

No, we called bingo games, drove to Wisconsin, and went to meetings. Logic? What’s that?

On Saturday, takaza and I drove up to Vernon Hills for his company’s summer picnic. Man, it’s nice that he works for one of the few companies that isn’t cutting costs to the bone these days. The picnic was open to all employees and their families, though this was the first year that they didn’t offer free beer and wine (and attendance suffered somewhat, but not terribly). We were in charge of calling bingo games for two sessions, from 12:30 – 2 PM, then from 2:30 – 4PM. The organizers gave us a huge box of $25 gift cards to give away for everything from Jewel and Toys R Us to Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants and Wal Mart – probably close to $1,000 worth of cards total. Dan did some excellent pre-planning and made some signs that were a huge help, and although I’ll admit I was a bit unsure about things at first eventually I did have a very fun time. We alternated, first calling two games, then walking among the audience, answering questions, and checking cards. I think we called about 30-40 games total, and had crowds that pushed 100 or so by the end of the day.

That was pretty fun, but it gets better. First, Dan won a door prize: a $25 Lettuce Entertain You gift card (mmm, that’s two large, home-made apple strudels). They were holding a charity raffle to benefit Ronald McDonald House in which, among other things, they were giving away six Blackberrys. Dan took some of his leftover cash from Anthrocon and bought sixteen $5 tickets. As we were finishing up the last session of bingo, one of the organizers came over and told him he had won and gave him his prize…a 1 Gb iPod Nano. Which is all well and good, except that we both already have 30 Gb iPods. Dan ran into a cow-orker who mentioned that he had won $100 in gift cards to Best Buy; after some talking, they agreed to swap prizes, since the gift cards would be much more useful to us and the cow-orker’s son really wanted an iPod. As we were driving away from the picnic, Dan opened the envelope and pulled out one $50 card, then another $50 card, then another, unmarked card! One call to Best Buy’s automated number later, and we find that we actually have $150 in gift cards. Woo! To cap all of this off, after we helped last year we each got $40 in gift cards, so I’m assuming we’ll be seeing something similar this year. It turns out that it was a very lucrative afternoon, plus I had a surprisingly good time.

After the picnic, we headed up to Milwaukee to have a going-away party for Straif (colliedoc). It was a lovely, low-key affair. The company was excellent, the food was good, and the wine very tasty 🙂 (Steele Carneros Pinot Noir, of course – you can’t go wrong with that!) unfortunately, we were both feeling the effects of the long day outside and had to take our leave early – I slept a good bit on the drive home, and poor Dan was feeling pretty sleepy too, but we made it home OK.

Sunday featured the Midwest FurFest staff meeting. Not much to say about that, though do check out our spiffy new website, courtesy of hooktail. Really nice work! We lazed around at home a bit in the evening, and continued slooowly going through the first season of the new Doctor Who by watching “Daleks” – yet another strong episode.

Today has been a pleasant day at work, a lot less stressful than last week! It sounds like Dan will be heading down to the St. Louis for his employer tomorrow for a few days, but with the possibility of late nights there the prospects of socializing seem regrettably small. In the meantime…Anyone want to go out for sushi tomorrow or Wednesday night?

Wuffmeet 3 is done!

The weekend is done and we are pleased to report that Wuffmeet 3 was a success! Thanks so much to the wonderful folks who showed up to make the weekend so much fun: artemisfur, crim_ferret, werellama, datahawk, daveqat, dancingninny, genet, foxish, linnaeus, lisagems, Max, mirkowuff, mistletoe, wooisme, mstegosaurus, neowolf2, posicat, roho, simbalion, siriuswolfstar, steviemaxwell, stormdog, jimcyl, tincrash, tremaine, unclevlad, vidarwolf, and wyldekyttin. Many beverages were consumed, much food was eaten, and I laughed more than I have in quite a while!

Things kicked off Friday with some tasty food for dinner: beef stew, chicken white chili, and kielbasa, kraut, and potatoes. Judging from the alacrity with which the food disappeared, I gather it was of acceptable quality (or everyone was really hungry). As requested, I’ll post the recipe for the white chili here in the next few days. Saturday was FRAC (Furries Race Across Chicago), followed by a pizza feast and socializing into the wee hours. Sunday was a late start for some reason (gee, where’s all those empty bottles come from?) 🙂 We took a sizable crowd over to Emmett’s Tavern, where we had a delicious lunch and enjoyed a sampling of their beers. Later, we sent out for various cuisines for dinner, which were all distinguished by being pretty much awful. And this morning, once we got everyone rousted up and checked out of their rooms, we grabbed a late brunch at Apple Villa, which turned out to be an excellent alternative to the dreadful IHOP which was next to the hotel. From there, everyone scattered to the winds, to head home and crash.

Planning this event was a world of fun, and it was everything I’d hoped it would be. I was pretty stressed on Friday hoping that everything would work out right and that takaza and I had budgeted properly, but I should have trusted my wonderful wolf – everything worked well, with the exception that we came up a few cans short of diet sodas on Sunday. Dan and I came up with a good approach this year: I took the early shift and he took the late shift. That meant that I was up early to make sure that everyone had their coffee, kringles, and oatmeal, and Dan stayed up late to clean up and lock up when everyone went to bed. The downside of this is that he got to bed at 5:30 AM this morning; needless to say, he’s taking a nap as I write this. We hope that everyone enjoyed themselves, and we look forward to the next Wuffmeet!

And what about FRAC, you say? How did it go, and who won this time? You’ll have to wait for that! I’ll be putting up some lengthy posts tomorrow detailing the clues, the hints, the answers, and the winners (with pictures!). But for now…time to collapse and relax.

Busy weekend, but busier week ahead!

That was a very satisfying weekend. On Friday I took takaza to work (it means I don’t get in until 7 AM, when I usually get here at 6:45 – no loss). This meant that when I got out from work, I was able to spend a lovely half-hour alternately reading and dozing in the sun while waiting for him to finish work. We walked around to Randhurst Mall (which is very, very sad) before meeting up with linnaeus and Dan’s cow-orker nymphara to see Over the Hedge. The verdict from me: Not great, but it had some very funny moments. Bruce Willis played Bruce Willis, which bores me. Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara as the porcupines cracked me the hell up and really made the movie (OK, Steve Carrell’s Sammy was good too).

On Saturday I was up and motivated on the early side, so I walked the two miles or so over to where wooisme was participating in a garage sale. I had a pleasant time chatting, and Paul joined us not long after. Paul and I ducked out at around 11:30 and in the interest of time caught a bus back to our place. Dan was feeling under the weather, so he opted to stay in while I picked up mirkowuff from O’Hare and we headed out to LAFF softball. Thanks so much to woodychitwn for providing the comfy viewing arrangements! That was perfect way to chat with friends, enjoy the beautiful weather, and be completely and utterly lazy 🙂 After the game we had ambitious plans to go out to dinner at a nice place in Andersonville and see Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Unfortunately, we were all tired and that devolved into dinner from the taquiera around the corner, some family Guy from the TiVo and an early bedtime.

I woke up at 6:30 AM on Sunday and couldn’t get back to sleep. Curse being a morning person! On the bright side, this allowed me to go out and enjoy the crisp, breezy morning. I drove over to the Broadway location of Intelligentsia and picked up a couple of pounds of beans for this week and Wuffmeet, then took my (free!) cup of coffee over to the lakeshore at Foster Beach and spent some time watching the lake and admiring the skyline. Truly, a wonderful way to start the day! We had a nice morning of coffee, newspaper, and a bit of video games before Mirko, Paul, and I headed out to the MFF staff meeting (Dan was still feeling pretty oogy, unfortunately. He’s doing much better now!). The meeting was quite useful, and we accomplished quite a bit. Afterwards, the dinner at Portillo’s was enjoyable as well. I picked up some dinner for Dan on the way home and we had a quiet evening in, though we stayed up a bit later than I would have liked nailing down more FRAC stuff.

And so this week: it’s going to be pretty crazy. We have a lot of prep for Wuffmeet to do, I need to run a good number of errands, and on top of that I’ll be going with Dan, Woody, and perro to see a White Sox game tomorrow night. Oh, and I need to cook two full meals for Friday night, too. Whee!

How did midweek suddenly get this busy?

So, as predicted, we did spend a delightful evening at roho and genet‘s in the company of ottr and riecka. Charcoal Grill in Kenosha provided tasty burgers and so-so drinks (note to self: next time stick to the mai tais – the Long Islands there suck), then back to R&G’s where Diesel proceeded to clean our clocks at Texas hold ’em. It was a lot of fun, and many thanks to R&G for putting us up for the night!

Tuesday was going to be a quiet evening at home, but a call from a friend who had locked their keys in their car prompted a pre-emption of dinner plans and a trip out to the burbs. Dinner became Potbelly Sandwiches, which I must admit I’m starting to like. Unfortunately, I was reminded of the perils of raw onions too soon before bedtime as I had one of the worst attacks of reflux that I’ve had in quite a while that night, after midnight. I stayed up for almost an hour waiting for things to settle down, and still have a nasty “scorched” throat to show for it. We really need to make an attempt to eat earlier, I think, and I need to watch what I eat a bit more closely.

Last night I was feeling terrible when I got home from work – a pounding headache just this side of a migraine. I forewent the gym and instead lay down for an hour or so, though even with ibuprofen the headache wouldn’t go away. Dan came home and, after seeing the state I was in, grabbed some massage oil and administered a heavenly neck and shoulder massage that drove the headache away. I’m so fortunate to have a husband as wonderful as him! Not long after, we were graced by the presence of datahawk, who crashed with us for the night so we could watch the finale of The Amazing Race. The hippies won, yay! It was a great ending to a so-so season; I’m just glad that they renewed it for next year, though I’m not sure how I feel about a Sunday time slot for the show. On the other hand, it’ll be right after 60 Minutes, which is a hell of a lead-in. We stayed up a bit too late hammering out some details on FRAC, and I’m pleased to say we now have a good two-thirds of the clues done and ready to go. And just so I can get my reality double-doe, I see that the Top Chef finale (Part 1) recorded last night. That’ll be some good Tivo fodder for tonight.

And so today I need to make a quick stop by the grocery store on the way home, then it’ll be back to the gym after too many days away.

Hmm…we need to make some plans for the weekend. Stay tuned for a post about that…

I Need a Weekend to Recover From My Weekend

Weekend. Right. Yeah, we had one of those, I think.

On Friday, I picked takaza up at work and we braved the insane Friday traffic to drive down to visit a friend who was in the hospital (good news, though – he was discharged the following day). We were pretty tired afterwards, so we grabbed dinner from Charcoal Delight and I crashed on the early side.

Saturday found me up and awake at 8 AM, as per usual, but that left me time to read the paper and have my coffee. I woke Dan up and we headed out the door to spend the day nailing down a route for FRAC. I’m happy to say that after a few false starts and some disagreements on where to go when, I think we’ve got a good course for the race in hand. We still need to work out several elements, but hey, we’ve got twelve days to go, right? After all that traipsing around, we met siriuswolfstar and simbalion for dinner at The Grafton, a place I had visited before with Linnaeus. I regret to report that the place has not improved on my initial dismal opinion of it, and we won’t be returning. The food was uninspiring at best, and the service was quite poor. Ah we.. We capped the night off with a nice chat back at our place, then I stumbled off to bed, though Dan stayed up quite a bit later.

On Mother’s Day we drove up to Dan’s mom’s place in McHenry County. On the way there we stopped by our storage unit to visit our stuff (“Hi! Did you miss us?”) and we dug out our 32″ television. After our last visit to his mom’s I had noticed that her TV was in terrible shape, and ours has just been sitting in storage for the last year and a half. Plus, I suspect that when we do get our own place we’ll be in the market for something a bit bigger and shinier (curse you, feren! Curse you and your 52″ flat-panel HDTV!). After we dropped off the TV, We headed over to Woodstock to the Tip Top Bistro for their Mother’s Day brunch. It’s a pleasant little place, and the staff there were friendly and helpful (which must have been tough on a crazy day like Mother’s Day!). They had a nice brunch buffet with a tasty Waldorf salad, seafood paella, fettuccine puttanesca, leg of lamb, eggs benedict, and bananas French toast. The complimentary champagne (well, prosecco, technically) with free refills was nice too 🙂 After brunch we returned to Dan’s mom’s house where Dan spent the next hour rearranging her A/V equipment, making sure the VCR(s), Tivo, and TVs all were connected properly. I…well, I fell asleep on the sofa 🙂 Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon, I think. We headed home and made a stop by the corner taquiera for a light dinner. We stayed up too late to catch the Survivor finale (Bleah. I’m skipping next season, and this time I mean it!) and then I went off to bed, though again Dan stayed up too late (silly wolf!).

So tonight we’re going to be hanging out in Antioch, spending time with roho and genet and the visiting ottr and his wife, riecka. I foresee a wee bit of alcohol, some tasty food, and me getting the bejesus beaten out of me at poker…

Mascots and Psychonauts!

I was feeling a bit blah after work on Friday – nothing serious, just a series of reminders of why life sucks when you’re a contractor. I found that a good workout at the gym helped – yay for endorphins! It didn’t hurt that it was a lovely day out so the walk back was quite pleasant. Takaza saw that I was restless and we went out to do a little shopping, with a stop by EBGames (fruitless, but for some reason the store at Lincoln Village always sucks) and Target. We grabbed dinner at Hub’s on Dempster in Skokie, which was pronounced to be undistinguished.

I got an early start on Saturday and went down to the EBGames on Elston, where I found what I was looking for: Psychonauts, allegedly the best platform game from 2005, and a very fun and playable game. It happened that that was right near the Edward Don Outlet (a restaurant supply store) that I had heard was closing. I stopped by and was impressed by two things: first, all the cool merchandise marked down by 70%, and second, the HUGE line waiting to check out – like a good 20-30 minute wait. I looked all through the store but I didn’t see anything that I HAD to have; I saw some nice stuff at great prices, but the kitchen is crammed full now, and I couldn’t see anything that would merit the major project of making space for it. More’s the pity. Quasiskunk, I did think of the stuff you might need for Con Suite this year, but I knew you were off in the boonies for the weekend, so…oh well. I passed the afternoon playing Psychonauts (it’s one of those games where you sit down to play and suddenly it’s three hours later!) then it was time to go.

A friend of our had given us complimentary tickets to the final home game of the season for the Chicago Rush arena football team. We took the CTA out to the Allstate Arena and got in just before the game started. It was a good game, once I got used to the arena football rules, and Chicago kicked the butt of the Utah Blaze. The highlight of the game was actually halftime, when they had a game of “mascot football” – yes, sixteen mascots from all around the Chicago area turned out, including Staley the Bear (who gets points for being the most willing to take a hard fall), Benny the Bull (definitely the most personality), Skates (the home-arena favorite), Tommy Hawk (from the Blackhawks), Sparky (from the Chicago Fire), plus mascots from Loyola, Northwestern, and several other schools and companies. The highlights were Benny laying out “celebrity quarterback” Mike Adamle, and a bee mascot putting a shoulder in the gut of the Rush’s mascot Grabowski (yeesh, what a costume). He needed a sec outside the huddle to catch his breath. The “game” was a disorganized wreck, of course, but extremely entertaining from the stands. We took off in the middle of the third quarter with the Rush up something like 76 to 24 and found ourselves with no way back to the CTA. We opted to walk to the ATS at O’Hare and take that in to the CTA station at the airport, getting home at around 11 PM. Datahawk and Linnaeus were watching Rent when we got home, but we were too tired to watch, so we headed off to bed.

On Sunday I puttered around a bit while Data slept through me grinding coffee, the dishwasher running, and the cat meowing. I only wish I could sleep that soundly. Dan and I drove up to check on my wedding band (more about that in my next post) and sat down at a nearby Potbelly Sandwiches to make use of the free wi-fi and try to hammer out the final details of FRAC. Unfortunately, what we determined was that, while we had a set course, neither of us was happy with it. We kicked around ideas on the way home and I think we have some solid plans on how things are going to go, but we’re going to need to do some research this Saturday. We got home and had a quiet evening of video games and laptops.

Not a lot of plans for the week, though we’re going to have dinner with partran tonight. I’m sure stuff will come up, as it always does 🙂

Medical fun and dinners with friends

Good news! I have too much blood in my cholesterol system. Or rather, I don’t have too much cholesterol in my blood system. Well, I do, but it’s not something I need to take meds for – I’m classified as “high borderline” on most counts, but compared to last year the numbers are declining, so all my work at the gym has paid off. My weight hasn’t really changed much, unfortunately; this means that in the diet-exercise balance, I need to work on improving my diet. The even better news is that everything else checked out, and I’m pretty healthy otherwise.

This week has gone by pretty quickly. Tuesday we helped woodychitwn pick up some shelving for his about-to-open comics store (they do mail-order, too!), and had a tasty dinner at Heartland Cafe. Last night siriuswolfstar and simbalion joined us for dinner, and tonight we’re going to have dinner with daveqat and jimcyl. I reckon we’ll have to have dinner with perro and prfanity at some point just to complete the apartment trifecta 🙂 Tonight should be fun, though – we’re going to check out Tweet, which gets good reviews from The Reader.

Planning continues apace for Wuffmeet. To those of you who are attending and have not yet made your hotel reservations: DO IT NOW! We’re being asked to give up some space because it appears (to them) that we don’t have many people in our room block. The sooner you reserve, the more bargaining leverage we’ll have. If you need the info again, just let me know.

Back to work now!

Wherein Our Hero Eats Out a Lot and Has a Really Fun Weekend

Goodness – one public post in the last week? Honestly, last week just wasn’t that interesting. The weekend, however…

On Friday, I got home and just felt generally tired. I skipped the gym and was even thinking about grabbing a nap when takaza called on his way home and suggested we go out and do a bit of shoe shopping. He needed my help because he has been dealing with a nasty pinched nerve in his back which limited his mobility somewhat (he’s very much on the mend now, fortunately). After some shoe shopping we decided to grab dinner out. We opted to investigate Lincoln Square. We grabbed a good parking spot and had a brief browse through The Chopping Block, a neat kitchenware store, and enjoyed a bit of music from the busker in the square. Our first choice, though it looked quite tasty, didn’t really tickle Dan’s fancy, so we walked a bit further down to La Bocca della Verita’. Dan had a very tasty (though somewhat plain) gnocchi pomodoro, and I opted for the ravioli Anatra, which had a duck breast, sage, and shallot filling. Rather good, I’ll say. Alas, the atmosphere was a bit too bustling and loud, and I doubt we’ll return.

On Saturday, Dan had to go in to work. I spent the morning and part of the afternoon hanging out with datahawk (who had spent the night) and filing my taxes (hey last-minute folks: Taxact will e-file your state and federal taxes for $16!). After some false starts (I fumbled some employer ID numbers on my W-2’s), I submitted my taxes and had notification back within a few hours. The nice refund of $900 will go…well, it’ll all go towards credit cards, which is pretty boring. Yay for debt reduction, though!

At about 4 PM Dan, Data, Linnaeus and I headed out on the El down to River North for a truly wonderful early dinner at Heaven on Seven. We were joined by emrldgirrl, wiktowasichu, siriuswolfstar, simbalion, lisagems, Moryssa, Dan’s cow-orker nymphara, Data’s mom, and Data’s brother R.C. Dan had the extremely tasty country fried steak (again), and I splurged a bit and got the “Jimmy Jr. Feed Me!” a four-course meal of whatever the chef decides to give you (the larger “Jimmy Feed Me!” is seven courses). This was truly amazing. I started off with two demitasses, one with their delicious gumbo and the other with a delicious turtle soup. This was followed by a jalapeno-cheddar corn muffin and Cajun-seasoned halibut that was nothing short of astonishing – flaky, tender, and perfectly-cooked. Not too spicy either! After this was beef tenderloin served on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes. Yum! (By this point I was sharing the dishes all around because there was no way I could finish all of it myself!) They finished things off with my choice of dessert from their dinner menu; I opted for the chocolate pecan pie, which everyone agreed was tasty, but the crust was a bit too tough (Lisa guessed, and I agree, that they probably let the dough get too warm as they were rolling out). Regrettably, we were a bit rushed by the end to make our next appointment, but I would absolutely order this again when I have time to savor things a bit more. It’s a hell of a deal at only $24.

After dinner we stumbled downstairs and stuffed an insane number of people into a cab and headed over to the Cadillac Palace Theater for the evening’s main event: the final Chicago performance (this time) of the musical Rent. Dan and I both went in cold, not having seen the movie or listened to (much) of the soundtrack. The performances were solid (although the actress playing Mimi was rather dreadful and in the first act wandered off-key several times) but the experience was marred by an incompetent sound mix that rendered the vocals into mush. When you have a performance where all of the exposition is sung, this meant that I spent a lot of the time trying to guess what was going on, who was who, and what each character’s motivations were. As a result the play really fell flat for me, because I was unable to connect with the characters or really care what happened to them. The songs were pretty good, though, so the evening wasn’t completely wasted. I hope to watch the movie sometime soon and hopefully will maybe get a bit more out of that. After the play we dispersed (slowly – inertia being what it is), but made a stop by the truly tasty Bobtail Soda Fountain for some ice cream with Lisa, Sirius, Simba, and Data. Then it was on to home and collapsing into bed.

Sunday started out slowly, as might be expected given the late night Saturday. Dan had to tend to a few work items, though he fortunately could do that from home. Later in the afternoon we drove up to McHenry to Dan’s mom’s place to drop off her taxes (which Dan had filled out) and visited with her for a bit. We drove back to the city through the pouring rain and arrived just in time to meet Simba and Sirius for dinner at Calo Ristorante. Much pizza was eaten, and it’s always fun hanging out with friends. We trundled off to bed shortly after we got home.

So then we have this week. We have the final volunteers meeting tonight for Night of 100 Champions. This will pretty much be eating up our time next weekend, both the gala on Saturday and the brunch on Sunday, so we’ll probably miss the MFF staff meeting on Sunday. Other than that, I have a couple of MFF registration projects I’m working on that I would like to finish this week. Right now, though, there’s work here I need to do so I’m off. Hope everyone has a great week!

Saturday Parties and Lazy Sundays

Well, that wasn’t too bad of a weekend. datahawk came over on Friday night and we hung out (mostly her keeping me company while I cooked up a massive amount of chicken broth for chicken and dumplings). takaza didn’t get home from work until after 8 PM, and data was kind enough to run around the corner to the taquiera and pick up some dinner for us. We didn’t eat until late, though, and because of a nasty attack of reflux I wound up staying up until almost 1 AM, long after everyone else had gone to bed.

On Saturday, Dan had to go into work again, so I passed the time relaxing and chatting a bit with data and Linnaeus before doing the final prep work for the chicken and dumplings. When we headed over to siriuswolfstar‘s place at around 4 PM, Dan still wasn’t home. After the requisite circling (only about ten minutes, though) we found a decent parking spot and trudged upstairs. The evening is a bit of a blur and not because I was drinking that much (though that Stolichnaya Elite vodka was very tasty!). Dan and Paul showed up at around 7, and I’m really glad they both made it. People seemed to like the chicken, judging by the locust-like rapidity with which it was consumed, and the rest of the party was quite entertaining. Alas, the previous evening’s late night, combined with Dan being tired from a long day at work led us to bow out early once again. As usual, it sounds like the party got a whole lot more entertaining after we left, but them’s the breaks.

I spent a good bit of Sunday morning quietly reading the paper and drinking coffee. I say quietly because Data didn’t get in until 5 AM and was fast asleep on our couch 🙂 Long about noon, though, we managed to get everyone awake and were joined by mirkowuff and perro for an extremely tasty brunch at Tre Kroner. Amazingly, we only had to wait 15 minutes for a table, and while we waited Dan picked up some adorable hand-carved animals at the Swedish Shop next door, a wolf and a fox. After brunch we found out that Dan wouldn’t have to go in to work after all, which was a little annoying since we hadn’t made any plans for the day because we assumed he would have to go in. Instead, Perro, Mirko, and Data went their separate ways and we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening catching up on our Tivo backlog. That wasn’t a bad alternative, actually.

As for the rest of the week, I’m hoping to be a bit more diligent on my gym attendance, and we’re trying to improve our dinner menus as well. I hope to get the Registration budget for MFF wrapped up as well, and get caught up on Registration confirmation postcards, too. Lots to do!

Coffee, Sausages, and Cider: These Are a Few of My Favorite Things!

Right then: The weekend.

We had all kinds of plans for Friday night; rasslor was going to have dinner with friends, we were going to join linnaeus for dinner, and we were just rarin’ to go…until we actually got home. Traffic was sucky, it was cold and windy outside, and Rasslor’s plans fell through. None of us were motivated in the least, so we wound up huddling ’round the TiVo and ordering pizza. Not a bad alternative, though.

On Saturday I was up moderately early to face the day. Rasslor, Linnaeus and I drove down to the so-hidden-don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it Intelligencia Roasting Works (seriously – they only put a sign outside their door when they give tours) for a tour of their facilities. Naturally they supplied copious coffee to drink, and walked us through roasting a batch of coffee (Guatamalan El Cuervo, to be specific), then we all got a half-pound of the fresh-roasted El Cuervo at the end of the tour. We also got a nice look at their barista training room and QA/QC lab, where they not only test the roasted coffees for quality, they also review samples of green beans sent by farmers from all over the world for quality and suitability. I came away extremely impressed by Intelligencia; they’re a small company (75 employees, including their two – soon to be three – coffee shops) who care about doing things right. I’ll be buying my beans from Intelligencia in the foreseeable future.

After the tour, we drove over to Hot Doug’s, where we were joined by sabotlours, carol_kitty, and takaza. mstegosaurus, fritzywolf, and circafox were there as well (Sorry we couldn’t socialize more, guys! Unfortunately Hot Doug’s is about the food and not so much about the sitting and chatting). I had the Italian-seasoned wild boar sausage with sun-dried tomato mustard and Romano cheese, as well as the merguez lamb sausage with spicy harissa and goat cheese. Both were quite tasty, but definitely not the best I’d ever had there. After lunch we adjourned back to Linnaeus’ place to wallow a bit in postprandial torpor before getting back into the car and driving out to datahawk and posicat place for their annual St. Patrick’s Day party. Much fun and socializing ensued, and I had a really good time.

Sunday morning, I awoke to find Rasslor plotting out various bus routes to get himself back to Midway. Given that he had a huge, heavy suitcase and several changes of transportation were to be involved, I volunteered to just drive him down – it was a beautiful day out, anyway. After seeing him off, Paul, Dan and I went to the Midwest FurFest staff meeting which, due to various illnesses and schedule conflicts, was rather lightly attended. This made for a fast meeting, though, and we migrated to the Curragh for one last meal before it closes at the end of the month. The meal reminded me that the best thing about going there on the Monday after MFF has always been that it was the Monday after MFF – the food has never really been all that. The Magner’s Cider on tap helped a good bit, though. Still, it was fun to hang out and chat with hartree, taren_, Puma, mirkowuff, wyldekyttin and Datahawk. After the meeting Paul, Dan and I headed home to lay about and be generally useless for the rest of the evening.

I was a bad boy and skipped going to the gym yesterday, this after skipping all of last week due to some nasty blisters on my heels. Those are all healed up, now, and I intend to go tonight and tomorrow. Thursday night, we’ll be up in Racine since Dan has to work in Milwaukee on Friday and he wanted my company 🙂 Then after work on Friday it’s time for Congenial! I intend to revel in the spirit of the convention, doing exceedingly little and relaxing. Maybe some nice swimming and relaxing in the hot tub, too. I’m quite looking forward to it.

And now, it’s back to making Visio do things that it’s not meant to do. What fun!

Furrypalooza Weekend!

Good heavens! What started out as a few simple plans became an exhausting, entertaining weekend.

Saturday started off with linnaeus and I meeting up with ramalion and his partner KBear (why doesn’t K have an LJ, anyway?) at the luxurious Renaissance O’Hare (really nice job on that one, steviemaxwell!). After agonizing over whether the weather was going to hold, we decided to go out and try to find two geocaches (the latter was just outside Gino’s East on Higgins, and was made more entertaining by the GE employee eyeing us wandering around with our GPS, then saying, “Did you find it yet? I know where it is, but I’m not going to tell you!”). After a lackluster lunch at Steak and Shake (at least the company was good!), we picked up three more caches. This involved a lot of tromping around through the forest preserve along the Des Plaines River; I need to remember that the reason I don’t wear my boots that often is because they cause blisters, which explains why I had a nasty blister on each heel when we were done. Still, it was worth it – the weather was beautiful, in the 60’s and partly cloudy, and the forest was quite pretty even if it was full of deer crap 🙂

After tromping through the woods, we retired back to our place where takaza was waiting, having wisely chosen to sleep in, and we hung out for the rest of the afternoon, watching some accumulated Tivo goodness (including my newest addiction, Survivorman). Once recovered, we piled into the Blue Box (which seats four comfortably but five rather uncomfortably) and drove down to Ann Sather on Belmont, where we met up with roho, genet, and feren. Dinner was…well, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t terribly exciting. Again, the company more than made up for the food. After dessert and some chatting, we adjourned over to the Briar Street Theater to see Blue Man Group. Wow. What a show. It was a whole lot of fun, and extremely entertaining. Everyone seemed to have a great time, though next time, I’ll definitely get an earlier show than 10 PM – we were all pretty worn out by the time we got home at around 12:30 AM.

On Sunday we had a rather abrupt change of plans (I’m really sorry about that, siriuswolfstar!) and wound up meeting up with Rama and K then making our (somewhat haphazard) way down to the Holiday Inn – William Tell Convention Center in Countryside. There, we met up with unclekage, petercat, and mach. We packed everyone into cars and migrated over to one of the northern outposts of The House of Lard for a tasty breakfast and Apple Pancakes As Big As Your Head. Lots of good conversation and SMOFFing took place. Afterwards, Rama and K took their leave to drive back to St. Louis, we dropped Mach off at the hotel, and Dan and I took Kage and Peter over to Mitsuwa Marketplace where, surprise of surprises, Kage bought some sake. We dropped Kage off at his deluxe hotel accommodations (on the bright side, it looked like he might be able to easily commune with his cockroach brethren), and then dropped Peter off at O’Hare for his flight home, then went home to relax briefly. Dan napped and I played some mindless video games until Paul came home with rasslor in tow. Bob is going to be spending the week with us as he did last year, only this time hopefully he won’t get deathly ill 🙂 Dinner was a rather soggy trip to Charcoal Delight, then I was tired enough that I turned in not long after.

Man, it seems like I need a weekend to rest up from our weekend! It was a blast, though, and the next weekends are going to be fun too, with someone’s St. Patrick’s Day party (I think?) and MFF meeting next weekend, then Congenial the weekend after that. I’m really looking forward to that!

Dancing Huskies? Not Likely.

Time to play ketchup…and mustard! Nah, just catch-up.

For all that I was hoping to kick off the weekend with a bang, takaza and I agreed on Friday afternoon that we were both tired and we’d just stay in. That was a good thing, since Dan didn’t get home from work until close to 7 PM anyway.

On Saturday, I vowed to get a nice, early start. I got up at 7 and, after morning coffee, headed over to the gym for a full workout. I got back later than I would have liked but almost on time anyway, since siriuswolfstar and rustitobuck were already waiting and chatting with Dan and linnaeus. The five of us walked the few blocks to Tre Kronor, the wonderful little Swedish restaurant near our place. Several different kinds of eggs benedict were ordered (traditional, crabcake, and salmon), and Rusty’s corned beef hash was amazingly tasty (lots of fresh thyme in there helped, I think). All that and fresh-made danishes and strong coffee. Man, I love that place!

Afterwards, Sirius, Dan, and I drove up to Antioch to meet Roho and Genet. We went to see Eight Below (short review: awful script, awful actors, extremely unlikely and over-anthropomorphized canine behavior, but at least the dogs were pretty), then adjourned to their place for the usual pizza and Drunken Apples to Apples. Sunday morning we made the requisite pilgrimage to Las Vegas Restaurant for their Skillets O’ Doom, and then came home and zoned out for the rest of the afternoon.

Yesterday, Dan attempted to start a regimen of going in an hour early to try to avoid having to stay late each might – still get the overtime, just make it a little more bearable. Unfortunately he picked the wrong day to do it, as that was when the monthly forecasts were due, which meant he didn’t get home until a little before 9 PM. Thirteen-hour days suck, indeed. Here’s hoping that the rest of the week won’t be nearly as bad. For tonight, it’s back to the gym for me, and with luck a tasty dinner for us both.

Good Weekend, And Coughing The Night Away

Well, I’m starting to feel a bit better now, so I guess it’s time to update.

The weekend was quite pleasant. After going to the gym on Saturday morning, I bummed around the house on Saturday while takaza was at work. He got home just in time to pick up Linnaeus and I and give us a lift over to The Hopleaf to meet up with mirkowuff and siriuswolfstar. We had a couple rounds of the fabulous Belgian beers The Hopleaf is well-known for, as well as a couple of orders of frites with aioli (mmm, yummy!). We decided to break for dinner at around 6 PM; the first place we tried, L. Woods, told us it was a 60-70 minute wait for a table. Eh, Chicago is a big city, there’s plenty of other options. We instead went to Tre Kronor, a quiet little Swedish place right around the corner from where we live. The menu wasn’t extensive, but it was quite good (and inexpensive!). I had a beef stew with garlic mashed potatoes, and Dan had a sautéed chicken breast with Jarlsberg and ham. We finished off the meal with a yummy creme brulee as well as a very light chocolate mousse and some good, strong coffee. Excellent. We went back to the apartment and watched a couple of episodes of Dirty Jobs (Mike Rowe is such a cutie!) then Dan and I headed off to bed.

On Sunday, we had a nice lazy morning of laptop geeking, coffee, and Ann Sather cinnamon rolls (thanks Paul!). Then it was over to the Hyatt Regency Woodfield for the first in-person Midwest FurFest staff meeting of the year. It was a very useful meeting, and we hammered out a lot of details, though there’s still a good way to go. Afterwards, there was the usual after-meeting socialization in which we firmed up our Anthrocon rooming plans (still need to work on our travel plans, though). Dan was feeling under the weather so he headed home while about a dozen of us drove over to Fuddruckers for an early dinner. Fud gud.

I went to bed with a slight tickle in my throat on Sunday night and woke up Monday with a nasty, hacking cough. Oddly, no sinus problems or the like, just a sore throat and coughing. I felt poorly all day and wound up leaving work a little early to go home and nap. Once Dan got home he took good care of me, cooking up dinner and taking care of laundry. I’m a very lucky guy to have him.

Today I’m feeling better, though the cough and sore throat are still around. Fortunately, we have some excellent cough syrup that really takes care of things for me. No gym for me yesterday or today, though – that would be a bad idea all around, since it’s hard to exercise while you’re hacking up a lung. I’ll have to come in early for a couple days later this week to make up the time lost yesterday, but that’s not too big of a deal. I’m also happy to report that I have a lot more on my plate at work (compared to what was far too little), so I’m feeling a lot more positive about my job today.

Hopefully we should have some major announcements about MFF coming in the next few days – watch here or for those!

Well, we didn’t have any plans, but…

You know, you go into a weekend with no plans, and stuff just kind of happens. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you!

After a quiet night in on Friday, takaza and I slept in (I got up at 9:15! Woo!). I enjoyed a nice morning of coffee, newspaper, and laptop, with some mellow music playing in the background. Once Dan was up and we had showered, linnaeus joined us and we drove up to the bustling metropolis of Antioch, IL, where we met up with roho and genet to see Hoodwinked (My favorite review: “Finally, a Rashomon for the whole family. This cartoon version of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ tells and retells its story from a variety of perspectives, all of them boring”). It wasn’t quite that bad – it had random moments of humor – but the animation was substandard and all in all I’m really glad I only paid $2 to see it.

After the movie, we went to the Antioch Armanetti’s liquor store (motto: “Better stocked than we have any right to be!”), where we found that we arrived about five minutes to late to take part in the huge beer and wine sampling event they were staging. Phooey. We made a couple of good purchases, though. They had a good price on Apfelkorn (take note, lisagems!) so I got a bottle of that, as well as a bottle of Van Gogh Dutch Chocolate Vodka. Dan picked up a bottle of Thin Mint Liqueur and a bottle of Sgt. Peppermint. The best buy of the night was a Grey Goose Vodka gift set that was a box big enough to hold two bottles and included two martini glasses, a shaker, and a pony/jigger. Normally it sold with two bottles of vodka but without the bottles it was $5.99. Score! We now have a nice portable bar 🙂 (This may sound like a huge booze purchase, but for those of you who know us, this is enough liquor to last us for the next six or eight months!)

After a quick stop by the grocery store, we headed back to Roho and Genet’s place. A tasty dinner of burgers followed, and feren eventually joined us as well. We determined that while Drunken Apples to Apples is a very fun game, Drunken Cranium is not quite as much fun. We had fun anyway, though. The next morning we made our usual pilgrimage to Las Vegas Restaurant for a delicious breakfast, then it was back to the house for an orgy of Nintendo DS gaming. We left at around 3 or so to head back to the city. Siriuswolfstar came by later once he got off from work and we capped off an excellent weekend with some sushi and some Family Guy.

After a restless night’s sleep, I’m trudging forward this morning. We have a lot to get done with week – errands to run after work, and some cleaning around the house as well – and on Friday we head towards Pittsburgh for some pre-Anthrocon strategizing. Since Friday will be a half-day, that means I’ll be coming in extra early Tuesday through Friday to make up for the lost time, yay. And now, off to see what joys my inbox has for me…

Meanwhile, In Another Part of the Forest…

Well, that was a lovely little impromptu little trip. As I mentioned in my entry on Friday, I hitched a train down to St. Louis for the weekend, got to hang out with some fun folks, got in some family time, and got a nice change of scenery. It was a lot of fun.

On Friday I left work on the early side and caught the El down to Union Station. As I was getting on the Brown Line at Kedzie, I heard a mother and her daughter inquire about how to get to Union Station; when they reached the platform I volunteered to show them the way. This opened the way to an interesting conversation all the way downtown. The daughter was in the middle of a multi-week tour to visit college campuses and they were just returning from North Park University, which is right around the corner from where I live. Given that she was leaning towards Wellesley and didn’t think much of North Park, I reckon they won’t be back. Anyway, we had fun chatting and once we got to Union Station we parted ways.

The Business Class upgrade that I had purchased turned out to really pay off, since they had us board the train first, well ahead of everyone else. In all, I think there were eight people in a section that seated eighteen. The seats were wide and relatively comfy and since we were at the front of the car right behind the engine, there was no foot traffic. The middle of the car was the “snack bar” (a couple of refrigerators and a microwave – I was glad I’d picked up something at the station!), then the rest of the car was something akin to restaurant booths for people to eat and socialize. The trip too five and a half hours, and while it was somewhat boring it was nice that I could plug in my laptop for entertainment. I watched the first disc of The Fellowship of the Ring, then listened to MP3’s the rest of the way. I also worked on sorting through my inbox in Eudora, paring it down from 1,600 to 700 e-mails (some back to 2003. Um, whoops). We arrived a few minutes early at 10:40 PM and takaza pulled up to the station not long after. We retired to the La Quinta Westport and quickly went to bed.

On Saturday we lazed about the room a bit, then met up with ramalion and KBear. We grabbed a quick lunch then went over to their lovely house and watched a few episodes of Firefly (while entertaining Sammy the hyperactive black lab). We chatted for a while then drove up to meet Tygercowboy, spikerotty, and mauilovich for dinner at a diner/pancake house. The food was tasty and the company was excellent. From there it was over to Webster University for an interesting film, Three of Hearts. It was about the creation and ultimate dissolution of a three-way relationship between two bisexual men and a woman. Seeing the pushes and pulls of the relationship was fascinating, and while I don’t think I would have the constitution for a polyamorous relationship, there were a lot of interesting insights to be found about relationships in general – how they’re formed, how we cope, and what it takes to sustain one. I’m really glad we went. Afterwards we parted ways with T.C. and company and Dan, Rama, K, and I hit a Cold Stone Creamery (in Kirkwood, right near St. Joseph’s Hospital where I was born! 🙂

Sunday was equally slow getting started, but hey, we were on vacation! Once we got up and got checked out of the room, we met up with my sister’s family at Macaroni Grill. The meal was fun and it was really nice seeing them again, even though it was all too short a visit. Then it was time to hit the road for the five and a half hour drive back. Outside of some heavy fog near Braidwood, the drive wasn’t bad at all.

And now we’re back into the work week, yay. Not too much planned for the week – I have an appointment at the gym tonight to plan a workout routine, and tomorrow I have to take my Element in for its 10,000-mile checkup. No plans for the coming weekend, which is good since we’ll be the on the road again the weekend after that. No rest for the wicked, and all that…

Where Have I Been?

If it’s Monday, it must be another…Weekend Recap! Well, OK – maybe more than just the weekend. Let’s go back to, um, Wednesday, I think. Linnaeus and I went over to his gym and signed me up for a membership. I like their egalitarian approach to “family” memberships: you can sign up two people for a discounted membership. Those people can be spouses, roommates, neighbors, whoever – it doesn’t matter. So the net benefit is that I get a reasonably-proced membership to a very spiffy facility, and Paul gets a discount on his current membership. Yay! Like my last gym, they start you out with three introductory sessions to assess where you are now, what reasonable goals for you might be, and what you need to do to meet those goals. I really like this, as it gives me some good structure within which to work – I thrive on structure. The downside is that because I joined at the beginning of the year just like every other schmuck trying to make good on their resolutions, I have to wait until Monday, January 16th at 8:30 PM for my first session. Grrr. I’m having a bit of trouble getting myself motivated to go to the gym in the interim, but I’m sure that once I establish a routine it’ll get better.

Wednesday night and Thursday we chatted with Uncle_Kage a bit online and talked about Dan and my respective positions with the convention. I’ll be doing Artists Alley again, and Dan will be taking on a newly-created cash handling position to try to streamline the flow of cash through the convention. One thing led to another and now it appears that we’ll be heading out to Pittsburgh the weekend of February 4th to meet with some of the staff and get an early look at some of the facilities. Woo!

On Friday, Takaza was feeling under the weather so he came home from work early. I was all set to go to the gym right after work, but first a little Sly 3 – just to wind down. And then suddenly it was three hours later. Wha? Ah well. I made up for it a little by walking to pick up dinner – sushi for Paul and I, and a tasty cheeseburger for Dan. Afterwards, we relaxed and watched some Tivo.

Saturday, Dan, Paul, and I had lunch with roho and genet at Opa! Estiatorio in Vernon Hills. The Greek food was excellent and very filling. We rambled around Hawthorn Mall for a bit, then we parted ways with Paul since he had some stuff to take care of back home. After a quick stop in Antioch and at Woodman’s in Kenosha, the four of us arrived just in time for fritzie_pup‘s surprise birthday party that colliedoc had secretly arranged. Fritzie was completely floored and extremely surprised. Siriuswolfstar, lisagems, and datahawk were there as well. What followed was an extremely enjoyable evening of yummy appetizers, tasty chili, some very strong (but good!) cosmopolitans, Klaus the adorable but incredibly destructive German shephard puppy and the requisite Drunken Apples to Apples. It was a real pleasure to see more of Straif and Fritzie, and I do hope that we’ll be seeing more of them in the future. We headed back to Roho and Genet’s place after midnight and slept quite soundly.

Sunday morning, Dan wasn’t feeling too well. While the company the night before was excellent, I don’t think either of us dealt with the copious cigarette smoke too well – my throat was sore and still is, and Dan had to hit his inhaler before the day was out. We motivated over to Las Vegas Restaurant and this time I opted for the chocolate chip pancakes, which were delicious. We were joined (an hour later) by the rest of the folks from the previous night’s party, just in time for us to head out to the movie theater. It was a bummer not to be able to hang out with them more, but them’s the hazards of planning stuff after a party, particularly when some of those folks don’t go to bed before 5 AM 😉 Datahawk joined me and Dan and Roho and Genet to see The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe at the Antioch Theater. Hey, for $2 for a matinee, even if the movie was lousy I wasn’t going to complain too much! It wasn’t of course – it was quite lovely, and the effects were just plain astonishing. The plot showed the books’ young-adult fantasy roots, but that’s to be expected. I really enjoyed the movie and I’m glad we saw it. After the movie, Dan and I drove back home. The Midwest FurFest post-mortem meeting took place online and that ate up the majority of the evening, then we watched Family Guy, then it was off to bed.

And so for this week, I have a bit of followup from last night’s meeting to take care of. I need to get to the gym at least three nights this week, even if it’s just using the treadmill and recumbent bicycle. And I need to start organizing some of the Artists Alley paperwork from last year and make some lists for what I need to do this year.

Oh, for those interested: it sounds like we’ll definitely be going to Musher Mania down in Monee this coming Saturday afternoon. If anyone would like to join us you’re quite welcome! There won’t be much, if any, snow on the ground but that’s OK because they have wheeled sleds they can use. Plus…huskies! What more reason do you need? If you’re interested, just let me know.

A New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I type this sitting in our room at the Country Inn and Suites in Gurnee, Illinois. Last night was the LAFF New Year’s Eve Party and it went off flawlessly, I think. Linnaeus will have the final numbers, but I believe that we exceeded last year’s attendance, though not by too much.

Yesterday, Paul and I drove out to the MFF storage locker to borrow the large coolers for the party. We scored and excellent price on plastic champagne glasses at Schweppe’s Restaurant Supply, then picked up some important supplies at Sam’s Wine and Spirits. Afterwards, we headed home, where takaza was waiting. Siriuswolfstar showed up and he and Paul took Dan’s Element for more shopping for supplies while we took my Element and picked up lisagems, then headed up to Gurnee. Once we secured our room, we started setting up the meeting rooms we would be using. Dan did an amazing job of getting the food set up and ready for the incoming masses, and once that was done we chatted a bit, since we were actually ready for people by about 5:15 PM but we weren’t slated to start until 7. The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur, but I can say that people seemed to have a good time, many games of Lupus in Tabula were played, as well as quite an arrangement of video games and movies. I can also say that cosmopolitans made with apple-cranberry juice and spiked with Apfelkorn are just plain dangerous. At midnight everyone toasted the new year with sparkling grape juice, and I got my eighth (!) annual New Year’s kiss from my dear husband. Afterwards, I snuck back to roho and genet‘s with a couple of folks and we toasted the new year with tasty cider and champagne and munched on pizza pockets (“The official snack food of five year olds and drug addicts!”). A little after 2 AM, I went down and helped with the tail end of the cleanup and we did a reasonable job of restoring the rooms to their original state (less some mopping and vacuuming), then Dan and I went to bed.

Everyone is slow to get going this morning (gosh, I wonder why?). I didn’t sleep too well, unfortunately, and woke up at 9 AM. I’ve been puttering around ever since, but I haven’t seen too many people awake. Once we get rolling, I’m hoping well his Las Vegas Restaurant for brunch, then we’re off to Dan’s mom’s place to give her the Gift of Tivo 🙂

So here’s to 2005! It was a rocky year, but we survived. May 2006 be a better, happier year for everyone!

“What do you mean, MLK, Jr. isn’t saintly?”

Been sort of quiet here for the last few days, hasn’t it? Let’s see, what’s been going on?

On Friday we belatedly celebrated datahawk‘s birthday by going with a whole crowd of folks down to tour Macy’s Marshall Field’s Christmas displays. The general consensus was that they intentionally made the displays suck so that people won’t miss them when they don’t do them next year. We spent a very entertaining time critiquing the other displays while the cancer-addicts of the group got their smoke fix, then we adjourned up to Heaven on Seven. Although they have other locations, this location, on Wabash on the seventh floor of an old office building, is the original. They’re only open for dinner one night out of the month, and we were lucky enough it was the night we planned on going downtown. The meal was absolutely amazing! They are a New Orleans-style restaurant, and I (a former Tulane student) and genet (a Louisiana native) gave it an emphatic thumbs up! The hurricanes were fabulous. My shrimp po’ boy was quite tasty, and roho‘s shrimp and cheddar grits were yummy as well. takaza‘s country-fried steak and mashed potatoes were by far the best, though. We ate ourselves silly, then came the tasty chocolate-caramel cake that siriuswolfstar had picked up at Bittersweet. It was the perfect end to a wonderful evening.

The original plan for Saturday was to stay at home and relax. Well, that didn’t happen. Instead, Dan and I drove up to Antioch to have brunch with Roho, Genet, feren, and neowolf2 at the always-tasty Las Vegas. Afterwards, we walked over to the surprisingly-well-stocked game shop where Feren picked up a bunch of Christmas gifts, then stopped next door at the small shop that sold record players and old vinyl albums and Feren got a new turntable. Then it was back to Roho and Genet’s place where we filled the afternoon with chatting and then a bit of shopping at Wal Mart. We also used their nice, heated garage to park my car so we could finally install my Sirius radio in it, which had been sitting idle since I took it out of my Alero when I sold it back in August. Linnaeus joined us not long after and we ordered pizza and got down to a serious game of Drunken Apples to Apples. It was very, very funny, even if I didn’t do very well until right up at the end of the game. Somehow, Neowolf skunked us all. I also learned that Van Gogh Dutch Chocolate Vodka is very tasty, particularly when mixed with Cruzan Rum Cream. It’s also very potent (woo!).

We got a late start on Sunday – no surprise there. We spent the afternoon doing some Christmas shopping, and we finally picked up a replacement electric blanket, since the one we bought earlier this year was going haywire (the center third of the blanket was getting far too warm for comfort). The evening was spent catching up on TiVo and being all domestic and stuff.

This is a short week for me. I have one more day at work then on Thursday, right after rush hour, we hit the road for South Carolina. We’ll be making a stop somewhere along the way Thursday night, then getting in on Friday morning. After a far-too-brief stay, we’ll be driving home on Monday, making the entire 14-hour trip in one day. It sucks, but I have to be at work on Tuesday, so that’s the way it is. Hope everyone’s holiday preparations are going well!

Thick Chocolatey Goodness

Man, am I dragging this afternoon. I don’t think I slept too well last night; takaza woke me (for the second night in a row) pointing out I was showing signs of apnea. Oh, dandy. Hmm, my blood pressure is high, my knee is crappy, and now sleep apnea? Maybe I’m way off base here, but I think maybe, just maybe, it’s time to get rid of some of this weight I’m carrying around. A gym membership is going to have to wait until we work out the cash flow nightmare that is Christmas and New Year’s.

Meanwhile, last night was pleasant. siriuswolfstar came over and joined us in a gourmet meal (snrrk), but he was also kind enough to bring some tasty caramel syrup from Starbucks and, more importantly, Chantico mix. If you haven’t had this “drinking chocolate” from Starbucks, and you enjoy dark, rich chocolate, I do have to say that you’re missing out. Yeah, it’s $2.60 a pop, and yeah they only give you a 6 oz. serving, but you’ll have to trust me when I say that 6 oz. is all you want of this – it’s that rich. Dan mixed up a batch and it was indeed delicious. We chatted for a bit and watched some Tivo, then Sirius took his leave and we went off to bed.

Tonight datahawk and posicat are coming over to watch the season finale of The Amazing Race with us (C’mon, anyone but the Weavers!). I think we’ll be cooking up some cheeseburgers for dinner. And then there’s tomorrow. According to the National Weather Service, we’re supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow, with the highest probability of snow falling occurring between 6 AM and 5 PM. Given that if I take the train I’m looking at leaving at 6:15 AM and not getting home until around 6:30 PM, I think I’m going to take my chances with driving. If I leave the house at 5:30 AM I can leave work by 2:30 PM, and if nothing else that puts me on the road earlier than the worst of the stupidity. Even if it takes me three hours to get home I’m still doing pretty good. We’ll see how successful this plan is tomorrow, though.

Looking way, WAY ahead, Dan and I are starting to make plans for the next Wuffmeet/Furries Race Across Chicago. Watch this space and keep Memorial Day weekend free, ’cause that’s when it’s going to be!

No Really, Stop And Go Traffic Turns Me On!

So, on Friday it was a fellow contractor’s last day so we went out for lunch at the very tasty Opa! Estiatorio in Vernon Hills. I had the moussaka, and it was delicious. I had come into work a little early so I was able to leave at 2:30 PM. I swung over to the Lake Bluff train station and got there just as the Takaza‘s train pulled in. After a brief stop at the Lake Forest oasis for gas and munchies, we were on the road towards Champaign-Urbana! Of course, until we stopped, about five miles later, as traffic slowed to a crawl. It turns out that the Tri-State Tollway was pretty much backed up its entire length from Lake Cook Road south. We headed off-road and wound up taking Route 45 all the way down to I-80. Yeah, it took three hours (ugh), but at least we were moving most of the time! From there it was a short trip down to Chambana. We got in at around 7:30 or so and went out for dinner with mirkowuff to a small Italian restaurant. Afterwards we went back to his place and hung out for a bit, then went to bed.

On Saturday we were slow getting going, slow enough that even with a late start Linnaeus was able to join us for lunch when he arrived. I was reminded why I really should avoid the ButterBurger at Culver’s, but the rest of the meal was OK. From there we went in search of a Christmas tree for Mirko’s house, ending up at the local grocery store. That was fine, since we needed to pick up some groceries anyway. We went back to Mirko’s place and did some decorating while he made chili, then folks started showing up for his annual Candlestick Lane party. We house-lighting went well, and then everyone retired indoors, out of the cold and snow, and a night of tasty potables and lots and lots of food ensued. It was a lot of fun.

On Sunday, it was back to the House of Lard for the traditional brunch. Excellent company, and a very tasty meal made it a nice way to cap off the weekend. The trip back was surprisingly quick, taking just a hair more than two hours. If nothing else, this confirmed for me that working a half day before we leave for South Carolina for Christmas is a Very Bad Idea, since traffic gets pretty much retarded very early on. We spent the rest of the day doing laundry, putzing on laptops, watching the Survivor Finale (Boo! I was cheering for Rafe) and chatting with rustitobuck, who stopped by to make forty or fifty pounds of cookie dough.

Looking ahead to this week, we hope to be somewhat social during the week with a few friends, though I note that there is an impending snow storm on Wednesday/Thursday that could really complicate matters. And next weekend? No plans at all, gloriously! We’ll be relaxing before we drive down to SC the following weekend to spend Christmas with my family.

And now we’re up to date! Back to work I go…

Now We’re Cooking!

Hey all you locals and folks-within-driving-distance:

Imagine if you will…a fullly-equipped kitchen, multiple ovens and cooktops, and comfortable seating for several dozen people. That’s Spice Rack Kitchen Suites in Mount Prospect, IL, and we’re kicking around the possibility of putting together a nice day of dinner and fun for all of our friends. Sound like fun? Surf over to Takaza’s journal and let us know if you’re interested and what dates might be good for you!

Hey comics geeks!

A friend here in Chicago, woodychitwn, is planning to open a comic book store near Loyola University with his partner. He’s furry, or at least furry-friendly (or would you consider yourself perhaps fringe-furry, Woody?).

He’s doing a bit of market research right now, asking folks what titles they would be interested in. Read his entry and give him some input! They’ll also be doing Internet sales, so you don’t have to be local for this.

Another weekend comes and goes, and the clock ticks…ticks…ticks towards the middle of November. Agh!

So, anyway. We wound up doing very little on Friday night, which was pleasant – it offered some nice time to wind down. Datahawk continued her visit into Saturday, and we spent the day bumming around the house. I made some nice pancakes for brunch. I highly recommend whipping the egg whites – it makes a huge difference in the texture of the finished product. Also, I recommend keeping a can of Saco’s Buttermilk Powder around for those recipes where you just need a little buttermilk. It keeps for months, too.

For dinner, we met Ed and Chouette for dinner at Reza’s. The food was quite tasty, but we found unfortunately that Persian is not a good cuisine for Takaza – too much onions mixed in. Afterwards we walked around a bit and allowed dinner to digest while Chouette talked programming stuff by phone with Hartree. We found a (relatively) new ice cream place on the 5300 block of N. Clark, just up from the Starbucks. They carry ice cream from a small operation in Madison, WI, and it is absolutely divine. I had a hot fudge sundae made with Zanzibar chocolate ice cream (three different kinds of cocoas and almost black), which Dan got a cup of some delicious cinnamon ice cream. Their baked goods looked pretty good too.

Ed and Chouette offered to give us a ride home but we declined, figuring we’d take the Foster bus. Well, we found out too late that the Foster bus had stopped running two hours earlier. Ah well – exercise wasn’t going to kill us. We walked the 2.5 miles home, and it was actually quite pleasant.

On Sunday, Data took her leave. After a suitable amount of procrastinating, lazing about, etc., Linnaeus joined Dan and me in a venture down to Sam’s Wine and Liquors for a, um, pre-MFF reconnaissance mission. Man, one of these days I’ll get out of Sam’s for under $60, but I haven’t managed it yet. I picked up a lovely bottle of apple wine and a bottle of the extremely tasty Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royal cognac. We’ll have these in our room at MFF, of course 🙂 Afterwards, we attempted to navigate the zoo that is the parking lot in front of the adjacent Whole Foods Market, leading to many and varied comments on my part on the intelligence of the average driver there and how the world would be improved with their swift and efficient eradication, preferably in the most painful way possible. Nevertheless, we were able to park and we picked up a very tasty bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin with basil for dinner. We headed home, cooked up dinner, and life was good.

Today is a nice, slow day, for both Dan and myself (a welcome change for Dan!). He had some car trouble that I’ll let him talk about (since he never seems to post to LJ – {poke, poke}), but all is well. I’ve got some grocery shopping to do tonight, and we’ll probably take at least one evening after work this week to do some shopping in the Schaumburg area; there’s a couple of items that I want to look for around there.

Man, it feels like it’s 2 PM for some reason…

Half of a Useful Weekend

Hmm. Sox tonight, but also Amazing Race. Good thing we have Tivo…

So. The weekend. Saturday was a busy day for us. Takaza got up early (10 AM!) and we made the drive that I know so well up to my employer for the biannual Open House. It was pretty neat, actually – Dan got to see some of what goes into manufacturing tablets and capsules and hopefully got a little better insight into what I’m supposed to be doing up here every day. After the tour I showed up for my timeslot for the department “entertainment booth”, which is to say a toy 4-foot-tall basketball hoop in the middle of a hallway. Compared to other departments (DDR setup with full amp and mixing board, baseball with radar gun, free popcorn) we looked pretty crappy, but the kids seemed to like it when they made a took a couple of shots and got a free trinket. As a nice surprise, on Monday my supervisor instructed me to add the two hours we were there to my timecard, so that was a nice little bit of overtime.

That evening, we picked up unclevlad and gave him a ride to the party in honor of some-event-in-his-life-which-is-not-his-birthday, held at
emrldgirrl‘s place. The party was fun, and I had a good time even though I’ll admit I spent the majority of the evening hiding on the balcony. I don’t want anyone to think this is a criticism of the party, which was fabulous – it’s just that the loud music got to me a bit. That’s my own personal peeve, though; everyone else seemed to be having a good time, so hey – it’s all good. We headed out relatively early at 11 PM, just before the serious drinking started, I’m told 🙂 The blueberry cobbler I made seemed to go over well, so that was good.

Sunday? Well, I had all of the great things I wanted to do on Sunday. In reality, we relaxed around the house and generally were lazy. I did make some peanut butter cookies, which were quite tasty, and made dinner. Dan printed up some Registration postcards for me and was kind enough to grab them on Monday morning on his way to work, then cut them to size, stamp them, and mail them for me. I have the bestest husband!

This week should be a lot less hectic than the last. Datahawk is couch-surfing with us because it works out well for her work schedule; four people living in Linnaeus’ apartment may get a bit close, but I think we can work it out, plus it’s always a pleasure to see her (occasionally) smiling face 😉 On Thursday Dan and I are having dinner with Chouette to celebrate her putting MFF Programming to bed – well, theoretically, anyway. And there’s always more work to do for MFF…