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.