Category Archives: shopping

This has been a glorious weekend

…of doing pretty much nothing. Ain’t it grand? Yesterday we bummed around the house until late afternoon, then drove over to Sunset Foods, a Chicago-area grocery chain that kind of falls between Jewel and Whole Foods Market. They had everything we needed, but had a very interesting selection of stuff. Nice to know that there’s an option when I need something a little more upscale than my usual haunt (Garden Fresh Market) come up short, like when we need crème fraiche. On the bright side, we scored some Passover Pepsi, made with cane sugar – very tasty! While we were out the rain turned to sleet and then snow; I’m glad we wrapped up when we did. We stayed in for the rest of the night, making a simple dinner and watching the latest episode of “Dollhouse”.

Today has been even more relaxed. Dan and I had a nice shower, and he is now making homemade macaroni and cheese with bacon while I enjoy a nice drink (Tanqueray Rangpur Gin + Meyer Lemon Soda – yum!). We’ve got a new episode of “The Amazing Race” tonight, which is always awesome. We’ve been talking about plans for Memorial Day, and clearly we have a couple of weekends that will be spent doing a deep cleaning of the place in order to get it up to snuff according to my various neuroses 🙂 Hope everyone has had an excellent weekend!

A Day in Chicago, and Winter Weather Arrives (Briefly)

For a weekend that kept me very busy, it was surprisingly relaxing. Saturday found me driving into Chicago to pick up a few things for Midwest FurFest. I was reminded once again why taking public transit has always been my modus operandi when traveling in the city. Between driving around fruitlessly for 30 minutes near the Lincoln Park Zoo looking for a parking space that wouldn’t cost $14 while I spent 20 minutes shopping, followed by another 20 minutes in Lakeview looking for parking (I lucked out there), getting around with a car in Chicago can really suck.

On the bright side, I did meet up with linnaeus for a tasty lunch, and we had some fun chatting while driving around. We also made a very important discovery: Binny’s in the South Loop has a bar. And no just a bar, but a “tasting lounge” where drinks are actually very reasonably priced, allowing you to drop, say, $7 for a glass of 18-year-old single-malt Scotch before dropping $75+ on a bottle of it. We only had a beer (I had the Allagash Belgian Tripel, Paul had the Two Brothers Tripel Ale. We both liked mine better 🙂 (Side note: I see that Two Brothers now has a brewpub open. Road trip to Warrenville, IL, anyone?)

When I got home, takaza had already gone over to spend the evening with his family. This was fine by me, since it gave me time to relax and unwind after a crazy amount of driving.

We were up surprisingly early on Sunday to have breakfast in honor of midwestcougar‘s birthday. We were joined by Linnaeus, furball2k, evan_li, and the quiet and possibly LJ-less Kevin. It was an enjoyable meal and it was fun to meet some new faces. Afterward, Dan and I continued the previous day’s shopping spree, picking up some useful things. Our travels took us out to Hoffman Estates, where we got a tour of the shiny new ultra-spendy theater there (Dan: “I’d like to see a movie here.” Me: “IT’S $35 JUST TO GET IN!” Dan: “I still want to see a movie here…”). We were also treated to a rather surprising five-minute sleet storm as the windy weather turned very cold.

We finished off the shopping with a trip into Cabela’s. I figured I needed a picture for the con book and since our theme is “North to Alaska” it seemed to fit. We had fun getting a couple of shots, but most of you will have to wait until the convention to see the finished product (I’ll send you copies, Mom 🙂

This week so far has been busy at work, but I’m finding some time to deal with MFF stuff here and there. This Friday we’re doing some family stuff, and I have a bunch of con-related stuff to work on this weekend. On a nice side note, we were able to trade my old iPod to Dan’s brother (who is part-owner of a Massage Envy franchise) for two 90-minute massages. I’m really looking forward to redeeming those!

Just Another Manic…Wednesday?

All work and no play blah blah blah. You know the drill.

Work has definitely picked up over the last few weeks, which is a good thing. There’s several large manufacturing expansions going on that bode well for plenty of work to do through 2010 and beyond, too – always a Good Thing!

Last weekend was quite lovely. takaza and I drove up to Milwaukee and did some shopping at Milwaukee Public Market, Alterra Coffee, and The Spice House. I had thought about stopping by the new brewpub near the Public Market, but that will have to wait for another day. We had a great time refilling our spice cabinet, and picked up some wonderful burgers (including some bacon and provolone burgers) and sausages from Ceriello’s. On the way home we did our weekly shopping at Woodman’s in Kenosha; we got some great deals on pork loin and something labeled “fresh pork” with no further explanation (it turns out it was boneless meat from the ribs).

On Sunday, we did gloriously nothing. Well, we did watch a couple of football games and the finale to The Amazing Race 12 (which ended like I expected it would, though not necessarily how I’d hoped it would). We also took the 8 pounds of “fresh pork” and, after a bit of butchering (and Dan shortening his finger by a sixteenth of an inch – he’s healing nicely, thank you 🙂 we ground it up and put it into one-pound packets and froze them. Now, when we want Italian sausage for pasta, we pull out of the packets, defrost it in a sink full of cold water (which takes all of 20 minutes) and mix it with Italian sausage seasoning. I still have a 9-pound pork loin to break down into pork chops and maybe a pork roast.

While most everyone is planning for other conventions (we’ll make it out there someday…) I’ve been spending a lot of time working on Midwest FurFest stuff, mainly writing content for the website, the new version of which went live earlier this week. I have a package to send off to one of our Guests of Honor this afternoon, as well, and I’m working on a decision for our third Guest of Honor too; I’m still waiting to hear from a few folks on that {poke, poke}.

While I’m out running errands after work today, I’ll need to stop by Garden Fresh Market – they have a sale on boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.49 a pound. Yeah, I’ll be picking up a whole bunch of those, because that’s a fantastic price (hey linnaeus, I see that they have a store coming down your way, too – come to think of it, that’s not far from daveqat and jimcyl‘s new place, either). It looks like this weekend will be a bit more social than the last, which is kind of nice. With luck, we’ll be spending Saturday afternoon with good friends, good food, and good beer.

Oh, and because I missed it twelve days ago: happy birthday to this journal, which turned six years old on January 11th. Man, there’s been a lot of ups and downs documented here, but I’m really glad that I’ve stuck with it.

Great Grilling, and “Oh Yeah, That’s Why I Don’t Go There…”

So besides the weekend’s technological trials and tribulations, what else happened?

On Saturday we decided that since roho, genet, and colliedoc were coming over, a tasty grilled dinner would be in order. We laid out where we needed to go, but the circle slowly got wider. See, we needed some really good corn on the cob, and while Garden Fresh Market’s isn’t bad, I think the best corn around is from Stade’s Farm Market, so a detour to McHenry was added. And heck, as long as we were going that way, if we want really good steaks, we were going to need to go to our favorite butcher at Antioch Packing House. The farm stand was delightful, as expected, and we picked up some fresh peppers, beefsteak tomatoes, and some delicious apple-cinnamon bread along with the corn. And Antioch Packing House always has good ground beef and bacon, so we had to get some of those while we got the 1.5″ thick New York strip steaks. Stopping by Garden Fresh, I got some asparagus and some other goodies. Once the Tivo was up and running, I fired up the grill and I grilled the asparagus with a garlic-rosemary-lemon vinaigrette that was divine. The steaks cooked up perfectly, and the rest of the meal (as well as the company) was excellent!

On Sunday we unfortunately had to bow out from magicpaw‘s birthday shindig (we’ll make it up to you, we promise!). While we were out picking up the networking gadgets we needed, I wanted a quick and cheap lunch. Hey, there’s a White Castle! I haven’t been to one of those in over a decade. And after having eaten there, I can safely say it’ll be at least another decade, because that was just plain nasty. Once we got everything up and running, the rest of the afternoon was spent lazing around relaxing, and scheduling our Tivo to fill up with weird, random programming.

And now it’s Monday. It should be a quiet week, though it looks like Dan will be working late on Thursday and Friday. Hmm, maybe I’ll actually get around to start that Harry Potter book this week (sorry Roho! 🙂

Busy Yet Fun Weekend!

Well yesterday was a bit nuts and I didn’t get a chance to write much. Let’s backtrack a bit, shall we?

Saturday was surprisingly busy. I was up stupidly early, as usual (darned early sunrises) but that gave me some time to relax before my follow-up appointment with the podiatrist. It was a blessedly short visit, pretty much just long enough for him to check that my toe was healing well, give me some simple after care instructions, and send me on my way (with no co-pay. yay!). I woke up takaza when I got home and after a bit we went down to The Firkin to meet up with linnaeus, roho, and genet. After a delicious meal and some excellent beer, Paul had to take his leave to return to his evil employer. The rest of us wandered around a bit and picked up some yummies from a local bakery. After that we retired back to Roho and Genet’s place and spent the afternoon chatting on their deck and enjoying the lovely weather. Once we finally rousted ourselves out of the sun-induced torpor, we trekked up to Gander Mountain and shopped around a bit (we got some new folding chairs), then stopped by Jewel on the way home and picked up some munchies. The rest of evening was spent sampling some tasty beer and enjoying several episodes of Venture Bros.

On Sunday, Dan and I finally got around to getting some work done around the house. I took apart the plumbing under the sink to find the cause of the leak I had noticed there; I determined the cause, finally, but I still need to stop at the hardware store to get the parts to fix it. I also finally got around to hooking up the ice maker, a reasonably simple task that cost all of $8 (the cost of the ice maker tubing kit). We now have ice! We also did a good bit of housecleaning, which made me feel a bit better. Roho, Genet, and Linnaeus joined us that evening for dinner, the online MFF staff meeting, and The Amazing Race. Genet made an extremely tasty pot roast, supplemented by Dan’s mashed potatoes and a salad with a quick vinaigrette I threw together. Much fun was had, plus we got to enjoy said bakery yummies from the day before.

And here we are, a new week. Work is keeping me busier than usual, as I noted above; it will be that way for the next few weeks, I think. This weekend, mirkowuff will be joining me, Dan, and Linnaeus for a scavenger hunt hosted by the local park district. I’m really looking forward to that! Meanwhile I hope to get some MFF work done, and I also need to come up with at least one more person for my staff for Anthrocon. Anyone have any suggestions?