Category Archives: takaza

Great Western Road Trip, Day 0

(Hereafter Great Western Road Trip is abbreviated GWRT)

Today’s Song: Ready To Go, by Republica

Current Location: Volo, Illinois

Everything is packed up, the dogs are with Grandma, the rental car has been procured, and now the reality is setting in: This is really going to happen. I mean, I planned for it but I always suspected some circumstance would force me to put things off.

I have a long trip ahead of me: approximately 8,000 miles in 24 days. My route will take me from Chicago in the upper Midwest to the Canadian Prairie Provinces, over the Rocky Mountains, down the Pacific coast, and then back to Chicago. Along the way I’ll be seeing dozens of friends Dan and I have made through the years, and hopefully making new friends as well.

Why am I doing this? Dan and I had planned to take a two-week Caribbean cruise in April 2017. When he passed away suddenly all of that got cancelled. Now that I had the vacation time and the funds we’d set aside for that available, I kicked around the question of what to do with those for a few weeks. I have always loved road trips, but in the last decade or so they have simply not been possible due to some of Dan’s health issues. So first off this was a way to cross a long road trip like this off my bucket list.

Although we had a wonderful and well-attended memorial for Dan a few weeks ago, many of our dearest friends were unable to join us. I hope to bring the memory of Dan to them, to celebrate his life and to share a toast to an extraordinary man.

What am I hoping to get out of this trip? I know that hopes and what actually happens are two different things but I hope that this trip serves as a reset button, a demarcation point of My Life Before and My Life After. It’s hard to admit it, but it may also mark where “Tom and Dan” ended and where “Just Tom” started (again). In the 100+ hours of driving planned, there’s going to be a lot of time to think and to work things out in my head. Whether this produces anything constructive is anyone’s guess, though.

Throughout the trip I will be posting my experiences to Twitter. I also hope to post a summary of each day here as well, perhaps providing more context for the tweets and additional photos and memories. Way back in the dawn of time (2002, to be exact), I started blogging on LiveJournal. All of those entries are archived here on this site fortunately, since LiveJournal is now a terrible place. I found that I enjoy going back over old posts that talk about what I did where and with whom. This will be a place to keep the memories of this trip in one place. I also hope to have a theme song for each day, as posted above. This will reflect my mood for the day, my location, or a general feeling I get as I drive across the countryside.

See you all tomorrow, when I hit the road for St. Paul, Minnesota!

Birthday Celebration!

I’m dragging a bit today, but it is very much for a good reason. Yesterday was takaza‘s birthday and I wanted to make sure that we celebrated properly. I got him a nice gift (along with the software to run on his iPad) so now anywhere he can get wifi access for his iPad he has access to our U-Verse DVR at home. We’ve had a Slingbox for years, but it’s fallen into disuse since it required laptop access. Dan uses his iPad about 70% of the time and his laptop 30% of the time, so this seemed like an appropriate gift.

To celebrate Dan’s birthday, I invited some of our friends to join us for an evening of dinner and bocce at Pinstripes in Northbrook. We had a blast – the food was excellent, and the company was better. The appetizers alone were fun – we ordered a bunch of them and shared them around the table (makes me want to investigate a tapas place more!), and the entrees were quite tasty. My beef tenderloin was perfectly-cooked and had a great sauce.

After dinner we adjourned to one of their indoor bocce courts and enjoyed a civilized hour of alternating between playing bocce and enjoying some excellent desserts. (Also, a note to players: that little ball is called a pallino, a boccino, or jack. It is not, however, ever called a snitch 🙂 In hindsight, I realize that I inadvertently left a few folks off the invite list – I apologize! No slight was intended, it was merely my own absent-mindedness.

We didn’t get home until 11 PM, and didn’t get to bed until 11:30. Still, it was worth it and we had a great time. Now that the Big Event Crush (MFF, Thanksgiving, wedding, Dan’s birthday) is over, I can breathe a little bit before starting to stress over Christmas and Wuffmeet!

Snowstorms and Birthdays

And here we are, Friday at last!

I thought the week might take forever (subjectively) as it always does right before a vacation, but this turned out not to be the case. Having piles of projects at work helps!

So the big snow came and went on Wednesday; in the end we got a hair over 12 inches. The roads were a wreck yesterday morning, so much so that when I went to drop takaza off at the train station what is normally a less-than-five-minute drive took 15 minutes and we missed his train. Since the schedule on the North Central line sucks, his next shot at a train in was two hours later. I went in to work, then left at 8:45 AM to take him to the 9:18 train. Yeah, not even close. What is normally an eight-minute drive took close to twenty, and when I picked him up and saw the line of cars on Hainesville Road, I knew there was no way we’d make his train. Rather than wait two hours until the next train, I dropped him off at the Grayslake station and he caught the Fox Lake train in, again having to take a taxi from Glenview (that cost even more than last time!).
Unfortunately, as a consequence of not getting in until just before noon, he didn’t make it home last night until around 9 PM.

And so we have this weekend. As I mentioned before, Dan is dragging me off on a four-day trip to celebrate my 40th birthday. I still have no idea where we’re going, though I have some suspicions. I’m sure it will be fun and memorable. They say that over the years a couple tends to get more like each other, and watching Dan fret about planning and worrying about the trip, I have to laugh. Normally he’s unflappable and easygoing; being so nervous about things, he reminds me of…me. But that’s exactly why I’m not worried, because I know I’m in good hands 🙂 That doesn’t mean the excitment isn’t getting to me, though – I woke up this morning at 3:45 AM with a touch of reflux and after a half-hour couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up. I hope we’re not going to be out super-late tonight! Anyway, I intend to bring the camera along and be Mr. Annoying Shutterbug (if I can remember!) so hopefully I’ll have lots of pictures to show off when we get back.

Now if only 2 PM would get here so I can get out of here!

Good News Everyone!

And the good stuff keeps on rollin’…

First and foremost: as takaza mentioned, he was offered and accepted a position at his company’s headquarters in Buffalo Grove, IL. That’s about 20 minutes closer to us, and they’re right next to the Buffalo Grove Metra station. Even better, it’s a significant bump in pay and a much better career path for him. I’m so very happy for him! It also moves him out of the toxic environment that he’s in now, which makes me even happier. There will be a 30-day transition period, but as of March 1 he’ll be in his new job. Hooray! That’s also very near the Westin Chicago North Shore, where Midwest FurFest 2008 will be, so he will be helping to scout out restaurants for the Restaurant Guide on his lunch hours 🙂

More good news: I filed my taxes for 2007 the other night and found out that between federal and state taxes I have a refund of $1,300 coming my way. Woohoo! Of course, after spending some time looking over newegg.com at all the sexy laptops, I realized that mine gets me where I’m going (albeit slowly) and that the money will go better to pay down debt. Not nearly as much fun, but hey, it will make life a lot more fun later. Here’s a very handy tip: if you use State Farm Insurance, log into their website. On the left is the link “FREE tax filing” – click on that and you will be taken to the Turbotax website, where you can get access to Turbotax Deluxe for free – including free federal and state e-filing. That saved me $58 over last year. Sweet!

As Dan mentioned, we’re hosting his family and friends for dinner and games on Saturday night. If you’re interested in joining us, let me or Dan know by Friday night (so I can shop and cook accordingly). Having read through the Cooks Illustrated French Onion Soup recipe I’m all about that. I just need to figure out if it’s possible to roast multiple chickens in our oven or if I’m going to need to re-think things. That may become roast pork 🙂 Since it’s his sister’s birthday, dessert will be birthday cake from Lovin’ Oven Cakery. Nom nom nom!

Time to Play Catch-Up!

My goodness, where to begin. I’ve been remiss in updating things (yes Mom, I know 🙂 so I have quite a bit to write about.

Last week was a bit of a blur – mainly just getting back into the swing of things after the previous short work week. Saturday was takaza‘s birthday party! After kicking around ideas of how to celebrate his birthday, he finally settled on spending time with friends, so a party it was. I was a bit worried about the weather – a nasty mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain, and rain – but most everyone got to us OK and everyone got home safely (sorry you got lost, awfulhorrid and bookwurm! We’ll see you again soon, though, I hope. Barbarian, check your e-mail!). We had about 20 folks, various snacks and desserts, and three huge pots of chicken and dumplings. We got in some Lupus in Tabula, which was fun, but not quite enough games – we’ll need to work on that at New Year’s.

On Sunday I had lunch with unclevlad and datahawk at Osteria di Tramonto (yum! The roasted duck cavatelli is to die for!) then we toured the Westin Chicago North Shore to give them an idea of the Security challenges for the coming year. It was a great meeting and there was a lot of good discussion. I’m feeling really good about Security for next year, and I hope that Vlad is feeling a bit more comfortable with me in the chairman role. Afterwards I stopped by the Hyatt Woodfield to pick up a bag of mine that they found after MFF (yay!), then picked up some dinner for Dan and me on the way home.

Yesterday Dan took a day off to celebrate his birthday with a little time away from work. We had agreed that this Christmas we would get a single big item for ourselves, then get each other a smaller gift. Dan went out and bought that item yesterday: an 8 cubic foot chest freezer. We got a good deal through Best Buy on a Frigidaire that Consumer Reports recommended. To go with that he also got a Food Saver vacuum bag sealer, which will be a big help if we’re going to be laying in a supply of frozen stuff. We started things out by breaking up a 4-lb. tray of chicken breasts into small packages, and I’m pleased to say that everything worked splendidly! I expect that the 20 feet of bag stock that they supply probably won’t last very long, though, so we’ll need to pick up more of that.
Now we need to experiment a bit and see what other fun stuff we can do with the Food Saver (sous-vide, anyone?).

So today, Dan is flying off to Detroit for a few days of training, weather permitting. Although it’ll be weird being around the house alone, the quiet time can be nice, too. I have a couple of projects I want to work on, and maybe a bit of shopping as well. So, not a very exciting week, but after last month who needs excitement?

Yep, It’s That Day Again

So here we are, another year, another Valentine’s Day. Buy y’know what? takaza knows that I love him – I tell him that every day, and that love isn’t going to increase or decrease based on any given date on the calendar. I’m a very lucky guy, and I know this.

So instead here’s wishing a Happy Valentine’s Day to all of my friends. I’m surrounded by an amazing group of people, and I count myself fortunate to have such caring, generous, and funny people in my life. Thank you all, and I hope that our friendship endures and only grows stronger with each passing day!

A Romantic Weekend

And after long silence, I finally emerge. What’s the occasion? I finally got a computer at my desk at work, which means I can grab the occasional break and write a bit. Does this mean I’ll finally get around to writing my Anthrocon report? You damn betcha. But first, I have to talk about the weekend.

See, Takaza called me on Thursday with the odd request: all weekend plans would be his to make. It’s usually something of a joint effort between us, but I shrugged and said sure. He was quiet about any developments until that night. It turns out that we were going away for the weekend. Not too far away – only Elgin, maybe 30 miles west of Chicago, but that wasn’t the point. Since Anthrocon, we’ve been both been a bit stressed and snappish, and a nice weekend, with no convention duties and no chores around the house, was definitely a good idea. Just the two of us taking some time to reconnect.

After work on Friday, I drove out to Dan’s mom’s house in Wonder Lake. Her computer had gone belly-up and Dan left work early to do some repair work on it. The repairs took longer than expected, and we didn’t leave until 8:30. We headed south on IL 31 and stopped off in Crystal Lake for a tasty dinner at Outback. After dinner we continued southwards and got to the hotel at around 10:30. Now, when Dan originally reserved the room on Priceline, all he knew was that he was getting a room for $60/night at the Holiday Inn Elgin. When he called Thursday night to verify the room, he found out it was a Queen Suite, which is lovely except that that had a queen bed, which doesn’t work for us. So they upgraded us for free to a King Suite. Well, as we checked in, they looked at what rooms were available and went ahead and upgraded us to a Jacuzzi Suite for free. Nice! The room was fabulous – two rooms, really, with a comfy sofa, a two-person whirlpool tub in the bedroom, and a huge bathroom with a roomy shower with two shower heads. We watched a bit of TV, chatted a bit more, then went to sleep.

Saturday morning, I discovered one drawback to the room: the curtains hung to just below the windows but no further, which allowed quite a bit of light in once the sun came up, waking me at around 6:30. I decided to get up around 7, and surfed the net on Dan’s computer for a bit (yay for free Wi-Fi!) then went down to the lobby and got the paper. By that time, Dan was awake and we had a lovely shower then went to get breakfast at Baker Hill. On the way there we saw the Days Inn Elgin, which seems to have really slid towards meeting its nickname of “The Dead Hooker Inn.” After breakfast, we walked around Spring Hill Mall and drove around West Dundee and Carpentersville in a half-hearted search for a place that might rent boats. Failing in our quest (but not too upset about it) we returned to Elgin and wandered a bit until we found ourselves at the Grand Victoria Casino. We wandered through the place and I was amazed at the brutal efficiency with which the place is designed to separate suckers from their money. I even gambled! Well, I put a dollar in a slot machine. I lost. That was fun, or something.

We returned to the hotel and passed the afternoon swimming, chatting about our upcoming shindig in October, and relaxed a bit more. Decadent, I tell you! We were both feeling hungry, so we wandered up to West Dundee to check out a couple of restaurants. The first looked tasty, but a bit pricey and not particularly Dan-friendly. We opted for the second, Emmett’s Tavern because they brew their own beer – always a selling point for me. The dinner was outstanding! I had a nice sampler of five different beers, then followed that with a pint of their Old Dundee Porter, which was just fabulous. It probably didn’t hurt that I was slightly tipsy, but that’s OK. The food was excellent – Dan’s applewood-smoked bacon/white cheddar burger was tasty, and my Boursin burger topped with a portabella mushroom was to die for. We had a great time and I’m really glad we went. After dinner we went back to the room and had some really nice together-time.

I was up again at 7 AM on Sunday, curse my evil internal alarm clock! I surfed the net for a while then Dan finally stirred an hour or so later. We went down to the hotel lobby and opted for the hotel restaurant for breakfast, since the 20%-off coupon we got when we checked in brought the prices down to normal levels. The breakfast was OK, better than the day before, but nowhere approaching the quality of, say, Las Vegas Restaurant in Antioch. After breakfast we relaxed in the room for a while, soaking up every last second of our extended checkout time. Finally, at 1 PM we left the hotel and drove back into the city. The romantic weekend was over, but I’m sure it won’t be our last. I had a lovely time, and I was reminded once again of how lucky I am to have such a wonderful husband.