Here we are, mid-week, and I haven’t even talked about the past weekend which was all kinds of awesome? Well, let’s fix that.
Category Archives: wii
Mongolian, French Toast, and Long Island Iced Tea: Now That Was an Awesome Weekend!
Man, what a crazy few days, and this week is shaping up to be pretty crazy too.
After work on Friday, I sped out slightly early and picked up takaza at his employer in Buffalo Grove. Then it was a stressful drive through Friday rush-hour traffic down to Lisle, where we checked into the Hyatt Lisle. After a short break it was back into the car for a short drive to Bolingbrook and BD’s Mongolian Grill. There we met up with ottr, datahawk, feren, lady_curmudgeon, roho, genet, linnaeus, wyldekyttin, and unclevlad for a fun dinner and drinks. Alas, I agree with Dan – I am kind of over BD’s. For one thing, it seems that no matter what I do, everything I put together there ends up tasting the same. I’ll freely admit that’s my own fault. The drinks were pretty weak, too, which was unfortunate. Ah well, at least the company was good.
After dinner we retired back to the Hyatt with Roho, Genet, and Linnaeus and had a lovely swim before bed. On Saturday morning, the five of us had a delicious brunch at Juicy-O then went our separate ways. Dan and I stopped by perro and darkwolph‘s place to drop off some MFF stuff and we wound up talking shop for a bit.
Then it was off to Dan’s mom’s place to try to get her Wii hooked up to wi-fi. I’m not even sure if what we were trying to do can be done: She has a laptop running Vista with built-in wireless as well as a Sprint EVDO card connected via USB. We were trying to create a bridge so the wireless would receive the Wii signal and go out through the EVDO. No joy, though. Instead, she brought her Wii over to our place and we downloaded a bunch of older games for her. She left after a bit and Linnaeus arrived shortly thereafter.
After a bit of chatting we jumped in the car and drove up to Kenosha, where we met the crowd from the previous night (as well as several new faces) for dinner at Charcoal Grill. The phrase that pays is “half-price appetizers and drinks after 8 PM”. Holy cow! So good, and those Long Island iced teas had a kick!
On Sunday…we did nothing. And it was good. OK, actually, we finally showered late in the afternoon and went out to Target at about 7 PM to pick up a few groceries and things for the house.
And here we are back in the middle of the work week. I’m really looking forward to Friday – I just got the OK from my boss to take off early, so Dan and I will be leaving at noon or before for Columbus, OH, where we will abuse the hospitality of fordshepherd and kai_darkwolf. I have only a vague idea of what the plans might be, but I’m sure we’ll be in good hands. I promise to take lots of pictures 🙂
Oh Yeah, Updates…
It’s Wednesday already? Wasn’t it just Wednesday last week? Man, someone should do something about these calendars.
So last weekend was halfway stress-free. On Saturday we had takaza‘s family over to celebrate his mother’s birthday, albeit belatedly. We all went together and bought her a Wii. She’s a big fan of old-school games like Zelda and Final Fantasy stuff, so the online purchase thing is nifty for her. Plus, we played Boom Blox and I think we sold his mother on the game as well as his brother on buying a Wii period. The damn game is like a virus, I swear.
On Sunday I carpooled with roho and genet down to meet with a prospect for our charity for Midwest FurFest this year (Dan went to see The Dark Knight with his family and worked on Anthrocon tax stuff). The meeting went extremely well and I hope to have an announcement on that front later this week. They’re very excited to work with us and I think we’re going to have a lot of fun and make them a lot of money. From there, we drove over to Linnaeus‘s place where we were joined by siriuswolfstar, simbalion, feren, and lady_curmudgeon. We all enjoyed an excellent dinner of burgers and tasty sausages (mmm, andouille!) and some excellent beers. It was a very enjoyable evening!
Work has been more than a little crazy of late. I just wrapped up a big project yesterday which is a big relief, though I’ve got another project next week that will take up all of my time for the first three days of the week. We’ve also had a slew of new hires and I’m helping out occasionally to get them settled as well.
This weekend should be fun – I’ll be at LAFF softball on Saturday to hang out and chat with folks. Not a lot of plans on Sunday, but we’ll wing it and see how things go.
I’ll leave you with two interesting links: If anyone is in Los Angeles and likes food and The Amazing Race, well, the Food Network is looking for you! Granted, being the Food Network, I’m sure they’ll take a good idea and screw it up royally.
Also, it’s about damn time. Anthony Bourdain has been touring around Chicago as he finally films an episode of No Reservations here. I don’t know most of the places he mentions, but I’m glad to see that one of the highlights will be Hot Doug’s, a true Chicago original. (Though I wonder about his choice of local guides. Mancow Mueller? Really?) Anyway, it should be a great episode when it airs.
Massages and A Trip Behind The Cheddar Curtain
Right, it’s time for the weekend wrap-up! After working Saturday morning, takaza and I met up with Linnaeus at the Massage Envy in Palatine (which is conveniently owned by Dan’s brother). Dan and Paul each got one-hour massages; I went for a 90-minutes massage, choosing a deep tissue massage this time (I usually just stick with relaxation). It was…effective. But wow – she found some trigger points in my back that I didn’t know I had!
Following a quick lunch, we all headed back up to our stomping grounds, stopping by the game shop in downtown Grayslake to browse a bit. Then it was back to our place to play a little Wii Sports and hang out for a bit. After that we decided it was time to get a new game, so it was off to Gamestop to pick up Mario Kart Wii. Dan cooked up some tasty turkey burgers and we spent the rest of the evening driving like madmen around itty bitty tracks. Oh, and since people have asked, our Wii console number is 0640 0380 8682 3927, Takaza’s Mario Kart ID is 3523-2801-2341, and mine is 2578-3899-6783.
Sunday Dan and I were off to Milwaukee to spend the afternoon touring the area with tozier_wah and jet_der_hund (sadly, little_wolf had to work). We started out with an incredibly yummy lunch at Kopp’s Frozen Custard. When they say “jumbo burgers”, they mean it! Wow, those were good though, as was the frozen custard (Quote of the day: “Someone call Culver’s and tell them I want a divorce!”).
After that, we took the short drive down to the Sprecher Brewery for their brewery tour. The tour was fun, and the tasting afterwards was great. For $3, you (normally) get four 8 oz. samples of their beers or unlimited pours of their sodas. It pretty much confirmed that, for me, while their beers aren’t bad, I much prefer their sodas. Just a few weeks ago they introduced a cherry cola; while their regular Puma Cola doesn’t do much for me, this cherry cola was really, really good! Dan bought a case of it for us to take home 🙂
From there it was on to The Spice House (where Toz learned not to inhale the Latino spices) and then we finished off the day with a visit to Alterra At The Lake, my favorite coffee shop in Milwaukee. We had a lot of fun making the circuit of the town, and I look forward to going back again soon!
As for this week, work is keeping me busy on various projects. I’ve also got a few things that I need to take care of before this weekend’s Midwest FurFest staff meeting. OK, and maybe play a little Mario Kart in the meantime…
Lots To Do, Lots To Do…
Another quiet week rolls past. Still, I’ve gotten a lot done, particularly with Anthrocon stuff.
The new registers for Artists Alley are mostly programmed; we just need to replicate the changes out across all three registers. I’ve revamped my spreadsheets to incorporate changes we’re going to need to upload each day’s artist names into the registers, which shouldn’t take more than a few minutes each morning. I’ve also started to document some of the processes required in the off chance that I’m pulled away or hit by a bus or something. And I’ve firmed up my staff, as well. Last year I had seven people on Artists Alley/Con Store staff; this year I’ve got nine people with two others available part-time. That’s going to make scheduling a lot easier.
There’s still a lot to do, though. Takaza and I need to revise the receipt forms and get those to uncle_kage by the end of the weekend. I need to figure out how to put together a map of the Alley on a whiteboard so we can write who’s sitting where (legibly!) each morning to help people find artists, and I need to make up a similar template that we can print out so it can be easily and quickly filled in once artists are seated and then transfer the information to the whiteboard. I need to pick up supplies for the Alley as well, and print and laminate the barcodes for the Con Store once I get them from Kage, and…and…
Man, it’s amazing the stuff we do for fun, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, we’ve been having a blast playing with our new Wii. The only game I’m really playing a lot of so far is Wii Sports, but I’m sure in the near future we’ll be thinking about buying another game. Whether that’s Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., Boom Blox, or something else, we’ll see…