Recovery Mode, and Here We Go Again

So now that the Registration system has been repaired and the last few items for Midwest FurFest are being delivered today, I’m in a state of relatively little stress. So what to do? Why, go work another convention, of course! Which is why this afternoon I’ll be heading over to Windycon at the Wyndham in Rosemont to assist in their Operations office for the weekend. Yeah, it’s silly to work a con the weekend before working a con, but this one should be considerably lower stress for me since I’m not technically in charge of anything, and from what I saw last year, quite manageable.

In the meantime, I need to drive up to Wauconda and pick up the staff badges, and then down to Arlington Heights and rent a storage unit for MFF for the coming year. If all goes well, I’ll be able to meet takaza for lunch, then head down to the Wyndham, check in and maybe grab a quick nap, if needed. Expect more updates as the weekend goes on!

Apply The Brakes?

For the past few months, I’ve had two driving forces: get a job, and prepare for Midwest FurFest. These two things have been pretty much what I built every day around, and kept my mind occupied. So now I have a job in hand, and I’ve completed all of my preparations (well, save one or two, but those are not time-consuming). So I have before me a rarity: a day unclaimed. Now, because I’m the way I am, that doesn’t mean I’ll be lolling about; I have to get a haircut, stop by Sam’s Wine to stock up for the Fine Potables party at MFF, do laundry…but I do those things today or tomorrow or even on Monday, were I so inclined. The pressure to get stuff done is off, and it’s a very strange feeling. It’s certainly not one that I’ve felt in literally years, and while a relief, it’s unfortunate that it’s a little disquieting too.

Ah well. Off to start the day!

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

Can’t Sleep, Con Will Eat Me

My life, reduced to bullet points:

  • On Tuesday I had an interview with large nameless healthcare company that happens to be in Round Lake, IL. Promising position, and would be very exciting. Contract-to-hire, three or six month contract (to be determined), then hire full time at 15% less pay (but with benefits and vacation). If hired, it’d be a bitch of a commute for the short term, but we’ve been wanting to get a place in the Northwest Burbs, and this would be the catalyst to do so. I might know something by the end of next week. Maybe. The good news is that my recruiter is going to see about submitting me to another position at the same company.
  • Not much action on any other fronts. Still putting out lots of resumes, but not a lot of nibbles. It’s a bad time of the year to be unemployed, unfortunately. The good news is that between Dan’s income and unemployment, we’re covered for the short term, at least.
  • So this leaves me lots of time to sit around and play video games all day? Not likely. This is the peak time for preparations for Midwest FurFest. In addition to being an engineer, I suddenly get to become a graphic designer, making layouts for all of the items we’re having imprinted, plus designing the staff and attendee badges. We’re trying some new stuff (thus all of the nifty new equipment) that will hopefully make our lives easier and make Registration run even faster. So in addition to being an engineer and a graphic designer, I also get to be a software designer/network engineer, as we tweak the Registration system to accommodate the new equipment. I also get to flex my management skills, since once the programming schedule is posted I need to figure out how to schedule the seventeen (!) people we have on Registration staff to maximize volunteer hours for those that want them and to make sure no one has to miss any event they wanted to see. You understand why I get a bit flustered at the convention approaches.
  • It’s been a chilly day here, inside and out. I didn’t notice it earlier when I absorbed in computer work, but now I’m realizing my fingers are getting a bit numb. I’ve set foot outside only to get the paper this morning, but the chill is quite penetrating. I’ll have to brave the cold later to go out and forage for dinner – I’m not really looking forward to that.
  • Tomorrow looks a lot more interesting, though. The present plan is that I will drop takaza off at work, stop for some breakfast, stop by the printer to drop off the files for the attendee badges, then strike out westward to take pictures of…something. Things that evoke “County Fair”. Yeah, it would have been nicer to do this earlier in the year, but we didn’t realize just what nice signs we were going to be having. It should be a nice, clear, chilly day, and I expect I’ll be driving around Huntley, Marengo, and Woodstock, which is very pretty country anyway. Later in the day I’ll pick Dan up at work and we’ll do, um, something.
  • This bullet point intentionally left blank

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…

Last-Minute Plans?

FYI: If you’re attending Midwest FurFest and haven’t reserved a room yet, check out this post in for what options are available right now. The Hyatt and the Amerisuites are sold out, though rooms should be coming available at the Amerisuites in a couple of weeks when some other groups’ underperforming room blocks are released.

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.

Well, that was fun


And here’s what ate up several hours of my day today: 250 confirmation postcards for MFF. Normally it wouldn’t take quite that long, except when you run out of postcards and have to print and cut down more, then run out of stamps and have to go to the post office to buy more. Ah well – they’re in the mail now! (And these don’t even include the end-of-cheap-pre-registration mailed-in registrations!)

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!

The Purple Hotel? I hear that’s a great place!

For you locals familiar with the place, here’s a bit of amusement:
Lincolnwood wants the Purple Hotel, a well-known north suburban property that has fallen on hard times, to correct what it calls “dangerous and hazardous conditions.”

The village cites such things as a leaky roof, a moldy heating duct and rodent droppings and an insect infestation in the kitchen in a court complaint.

The filing comes after workers from Lincolnwood’s building department found what it believes to be a host of violations of building, property maintenance and fire codes during three inspections late last month. The complaint says “dangerous and hazardous conditions exist” at the hotel “which, if the hotel is not shut down immediately, create an imminent danger to property and life, jeopardizing the public health, safety and welfare of the persons and property within and adjacent to (the hotel), unless and until such time as the numerous code violations are remediated to the satisfaction of the village’s inspectors,” according to the complaint, filed Sept. 29 in Cook County Circuit Court.

Man. I’d sure hate to be these guys…

How Did I Get This Busy?

Even when I’m unemployed, I seem to have a lot to do. Yesterday morning I drove takaza to work, then killed the morning at Panera, then at Mount Prospect Public Library, working mainly on the Restaurant Guide. We met for a quick lunch, then headed over to the Hyatt Regency Woodfield where Dan had a meeting with the hotel representatives. I sat in, took notes, and mentioned a few things where I could, but mostly stayed in the background. It was a long meeting – three hours! – but a lot got discussed and I think everyone came away feeling pretty confident about the stuff that was discussed. Afterwards, we stopped by the overflow hotel (the Amerisuites Schaumburg) just across the parking lot, and Dan made sure everything was in order there. That’s a really nice hotel, and maybe a possibility for a future Wuffmeet. Hmmm…

After that we fought our way home through rush hour traffic, and had leftovers for dinner – Dan had the last of the chicken and dumplings from the night before, and I had some of the pork roast from Monday. Mm,, that made some tasty sandwiches! Then it was out to the previously-announced Ice Cream Night where the attendance was a bit light: only lisagems and woodychitwn were there, besides us. It was fun, though. Woody thoroughly schooled Dan in Connect Four, and Lisa and I commiserated about the lives of the unemployed. The pumpkin and cinnamon ice creams that Bobtail has for fall are divine, and I had an ice cream latte with a scoop of the cinnamon ice cream in it. Delicious!

Today has been somewhat less busy, but still I’ve gotten a lot done – mostly laundry and shopping. We’re going to try some mini-meatloaf from Cook’s Country tonight. We’re making plans for the weekend, and it looks like we’re going to take advantage of what may be the last warm weekend to visit a local apple orchard, and generally spend time with friends. Sounds like a great plan to me!

REMINDER (for locals): Coffee and Ice Cream on Wednesday!

COFFEE (AND ICE CREAM) NIGHT!
When: 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM, Wednesday, October 4 (tomorrow!)
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. Takaza and I will probably hit Potbelly at around 7 PM for a quick dinner if anyone wants to join usthere. If you’d like us to save you a seat, just let me know, here or by e-mail!

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!

MFF Spam? I’ll take some, please!

Have you tried to reserve at the Hyatt Regency Woodfield and have been told that they are out of rooms? Afraid that you may have no sleeping space come time for Midwest FurFest?

Well, fear not! Amerisuites Schaumburg has just signed on as our overflow hotel!

Located on the other side of the parking lot of the Hyatt Regency Woodfield, itis only a short distance from all the fun of the convention.

We were also able to negotiate the rate of $90 a night!  Call up 847-330-1060 and ask for the Midwest FurFest rate to get your room reserved today!

As always, if you have any hotel concerns or questions, feel free to email us at hotel (at) furfest (dot) org.

Yeah, I even spam my own journal…

The deadline for Midwest FurFest’s inexpensive pre-registration rate of $30 is 11:59 PM CDT, Saturday, September 30! After that date, the pre-registration rate jumps to $40. If you want to save a little extra money, you need to pre-register online by then (at http://www.furfest.org) or be sure that you mail in your pre-registration postmarked by September 30, 2006.

Sure, you can still pre-register after that date, but think of the money you save! That’s ten dollars you can spend on gas, meals, comics in the Dealers Room, badge commissions in Artists Alley, donations to our wonderful charity, Safe Haven Wildlife Rescue!

Remember that you can pre-register for Midwest FurFest online until 11:59 PM November 12, 2006; all mail-in pre-registrations must be postmarked no later than November 1, 2006. Online registrations can be purchased with any major credit card. Please note that if you enter your registration online but do not pay, that information will be deleted and you will need to register at the door. If you do not wish to register online, you can always print out the pre-registration form from our website and mail it with a check or money order to the address shown on the form.

Want to support the convention even more, and get some cool stuff while you’re at it? Sponsorships are $120 now and at the door. Remember that sponsors get a free T-shirt with art by one of our Guests of Honor, a collectable limited-edition cloisonné pin, special prints, a fabulously tasty Saturday brunch, a surprise gift, and much more!

Questions? Check out our Registration FAQ’s at http://www.furfest.org/register.php (just scroll down).

Still have questions? Drop us a line at registration@furfest.org!

Also, one final note: Hotel rooms at the Hyatt Regency Woodfield are now in very short supply. Make your reservation NOW! We are working feverishly to negotiate a convenient overflow hotel, but if you want to be in the center of things you’d better reserve immediately! Please note that you must call the Hyatt to place your reservation – online reservations are not available, unfortunately.

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!

Holy Cow!

The Hotel Liaison for Midwest FurFest (aka my sexy and wonderful husband, takaza) tells me that our room block for this year is dwindling fast. How fast? Like double rooms selling out within the next week or so fast. Once those are gone, there won’t be any more! There’s still king rooms available (for now) but I expect those will be going fast as well.

If you haven’t reserved your hotel room for MFF, DO IT NOW! Remember that you can’t reserve online – you’lll need to call in; the info is on the hotel page of the MFF website.

Edited at 12:38 PM: edit for clarity – sorry for the confusion.

Quiet Weekends Are Great When Busy Ones Are Around The Corner

Well, that was what passes for a low-key weekend for us, even if I did drag takaza out of the house a couple of times during the weekend.

I picked up Dan after work on Friday, which unfortunately ran quite late – it was about 6 PM by the time he left (I had dropped him off there at 6:30 AM that morning). It was cool, though – I was able to relax in the car and catch up on some of my neglected podcasts, and he was able to tend to some last-minute end-of-the-month accounting issues. We stopped by the post office and an interesting little food shop in Mount Prospect, then wandered around a bit trying to figure out what to do for dinner. We finally settled on Chipotle (arr num num!) then retiring back home for the evening.

Saturday, Dan slept late and it was one of those “oh, it’s 3 PM, I guess we should take a shower” kind of days. I played too much Ratchet and Clank:Up Your Arsenal (re-played, really – I finished the game last year, but it’s good enough that the replay value is excellent), then we decided to wander out in search of dinner. We wound up down at Wishbone, which was average, though the service was underwhelming. Dan’s peppercorn steak was kind of fatty, and the flavor of my grilled skirt steak was overwhelmed by the tarragon butter (!). We had a nice long walk afterwards which I enjoyed, even though the evening was a bit muggy.

Sunday was pretty much a repeat of the day before, but we motivated out of the house a bit earlier. We stopped by Best Buy and CompUSA to investigate digital SLR cameras (anyone have one we could borrow for a few days?) but their selections were lousy and just seemed far too expensive. We then went to Jewel and Lincolnwood Produce to stock up on groceries for the week. Last night, Dan made some very tasty homemade strombolis (mine with sausage and onions, and the leftovers are in the office fridge for my lunch!), and I put some chicken breasts in to soak in buttermilk for 24 hours for tonight’s crispy fried chicken a la St. Alton. For Tuesday night we have some interesting turducken sausages that Linnaeus picked up at Delicatessen Meyer, and then we’ll have a tasty fettuccine carbonara on Wednesday.

Not a whole lot on tap for the week, though word has it I might need to stick around a little late on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday to help out with an inspection by the Brazilian version of the FDA. No problem for me – overtime is always good, particularly when I have a six-day vacation on the horizon!

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!

Fun with AOL search data

For anyone who missed it, a few days ago AOL released (then un-released) search data for over 500,000 of their users. The data is theoretically anonymized by assigning a numerical ID to each user, though it has been proven that that isn’t particularly effective. Now, Boingboing has pointed to a server that has transformed the data into a user-searchable database.

The data provides an interesting, sometimes scary look into people’s lives (as Boingboing reported, user 2708 wasn’t going to take a bad breakup sitting down). I did a little data mining of my own and found some interesting results…
Fun with keywords!

Run Silent, Run Deep

Man, you know it’s getting time to post in your journal when your mom complains about she hasn’t read anything new there lately 😉

Well, on Saturday we started out by taking takaza‘s mom to lunch for her birthday. I understand that she’s just happy to spend time with us, but I admit that I’m used to making a bit more of a to-do over such things; she was just fine with us going to Steak and Shake, which she’d never been to before. Dan and I grew up with very different family dynamics. Neither is better or worse than the other, but sometimes it can be a bit weird. We had fun, though, and it was a pleasant lunch. Afterwards we went to roho and genet‘s place and had a fun evening with them and datahawk, feren, lady_curmudgeon, and linnaeus. A surprisingly small amount of alcohol was consumed, and we all were feeling pretty tired before midnight even rolled around. Ah well.

Sunday began with the traditional trip to Las Vegas Restaurant, where I had their always-fabulous Las Vegas skillet. From there we headed back into the city and lazed around the house for a while. For dinner, Dan and I tried to come up with something new and different to do with the large amount of fresh corn that we purchased. Dan cut the kernels off the cobs, then I sautéed up some garlic and added the corn to the pan. A little salt, a little pepper, some paprika, and…bleah. It’s not often that our culinary experiments go awry, but this one was to neither of our liking; the sweetness of the corn was a weird match for the garlic, and while the paprika started to bridge the gap, it just wasn’t enough.

Monday and Tuesday were unremarkable, except that the weather cooled down enough to make going outside actually a pleasant prospect. I took the bus down to Lincoln Square and spent about an hour and a half outside of The Grind reading The Reader and enjoying a tasty blueberry smoothie. the weather was nice enough (low 70’s and low humidity) that I decided to walk back. My stroll took me past Kempf Plaza where tango tunes from the 40’s and 50’s were being played on a tinny speaker while older couples danced around the plaza (please pardon my lousy cameraphone quality). I had to stop for a while and enjoy the music and the spectacle – it was a magical thing on a cool summer evening. The rest of the walk home, the music played in my head and provided a moody background to the quiet neighborhoods.

When I called Dan after work on Wednesday he mentioned that parking was going to be limited on the street in front of Linnaeus‘s place for the next four days while they re-pave, so we decided that it would be better for him to just leave his car at work and we can car-pool for a few days. After I picked him up, we drove over to the Renaissance Schaumburg and Convention Center to check them out. They just opened the place six weeks ago, and they’re still a bit rough around the edges (missing signage, lights missing on the elevators, wallpaper edges still showing a bit). Once they get everything ironed out, though, the place is going to be nothing short of amazing. And huge, too! I’ll be curious to compare that against the still-under-construction Westin Lombard Yorktown Center once that is complete. (No one should read this as an indication that MFF is moving anywhere, but it’s always good to know all of the available venues in the area.)

And so, tonight. Linnaeus is hosting a Happy Hour at The Red Lion, and I hope to make it to that. Hope to see some of y’all there!

Morning Excitement

takaza and I made our usual 5:45 AM departure from the city this morning in the middle of a driving rain storm. It wasn’t too bad – all the nasty wind and lightning stayed off to the south – but it was enough to make the drive a little slower and annoying. After I dropped Dan off and got in to work myself, I got a call from him: he had dropped his phone somewhere. As near as we can guess, he probably dropped it while trying to navigate the large puddles outside of our place, and someone picked it up off the street (thanks so much to linnaeus for actually turning around and returning home in the middle of his morning commute to search for the phone there!).

The insurance that we’ve been paying on since we started subscribing to Sprint is, of course, all but useless: $50 deductible, get a refurbished phone. Bleah. So now we’re at a transition point: Come October I get a $150 credit for a new phone, and I’ve got my eye on the Treo 700w, which should be available from Sprint by then. Or, we could jump to Verizon and pick up the Motorola Q, which is mighty purty and shiny, but at a cost of breaking our contract with Sprint (ka-ching!), or paying it through October but just not using it, which would actually be cheaper. We’re going to visit the Sprint and Verizon stores after work today and see what options are available to us. In the interim, if you want to reach Dan, the best thing to do is call me and I’ll pass you along.

On a happier note, the lovely and talented genet surprised me with a wonderful gift last night:
It’s Duncan! And he’s ky00t!

Quiet week, and planning ahead

Just some random bits of goings-on this week…

takaza‘s glasses broke (the bridge snapped at one of the lenses) on Friday morning, which is a bit problematic. He made many calls all over and the bottom line is that, with the eye care insurance we have, you get a choice of about 20 frames and it takes no less than a week to get new glasses. One-hour places? Sure, if you want to do it on your own dime. Now, it’s worth noting that if you’re OK with these limitations, you can get a new pair of glasses for about $30-40. Dan opted for anti-glare coating as well, so his will be $60, and they come in (hopefully) on Friday. This tells me that it would probably be a good idea for me to get a new pair of glasses sooner than later, too, since mine are about three years old and pretty scratched up anyway.

In the meantime, since he needs his glasses to drive, we’ve been car-pooling every day. This adds about 20 minutes to my commute each way, which isn’t too bad. There’s also the added benefit of time spent together, which is really pleasant. It’s especially nice on nights like tonight, when we don’t really have any dinner plans. We can get dinner anywhere we want and don’t have to rush home, then head back out (if you live in a city, you understand, I’m sure) if we so desire.

Last night’s dinner was quite tasty: rigatoni with a bacon-tomato sauce, baked under lots of mozzarella. Yum! We’re definitely going to have to make that again. Not sure what we’ll be doing for dinner tomorrow, and it sounds like we’ll be going out with friends on Friday; I predict many brain cells will be killed before that night is over 🙂 The weekend will be spent taking Dan’s mom out to lunch for her birthday, then it’s over to Antioch, with tasty grilling and other fun stuff going on there. I’m thinking about making a dessert involving strawberries for that – we’ll have to see what recipes I can find.

Finally, looking ahead two weeks, I see that Milwaukee Irishfest is already upon us! mirkowuff may be coming up for the fest; anyone else interested in joining in? I intend to go up on Saturday the 19th (yeah, it’s the day of LAFF softball, sorry). With any luck the weather will cool off by then.

Now That Was A Weekend To Remember!

First off: Happy birthday, linnaeus!

So, when last we left our heroes, they were about to venture forth on a romantic weekend getaway. Takaza made all of the plans in secret, and I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. I picked him up from work at 4:00 PM on Friday and I was instructed to drive…north.

Where did we go? Click here to find out!