'Tis a Strange Friday

It all started last night, when I got home from that strange land known as Lima. Not even a full 24 hours have passed by and I have to leave again. But before heading out to the airport, I went to lunch with Amber at Olive Garden. Having not had any breakfast, I pigged out. Big time. On their unlimited soup and salad thing. Yum! For some reason, lunch took a little bit longer than we anticipated. Perhaps it was my having three bowls of soup that made it longer? I don't know.

Anyway, it was already 12:30 after lunch, and I have to be at Midway at 14:15. While driving home, it finally dawned on me that by the laws of logistics and old man time, there was no way I could get home, pack, and be at the airport in time. Damn! But I tried anyway. It's not as if I have never pushed the limit before. By the time I was done with packing and waiting at the curb for a random cab for hire to drive by, it was already 13:10. Panic kind of started to set in, because there is a Jazz Fest going on this weekend in New Orleans and by the luck of the draw I was able to get on a flight on Southwest, which otherwise have been sold out for the entire Thursday through the weekend. And if I don't make it, I will be so screwed!

Lady luck must've been smiling down on me, since I was blessed with a cab! I tell ya, there have been times when I actually waited a half hour for a cab to drive by. I hopped on, and told the cabbie that I am in a super hurry. And what does he do? He proceeded to chat on the phone the entire time, and drive real slowly on the far left lane. Ack!!! If there is anything more frustrating for me, it would be watching all the slow cars pass us! Then while on Lake Shore Drive, we drove by a cop! That's just too weird, considering that I have just blogged last night about how I rarely see a pig on Lake Shore Drive. And poof! There he was! Stranger yet was the radio program the cabbie has been listening to. With his windows down and the loud winds blowing through, I could only hear bits and pieces of the program. But I gathered this much. The topic was about oil, or our dependence on it. And the interviewee was some Christian. When the interviewer asked to explain the ramifications of our oil dependence, the interviewee responded to the following effect:

God gave us this earth not only so we can harvest from it, but to protect it. It is clear in the book of Genesis that we have to protect the earth, or else we will face judgment. And now that we have exploited our natural resources while not protecting the environment, we are at present being judged by God, or at least beginning to be judged. Just look at the world right now. The price of oil is skyrocketing, which in turn in hurting us.

That was when I stopped listening to this bullshit interview on radio. Here I was, expecting some interesting argument, but all this guy brought up was Genesis, without a passage or a quote, and the price of oil. Sorry, buddy, I don't remember anything from Genesis about being punished and judged if we don't take care of the earth. And I certainly will not buy the argument that the high price of gas is evidence that God is judging us for the ills that we have done to mother earth. Clearly this guy has not taken economics class! {By the way, I have a blog in rough draft form regarding oil...} I consider myself a Christian, but this guy was just a lunatic on me. You know, one of those guys who reads some little tidbit of information from the Bible, and then goes on to make a mountain of an argument with shreds of words from here and there. Sheesh.

So I finally got to the airport at 13:45. Shit, shit, shit! Then I realized that I left the boarding passes I printed last night at home! So I had to go to the kiosk to reprint them. I thought, "Man, I can't waste any more time! Security is going to be a bitch!" As soon as the boarding passes came out, I noticed that my flight was at 14:50, not 14:15 as I thought all along! I'm usually good at remembering my flight times, but not this time. Strange.

And the whole strangeness of the day did not just stop with that. I expected a long line at the security checkpoint, given the fact that it was Friday afternoon. You know, all those business folks like myself who don't live here in Chicago will be heading home. But no. At 13:50, there was hardly a line! I got through security in less than five minutes!!! Seriously. I have never seen Midway this slow before! Not even late on a Sunday night, much less Friday afternoon! I could not believe my eyes. I guess if my flight was to leave at 14:15, I totally could have made it. And probably set a new record for the slimmest time for cutting it that close. =)

Seeing how much time I really have on my hands, being at the airport an hour before my flight like I was supposed to, I decided to go use the washroom to relief myself after walking halfway to my gate. After washing my hands, I waltzed right out, and jumped on the moving sidewalk. Without much thought, I kept on walking. Then presented in front of me was the security checkpoint. Doh! In all my years flying in and out of Midway, and especially ever since moving to Chicago two years ago, Midway is practically my second home in Chicago! Yet I managed to make a wrong turn out of the restroom. {Incidentally, why are they called restrooms? Can you seriously take a break and rest in the restroom; what with all the stench floating around? Just a thought...} Do you know how many times I have used the restrooms at Midway and come out turning to the right direction? Ha!

When I finally I boarded my flight for Nashville (my layover city), I chose to sit next to this nice young lady with a newborn baby. Jordan was her first baby, and today was the her first flying experience. Surprisingly, and I kid you not, Jordan was the quietest baby I have ever come across! Believe me, I fly at least twice a week for the last five years, and I can tell you from experience that this is a practical first! But that fact in itself was not strange. I was sitting by the window, and Jordan and her mom sat by the aisle. Then when the mom decided to go use the lavatory, she asked the girl across the aisle from her for a favor. "Will you please hold my baby while I use the restroom?" The stranger was shocked, but could not resist helping, not especially with such a cute little baby as Jordan. Now, am I crazy, or am I crazy? Is it not typical that first time mothers are usually very protective and clingy to their first born baby, especially in the first three months of the baby's life? I was just shocked to see that this seemingly nice {and cute} lady just asked a total stranger to hold her baby. Even more shocking was that we have been talking on and off the entire time, and she did not ask me to hold her baby for her! Was it because I am a dude? Anyway, the whole time I was thinking, "Thank goodness we're on a plane. That stranger has nowhere to run if she wants to snatch this cute little baby." Ha ha ha.

Now, the final piece of oddity that happened today was when I finally arrived in New Orleans from Nashville. While waiting at the curb for the Avis shuttle, some car drove by and honked. The passenger of that car was waving and looking at me. I wasn't sure if I was the intended recipient or someone behind me, so I just stared. Then I looked behind me, and there was nobody. I turned back around just as they had past me. And I kid you not. I swear I saw Kathy! What is Kathy doing here in New Orleans? I know that there is this Jazz Fest here, but if Kathy was coming here for the weekend, I am sure Amber would have mentioned it during lunch considering that she knew for a while that I was going to be in New Orleans this weekend for work.

Strange, I tell ya. I have never had a stranger day before today. Well, it is a quarter past eleven evening, so I best hit the sack, considering I have to be at the client site at 9:30 tomorrow morning. Ugh... What a drag!!! I need my life back.

Finally Free! Kinda...

I never thought this was ever going to happen, but after working so many long nights this past week, I have finally escaped Lima, Ohio! But the escape was not without a struggle though. I had the perfect luck of driving behind a state patrol throughout SR-117, and parts of SR-33. I also have the wonderful opportunity of spotting six other traffic law enforcement vehicles out and about, three of which had already pulled over other drivers. Seven traffic law enforcers in a period of a two hour drive? That can't be right. I mean, I drive up and down Lake Shore Drive, supposedly the road that provides the greatest revenue to the entire state of Illinois from traffic infractions, and with such frequency, I rarely see a cop! But seven pigs in tiny state routes? Unbelievable! But I've been warned that Ohio is just a different breed.

Of course, now that I get to enjoy being home, I can only savor this finer moment for just a short few hours. Finally the client in New Orleans signed the contract for my services at the eleventh hour, and I am heading on down there to work over the weekend till Monday. I am not exactly thrilled about it, seeing that I will be heading over to Connecticut right afterwards for three days! Sigh... But hopefully I will have the opportunity to drive on up to Boston to play for a couple days after all that. We'll just have to see if the stars will align themselves or not. ;-)

Funny... Earlier in the evening I had the urge to go out and have fun before flying out to work over the weekend, but now, I just want to chill. Of course, it may be due to the fact that I overindulged myself on food, and capped that with eight blocks of Nestle Swiss milk chocolate {a whopping 420 calories, by the way}. Hmm... I need to stop eating and start running.

Today was just uncalled for...

So here I am, toiling away at a client site in Lima. No, not exotic Peru, but paradisiacal Ohio! =) Unfortunately for me, this particular client is not helping with the project, because the preparatory activities they were supposed to complete prior to my arrival were not done. So I have wasted two days. Being the nice guy that I am, I went ahead and did most of the activities for them. Sigh, it's going to be another one of those unsung glories when I pull the project off on time, while nobody realizes the extra long hours I put into it.

I didn't get back to the hotel till 23:30, and had not eaten all night. So far, I've managed to eat a banana, instant Lower Sugar Maple & Syrup Quaker Oatmeal, and a bag of Chex Mix in the last hour. All courtesy of the free breakfast bar at my hotel, hee hee hee. I'm sure that is healthy. As if that wasn't punishment enough, my silver colored rental car had a nice, thin coat of yellow all over it. Yes. Pollen. My nose is sore from having to blow my nose every fifteen minutes. Sigh. I love May and June.

Having experienced a tough day today {not to be confused with a shitty day}, I thought today was just uncalled for. And as such, I felt like I deserved a trip to Black Rock and drink my two dollar Miller Lite's. But unfortunately I am not home in Chicago, and I doubt there is anything fun out here in Lima, besides the oddly located three Chinese restaurants within two blocks.

One thing is for sure though. I did not get on MySpace the entire day till just now. What do you know? It's always good to have that little reassurance knowing that I am not THAT addicted to MySpace. LOL

The Twilight Zone

Ohio. What good comes out of Ohio? I don't know, for I am not an expert in Ohio, nor do I have any interesting background information on this state. But I remember this one time, when I was driving from Buckhannon, West Virginia, to Springfield, Missouri, I had to drive through Ohio. And it was pouring down like cats and dogs, dead in the middle of December around midnight. I was amazed that Columbus had huge highways, and that there was hardly any traffic out and about! As usual, I was doing a respectable ten over the limit. Then out of the blue, a cop blew by me! But he did not pull me over. Strange.

Let's bring this to present time. After four weeks of working from home, I am finally traveling! Unfortunately, it is no where cool like New York City or Seattle. I had to fly out to Columbus, and drive two freaking hours to Lima! Oh my gosh! That was the most boring drive of all time. I just can't get over the fact that A) there are no cellular service between Columbus and Lima, and B) there are no posted speed limit signs on state route 117, with the exception when you go through a tiny village where you are forced to slow down to 35 miles per hour. But after you pass the village {a good quarter mile, if at that}, it's just blank. But there were many signs telling you what road you're on, but no speed limit signs. How weird is that? I seriously worried that I will not have any cellular service for the entire week I'm here. But thankfully, when I hit city limits, my phone worked like a charm. PHEW!

And you know another thing that is weird? The minute I deplaned in Columbus, I started sneezing and blowing my nose a lot! This is weird, considering that I am currently taking TWO allergy medications! It is worse than when I was at Holly's place earlier in the day while playing with Indigo. I just hope this doesn't turn out to be like the time I went to Plano when it just turned Spring last year, and in the three days I was there, I managed to go through three boxes of Kleenex AND get bronchitis and sinus infection. Of course, I was only taking Claritin at the time, but whatever it is that Ohio has, I hope that Zyrtec and Singulair can take care of me.

Okay, so those two hardly constitute this experience as a twilight zone, but I am presently scared to see what Lima is like once the sun rises and light is cast all over the city. The Hampton Inn I checked into a few hours ago is halfway decent. But you can't always judge a city by its hotels. Or can you? =)

The One with the happy Happy Hour

I couldn't be more happier yesterday, as it was Friday--the official start of the weekend. Went out to McCormick & Schmick's with a few friends for cheap eats and beer, then Mondelli's, before heading to Bar Chicago for some serious happy hour involving free beer from 19:00 till 22:30. Because we had already started drinking around 17:00, we had no place to go but hit up Bar Chicago at 19:00. Ugh! I hate going anywhere early, and it sure was a drag for a few hours. But I was glad to be surrounded by Erin, Christine, Aarthi and Lauren.

Well, before long, and I don't remember the transition from the sober state of being, I got a little bit drunk. Then Amy and Kelly showed up, whom I have not seen in a month! That was exciting! Then the evening became a blur. Let's see, the following are what I can gather up from my clear-as-mud brain: Drank. Danced. Drank. Got verbally assaulted by some dude I don't like while Shannon just watched and giggled. Drank. Posed with an attitude. Drank. Saved Shannon from a specific "stalker." Drank. Listened to someone bragging about how fast it took him to get Lauren wet {which was a bad joke, really}. Drank. Taught Shannon the West Side sign. Drank. Vogue'd. Drank. Took pictures of random girls dancing on the bar. Drank. Danced some more, proceeded with falling on my ass and spilling my beer all over. Drank. Hung out on the upstairs balcony with Shannon and Christine. Drank. Danced again. Drank. Realized everybody I like hanging out with were gone. Drank. Said goodbyes. Got in a cab heading to a friend's place for a private after-party. Got a text message from Kelly instructing me to go to Bob's. Got to friend's place, and drank some more. Got really drunk. Got drugged up {it was only Aleeve, unfortunately} and crashed.

And I just got home an hour ago! Wow! What a night. It definitely went totally differently than my expectations when I left my place yesterday afternoon. I had a blast, too! And oh my gosh, I have never slept so well for the longest time. I feel really good and refreshed now. Except that I don't want to know how I really feel once I go running after all the drinking last night.

Now I am just scared to look through the pictures from last night. Terrified!!! =)

Post Script: Pictures will be posted to my MiC Shutterfly site in a few hours! =P

Lethargy

What a day it has been. Last night, I caught the sudden urge to just do nothing and stay in, despite looking forward all yesterday to a little happy hour get-together with Shannon. Since they were meeting at the bar at 17:00 as it was too early for me, I stayed in and cooked dinner instead, while Christine and Shannon went out. Then I drank wine before, during, and after dinner. And lots of it, too! Oops.

I can honestly say that I don't ever remember feeling as woozy in such a long time as I did last night. I could not even stand up to help do the dishes while in the kitchen. I sat my ass on the kitchen floor and watched. In my waken state of mind today, I concluded that white wine is just not J-Ho compatible. I have had just as much red wine before and never felt so, so, out of it as last night. =) Of course, right as I went to bed, I drank a glass of water. But my thirst returned and woke me up in the middle of the night. That has never happened to me before! And of course, it started thundering and raining when I finally fell back asleep.

And that brings us back to today. I slept in till almost 13:00! {That is if you don't count the requirement of waking up at 07:00 to do something nice for an hour.} Whoa! How crazy is that? I have been non so productive throughout the day. And before meeting a friend for dinner, I decided to do a quick three mile run. So yeah, that has been the only real life achievement I have attained all day today. Yay me! I deserve a medal! ;-)

My Political Corner Archival (from MySpace profile)

As I update the Political Corner section of MySpace profile with a new cartoon, I'll archive the replaced cartoon in my blog for your review. Enjoy!

By Clay Bennett, The Christian Science Monitor, Boston

It's been a month...

Yay! I survied! It is now technically April 19, 2006! And I did not have any kind of nervous breakdown in the last month. Woo hoo! But I do have to admit that there are times I thought about it, but not really in great depth.

Well, not only is today the one month anniversary of an important day in my life, it is also the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, as a friend pointed out earlier at the bar. Even at that, I don't know if I will ever remember this next year on April 19. =)

I am a DORK!

So...... I was really excited to be volunteering for Rock for a Remedy and the Greater Chicago Food Depository this afternoon, in conjunction with Guster's Campus Consciousness Tour. I got clearance with my manager to take this afternoon off work and marked my Outlook calendar of tonight's concert. I even told everybody during Easter brunch about this volunteer work and see if anyone would like to help.

Well, seeing that the concert is today, I decided to check my email for the finer details of volunteering, to see who I need to contact and get in touch with. That was when I realized something. The concert is not this Tuesday, but actually last Tuesday! They were hurting for people to volunteer, and I had committed myself to help, and I went and screwed it all up by marking the wrong Tuesday on the calendar!

I feel like the world's biggest dork right now. I have never, ever committed myself to a great cause and then flake out, intentionally or not. Now I feel really shitty, as if I have let down a lot of people. Especially my favorite band, Guster. Anybody have any idea how I can make this right? Sigh...

Drinking Milk

I am giving you a heads up. This is going to be a bit of a pointless blog, as I have more questions than answers right now. You may even suggest that I may be confused. But that is life, right?

Anyway, I was watching this new show on television on Sunday and then again earlier this evening. A fictional situation onscreen reminded me of this conversation that I once had with a friend. I brought up the notion of why it is that the longer a couple stays together, the further they drift apart? Maybe not emotionally, but things just "fizzle." It can be the loss of the sparks or spontaneity, or worse, the sudden silence where even small talk becomes a chore. Maybe "fizzle" is not the right word, but I brought it up at that fateful diner only because someone else once used that word precisely to describe his relationship, which up to that point I have thought was great and going well.

I explained to my friend at the diner that the "fizzle" is probably one of the few fears I have, and probably one of the driving reasons why I am only attracted to girls who can carry on intellectual conversations on end. I mean, my friends tell me I am picky, or that I am overlooking the nice and hot girl who likes me, but somehow I nitpick some flaws that I feel could be detrimental to a long and meaningful relationship. My friend Cesar just cannot understand why I reject women who are seemingly attractive physically. Not only is the natural ability to hold an intellectual conversation a turn on for me, but something I subconsciously think is something that will keep the closeness alive as we go through life together.

Of course, I am still young and a bachelor, so I cannot say for certain what the secret is to a long and loving relationship. The mere number of years spent married together is a false sense of "true love." I have come across some folks who have been married for 40 years and not really loving each other anymore. It became a comfort zone. And I mentioned to my friend that it is my hope and desire, if {or when, should lady luck be so kind on my soul} I ever find the love of my life, that no matter how long it is, that we don't "fizzle" and take each other for granted.

In response, my friend responded that she actually looks forward to that in a relationship. Furthermore, she said that sure, the hot sex and the initial physical attraction and such are nice, but it is nicer to look forward to the settling down afterwards, where they become just a routine, just there going through life without all the sparks and the sorts of the initial stage. But she also made it clear that perhaps "fizzle" is not the right word to describe this final stage of a relationship, but that she looks forward to this comfort zone where your partner is just there.

As this friend is someone I really like and respect, I thought about her response and pondered her opinion and point of view. Then again, I was a little bit tipsy and hungry, so I did not dwell on it much at the time. But now, some fictional television show reminded me of this topic, and I am thinking more about what it is that we as humans want in a relationship. I also remembered a moment in time when I was on a date with this great and wonderful girl, during which I mentioned something to this effect to her while pointing to a couple sitting next to us who did not talk to each other the entire time, and that I felt sorry for them, thinking about how great we were doing. But of course, that sense of greatness was a false one, as I did not realize then that that night would be the last night I would ever spend with her. You just never think that the last kiss you have to be the actual last kiss you share with the significant other.

So yeah, what do I really know, other than just the random ramblings? My random thoughts are all over the map, with no clear direction. If only my favorite English Composition professor can read this blog, as he would be having a heart attack, regretting his decision to publish two of my professional essays in his textbook. But the point here is that I want to jot down my random thoughts in a confused state of mind on paper. Or record, since I am blogging on the web. Perhaps one day, the future John will provide insight to the present self.

In the meantime, I'll quote something from a book Botton wrote that just does not help at all with the confusion. This is from a character who has been married for thirty years, providing advice to the protagonist who is dating said character's daughter: "I'm no expert on love, but I'll tell you something. In the end, I've found that it doesn't really matter who you marry. If you like them at the beginning, you probably won't like them at the end. And if you start off hating them, there's always the chance you'll end up thinking they're all right." What a cynic is the reaction I have. But we'll see. =)

Damn! Those Kenyans are fast!

If you're not into running, you may not realize, or even know that today is the Boston Marathon event for 2006. As of this blogging, the marathon is still underway. But we have leaders in already. For the women's, Rita Jeptoo came in at 2:23:38; and for the men's, Robert Cheruiyot came in at 2:07:14. Damn! That is fast. And they're both Kenyans! On average, I can do a half marathon in around 2:00. So yeah, I still have a long way to go to improve myself. =) Click here for more results on the Boston Marathon.

Red, Red; It's Red! On an Easter Sunday {Rev 1}

Well, who wouldn't be excited about today being Easter Sunday? The devout Christians around the world? Probably not. Me? Nor I. But I have quite a different reason for being excited though, for today was the long awaited Easter brunch planned out a while ago coming to fruition! Yes, food and I go together just like strawberries and pound cakes do. =) But I had to wake up early this morning so I could meet up with Katie at the Addison station and ride down to the Loop together.

I am not going to bore you to death with what was served on the buffet at Bin 36, but I'll share with you the golden moments that were had by Erin, Christine, Katie, Shannon, Lauren and I. For some odd reason, whenever Erin, Christine and I plan something "secretly," Myke always ended up planning the same thing. Case in point: Today, while at Bin 36, Myke and his fiancé showed up right after we got seated. Then there was the New Year's Eve party at the Grand Hyatt Regency Downtown Chicago. He was there too! How weird? We must have a mole.

Anyway, Shannon and Katie showed up hungover from the night before. Hee hee. For drinks, I ordered a mimosa flight. Whatever mimosa I did not really like, I pawned it off to Shannon. It was my way of helping her either cure the nasty hangover, or extend her drinking from last night. Either way, I was more than happy to oblige to her needs. See? I am a caring person! =) The second mimosa I didn't like was the peach flavored one. When she started drinking it, she gave this nasty look in her face, and exclaimed, "This smells like goldfish bowl!" Uh... I had already drunk half of it! But upon inspection by the rest of the table, it sure was. Nice! I just hope I don't get sick tonight from it. Our funny server was kind enough to replace the half-drank mimosa with a full one. Shannon was a happy girl with such wonderful sight {and smell lacking goldfish bowl scent}.

I have to say, I have never seen such a funny side of Lauren till today. She cracked me up the most, which was weird. Let's just say, the most memorable thing she said was something about the second coming of Christ, which was so wrong considering the holiday that today was! And who cannot forget the little Freudian slip that I made, while talking about sex? "Not yet!" Yeah... If you were not there, this is definitely something you had to be there to understand. Inside jokes--such a pain in the ass!

The seven of us were being loud and obnoxious the entire time. I think we drove the patrons at the next table away! Ha ha ha! We were acting kind of immature, and joking around about stuff that should not have been joked about on Easter Sunday, considering that most of the patrons had just gotten there after attending church services. Then we saw this pimping young guy walking up the sidewalk with two old ladies, one in each arm. What was funny was the fact that these two ladies were wearing some ridiculously huge headgear! One was a hat that resembled a flower, but the flower was bigger than her head. The other one had a huge, brimmed blue hat that was more than twice as round as her own head. And what did our favorite hungover Shannon do? She took my camera and started taking pictures of them, cos they actually walked into Bin 36 and got seated right next to us!!! Of course, Katie and I had to pretend that Shannon was taking pictures of us while she subtly pointed the camera at the old ladies! The funny part was that while the manager was seating the old ladies, he knew what was going on, but did not say a word to us! Ha ha ha!

Too bad the immaturity had to end though. After brunch, Katie and I met up with Justin and Christie for the White Sox game against the Blue Jays. Of course, the moment we parked, got into the stadium, and seated, it started raining. But as long as the umpires kept the game alive, so were we! And for some reason, while enduring my food coma, the feelings of tradition at a ball park overwhelmed me. So I got beer! Then churros {which I justified as a third dessert after brunch}. Then Cracker Jacks {who can watch a ball game without it?!?}. Then another beer. Finally, the rain was heavy enough that we had a rain delay. But that did not last long, so we went out to the stands again. I got another beer. But before long, it started pouring again at the top of the fourth inning. While waiting to see if the umpire would call the game off or wait, I decided to get a funnel cake. Finally, the umpires called the game. Thank goodness!!! If the game had proceeded, I would have gotten at least two more beers, a hot dog, and a frosty ice cream. So there you have it. Now you know what my standard diet is when I go to ball parks! =)

Well, seeing that the other guys were hungry, we all went to some restaurant at Lakeview for dinner. I thought to myself that I had better not stretch my stomach too much, so I had a bowl of soup. Ha ha. I have not done anything other than the continuous eating and drinking all day! How pathetic! I can feel it coming on--the punishment and the pain when I run this week.

When we got done, Justin drove us to the North/Clybourn El station. On the way there, while driving eastbound on North Avenue underneath the Dan Ryan, he decided to blow through an intersection. Throughout his driving, he has been slow with stopping, especially whenever the car ahead slowed down or stopped. So I thought maybe he wouldn't hit the brakes till later, as the light was red for us. But the intersection approached, and we were still doing a nice 35 miles per hour. I waited. And waited. And finally, it became clear that he was going to plough his way into the intersection as cars were getting off the highway onto North Avenue westbound, in the opposite direction. So I yelled, "Red! Red! It's Red!!!"

Just like that, life seemed to suspend in time, and things got into a slow motion. I know it all happened pretty quick, but in my mind, it took forever. I saw an SUV merging onto North Avenue in our same direction. I also saw a car pulling out in front of us to get onto the road in the opposite direction. I heard Justin ask, "What," as if the traffic light did not exist. The SUV slammed its brakes. The other car kept on coming. Christie, in the front, looked around wondering what was going on. I grabbed the arm rest to my left, and grabbed Katie's hand to my right, and looked at the car that kept on coming into our path almost head on.

Then time finally got back to normal. Justin said, "Oh!" And instead of slamming the brakes, he went around the car. If it was not a red light for us, and if the other car was at fault, Justin's maneuver into the opposite lane would have caused a head on accident with yet another car. But thankfully, it was not. I let out a huge sigh of relief, and grabbed my crotch to see if I had pissed myself. Nope, it was still dry. Phew! =)

So yeah, today was a long and interesting day. Food coma and all. And I am glad to be finally home all safe and sound. In one piece. =)

-UPDATE - 2006.04.18.01:57-
Apparently I am not good with recaps or highlights from Sunday. Here are twelve highlights that Shannon kindly recaptured for us. LOL

1. Yes I'm hungover and last night is a lil fuzzy...I might be still drunk
2. Oh hell no I'm not drinking
3. This mimosa smells like a fishbowl
4. Christ's Second Coming
5. "Not yet" (sexual oreinted comment)
6. This water smells like a fishbowl
7. Stripper poles and the red boom boom room
8. Our waiters coffee table, a stripper pole with lots of one dollar bills
9. OMG look at the size of those bonnets! They are coming in! They are coming in!
10. J your illegitimate child is crying
11. Katie..lean over so I can get a clear shot (snap the camera 8 times)
12. Ok I'll drink it

Death and Taxes

FINALLY! I did my tax returns! I am so proud of myself, despite the fact that I waited this long to do so. =) Tsk, tsk, tsk. I actually do have money coming back, and if I really think about it, I allowed Uncle Sam to borrow a big chunk of money interest free for over four months! But if I owe taxes and don't pay by April 17, then I have to pay back taxes with interest. Sounds fair to you?

So I woke up today around noon, ate some cereal, and checked my email real quick. Then I shut off everything that could distract me, like my email and MySpace. I opened up iTunes and started playing Dave Matthews Band's live music. You know, I gotta stay relaxed throughout this painful procedure. I did have to use the browser though, because I used TurboTax Online to file my taxes as I always do. But you know what? It appears that Quicken {the company that created the TurboTax software and website} is getting worse now. I have more problems this year than before, by leaps and bounds! I swear, if I had heart or high blood pressure problems, I would have been popping medication as frequently as I would with mint flavored Tic Tac candies!

For one thing, I keep on losing my secured connection to the web site. Each time that happened, I had to reestablish my secured connection and repeat the task I was completing at the time of the disconnection, resulting in starting over that section. This happened for more than ten times. How infuriating is that?

Because I was doing regular 1040, not 1040-EZ, I had to go through a lot more, since I want to maximize my return by itemizing my deductions as I own my condo, and paid sales tax on the car I bought late last year. While working on some extra income section of the Income portion, I accidentally selected Health Savings Account. I immediately realized that I mistook that for my Flex Spending Account, which is actually an account with tax deferred money deducted from your salary, set aside for medical and health spending. I knew it was a problem as soon as the tax refund amount indicator got lowered by a bunch! So I clicked on the "Back" button on the website (not the browser Back button, as that is bad) to the point where it asked if I had any MSA or HSA accounts. I selected No this time, and continued. But the website kept on remembering the HSA account I had previously selected as Yes. So what do I do? I had to clear out the work spent so far and start all over! Ack!

Now, this going back to the previous section is not a one-time problem. Later on, in the Deduction portion of the preparation, I accidentally selected Home Office Expenses. I realized that my un-reimbursed $10.92 amount is so trivial that it did not matter, and that it really applies to real home offices for those who are self-employed. I do not really qualify for this under IRS guidelines. So I used the website's "Back" button and then deselected the Home Office Expenses from the section where it asked if I had any deductible expenses, and moved on. It wasn't till closer to the end during the error checking portion did I realize that TurboTax actually remembered this! I was pissed! But thankfully this was an extra form 2106, not an item in the 1040 form like that of the HSA, so all I had to do was delete that form rather than starting all over! Crappy website! This never happened with previous, unimproved versions of TurboTax. I had to do some research to find out that it was a form that I could delete, so it wasn't so trivial of a time waste.

Then when I finished the preparation, TurboTax indicated that I can stretch my refund by 10 to 20 percent. Sounds like a sweet deal, right? Well, there is a catch though. Instead of getting cash back and directly deposited to your designated bank account, you can convert the refund into gift certificates for your own use. So if you decide to get $200 in Gap gift card, the card will actually be worth $220. Nice, right? But you have to pay ridiculously high amounts for shipping and handling! A gift card cannot be that hard to handle, much less heavy to ship, right? I busted out laughing when I saw that! The "savings" you get actually got wiped out by shipping and handling fees! I wonder how many TurboTax customers out there fell for this gimmick. =) I took the cash refund option without a heartbeat!

Finally, there's the ridiculously high convenience fee you pay TurboTax if you don't want to use a credit/debit card or mail in a check to pay for taxes you owe. Unfortunately, I owe the state of Illinois one buck. If I want TurboTax to deduct $1 from my expected federal refund, I have to pay TurboTax $29.95 plus tax to get this done. Wow! Talk about nickel and diming me to death! I would rather use my credit card to pay that $1 I owe Illinois, thank you.

Ugh, what a horrid experience. TurboTax certainly gave new meaning to "Death and Taxes" this year, for sure! Even with the gazillion explanations TurboTax provided to ease the understanding of taxes, I had to actually use Google multiple times to understand some stuff. All I have to say is thank goodness there is the Internet and Google. So I spent almost five hours doing my taxes. Is that reasonable? I don't know. I'll give you the fact that I actually did get side tracked for a little bit when I sent out a few text messages on my phone, and that I started chatting with my friend Bill when I first called him to clarify the silly Health Savings Account. Altogether, I could not have taken more than half an hour being side tracked.

But you know what? After all that hardship, I am getting a big chunk of money back. Yay! Now, the real question is should I be a responsible adult and put that money towards the principal balance of my mortgate or car loan (both of which have somewhat high interest rates), or put it into my tiny {if any} savings account that only yields a puny four percent interest, or be irresponsible and use that money to spend on unnecessary toys? Ah, decisions, decisions! ;-)

Okay, it's a little past 18:00. I originally planned to do my taxes in lesser time so that I could go out and play along the lake. But seeing the sun is going to set in just a little over an hour, maybe I should just ride my bike? Too bad I missed out on such a beautiful day. But we'll see!

Aarthi's New Anti-Weber Grill

Well, I was a good boy today. After work, I went for a five mile run. Yeah! The only thing that sucked though was that I ended up averaging a 10 minute mile pace. I was slow! I am starting to think that I have a weight problem. And when I got back, I stole a few quick glances in the mirror after stripping naked for the shower. Ugh. I have overflow! Especially in the belly section! So yeah, I think I really need to be serious about my health and running goals. Gotta give up the alcohol and sweets!

Anyway, after the run around 19:00, Erin and I decided to go get dinner at this Japanese restaurant in Wrigleyville, then hit up some local bars. The plan was to meet her at the Addison station after my shower. Half way down the ride to Addison, I got a call from her telling me that we are going to Aarthi's instead for barbeque and drinks. Sweet!

But when I got to Addison, I waited. And waited. Then Erin called, asking me to get a bag of ice at the 7-Eleven store across the street. Apparently Erin was asked to go grocery shopping! {By the way, I was shocked to learn that she didn't know what cilantro was!!! LOL} With my bag of ice, waiting at the corner, looking all out of place, I noticed this little girl walking up the street with her hands full! Ha ha ha! I guess they gave her a list of food to get!

When we finally got to Aarthi's, I quickly learned that we will be earning our food! First, we had to carry in her new Brinkman's gas grill from the car in the basement. Next, we had to assemble the grill. And then we had to assemble the patio chairs! I started chuckling inside. But it was all good, for I really wanted to check out Aarthi's new dig. And this was no small barbeque dinner for sure. Her sister, Shivani, was in town for the weekend, so the entire gang was there.

Finally, at around 22:00, A-Train, Cliff and I got the grill assembled and the heat cranked up for the very first time! You see, I lived in Kansas City for a number of years before moving here, and I can tell you that grilling was a weekly ritual during the summers. I miss that. A lot! But this time, I got to enjoy the very first grill in Chicago. There were a lot of people I have not met before, so I had to contain my excitement secretly.

When the food was finally grilled and served, it was pure yummy. I had a Bocca veggie burger and two chicken sausages. Hey, at least they are somewhat healthier than red meat. =) I knew I wanted to improve my running from last year, so I chose not to drink any beer. Instead, I had Diet Coke the entire night. Pretty good, right? But then, my sweet tooth caved in. I had a couple Dove ice cream bars and two servings of the pound cake with fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream! So much for kicking the dessert habit! =) Cela est la vie!

Then somehow, someone mentioned bling. If you know Aarthi at all, you would know that she gets overly excited just as much as me when someone mentions the word "boobs!" Ha ha, I kid! Then we started donning wigs and bling, as Aarthi has a huge collection of it. The worst part about all this? None of us were really that drunk, yet we were acting all foolish! Ah... What a fun-filled night it turned out to be! And of course, Aarthi felt obliged to show her guests pictures from the last impromptu bling party last year. Where not only did I wear wigs, but I also got dressed up in some of Aarthi's dresses! Of course, the link to those pictures will never appear here!

So it all started with a small dinner and drinks with Erin, and it ended up being a huge barbeque dinner party with bling. Nice! Maybe I can defer my sleeping in till the day after never! =)

Come 2 Bar!

Yesterday (Wednesday), I made a last minute decision to go do the fun run with Katie, Myke {White Kenyan}, Jeff, and others at Momentum. They do this once a month, and I rarely get to go because I'm always on the road Monday's through Thursday's and it is always on a Wednesday. Anyway, this came about from the owner's bright idea to partner with Chicago Area Runners Association {which I'm a proud member of} and one of the running companies for sponsorship, where the course is themed and at the end, they feed you pizza and beer, as well as a giveaway raffles.

If you have done this at least once, you'll know that Kacey {or Kasey, or Casey}, the sweet, spunky daughter of the store owner, is very extroverted, smart, and always the one to pick and call out the raffle winners. What was strange though, was that one of the other people who was part of our little circle of friends has this thing for Kacey. Every moment he gets to talk before and after the run, he would mentionshow great, or how cute, or how pretty, or whatever this girl is. No big deal, really. But then, after the five mile run {during which he mentioned Kacey twice}, and after the pizza and beer, this guy {who shall remain anonymous to protect the innocent, uhm, the not innocent} said to Katie and me, "Well, you guys ready to go? I gotta get out of here before I decide to kidnap Kasey and have her parents come after me. And that wouldn't be good." Then he proceeded to head to the trash can to dispose of his paper plate.

Katie and I just stood there, jaws dropped. We cannot believe what we have just heard! This unnamed guy and I are not exactly tight friends, but I don't ignore him right out. But after that, I have kind of begun to wonder about him. I mean, he is an oddball to begin with, but with this fascination with a twelve year old girl obsessively, he is starting to look very creepy.

Anyway, back to the original point. After unnamed guy has dropped Katie and me off at our places, I got this text message from Kathy: "Come 2 bar!" Uh, what? I mean, Kathy is a new neighbor of mine, as she has just bought a condo at my neighborhood. And speaking of which, I have lived here for almost two years, and I have never really ventured out to my neighborhood bars. I mean, all my other buddies would always hit it up at Wrigleyville or Rush/Division area, and if it wasn't any of those, it would be Black Rock. So I decided, why not. Be venturesome. Besides, the two cans of Miller Lite were not exactly enough.

After a little bit of prodding, I learned that this "bar" is the Ole St. Andrews Inn, a good eight blocks away. So I walked there, and met up with Amber and Kathy. It was dead, but I met some cool people. Moe, a bartender off-shift, Nahdia, another bartender who was working that night, and regulars. I like that place, so I plan on hitting that place up at least once a month. So yeah, from now on, Ole St. Andrews Inn will always be synonymous with just "bar." All you have to say is, "Come 2 bar," and I shall be there! =)

Are You Kidding Me?

In the last few days, I have been reading news in my total boredom. And what do I get? Some crazy stuff, I tell ya! I just shake my head, and say, "My, my, my." So let's start with Indonesia, where I spent the better 12 or 13 years of my life growing up in. Some of you may or may not know that Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Despite that, it is a nation with mostly moderate Muslims, unlike some other Islamic nations. But recently, Tangerang, a suburb of the capital city Jakarta, is considering a new law that can get you arrested if you kiss in the lips with a non-relative for five minutes, or touch each other sensually, in public. I can already see this now--all cops will be equipped with a stop watch, and all couples out and about will be timing their own personal exchanges of love to just four minutes and fifty-five seconds. Or worse yet, Tangerang may soon become the first in-breeding, white trash {or, uhm, brown trash} city in Southeast Asia. {Read about it at CNN.}

Then there is the case of the sandwich. You would consider an $8 sandwich at the airport a daylight robbery, right? Well, that is just chump change compared to what I learned as an offering in the United Kingdom at some upscale shopping centre. For a whopping $150, you can have a small sandwich called the McDonald sandwich made out of some specially molded bread, Wagyu beef {what the hell is Wagyu beef anyway?}, and a slice of "Europe's finest cheese," which, of course, has nothing to do with the well-known McDonald's here state-side. Who pays that much for a roast beef sandwich? I guess Arby's may need to reconsider their market entry into the United Kingdom. ;-) {Read about it at Yahoo News.}

And also from the same nation known as the UK, in the spirit of the upcoming Easter Sunday, the La Maison du Chocolat store will sell an Easter chocolate egg for a nice $85,000. {Ha ha, that just turned the McDonald sandwich into chump change, doesn't it?} This egg is not for the weak, as it stands two feet tall, and assembled in Paris through three weeks of French labor {or equivalent to just shy of two weeks in US productivity, thanks to the national law limiting work to thirty something hours a week}. Hey, if your girlfriend is high maintenance and super skinny, skip the mayonnaise sandwich and buy her this diamond-encrusted chocolate egg. Of course, the consumption of diamonds, as well as finishing it in a single sitting is highly discouraged. {Read about it at the Sun.}

Now, I assume that most of you have seen that South Park movie where you blame everything bad on Canada, right? No? How about that one piece on Late Night with Conan O'Brien where Triumph the Insult Comic Dog went to Canada for a little jolly ol' poke of fun at them? Still no? Well, either way, we can easily avoid the blaming and humiliating games easily. The resolution? Why not just amalgamate the United States of America and Canada? It will be a win-win situation, I'm sure. Those poor Canadians can help pay for our incredibly deep national debt in return for better minimum wage, lower unemployment rate, and higher disposable income per capita. But we may have to learn French, and God forbid, get rid of the extremely complicated Medicare program that W has introduced. {Read all the research on United North America's web site.}

And finally, let's bring it back home to the red, white and blue! I know that this rarely happens in Chicago or other cities like New York City where walking is a common {and popular} mode of transportation, but have you ever experienced how ridiculously short of a time allocation the "Walk" sign affords you at big intersections in suburban cities, like Kansas City suburbs? Here you are, crossing six lanes of road, and the time the light gives you to walk stay green for just a mere ten seconds. Of course, in suburban areas like Oak Park, Olathe, etc around Kansas City, nobody uses the sidewalks. Everybody freaking drives, so nobody really cares about this short time allowance. But what if you are caught on the road when the light turns to "Don't Walk?" Well, apparently in the city of Los Angeles, an 82 year old lady with a cane could not cross the street in time, resulting in a $114 traffic ticket, courtesy of the famous LAPD that pledges to eliminate corruption and realign itself to protect and SERVE its community. Right. This just gives me another reason why I dislike Los Angeles and refuse to move there, despite the fact that I will be closer to my family if I have done so. {Read about it at the Associated Press.}

So there you have it, folks. Five things that made me wonder, "What the hell?"

Television Adverts {can I say boobies?}

Ouch. I hurt. You know how I said earlier I would go do a five mile run? Right. I got out for my debut along-the-lake run for 2006, and it did not take more than a quarter of a mile to realize that my cheap $12 weight scale {which, really, is a mass scale} is crap all along. I mean, some time ago, I used Kathy's super nice scale at Amber's and I came in at a whopping 167 pounds! But before that, and consequently multiple times thereafter, I have always been coming in at 160. Apparently my scale is lying, because I could not run for jack today, and had to cut it down to three miles. Sigh...

{On a side note, the reason it should be called a mass scale is because mass is a measurement of how much matter an object has, and weight is how much of a gravitational pull on said mass has. But you know what, even though a guy should never ask a girl her weight, or age for that matter, it just wouldn't sound right when I say, "Honey, your mass is just fine where it is." I'm sure any girl will somehow, magically construe the word "mass" as a hidden implication that I'm telling her she is fat, as in "massive." Pity the nerdy physicist when he talks to his wife. =) Oh, and bear with me for just a few more seconds before I talk about boobies.}

Well, apparently the constant dessert and alcohol consumption has surely reared its ugly head during today's run. And it did not help one bit with the ten-plus miles per hour head wind when I started out southbound. That was weird, because I was not all that negatively affected over a week ago when I did the 8K Shamrock Shuffle. But I am sure that the energy from the massive crowd, along with the adrenaline pumping, had something to do with making the run then faster and easier, as opposed to today's run. And it was SO unfair that the wind died down when I turned around! What was up with that? Ugh! So I started out with an eight minute-mile for just a few minutes, and rounded out with an average of 10.5 minute-mile pace the rest of the way. Crap! So yeah, I think I might follow Erin's lead and get off the alcohol band wagon. Well, I may have a glass of wine here and there, but I definitely need to cut out desserts. Fo' shure!

After returning home and stretching a bit, I already have missed half of my favorite show, How I Met Your Mother. So I cooked up some spaghetti for dinner, which will be my diet for a long time to come with the outdoor physical activity seasons well underway. No more fats and sugars; just simple carbs {lots of it} and veggies. Yum. Anyway, so I settled and turned to watch a couple good shows, 24 and CSI: Miami.

Now, whenever I watch live television {meaning shows not recorded on my computer while out and about or whatever}, I tend to run off to the kitchen or whatever to do other stuff of no significant value {to both you, my readers, and myself}. Halfway through CSI, the audio from the second advert caught my ears: "America's favorite push up bra is now even better, smoother, sexier." Uh... Okay. I guess I missed out on watching the disgustingly skinny girls on television. But I rarely listen to the audio whenever Victoria's Secret adverts come on in front of me, as I somehow have this inherent switch in my brain that only seems to exist in the male species that tune out everything while I fixate my dropped-jaws stare on screen. =)

Then it got me thinking, since I actually heard what was said this time around. Now, why is it that Victoria's Secret would design a bra that specifically helps women create a fake front {uh, pardon the pun on the "front"} with super, voluptuous cleavage? Now, before you girls get on my case, please hear me out first. Seriously. First, it reminded me of what Erin, a salesperson by trade, once said to me. To sell, you need to preempt it with pointing out a deficiency on the customers' part that will urge them to buy whatever it is being sold. Now, selling manufactured stones to architects or refrigerators to igloo dwellers are one thing, but telling women that their boobs are deficient and needing the extra push is kind of wrong, don't you think? I mean, I'll admit that I am not a boob person, as I hold the belief that if it's a handful {or mouthful}, it is just fine, and anything more is just extra {in a good way, of course}. Why can't we celebrate the uniqueness of women's bodies? I mean, come on, I would be bored to tears if every woman I undress look alike in physical attributes. So why push the idea that people need this thing that everybody supposedly wants? Sure, it will attract guys' attention, but trust me, any chick that shows some booby skin {or gets naked, for that matter} will always get a guy's attention, no matter how hot or ugly she is. Same goes with the ugly, hairy-assed plumber working under your sink showing that glorious crack. You know how many times I have heard girls say, "Eww, it was nasty, but I just could not keep my eyes closed!" What is the natural attraction there that draws the attention? Granted, I am not a normal dude; in fact, I might as well be a minority here. But it is true that stuff like this just tends to draw our attention, as part of human nature.

Second, do girls really want to project something they're not? I liken that to online dating sites where women post pictures of themselves five years younger and fifty pounds lighter. {Okay, a slight exaggeration on my part, which not all women do, of course, but for the sake of argument.} For girl who really, really need the push-up bra, what if the guy she is dating goes well, and after several dates, the natural progression of things lead them both to bed? Will the girl ask for ALL lights to be turned off to the point of pitch black? When a girl does this, I automatically jump to the conclusion that she probably has low self-esteem, especially on her self image. And what's next? Once the guy realizes that she isn't really what he had imagined from the basis of the "previews" and leaves her, where does that leave the girl? Okay, so I am painting a shitty picture of men, but honestly, a decent majority of guys out there {myself excluded, of course} are ass holes! So is it the guy's fault that things didn't work out {because the girl didn't measure up to his physical expectations from when he undressed the girl in his mind during previous dates}, or the girl's fault for presenting something that is not a reality {because she felt the need to use some extra lure or bait or something}? I honestly don't know whose fault it would be in such a hypothetical scenario. It would remind me of that scene from Animal House. But I can honestly say that one thing that totally turns me on is the imperfections and uniqueness of a girl's glorious mammary glands, especially if it is apparent that one is smaller than the other. Hey, that's just me. And a few of you may already know that, especially Jennifer from North Carolina. {Why did we even have that discussion at Sluggers that night; I don't know.}

So there you have it. My opinions on Victoria's Secret television advert. And who knows, I may be totally off track on this subject, as I myself am not a girl. But hey, at least that's my honest opinion. But it sure is not a steadfast one, as I am willing to learn more and expand my understanding of women's needs. If any of you {girls or boys} disagree, feel free to let me know. You can either agree, add more to the topic, vent, or even curse me out. Whatever you do, just have the courtesy to explain yourself so I may be convinced to see your point of view. ;-)

Okay, enough blogging for the day. Now I need to jump in the shower, as I still smell of runner's sweat. Yum!

Dinner with the big kahuna!

So today has been another one of those work days from home that is filled with boredom. Even the news wasn't all that exciting. I mean, the only thing of any importance {to me personally} is the massive protest across the nation on the subject of immigration reform, while Congress decided to go into a two week recess last Friday without reaching any sort of progress or agreement between the two parties {how typical}. Other than that, CNN pretty much reported on some parents being upset about some school somewhere giving students credits if they participate in a protest where a teacher was present, some fire at a bus depot in New York City, and another fire somewhere else in Texas; all of which qualified as local news to me.

This is the third week in a row where I am not traveling for work, and I think I am starting to feel a little bit of the traveling withdrawal. So what did I do? I added more content to MySpace and did a good survey/bulletin that actually was not written by a high school kid! Imagine that! The one positive thing about not traveling this week in particular is the fact that I will be able to go to the Filing Frenzy Fun Run hosted by Momentum with a few other friends this Wednesday. And the weather is finally getting warmer, unlike this past weekend when it was frigid at night!

Oh, I got an email from my manager today, and it turns out that he is in town working at one of our clients, Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Since I'm not traveling, he wanted to meet tomorrow night for dinner. Hmm... I hope this is really just for dinner, because I don't feel like listening to any bad news. ;-) Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to be laid off, since I can look forward to the nice fat severance package, and perhaps that will finally get me to look for a local job? If only I'm not too picky. I need to learn to suck it up, go for the higher pay in exchange for some crappy company, instead of working at a good company for less pay {and occasionally having to work through weekends without comp time}. Ha ha ha.

Speaking of the nice weather, it's 66 degrees out there right now. I think I should go stretch and do a short five mile run. That would be lots of fun. And I hope that the chill is finally gone for good, cos it is a big demotivation to my spirit to run. The exception, of course, being the Shamrock Shuffle last weekend, where I paid $30 for a bottle of beer at Grant Park! Come rain, sleet or snow, I am having that $30 cheap beer! LOL

Sick.

I noticed that every time I start exercising, especially during times when I exert more than ordinary effort, my lungs would produce more mucous than normal. Yeah, I have been told that's exercise induced asthma, and so far Zyrtec, Singulair and plenty of sleep have been helping me with that. However, not this time. And it was so bad that I had to go to the hospital to see my doctor.

This hospital wasn't the same as the usual one I go to at Northwestern. It was sprawled out with just two floors. Given that it was a Sunday, I had to wait in my rather large examination room for a long time. It was so spacious that my living room sort of dwarves in comparison. Then there were these four kids who kept on entering my room to play around! I could tell that the oldest girl was the ringleader here, as the other younger boys and another girl were mostly hesitant whenever a mischievous opportunity presented itself. The older girl would always say, "C'mon! Who cares?"

Anyway, while waiting a rather long time, I realized that these kids would spend a lot of time rummaging through the cupboards to my left, and then leaving. And I would always know that they're back when I would hear the little laughter and giggling in the hallway, before my door swings open again. There were times they would look at me, with eyes that gave away the thought of, "You don't look sick to be in the hospital, so why are you here?" But they would never say anything. Whenever I say a hello, they would just scurry away.

Finally, this last time, they took a bag out of the cupboard and hurriedly left. As annoying as it was to have these little tykes come in and go as they please in my exam room in a hospital, I started to miss them when they didn't return for a long time. But it was no big deal. Then another hour passed by, and finally a doctor, not my regular one, walked right in. Behind him in tow were the kids! What a striking resemblance between two of them and the doc. I must say, those two must have been the doctor's own kids. But he didn't make any introduction or the sorts. They just stayed silent, occasionally giving me shy glimpses before looking at their feet. I could tell that whatever fun they were in was over. My doctor told me real quick that they were swamped and that I would have to wait longer. And they all left. Ugh!

So I started out with just wandering around the hallway near my room and returning. I noticed that there were no nurses around. It was rather strange, I thought. Eventually I started wandering around further away. And that's when I first saw a long snake. Or rather, the snake first saw me. I bumped into something on my feet, and upon checking it out, this long snake has its tail end near my feet, and the head further away rose up and turned its head at me, as if it was ready to strike. Uhm, yeah, that was freaky. I just froze. Luckily it just went away after a few short moments.

I rushed back to my room to get my camera from the jeans I had to change out of, cos you know me, I never go anywhere without my camera, even when I visit the hospital! When I got it, I went out in search of this snake with which I had a close encounter with just moments earlier. But I could not seem to find it. And I'll tell you what, this hospital was huge, I noticed. But stranger yet, I didn't come across anyone still, especially the staff.

Eventually, I came across the kids running by the hallway. And my best friend was with them. So I tagged along. Apparently, they found this area with a small inner courtyard surrounded by a walkway on four sides, and they wanted to show me something cool. Hey, I'm not going to complain about that. =)

When we got there, I could not believe my eyes. There were snakes galore. But mysteriously, the kids ran off again. And it was just my best friend and I. The suppressed Japanese tourist gene in me came out and I started taking pictures. At first I was standing kind of far away from these creatures that seem to be moving slowly and without regard of our presence. Then slowly I got bolder over time that I started taking the pictures real close. That was when one of them hanging off of a tree branch in the courtyard all curled up decided to lunge at me. I got away, but that was super close. I looked at the picture, and laughed, because you can see the snake with its mouth wide-open coming at the camera. I showed my best friend, and he laughed too.

We finally got bored of this, so we decided to go somewhere else. But we were lost. I did not know how to get back to my room. And somehow, we ended up at a wing where the hallways were narrower. And to my horror, there always one or two snakes in the hallways! Then I started feeling that my situation was getting worse. Each time we pass by a snake, it tried to strike us! Why?!? You would think that if they were going to have snakes in the hospital, especially in the nice courtyard, that they would have the safe, un-poisonous, and non-aggressive types. Looks like a few got loose.

So we decided that this is crap and we could not take it any more, so we ran into the first room we saw. There she was, my sister waiting for me in there, surrounded by a bunch of other people whom I did not recognize for the most part. Some old lady was weak and sitting up at her bed. Apparently everybody was waiting for someone. I asked Szu what was going on, and before she had a chance to respond, Kathy Griffin walked in. We hugged briefly, and thanked Szu and I for taking the time out of our busy schedule to swing by with her family while her aunt was sick.

Then everyone started grabbing a chair to sit down, but I decided to stand. My sister grabbed a chair and each time she tried to scoot into the circle that was forming, Kathy's relatives would scoot in a way to block her out of the circle. So Szu just gave up, thinking that we were not welcome. After all, we only know Kathy and none of her family members. After joking around with the sick aunt, which I have to say, the humor was apparent as a family trait, I bided farewell, gave Kathy another hug, and went back in search of my examination room, while Szu decided to stay.

On my way back, this time alone, things got direr. It was extremely stressful and scary, because I am extremely terrified of snakes. I mean, if it was at the zoo behind some glass or cage, that would not have been a problem, but when there was nothing between them and myself, with the occasional attacks, it was a huger problem for me!

Finally, I came across the biggest one there ever was. I was about to faint, but just kept my cool. I could see my room, and the only thing between that and myself was this big snake. Then it started to slither slowly towards me. I froze, thinking not to startle it with any sudden moves. But what do I do? It kept on getting closer and closer. And this one was a good twelve footer! And I could have sworn that it was looking right at me, coming towards me!

That was when I woke up. I have never sweated so much in bed, with the sheets around my legs soaking wet, and the back of my shirt was just as bad. And I had dripping sweat on my forehead. Normally I don't remember most of my dreams, but this one was so spooky and visual that it stuck in my head. The funny thing is that when you dream, sometimes you don't have a face to certain individuals, and I am puzzled as to who my best friend in the dream was. It wasn't Cesar, as the voice and accent didn't match. It wasn't anybody from my past, either. And when have I ever been a close friend with Kathy Griffin? Stranger yet is that I am not a particular fan of her either. What is the meaning of this dream? I just hope that I don't ever have a dejavu feeling of this in the future, because I don't think I can handle it.

Okay, now that I have put memory to paper {or digital blog}, I can now try to relax and distract myself with other less scary thoughts. That was way too weird! So now, the total count of dreams I explicitly remember with great details is five or six. Two from my childhood, and the rest from my adulthood. I still shudder from this past dream. Brr...

Come on, take it from me...

What a weekend! And it's technically not over yet. But I'm sure looking forward to the sleeping in thing. =) Anyway, it's almost 2:30 in the morning right now, and I just got done with doing the dishes. What a chore!

I had a small dinner party at my place earlier in the evening, and this time around, the food didn't turn out horrendously horrid! ;-) Although it wasn't a huge party or anything of the sorts, we did accumulate quite a lot of plates and silverware. My dish rack is not only full, but triple stacked with my mad balancing skills. God forbid if something was to fall overnight while I'm asleep. That sure would freak me out. Although it is a lot of work to cook for people and entertain them, I somehow derive pleasure from it. It's kinda weird, I admit.

So now I'm just chilling in my living room, blogging away while listening to the Weepies on my comfy Ikea chair, relaxing my back muscles after standing straight up at the sink for a couple hours. It was a great way to pass the time, with Jem and Tegan and Sara playing in the background.

By the way, if you can't tell already, I'm tired and not the least bit creative, so pardon the lack of humor in this blog. But you know what? I'll tell you a great story. One about First Friday at the Museum of Contemporary Arts yesterday.

Erin, Christine and I went over to McCormick and Schmick's for "happy hour" before First Friday. It must have been the subconscious ness at play, for that night was a first for a few things. Every time we head over there {or Kinzie's, for that matter}, we always take advantage of the happy hour specials and pig out. But this time, instead of that, we actually had real dinner. Well for me, I was still going to have the happy hour specials, but they ran out of the Salmon Cakes. Then there's the soda. I have not had soda in over four to five months, and I actually ordered two ginger ales! I guess I wasn't in the mood for alcohol.

Dinner was not all that exciting, so shortly thereafter, we headed off to the MCA to meet up with the rest of the folks. I saw Liz and Holly, both of whom I have not seen in a while. While we were all gathering around waiting for the others, Holly started fumbling around in her two purses. That's when I caught a glimpse of the contents of one of the bags. Apparently she is knitting.

Since I have not seen her in a while, I decided to be jovial with her, as that instantly reminded me of the Grey's Anatomy Name of the Game episode. Now, for those of you who are not a fan of Grey's Anatomy, shame on you! =) But anyway, in that episode, Meredith is knitting because she decided to take a vow of celibacy and stay away from guys. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But silly me, with my tendencies {or reputation} of always putting my foot in the mouth or screwing things up, I joked with Holly by asking, "You know what they say about girls who pick up knitting?" Of course, she was obliged by responding in kind, "What?" And the next thing out my mouth was, "Girls who pick up knitting is just a sign that they're not getting some."

The millisecond right after I said that, I realized two things. One, I screwed up that reference to Grey's Anatomy show; and two, I just insulted my friend! And she did not laugh or indicate anything to the sorts that it was funny! So I decided to salvage that awkward moment. But how does one recover from that joke-gone-bad? Then I just told her, "You know what? I'm digging a deeper hole here, so I best shut up. That wasn't what I mean, but in any case, I'm sorry." Stupid me! LOL Luckily, I didn't do that much damage, for she and I actually walked around the museum together shortly thereafter.

Now, I feel obliged to share this feeling with you: I CANNOT appreciate contemporary art. Seriously! Some of my photographic works and random stuff that I have done can just as well be qualified as contemporary art, if not better. How do you appreciate a simple "creation" which clearly reflected the lack of creativity on the artist's part? A black canvas with an orange border. Uhm, I can do that too. Taking two kneeling Buddhist statues depicting a prayer facing each other with a string tied between their praying hands and a safety pin hanging in the middle. What? Then the title of the work revealed as much, "Praying to Safety." Oh. My. Goodness. Later on, after I have left the MCA, I told Amber while at the Dark Horse that I may as well put my sucked lemon slice on the lip of my just emptied beer glass tilted, take a picture of it and call it contemporary art. Come on! And then my favorite was this: The "artist" printed out a small sheet of paper with a bunch of "I" repeating itself. Then this piece of paper was taped over a page in a novel or book, sectioned "Chapter I." Uh... Right. You know, I can get Peanut {Aarthi's cute cat} to walk across a blank piece of canvas with its paws soaked in black paint, and appropriately call this piece of work "Peanut Mood." Sure, nobody will appreciate it, but if I can just make up some stuff about it, like this represents my walking away from the dark anger that loomed around the atmosphere and the white canvas represented the clear freedom I'm walking towards, then all that pretentious people would clap their hands and say, "Brilliant!" Sigh...

Of course, I shouldn't knock contemporary art, for I have nothing featured at any kind of museum. But seriously! And it did not help one bit with all the pretentious people talking about the art and how they interpreted them. That in itself is fine, but the way they try to sound so insincerely knowledgeable and deeply insightful just makes me want to gag. And undoubtedly, these guys are more vocal about this art interpretation around a group of girls. Sigh.

And of course, Erin and Christine had to add that they can't tell which guys are straight and which are gay. Of course, that didn't bother me one bit, but then I was also having a hard time finding any cute girls I'm willing to approach. That was definitely not my kind of crowd.

One thing really funny did happen though. While listening to a live band playing some music, with no alcohol in me, I did not do much more than bouncing to the beat. But when this band started playing that song that has the upbeat lyrics go like, "I'm walking on sunshine," I started busting out in a mad dance move all of a sudden during the chorus as if I'm happy and all! The security guard close to us pretty much pissed her pants and almost died laughing. All my friends who know me started cracking up, and those around me who don't know me either just gave me the look that indicated "What the...?!?" or started walking away. Ha ha ha. I love doing stuff like that. You see, I'm not one of those people who need to get a bit tipsy or drunk to bust a move. But I only did that because I was utterly bored out of my mind. =)

So yeah, nothing much happened for the weekend. And now I'm just listening to Alanis Morissettte. Don't ask why I like her music. I'm just twisted like that. Okay, it's past three now, so I best head to bed. Have a good evening!

Members Only / A Digital Wet Dream

Okay, so I don't talk about what I do for a living much, mostly because I deem it boring and useless. Sure, in a very indirect way, I am contributing to the welfare of healthcare, and preventing medical errors that may cost lives. But I consider my geeky job as something that is not that passionate and intellectual.

Let me digress a bit. In my humble opinion, knowing everything about "computers" does not exactly constitute higher intelligence. Computers are factual. They are designed by humans with a blue print, and all you have to do is understand the logic and how it works, so forth. But true intelligence is something along the lines of a philosopher, psychiatrists, psychologists, or sociologists. Anything else is not intelligence, mainly because all the areas I just mentioned involve a higher awareness of being, as well as something that can aid society.

Anyway, back to the point. So this is one rare opportunity where I'll get to share with you a little tidbit about what I do. I go to hospitals and help them set up redundancy and fault tolerance on their super computers and large scale enterprise databases. That merely means that should something fail, like a disk gone bad, or a power supply dies, the hospital is not necessarily affected negatively. With high availability solutions, a hospital can continue to function regardless of failure.

So what does that have to do with this blog? Well, I have all this knowledge and experience to help hospitals set up high availability and eliminate points of failure for their most critical systems. Yet, I have endured two hard drive failures since I have moved to Chicago! The first one was a big scare, because I thought I have actually lost ALL of my pictures from 2001 to 2004, and all of my emails from 1998 to 2004. Then I found out that I have a saved image to restore from, thanks to my prep work prior to moving here from Kansas City. Then the next failure was less than a year ago. It was by chance that I had some sort of a backup system going on, so once my hard drive died unexpectedly, I was able to restore nicely.

And that brings us to today. Recently, my hard drive has been acting up, behaving the same way as it had as a harbinger to my prior drive failures. And this time, I have no back up in place. So I panicked. After much thought and deliberation, I decided that it is time for me to purchase a Network Attached Storage system with RAID capability. In other words, this just means that it is an external hard drive system by itself on the network with built-in redundancy and some features of high availability. It was definitely not cheap, as I thought really hard before spending over $800 on this nifty device.

Mind you, this equipment was intended for small businesses. But for some reason, I have amassed so much digital media that I cannot afford to lose. For example, since purchasing my first digital camera at the end of 2001, I have taken 18,376 pictures to date, all worth 30 GB! If you don't know how much that is, think of it this way. When you go out and buy a new computer, more than likely the hard drive that comes with it has a capacity of 40 GB. For an average person, that much capacity can last her/him about three years.

Then there's the music collection that I have purchased over the years. Excluding the music I have yet to sort and categorize, I have 11,966 songs, equivalent to a continuous playback for 35 days, all worth 57 GB. At 99 cents a song, reacquiring that many songs can be expensive! And I have not yet gotten into all the important documents and research paper I have saved over the years.

So today, I finally received my NAS device. The one I purchased has a capacity of a terabyte. Which means... {Drum roll.} I am now officially a member of the tera club! So how much is a TB, or terabyte? That is 1,000 GB. And why is this such a big deal? Well, it was not more than six years ago that Hallmark and Wal-Mart both boasted that they were one of the few companies in the world that has data warehouse with terabytes of data. Back then, a terabyte of storage had cost tens of thousands of dollars. Thanks to the rapid advancement in technology, a terabyte of data can be had for $1,000. And thanks to the internet and online price shopping, I was able to get my hands on this specific NAS device for $800.

So yeah, now you can totally understand why I'm having such a huge, digital wet dream. Of course, I'm going to have to pay out of my nose for this "toy," but it will make me sleep better at night knowing that nothing will be lost if a drive failed. Well, of course, unless there is a fire at my condo, in which case I am screwed. =) But I'm not sure if I can sleep tonight though, because I'm torn in deciding the type of RAID to configure for my NAS. RAID 1 is extremely highly available and redundant, but slow and provides lesser usable space {half of the terabyte capacity}. Then there is RAID 5, which offers the best performance with a nice balance of redundancy and efficiency. At this configuration, my usable space is three quarters of the terabyte. Hmm... Decisions.

Luckily, before heading out to Amber's, I was able to play with it and set it up on my home network. It took a couple hours, but I did it! And now I'm just watching my existing data being copied onto the NAS. How sweet is that?!?

Okay, this concludes my geekiness episode. You will not see this again for a VERY long time, as I return to my normal self. =)

Scent of a Woman

ACK! What have I done to myself? As the impending {yet easily avoidable} end of my universe loomed around yesterday as the sun was setting, I decided to don on my crusader cape {more like an REI fleece jacket} and take matters into my own hands. I got into my batmobile {more like a slow, blue Land Rover Hippo} and dashed {more like drive and go, courtesy of the one stop light and five stop signs I have to drive through} towards my neighborhood convenient store to end this madness that is the end of my universe.

As I was still dazed and confused from the shock endured yesterday morning, I walked around the aisles aimlessly. I knew I had to get three essential items, but thought the aimless wandering around could serve a higher purpose of accidentally discovering additional items that I needed which I had not realized. You know, to prevent another universal meltdown, ha ha ha.

Before long, I got more than I had thought I would. Somehow I managed to grab a jar of strawberry preserves, a jar of peanut butter {reduced fat, creamy style, thank you}, a bag of frozen mini bagel dogs {can you say, lips and asses?}, and a Hershey's candy bar, all of which I do NOT need! Thankfully though, I did not forget my family pack of toilet paper {for which I have no room to store}, cartons of Silk and Tropicana orange juice, and a twelve-pack of Dove soap.

Ladies and germs, I mean, gentlemen, this is where things go wrong. I woke up this morning, unwrapped the twelve-pack and grabbed a box of soap, and stepped into the shower. As the hot, steamy shower runneth over my body {I hope I am NOT turning you on}, I proceeded to cleanse myself. And there it was! I just realized that the soap I got was scented!

Normally that's not a bad thing, as I used to use the Dove aromatherapy shower cream {why can't they just call it gel like every other manufacturer?!?}, but the difference here being that when you're done showering, you only have a faint scent lingering around, as the aroma was strongest during the shower. I have to resort to soap now, because that same Dove aromatherapy shower cream was thick and had little scent pearls {or beads} that clogged up my dispenser! Anyway, so now I have to resort to soap. And Dove soaps have a strong lingering scent well after your shower! I mean, it is already hours past that hot, steamy shower to rouse my sleepy self, but c'mon! I shouldn't smell like a girl still! And imagine, I have eleven bars of this same soap to go. It is going to be a long, long time. Hopefully nobody notices it in the future.

Ah, the scent of a woman. On a man. ;-)

The End of the World {sort of}

Okay, what I'm about to say hardly constitutes a real end to my world, much so like the night I ran out of dental floss on a Sunday night in Baltimore was. But it's pretty high up there. Relatively speaking, of course. =)

I woke up today and poured myself a bowl of Autumn Wheat cereal. Then I opened the fridge, and to my demise, no carton of vanilla flavored soy milk could be surveyed over the horizons of refrigerator racks! What?!? I always have two cartons of soy milk, and two of orange juice, in the fridge. But I guess with my being home all of last and this week, I must have misjudged the rate of food consumption. After all, I went to the grocery store just over the weekend and skipped purchasing the soy milk thinking I have enough for another week!

So now my bowl of cereal is sitting all alone on top of my kitchen counter. In lieu of that, I ate two bananas and a cereal bar that I got from the end of the Shamrock Shuffle. And I'm still hungry. Well, that could be due to the close proximity to lunch time right about now though.

In any case, I've been thinking since the world crashed {yet again} this morning. I don't think that I like not traveling for work. I mean, it's good to have the rare opportunity to hang out with my friends during the weeknights {if possible}, but let me explain. First of all, as you have learned earlier, I run out of my essential foods faster. Then I also realize that I go through soap faster as well. I mean, a bar of soap generally lasts me over a month, but now it's almost like two weeks only. Then there's toilet paper. I just remembered that I am on my very last roll of toilet paper! And who can forget trash? My rubbish bin just gets fuller faster, and I have to take them out more often!

Who enjoys all that? I am way too accustomed to somebody making the bed, taking out the trash, refreshing the towel rack, replenishing the toilet paper and other toiletries, fresh breakfast every morning without worrying about running out of cereal or milk, all of which on a daily basis! {Ah... Heaven!} But of course, there's this thing called reality. Although the running out of soy milk was almost the end of my world, I also realize that hanging out with my friends more frequently far outweighs {okay, maybe not THAT much =) } the "pains" that I have to go through for working at home. Of course, there's that boredom during the day at home, but still it's worth it. Like last night, when I kicked off this work week with a little happy hour gathering at Kinzie's! {Where they serve happy chicken and happy calamari; not the sad and pathetic ones.}

So yeah, it's not really the end of the world. Well, it never has been anyway, but I thought it would be funny to use that as my blog topic. =) Okay, back to boredom. Maybe I'll watch the Tony Danza show during lunch this time instead of Sponge Bob Squarepants. That or All My Children... Nah. I'll just stick to CNN Headline News. =)

Spongebob and the flight of cells

Hmm... I am working from home this week again. How boring. So I decided to watch Nickelodeon during lunch, and Sponge Bob Squarepants was on. This is the first time I have ever watched it. And I kid you not, but I was glued to the television set. Not because it was an awesome show, but I just cannot even process at how dumb this show was. I can understand how children could have been captivated by this, but several years ago it was revealed that the number one audience of this show was college students and young adults, and it remains to be true today.

Seriously, are you kidding me? Why would young adults in college watch Sponge Bob Squarepants? I don't care if he is gay. But the story line, the pointlessness, and un-stimulating qualities of this show do not add up to a great cartoon. I mean, I would much rather watch Power Puff Girls, or any show from the WE channel. I swear felt some of my brain cells died off or took flight as I watched and listened to Sponge Bob.

My personal theory is that this cartoon is entertaining for college kids and young adults only while they are smoking it up in their dorm rooms. Are there any fans out there in my friends list? What do you think? Please share with me why this cartoon is so great. I felt like I have lost a few IQ points in the two episodes I sat through in the last hour, and I am dazed and confused as to why this cartoon is so awesome. =)

Season of Change {a perfect time for tights}

I never expected to have a small constant group of readers to visit my blog when I started this to change my lifestyle as I usher in 2006. I am super glad that you have chosen to read my mundane and trivial blogs of my life, hints of my political leanings and opinions, and some crazy other stuff. To my readers, I want to apologize for not keeping up with the blog this past weekend.

A short while ago, I decided that today {Sunday, 2006.04.02} would be a turning point this year where I will cease my being a lazy bum, reduce the amount of alcohol and desserts consumed {also known as my two vices}, and start getting somewhat serious with my running again. For it is Spring already, and I am excited about getting back out along the lake with my pair of running shoes, inline skates, and mountain bike. Besides, the weekly tiramisu and Ben & Jerry's ice cream are not exactly healthy, and I finally need to get rid of this unsightly, pudgy tummy that has been growing since last Thanksgiving. LOL

Why today? I chose today because, with the exception of the Arizona Marathon in January, today was the Shamrock Shuffle 8K race, my first event since winter. Although I did not train for this race, it is short enough where I can use it as a stepping stone into motivating my lardy {and droopy, if not flat} ass into gear and brave the still-cold-but-not-too-cold weather. And it sure did the trick! Now that I have a taste of running in the cold 40 degrees with high winds, I think I will be able to start running three to five miles every other day now. Okay, maybe with the exclusion of whenever I have to fly up to Michigan {or Minnesota for that matter} for work. =)

Now, you have been wondering about the short blog I posted on Friday night {or Saturday morning}. Let me explain. To kick off this season of change, I decided to have a night of big fun and debauchery in alcohol by playing speed quarters at Maria's. Have you ever heard of the smoker who yearns for the last heavy pull of an entire pack of fags {British slang for cigarettes} the day before said smoker has the quit? Yeah, this is something like that. Although I am not cutting off alcohol though; just drinking in extreme moderation and less frequency. With the exception of the monthly happy hours. =)

Anyway, I knew that I have to earn the right to be a college kid again {despite the fact that I rarely drank in college, if you conveniently exclude the first three semesters of my undergraduate life}, so I went over to the girls' place on Friday to help them pack and move into their respective new abodes. These girls being Amber and Kathy. And I must say, Amber's apartment is real cute and nestled in a fun neighborhood, and Kathy's a nice place with a kitchen worth sinning over {namely, envy}. Oh, and how can I forget? Preceding my assistance to moving the girls, I actually went to help move Kathy's funny friend, Troy. So yeah, I moved three people on Friday for almost seven hours straight. So I totally earned my right to drink and eat unlimited amount of pizza at Maria's! {Quotes from the evening: "Damn, you guys suck cos I'm starting to sober up!" "Gotta find my smooth spot!" "Pffffffph!" "I challenge you!" "Matt you suck, cos I only have two still!" "I'm Stevie Wonder!"}

For some odd reason, shortly after midnight, we took a little break from the game of speed quarters {probably to let the other boys go out and light up their cancer sticks} to get on the subject of other people in the extended circle of friends within this thing known as MeetIn. Since I was the one driving Maria's laptop, upon conclusion of musings and gossip and laughing with our fingers pointed at some web pages, I decided to blog. Yup; there it was! Another manifestation of my blogging addiction. Ha! Granted, it was short and sweet; direct to the point! And then Christine decided to dive into the meat lovers' pizza, for it was past Friday! And seeing how it was technically April Fool's Day, I sent Erin {absent from speed quarters} a prank text message, as well as Amber. Ha ha ha, devious little ol' me! Except my battery died later on, so I couldn't tell them that it was just a prank. Oops.

Around two in the morning, after finally having had our fill of games, food and booze, I was in no shape to head over to Amber's old place to pick up my car and drive. So I crashed at Maria's Matt's place. I must say, he has a nice apartment, and a comfortable bed. Alas, that blissful night of nap was all but long, for after just a mere five hours, I had to wake up and meet some friends at downtown for breakfast and packet pickup for the Shamrock Shuffle. Sadly, knowing that I have to cut back on the sin of gluttony right after this Sunday, I ordered the Eggs Florentine {a serving of two eggs}, with a side of two scrambled eggs! "Clog that artery!" I heard my evil twin within me say. Hee hee. Even sadder was the fact that after I found a short strand of hair on one of my eggs that could have been a short pubic hair, or just some short curly hair, I was starving enough {or maybe the hangover distorted my judgment?} to just set the hair aside and proceed to eat my food. In retrospect, I think that was a bad decision, as it was kind of gross!

After breakfast, we all went over to Navy Pier to pick up our packets, bibs, and goodies for the Shamrock Shuffle. Nothing too exciting there, so I shall just add bla bla bla, and more bla bla bla into this paragraph. Perhaps a touch of fluffy here and fluffy there will round out this boring task nicely. =) Shortly thereafter, Erin, Jeff and I decided to catch Thank You for Smoking, which turned out to be a great movie!

Now realize that by this time, it was already mid-afternoon, and I have not gone home to change for over 24 hours, so I was still wearing Friday's clothing from when I was moving the girls: shorts and a technical top. As I walked through downtown to CompUSA to pick up a couple ink cartridges, I noticed that I was the only crazy dude out there with shorts. And rightfully so, because the temperature was in the upper thirties that day! Ack!

Upon getting home finally, I decided that it would be smart to shower, do my taxes, go to bed early to account for the lack of sleep from the previous night and the impending "spring forward" time change. Well, it turned out otherwise. In anticipation of spring and my looking forward to taking my mountain bike to Wisconsin, I decided to finally install the rack and crossbars on my Hippo, and test it out to make sure that I have enough clearance in my garage. After a few runs and some close calls, I fit! Only if I drive squarely in the middle between the two overhead pipes as I go down to the lower level! Ha! Eat that, low ceiling! =) Anyway, after that, I ended up going out to dinner and a movie. Right; so much for the plan to sleep ten hours. Since it was with good company, it was well worth the tiny sacrifice {if even that}!

So that brings us back to today. With just under five hours of sleep, I did surprisingly well at the Shamrock Shuffle, despite the cold weather, lack of training, months of tiramisu deposited in my tummy, and the HUGE crowd (39,000). 8K in 42 minutes, including the 1:12 I spent in the porta-pot at 5K. =) The next thing that happened was quite a shocker! For the first time ever, this group of friends that I've been with for over a year decided NOT to take advantage of our free beer at the post-race party! Shocking! None of us ever turns down free beer! NEVER! But we did have a good excuse though. It was cold and windy, and it started to rain. So we went to Duffy's instead for some heavy breakfast buffet with free mimosa's. Ugh... So much for quitting the gluttony sin. But that will be my last one. I promise!

There you have it! My weekend in summary. And all this blogging done in under twenty minutes! Sweet!

Post Script: If you're wondering about the tights, look at the pictures. And also, in light of the season of change, I found out last night that my hot neighbors have moved out! When did that happen? Oh well, I'm sure I'll miss the chamber of smoke that they routinely pump into my apartment, and the Macadamia Nut cookies!