Today was pretty interesting. Here's the recap:
After attending the pretty much uneventful, but fun no less, bachelor party of a high school friend last night in Forest Park (just west of Oak Park), I was to wake up this morning at 7:30. Yeah, right. I don't remember shutting off my alarm and going back to sleep. I finally got up around 8:30am, and called Barb and Pete, as I was to spend the day with them, checking out their new house. I was going to put the link here, but then I noticed the prices are on the page, so I don't want to embarrass them. Barb and Pete, if you want to direct them to the site, that's up to you. Feel free to use my blog as a forum. Whatever. :)

So I went to their current apartment, where Barb was to make waffles. I felt bad, because, well, I felt bad. I didn't think I'd had that much beer, but I damn near threw up at their place. I had one tiny waffle, to put something down there...after the first bite, I really, really had to fight my stomach, and I won! Which is good...that moment determined the entire day. If I had given in and threw up, I'd have stayed at home all day. Instead, we drove up to Grayslake to see the model home. Beautiful. The place they're moving is awesome, and it's somewhere I'd aspire to living. I say aspire because I've got a long way to go. :) The house they chose, after looking at the other models online, is probably the nicest looking one. And despite the "it's a small house" claims (it is, really, at 1,730 square feet), it doesn't look or feel small at all.

Then we came back to my place and I rented the roto-tiller from Home Depot. We tilled up the footprint of where my veggie garden will be, which took no time at all. Then, they left to go to a family function, and I went through and pruned off all the dead foliage from my perennials from last year. I don't mind that chore at all, because it allows me to check out what's growing back and what's not. I was happy to see plenty of baby plants pushing up from the soil where they were last year. Of course, there are also plenty of baby weeds pushing up too, something I'm not too happy about. But it will need to be done.

So after I cut back the stupid out-of-control forsythia bush at the back of my main garden, I went into the house (and I just realized I left the pile of yellow-flower-covered branches on the lawn. Damn. Oh well...it'll look pretty for a day or so.) and relaxed. I thought about going out, but I figure I can just relax tonight.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. There's a bird somewhere in my walls or ceiling, or he could be in my closet or in the tiny room under the stairs. I discovered him in our laundry room earlier today, and later he went up in the ceiling and was in the walls. It's too bad too, because he'll probably die in there, but there's no way to get him out of here without letting him into my apartment--something I'm not comfortable at all with. If he re-emerges in the laundry room or workshop (where he likely got in through the chimney the first time and then got into the walls), I'll try to throw a towel over him and take him outside. But by then, who knows...I just hope he isn't in my closet dead...that won't be fun to clean up.

Well, sorry for the long post...it's been crazy... :)

Yesterday me and Luis went to the YMCA in Downers Grove to check it out and maybe work out a bit. It was pretty sweet, but damned expensive compared to the alternative: signing up for the "West Communities" YMCA membership, which is something like $25 a month, and you can go to any Y, including the Downers Grove one. According to Luis, the West Communities one pales greatly in comparison to the D.G. one. Downers Grove, until Sunday when the sale they have is over, costs $74 joiners fee plus $40 per month. Now, why would I pay that when I can pay $25 a month and still go to D.G.? Something doesn't compute, and it sounds too good to be true. But I figure I can try getting the West Communities membership and go to D.G. The worst they can do is tell me I can't get in, and then I'll just go to the West Communities one or stop going.

We worked out a bit...I jogged a mile and lifted some weights a little bit. After the last time I started working out again, I wanted to take it easy at first in order to not be terrifyingly sore and stiff the next day. It seemed to work, as I'm barely sore, but I can feel where I pushed myself a bit.

Now, hopefully things work out and I can work out and stick to it. Actually working out is half the battle. Eating better would be the other half, and that's a much, much harder proposition. :)

So HUGE!

My brother got the notice from the White Sox on our All-Star ticket package yesterday and I found out about it today. I'm thrilled, because our three years of planning (spending $450 for split-season tickets to get on the seniority list) has come to perfect fruition. For all the events (All-Star Game, Home-Run Derby, etc.) we will be sitting in section 103, row 28, seats 22-23. That's phenomenal seating in right-center field. And the best thing about it is that it will cost "only" $263 per seat. I say "only" because that's far less than what we expected.

So I'm in a very good mood today, at least for now. I scored another goal in hockey last night, even though we lost, extending my scoring streak to three games, but we face a major test next week, with a double-header. But the test is not that it will be a double-header so much in that we'll be missing three people on our typical roster. We'll be missing two guys, but we have enough guys to compensate. We'll be missing one girl, and if we don't find a replacement or two, we could be in trouble. So we shall see...

So, I didn't have time to post this earlier, but we were trying to figure out at work today the answer to the following question:

What are thousands of Iraqi-Americans doing living in Dearborn, Mich.? What is the draw to Dearborn? I mean, seriously, I've never been there, so I'd like to know. I mean, I grew up with the "Yes, Michigan, the feeling's forever!" tourism commercials in Chicago, but do they play those commercials in Basra or Baghdad? And why Dearborn and not, say, Detroit or Alpena or Kalamazoo? What is the draw?

Just wonderin'...anyone who's been to Dearborn, feel free to chime in, whether I know you or not.

Alpha Charlie Bravo's recent talk of guacamole made me desire Quizno's, which strangely I haven't had for lunch in a while. So I just ate there. I'm looking forward to getting out of here and going to hockey as soon as possible, which means the afternoon will slug along as slowly as possible. I need to make some follow-up calls to ones I put out late last week, but I know that I won't make any headway in that dept. Then, we have hockey tonight, which, as usual, is exciting...so, until then, I'll be going through the motions of another day with little to do, which you would know bugs the hell out of me, if you've been reading...

By the way, I discovered this word origin quiz this morning after I checked my junk Hotmail email. It's interesting...I got a 2 of 12. But my job isn't to know where words come from, just how to use them.

Last night, I went out in the yard to let the dogs out and just stood there while they did their thing, enjoying the quiet and darkness around me. I do this every now and then--appreciate my surroundings...I go out to make sure there are no skunks or rabbits in the yard, and then just stand out there looking around and taking whatever in. If it's a clear night, I look at the stars, moon, etc. Well, last night was cool, because there was a layer of brittle ice on everything, the grass included. It was a neat symphony of sounds...crunching of the grass under my feet, wind blowing through the trees, making them creak and crack because they were covered with ice. It would have been better had it been clear out, but this was a nice sensory moment. Moonlight might have overdone it. But I like appreciating stuff like that--you might not get me to go to the Art Institute, but you can always get me to observe nature or my surroundings...Basically, stuff most people don't notice since they fly far too fast through the world.

As my previous comment states: NO MORE HALOSCAN!!!! Yay. Thanks to Laz for discovering Squawkbox. Hopefully it works much, much better than Haloscrew. Well, tonight I stayed home, ate 2 sandwiches, some carrots and some cole slaw for dinner. I saved some money by not going out for the NCAAs and ate healthier than I would have had I gone out. Now if I can just keep the trend up. Good news on the health front too is, I finally have someone to work out with who will push me to do it and I'll listen. Luis tells me that the YMCA in our old area has $25 monthly memberships that are usable at the Y out here too. That's great. But what's better is, you can pay by month and don't have to sign up for more than one month at a time. That's phenomenal.

Also, me, Troy and Pete tried to rule the world by playing Civilization III online vs. each other, but something happened to Pete's connection and he was kicked from the game. Me and Troy quit soon after, thinking maybe it wasn't too late to play on, but we were brought back to reality by Pete. Thanks, Pete, seriously. :)

So everyone, enjoy the new comments system, assuming it works better. And enjoy Laz's humorous posts...he's a fellow ink-stained scribe...though I probably have more ink on me from years as an editor. :)

It's days like these where I wish I were back working at K-mart or something similar to that. Here I am, with pretty much nothing to do, because I'm kinda waiting on phone calls and such, and it's flat out boring as hell. At least at K-mart, I had menial task to do like reorganize these shelves or restock this or whatever, or I could just hunt down a customer to help if I got really ambitious or bored. Here, I kind of just sit, but I can't just sit and do nothing, or else it's like I'm cheating the company or something. So I surf the Web and read stuff that I've read 100 times before so it looks like I'm busy, all the while having my personal stuff window-shaded in the background. So, really, I'm reading blogs and email and other things when it looks like I'm reading up on sports or football or whatever. Then, I feel guilty.

But, I guess it's all over in about an hour and a half. I can live.

Now you all know why I'm not a meteorologist. But traffic still sucked this morning.

But now, great news from the sports world! Now if only Jerry Reinsdorf would sell both teams or just die, all would be right in the world.

We are so getting hammered by this storm, I hope you all realize it. "Why?" you ask? Well, it's April. That means since we're not "supposed" to get snow, we're going to get creamed. Also, there's enough spring moisture and warmth all over that it's making it a good recipe for a big snow. But, I'm not a meteorologist--I'm just going off what I've seen in my life.

The Sox swept the Tigers this weekend, and the Cubs are no better than 3-3 also. For those of you who freaked (if you're Sox fans) or celebrated (if you're Cubs fans), HA! I had a great time at Comiskey this weekend...went up to the Stadium Club for the first time in my life. It was nice, because it was warm, but I don't think I could go to the park just to go up there and watch a game unless I got a front-row, window seat. Otherwise, it's no different from the Bullpen Sports Bar, except that it has fancier (though surprisingly cheap for what I expected) food.

Well, back to work tomorrow. And the commute should be a nice pain in the ass what with the expected snowstorm arriving right then. Of course, now it will not snow at all and will just rain.