Today, my life changes.

Or at least it seems that it could. Today has much potential. I'm psyched. And so far, so good...I got up, and I'm not dragging, even though I was up until 3am or so. Let's hope it lasts, as this has the potential to be a very good, but very loooooooooooonnnnnnnng day. And then I have to work tomorrow? Jeez, I need a new gig. :)

It's 2:30am. I just finished a major push to pack up as much as possible and prepare to move furniture tomorrow. I cleaned out my dresser and packed all my clothes (except my hanging clothes) in garbage bags. I also cleaned most of them, so they'll be fresh and ready to go. I completely freed up the coffee table for transport as well as the smaller section of the sectional couch. Tomorrow morning, I will clean off my dining room table, which doesn't have much on it. Butch arrives before 9, and then it's me and him hauling all this shit ourselves to the vans...I just have too much crap, that's all. And there's no way I'm getting all of it to the apartment tomorrow.

Thankfully, several of you, dear readers, will be at the new apartment to help in that phase. Don't be shocked if me and Butch are tired as hell when we get there. :) It's possible, if time permits, that I could make two trips, if necessary, but we'll see. I threw a decent handful of "junk" out today too, and there's still more junk where all that came from. :) I'll have to spend most of Monday, my day off, working here to clean, pack and move most of the rest of my stuff. And I'll probably move Kazak on Monday too, because it will be easier then. But we'll see for sure...on second thought, maybe it would be better to move him tomorrow, so that Butch is with him most of the day Sunday and then I'm with him part of the day on Monday. We'll see what the schedule offers.

Meanwhile, i'll probably leave my CPU here for now, until I "finally, officially" move out. I won't have Internet at the new place until at least Oct. 16, so there's no rush to get my CPU there. I can move the CPU and desk maybe next Saturday, if I can convince my dad or Butch to come out here with me with one of the vans. We'll see...but there's no real rush on the CPU and desk, I guess. Unless Gerard boots me out faster than anticipated. :)

Let's see...I have to get up in less than six hours. I will start packing by myself when I get up probably, just to get a head start a bit. So we'll see how that goes.

Onwards to bed, while I can...

I live in the city! :) I slept at the new apartment. I heard people walking and talking outside. I heard vehicles going by my house. I heard kids and parents walking to school outside our windows. I went to work and passed under the El, which rumbled over me. And, even better, it took me just 30 minutes to get to work, instead of the 50-plus it takes to get there from The Brook, and it was FREE--no tolls!

I love it. Of course, Butch is like, completely moved in, the bastard. His room looks like he's been there for years. The rest of the house is pretty empty, because it's mostly my furniture that's going. Oh yeah, and there's already beer in the fridge! And nothing else.

Yay! :) Even if it IS the North Side of Chicago, it's still Chicago.

Desire to work waning.....waning......waning.....RISING.......waning.....waning....gone. Ahhh...

Well, tonight I have softball, but first I have to go to my parents' house between work and softball to pick up my apartment keys, which are being left there by Butch. Then, softball, then out to Bolingbrook, then into the city with my sleeping bag, pillow and a blanket to the new apartment to sleep on the floor and await the SBC guy/gal who is supposed to show up between 8 and noon tomorrow. I hope earlier, as I'd rather not show up later at work. My supervisor knows that this is happening, but I'd rather not be charged a half day if I didn't have to be. Ah well...at least I'll get an idea of how soft/hard the carpeting in my new bedroom is, as well as how noisy/quiet the apartment and surrounding area is at night. Not that it matters, since we're paid up and it's ours now. :)

I'm hoping to take my vacuum and some cleaning agents in order to give the place a good cleaning while I wait for the SBC dude, if he takes forever. The bathtub needed a cleaning at least (dust and an actual tiny little spider with a web), but that's nothing. Otherwise, it should be nice and clean and ready to go. I might even take some of the boxes and stuff that I've packed, just to save space tonight. Yeah...maybe I will do that.

Ah well, I feel somewhat sleepy right now at work. But I must........fight..........on......or something.

Holy crap! I have a coffee table! Bet few, if any, of you knew that!

Yep, I actually, actually got some REAL packing done tonight. Like, several boxes worth. And I threw things out. Things that, you know what, I can live without. They had some sentimental value waaaaaaaayyyyy back when, but now, it's like, what do I *really* need this for? Nothing. Trash.

Man, though, there was a lot of dust and cobwebs under much of that crap. Amazing how dust gets UNDER stuff sometimes. Weirdness.

Now, though, I'm gonna probably go to bed very soon. I might as well reward myself with a decent night's sleep, though it probably won't be so decent, given the time. :) Ah well...

Weird dreams are great, by the way.

Last night, I dreamt that I was a substitute altar boy at my old church. I had to carry the crucifix thingie up to the altar at the start of Mass. I was decked out in the altar boy gear too, which is funny, because I don't think they make them in my current size. :) But the priest was yelling at me that I was standing in the wrong place all the time and was being a grumpy, general dickhead. I turned to my brother, who was also subbing with me, and told him I was going to punch the priest in the face right there. He said that probably would be a bad idea. Then the priest yelled at me again (this all in the back of the church still, before Mass), and I went to take a swing at him, but Tim grabbed my arm on my backswing and calmed me down.

We walked up the aisle at the start of the Mass. But instead of putting the crucifix thingie where it was "supposed" to go in real life, I was forced to stand and hold it up throughout the Mass. The altar had minor variations off how I remember it from when I actually was an altar boy, way back in the day. I noticed them, but then I began to notice how tired my legs and back were. The crucifix thingie was heavy, and I was getting tired, since I had to stand, like, perfectly still, as though I was part of a statue. I just wanted to sit down. Then, in the middle of Mass, the priest turns to me and says, well, if you'd take that briefcase off your right shoulder, your load would be more balanced and easier to handle. And then he says to take the huge backpack off your back and let someone else carry it for you and you'll be fine.

So I did that, and lo and behold, I was much more comfortable standing there, next to the altar. Then i noticed the smell of jalapeno peppers. I looked down and noticed that the altar was actually a nacho bar, complete with peppers, several kinds of salsa, melted and shredded cheese, chili, etc. The priest was saying Mass, and I was wanting to eat the nachos that were on the altar. He mentioned nothing about the nachos. And I did not eat them. And then I woke up. And I didn't get struck down either. It was strange.

Actual exchange that just happened:

"Andy, freight elevator is spelled f-r-e-i-g-h-t, right?"
"Um, XXX, yeah..."
Brief pause...during which I stared dumbfounded at the floor.
"So much for the "i before e except after c" rule, huh?"
Laughter by me. "Or in sounding like A as in 'neighbor' or 'weigh', XXXX. It helps to know the whole rule."
"Ha...yeah, I guess so."

I have nothing else to say on that.

Well, today I called SBC to find out if my online stuff went through. It didn't. So I spent more than an hour on the phone with them setting up my new phone service. They had a couple deals they gave me too, so now I'll have DSL service after the 16th of October at the house and a CELL PHONE. Yes, a cell phone. That won't be activated until after Oct. 10 though...those of you whom I like will get the number. Those others can kiss my ass. :) Here's the deal they gave me...the most expensive thing is the land phone line...like $40/month, with a $40 setup fee. No voice mail on that, but I have an answering machine for when I'm not on the phone. High-speed DSL will cost me $29.95/month for the first 12 months, and will continue to cost that if I still use them for my local phone service. They're waiving the installation and setup fees (like $150), but I'll have to pay shipping on the modem thingie ($15). The cell phone gives me 300 anytime minutes and 5,000 night and weekend minutes for $21/month base fee. It's a two-year contract. The phone costs $50, but they're sending me a rebate check for that, and I'll just have to pay shipping on the phone (another $15 or so). Now, for as long as I keep the three accounts going, I will get 20% off my cell phone bill per month. So, per month, I'll pay about $115 for phone and high-speed Internet access (including long-distance in this case, since I won't have to get a long-distance carrier b/c of the cell phone). Plus, as highly anticipated, I get a cell phone. So everyone's happy, I guess...

I just hope the hidden costs (because there are bound to be some) aren't bad...nice and cheap, I hope.

I can't afford to rent a moving truck or van. That sucks...because now it puts a cramp in my plan to move this Saturday...of course, delaying knowing doesn't help. Let's hope those friends that have vans of mine step up and help out...I just need to move furniture on Saturday, really. Everything else, my car can handle, I'm sure.

Kudos to the hated Cubs...they played great baseball and won because of it. I can live with that...and we won in softball today, 11-5 or something like that. That was nice.

Ah well...off to bed and then work tomorrow.

Get used to the Creamsicle design, folks, because it's pleasant on the eyes and it's staying. :) Like I said, I like orange. :)

Today (Tuesday) is my brother Tim's birthday. Maybe I'll stop by my parents' house after softball, if they're going to do anything. Which means I should probably get him a card at least.

The Bears, of course, lost. My big-money fantasy team is in trouble because of the crap touchdown Anthony Thomas scored, and I'm not happy about it. But that's life, right? Right. Otherwise, the Urban Therapy Monday-night Madness was great fun as usual and as expected. :) Plus, I got to make them happy by dropping off the completed (finally) nightstand. It looks nice, I think. But maybe they'll use it for firewood, I don't know. :) At any rate, that's one less thing to move. :)

I set up my phone account at the new apartment today...did you guys know you can do that online? That was awesome, but I'll need to call them to confirm things and ask if I can change my bill date to the middle of the month or something, just to ease the monetary burden at the end of the month. Hopefully, after I settle in a bit, I'll get a cell phone (as many of you say, finally).

I need to find and reserve a moving truck. I also need to email all my wonderful friends and see who can help me move on Saturday, early enough to get done with as much as possible by about 4:30. Whatever is not done, I'll have to move myself...but if I can get all the furniture there and settled, then I can always cart the smaller stuff in my car during the week or something. Butch should be pretty much moved in by then. I brought up to him the following idea, which probably will happen, it's just a matter of when...instead of having a housewarming party straight up soon after we move in, I suggested we take the month to get everything "set up" and have a Halloween Housewarming Party. It won't be on Halloween necessarily, or even certainly on that weekend, but we'll see for sure. More details if we decide to go through with that.

As for now, I've got some bills to pay, which I'll do tomorrow, and plenty of packing to do, which I'll have to really crank into tomorrow after softball. That's it, it can't wait any longer.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: It's really cool when you "rediscover" music you have in your CD collection. Just for kicks, when I was cleaning my CD collection up for moving, I popped in Nine Inch Nails' "Broken" EP (LP?). I forgot just how damned good it is! So now I'm listening to it a lot...it's just like, six songs, but they mostly rock out pretty hard and that's cool. Plus, they're really musically cool from a mid-90s Industrial music perspective...I like 'em.

In the "duh" files...new blogger name and look. Hope you enjoy it! Oh, and CheshireKim! Take a look at the search engine thingies! Wow... :)

I'm starting this post at 8:30pm. We'll see when I get to actually publish it.

Saturday, in the park, I think it was the Fourth of July...

Well, the day started out with me heading to the rededication ceremonies at new Soldier Field with my brother, my dad(!) and my cousin. From the north end (by Field Museum), it looks pretty good. From the south end, it looks the same with the big bowl...that's all. Personally, I don't think it looks that bad--it's a stadium, not a monument. Anyway, we went and stood at the ceremony, which took forever but had its cool moments, such as the paratroopers who landed in a little clearing about 40 yards to our southeast. And with the wind, basically they came soaring in right over us. It was cool. We were going to go into the stadium, but it was about 2:30 when they started letting people in, and my cousin and I had places to be at five. So we left, happy enough.

I stayed at my parents' house because there was no point in going to The Brook before heading to The Outpost (my new apartment) to sign the lease at five. Problem is, the landlord was a freakin' hour late. He said there was miscommunication between him and the realtor chick. Whatever...I wanted to breeze through the place and get going, but then he didn't even have the keys labeled right, so he had to try all the keys in all the doors. The lease actually said dogs were not allowed, so I made him cross that off the lease and initial it. I think he was a bit perturbed that I called him out on that. But tough, I'm not getting in trouble legally for that. :) He had one set of keys, which Butch took, because he's moving stuff in now. I'm not ready to go yet, but I will be soon, and I should get my keys too.

So all this took forever, and I had to go back to The Brook in order to shave, shower and change for the wine-tasting party scheduled for 8:00 at a friend of PolishBasia's place near Wrigleyville. I left my parents' house at 7:00, knowing full well I was going to be late, without a doubt. I wasn't pleased. I didn't get to the party until 9:00 and, on top of it, I hadn't eaten a thing.

So I scarfed down some snacks at the party and took it easy on the wine...lots of good wines, lots of cool people. I got there late, but I hung out and it was cool. I had so much fun, I didn't get home until freakin' 6:00am, because we decided to go eat something around, oh, 4:00 after cleaning up as much as possible. Dawn had broken when I pulled into the driveway in The Brook. Thankfully, when I move to The Outpost, I won't have to drive so damn far to get home anymore. That will be nice. I was a touch concerned with my driving home at that time, but I had really no other options, seriously. At least none I could think of. If *I* had the keys to the new apt., I would have simply gone there and slept on the floor or something. :)

I missed the second Cubs game, the one in which they clinched, and of course, i didn't care that much that I missed it. But now, sadly, I'm going to have to root for the Cubs, believe it or not, because I hate the Braves even more. So, go Marlins! :)

Today I slept until about 12:30 and then came to work, where I'm at right now and for a little while longer. Yep.

Ah, my Saturday was something else. I suppose I'll tell you all about it later.