Seasons Greetings

I am writing this a few days late as Christmas was last
Friday and today is Wednesday.  I hope you all of you had a very Merry Christmas and are prepping for a goodbye to the oughts and hello to the tens.  I am not usually one for New Year resolutions, but this year I am going to jump on the bandwagon as I am in desperate need of the slightest motivation to get my booty in gear.  I told my wife what one of my resolutions will be and it was followed by sheer laughter so I guess it’s a bit silly, but I care less at this point since it’s for my benefit and no one else’s. 

here ye… here ye… My first Resolution for the year 2010 will be:

To chew my food more. 

Stupid, I know.  But the bottom line is that I am finding myself eating entirely too fast lately and the resolution idea popped into my brain as I half choked on pizza at a birthday party this past Saturday morning and immediately went into a hiccup fit as the food worked its way down my throat like a mouse in the throat of a boa constrictor.  There are many ways to off yourself in this world and choking on pizza or any food for that matter is not the way I want to exit this life.  So…I…will…begin…..c h e w i n g…..s  l  o  w  l  y…..

Stupid?  Yep.  But so are resolutions. 

#2:  Lose weight.  This is the most generic and stupid one of all time.  Everyone says that. 

Looking back on 2009, I didn’t really have any resolutions.  I did lose 30lbs and then I quit smoking.  I followed the fact that I quit smoking with putting all 30lbs and a few more back on which is why I have added the weight loss to my list of resolutions.   I am thankful that I didn’t do resolutions last year, because had I listed “quit smoking” as one of them I might not have quit at all. 

I just looked at my clock and I am 20 minutes away from my last day in my office for the year.  I don’t know why, but I am ready to say goodbye to 2009.  On one hand, the economy pretty much kicked me in the nuts regarding my day job, but on the other hand, I am so blessed to have a balloon business that is not only thriving but grew in 2009.  Amazingly grew.  That certainly gives me hope for the future  that maybe…just maybe I might be able to be a full time professional balloon artist.  You can see my site at www.iloveballoonanimals.com. 

I would like to add another few items to the resolution check list. 

#3.  I would like to learn how to carve Ice.  Have you ever had a feeling like if you had a chance to do something you would really shine at it?  Some guys fantasize about being a professional poker player.  Or an actor.  For some reason I feel that if I had a huge tower of ice in front of me I could carve it into something amazing.  Strange?  You bet.  Ice carving lessons are already on my christmas wish list. 

#4.  I would like to learn how to play the piano.  I know this resolution will not come to fruition this  year as we can not buy a piano nor do we have room in the event that someone wanted to give one to us.  So, suddenly this has become my bucket list at age 33 as opposed to my list of resolutions. 

That’s about it.  I don’t want to add any pressure to my already growing list of things that I will not achieve in 2010.  

I wish you a Happy New Year and also would like to wish my good friend www.stupidtom.com a very Happy Birthday.

Filed under: Fatty, New Year, Resolutions

“I don’t know how to say this…

…but… i’m kind of a big deal.”   Ron Burgondy, Anchorman.   

Last week I decided to test the very limits of my sanity in an attempt to see exactly how much torture I could put myself through in a week without actually jumping off any structure higher than 50 feet, and I have to say that I survived. 

That quote from  Anchorman, kept running through my mind this past Sunday as I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  At one point I felt as if I had reached a weird rock star status amongst the attendees for two different events I worked. 

The highlight of my weekend came Sunday afternoon.  I have an event downtown that I delivered this to:

Centerpiece delivery for Mister D's Balloon Twisting

In a brief descriptive, I was hired to twist 12 centerpieces for a 1st birthday party in the city.  The Mom wanted Sesame street characters to be used as centerpieces and decor for her son’s 1st birthday party, and this is what I came up with.  Leading up to the party I didn’t have a ton of spare time to twist and sadly with balloons, they don’t keep very long, so I essentially had to do all of this in the 36 hours leading up to the event on Sunday. In all, I spent 12-14 hours total twisting away on these sculptures.   Anywho, I delivered these centerpieces and stuck around for an hour at the event to entertain the 30 or so children that came along to bring in Zach’s 2nd year of life.  When I mentioned “rock star status” I simply meant that you could have counted the jaw dropping looks by the parents as they walked in and saw the balloon sculptures. 

Here they are individually:

Cookie Monster by Mister D's Balloon Twisting

Bert & Ernie by Mister D's balloon twisting

This is Zoe. I think she is Elmo's booty call.

Oscar the Grouch. Believe me...he's grouchy. I just caught him in a smiley moment.

Word to the Big Bird

 

4 foot tall Elmo looking for hugs

NEEEEEAAAARRRRRR...........................................far. Teaching kids about personal space since 1969

This was a large version of cookie Monster to welcome guests

 That was a lot of work.  Actually the biggest balloon job I have done to date. 

Back to the story.  So, I dropped this stuff off in downtown Chicago, twisted for the children for an hour and then hit the road to perform for a little girls 6th birthday party in Algonquin, IL.  I get up to Algonquin and the children were super excited to see me as I had just performed for them a few weeks back at another one of their friends birthday party.  Well, there was one boy who wasn’t at the party the week before so he didn’t really know what to expect.  I assume this was his first interaction with balloons before because he was super excited.

I bust out the balloons and start twisting these crazy big birthday hats for the children to wear for photos.  I think this little guy was a bit overwhelmed because I could tell out of the corner of my eye he was doing the pee-pee dance but he didn’t want to miss the balloon action that was unfolding before his very eyes.  Within one minute he began to stand scrunched over with his hands on his knees.  Well I thought that he simply was trying to hold it and most of the kids were on to him by now asking him if he had to go pee.  He kept responding with a “no” and “this is how I like to stand”.  For the record this little guy couldn’t have been more than 6 years old.  So he continued to stand in that akward position for a good 10 minutes until finally an adult came over and asked him if he was OK.  Everyone was on to him by now as his pants had begun to show what he was denying all along.  You would have thought that someone had hosed down the entire front side of his pants and he did his best to hide it and deny what everyone could see with their own two eyes. 

I felt bad for my little friend.  No matter what any adult asked of him, he wouldn’t do.  First the adults tried calling his mom and dad and no one answered.  They tried repeatedly over the course of the hour and Mom and Dad, who had dropped him off for this birthday party only 15 minutes earlier were no where to be found.  Finally the birthday girls father walked over and offered him a stool to sit on and a towel to cover his lap until Mom and Dad arrived.  The little boy sat there to my right and watched me twist praying that no one noticed him sitting in the corner covered in pee.  At one point I tried to swap out a cool balloon sword if he would go change into the pants they found for him, but he wasn’t having it.   There was  even a period in which we all got up and walked into the other room to sing Happy Birthday and he still wouldn’t get up. 

I had a blast at that party and for the first time I am pretty sure that my balloons caused a little one to pee his pants.  I have been wondering how I might spin that for the good. 

Mister D’s Balloon Twisting:  “Balloons so cool, you’ll pee your pants!”

That has a ring to it.  I might just have that added to my next set of business cards.  

To see more of my twisted creations, visit www.iloveballoonanimals.com.

Filed under: Overcommitment, balloon, weekend

What have I done?

This week is beginning to get scary as it rolls along.   I was peeking at the remainder of the week and weekend and I really just want to run somewhere and hide.  If I can make it through this weekend, I can make it through anything.  Between now and Sunday I have to work my regular job during the week days, get my car situation figured out, get the ill cat to the vet, scratch off the remaining “to do” items on my list for the church pancake breakfast sunday, create 14 balloon Sesame Street centerpieces for delivery Sunday morning, Church meeting Thursday night, Entertain at my usual restaurant Friday night,  Entertain at two different parties on Saturday, attend my company holiday party Saturday night, and get the church set up and running for the Pancake Breakfast Sunday and then entertain at two different parties Sunday afternoon.  Whew.  I think I left out a few things.  

My wife is a big supporter of mine.  Even she doubts that I can accomplish all of this.  I can’t say I blame her.  What’s weird is that I am unbelievably calm about everything at this moment.  The craziness begins Thursday after work, so I have tonight and tomorrow night to begin preperation on everything before the shit hits the fan.  I have no doubt that I will pull through like the rockstar that I am, but the question is to what degree will quality be sacrificed?  Sleep may not be an option. 

For the first time in my grown adult life I wanted to punch one of my coworkers in the face today.  If he worked in my building I would have gone to whereever he sat and confronted him.  Unfortnately he works a good hour and a half away from me which didn’t give me that option.  I would have to think that if you were to get into a car and drive an hour and a half to punch someone that they must have done something to deserve it. 

That’s all time will allow as I just looked at the map and we are about to get nailed with the second part of the snow storm.  Hope that your week is looking a little less stressful than mine!!!

Filed under: Overcommitment

The old vehicle debacle

Right now I am in the middle of a terrible string of luck.  Lately, I have been taking blow after blow and see no end to the ferocious beat down being delivered by the State of Illinois.  I am going to attempt to explain what has my boxers bunched up right now and I hope it makes sense. 

This is a long post and I apologize for the length.  I feel better to have laid my thoughts down in this post. 

Backstory:  My wife and I have three cars.  When I met her she owned a 99 Hyundai Elantra.  After I moved in with her my car died, so we bought me a 99 Chevy Prism.  Our cars were small and did well.  Last November we decided to get the wife a new Hyundai Santa Fe (SUV).  The dealer wanted to offer us 50.00 for her Elantra, and I told him to take his 50 bucks and stick it somewhere.  We kept the car since we have a spot for a third vehicle at our home.  

Strategy behind keeping Elantra:  Since we had just bought a very expensive SUV, we decided that I would drive my 99 Prism until it died.  When that happened, I would still have the 99 Elantra to drive until it died, thus we would be saving money on car payments since both cars have been paid off since 2005.  We are in no position to take on another car payment of 300 or more a month at this moment in time.   

Asspain:  So, here’s where this whole story comes together.  On November 5th, I was driving home from my regular Thursday night pool league after a few beers.  I got pulled over.  That was a completely scary moment.  Yes, I had a few beers, and No I was not in any way above the legal limit to drive.  We are talking three beers over the course of 5 hours.  Anyway, the reason the officer pulled me over was because my vehicle registration had expired in October.  Typically my wife gives me the new sticker every year and the extent of my involvment is simply applying said sticker to the plates.  I informed the officer that my wife typically handles and she must have forgotten to give me the new sticker.  Apparently she hadn’t handled it because his magical computer showed that we had not renewed registration.  I was given a ticket with a November 30th court date and was told if I had renewed before then I would not have to pay the fine.  No big deal, I thought at the time.

The next day I told my wife about this, to which she asked me if I had taken my car to the Illinois Vehicle Emissions testing station yet.  I vaguely remember her telling me to do that no less than 5 times.  No, was my response and she told me that Illinois would not let me renew registration on my vehicle until I passed the Emissions test.  Alrighty, off to the emissions testing station I went that day.  I pull into the station, they hook something up to my car, and I am told that my 99 prism has failed and I am rudely told I have to take the vehicle to a mechanic to have whatever is wrong with it fixed.  I have a few choice words I would use at this moment to describe my feelings about the state emissions test but i’ll save that for later.  So, I take my car to a mechanic and it’s going to cost me no less than 700 dollars to replace the catalytic converter.  This is a 10 year old car with 180,000 miles.  Do I really want to drop 700 on this car?  The mechanic did a overall check and told me it was in great shape and forsees in his magic ball that the only other thing that I will need to have done on this car in the next two years is a belt replacement.  I chose not to have him do the repair yet because I had an ace up my sleeve.  The Hyundai Elantra. 

Double Asspain:  The 99 Hyundai Elantra has sat outside in the cold through last years harsh winter and still sits there.  I have driven it no more than two times.  It did go on loan with my younger brother when he flew in for his Wedding in July, so it did get use for three days then.  I did a quick check and to my disappointment the registration had expired on the Elantra back in September.  Let me guess, I have to take this vehicle to the emissions station to have it tested before we can renew?  Correct. 

I drive the car a bit first to make sure it is safe.  Filled the tires, put new oil in it, added some fuel line conditioner and checked all fluids.  It worked just fine once all the kinks were worked out.  Just like my prism, there was the check engine light on which worried me a bit, but at 175,000 miles one would expect a check engine light.  Instead of it reading “check engine”, it should say “drive at your own risk, this car is old”.   Off to the emissions testing station I went to pass the test and renew registration on this vehicle until I had an extra 700.00 laying around to fix the prism.  I pulled into the testing station, waited with a smile to pass only to be told by the air team guy that this vehicle also has failed.  Double whammy. 

I spoke with the mechanic and told  him that I would be picking up my prism without the work being done and I would drop off the Elantra with the hopes that it wasn’t a 700 fix.  Luckily is was only 150.00 and the Elantra should pass now that repair was done.  I picked up the Elantra two nights ago with the repairs done and thought all was good in the world.

Which brings me to yesterday morning.  I have to drive the Elantra for two days before I can have it rechecked by the mechanic to ensure that it will pass the emissions test.  So, with my first morning commute to the office with the newly repaired Elantra I drive for 10 minutes and decided to crack the window a bit.  As soon as I pushed the window down button, the entire window fell of the track and dropped all the way into the door.  So there I was driving this car in 40 degree temps for 45 minutes with the drivers side window all the way down.  Awesome.  I parked in the garage at work and sulked for the day.  How much will this cost I wonder? 

So, after a chilly drive home last night, I decided that I might be smart enough to fix it myself.  Maybe save some money.  Big mistake.  Have you ever taken the side panel off of a door before?  Don’t do it.  I had many years ago when I was in my early 20’s and it took me more than 10 years to forget that I should never be allowed near a car with tools.   Outside of replacing a car battery, head light, or rear light bulb, I shouldn’t even think about it.  Especially on a foreign car.

So…this morning, after picking the car up from the mechanic no less than 36 hours ago, I dropped it off again with the explainer on the key envelope for early drop offs:  “Front window is broke or off track, I tried to fix it but made things much worse, door handle and lock no longer functions as well, please call me with the cost to repair”.  I tried blaming my wife for letting me attempt to fix it myself.  She had none of that. 

Triple Asspain:  At this point I am ready to drive the Elantra into a lake and call it a day.  Other than the fact that I just dumped 150.00 into it two days ago, I don’t want to get rid of it.  Honestly, I would just park the Elantra back outside and have my Prism fixed knowing what I know now, but the problem is that the Elantra no longer has a front drivers side window.  What, am I going to put plastic and duct tape over the window and leave it in my drive way?  No, I am not that ghetto.  So, here I sit clinching my buttocks waiting for the phone call to come telling me that I have to pay four hundred or more to get the Elantra fixed.  More to come on this story. (as if it wasn’t long enough)

Oh, and through all of this, I was unable to get my registration renewed on the Prism before my November 30th court date, so I had to pay a 75.00 fine on that as well. 

Rant:  The State of Illinois and their Vehicle Emissions Requirments are in my own opinion a very pointless and corrupt process.  I can’t count the number of times I have followed a vehicle spewing forth gag worthy exhaust.  Neither the Prism or the Elantra emit anything that hurt the enviroment.  The mechanic said that the Catylitic converter is not really bad, but beginning to go, and the Elantra had a vacuum leak in the evap system (purge solenoid) which wasn’t a big issue either.  Seriously. This is BS that has and will end up costing me a total of 1500.00 to get both cars pass this stupid vehicle emissions test which I now fully believe was put into law by corrupt politicians that were greased by mechanics. Conspiracy theory?  I don’t see it as so, just a law that requires cars to be fixed when they are actually doing very little to no harm on the environment.  The fact that registration on both vehicles are being held hostage until I drop this kind of money with the mechanic’s make me downright ill.  I will not bow down to this corruption and buy a new vehicle as I am sure this whole emissions process was designed to motivate vehicle owners to do. 

Blah.

Filed under: Car, Corruption, Cry baby, Ghetto, achy, asspain, bitchy, stupid, train wreck, wife , Corruption, State of Illinois, Vehicle Emission Testing

15 minutes

That is all that I am giving myself and whatever is done in that time is done.  I wll click the publish button at that exact moment so that I do not do what I constantly do which is begin a post and become distracted never to go back and finish.  If I were to throw the dozens of unfinished posts online, confusion would follow. 

Let me run down a few items of interest in life at this moment.

My 33rd birthday was this weekend.  It was somewhat low key and sublime.  The wife took me out for a nice dinner at my favorite restaurant in the whole entire world (Bob Chinn’s Crabshack).  I don’t know much about that restaurant other than the fact that whatever they put into their Mai Tai’s is all right by me.  If ever I was asked to fill in what “These” mean in the phrase, “Take two of these and call me in the morning.” I would answer these = Bob Chinn Mai Tais.  After two large Mai Tais I am pretty much in my happy place.  Three without dinner and I am well on my way to becoming a train wreck. 

For the record, I just faced my first distraction that I encounter when posting.  After confessing my undying love for The sweet juice from Bob Chinn’s, I have begun wondering if the recipe is online.  I have identified distraction number 1 and have conquered. 

The age 33 doesn’t feel much different than 32.  On an interesting topic, I am pretty sure that my family forgot my birthday during Thanksgiving while I was down there with them. Typically my family celebrates my birthday while we are all together.  We didn’t do that this year and I am thinking that the cut off age for family birthday celebrations is 32. 

One of the interesting aspects of facebook is that more people that I haven’t seen in 13-20 years wished me happy birthday than people that would truly make the “friend” cut.  No big deal there, as who am I to talk about this considering I am the worst regarding birthdays. 

Tomorrow is a pretty cool day though.  On Friday 12/1/00 I met my wife at the RAM Restaurant & Brewery in Schaumburg, Illinois.   That was 9 years ago tomorrow.   I knew the moment that I met her that she was going to be my wife.  We hung out until 4am on December 2nd and I remember coming straight out and asking her what was wrong with her.  That might sound like an unusual question, but everything I knew of her was too perfect.  She was (is) beautiful, fun, sweet, adorable and 1000 other adjectives that would describe my soul mate.  What I didn’t get was why she was 26 years old and all of these wonderful things, but didn’t have a boyfriend or was not married.  So, I wanted to get to the bottom of it, and find out what was wrong with her that she wasn’t telling me.  That answer to my question by the way was nothing.  Truth be told, she was in a relationship with some jackass for 7 years, and he proposed only to break it off not much later leaving her on the free agent market.  Fortunately between the breakup and our fate filled meeting she had already dated others without meeting Mr. Right (me). 

9 years later, we have been married for 6 years, 4 months & 11 days almost to the minute. 

In other family news, my brother finds out in a few weeks whether he will see any jail time for his drunken night out on his birthday back in September.  He made the mistake of going to his court date without representation and decided to represent him self.  Now the judge has set his jail time for a minimum of 14 days with a maximum of 2 years.  He goes back on December 21st for trial.  I may go to the trial to make sure he doesn’t end up in jail, but then again what can I do about it?  It’s not like I can jump over the railing and talk to the judge myself.  If my brother sees any jail time over this I will have lost all faith in the justice system.  He went out on his birthday, drank too much, knocked on what he thought was his wife’s door (they were seperated and she was in a new apt) wrong door, but in his drunken stupor walked in to the wrong house when someone answered and when the police arrived, he used his 3rd degree blackbelt ninja skills on the police officers.  For his 37th birthday he was tasered.  Twice.  He doesn’t remember anything about the night until the electric shock entered his body.  He is truly enbarrassed about it, but I don’t believe it warrants jail time considering it was his first criminal offense and it was unintentional.  No one was hurt, and there was no harm intended.  Maybe I shouldn’t go to the trial because if he does go to jail I may have a hard time not speaking my mind to the judge. 

That’s about it. Thanksgiving was relatively uneventful other than my father in law going to the hospital the night before after we had already driven downstate.  That left my brother and sister in law having to cancel their plans to travel for Thanksgiving.  My father in law is out of the hospital, but this has definitely motivated the family into looking at long term care since he is 86 and his needs are increasing very quickly. 

I’ll post more when I can, but this 15 minutes is up!

Filed under: Birthday, Brother, Livin the dream, thanksgiving, wife

Halloweenie

I overheard one of my coworkers asking a client on a phone call today if he was going to dress up for Halloween parties this upcoming weekend.  I didn’t hear the response of the client but my coworker followed up his response announcing that he thought the guy on the phone was halloweenie.  I don’t know why it made me giggle but it did.  Actually, I know exactly why it made me snicker like a little kid, but I don’t know if my coworker really knew what he was saying. 

I was right in my post last week pertaining to the calm before the storm.  The storm that was on the horizon is Halloween.  After an exhausting weekend I climbed into bed last night at 8pm and my wife asked what my upcoming week looked like.  I had not even put a single moment of thought into this week until she asked the question.  I pulled out my calendar and scanned thru my week.

Monday: work all day and then Balloon Jam from 6-10pm.  For the record, and I can’t believe I am admitting this, I am freely skipping a Monday Night Football game to go to a balloon jam.  I hope the have the game on in the bar. 

Tuesday: work all day followed by a church meeting from 7-9pm. 

Wednesday: work all day followed by balloon twisting from 5-8pm

Thursday: work all day followed by pool league from 6:30-11pm

Friday: work all day followed by balloon twisting from 4-6pm and 7-9:30pm. 

Yep, I would say that this week is going to be rather difficult.  Something’s got to give.  Any week that I am not home any earlier than 10pm on any single night will be an exhausting one. 

This past Saturday night things got a little crazy.  One of my friends in the city hosted a gathering at his place.  Due to my wife’s upcoming work week, she chose not to go and my best friend’s wife wasn’t feeling well either so he and I were on our own for an evening of fun.  Sometimes I get sad at the fact that my best friend and I have gotten older and grown apart some.  We can’t continue to go out and party like we did as room mates throughout college.  He has a wife, I have a wife and both of us have to consider them in our plans every time we get together.  But on the rare night that we get to go out without them, we fall right back into our old ways and it’s as if we are still college roommates. 

The party Saturday night ended at roughly 6:00am Sunday morning before I finally closed my eyes wishing that I didn’t have to get up to twist balloons at a Halloween street fair in Roscoe Village in four short hours. 

Some of my favorite memories from college include Sunday mornings after long nights of drinking.  We’d wake up around noon,  order Jimmy Johns, and watch football all day while laughing about the crazy shit we did the night before.  Good times. 

While walking thru a craft fair at a festival this summer, I came across a quote that has been the theme of my life lately. I try and remember that every time I have a difficult week. 

“Lifes not about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain”

This will be a week full of dancing in my life.

Filed under: Busy, balloon, memories, work

and then it was calm

I think the saying goes something like “The calm before the storm” but what about the calm after the storm.  I have been on the losing end of a nut kicking competition for the past two months and for once things have calmed down.  Now that I began typing this a fear has suddenly begun to creep up within me asking if this just might really be the calm before the storm and that the past two months was merely an appeteaser (yes I just combined appetizer with teaser so you can chill out with the “No he didn’t!” thoughts) 

I am heading off shortly to go to a funeral.  It wasn’t someone that I was close to, but one of my wife’s coworkers husbands.  He was in his 50’s and a life time smoker.  He died from lung cancer.  I have some interesting emotions about people that die from lung cancer when they smoke their whole lives.  But then again, he was older and probably began at an age when smoking was a way of life.  Now you practically have to sign a death certificate and take out a loan to afford to pick up the habit.  Definitely not what it once was.  I haven’t had a cigarette in over 6 months and I haven’t even had the desire.  I can’t believe I smoked for so many years. 

On an even crazier note, the holiday inn express that I typically stay while visiting family burned down today.  They just remodeled it too. 

I have so much more to share but no time.  I’ll fill in all the details on Monday.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Filed under: weekend

Doctober

After a ridiculously ridiculous weekend I realized that I haven’t been on the site in a while.  I pulled it up and realized that I haven’t posted anything since the end of September which is amazing because it seems like I was ready to pull my hair out last week.  Then I remembered that I was ready to pull my hair out last week…and the week before that.  Then I realized that I have been going on like this for the past five or six weeks. 

“All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy. ”  That saying has been going on in my brain a lot lately. 

I titled this post doctober because the general theme for this month has been going to the doctor.  My wife.  Me.  My cat.  My dishwasher.  I am pretty much sick of doctors.  I have officially enacted a new “if it isn’t bleeding or broken, no doctor” rule.  For myself at least.  My wife can go whenever she wants, but not me.  When I was having a hard time walking due a pain in my left hip a week ago my doctor told me that I had a spine issue and ordered an MRI.  Three visits and hundreds of dollars later I have been told that my spine is fine and that I just need to go on a diet.  My oldest cat has been having a hard time peeing lately.  So I took her to the cat doctor and hundreds of dollars later, I am told she is fine and just has a virus.  Even my dishwasher began having problems so I had the GE guy out and he said that we “over soap” the load causing water to leak through the door and that our dishwasher was fine.  I paid a guy 140.00 to tell me to use less soap.  I laughed when he told me how much it would be.  The conversation went like this:

“So how much do I owe you?”  The GE guy replied “$140.00″.  So I asked, “Why so much?”  to which he answers “90.00 for the trip and $50.00 to diagnose the problem.”  (h, and I failed to mention that he did turn a knob on my water heater to make my water a little warmer.) An extra fifty bucks to tell me to quit using so much soap and to turn a knob a quarter of an inch.  ”Sounds good to me, do you accept credit cards?” 

The bottom line is  October has me by the short hairs.  There has been an argument going on in my brain for the past 48 hours with a general theme of being tired of doing things that I don’t want to do.  I find myself spending a large amount of my time lately doing things that don’t fall under the “I am glad i’m doing this” category.  Even as recently as last night (Sunday night) I found myself in a tuxedo downtown at a wedding missing the Bears game.  In all of my crazy football addiction I did manage to keep my eye on the score, but I won’t lie about being very angry that I actually call any person that chooses to schedule his wedding on a Sunday night during a Bears game a good friend.  Take the Bears game out of the equation and you still have a very expensive wedding taking place down town in the loop on a Sunday night when everyone has to work on Monday.  Why?  To save a few grand?  What a waste of open bar.  If you are going to drop 75K on a wedding, why do it on a Sunday night when everyone has to leave at 9:30pm.  Seems like a waste of money to me. 

Now that I think of it, the general theme of October should be “Grumpy Dennis”

Filed under: Overcommitment, achy, asspain

Followup

I am at work today thinking about everything that is going on in my life and it’s really kind of interfering in my productivity.  So, in an attempt to get some stuff off my chest so that I can get back to work, here goes. 

In an update, my brother was released from jail on Monday and the chargest were all downgraded to a misdemeanor.  I was relieved to hear that because he is not likely to lose his job or see any jail time. 

I can’t stand it when people drop the ball.  All I will say about this is I got screwed by a few different people this week regarding a church event I am hosting and I don’t have a short term memory. 

There.  I said some things and got them off my chest.  I have so much more to say, but I have to refrain at this juncture of time.  I don’t know if this achieved what I wanted it to since I still have 100 things rattling around my brain.  Back to the hamster wheel.

Filed under: Church, asspain, train wreck

Wow

It’s been 10 days since I last posted.  I blame it on a few different things. 

1. My new iPhone.  I will confess my love in the second half of this post.

2. Twitter.  I am in the early phases of testing this technology as something that I want to utilize in marketing my balloon art business (www.iloveballoonanimals.com if you have no idea what I am talking about)

3. Church overcommitment. 

But first, a quick tale about my brother.  He turned 37 on Saturday.  I called to wish him a happy birthday.  He was at the bar playing darts and drinking at 8:30pm when I called to wish him a happy b’day.  I spoke with him again around 10:00pm and he seemed fine.  I received a call from my mother at 10:00am Sunday morning informing me that my brother was in jail.  He apparently went to his wife’s apartment (they are currently seperated) and in a drunken stupor essentially knocked on the wrong apartment door and proceeded to barge into the wrong apartment.  Then when police arrived he decided that his 3rd degree blackbelt status would come in handy.  When all of that was done he thought it would be fun to break out of the cop car.  All of this netted him a two day trip to county jail where today he will stand before a judge to hear how much money he has to come up with to post bail.  They have no money.  He was arrested for breaking and entering, assaulting a police officer, and resisting arrest.  In addition to this incident my money is on the fact that he loses his job when they find out.  My sister in law spoke with him the morning after the incident and he basically told her that he didn’t remember anything really about the night up until the moment he was tasered. 

I have been praying for my brother since this incident.  I bet he never forgets this birthday.  Since he is only 4 years older than me, I have partied hard with him many a nights in college and I can’t say I ever saw him this out of control.   This incident has kind of put my own alcohol consumption and decision making into perspective. 

Twitter:  If you are on twitter and want to join me, I can be found here

Church overcommitment:  Someone came up to me two years ago and thought that a fall fest or Oktoberfest would be a great idea.  So the ball got rolling and we finally are having our first church Oktoberfest.  The only problem is that I think I and a very small group of people are the only ones on board.  The event is this upcoming Sunday and while I have lined up an awesome band, ridiculously awesome beer that will be served in 32oz mugs, great german food, and things for the kids to do, I don’t see a good turnout coming.  With less than a combination of 200 adults/children we will lose a good chunk of change.  For the record, this will be the last new event I run at church for a very long time. 

iPhone:   My love for this device can be summed up by a story from yesterday.  I was booked to entertain during a birthday party in a forrest preserve near the Wisconsin border. (literally in the middle of no where) The Chicago Bears game started at 3:00pm and I arrived at 4:45 and entertained until around 5:45pm.  While I was putting my equipment away, I pulled out my iPhone and fired up the Directv Superfan App that allows me to watch live football on my phone.  I clicked “Watch Live” on the bears game and sat my phone down waiting for the game to begin running.  Moments later, it was time to sing Happy birthday and I walked away from the phone to join in on the celebration.  I was talking with a few of the parents for a few moments and then noticed that a large group of guys were hovering around my stuff on the other side of the picnic shelter.  I walked over and realized that all of the men had found my phone lying on the picnic table and were watching the end of the bears game.  I laughed as soon as I saw what they were watching and was bombarded with 20 questions as to how on earth I could watch a Bears game live on my cellphone.  If I had a box of iphones and directv contracts I could have sold them together for 1000.00 a piece to each of the fathers that were miffed about missing the bears game for a childrens birthday party.   After nearly cancelling my Sunday ticket package from Directv, I have been sold 10 times over with the new addition of my iphone.  Since I entertain on almost every Sunday, this is now my only way to catch the NFL while entertaining.  It’s an expensive set up with 430.00 for the new 32GB 3GS  with accessories and 400 for the sunday ticket w/Superfan (which I negotiated down to 250 for everything).  But at that moment when all the dads stood in awe of technology, every penny was worth it. 

Sorry for the long post.  It’s 12:3o right now and I have to believe that my brother could be finding out any time now how much money he needs to pay to get out of the clink.  I think i’ll call his cellphone and tell him that I love him since he could probably use some love right about now.

Filed under: Birthday, Brother, Church, Overcommitment, balloon, drunk, iPhone, peer pressure