July 22nd

I can’t really say too much about yesterday, but there are some big things going on right now in my life.  There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding my career at my current place of employment and it’s time that I make some serious decisions about my future. 

The screws of summer are loosening.  I haven’t mentioned it here, but outside of the ridiculous gas prices, the economy has seriously dealt me a blow that has set my balloon business back.  While down in Florida earlier this month, the owner of the Red Robin franchise in my area thought it would be a good idea to offset his economic woes by letting go of any and all paid entertainment, which encompasses me.  So, after three years of creating smiles on the faces of thousands of children and adults, I am no longer the Red Robin balloon guy.  For now.  If things get better in the future they may call me back, but I doubt it since by the time that happens, they will be into their sixth GM since they let me and all the other balloon twisters go.  Last night was the second Tuesday since I have been back that I didn’t have to race from my desk job to Algonquin to twist balloons, and it’s flat out weird.  This is the first set back I have experienced with my balloon business and I have begun to look at it simply as a bump in the road.  I can’t expect that it would continue to grow at the pace it had over the past three years, and the success that I have enjoyed will continue.  The hardest part about not being there every Tuesday nights isn’t even the money that was made each night, but the fact that I handed out more than 50 business cards a night.  That was fueling my referral business.  Hopefully I have enough cards out there to keep me busy until another restaurant calls. 

This summer has been absolutely crazy and I knew it would be.  This was going to be my last summer where I could just do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and I am happy to have made it this far.  Softball on Monday and Wednesday nights, balloon twisting on Tuesday and Friday nights, and a billiards league on Thursdays has pretty much locked up every single evening of the summer.  Not to mention the birthday parties on the weekend and the several trips we have gone on this summer and it has pretty much flown by. 

The good news is that softball is offically over both nights beginning next week.  Next weekend I head off to Michigan to go camping, and that will be the last trip planned for me not only this year but likely until mid 2009 when we celebrate my best friends bachelor party.  

So, as of August 4th, I will actually have Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings back to myself.  I haven’t strategically watched television in well over 4 months other than an occasional cubs game when I am home, so I am looking forward to that, along with the NFL season on the horizon, it looks like life is beginning to settle down. 

It’s time to slow down, relax, and take some deep breaths.

Vacation #2 is over

My second vacation in two weeks has come and gone.  The five year anniversary celebration was nice.  If you ever get a chance to go up to Wisconsin for a romantic getaway, I recommend the Lazy Cloud Lodge and Inn.  The hardest part of the visit is going the entire weekend without a television, but once you go for two days without it you realize that you hardly missed it at all.  Even last night after we returned home, I passed up on the typical “TV while I fall asleep” bit since the vacation from noise was relaxing.  As a matter of fact, the time spent up in Wisconsin has allowed me to look at a few different areas of my life. 

Before I move on, I would just like to say that it’s not often that I see a path that someone has chosen in life and wish I had or will do the same. 

Go to this website.  I can’t recall the owners name (Carol is the wife) but they have opened probably two of the most romantic lodges in all of the midwest.  It’s not that the rooms/buildings/grounds are drop dead romantic, but the thought and convenience of each and every detail that went into how they do business is what’s mind boggling.  They include a bottle of champagne, bath robes, candles, carmel apple pie or chocolate dipped strawberries, a teddybear is laid out on your bed for an additional charge if you chose to keep it, bubble bath for the jacuzzi, finger foods for snacks and dinner.  Basically it is an idiots guide for the unromantic.  They take the guess work out of everything. 

I’m going to move on now, but to summarize, this place is worth it’s weight in gold and if I could choose to do something as I get near retirement, this just might be it.  I always thought that twisting balloons for a living would be incredible because you are getting paid to make people smile.  But the owners of the lazy cloud properties are actually getting paid to help people fall in love.  Now, if I can somehow do balloon twisting along with this whole love thing, then I just might have found the life I have dreamt living. 

As a follow up, my trip to the Mall on Friday to buy a gift was successful.  I ended up buying a bunch of romantic little things as well as the daddy of the gifts which was a christmas ornament of Mickey and Minnie Mouse shopping while Mickey is sweating since Minnie is looking at diamonds.  That was my subtle way of offering to swap out the diamond on my wife’s engagement ring for a larger rock.  The gifts went over well, but she didn’t quite react the way I had hoped she had about upgrading the size of the diamond on her ring.  I tried to call BS on her saying she doesn’t want a larger diamond, but I am convinced that she absolutely loves the diamond she has and is attached.  So, instead we are going to add another band to her engagement ring and wedding band.  I guess jewelry wasn’t such a bad idea after all. 

The weekend finished strong when we hit Lake Geneva for shopping and followed that up with seeing the newest Batman film.  Not that I am a film critic, but the movie was really good.  Being a big fan of the late Heath Ledger, I think he was great, but I wouldn’t go so far as say he deserves the best actor Oscar.  He definitely added a creepyness to the Joker, but I don’t think he was in the film nearly enough to win the leading actor oscar.  Supporting role, definitely.    If  you didn’t get a chance to be amongst the 150million dollars worth of people who checked out the movie on Friday and Saturday, I highly recommend it.

Happy Anniversary eve to me

I am sitting at work today seriously wondering why I am such a dumbass sometimes.  My five year anniversary is this weekend, and I can’t admit that I forgot to buy something for my wife as a gift, because I didn’t, but the bottom line is this little celebration of our marriage really snuck up on me since we have been traveling so much lately.   As soon as I reminded myself that I needed to make a move today and buy a gift, I knew exactly what she wanted.  But the problem is that I can’t find it.  The stupid store that makes it went out of business and I can’t locate one anywhere.  Not even online, or ebay, or nothing.  It’s re-diculous.  That’s seriously the only thing that I can think of off the top of my head that I know she would truly go crazy over as a gift.

So, now I am resigned to surfing the web, seeing the usual things that are all romantic but there is really no meaning.  Flowers…lingerie…jewelry…chocolate.  Girls like all that stuff, but if you ask me it’s a cop out.  

I feel defeated for now.  I am going to be leaving my office shortly to head over to the mall over my lunch, and I have to say that I have no plan of attack, so I could seriously spend hours there wandering aimlessly hoping something pops out at me as a fantastic gift.  

Hopefully I can come through with something…we shall see…

Whew…I can begin to breathe…

It’s been a pretty rough 2 days so far.  I have finally managed to get caught up and now I just want to take a deep breath, and head back to the airport and do it all over again. 

We were very fortunate in our travels to an from vacation.  One of the more touching moments happened on our way down to Florida.  We had a connection in Charlotte, and our 12:30pm flight from Charlotte to Orlando was oversold.  They were asking for volunteers to give up their seat since they downgraded the size of the plane due to the large plane being undersold.  This meant that not only were there less seats than sold tickets, but also that all the standbye travelers that were trying to get their children to Disneyworld on the 4th of July were pretty much screwed.  Not being in too much of a rush, my wife and I asked what they were offering if we waited for the next flight that was only an hour and a half later.  Having no expectations what so ever, she offered us each a round trip ticket to anywhere in the US to be used within the next calendar year and a voucher for lunch in the airport.  We were also guaranteed a seat on the next flight just 90 minutes later.  So, we took it.  A good deal if you ask me.  It’s nice not being on a schedule since we had no plans and no one was waiting for us anyway. 

We were issued our new boarding passes and I didn’t even look at them as we headed to find a place to eat.  There was this other young man who had taken the voucher as well.  As we headed back to the gate and prepared to board the flight, I pulled up my ticked to find out where we were sitting since my wife and I were not sitting together when I realized that were were issued first class seats.  I about crapped my pants.  Not only were we given two round trip tickets and free lunch, but we were bumped to first class on the next flight for waiting only 90 minutes.  I think we got the better end of the deal. 

As we found our seats, it had dawned on all of us in 1st class that we were all the same people that decided to give up our seat on the first flight.  None of us were sitting with our spouses so we did the musical chairs and all ended up together in the end.  All of us except that young man who I had noticed that took the offer from before.  He was sitting in a seat right next to me in first class. 

I felt weird in first class.  I had always passed by the people in first class every time I have ever flown and looked at them as if they were uppity snobs, reading their newspapers and drinking their inflight beverages during the pre flight boarding.  I almost felt bad sitting in first class as others passed while boarding the plane.  I would have much rather boarded last so that others didn’t possibly look at me the way that I judged them before.  I guess I shouldn’t care. 

The amazing moment came when the young man sitting across the aisle from me saw an army soldier in full military fatigues walk through the door.  He quickly said to the young military soldier:

“Will you trade me seats?” 

“I don’t like sitting on the front of the plane and would prefer to sit back there.” 

The soldier seemed startled and did what I would have done, and said ”No thanks!” not realizing his true motive. 

I looked at my wife wondering why on God’s earth this guy would not want to sit in first class.  I sat waiting for him to ask another person for the same thing, but he didn’t.  A few minutes later, another young man from the military came through in full Army fatigues, and he quickly stopped him and changed his questioning.

“Would you mind trading seats with me?” 

“I have friends back there, and I want to go back there so I can be closer to them…” 

The soldier looked at him and said “sure”.  The soldier handed him his boarding pass and as the young man got up from his roomy first class seat and grabbed his carryon, he shook the sodiers hand and thanked him for serving our country. 

I looked at my wife again who had just witnessed this selfless act and it hit us that he purely wanted to say thank you.  It all made sense and it was one of the nicest things I have witnessed someone do for another.  I also got to sit next to this young army man for the short hour and a half flight and talked with him briefly about basic training and airborne school.  Everyone in first class treated him like a rock star, buying him drinks and one gentleman even gave him what looked to be a 20 dollar cigar.  He was embarrassed for all the attention, but it was well deserved. 

It made me wonder if this is the same treatment that my little brother gets when he travels now that he is active and set to head over to Iraq within the next 8 months.  I hope so.

Vacation

No time to post right now since I am staring down the barrel of 631 unread messages before me.  I was gone for a week and a half, but it feels like I have been gone for a month.  Vacation was just what I needed to re-energize and I have many funny stories to tell over the coming week.  I learned a lot about myself over this past trip since I had so much alone time in the ocean to think.  One of the coolest aspects of the second half of the trip was that we shared the resort we were staying at with a Chicago Bear.  We had been told by the valet when we checked in that this particular Chicago Bear had just checked out but promised to come back with his whole family the following weekend. My wife and I thought that maybe he would bring his wife and children, but the Valet didn’t lie.  He brought in more than 30 family members.  They took over the beach and the pool.  It was as if the party had arrived once they checked in, and I would guess that in order to cover everything that I saw that they were doing Thursday thru Sunday, he had to have dropped a good 30K on the weekend.  There is something cool about walking out on your balcony and looking down to watch a player for your favorite football team wrestle with his children in the pool.  I didn’t get an autograph because my personal belief is that autographs only make one person feel superior to the other when asking and in no way do I feel that this person is in any way superior than me.  He chooses to play football on Sunday while I prefer to work in technology and balloon twisting.  I always wondered how NFL players interact with families during the off season, and I just happened to get to see it through a microscope for four days. 

More to follow with time.

I am no longer a Disney virgin

Yesterday my wife did what I hadn’t been able to come to do in my first 31 years on this planet.  She got me to Disneyworld.

We have officially been on the property for a few days, but only managed to get our asses on a bus yesterday before lunch to enjoy what I have been told was one of the busiest weekend days of the year.  I had been torn for close to a month as to which Disney world park to visit since I had only one day to give Disney a go and in a final moment decision while standing before the weird comb over guy at the Disney counter in my hotel, my inner child screamed out and the words Magic Kingdom could be heard as if I were only 7 years old.  My wife looked at me in a strange manner since Magic Kingdom was last on my list of places to go.  I guess I thought that I owed it to the kid in me since I didn’t grown up in a particularly positive financial situation as a child, much less one that allowed any family member to consider taking me to Disney.

I wish I had gone as a child because it is my belief, as I type on this computer at 6:49am EST that Walt Disney designed every single ride and attraction in such a way that it stretched every single muscle and joint that I never knew I had. 

What did I think of Disneyworld?  I thought it was unbelievable.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that almost everything I experienced virtually came out of the mind of one other man, Walt Disney.  I felt as if I was a guest in the movie Charlie and the Chocolate factory as we went from attraction to attraction.  We walked the hell out of the Magic Kingdom and I’m truly glad that we only have one day here since I doubt that we missed too much yesterday.

My favorite ride was space mountain.  I had heard a gazillion times from any child growing up who had the good fortune to go to Disneyworld that it was their favorite. What made it for me was the fact that you had no idea what was next.  It was completely dark and at every moment I felt as if my head were gong to get chopped off and they would find my lifeless bodyat the end of the ride. My second favorite was stich’s great escape, which isn’t so much a ride as an experience since your seat doesn’t move an inch, but the technology took my mind places that it had never been before.

Over all it has been an amazing trip and more details to follow since the good luck continues.  Happy 4th to everyone, especially those men and women over in Iraq, Afghanistan, and any other location for the military. Today we drive down to Vero beach.  My fee sure can use the rest.

Unmotivated

That is pretty much how I feel today.  Many of my customers have hit the road this week to enjoy some time off, so it’s time for some internal housecleaning.  But, I just don’t feel like doing much.  My wife unveiled the “to do” list before we leave on Friday.  I have mixed feelings about this “to do” list and I am thankful that I don’t have softball tomorrow night or Pool on Thursday so that I can help.  On one hand I don’t understand the need to do everything that we wouldn’t do anyway before we leave.  Last night we not only cleaned out the fridge, but we scoured walls, washed shelves, and scrubbed every square inch of the refridgerator.  Why?  What does that have to do with Florida?  I don’t get it. 

The reason I am on the fence about all of this “to do” list is because when I opened the fridge this morning, I had a moment of zen since it looked like it was new.  From what I understand, it’s that feeling of Zen that my wife wants to return home to after we are gone.  As with every vacation, while we are away we forget that our home is spotless, and upon returning from a usually exhausting vacation, there is relief in knowing that we don’t have much to do when we get back home.

…but still I am unmotivated…

I am working on something new for my balloon business that I hope to unveil after vacation.  In the past month, I have done two seperate jobs with face painters and on both occasions I have wondered why I haven’t gotten into face painting.  It pays just as well, and it’s a lot less hard on the body as twisting balloons.  (believe it or not, there are several body hazards from twisting balloons such as carpal tunnel or tendonitis.)  I am an extremely artsy guy and maybe face painting could be my niche.  Now I just need to invest in some hardware, and practice.  This might be something I throw in for virtually no extra cost to all of my balloon parties later this summer since in order to practice, you need children willing to sit down and let you paint. 

This could be an exciting and new offering that could boost business to an entirely new level. 

my mind has already left

Something about the week before the 4th of July.  I wake up this morning and turn on the channel to watch my favorite morning newscast and see that the third stringers are filling in.  Hop in the car and drive to work, and flip on the radio, and it turns out my favorite radio personalities are out as well.  I get to the office, and several teammates and coworkers are out for the week.  Wow.  I picked the wrong week to leave for vacation.  4 more days until I jet off to a sunny Flordia.  I think that my mind, along with all of my morning and commute favorites has checked out already and boarded a flight for Florida just a few hours ago.  It left me a note and promised to meet up with me again upon my arrival at the hotel in Orlando. 

This weekend was pretty standard for this summer.  Balloon twisting, a little beer, and more balloon twistings.  The general theme for the weekend was rain.  It pretty much rained when I didn’t want it to and didn’t when I did.  Our church picnic wasn’t totally ruined, but definitely brought on more work than what was needed.  There is nothing like having to hold onto  tents as gusts of 30mph of wind lift them off the ground and tosses tables/chairs into the air.  Sunday I entertained for part of the day and we headed down to the taste of Chicago for dinner.  Nothing too exciting…just my standard weekend this summer.  Balloons…balloons…and more balloons. 

I will say that for the first time in my entertainment career, I wasn’t the true attraction.  We hired www.theclassyclown.com  who goes by twinkles the clown and she did face painting for the children.  She was a hit, and if I didn’t belong to the church, I might worry that maybe they just hire the face painter next year and put the kabosh on the balloon guy.  (www.iloveballoonanimals.com)

Some quick highlights from this week

My monday and Wednesday night softball teams came through big and each pulled off upsets.  For the first time all season, both teams won in the same week.  I’m sick of losing.  Wednesday night was especially entertaining because of the loud mouthed douche captain of the opposing team who couldn’t shut his mouth about anyting.  This guy bitched more than any grown man.  He made fun of our 1’st baseman for being so thin, made fun of our captains tie-dyed softball socks, made fun of us for hitting BP on the field before the game, mocked our bucket of balls, and was an overall jagoff. This motivated us to dominate them with a final score of 12-2.  My lowest earned run start as a pitcher yet this season.  I had 6 put outs on line drivers back to me on the mound, and the loud mouth on the opposing team went 0-3with 4 errors at third base.  Victory is sweet.  My wife met up for drinks before the game with the other wives and they were supposed to come and watch us play for the first time this year, but apparently the appletini’s tasted too good and we didn’t see them until after when we went to the bar. 

Tuesday night was interesting.  By the time I made it home from entertaining at the restaurant around 9pm I decided that it was time to clean my turtle tank since I have one turtle still hanging around.  Bruno is going on 26 years with me and I am in the process of upgrading his condo to a full fledged mansion (moving from 20gallon habitat to a 75 gallon).  I went to work on getting everything set up, when around 11pm my wife mentioned something to me about the garden.  This is what she said:

“The plants aren’t looking so good out there…they look like they are all dead…”  My focus went from the turtle tank to the pseudo garden where I discovered that I had almost killed every single plant already.  I hadn’t transplanted any of them from the containers I had bought them in or watered them in two days.  Apparently plants like water.  WTF?  So, at around 11:15 I moved to the patio where I worked on replanting and watering everything.  As of this morning, it looks like everything is making a full recovery and I have no less than 60 plants all in two plastic totes, so when everything grows up, it should be downright funny looking.  I can’t wait.  My wife almost fell on the ground from laughter when I looked at the dying plants from inside and ran outside and mumbled the phrase…”man…i’m not very good at this…”  I was talking to myself, but apparently my self statement was loud enough for her to get a good chuckle. 

Less than one week until I will get my first lifetime dose of Disneyworld.  Since we flipped our vacation plans to flying to florida instead of flying, I am getting a chance to hit Disney for the evening of the 4th and all day on the 5th. I think we are just going to hit Pleasure Island on the 4th and stay away from the parks and then do the touristy thing for one day before we pack up the car and drive down the coast to our beach destination.  Just one real day in Disney.  I am so torn as to which part of Disney world to visit.  If you ask adults what they would do if they could go without children, you will find that everyone has a different opinon.  I can only do so much research and I am sure whatever we decide will be fun. 

This weekend is full of balloon twisting as are most weekends.  I’m hoping that the cubbies can sweep the sox again this weekend, but I won’t hold my breath. Have a great weekend!

I know that

I love it when someone points out how incredibly dumb I am while responding to one of my dumb posts. 

I prefaced my garden idea yesterday with a trainwreck statement.  I have planted no less than 80 plants.  I have no real estate to grow them.  My wife and I just bought this super nice patio furniture set so that we can entertain on the deck and now I have to align my excuses as to why I should have the entire balcony for the rainforrest I am about to produce.  “Sorry honey, but the new table and chairs we bought for the deck have to stay in the basement until I sow my tomatoes, radishes (WTF?), onions, jalapenos, and cilantro. I can spare enough room for one chair, but the rest of the deck will become my garden.   This could possibly be the funniest thing I have done in a long time and I am quite excited about my garden adventures over the coming months. 

I will post some photos of my pseudo garden soon so that you can join in on the joke.  I can’t believe I haven’t taken pictures of the critical steps taken thus far.  I already have seeds that are sprouting out of the dirt in less than 48 hours.  I am also baffled that I haven’t killed anything yet. 

This morning finds me giddy not only for my garden, but also at the fact that my wife and I are offically going on a 10 day road trip to Vero Beach Florida in 16 days.  We have been teeter tottering for the last six months about a vacation over the 4th of July but were unsure if her graduate school and my balloon business/day job would allow it.  I definitely could use the mental break from life and sitting on a beach in Florida is just what I need to recharge my batteries and finish summer with a bang.  Nothing like celebrating a 5 year anniversary by spending 4 days in a car and 6 days on a beach.  I wanted to go to North Carolina, the wife wanted Florida, so I negotiated Florida with a day at Disney World since I have never been. 

I win.