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

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

Welcome to the 21st Century

Yesterday I made a very large decision in my life.  A decision that I haven’t made in well over 10 years.  I changed wireless carriers.  In my past life the first job I accepted when I made the decision to move to Chicago from Bloomington was as an Account Executive for Nextel.  I sold communication devices (cellphones with the two way radio) to businesses and contractors.  That was advanced technology 10 years ago.  When I left nextel, I took my  phone with me only upgrading it once over the past 10 years.  The phone I carried up until yesterday was hardly able to text, or get on the internet, much less do anything that the current line of phones offer.  For having a chunk of my professional career in wireless communications, I fell behind big time regarding technology. 

On Monday my wirless agreement expired with Sprint (Who’s customer service I found to be less than acceptable).  Yesterday I took the afternoon off for a Dr’s appt and found myself in an AT&T store.  The rep was showing me the new iPhone 3gs.  I believe at one point I may have wiped drool away from my chin it was just that awesome.  I had decided on a blackberry but was easily swayed in the iPhone direction.  I finally bit the bullet and dropped mucho dinero on the 32GB iPhone 3GS. The iPhone will be a big selling tool for me when explaining to perspective clients as to what I can do with balloons that will make them want to pick me to entertain at their next function. 

My first text on my new phone was to my best friend who has had an iPhone for several years letting him know about my purchase, to which he replied “welcome to the 21st century”.  What’s funny about that is he is exactly correct.  My previous phone might as well have been a bag phone.  ( I used to sell those BTW)

This is going to be a ridiculously crazy weekend.  In a unusual turn of events, my wife is doing a girls weekend which pretty much leaves me to do whatever I want Saturday night.  Typically I would be all over that and plan some sort of nutty night out with the guys, but that is not likely.  I am a featured entertainer for several community events this weekend.  I will be appearing at Harvard Bank’s 75th anniversary  Community Celebration as well as a strolling enertainer for the Village of West Dundee’s Heritage Festival. Click here to see me (Mister D) on Heritage fest’s website.  I am listed as Strolling on Saturday from 2-4pm (the site is wrong, I am scheduled from 3-5pm).  I love that their link on the festival website sends everyone into my own website.  That’s some awesome advertising.  I also find “strolling” a funny word for a balloon twister because I doubt that I will be walking while twisting since I usually have 50 people surrounding me when I twist at festivals.  The weather is going to be in the mid 70’s tomorrow with no rain so I would say that is about as good as it gets weatherwise for festival entertaining. 

After the second festival, I get to entertain for a private party from 6-8pm and when I am finished there,  I will either be ready for several drinks or I will be ready to collapse into my bed.  When the wife is out I usually lean towards the several drinks side, but I follow up my long day on Saturday with two events on Sunday as well, so I doubt I will go too crazy. 

There is some other major things going on in my life that I can’t reveal yet.  In time I am sure.  Have an amazing weekend!

Filed under: Busy, balloon, iPhone, weekend, wife

Hanging

That’s how I feel on this Monday.  I am still hurting from the weekend. 

Before I talk about that, I would just like to send a shout out to the Village of Volo police officer that thought it would be fun to pull me over for no reason other than the fact that I made a wrong turn in an unfinished subdivision where he was sitting at a dead end.  When did making a wrong turn become an offense?  The story went like this:  I pull into my buddies subdivision in volo that is still being developed.  I missed a turn and kept going straight thinking the road curves around towards his house.  It’s pitch black as there are no street lights yet.  Before I realized, the road comes to a dead end and there in the sheer darkness is a cop car staring at me.  So, I turn around realizing that I missed a turn.  As I turn around the cop flips on his lights and began to follow me. I turn onto the road that I missed and less than a block from my friends house he flips on his lights and pulls me over.  Apparently missing a turn is “Shady”.  The cop asks me what I was doing back there, and I told him I missed a turn.  He asked me where I was headed and I told him my friends house.  He asked where my friend lived, and I responded that I didn’t know the address but he lived right around where we were.  The cop didn’t believe me and I explained that I would be happy to call my friend that lives there on speaker phone.  So, I dialed the number and while on speakerphone asked him what his address was.  “Why, you’ve been to my house several times already, you know where it is…”  I explain that I took a wrong turn and I got pulled over.  “Shut the fuck up” he says on speaker phone for the cop to hear.  “Quit fucking with me and get over here”.  So, I explained to him that an officer is listening to our call and I am close to his house.  Within 10 seconds my friend says If you are in front of that cop car with the lights, you are 5 houses down from me.  The cop turns around and sees my friend in front of his house waving.  So the officer says he will be right back with my ID and Insurance card.  Five minutes later he returns with my info and tells me to have a good night.  WTF?  What did I do wrong?  Nothing. 

That was pretty much the start of a crazy weekend.  Saturday I drove downstate to Bloomington for the 2nd of 6 fantasy football drafts this year. If I had to classify my addictions in life Fantasy Football would be one of the highest on the list.  Before the draft 8 of us went out and played a round of golf.  I said earlier this year that my game has declined so horribly and it hasn’t improved much since the last time I played.  I sucked so bad on Saturday that a friend and I decided to play Sunday morning as well before I headed back to Northern Illinois. 

Saturday night was a free for all.  I was spending the night at my friend Chad’s house.  Chad’s wife had left town for the weekend with their twins, so we were free to do pretty much whatever we wanted to do and we didn’t disappoint.  It was interesting to be in the bars that I frequented while in college and I felt like I was “that old guy” that I would always see hanging out in the college bars when I was 21 years old. It’s an interesting perspective.  One thing is certain though, girls in college today wear less to the bars and are fatter.  I hate saying it like that, but I don’t remember heavy girls happy to show every curve back when I was in college.  It wasn’t like that at just one of the bars but all five bars we went to.  I took pictures.  I don’t know if I will upload them since I don’t want to get sued or anything.  Maybe I can figure out how to smudge faces or something, but it was bad, take my word for it.

That’s it for today.  Crazy week. Tonight I am going to twist some balloons with a bunch of other balloon artists.  We meet once every two months and I have a blast every time regardless of how goofy everyone is.

Filed under: Fatty, balloon, weekend

What are the odds

So last month while we were on the second leg of our travels we found ourselves unpacking our bags at the mountain house in W. Virginia in a rush to hop right back in the car to drive an hour to catch a minor league baseball game.  Every few years we make it out to the mountain house in Berkley Springs for a week and each year we plan a trip to go see the Hagerstown Suns. 

The night at the ball park is always a favorite of the trip as I love me some ball park food and baseball.  We strategically pick the night when we are in town where the promotion is “Feed your face Monday” which I have to assume took very little time in the marketing dept budget brainstorming a name for that promotion. 

Feed your face night should actually be called, “Come to the ball park to stand in line for food while missing the game Monday”.  The ticket cost to get to watch a ball game plus unlimited Hot dogs, fries, chicken nuggets, popcorn, pretzels, etc is a whopping 10 dollars.  I don’t have to explain how amazing a deal that is.  With my frame and stature (ie fattyness) I really make the executives re-think this deal when I come to town. 

This past trip it appeared that they were very unprepared for this promotion as the line for each concession stand was at the minimum 20 people deep.  There were more people in line for the free food than in the stands for the stadium.  Let me just say this.  If this promotion at this price were to be offered in the Chicagoland area, I would be handing tickets to monday night games to the homeless whenever I was asked for spare change.  A person with the right plan could stand in line the whole game and gather enough food to eat until the following home Monday game.  The caviat that I didn’t mention is of all the items you get for free, you can only ask for two items per person when you suffer through the 20 minute wait to the window.  AND, when you finally finish your journey to the window, you are asked “What can I get for you?” to which you might say, “I’ll take a hot dog and a Pretzel” with the response from them being “Were out of hot dogs and it will be another 15 minutes on the Pretzels” leading you to follow up that request with two other free items that they might have available.  “Doh” is a good sound effect as you are denied of the items you have waited so patiently for. 

So, you walk away from the concession stand with your two free items not being the two items you wanted so you see others walking away from other stands with said items so you literally go get in the other line and wait another 20 minutes never really getting back to your seat to enjoy the ball game until you have gone through this process no less than 7 or 8 times until you can’t image the thought of another colon cancer causing processed hotdog to come within an inch of your mouth. 

The craziness in this trip to the ball park didn’t come from the food, but from the parking.  We took 3 vehicles from the mountain house as there were a total of 13 of us.  There was room in the two Vans for the wife and I, but I desperately needed to return calls for pricing and availability requests for the balloon twisting business as the mountain house didn’t exactly provide quality cellular coverage.  So the wife and I drove seperately from our group in a move that annoyed the other adults as it appeared they had moved things in vans to make room for us only to be told after that we were driving in our own car.  In hindsight I can’t imagine that they would have enjoyed listening to me talk to several perspective customers for 45 minutes about having me twist balloons at their party. (www.iloveballoonanimals.com for those of you who don’t know what I am talking about) 

We arrived as the game started and found parking far away from the park.  The two vans pulled in to two spots and I pulled in to their left.  I felt uncomfortable parking near a ditch where kids were riding as fast as they could and launching themselves into the air in a very uncontrolled manor not more than five feet from my car.  The kids were as annoyed by my close proximity park job as I was by the thought of a kid landing out of control and ramming the side of our new SUV.  So, I backed out and found a parking spot farther away.  It was a good choice in my opinion but by me backing out, it left the next Van in our group exposed just as mine was.  Everyone got out of the cars and we walked the couple hundred yards to the gate.  The entire way, the owner of the van that had been exposed debated as to whether he should move his car as well.   The tickets at will call were in his name, so he tossed me the keys and asked if I could move his car.  So the owner of the other van and I walked back to the kids with bikes to pull out the vans and find better parking.  As we drove through the parking lots we were surprised to find plenty of prime parking available right near the gates to get into the park.  So, we parked the cars and proceeded in with smiles on our faces anticipating the first ball park hot dog. 

Fast forward to the 7th inning.  I am full of hotdogs, popcorn, and beer. They had 32 oz cups of beer for 4.00.   (that’s nearly three bottles worth of beer for 4.00 if you were curious) Does it get any better than that?  It was around inning 4 that we realized that the reason for the available parking right by the gates was because that was foul ball territory. I thought to myself, there is no chance that I could have been given keys to a friends car, and asked to move it out of fear that a kid might bump into it by bike only to park it close to the park and have it hit by a foul ball.  What would the odds be for something like that?  Like 1 in a 1000? 

Anytime a ball is hit over the 1st base  side bleachers into the parking lot,  a clown whistle sound effect would come on the speakers with a very loud glass breaking sound effect in an attempt to actually cover up the real sound of baseballs slamming into parked cars.  There was a married couple sitting in the very top row of the bleachers in the corner with a perfect view of the parking  lot.  Whenever the sound effect would come on many people would yell up to that couple asking what color was the car that just got nailed.  It was once again during the seventh inning that I began thinking maybe we could move the car and avoid any risk what so ever.  Within moments of this thought a pop up foul ball flys over us and comes down into the parking lot.  We even heard the sound of the ball hitting a car despite the attempted cover up of the silly clown sound effect.  Someone near us screamed up to the couple, “What Color Car” to which they  yelled back “Dark Blue Van”. 

I sat there for a moment trying to remember what color Eric’s van was that I moved.  Was it Dark Blue or Black?  So I walked up to the top of the bleachers and look down and it looks like a ball hit the top of his van.  But it didn’t look bad, just like a scuff maybe from up there.  So, we enjoy the rest of the game and proceeded to leave the park.  We get to the van, and sure enough Eric’s van was nailed just above the drivers side door on the actual frame of the vehicle. (the scuff turned out to be bird poop as Eric’s car must have been a popular target on this particular evening)  There was a 4 inch gash in the metal from where the baseball nailed the van. 

I feel and felt horrible.  It couldn’t have hit the other van where the other owner parked his own vehicle.  Just had to hit the one that I parked.  I would guess that I apologized no less than 50 times to which Eric told me not to worry about it since he asked me to move his car but I still feel bad. 

As a side note of what some might call karma or irony, 4 years ago while the wife and I were visiting with Eric and his family in Indy, Eric backed his car out of their drive way right into my wife’s car causing a huge basketball sized dent in the rear quarter panel.  He offered to pay for the repair back then but we never asked for the money nor did we ever have it repaired.   So, with that looming over the whole situation you can’t help but feel that we might be even in some strange sort of way.

Filed under: Car, Vacation, balloon, balls, beer, memories, weird

A quickie balloon story

This past Saturday I found myself booked with three different events and a busy balloon twisting beaver.  Busy isn’t bad because this is the busy season for birthday parties and company picnics, and if I am not busy during the busy season, somethings wrong. 

By the end of the 3rd event, I found myself ready to cut loose.  We had a going away party that started at 9pm and I started with a few beverages before we headed out for the night.  Long story short, I think I  stayed out a little too late considering that I had to be up by 8am in preperation to drive down to the city for a company picnic at Lincoln Park.  The event begun at 11am with me having to leave my house at 9am to ensure I arrived before the event with Chicago traffic and parking.  I arrived early and it was a georgeous day.  The Lincoln Park Zoo parking lot was filled with all sorts of people enjoying the beautiful weather.  Many were unloading their car for a day at the beach while others were heading off to the zoo. 

After waiting for 20 minutes, I unpacked the car and got set up for the event.  About two hours into the three hour event I begun recognizing some of the families from last year’s picnic.  This one family in particular looked extremely familiar and I asked one of the three children that was around 6 years old, “Do you remember me from last year?” 

To which he replied, “I sure do!” 

“What did I make for you out of balloons last year, do you remember?” 

 ”You made me a Monkey on a tree hat!”

I looked at Mom and Dad for confirmation on the accuracy and they had an amazed “he’s right” nod.  I looked at the two other children and asked the same question and to my surprise they both shouted out exactly what I made for them last year.  I smiled at the parents and laughed amazed at how much my balloon creations must have left an impression on them at their young age to remember specifically what it was that I twisted for them a whole year ago.  I couldn’t remember. 

I have created no less than a trillion-gazillion things since then. I am lucky to recognize a child’s parent who actually hired me for an event, much less the creation I made a year ago for one child, unless it’s something extremely unusual… like a windmill or manatee (both requests from children that I have created in the past few months).  Even with those requests I couldn’t remember the childs face unless he were to say “Remember me, I asked for the windmill last time?”

Those three children last Saturday reminded me how much fun balloons are and balloon twisting is.  Even in my tired, hungover state it was if those children hit the reset button on my whole perspective and brought me back to when I first started twisting balloons.  After so many years an entertainer sometimes forgets how magical their profession is. 

Tonight I entertain at my weekly spot, Nero’s Pizza in Algonquin Illinois from 6-8:00pm.  www.nerospub.com.  You can see some of my work at www.iloveballoonanimals.com.  I have another three events that I will be appearing at this weekend.  In addition to that, my friends neighborhood is having their annual Bags tourney and I hope to fit a visit to the Lake County Fair.  Should be a crazy weekend. 

I hope to entertain for those same children next year in Lincoln Park where I will once again ask them what it was I created for them last year and hope that it impacts me just as much as it did this year.

Filed under: balloon, weekend

Playing ketchup

After living out of a suitcase for virtually 3 weeks, my bags are unpacked and things are beginning to calm down. 

Since July 2nd, I watched as my little brother left for Iraq, Flew too and from Georgia, attended a family reunion, visited with my father for the first time in two years, drove more than 3000 miles, spent a week in the mountains, found myself, lost myself, found myself amongst one of the largest gatherings of Amish people in the United States, celebrated my 6th anniversary, and learned a bit about what I want out of vacation when I go next time.  Whew, that was a mouthfull. 

The family reunion was great.  I realized I have a lot of cousins that I didn’t even know existed.  My father was in attendance which was nice since I get to visit with him once every few years as he lives down in Georgia. 

We left directly from the family reunion on an 800 mile road trip to the mountains of West Virginia for what was supposed to be a relaxing trip.  It didn’t turn out as relaxing as I like my vacations but there were some good moments.  I learned a little bit about myself on this trip.  I learned that if I am taking vacation time away from work, I want to be able to do whatever it is that I want to do.  That sounds like a very immature thing to say, but as I get older, I am becoming more and more possessive about my time. I was guilty of throwing a temper tantrum at one point which definitely put my maturity level into perspective.   I guess I am spending too much of my spare time with children while twisting balloons. 

I did manage to get out and play a round of golf.  I don’t know why I play golf any more.  Honestly I suck so bad.  I know everyone says that, but seriously, I am bad.  Having not played more than a handful of times over the past 4 years, my game has declined miserably to the point that I get too embarrassed to enjoy myself.  And who has time to practice?  Not this guy.   

Coming back to Chicago we decided to drive through Central Ohio on a recommendation from one of my customers.  Apparently if you drive through North Central Ohio on a Saturday in the right parts you can hit very active Amish Country.  Having been fascinated with the Amish Lifestyle since watching the movie Kingpin, I was up for expanding my perspective on life.  In regards to the Kingpin reference, I would assume that the Amish Community would have been upset with their depiction in that movie, but then again they don’t have electricity or televisions, so I doubt they ever found out anyway. 

As we continued on our trek through scenic Ohio along the path we were told would lead us to Amish Country, we began seeing Amish shops.  So we stopped at a few and did some shopping.  We bought our 6th Anniversary gift for each other in one of the shops as we were both agreed not to do the gift thing for each other this year due to all of the travels.  As I exited the shop, there was a stand with pamphlets that offered up touristy things to do in Amish Country.  To my surprise, about 3 miles down the road in Berlin, Ohio there was a fireman festival going on (the only festival in Berlin for the year actually).  So, we made one more stop on our way to the festival at Heini’s Cheese Chalet.  No knowing what we were walking into, we were quite surprised at the line at least a good 200 deep just to walk through to buy something.  I took many pictures because I was still excited to see the Amish folk working in this shop.  No wanting to spend two hours looking at cheese, we decided to move on with our journey to the festival. 

We pulled into Berlin and found a parking spot.  We couldn’t see anything going on, but could tell by the mass number of amish horse drawn buggies coming from everywhere that something was going on.  We hit a few shops on our way while we followed the crowd and I have to admit that Berlin is a cute little town.  Our only regret was not getting there earlier because most of the shops had closed by 4pm on a Saturday evening.  As we neared the direction of the crowds we realized that we were walking amongst thousands of Amish folk.  We begun to hear music and continued on our path until large tents appared and throngs of Amish sat in tents and waited in lines to enjoy the fun things that go along with a festival. 

The highlight for me was watching them churn real home made ice cream.  I don’t know why that was such a big deal for me, but it was.  I guess having never seen home made churned ice cream I always assume that ice cream is magically made and shows up in the grocers freezer.  The firemen churning the ice cream had no issues with me stepping behind the lines to get a front row view of how it’s made.  For 2.00 I had the freshest home made ice cream in my entire life. 

There was a yodeling banjo playing band which was pretty cool as well.  My wife doesn’t think I am mature enough to be around the Amish because I kept taking their pictures saying how cool it was to see Amish people.  I hit the Amish Jackpot when I saw a midget Amish family and was shot down by my wife trying to get a picture of them.  That was one of those moments where it would have have been great to have been with my guy friends and not so much with my wife.  She is too kind hearted and quickly put me in my place. 

After the ice cream, we headed back to the car and called it a fun trip. It was 6pm and we found ourself still in central Ohio and we had all intentions of pushing through to Chicago without stopping.  7 hours later we made it home pretty darn exhausted. 

Exhausted is a good word.  This post is way too long.  I’ll end it here. Other fun things are going on in my life but i’ll touch on those later along with some fun photos from our trip.

Filed under: Amish; road trip, Brother, Iraq, Vacation, balloon

15 minutes

That’s all I got.  15 minutos.  I’m preparing to roll out for the weekend and I’m looking down the barrel of what just might be my busiest weekend for the balloon business yet.  5 events in the next 30 hours and two delivery pieces to create in between.  I am not usually able to stack four events back to back like I did on Saturday, but the stars lined up allowing me to work my ass off tomorrow.  So, tonight I will twist balloons for 3 hours at the restaurant.  Tomorrow morning I have to make a life sized Cinderella balloon sculpture and a large embarrassing 40th birthday balloon hat before I hit the road at 9:30am on my way to my first birthday party at 11am.  I head off to my second event, a family reunion that begins at 2pm.  Then a 4pm 40th birthday party and then I wrap it all up with a church picnic from 6:30 until 8:30pm.   I have already decided that beer will be had tomorrow night after the festivities in honor of working so hard.  That and the fact that it seems as though the general community is already beginning to celebrate the 4th of July.  I know it’s more than a week away but i’ve already begun the “so, what are you doing for the 4th?” conversations. 

Oh, if you have no idea what the hell I am talking about thus far, I am a professional balloon artist.  That might be good to know.  My website is www.iloveballoonanimals.com.  I am not a clown, just someone that can do extraordinary things with balloons. 

I’m nervous as we get closer to the 4th of July.  My little brother gets deployed on the 5th of July with the Army and will be heading to Iraq for a year.  I have seen my brother mature more in the past month while watching him get married and now prepare to go to war than I have seen in his previous 22 years of life. 

Have a good weekend.  Hopefully I will survive and tell of the tale where I twisted my fingers off.

Filed under: balloon

Too long

Apologies for the lack of posts over the past month.  If the first weekend of summer is any indicator as to how busy it will be, I should dig in and prepare for battle. 

A few highlights from the past few weeks of my life. 

My best friend got married.  I was the best man in what I can only describe as one of the most amazing weddings ever.   The wedding was held at Medinah Country Club, and anyone that lives in the Chicagoland area knows that you only get married at Medinah if you are either family of a  Medinah member or you have a very good friend that belongs to the club.  In this instance the father of the bride just happened to be close with a club member.  I could write a book about the night but I will try and keep it short. 

1. I gave the best man speech.  Chris and I had been at a few weddings together after he asked me to be his best man and after each best man speech he would comment to me about how unhearfelt they were coming from someone reading off of a piece of paper.  So, I kept it brief and from the heart.  I had 5 or 6 quick points to mention before I toasted to them and I made it through the toast.  I didn’t write a single thing down, and I didn’t rehearse it.  I won’t say I nailed it, but I am pretty sure that everyone enjoyed what I had to say in the 6-8 minutes that I talked. 

2. After my speech was over I got wasted.  I made a point to drink minimally before the speech but once my official best man duties were over, it was on. 

3. I learned that when I get really drunk I like to smack asses and kiss people on the cheek for photos.  I don’t know where the smacking asses thing came from but I was told by not only my wife, but many of my friends that I either smacked their ass or grabbed it throughout the night.  Guys and girls apparently.  I don’t really know what this says about me, but I’m not going to dwell on it. 

4. I looked at the photos on my digital camera from the post reception party that went until 2am and then the post post reception party that went until 5am and I don’t remember much of anything.  While scrolling through photos, the look of horror on the faces of those who I pulled in for the photo does tell me that maybe I was a bit out of control. 

5. In a monday morning meeting I had a flashback where when I stopped in my hotel room between after parties and grabbed a bottle of beer that I had been icing down.  I tried to pop the top off by wedging it onto the marble bathroom counter and proceeded to break of the entire top of the glass bottle.  I remember my wife having to remove the broken bottle from my hands as I was attempting to drink the beer without cutting my lips. 

6. They had a photo booth at the reception.  This is hands down the greatest thing you can do for a wedding reception. The booth is large enough to where 6-8 people can fit in it and take private photos.  When you mix an open bar with private photos, fun ensues towards the end of the night.  I’ll leave it at that.  The only thing keeping it from getting totally out of control is the simple fact that each set of 4 photos goes into a photo album with a personalized message that goes to the bride and groom. 

7.  I will never again book a balloon twisting event in the afternoon after an open bar wedding reception.  I had to twist balloons for 3 hours at a festival on the Sunday after the reception and I didn’t feel so well. 

That’s all that jumps out at me.  I can’t reiterate enough that next to my wedding this was truly one of the most enjoyable days of my life.  I am really happy for my best friend and hope that I didn’t do anything throughout the reception that might prevent him from ever wanting to talk to me again when he returns back from their 3 week honeymoon.

That’s about it.  I went boating on Saturday at the chain o lakes and ended up on Blarney Island.  I was out in the sun from 7am until the sun went down and my flesh will begin falling off of me in another 2 or 3 days.  I am redder than a lobster right now even though I applied some major sunblock. 

An observation in my life:  Many of my friends are becoming more responsible and partying less.  I have found myself in a role reversal lately where I am usually the responsible one who doesn’t get drunk and has to deal with friends that are bombed.  I have been cutting loose lately when I have had no responsibilities for driving only to be disappointed when those who usually go crazy are subdued.  I am still waiting for the perfect storm of friends and beer.  I don’t know when that’s going to happen, but hopefully soon. 

That’s it for today.  I’ll put more up soon!

Filed under: balloon, beer, drunk, weekend, wife

Rough weekend

On friday I was freaking out and with good reason.  Over Commitment is a good friend of mine and he comes over from time to time.  More than what I would prefer actually. 

I am glad to say that I survived this past weekend’s festivities.  I would say that I am a better man for it, but I don’t think that is true. 

The challenge:  Twist a 9 foot tall sculpture out of balloons that in some way resembles the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Start at 10pm on Friday night and finish by 9am Saturday morning.  Also, go to church, create 3 link o loon balloon arches and 40 clusters of balloons for centerpieces. 

The result:  Success.  I twisted the Leaning tower and finished it around 6:30 am committing 8 and one half hours on one balloon sculpture.  When I was finished, I had a surreal moment when I realized that it wouldn’t fit in my car.  How on earth was I getting that thing from Round Lake down to Arlington Heights. It didn’t fit in my car, but did fit into my wife’s SUV.  That was a scary moment when I realized that I might have to strap a 9 foot tall balloon creation to the top of my little car to deliver it. 

As for the clusters, that was realitively simple.  Several women from the church were there already to help decorate and they inflated the clusters and tied them while I worked on the arches.  I did three Link o Loon arches, one with red, white and green, and two others green and red only.  This was my first time ever working with Link o Loons from Betallex and I have to say that I was unimpressed.  They kept popping or would have holes near the nozzles.  I have worked with balloons for 19 years and this was my least favorite balloon to work with in all that time.  When I left the event at noon between when I arrived back at the event, the link o loon arches contracted.  We had weighted them down to two support beams at the arc we needed.  When I arrived back at the event at 4:30pm, the arches had lowered and gotten smaller in distance from end to end.  I don’t know why that is, but each balloon had lost it’s size. 

Before the event, we were concerned that the arches would fall and even used some clear line to tie it to the ceiling in the event that the arch failed during the dance.  Is this common for Link o Loons filled with helium?   I have no idea.  I do know that unless I go through some training with betallex between now and my next decor job, I’ll stick with Qualatex.  As a balloon twister I do see lots of good things that I can use the link o loon balloons for in my twisted sculptures, however.  I did even use a few of them on Sunday at a birthday party while I entertained. 

On a funny note, around noon at the church, we realized that our disco ball that was in storage had disappeared.  I went from finishing the balloon decor to driving around trying to find someone in the northwest Chicago suburbs that sold a disco ball.  The first few party stores I visited with didn’t have them.  Luckly from my childhood I remembered that Spencer’s gifts usually had crazy stuff like that, so I went to the mall.  They had one in stock and it was mine.   A Full sized one, too.  Instead of storing it at the church, i’m taking it home with me and might even find some use for it around my house.  I might hang it above the turtle tank and turn the turtle light towards the disco ball giving Bruno (the turtle) a fun environment.  Can spinning lights make a turtle sick?  I would me if I had to look at it all day. 

By 8:00pm Saturday night, I was on a total of 4 hours of sleep on Thursday and zero hour of sleep on Friday, so I was mentally done.  I stopped by a friends housewarming party on the way home and was fast asleep around 11:00pm.   

Sunday I entertained for a party and that was a whole different craziness.  In all I inflated more than 1000 balloons (round and entertainer) and my hands are desperately in need of a massage/manicure.  I hesitate to say manicure because I am a man and it’s not my fingernails that need the attention so much as the joints.  My right elbow is very sore as well from using a pump on all those damn balloons.  I need some sort of inflater soon since I have been taking on larger jobs lately.  Photos to follow soon. 

My little brother’s wedding is this upcoming Friday.  I’ll post about that later.  Have a great week!

Filed under: Church, Overcommitment, balloon, pain, peer pressure, weekend