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

Summer is over

Where did it go?  It hit me especially this morning as the wife was up bright and early and ready for her first day in the classroom with her new kindergarten students.  Then I heard the sounds of rain drops on the roof and turned on the news to find out it wasn’t even 70 degrees out.  Add to that the fact that my favorite time of the year is upon us (NFL Football) and it’s suddenly fall. 

This past weekend was a whirl wind of a final weekend to the summer.  For the second year in a row I entertained for the wonderful people at Willie Wonka Candies company picnic.  This is always a curve ball for me since I have to dress up in clown and I’m not a clown.  Now my wife might argue with that statement but that’s a whole different post all together.  Five straight hours of twisting while in what I have thrown together as a clown outfit.  It’s not really a clown outfit so much as my own tuxedo with a top hat, bit clown tuxedo shoes, and a few dots of makeup on my nose and around my eyes.  This year there were three of us in clown and we did pretty good considering that there must have been more than 1000 employees and their families at this event. 

After the makeup came off for the day it was time to shift into party mode since we had people coming up to stay with us to celebrate the wife’s birthday. 

As a side note, on Friday night I was up all but 2 hours cleaning in anticipation of house guests on Saturday.  So, needless to say after little sleep and entertaining children all day on Saturday I was dragging come Saturday evening. 

So, based on the reviews of my good friend tom (www.stupidtom.com) I finally gave 5 hour energy a shot to see if it was as good as Tom said.  Our first of 5 house guest arrived before I had even gotten all of the grease based makeup off my face and I quickly put the small bottle of energy down my throat as if I were doing a shot of liquor.  It tasted liquor like and within seconds it was gone. That was at 6:00pm. 

Everyone begun arriving and we all moved out to our deck where some of my home brewed beer was served for the guys and I opened wine for the wives.  We didn’t have long as it was time to round everyone up for dinner.  We were off to Blarney Island to celebrate. 

Since Blarney Island is an Island in the middle of the Chain of Lakes you can only get there via boat.  So we went to the restaurant owned by Blarney Island called “Port of Blarney” where we had dinner and boarded a shuttle boat out to the island. 

In all we had 16 people out with us when we finally got on the island.  Two of our friends each have their own boats so they each met us out there.  In the end the wife got drunk.  Drunker than I think I have ever seen.  I was thankful that she had a lot of girlfriends with her because they were pretty much dancing all night.  I kept my eyes on her as drunk ass after drunk ass would move in on all of our wives.  Occasionally one of the husbands would be dispatched to go down to the dance floor to tell some drunk guy to back off of our wives.  I kind of anticipated that as the whole group of women were all dolled up and a large majority of the dudes were there looking to hook up.  I didn’t imagine having to shield the women from another woman though as there was this one drunk woman who was a leech.  She wouldn’t keep her hands off the wives and kept telling girls in our group that she wanted to get it on with one of the wives.  That was a little over the top.  But that pretty much describes Blarney Island anyway. 

We got back home around 3am and I contemplated for just a moment about writing a letter to the 5 hour energy people suggesting they rename their product 10 hour energy because I wasn’t even remotely tired having only slept all of two hours during the previous 48.  Instead we played wii until 4:30 in the morning and I wrapped up my celebration with a beer on the deck while staring at the stars.  It was a pretty crazy day. 

Sunday was the 1st of 6 fantasy football drafts and the beginning of what just might be a wonderful fall.  Tonight I bottle my second batch of home brewed beer and i’m excited.  A hefeweizen beer that I added raspberries to during secondary fermentation. If it’s anything as good as the first batch of beer I just might be in heaven for the next few months. 

This is the second year I threw a pretty big bash for Jeanne’s birthday and it seems to be well recieved.  Not just because it’s her birthday, but I assume it has to do with the fact that her friends are mostly teachers and the day falls on the last weekend before school begins.  I’m thinking this is going to be an annual end of summer/birthday bash that I throw now.

Filed under: Birthday, beer, fantasy, wife

Just what the doctor ordered

In anticipation of a crazy weekend I specifically refused to accept any bookings to entertain at parties this past weekend.  My Mom, brother, sister-in-law, and all 5 nieces and nephews were supposed to come up for a weekend that was going to consist of a day at Great America followed  up with a day at the Chicago Air show.  Things fell apart by mid week leading up to the visit due to my brother and mother both being asked to work and thus the whole visit was postponed until Labor day weekend. 

Left with a weekend where I didn’t have to entertain and having no plans I decided to whisk my wife away to Michigan to celebrate her birthday that is coming up on Thursday.  I am relieved that I was given the whole weekend to really go all out for her birthday since I have to twist balloons Wednesday night, work on her birthday during the day as well as play in my billiard league that night.  I would typically skip my pool league on such a holiday, but the problem is that one of our team members is in the hospital therefore if I skip our whole team forfeits.  Theres still a possibility I will drag her out for a few hours so she can hang out with me while I shoot so we are still together, but I am sure there are a thousand things she would rather be doing on her birthday. 

Michigan was great.  It was hot.  I love Michigan.  Every time I go up there I love it more and more.  Our drive up there was delayed by some idiot that was pulling a very large camper with a smallish truck.  After sitting in traffic for an hour we finally got up to this genius.  It appeared as if a matchbox car was pulling a tractor trailer.  He slammed on the brakes and the trailer jack knifed and tipped over blocking all three lanes while not unattaching from his dinky truck that was left with his two front tires a good 4 feet off the ground. 

As we drove up to Michigan we drove past Blue Chip Casino and the wife thought it would be fun to stay the night at Blue Chip’s resort instead of a holiday inn express where we always stay.  She came up with this idea about 1o minutes after we passed Blue Chip but right before we saw signs for Four Winds Casino.  So, it was on.  I would cancel our reservation for the room at the Holiday Inn Express and we would get a room at Four Winds. 

So we pull into Four winds and I walked in to speak with a reservation host.  I will preface this story and say it was a Saturday around noon and no I didn’t call ahead for a room.  I just walked in.  Smoking is apparently still allowed at Four Winds Casino becuase I was struck by the smell of cigarettes and old people as I walked thru the main door.  I finally found my way to the hotel to speak with someone and explained that I was interested in getting a room.  She asked if I had reservations and I told her no.  I explained that my wife and I would like to stay and gamble.  Her response didn’t make much sense to me when she said she doesn’t have any “cash” rooms.  I responded by telling her we would not be paying with ”cash” but using a credit card.  She looked at me and restated “we do not have any cash rooms available.” It didn’t help that she spoke very poor english. 

So, I spoke slower saying, “I would like a room but I will not be paying cash, can I do that?”

“No”

“Why not?”

“The only rooms we have available are for coupon and player club”

So it then made sense.  I had to be somebody to stay and gamble at Four Winds casino.  I didn’t have a coupon or a players card membership.  So I restated her response. 

“So, you have rooms available, yes?”

“Yes, we have rooms.”

“But not for me since I don’t have a coupon or do not belong to your players club, correct?”

“Correct.” 

So, I walked out of the casino with a smile on my face shocked that a casino in todays economic environment just turned away a pair of ready and willing gamblers.  So I have officially added Four Winds Casino to my mental list of places I will never visit or recommend.  While I appreciate the fact that they reserve rooms for frequent players and club members, no attempt was made in any way to meet my needs.  What kind of customer service is that? 

So off to the beach we went.  Warren Dunes Beach is truly beautiful.  The weather was perfect.  Not much to say there.  I truly believe that the beaches of Lake Michigan on the Michigan side are as close to the ocean you can get.  The sand is soft, sometimes there are waves, sometimes the water is calm.  It’s clean and you don’t risk getting bitten by sharks.  I’ll take it.  For only a 2 hour drive from Northwest Suburbs of Chicago, it’s close enough for even a day trip. 

I’ll touch base on this trip a little more when I have time.  Gots to get back to work!

Filed under: Birthday, weekend, wife

Chilly Willy and the high speed chase

This past weekend we headed down to Indy to visit with Friends from College.  Not my friends, but my wife’s friends.  Over the past 9 years I have become friends with them as well and they are good people.  Each year, for a week in July we all travel somewhere together.  Over the years, the trip has gotten trickier (sp?) since all of them have children now and my wife and I are the only ones without.  Last Summer we did the weekend camping trip with them when my wife was pregnant, welcoming us to the world of parenthood, only to have the miscarriages of the twins  several weeks later. 

It was great seeing all of our friends down in Indy.  The friends we were staying with were throwing a birthday party on Saturday and Sunday for their son Scott, who turned 7.  Obviously with a group of children that size, I twisted balloons for all of the children as a birthday gift to Scott.  At around 8pm on Saturday night the four of us busted out the Wii and opened some wine and had a blast playing Mario Party.  I had never played before, and definitely decided that we need to get that game.  It was perfect for four people to play over late night pizza and beer/wine.  After the second party in two days on Sunday we made the journey home and we welcomed home by the 54 degrees on the thermostat.

Apparently while we were gone our furnace broke.  After doing some troubleshooting on my own (hoping I don’t blow up the house) I decided there was nothing that I was going to be able to do to fix the damn thing.  So, I started making phone calls and was extremely surprised how difficult it was to get someone to a. answer their phone b. call me back.  After 30 minutes of non stop phone calls to heating and air guys out of the phone book, I finally decided that the first one to call me back would get the business.  More than one hour after I started the calls, finally someone called me back giving me every reason under the sun as to why I shouldn’t have him out that night.  He even did trouble shooting with me to uncover the problem.  Once we figured it out over the phone, he begun spouting out astronomical numbers hoping to prevent me from still having him out. When I said that we still wanted him to come, he then said, “Let me check to see if I have the part in my truck and i’ll call you back.”  Do you think he called me back?  No. 

First of all, I am utterly shocked at how difficult it was to get somoene to come out to my house on a Sunday evening to fix my furnace.  For every single Heating and Air company that whines about not making enough money, I say look in the mirror.  Maybe this isn’t such an issue with larger companies as it is with one man shops, but the guy that did everything he could to get off the phone was from a pretty large local outfit. 

Lucky for me my friend stupidtom is the big boss at a company that does such work.  He talked me down from dropping a sick amount of money for the repair and we would schedule one of his guys to come out the following day.  The wife and I decided to tough it out in our house and we built a fortress of blankets and inflatable matresses on the floor right next to the fireplace in the living room.  We were able to keep the house around 55 degrees overnight and survived.  The following day (yesterday)  someone from stupidtom’s company came out and fixed the furnace.  Not only was I pleased with the service he offered, I bought from him an annual service agreement for both heating and air conditioning since had we had that agreement in place, we would have likely been spared the parts for this visit anyway. 

I kept poking and prodding the guy from stupidtom’s company trying to get the dirt about stupidtom.  Hoping he would say something so utterly ridiculous.  It’ s always good to have dirt on some one.  But, unfortunately I was left with nothing but a story about how stupidtom is the most intimidating mofos in the house, which is pretty much what I suspected.  

This morning on my way to work I was run off the road by a high speed police chase.  I saw the police car in my rear view mirror and thought for a moment that I was going to get pulled over until I realized that the car behind me was speeding up really fast and closing in on my rear end, so I drove off the road and before I had a chance to slow down the car behind me flew by with the police car in chase.  As my mind realized what I was witnessing, my heart began to pound and I had to mentally talk myself out of following the chase even though it really wasn’t going out of my way to work.  I don’t think I have ever seen a high speed chase in person and it was kind of cool.  I haven’t been able to locate anything on it in the small amount of free time today, so hopefully something will come up tomorrow.

Filed under: Birthday, Wii, balloon, balls, weekend

I am trying to get caught up today from all of the holiday madness over the past week and it hit me this morning that it’s been more than a week and a half since I even thought about posting here.  I don’t know what that means…   I am either too busy in life to dedicate time to this right now, or I am afraid of losing my job during this economic downfall therefore time I could be typing here has been spent on the phone begging some purchaser to to pull the trigger on an order even though they have had their budget frozen.  “They won’t fire you…” 

On an economic note, I feel that I am being tested at all times.  When I say tested, I mean they are watching me like a hawk.  Today a “anonymous” questionaire came to me asking if I would be interested in doing trainings on Saturday.  Would I be interested in coming in to work on a Saturday???  Hell no, I wouldn’t.  Not unless I am going to get paid to do it.  I switched my answer between Yes and No several times before submitting it.  I fear that this is not truly Anonymous and they are looking to possibly keep around those people that have the dedication and desire to work on a Saturday.  That, unfortunately, is not me since I do run a business that already occupies my Saturdays. 

Since I last posted Thanksgiving came and went as did my birfday.  Thanksgiving was about as good as it’s ever been which is saying a lot with my family.  As weird as it sounds, one of the reasons for the peacefulness was my younger brother’s girlfriend that he brough home with him while on military leave.   

When my brother told me that he would be bringing his girlfriend up for the Holiday I immediately had concerns due to his history of trying to bring women that the family disapproves of around for the Holidays.  My personal opinion is if he wants to bang a 35 year old asian milf that has three children, one of which the mother is trying to get the child to call my 21 year old brother “daddy”, then I’m all for it.  At the age of 21, go out and bang anything you can, but be safe about it and don’t end up as some babies daddy.  I was 21 once and I know what it’s like.  But in the end, do not expect your family to welcome an older woman dating a 21 year old for all the wrong reasons into the family on the holidays.  That’s just my two cents. 

That whole situation I spelled out was the reason my little brother and I had a major falling out last Thanksgiving and didn’t talk a whole lot over the past year.  He took his girlfriends side and didn’t agree with my decision to not welcome her into my house for Thanksgiving last year.  Shame on me. 

So this year I hear that he is bringing up his girlfriend, and I have no idea what to expect.  Is he dating the older girl still?  I had no idea.  So when I arrived at my mothers house in Pekin on Thanksgiving morning I was happy to meet his girlfriend.  She was a major breath of fresh air this Thanksgiving and I now finally know how hard it must have been to be my mom throughout my early twenties as I paraded hot nice girl after hot nice girl home for the holidays.  By the time I had met my wife, my mother had no interest in meetinger her because every time she would grow attached to one of my girlfriends, I would dump her.  I know my brother is only 22 now and is still young, but I’ll be secretly hoping that this is the girl he ends up with. 

While down in Pekin we celebrated my birthday by meeting up with a couple of friends from Pekin that live by us in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago.  Makes sense?  It’s actually funny because my wife is friends with the daughter of my freshman football coach whom I never met in school.  So, through my wife I ended up meeting a girl from my hometown.  This is boring…the point I am trying to make is we decided to head out to the gambling boat in East Peoria and then off to the bars down town Peoria.  I almost got my wife to go into Big Al’s with me, but there was a concern about any of the girls that I used to date possibly working there that night, so it was shot down.  It’s a sad day when you can not promise your wife that none of your ex-girlfriends might possibly be working in a strip club. 

The wife really came through for me on my birthday.  As funny as it is, I finally decided the week before my birthday that I wanted an Xbox 360.  So, what do I get on my birthday morning?  A Wii.  In the end, I will have to live without an Xbox 360 and my itch to bitch slap some ho’s and blow up cars will have to be fulfilled by driving Mario around a track on a go-kart or playing a guitar to the beats on the tv.  I haven’t had a whole lot of time yet for the wii, but I can say that I am pleased with it so far.  Now I just have to keep myself from going out and buying 500 dollars worth of stuff for the damn thing since there is so much that I want for it.

Filed under: Birthday, Wii, stupid, thanksgiving, wife

stupid birthday thoughts

Wakey, Wakey…one week until my birthday cakey, cakey…(I stole that from My Name is Earl)

I don’t really know how to call these thoughts anything but stupid, but I am really torn about my impending birthday coming up in less than a week. 

Let me preface this story by saying I love birthdays.  I love to celebrate birthdays and I love having birthdays.  I love celebrating my own birthday.  But my issue in life has been this.  I was born on or around Thanksgiving.  I have to describe it as “on or around” since thanksigiving is a different day each year depending on when the fourth Thursday or each year is.  Sometimes my birthday falls on Thanksgiving (2013), sometimes it’s the day after (as it is this year), sometimes it is the weekend after (2010, 2011) and sometimes it is almost a whole week after (2012).  Regardless, the majority of the time my birthday falls during a time when additional celebration outside of the traditional Thanksgiving gatherings just doesn’t happen.  So I am often times left to celebrate all by my lonesome (insert violin music here).  

What usually offsets my lonliness on my birthday is focusing on the materialistic side of things and what I might get.  My wife struggles with my birthday since I never tell her what I want.  I have a hard time telling her what I want when I don’t even know what I want.  I have wanted a Wii for over a year now, and have even had one staring right at me available for purchase but I passed. 

I think I have finally decided that I need more violence in my life so I am going to get an XBox 360 combined with the new Grand Theft Auto.  There is just nothing like popping caps in people’s asses and bitch slapping ho’s  in a video game.  On occasion when I am really stressed out, I will pull out the older Playstation two and play GTA San Adreas just to shoot and kill things.  It’s kind of a stress relief.  And now that the snow has begun to fall and it’s colder than shit out, I have looked back on the spring summer and fall and wondered where the hell it went.  With my regular job, and my balloon business, and all of the travels, I actually had a total of 3 non working non traveling days.  That’s just three complete days where I didn’t have to go sit at a computer desk all day, go to some party and twist balloons, or get on a plane and fly somewhere for an extended amount of time.  So as of right now I have begun decreasing the amount of balloon parties I take and I am going to enjoy some weekends at home and some time off.  I am looking forward to the holidays. 

I’m off to go twist balloons for a few hours this evening and the rest of this weekend will hopefully be filled with all sorts of inebriation.

Filed under: Birthday, drunk, grouchy, wife, work

hodgepodge

1.  Yesterday was my beautiful bride’s birthday.  I had been planning a surprise party for her at Ravinia for over 6 months, and it went better than I could have even written it.  At nearly 2pm in the afternoon the following day I think if I blew into a breathalyzer I would still be above the legal limit to drive.  I’m glad I didn’t have to last night nor this morning.  Happy Birthday Jeanne, and thanks to all of our friends that came out and helped celebrate a wonderful day. 

2. UB40 performed at Ravinia last night. They need to bring the original lead singer back. 

3. Fantasy sports season has begun. I am two drafts into a 6 draft season.  My wife has already prepared to revisit her NFL Widow status.  That and the fact that the Cubs could go all the way this year, should make weekend sports through October pretty exciting. 

4.  My first stint as a clown came and went last weekend.  I could write a whole page on interesting things that happened to me as a clown, but I am on the borderline of enjoying what I did and in order to avoid possibly coming to the realization that maybe I should continue clowning, I will deny that I ever did it so that I may forget. 

(On an interesting sidenote, when dressing up and wearing makeup as a clown, it would be a good idea to make sure that you fill your gas tank the night before the event instead of having to stand amongst people giving you strange looks as you pump fuel into your car)

(On another interesting sidenote, if I were going to be a clown on a regular basis, I would have to have tinted windows while I drive to and from events)

(On one final interesting sidenote, It’s funny shit to see someone in front of you at a stop sign look up into the rear view mirror and do a double take as they see the clown in the car following them) 

This morning on the way to work, my wife and are are somewhat relieved that Summer is finally ending.  This one all around has been hectic and full of chaos and travel.  It will be nice to get back to a consistent schedule and relax a bit.  There are still a few crazy things going on that I will have to go into at a later time, but things are definitely calming down.

Filed under: Birthday, balloon, drunk, stupid, train wreck, unmotivated, weekend, weird, wife

Word of the day

“Today’s word is legs…”  (this is one of my old favorite pickup lines)

“…so what do you say that we go back to my place and spread the word!”  (sound bad joke drum symbol here)

Actually boys and girls…todays word is Greed.  I know I shouldn’t let this have any sort of effect (affect?) (I never paid attention to how to use which during class) (today I am the king of parenthesis) on my mental being, but I can’t really help it. 

I want a Wii.  I do but I don’t.  I want one, but I am not willing to buy it from some jackass who knows exactly when the truck unloads at Walmart and has an insider that tells him when to come to pick them up.  This same jackass takes a product that is advertised at 280.00 and sells it on ebay/craigslist for 400.00 or more.  The saddest part of the Wii shortage, is that it isn’t so much a shortage as it is a problem with society today.  Greedy mofo’s.  What bothers me even more is that I could actually buy one right now from Walmart if I wanted to.  I couldn’t buy it for 280.00 bucks though…try 680 bucks.  Walmart has chosen to offer the Wii, and force you to buy options as well as 6 games. 

I am a good salesman.  I have finally sold my wife on the idea that life would be so much better if we owned one.  But I am smart enough to know that it would be a waste of my breath to to ask her if she would be down with me dropping over 700.00 on a gaming system.  Will I eventually drop that coin on the system?  Sure.  But I can’t validate spending more than 100.00 over retail for a basic system, or buying the system along with 6 additional games in one swing. 

I don’t even have time to play it.  This might just be my obsessive compulsive addictive personality rearing it’s ugly head, and I can’t get it out of my brain.  It’s like I have to have one now just to beat the system. 

The word of the day is also brought to you by the Chicago Cubs.  I have been in a “virtual” waiting room for over an hour now watching a little web browser count down from 15 seconds until the next refresh while I wait to be “randomly” chosen to buy Cubs tickets.  What pisses me off about this…on top of the whole Wii thing…is that I am a fan who just wants to watch a freaking ball game.  It makes me ill that I am going to be unable to get tickets at face value for my team because scalpers are in the know and are scooping up all of the tickets that they will turn around and resell for a ridiculous profit while I type this.  (wow, run on city!) 

Lastly, my wife and I are planning on going to see a country concert this summer at soldier field.  I am a Gary Allan (I know, who cares) fan and Jeanne likes some of the other people performing as well.  Something like 8-9 mega country stars.  Anyway, I bought tickets yesterday from ticketmaster.  They aren’t on sale to the general public yet, just fan club members.  Well, I’m not a fan club member but I was able to find the fan club member password for this event through a general google search and was able to buy decent tickets.  What amazes me is that you can go online right now and find the tickets that I have going for four time the cost of what I paid.  They are selling too!  Am I dumb for not buying up 8-10 tickets and then throwing them out there and having my overpriced bought Wii sponsored by my own greedy actions?  I don’t think I can do that.  I guess that’s the type of guy that I am. 

Sorry to Rant, but today I am surrounded by many greedy bitches and I am looking down the barrel of one long balloon twisted weekend.  I have four parties all together.  A School fair for two hours tonight, two-two hour parties back to back tomorrow, and another two hour birthday party on Sunday. 

Have a safe and happy weekend!

Filed under: Birthday, Wii, balloon, bitchy, craigs list, grouchy, stupid, weekend, weird

Holiday Party Beatdown

I am sitting here in my office this morning trying to figure out if the headache I have is still the remnants of a 48 hour hangover from this weekends festivities. 

If you want to hear about the Friday night Christmas party, go to www.stupidtom.com. He has even uploaded photos as well. 

The party was great.  It was my first time attending this event and I was overly impressed at how well it went.  By the sounds of Tom’s post, there were some issues with the DJ, but I hardly noticed any issue other than the fact that it was 100% wedding music, but I always say that you get what you pay for.  I especially dislike this DJ becuase he has always had a thing for my wife, and I was hoping for a chance to talk to him without my wife being around.  I would prefer that he never talks to her or ever looks at her again.  I can’t really believe that just came out of my mouth…or fingertips in this situation, because I have never been around someone that has creeped me out quite as much as he does.  My wife thinks he is just a sweet guy.  Apparently he was dumped many years back by one of my wife’s friends from high school and he is still hung up on this girl.  Well, this ex girlfriend of the DJ is apparently running for Mrs. Illinois and at the holiday party on Friday night this guy told my wife that she looked better than his ex-girlfriend that is running for Mrs. Illinois.  The weird thing was that he said it to her right in front of me.  I was in shock as he asked her personal questions about where she teaches (specifically what school) and she answered without batting an eye.  I wouldn’t bet against the possibility that this guy might be a few donuts short of a dozen.   This was the fourth event that we have booked him for between church and GOoF, and it will be the last based on his most recent performance and what he has said to my wife.  Maybe he was just trying to be nice, but I still get a scary feeling with this guy. 

The evening came and went entirely too fast and before I knew it the clock struck midnight and we were on our way home. 

Saturday I morphed into my weekend clown and did balloon twisting for a 4 year old party.  The party was held at this brand new pizza place in Elgin, Illinois that just opened up on Friday night.   The roughest part of the event was the fact that I was still hung over and I was trying to entertain a good 20 children.  Even rougher was the fact that this restaurant had a good amount of dust on the cement floors and every time a child would let a creation hit the ground, it would pop.  So, more of my time was spent fixing and remaking than creating. 

Saturday night was Holiday party number two for the weekend and I will try and capture the highlights of the absolute craziness that happened. 

First of all, this was a small gathering of people.  Around 14 people.  And it was a costume party.  You had to dress up as either a character from your favorite christmas movie or some sort of crazy christmas outfit.  Since I was unable to locate a Buddy Elf outfit that fit me or a pink bunny pajama costume with bunny slippers, I was at square one with 2 hours before the party started.  My wife decided that she would be that little girl that says “every time a bell rings, an Angel gets it’s wings…” Zuzu or Zuluu or whatever her name is.  She was cute in her little pajama/robe outfit.  I however, wanted to push the limits of good taste. 

I went as a 70’s Porn Star Santa.  Complete with 70’s Used Car Salesman wig, porn star mustache, fake furry chest hair, bad cheap santa suit, porn star santa sun glasses and my very own dick in a box from Saturday night live.  My description doesn’t do it justice.  Only a photo will. I will do everything I can to get a photo online to demonstrate just how ridiculous my outfit was.  

There was all sorts of craziness that ensued including the host puking and passing out before 11:00pm and I think I remember being on the phone at one point with my sophomore football coach talking about my dick in a box outfit.  (His daughter was at this party and sent him a photo of me from her cellphone.) Many photo’s were taken by many people, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find my photo circulating around the internet before I get it up online on this site, it was just that wrong.  I rode with Captain Morgan at both parties this weekend, and come Sunday morning I felt like the Captain had struck his pose and smashed my head against his raised knee at least a dozen times.  As I was driving to Church Sunday Morning I prayed that I didn’t get pulled over because it might have been possible that my blood alcohol level was still hovering around the legal limit to drive. 

It’s rare that I am excited to be sitting at my desk and back at work, but I am.  This weekend allowed me to appreciate sobriety a little more.  Tonight Sebastian goes in for his one week followup to his last appointment, so I hope the doctor gives me good news.  More to follow on that and I will do my best to get some pictures up as soon as possible. 

Filed under: Birthday, Captain, Church, Cops, achy, balloon, pain, puke, sore, stupid, train wreck, vomit, weird, wife, work

So busyish

Sorry for the lack of newness lately.  I can’t really describe it, but I am busy, but not busy.  Everything that is filling up my time is very emotional, strange, and painful. 

My wife is sick.  I wanted to write a long post about how she became too sick to take me out for our birthday celebration last saturday and how this is the second year she has come down with something serious on my birthday celebration day, but the bottom line is that I only want her to be better.  I don’t care about my birthday celebration. 

My turtle is sick.  I don’t know how else to say it.  I have written about my turtles before and all I can say is that if Sebastian decides to leave me for a better place, I am going to be a wreck for some time.  It’s hard to describe the love one can have for a turtle, but I guess I can try.  I have had the little guy since I was 8.  23 years he has been in my life.  He is the smaller of the two turtles.  Bruno and Sebastian.  Sebastian has pneumonia, and I am doing everything in my power to save him.  The blood work came back with the vet and it shows kidney failure as well.  I won’t go into the gross details but it is obvious by looking at him that he is very sick.  Yesterday morning I actually thought he was gone and had what I think is the biggest emotional breakdown I can remember since my Grandmother passed.  But what is weird is that I see Sebastian every single day.  I feed him daily.  Talk to him daily.  He is such a large part of my life, and if you were to know how F’d up my childhood was, you could get an idea of how his was as well, and all of the things we have been through together.  He has been a sure thing in a life where there hasn’t been many sure things…until I met my wife. 

Not to get all sappy, but Sebastian and Bruno mean about as much as anything that has been in my life since I have yet to produce a child.  So, these last 48 hours have been pretty tough on me.  I created a new environment for him this morning to make life easier on him while he fights this sickness.  The Vet doesn’t have high hopes for overcoming the kidney failure, but we have agreed to do what we can with a barrage of daily injections and oral medication.  I don’t know what I will do without him…

In other crazy ass news, I have had some interesting experiences with the dentist.  I am trying to complete my quest for a new porcelain crown and the dental office isn’t making it easy.  The root canal blew.  I went in Monday for what I thought was going to be a simple visit where they would take a mold of what was left of my tooth to send off to some dental lab where they will create my future tooth, but boy was I wrong. 

They had this thing where they check the color of your teeth much like they do with paint.   That way they can send in the color so that the dental lab can match the new crown to the off white that is my smile.  I asked the dentist if we could do a fun color.  Purple?  Pink?  I would love to have a Chicago Cubs tooth where each quarter of the tooth has maybe a red white and blue stripe with the cubs logo.  No can do said the doc.  I think this is how I might make my millions.  Think about all of the redneck’s that lose their teeth all the time from chewing tobacca and smoking.  I’ll bet there would be a huge Nascar following for these teeth since those are your prototypical toothless sport fans.  The White Sox would be a hot seller too!  I digress…

So, while I am in there, I realize that they are not just sizing the tooth, but basically drilling out what is left of the old tooth.  That sucked as well.  The dental assistant asked me if I wanted any local anesthesia.  Not knowing what they would be doing, I said, “do you think I need it?”  She followed that up with a, “how high is your pain threshold?”  She poked my gums and asked me if it hurt, to which I said, no.  If that was all we were talking about then we can spare the numbness for the remainder of the day.  An hour into the procedure she started with the poking and prodding of the gums, but then tells me that she is going to insert a “string” between the tooth and the gums to pull the gums away from the tooth for the mold.  OK, I said and away we went.  If she would have told me that we were going to do this, I would have easily taken the Anesthesia.  20 minutes of pushing what seemed to me to be a bear trap around my tooth and pushing it down into the gums and pulling the gums away from the tooth felt worse than at any point of the root canal.  As she was pulling gauze out of my mouth soaked in blood, I realized that I had made a very poor decision.  Eventually they finished, I swallowed some good that was hardening in my mouth and almost choked/puked all at once.  The dental assistant put on a temp crown that would eventually make it’s way down my throat 2 hours later in what has to be the worst cement job of any temp crown in the history of dentistry.  I choke it up, throw it in my wallet to have it re-cemented today.  They F’d up again today.  I will share that fun story tomorrow.  

I have to run off to a church meeting and hope to drown my sorrows afterwards with a beer or two with some of the members of the church. 

Happy Humpday!

Filed under: Birthday, Blood, achy, beer, body, pain, sore, stupid, turtle, wife