Summer activities

This weekend I went to Twin Lakes, WI for a bachelor party - Danny Parkin being the bachelor. We went to a lake because his buddy owns property there and its an inexpensive means to gather 17 dudes to be loud and party. Aside from an accidental 911 call (not made by me) and drinking too much with not enough food in the stomach (done by me), I had a blast. I didn't really anticipate getting into the water because Saturday was September 26 - and we were in Wisconsin, not Hawaii - so I thought this would pretty much be off the agenda. That was until one of the crazy bastards decided to water ski back to the house from breakfast. Breakfast was across the lake, so we took the boat, so that is how he was able to ski home. He nailed it and it looked fun - and he didn't die of hypothermia.

After we returned to the house from said breakfast, the owner, organizer, and best man wanted to go wakeboarding. I had been wakeboarding a few times in the past, but not for about 6 or 7 years or so. As it turns out, its like riding a bike. I was the first to go (out of 3) and after 2 or 3 failed attempts to get up, I finally did and I was cruising. The hardest part is starting off because you're just there buoying in the water waiting for the boat to go. Then when it starts you have to pull yourself up to plane and hold on, while moving forward and resisting the water. While up, I rode around for a while, not really doing anything fancy, just riding. I had three runs and each time I did try to get fancy I ate it and swallowed a few pints of water. Believe it or not, that was actually a lot of fun! I watched as the other 2 guys did their thing, and that was pretty much the end of the wakeboarding, but I talked about it the rest of the trip and would have gone again.

I really can't wait to do that again next summer (even though this time it technically was autumn and not summer). It is so similar to snowboarding that I can do it in the "off-season" and vice versa, so I get a similar exercise all year round. I don't really classify either of these two as "sports", so I won't use that term, but they are intense and I'm so glad I participated this weekend.

Also, this weekend, the Cardinals clinched the NL Central... woo hoo! The first team to clinch their division this season. It is exciting as a Cardinals living in Chicago to have the birds in the playoffs for a few reasons: 1) I get to make fun of Cubs fans more relentlessly than during the regular season, 2) It's still baseball season for me, and 3) I get to watch my team on TV (tbs and hopefully FOX) more often than the regular season since the playoff games are nationally televised. Wainwright is a stud and I hope he wins the Cy Young - he deserves it for clinching under his win, amongst other things. Carp is close behind and that makes that even more exciting. Albert Pujols is also the leading contender for NL MVP by a long stride. These factors make me very hopeful for a nice run through the playoffs, no matter how far they get. I am still a little wary about the whole Smoltz starting/Franklin closing situation.... Maybe LaRussa doesn't want to show all of his cards - I guess we'll see.

Birfday

Today is my birthday. I am sure I have written about this before, probably last year, or maybe the year before... who knows, who remembers, who cares? Anyway, it started out with a bang. Anyone that knows me knows that I like to celebrate my birthday for roughly a period encompassing 5 days to one week. This year it started last Friday night. Kristen and I flew into StL and met up with my aunt and uncle and my mom. We left their company not too long after and met up with the Stewarts and the Weltigs. Since I wasn't able to make it into town during August, which is when Chris Wetig's birthday is (8/14), we decided we'd all get together for a drink and enjoy a joint celebration. We met up with them at Hot Shots in SoCo - Matt's choice, of course... haha! It was great! We caught up on what's been going on, BS'ed about old times and funny stuff, and sipped on some delicious beer selections, including Guinness - a must whenever I go drinking with Stewart.

The next day, Saturday, we woke up and ran some errands - yes, when we come to StL on "vacation" we are constantly running errands... haha! We also went to watch my nephew's first soccer game - more on him in a moment. We had tickets to the Cards/Cubs game that afternoon with Ray and Ali, so we met up with them and headed down there. We were supposed to watch Bierman throw out the first pitch, so we were in a rush, but even though we got into the stadium a full 25 minutes before the game started, we apparently missed Brad's shining moment by about two or three minutes. I hope there's a video out there, Brad, because I was really bummed that we missed that. So we had a few beers, a few laughs, and watched the Cards beat the Cubs 2-1 with a walk-off single... it was fantastic! We went over to Shannon's following the victory and were planning on having a wild night downtown... until it started raining. The rain and our hunger pangs prompted us to go to the CWE and meet up with a friend of mine and Ray's for some relaxation, drinks, and sushi for me!!! (remember, I'm still celebrating my birthday, here!). After that, we were pretty tapped out and despite Brad and Jimi's best efforts to get me back downtown, I was not driving and was feeling increasingly inebriated, so I went with the flow and we ended up at Frankie G's for a nightcap - and for everyone else who didn't eat sushi (Kristen) to get their grub on! We laughed and joked there with Weltig and Blandford and that was pretty much our night.

Sunday I shared my joint family birthday party with my now 6-year-old nephew, Nathan. Okay, so it was his party, but he was gracious enough to pretend to share it with me. It was a huge success and we had a lot of fun (I, breaking open the SpongeBob pinata) until we had to leave to catch our plane back home. The rest of the week up until my actual birthday was pretty uneventful for me, despite making some headway on bringing in money with this architecture business. This morning Kristen and I got up to go play tennis. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she doesn't have to be at work until later, so we had some time to sneak off and knock the ball around - it was awesome! I actually got a really good workout and I could see some development in Kristen's game! We went home and I enjoyed a self-prepared biscuits 'n' gravy breakfast.... delicious! I am sitting at the office now getting ready to eat pot stickers for lunch and just plain trying to keep things going. I am not sad that I'm here, because I have already had a very eventful birthday thus far (and I'm eating a lunch that I really enjoy).

Tonight I may meet up with some friends I met while playing on Dan-o's 16inch softball team earlier in the summer, when we first moved here. They're pretty cool people and will help me round out my celebrating by cheering alongside me as the Cubs lose to the Giants and the Cardinals clinch the NL Central (which they should have done in grander fashion last night!)... okay, save for the one Cardinal fan in the group besides me, they probably won't be helping me celebrate that...

In the Cards

Cards/Cubs series kicks off tonight. Smoltz is going against Lilly - I don't like our chances in this one. Smoltz is 1-1 since coming here a month and a half ago. Lilly was the Cubs lone all-star at the break... regardless of the "every team gets one player represented" rule at the All-Star game, Lilly can pitch. Our hitting is a little better than theirs, as well is our bullpen, but that's just how I see this one going.

That's all the credit I'll give the Cubbie bears. I think the Redbirds will take the final two games of the season series quite handily. I am most excited about Saturday's game where Cy Young candidate Chris Carpenter takes the mound at 3pm CDT. I will be at this game with our friends Ray and Ali and several people I know will also be in attendance. In fact, Brad Bierman miraculously won a raffle to throw out the first pitch, so we will be seeing that as well. If we all meet up afterward and have our usual night of debauchery, good times are promised. Yes, I will be in town, but, no, I will not have time to do much of anything else. In fact, I am blowing off my 10-year high school reunion to go to this game. Sunday I am celebrating my birthday with my nephew, who graciously shares his birthday party with me every year for the past 6 and counting.

This Cards/Cubs series doesn't hold a lot of playoff implication, since the Cards are pretty heavily favored to win the NL Central by the landslide margin they currently maintain. Even if the Cubs were to sweep this weekend - which is highly unlikely, even though they play well at Busch - they would still be a full 3 games behind. I don't think they have enough left in the tank to catch up. And they are closest, so even if they did beat us down this weekend, no one else is even close enough to touch us either. The rivalry is still fun and these games are great to go to!

So even though there isn't a lot on the line for the birds, I am still excited to go to the game, see some friends and family, and cheer on my Cardinals from the hometown stands! Go Cards!

This just in...

Okay, I have added a few new features to your favorite blog... no, I am still talking about this one.

First, I have added an option to allow you to subscribe. At the very bottom right of the blog page you can subscribe to either the posts themselves and/or to all comments left on posts. I encourage everyone to do this. For everyone that gets this blog sent to you automatically via email, you can opt to keep it the way it is or go ahead and subscribe to both. I think you'd be better off to subscribe that way you not only get alerted every time I post, but also any time someone leaves a comment (which isn't often). If you subscribe and want your email removed from the automatic list, just let me know. For the rest of you, subscribing keeps you from checking in from time to time only to see the same post over and over when I haven't posted in a while.

The other thing I did was added two more blogs to my "Other Good Reads" section on the right side. One is a random that I found through an email that was forwarded to me. The author is just like me. He is an architect and shares the same style of writing I have exhibited in my non-journal-type posts. He also adds photos, so it enhances the experience. Don't go falling in love with his blog though, because I will still be here to entertain you...

REAL Real Stories of the Highway Patrol

All right, so I came back to Chicago from St. Louis early Thursday morning because I finished all my business there and I had to get down to business here. Anyway, since I decided to drive my car down there so I could get around during the week, I naturally had to drive it back. I take I-55 because it's the most direct way to go. I could take I-70 to I-57 through Champaign/Urbana and into the underbelly of the south side of Chicago, but I don't want to know how much longer that would take, so I've never attempted it. The trip is already 5 hours long. Come to think of it, if I did that, I could probably bypass alot of that downtown traffic at 90/94 and I-55.... hmmm.... we'll see about that one.

Moving on to my point. So when I drive that route, I usually see a plethora of law enforcement. Usually it's highway patrol in their white cars with the gold stripe, but I have seen SUVs, black cars, and even American muscle cars either unmarked or with insignia. Most of the time they are in the center grass or gravel turnarounds, but I have seen them on the shoulder, on overpasses, and even on on-ramps. Sometimes I will drive the whole time and not see one. Sometimes I will see a few, but only after they already have another driver pulled over. This last trip home, I saw about 9 on the way back. Here's the thing - given my experience in driving this route from visiting Kristen's family all those years, I knew I should probably invest in a radar detector... so I did (actually, I had my mom get it for me for Christmas because I never know what to request when prompted - usually around Thanksgiving). She got a really nice model - a Cobra. I guess it's nice... they have a reputation of being effective in preventing traffic violations and it looked expensive. I have been using it ever since and it has saved my ass a few times. So this last trip, you could imagine that after seeing 9 of these guys I would have been tired of the detector chirping... right? Wrong! It only went off three times... 3-out-of-9!! I had to roll up on the rest of them doing about 80, having an "oh shit" moment, and then lightly applying the brakes to make it appear that I wasn't speeding, only to pass them at about 70+ with no repercussions to serve.

It's actually almost frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I don't want a ticket, but if I'm going to use a radar detector (which I am not even sure is legal in IL), I want it to detect radar and justify its existence on my windshield. I'm not so sure, but I am not convinced that these guys are even shooting radar sometimes. In fact, I don't think they are, meaning that only 33% (by my data collection) of state troopers on I-55 shoot their radars (this isn't my first time noticing this trend either). Think about it, the detector works sometimes, and I'm sure with its sophisticated technology and Cobra's unblemished reputation that it's not a piece of crap that only works 33% of the time.

Here's my theory: I think the cops (67% of them, anyway) don't really want to write anyone a citation, they just want to slow them down for a few miles. I have also had this theory when I see one of them driving in the traffic lane. They will drive for miles and miles, seemingly without purpose (where do they have to go?). The cars around them will take a very long time to slowly attempt to pass them at about 1 to 5 miles per hour above the speed limit. Successful as these speeders may be, the cop has still disrupted the "flow" of a vast majority of lead footers on the road for several miles at a time - more efficient than pulling them over. I actually give them kudos if this is what they are really trying to do... I find it to be very effective.

Kind of sticking with the topic - do you guys remember that TV show, "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol"? basically it was a show about cop stories from the California Highway Patrol (or CHiPs... hehe, remember that show?). They would re-enact these outlandish incidents that happened to real troopers on the job. It was kinda cool - I watched it as a kid.

Skip to the Lou

Look out St. Louis, here I come! That's right, if you haven't heard the news, I will be going back to the hometown this Labor Day weekend. Good ol' St. Louie. I don't really miss it, but I am excited to see a lot of my family and friends. Oh yeah, Kristen is coming too... Jake will be staying with his permanent dog-sitter - his aunt Jaime.

In case you're curious or would like to run into me if you weren't planning already, here is my agenda.

Friday (today):
Come into town late in the evening and stay at my mom's.
Most likely go to sleep immediately following our arrival.

Saturday:
Get up early to go to the Mizzou/Illinois Braggin' Rights football game at the Dome with Steve (bro-in-law) and the brothers Tucci.... we're tailgating!
The game is at like 2 or 3 and takes a few hours, so not sure what we're doing in the evening. however, this day is pretty booked for me.
Kristen is getting her hair done in the afternoon and may have some other plans after that which I know nothing about, so you'd have to ask her.
I'd like to meet Justin and Lacey (collectively, the Hahns) at some bar on the Hill around 10pm to see a guy they know sing and play guitar - if I'm not too shit-faced (which isn't likely) I may do that.

Sunday:
Visit with the family in the morning and probably into the afternoon. I think my mom is having people over for BBQ and a swim, weather permitting.
try to catch up with some friends... Matt beck is in town from Rhode Island, so we talked a few weeks ago at meeting up at Frankie G's to reminisce about old times... and I'm sure we'll watch some game on the TV. I haven't confirmed this one yet, but I'm pretty sure that's the plan. It has to be later in the day because of the other stuff I said I was doing earlier.

Monday:
Kristen has to leave on a train, since she has to work on Tuesday... so I will take her to the train station at some point, but we may try to catch up with some people before then if we have time.
That night I am not doing much of anything - I'm sure something will be going on... if not, I will go to my condo.

Tuesday:
Go to my condo to check things out and clean the rest of the crap out of there. I also need to paint a few walls, etc. I will spend the majority of the day there, I imagine.

Wednesday:
I need to make a few rounds, networking-wise. I am seeing about a new project I might work on (remotely, of course) in StL. I also need to see about getting paid on some stuff I've already done... I hate hunting down money.
I am also going to be playing in the Divisional Playoff game with my old softball team. It kinda works out perfectly because they actually need a player and I will be in town. So, despite my absence the past 5 games, I will be playing the entire game.

Thursday:
Head back home to Chicago. Hey... I have work to do!!

Pretty action-packed weekend, as you can see. Hit me up if you want to.