Why does it seem like every few months there is one of those days in which everything is happening and all of a sudden, I become a proponent of human cloning? Take today for example. For starters, there is Mark’s annual bbq the Saturday before the 4th of July. Of course, being summer, there are all sorts of fests and concerts going on. At Ribfest in Naperville there is one of my all time favorites, George Thorogood. Also up in some place in Palatine is the Violent Femmes. Then there is a charity poker tournament that I was invited to. The Cubs are playing a HUGE series against the Brewers, which I will be able to catch only some of instead of all of it at Mark’s house. To top it off, there is also the Taste of Chicago, which, although is going on for 10 days, we are still going to have a tough time making it down there. All of that plus Andy Rooney, today, Saturday June 30, 2007.

I don’t want to get too excited, but I’m pretty sure that today was my last day at my job. That’s right, I hope to have a new job within the next hour. See, I have declared myself eligible for the NBA draft and although I was not a lottery pick, I’m thinkin there is a still a decent chance that I will go sometime in the first round. I heard today that there were rumors on the internets that the Utah Jazz were going to be interested in me, but they want me to play center. At 5’6 135lbs, I’m not sure that I’m cut out to go against the likes of Shaquille O’Neal or Yao Ming night in and night out. I think I’m going to insist that I play point guard, even though they already have a good point guard. If they won’t let me play the point, than I will flat out refuse to play for them, after all, there are still some other teams after them in the draft that can use a point guard, like the 76ers. Oh, and should I not get drafted in the first round, than fuck the NBA. I won’t lower myself to be drafted in the second round, after all, everybody knows I’m much better than that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go work on my free throws. After all, 38% from the line is not gonna cut it, even if I were Ben Wallace.

Who knew the Oj trial would have such a huge impact on American society? Allow me to explain. See, with the Oj story and subsequent trial, the media became OBSSESSED with celebrities. And I don’t mean like the mentally healthy obsession I have with chocolate, I mean the same kind of unhealthy, stalkerish obsession that born again Christians have with Jesus. This is sick and detrimental to society (the media obsession with celebrities, not the Christian obsession with Jesus…………wait, come to think of it, they are both detrimental to society). Now I’m not going to mention any names of celebs because quite honestly, I don’t think those people deserve the attention of anybody talking about them, especially some dope from Chicago. A few weeks ago General Peter Pace was replaced as Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is great news for many reason including his hatred of gays. I know his name and know exactly who he is but a lot of people don’t. Because he has contributed so much to the country (such as helping to fuck up the war in Iraq), people should know who he is and what he is responsible for (like fucking up the war in Iraq). Nevertheless,  CNN started to cover the press conference of his being replaced when all of a sudden, they had to cut to some “breaking news ” from Los Angeles, where some stuck up bitch was getting was she deserved: a ride back to jail. Sure, CNN is guilty of this, but they are not the only ones, if there is one thing that unites FOX, CNN and MSNBC, its this new type of “news” which focuses on celebs, in particular a dead blond bimbo who “died a tragic death”, another blond fluzy who when she isn’t busy in rehab loves to make her baby drive her around town, and last another blond dumbass who is too dumb to figure out that she is thin enough to fit between the bars in her jail cell. Perhaps I’m just old school, but I believe that the media should be held to a certain level of journalistic integrity in which they focus on the stories that are the most important, not the ones that are the most popular. Sure, it is a free country and yes, they are in business to make money. But honestly, are you trying to tell me that the so called “story” of this brainless twit could not wait until their entertainment report? How can the media pull shit like this and still call themselves journalists? If they are journalists, than Michael Bloomberg is straight. Who is he you ask? Well, I won’t say, but shame on you for not knowing. And shame on the media for not making you know. As far as I’m concerned, all of the major cable news networks are tabloids. Do you realize how many more important things are going on in the world besides who baby daddy is of the dead bimbo?

Now I know what you are thinking “they are just giving the public what they want” and yes, you are right. Which brings me to the losers that focus on celebs. Can’t you fuckers find something better to do, you know, like paying attention to your kids or cheating on your husbands (let’s face it, celebrity obsession is a female thing. Ok, so its a gay thing too). You don’t even know any of these people, why are they more important to you than issues laws that are being passed in your area or what is happening with the war? I know these celebs are everything you want to be and you are living vicariously through them, but isn’t that what drugs are for and also living through your kids? Whatever happened to the days when people would snort something or shoot up to help forget about their boring, mundane lives? Or when they would just push their kids to the point of a nervous breakdown to be everything they were unable to be? All of that has somehow morphed into obsessing over what actor is cheating on his wife with another actor or what some famous bitch is going to be wearing to her trial? There are bigger problems in the world people, its not like that lump under your arm, these problems won’t go away if you ignore them. Get over yourself and your celeb obsessions so that the media can get back to covering stories that matter, like which congressman is sleeping with a teenager!

I added Imagine to my playlist to coincide with the release of the John Lennon cover album “Instant Karma” to benefit the people of Darfur. The album was released a couple of weeks ago and of course, I bought it. “Instant Karma” is a 2 disc release featuring a wide range of artists including Green Day, U2, Aerosmith, Avril Lavigne, Los Lonley Boys, Big and Rich among many others. As many of you know, the Darfur crisis is one that I have paid close attention to and feel that strongly that it is a very important issue. Anywho, you can pick up the cd and learn more about it on the website, which of course, I have included the link:

http://www.instantkarma.org/InstantKarma.html

Here is also a link to Green Day’s video for “Working Class Hero”

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kzgTbGGN7fQ

I don’t have much more to say about the crisis, except learn more if you don’t know about it yet.

Here is a brief summary of how the rest of the weekend went. Friday during the day we went to Haunted Trails followed by Coldstone. Damn, I had some ice cream with cherry pie filling…………holy shit, it totally kicked ass, have you had this shit? Hot fucking damn. After that, we went to see Shrek The Third. It was good, I like it, but it was not nearly as good as the first 2.

Friday night was the breast cancer ball, AKA, the Boobie Ball. Keith and Heather were so kind enough to pick us up. We arrived promptly at 7, just in time to catch Scooty and Kris in the parking lot. We headed in and got situated. For the most part, it was pretty much a wedding with a silent auction. We had dinner, a dj and an open bar. Oh, I almost forgot, they had appetizers (you know what the fancy word is but I can’t even begin to know how to spell it) which were these good ass meatballs and egg rolls, it was very falic-y, you know, a gay man’s dream. The only problem was that the eggrolls were not very good. There was also a cute cop that worked there, although Heather and Kris did not think he was cute at all. What can I say, I’ve got different taste from them…………..although some would say its bad taste.

Dinner was actually pretty damn good. I wound up not winning any door prizes or any of the bids on the silent auction. We wound up staying until well past it ended, even hanging out in the parking lot for 45 minutes afterwards. I wish I could say we had some huge drunken orgy of hot sex in the parking lot, but the reality is that by that point, we were all almost sober, so it was just a sober orgy.

We got home at about 1. For the first time probably ever, Keith and Heather came back to our house for a few beers. The only probably is that I only drank about a 1/4 of a beer before I realized it sucked and gave the rest of it to Keith. Ok, I didn’t give it to him as much as he took it from me, but I hadn’t drank it in a while and had no interest in drinking it.

Saturday was the Cubs-Sox party at Scooty’s. He was supposed to have a bouncy thing there for the kids (and those of us adults that would jump in it, which is everybody) but because of the rain, it was canceled. After the game, Scooty, Mark, Dave, Jt and I played an impromptu game of Texas Hold-Em. On the first hand, Dave went all in. He did not play it well at all and I could easily see he was bluffing. So I called him with my pair of nines and just like that, he was done. About a half hour later, Scooty was out of the game. Dave came back up and tried to talk us into letting him buy back in. He kept asking us to vote on letting him back in, but the 3 of us that were left told him no. We kept telling him no and making fun of him. He went as far as to grab chips, sit at the table and try to take the cards from us. It was classic. One hand Jt and I went all in just to spite him and I lost a huge chunk of change. Soon I was done and as soon as I lost, I told Dave I changed my vote and he could buy back in. Of course, they didn’t let him in and we were done playing just a few minutes later.

After that, we played some beanbags. It was Mark and I against Dave and Jt. Much like cards, Dave got one turn and they were done, we skunked them 11-0! I started laughing and Dave started chasing me trying to pour beer on me. Funny shit. The next game, he got more than one turn but we still skunked them.

Later on the kids were playing in the basement when Kris’s 9 year old son, Ben, hurt himself on their elliptical machine. Although I don’t know how he managed to do this, some how, not only did he slice the hell out of it, but he actually cut right through the fucking bone in his big toe! We saw the x-ray later and you could see the damn thing broken off, it was fucked up. I felt bad for the kid.

We were supposed to go to the waterpark yesterday, but it was not very warm and with a high of 78 and rain (it was cloudy when I got up) so we didn’t go. Instead we went to breakfast at the Crispy Waffle, which was the first time I had gone. Good shit, even if it was expensive. On the way home, I ran into Roland at Walgreens (he was a guy Mark and I graduated with). It was the first time I had seen him in almost 4 years.

Since it was the girls last day out here, we had our aunt and uncle and Mark and Amy over for dinner. I took the girls back to the airport and at 10:30ish, they were headed back home. I could go into more detail about the airport, but its fucking late and this was supposed to be a brief summary.

I will have to get more into my weekend later, but I just wanted to write what I was just witness to. I was coming off  I55 and Rt 53 in Bolingbrook about midnight. I saw cop lights as I was getting off and it looked like he was blocking the road. That is when I saw something that was totally fucked up and is going to keep me up. A 4 door car was parked on the right side of the road about 50-100 feet ahead of me completely engulfed in flames. I was stunned and a little freaked out. Within a couple of minutes a couple of fire trucks pulled up to put out the fire. Soon, they let us drive by and I tried hard not to look at the scene. For all I know, I may have just driven by a death scene of a person. It really makes you think.

I swear, I’m more busy on my vacation than I am when I work. Not that I’m complaining, I’m happy to be off. I also don’t have time for a detailed post, so here is a brief summary. Tuesday we went to Haunted Trails in Joliet. First we did the go carts, John, Rachel, Willow and I all drove our own cars. The girls were kind of afraid to go too fast, whereas John and I went as fast as we could at all times. This resulted in us lapping each one of them 3 times. Still, they said they had a lot of fun and I have no reason to doubt them. Next we went into the arcade or as I like to call it, the kiddie casino. This one was even more like a casino as most of the games had one object which was to get as many tickets as you could. Shit, they even had a couple of Wheel of Fortune games which were not too much unlike the Wheel of Fortune slot machines at the real casino. Once I started playing some of these games, I really got into it, almost like when I’m at the real casino. Rachel really wanted a stuffed Quagmire (from Family Guy………yeah, like you I’m kinda wondering why their parents let them watch Family Guy, but whatever) from the prize area so I set out on a goal to win it for her. Not only did get that, but she also got a picture of Stewie.

After that we had lunch. Normally, I wouldn’t right much about lunch………….oh, who am I kidding, of course I would write about it. Anywho, I ordered chilli and for some reason which we can’t figure out, they gave me 10 packets of crackers! Now I normally do put a lot of crackers in my chilli, but that would amount to 20 crackers which is a damn lot of crackers. So if anybody want any of the 3 packets I didn’t use, you can buy them on E-Bay. When I was finally done eating my cracker lunch with chilli, we played mini golf and went home.

Yesterday, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, which, although fun, doesn’t warrant a whole paragraph, at least in the interest of time.

Yesterday was also Rachel’s 11th birthday and since we were going to have dinner at Mark and Amy’s house, they asked what she wanted for dinner. I was expecting her to say something like pizza or mac and cheese or even hot dogs. The response I got was pretty surprising, she said she wanted grilled cheese and tomato soup! Kids!

Today they went to the zoo while I went to the casino. After going to the kiddie casino, I had a hankerin for a real casino. Yeah, I should gone to the zoo, it would have been cheaper.

So today we decided to take the girls to Chicago. We got a late start and didn’t even leave until 11. The good thing about leaving at that time is that traffic is pretty much non existent. We zipped down I55 and into downtown in about  half hour. We parked the car at the Millennium Street Parking Garage, which turned out to be a pretty good deal, at least by Chicago standards. It was only $19 for what amounted to almost 10 hours of parking. We started off with Millennium Park and I’m not exaggerating about this in the least, by the time we got out of the parking garage and walked only for not even 5 minutes, my sister was asking if we could stop to rest. See, she is in horrible shape and it was about 90 degrees out. She looked awful and honestly, at that point, I was convinced that she was going to have a heart attack at some point today. I was regretting that she came with us because we had a lot of walking to do and I thought there was no way she would make it. She kept saying we were walking too fast, but honestly, I had slowed down to half of my normal pace and she was still lagging far behind. As for our nieces and John, they were doing perfectly fine, running and jumping around.

The first place we went was to “the bean” or as its official name is, Cloudgate. The girls loved it, they thought it was the coolest thing because, well, it is the coolest thing. After that we headed to the water area where tons of kids played in the water. This is really kind of hard to explain, there is a surface of about 2 inches of water and also a couple of walls with water coming down them and shooting out. We (and by we I mean John and I and our nieces) played around in the water for about a half hour. Even though we brought our gender specific swimwear, we did not put it on, which sounds stupid, except that it was so hot and humid out that we were dry again within a matter of minutes. After we got done there we decided to head over to Navy Pier.

I told them to take the trolley while I dropped some stuff back at the car. I was to meet them at the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel at about 2:15. This was about 1:40 when I left them. The walk there was not too bad, except the walk to the car was a bit of a pain in the ass because I got lost on the way. Still, from the parking lot to Navy Pier it wound up being about a 20 minute walk. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but then again, I was walking really fast. I’m quite certain John, Willow, Rachel and I could have made it, but my sister…………….well that is a whole different story. I would be there waiting for them for about 45 minutes before they finally showed up.

We walked around trying to find something we all wanted to do. I had the idea of the Fun House and even went as far as to buy tickets. But as it turned out, the girls were both afraid of dark places and loud noises, so we wound up not going in and getting our money back. Rachel really wanted to go on the Ferris Wheel, so we went back outside to head over there. Now both John and I are afraid of heights, but it was determined that I would take on the Wheel. At this point, it was getting cloudy and very windy. It was probably about a 20 mile per hour wind. This made for a very scary ride, if you can believe that. In fact, although Rachel was loving the ride, I was downright petrified, I was squeezing onto the poles of our little car as tight as I could, not that it would have made a damn bit of a difference had the damn think broken or blown down. The ride is probably less than 5 minutes, but it was a LOOOOOONG 5 minutes. LONG.

After that, we headed over to the Sears Tower via a very eventful trolley ride. It had been raining when we finally got on the trolley. We were at the back of the trolley, with Willow sitting on a bench with an older lady and with some other people. John, Rachel and I were standing, with John’s backpack on the floor at his feet. Roseann was somewhere a few rows up. Willow was talking this older lady’s ear off, telling her all sorts of things, it was funny as hell. Yap, yap, yap, she would not shut up, everybody thought it was hilarious. Soon though, I started talking to this younger, kinda cute guy. Early on in the conversation, it was obvious that he was drunk. But, he and I were just going back and forth exchanging goofy stories and making the whole back of the trolley laugh. He told me that he was a lifeguard who had recently saved his first life. I told him that I had saved a life by stopping a lady from eating Arby’s. We went on with one goofy story after another before he got quiet for a minute. Now I was wearing sandals and somebody told me that I should watch my feet and “be careful where you step.” I looked down and didn’t know what to make of what I saw. I wanted to believe that the stream of liquid that was flowing down towards the back of the trolley was just rain water. I was piecing together what John and a few people had hinted toward but I just could not believe it was true, until later it was confirmed. As it turned out, the dude I had been talking to fucking pissed himself! It went down his shorts and leg and towards the back of the trolley. We arrived at our stop at Union Station and everybody got off. The dude went off with his friends and several people on the trolley were saying what happened, although I was still in a state of disbelief. That was, until John lifted up his bag. That’s right people, the bottom of his bag was soaked with the urine of a drunk lifeguard! Sorry dude, perhaps that’s how one rolls while in the water, but not while standing on a trolley in downtown Chicago. Unfortunately, as you might expect, we had to throw the backpack away along with just about everything inside, including Willow’s disposable camera I had bought her.

We went to the Sears Tower before heading to Giordano’s for dinner. After dinner, I hitched a cab and went back to get the car. Long story short, after getting the car, I slowly made my way back to the Giordano’s to gather everybody else up and go home.

That dude pissed himself. Its almost as amazing as that dog that eats his own shit. Almost.

Friday at 5 in the PM, my vacation started! WOOOOHOOOO, YAAAAAAAAY ME!!!!!! I started off by going to Scott’s to play cards and bbq. With me being on vacation, as far as food is concerned, anything goes. So, at Scott’s I had a burger, a cheddar dog and some strip steaks. Everything was very good, except the strip steak was kinda tough. Ok, it was really really tough and I literaly bit off more than I could chew and nearly choked to death. But what can I say, it was taking for-fucking-ever to chew the food to the poi…………..wait, this is kinda gross, so I will just leave it alone.

Anywho, I only played one game and took 2nd out of 9 people. I have played very good lately playing cards, but I still would have liked to win.

Yesterday, we were to pick up the rental car from Hertz in Plainfield at 11 in the am. We went with an economy car, which was the Hyundai Accent. We got there and as it turned out, they were all out of them and they upgraded us for free to the Ford Focus. This made John kind of upset because we were trying to get the Accent because it gets 37 miles a gallon. I could bore you with more details, but this is a long post so I do need to skip ahead.

We got on the road about 12:10. According to Mapquest, the drive would take 6 1/2 hours, although 11 years ago when Mark, Roseann and I went it took about 8 hours (that was with Roseann making us stop to piss what seemed to be every half hour). I decided not to print directions from the internet, but instead decided to be old school and just use the atlas that I bought. The drive down there was nice, because of WGN’s powerful signal, we were able to listen to all of the Cubs game, which wound up being a good game, even though they lost. As usual, I had my David Sunflower seeds, which as we know, are the best seeds anywhere. I also bought some Rold Gold pretzel rods, which are the best pretzel rods anywhere. Jeez, when did this turn into a damn commercial. Also, this was the first time I had a cell phone for a road trip, which was neat because I was able to pass the time texting people.

About an hour north of St Louis, John said he was hungry so we might as well stop to eat and gas up. He said he saw a sign for Subway, which was “only” 2 1/2 miles off of I55. I told him that we should probably go some place right off the highway but he said “its only 2 miles.” 10 wasteful minutes later, we were in downtown Staunton, IL which if you were like me, you were shocked to find out that not only was there a Staunton IL, but also a downtown to Staunton. We went to a BP and also got some Italian subs from a sandwich place inside the BP. Even though John got a ham & cheese sandwich, it seemed to take a long time for it to be baked and for him to eat. I killed time by losing money on scratch off lotto tickets. Enjoy my money, school children of IL.

Our little jaunt into the legendary IL town of Staunton would cost us 45 minutes! We drove on well into Missouri and down near Lake of the Ozarks to a very tiny town called Versailles. We got to a gas station and called our brother in law to meet us there so that he could take us back to his grandma’s house where he and our nieces were staying. I guess I should explain something here, we were picking up our nieces who are 11 (or soon to be 11, like in just a few days) and 9 and who live in Golden, CO.

After  a few minutes, Mike (my brother in law) showed up. We followed him back to his grandma’s house which was in the middle of a forest. We went down a gravel road and a dirt road and I could see why he needed to meet us in town. We got there and the house was a lot like I had remembered it, except a little more worn down. She even still had the same couch I slept on the only other time I was there back in October 1996. Her son and his family live up the road about a quarter of a mile. Shit, it might have even been a little more than that. Also, it wasn’t much of a road, it was just an area of land in the middle of the forest with no other houses. Mike’s Catholic aunt and uncle with 6 kids live there. Mike’s aunt is really close to him in age, in fact, she is only 10 months older then him. Nevertheless, we grabbed the girls and walked back to grandma’s house.She made us burgers and pasta salad and we all hung out for a few hours before going to bed about 11:30 or 12.

We got up bright and fucking early the next day at 6:30am. Shit, it should be illegal for me to be up that early on a Sunday, but his grandma got up and she started to make coffee. Also, Mike had a 12 hour drive back to CO and we had about a 7 hour drive back home. She made us eggs and toast, not much but still very nice of her to do since we were staying at her house. We got on the road about 8:30 in the am. We drove for about 2 hours before stopping off at a Waffle House. John, Rachel (the 11 year old) and I each had chocolate chip waffles. Willow had some other waffles. I could go into more detail and give play by play of the waffle eating, but shit, this post is long enough as it is.

We were back on the road by about 11:15ish. We drove into St Louis where we were going to stop at the Arch. John and I are not to fond of height, but I had been up in the Arch 4 other times, so this should not be a problem for me. As we sat at a stop light directly in front of the Arch, John was able to see all the way up the 630 feet to the top. He said that he was having 2nd thoughts at this time, but we still went on and parked the car. We headed into the base of the Arch while I bought tickets and John and the girls went through the little museum they have there. Soon, we were in the little tram cars that would take us to the top. After a 4 minute ride, we got out and walked out. For those of you not familiar, the Arch doesn’t have much room at the top, but it does have 40 tiny windows in which you can look out and take pictures. The place was packed and therefore, I did not get many chances to see out the window or take any pictures. Instead, I text messaged Mark, Heather and Dave to tell them where I was. Even though this was my 5th time in the Arch, I was still a little scared up there. It reminded me of an airplane and I swear, I could feel the damn thing moving. It seemed that we were only up there for 5 minutes when the girls got scared and said they wanted to go down. So, with that, we were done with the Arch.

We managed to get a little lost walking back to the car in the extreme St Louis heat. I swear, it must have been 100 degrees out there. In fact, even right now at 11:30, its still 77 in St Louis, which is a far cry from the current Romeoville temp of 77 degrees. Fuck damn, its fucking hot out here, I’m so glad my AC works. Anywho, we eventually made it back to the car and we were on our way.

While on the road, we got invited to Amy’s parents house for dinner. My goal now was to make it all the way home without stopping, a tall task even without kids, since it is a 4 1/2 hour drive from St Lou. We made it to Bloomington before John and Willow had to pee. Still, we made it pretty far. We made it to their house right about 6:30. We ate and played some beanbags before heading home.

I could have written this with more detail, but what can I say, the damn road can really wear somebody out.

I was eating pistachios (spelling please) at work today when I had a brilliant idea: put the shells in the toilet and use as target practice. This is something I used to love when I was a kid and my mom smoked. For whatever reason, sometimes my mom would throw her cigarette butts in the toilet. This would give me something to aim for and I would sit there and piss that damn butt all the way around the toilet. Ohhh, so much fun. Well, I tried this with the shell of the pistachio and damnit if the damn thing didn’t sink right the fuck towards the bottom. Maybe I should try it again and make sure that the outer part of the shell is on the water, you know, kind of like a canoe.

I’m trying to decide if this posts makes me sound white trashy, childish or both. I guess its probably both.