So Thursday was our big day in downtown Chicago. We started off with a brief stop at Millennium Park followed by a quick walk to the Sears Tower. For those of you that didn’t know, there is now four glass ledges that come out of the Sears Tower so that you can stand there looking directly down with nothing below you but the street some 103 floors below. Yes, it is kinda scary. When I walked over there I was carrying my three year old niece. I took one step on before backing away. But, I went back a few minutes later and was able to stand on there and lay on there without being too freaked out. I even have proof

Okay so that’s me laying on there. It might be hard to tell but its a long fuckin way down to the bottom of the street.

My niece became ever so comfortable with the ledge. So much that she was laying on the ledge face glued to the bottom staring out below. People were laughing at her and taking pictures. It did not bother her at all. Of course, she is probably too young to realize that she was so dangerously high.

After the Sears Tower, we walked for what seemed to be forever to Uno’s pizza, which has the best pizza I have ever eaten. Next we went to Chicago’s Navy Pier.

Friday the family went to the Zoo but I stood home because I wanted to jerk off. Okay so that’s not entirely true, I did have some errands to run like going to the bank and getting a key for a pavilion for Saturday’s event: a family reunion on my mom’s side of the family. It wasn’t just a family reunion. My twin brother and I had planned it with help from one of our cousins. This was a pretty significant deal for us; as I said to Mark at one point “did you ever think there would be a time in which we would plan a family reunion for mom’s family?” See, years ago, I did not like my mom’s family. In fact, there were people that I downright hated, and I mean hate, I’m not just saying hate for effect, actual legitimate hate. But, things have been mended and last year sometime, after our third funeral in two months, my brother and I decided that we need to see our family more often than just during wakes and funerals. And fortunately, most of the family agreed.

My mom’s family is nuts. The last family reunion we had was probably about 16 years ago when my mom planned one at her house. Needless to say, arguments ensued, as often was the case when my mom’s family got together. I was only about 19 or 20 then and didn’t fully understand the importance of family. Now I do.

As recently as two weeks ago, I did not know who or how many people were coming. Turns out, that with a few exceptions, the entire family showed up. Well, at least the ones in Illinois. And the reunion was a smashing success.

In my family, the younger you are the less respect you get. Mark and I are the youngest of 39 grand kids; we have first cousins who have kids that are older then us. But, I think with Saturday’s reunion, we earned our stripes and made a name for ourselves.

So anywho, Tuesday we went to The House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI which is about a half hour west of Madison. This was a 3 1/2 hour drive and our plan was to rent a car. It was imperative that we got out the door on time to make sure we picked up the car by 9am. As luck had it, we made it on time but it took quite some time to actually get the car and by the time we stopped off at the store, we weren’t on the road until around 10 in the am.

We made it to the house by 2 and that included a stop for lunch. There is really no way to describe The House on the Rock, you just have to see it for yourself. Hell, even their website doesn’t do it justice. It took us just over 3 hours to make it through The House. While in the gift shop waiting to buy fudge, an older couple in their 50s came up to my brother and asked him if he was a professional boxer. Instantly, my mind went to work. I concocted a story about how we are from just south of Indianapolis (we aren’t) and that he had fought professionally to a record of 11-1 but had to quit due to tearing a shoulder ligament. They would have totally bought the story had my  brother not started laughing. Then it made me look like a total asshole.

Wednesday was family photo day. This might seem hard to believe, but our family has never had a family photo of all of the siblings. In addition to the picture of the siblings, we also did one of everybody including the grandkids and one of just the grand kids. That was the plan but we added some extra pictures such as a picture of the siblings with my brother’s wife and my personal favorite, one of the two sets of twins; my brother and I and his own set of twins. I’m going to post pictures under a private post mainly because I don’t think my brother would want me to post pictures of his kids online for the world to see.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been on vacation the past week and therefore, not able to update much. But, now I sadly sit here on the last day of my vacation as my vacation dwindles down to a mere few hours. Geez, life is great when the vacation first starts and you have the WHOLE vacation in front of you but at the end of the vacation, it’s kinda depressing.

Okay, so I don’t want to make this a long 10 hour post, I’m not going to force 7 full days into one post, instead I will break it down and spread it out over the course of 2 or 3 days. I’ll start with last Saturday, the 21st.

My sister’s train was scheduled to get into town at 2:23 in the pm. The train was of course late, I kept watching the Amtrak website for updates and constantly saw it keep getting pushed back. Eventually, the site stopped working so I had to call Amtrak with updates. I left to pick her and her kids up about 6:15, getting there about 6:35pm. I called Amtrak one last time and found out that the train would arrive at 6:42. Well, lo and behold, here comes the train barreling in at 6:41, she got off the train and the first thing I said to her was “wow, you guys are one minute early!”

We went back to my house and had dinner with all my siblings. My sister’s daughters (ages 12 and 14) instantly clicked with my brother’s 3 kids (a girl age 5 and a set of twins, boy and girl age 3). They were literally running around playing with each other within a matter of minutes, like they knew each other for years, even though they had not seen each other since the twins were 2 months old.

Last Sunday was our annual family reunion with my dad’s side of the family, its always a good time. Of course we played softball like we do every year; if the Kennedy’s have touch football my family has 16 inch softball. After the game I was standing around talking with my cousin’s 16 year old son (who does not like me for reasons that I suspect are jealousy, his step brother confirms my belief) who was bragging that he is going to buy a $22,000 2011 Chevy Camaro by the time he graduates high school in 2 years. He is so convinced that he is going to buy this car that I bet him $50 that he will not own the car before he graduates high school.

Monday we went to Starved Rock State Park in Illinois, which is about 70 miles west of where I live and probably 100 west of Chicago. I had never been there before but my older brother had been there quite a few times. It was very beautiful; about as scenic as you can get. Unfortunately we got a late start to our morning and didn’t even get out there until 1pm and even after that, we needed to stop and eat lunch which meant that we didn’t even get out onto the trail until damn near 2 o’clock. We did stay until shortly after 5 though, doing a considerable amount of hiking and walking.

All right, so I guess that is about enough for now, check back tomorrow evening for another update.

As of yesterday, Friday, at 6:15 in the pm, I’ve been on vacation! My sister and her two daughters (14 and 12) are coming out via train from Denver to spend the week with us. I probably won’t have a chance to update much, if any, while they are here as we have a busy week planned, a week which includes but is not limited to:

• The House on the Rock near Madison, Wisconsin-I went there last year for the first time, the rest of my family has never been. They keep asking me what it is and all I say is “You’ll see.” I guess I should fill them in since we have to drive three hours each way to get there, but hey, I want them to be surprised.
• Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry- My sister and her daughter’s love this place, and you know what, I like it too.
• Starved Rock- This is a park and forest preserve about 90 minutes away where we can go hiking.
• Family portrait- This will be the first time ever that we have gotten all the siblings together for a professional family photo if you can believe that.
• Not one but two family reunions, one on each side of the family- The one on my dad’s side has been around for decades and we go every year, but on my mom’s side, well my brothers and I have taken the liberty to plan one this year since we only seem to see each other at funerals.

My sister has not been out here in over 10 years. As for her kids, well, we brought them out here in June of 2007. Needless to say we are all looking forward to this week. If only the train wasn’t nearly 4 hours late we could be getting things going much earlier. But, such is the rigors of train travel. Did I say rigors? Joys. The joys of train travel. Did I say rigors. Joys. Its a joy. Train travel is a joy. Ahhhh fuck me! Let’s drink!

Seriously though, I do love train travel.

Last night I came across some old pictures of me that I decided to show a friend of mine today since she was either in some of those pics or took the pictures. Although I didn’t plan it, but I was wearing the same shirt in the pictures as I was wearing today. Now normally you might think nothing of that, but this is anything but normal. The pictures were taken 7 or 8 years ago, if not more. That’s right people, I still have the same shirt. And you might say “shit Mike, get some new clothes there is no reason to be wearing an 8 year old shirt.” And I would agree, there is no reason to be wearing an 8 year old shirt. Except that this shirt is not 8 years old.

It was a hand me down from a friend of mine. He gave it to me probably 10 years ago. He originally got it and wore it. In high school.

15 years ago!

Well what can I say, the shirt still fits and is in good shape. Oh and I’m cheap. And I’ve got little to none fashion sense. I never know what is in or what I should be wearing. And I never know what matches either. Hell, I found out not more than 7 or 8 years ago that one should not wear brown shoes with black jeans. And I found out about 6 years ago that people stopped wearing black jeans in the early 1990s. And as I documented here on Xanga, complete with pictures, some 4 years ago, I once wore different color shoes to work on accident. So clearly, I’m a complete and utter fashion disaster.

A girl at work who is into fashion said that I shouldn’t tuck the shirt or any shirt for that matter. Now keep in mind it is a shirt with a collar and I was wearing casual pants (not jeans, but not dress pants…………these things are easily 8 years old as well) so I don’t know if it should be tucked. My theory is always tuck into casual pants or dress pants but not into jeans or jean shorts. She told me that people stopped tucking shirts in back in the early 1990s. I might be way out of touch with this whole tucking/not tucking thing, but at least I’m not my brother, he even tucks into his pajama pants! Even I know that looks ridiculous.

So you tell me, should I or should I not be tucking into my pants if it is a collared shirt or a dress shirt because honestly, I have no idea. Please help me because if not, than its totally your fault if I look like a dumbass!

If you know nothing about me, it’s that you know nothing about me. But, a couple of things about me, I love to read and I’ve always been fascinated with U.S. presidents. So when I was made aware of a book about the Secret Service, I just had to have it. So I rushed right out and bought it a year after it came out. Okay, so I wanted to wait until it came out on paperback knowing that there would be addition stuff in there that wasn’t in the hard cover. Turns out, the only thing extra is an explosive new afterword, at least that’s what the cover says. Hmmmm………..do you think its wise to use the words Secret Service and explosive in the same paragraph?

The book is about 270 pages long and I’m about 107 pages into it. So far, it has been very interesting, you would not believe the shit I’m learning. And I know I had written lame posts before about books I’m reading and then I made shit up about what I was learning so why would you trust me when I say I’m learning stuff now? When I think about it though, my previous posts about what I was reading and learning are some of my least popular posts, so why the hell am I writing about it again? Oh yeah, I have nothing else to write about.

So here are some things I have learned so far. Honest. I’m not making this stuff up this time for comic value. Of course, I fully expect to learn more later on, but for right now, this is all you get.

• Ironically, the Secret Service was the last act Abraham Lincoln signed into law. What is even more ironic is that their primary focus was to catch counterfeiters. Until then, presidents either had no protection or maybe they hired a bodyguard which was usually a local police officer. The person guarding Lincoln the night he was shot stepped away from the door to watch some of the play and then grab a few drinks at a local saloon. Well at least he wasn’t on his Blackberry at the time of the shooting.
• In spite of the fact that three presidents had been shot and killed, the Secret Service didn’t start officially guarding the president until, get this, 1902! So let me get this right, it took the U.S. three dead presidents until we finally realized that maybe somebody should be guarding him. Jeez, could you imagine if it took three planes to crash before the president finally reacted on September 11? Oh, shit, wait, bad example.
• It wasn’t until 1951 that Congress finally passed legislation to permanently authorize the Secret Service to protect the president. 195fucking1! Let me put that into perspective, that was just 11 years before JFK was killed!
• Lyndon Johnson had such big testicles that some of the agents nicknamed him bull nuts. Turns out, LBJ liked to walk around naked and didn’t care who saw. Of course, if I was hung like a bull I would probably walk around naked too but instead I’m only hung like a horse.
• Jimmy Carter was a raging asshole who treated agents like utter shit. I was totally surprised by this because he seems like such a nice old man, but I tend to forget that when he was president he was a creepy looking peanut farmer in his 40s.
• Richard Nixon was paranoid. Seriously, we needed a book for that?
• Nancy Reagan totally had Ronald Reagan pussy whipped. Like, really bad. Ronnie was very nice and down to earth, but when it came to Nancy she without a doubt wore the pants. When I look back on it, I guess I shouldn’t be all that shocked.

The presidents I was most looking forward to reading about were Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton because I figured they would have the most dirt and goofy stories. I haven’t gotten to the part about Clinton yet, but Nixon, I was kind of disappointed the lack of info about him so far, but I guess we all know about him already anyway. As for President Obama, although they say he still smokes, there is not much more in the book about him yet and I don’t expect much more because agents don’t generally talk much about the current president. Of course, this is assuming all of the stories in the book are true and accurate. I will say this much, for a book about presidents, it doesn’t appear to be all that political.

I was reading an article in the Chicago Tribune (that’s right people, I still read the newspaper. And I don’t mean their website, I mean this morning over breakfast I read a hard copy of the paper that had been delivered to my house……..or at least my neighbor’s house!) and an accompanying survey about gay marriage. The article mainly focused on Chicago and Illinois residents take on gay marriage, but the survey had info regarding the whole country.

I had mixed feelings about the survey. On one hand, only 39% nationally approve of gay marriage, 53% say no (8% don’t know), however 57% approve of civil unions. Also, 49% say homosexual behavior is morally wrong, only 9% say it is not but a whopping 42% say it depends/not a moral issue. Now here is the one that will make you scratch your head. 64% say homosexuals face “a lot” of discrimination, whereas 30% say they don’t. I swear, Americans are fucking stupid. There is no other way to put it. Although I should probably explain.

Those same people who say gays face a lot of discrimination are also against gay marriage. There seems to be some sort of disconnect here. By mere definition, being against gay marriage means that you are discriminating against gays, yet they don’t understand that they are the very same people who are discriminating against them? Huh? Or should I say hfuckinguh? That’s like being against abortion but for the death penalty. Oh wait………….same dumbass people. My mistake. Let me clarify, it’s like being for helping the poor, but against welfare. Oh, shit, my fault, same people again. It’s like being for freedom of religion but against Muslims building a mosque. Well, fuck me, I did it again, I described Sarah Palin and her followers. But, by now I think you get the gist of it.

Of course, the anti gay marriage people almost universally say that they don’t have any problems with gays and what gays do is none of their business, but they just don’t think they should be able to marry. So what that means is that they don’t feel gays deserve the same rights as heterosexuals. It’s pretty cut and dry; black and white, in their eyes, gays are not on the same level as them. But yet gays face a lot of discrimination. Say what? Look, hetero couples lose nothing by gays getting the right to marry, just like how males lost nothing when woman were given the right to vote or how whites and blacks lost nothing when interracial marriage was legalized.

I know a guy who is racist, but he doesn’t know he is racist or at least he doesn’t think he is racist, even by every definition he is indeed racist. When I pointed it out to him, he got offended and was hurt because, essentially he did not know he was racist; for him, racist is what other people were. I think it is the same way with these anti gay people. I don’t know if I would go as far as to call them homophobes because that would imply they have a phobia which is probably not accurate. But, they are plain and simple, bigots.

Bigotry towards homosexuals is rooted in religion. I would like to have seen a follow up question that asks just how religious these respondents were because I would bet dollars to donuts that it was a high percentage of people who are against gay marriage and also religious.

The one thing that is consistent though is that the more these people get to know gays, the more tolerant they become, which is one of the reasons why people need to be out, it is the only way we can make progress. Also, I can’t say this enough, gays can not win this war without support from heterosexuals, which is ironic seeing as some of them are the very same people who are against us.

After a very stressful day at work Friday, I was looking forward to some fun. For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to talk my boys into going to Ho-Chunk Casino in Wisconsin which is only about 3 plus hours away. Back in the day, we used to drive the 3 hours, gamble for a couple of hours and then drive home. We used to spontaneously do this some nights and not get home until 6 or 7 in the morning. Some people would say that was nuts. We called it fun.

I thought that Friday would be as good a day as any to make this drive. And I had sold both my friends on actually doing it. The plan was to meet at my one friend’s house at 7:30. Of course, I was on time, but my other friend was late and didn’t get there until after 8 in the pm. And it was POURING out which scared my other friend off from making the drive all the way out there. So we settled on the Horseshoe Casino in Indiana which was only about 45 minutes away. Even though I lost, we still had a pretty good time.

With me losing money Friday night and still having a vacation to spend money on next week, I decided to keep things lo-key Saturday night. I just rented a movie, Death At a Funeral which is a remake of a British comedy from 2007. I’m always in the mood for a comedy; hell who doesn’t like to laugh. Although it could probably be better, it was funny, although I’m curious about the original.

I’ve decided to have a huge bash in October for my mine and Mark’s birthday, another friends birthday and the 15th wedding anniversary of a couple of friends of ours. Back in the day, we used to have these kick ass New Year’s Eve bashes but haven’t had any big bashes in years, so this should be a guaranteed good time.

For my entire life, I’ve pretty much gone by different names. I should clarify, my given name is Michael. When I was really little, that is what everybody called me. I hadn’t even heard the name Mike until I got to kindergarten or first grade when the teacher said my name and asked if I wanted to be called Michael or Mike. I asked her what Mike was and she said it was short for Michael. Okay, so maybe a normal kid would have figured that out on his own, but I was a little slow eh…………….okay not really. But I digress.

So I liked the name Mike and decided that was what I wanted to be called. My mother though, refused to call me Mike. And I mean ever. She called me Michael until the day she died. When she was really mad at me she would call herself a bitch. Well, that’s not really true, she would say my name first, something like “Michael, you sonofabitch!”

Family would call me Michael. Even now, the extended family calls me Michael, however I’ve got the siblings calling me Mike finally. And my nieces and nephew, its Mike. But my friends, well, its kind of split. Most of them call me Mike. Some of them call me Michael. I’ve never told them what to call me, and honestly, I do like both names but prefer Mike, but I always tell them whichever name they prefer to call me is fine by me.

Of course, with a name like Michael, there is more than just Mike or Michael. There is Mikey. I don’t know why, but for some reason, most of the people at work call me Mikey. I have no idea where it came from or why. I never told anybody to call me Mikey, they just do. I’m fine with it, except that my mom’s brother is Mikey and well, I’ve not liked him since the time he tried to kill me. Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration, instead he just grabbed me by the tie and threatened to kill me. This was when he was like 76.

Then there is Mick or Mickey. I’m not a fan of either name, although it would be cool to be called The Mick. There is also Miguel, for some reason I’m called that often too, even though I’m not Hispanic. I’m indifferent to Miguel. For the record, I prefer Mike or even Michael.

Damn. I think I did a post similar to this years ago. That is the problem when you’ve written over 1,500 posts you tend to forget what you wrote about. So feel free to go back and read all my posts and let me know if I ever did a post on my name.

I’m about to make a post that a few years ago that I never would have written. Honestly, a part of me can’t believe that I’m about to write this. But…..

I’m a New York Yankees fan.

Well not really. I’ve always been and always will be a Chicago Cubs fan, in spite of how fucking awful they are and how frustrating just watching them can be. But, the reality is that the Cubs are among the worst teams in all of baseball. They are not going to win the World Series this year. My second and third favorite teams are the Colorado Rockies and the Minnesota Twins, respectively. Now don’t get me wrong, I do like both of them more than I like the Yankees. But, the Yanks recently traded for former Cub and one of my all time favorite players, Kerry Wood. He deserves to win the World Series, so that is why I’m rooting for them. But, there is more to this, but before I get into that, let’s take a commercial break

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Okay, we are back. The Yankees are the most popular and hated team in all of professional sports. A big complaint among haters is that they always buy the best players and because they always win. I just don’t understand this logic. I mean, after all, what is wrong with winning and trying to win? Hell, the Cubs do the same thing, they are just incompetent about it. The bottom line is that it comes down to jealously. Unless you are a Red Sox or Mets fan, people hate the Yankees because they win.  My brother is one of those huge Yankee haters. I swear, sometimes I think he would rather see the Yanks lose than see the Cubs win. His Yankee hatred makes me want to root for the Yankees.

And the ironic part is that the Boston Red Sox used to be my second favorite team. But not anymore. Somewhere around 2007 I started to not like the Sox as much. And now, I’m rooting for the Yankees more than the Sox. Go figure. When I was a kid I read a book about the 1927 Yankees which of course featured the greatest player of all time, Babe Ruth. Since then I’ve been a big Babe Ruth fan. I’ve always appreciated the Yankees historic tradition of winning, but just in the past year or two realized how jealous people are of them. Of course, I do  believe there is Yankee bias in the media. But overall people are jealous and that is why they hate so much.