Daydreaming of Pictures

I know it's up there...





I'm going to get it when it comes down here...

So we play punch bug with the Munchkin.

Yeah, you know that cool childhood game where you punch your neighbor when you see a VW Bug, except for blue ones, on those it's a punch back.

So with the proliferation of the new style punch bugs we changed the rules a bit.

Punch bugs are one hit, convertibles are two, throw in an old style bug and that's an extra hit.

SO if you see an old school convertible it's three shots in the arm for someone.

"What if it's a blue one?" she asks.

That we decided, has got to be the Holy Grail of punch bugs we decide; I mean how many old school, blue, convertible, punch bugs can be on the road anymore?


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So yesterday morning we're heading downtown to see the Cubs game. We parked at a relatives house who lives right by the Orange Line and hopped on the El there to take to the loop and change to the Red Line. I get a spot to stand by one of the doors while the girls grab the available seats. Across from me at the other door is a couple that are all decked out for travel.

I mean really decked out, the first thing that I notice is that they're both wearing serious Osprey hiking packs. Their packs both have a nalgene water bottle as well as a hydration tube running from the pack. Next I notice that they're both wearing the same type of microfiber lightweight breathable shirt; "oooh they match" I think, that is until I see that they are both wearing a hybrid hiking cargo short made out of the same material with even the same logo. Twins!

It's while they both have their Blackberries out, furiously texting or typing, that I start to wonder what their plans for the day are. Will they traverse a huge expanse of the urban jungle with their hydration systems, and packs with loops for ice picks, seeing it all through their Oakley sunglasses. Are they planning an all day ordeal, whatever will they see? What kind of survival gear did they pack in those bags anyway? How far are they planning to go...


... in flip fops?


That's right, easily $600 in hiking gear, and they're both wearing generic looking flip flops. Personally if I'm going to drop that kind of money, spend enough time walking around where I need a pack, I'm going to think a little bit more about my footwear.

Well, Munchkin softball and with that our first year of coaching / managing has come to an end this weekend with the year end tournament.

The team had it's ups and downs through the year, but I think overall progressed pretty well. I'm especially proud of how the girls came around for the tournament.

The first game was Friday night against the Orange team, we ended up playing 3 extra innings and winning 13 - 11. It was incredibly exciting, and the best part was that the team, who've had issues keeping their heads in the game from time to time, were right there in the game the whole time.

Saturday morning we were supposed to have a nine am game, unfortunately it was raining at 9, terrible management by the tournament ensued with the end result being we played on a different field at 12:00.

Once again the girls played well, unfortunately just not well enough. To show how much we were improved though, that game was against a team that slaughtered us twice in the regular season, and we almost actually won.

We played again at 6:00, but a few of the girls were tired, and no longer on their game. I gelt bad for the Munchkin though; she was in the zone, playing well, defensively as well as offensively, tried to get her team up, they just weren't there though and we lost again to end the season.

Even though we wanted to win, I don't know that I really wanted the outcome as we would have had to get in the car and drive over to another field to immediately play a third game that day.

Well, we signed on the dotted line and our home is now for sale. With any luck, we'll be moving before school starts back up again.

On the drive home from the gas station, I made a right turn and waiting in line to make a left turn was a lady with some fierce multitasking skills. She was driving her car, while talking on the phone, while eating an ice cream cone!

Passover was this past weekend, and one of my co workers who lives in the city mentioned last week that his son prefers Passover Coke. None of us had ever heard of this. Apparently, for Passover Coke does a limited Kosher run where instead of the new fangled high fructose corn syrup they go back to old school sugar for a sweetener. This morning he came in with a six pack hoking us up. I have to say, it's not bad. If you get a chance, check out your ethnic foods isle to see if there is any left.

Not long before the Munchkin’s birthday I won an iPod shuffle in a raffle. So she desperately wanting an iPod, she received it as a present. I was just playing with it, and it’s a pretty neat little item.

I put it on random while I walked around the house doing some things, just checking out songs, the sound quality on it was pretty good. Se’s got a pretty diverse mixture of music going; there are some musical soundtracks, typical preteen band stuff, some Country, as well as Queen, and Guns and Roses. I went to go take my contacts out and it happened, the next song started off with the familiar bells of YYZ!

She has Rush on her iPod!

Hells yes!

We went out for lunch at a Crazy Kitchen Chinese Buffet, which given it’s name and the fact that it’s a buffet the food was pretty good.

At one point while filling her plate, the Munchkin ran over to The Woman.

“Mom, they have HUMAN CHICKEN!”

“What?”

“Human Chicken, they have HUMAN CHICKEN!”

“Hunan Chicken, read the sign! That’s an N, not at M, goofball.”

As is the Cubs game, our flight out of Harlingen is at least 15 minutes late. We hear our connection to Chicago is late as well.

Time to post a couple of entries from when there was no free wireless.

Last full day in Texas tomorrow, I'm going to miss 70-80 degree weather when we get back to Chicago.

So I was letting the dog out when I noticed something...





At least it's freshwater right? Not sewage?

I should get some empty bottles, fill them up, and make a killing on spring water. It came from a spring! In my back yard, but the water is springing out of the ground!


So the water guys are knocking down a section of my and my neighbors fence right now to dig it up and repair it. I don't envy them, it's cold and wet out there.

So the Munchkin and I were driving back from dinner. The conversation started out small talk, what did you do at school today type stuff, then gradually moved on to where I was telling her about some of the classes that I took in high school.

We were talking about study hall, and I mentioned that our lunch periods were divided in half. Half of the period we had lunch, then the other half you had study hall. Or you had the option to take a couple of filler classes like typing. I wasn’t really fond of study hall, so I chose typing one semester.

She asked me what we did in that class, to which I replied what do you think we did, we learned how to type. aaa , aaa , aaa , bbb , bbb , bbb , and so on. It was all really boring to do on the typewriter, and I’m not sure it actually helped me, but who knows.

I looked over, and there she was staring at me; open mouthed, with this dumbfounded look on her face...

“... You used a typewriter?”

What? Yes, yes we used a typewriter! They're not that old you know, and neither am I! They still make typewriters! Get off my back!








They do still make typewriters right?

Tags: life, munchkin

I've been quite busy as of late, with work picking, both at the day job and now that it's football season.

I've also been participating in more extra curricular activities, work has quite a few sports leagues including; basketball, flag football, soccer, volleyball, as well as several styles of softball. There is 16 inch, 10 inch, as well as 12 inch coed mush ball, which is the league my "department" joined so in the spirit of brotherhood I joined as well. This means now that the fall league has started in Channahon I'm playing twice a week. What a workout for a fat desk jockey!

The work team has won 2 out of the 3 games, and the Channahon team has broken our lifetime winless streak with a good win in the first game of the season! (Hey, we were very excited at our play, we even turned a double play! The coach says next week he'll bring some beer! This might put us at 1-1 though...) saintedwyn might have even "gotten some"!

Now a shot from last weekend.

At about three this afternoon I sat down at the computer and fired up Semagic, intending to write a real update for the journal. Then I was informed that the oven wasn't cooking things, and needed to be replaced.

Four and a half hours later I now sit at the computer, the new oven is cooking, and the desire to update is gone.

A couple of questions though:

Who in their right mind thought cracked pepper vodka was a good idea?

Who's idea was it to mix it with mango, or whatever that was? I'm looking at you cartaiesh and cyrinzero.

While I'm at it, how did I get passed up on the tasty shots in the first place?

Some more that didn't go to the client.

This girl was interesting; the other bartender flat out refused to play our reindeer games and be on camera, while this one was just thankful that she showered that morning.

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Tomorrow we're off to CO on vacation! I'm coming home on Wednesday, the girls however aren't coming home until the following week meaning it's the bachelor life for me!

Maybe I'll get around to catching up with people I've not seen in some time like dragonbane, or maybe I can finally meet theamazingjosh one night.

You know the type, those people that travel down the road with their left or right blinker flashing away without a care in the world or turn in sight. At times, I am sure, some of you have even been a blinker person. Of course it was only for a brief moment I am sure.

Yesterday in my drive home, I saw the ultimate blinker person! This person blinked in the left lane for miles. They kept pace with the traffic, at a nice pace of 75, lights merrily blinking away as we all drove down the toll way.

The reason that this is remarkable is the fact that, not only was he a blinker, but he was a flasher as well. Flasher as in marked squad flashing lights. This guy drove down the highway, keeping pace with traffic; squad lights and left blinker on from Butterfield to I55 down 355. He wasn’t attempting to pull anyone over; he didn’t even have any traffic in front of him for about half a mile. He just drove down the highway with the rest of us, all of his lights flashing.

BP who is “proud of the accomplishments we've made in reducing the impact of our activities on the environment.” and “Leading improvements in operational safety, health and environmental quality management across BP.” (From bp.com) is about to ratchet up it’s pollution activities to Lake Michigan via scenic Whiting Indiana which is just across the Illinois boarder.

Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, along with its regulators gave BP an exemption from state environmental laws which would allow it to dump 54% more ammonia and 35% more “Sludge” each day. In real numbers the percentage equals 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge which will be introduced daily into Lake Michigan from which 10 million people get their drinking water. This added waste will still keep the plant below standards of the Congress enacted Clean Water Act of the 1970’s.

The need for BP to pollute more stems from their desire to refine heavy Canadian crude, of which this expansion will grow the Whiting factory which was built in 1889 by a whole 15%.

Fear not though, what really attracted Indiana to the added pollution was the growth to it’s industry and economy. This whole mess is expected to create 80 whole jobs!

80 jobs?

There have been a bunch of stories about how Lake Michigan hasn’t been fit to swim in most of the year, and they want to pollute it some more, for a paltry 80 jobs?

It disgusts me how Indiana is allowed to have an impact on so many people through bad judgment on their own. They do realize that 3 other states boarder and use that lake right?

The Tribune has most of the relevant facts in their story.

We had the usual suspects over for some 4th of July BBQ eats and drinking this year, well more eats than Drinking because Jason was over and almost everyone had to get up for work the next day.

We ate and watched some television while we debated the finer points of the Transformers movie. (Which did have a Ford in it, Barricade the cop car was a Saleen modified Mustang according to Wikipedia’s listing of all of the vehicles. Missing, which probably led to the confusion, any Ford emblem or the tell tale pony on the hood.)

Afterwards we retired to the back to partake in the multitudes of fireworks purchased by the surrounding neighborhood while we watched mycroftholmes blow up his decades old bottle rockets.

saintedwyn and elisstar were doing a fine job of documenting mycroftholmes attempts at blowing himself up, but at the end I decided to give it a go as well, and mainly watched him burn himself with sparklers.



Death from above! It almost was death as an earlier attempt had the flaming sparks almost land into the bag of explosives.

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Don't eat corn, that stuff will go right though you! jaxcrandor said to little H.



( She obviously didn't listen )