Could have definitely had one of those really bad moments if I hadn't checked my flight info to Pittsburgh today. Guess I'm flying out of Midway, not O'Hare. Should have figured since I'm flying Southwest, but I was gonna just hop on the Blue Line after work today. Now it's just a couple blocks to the Orange Line instead. Sweet. Took the bus in to work today. Got the last in the pack, so I had a seat no problem. Really easy. From right in front of my building to 3 blocks away from work. I'll probably be taking it more often. Also, since I'm headed to Pittsburgh tonight, fitting that I watched Land of the Dead, which is set in Pittsburgh. Funny. Dinner at Emilio's last night after the movie. First time after walking by it so many times going to River East. So I'm out of town, for the 5th year in a row, on July 4th weekend. I'll be back on the 5th.

Back. Mars was great. Good time. Fun people. I'll admit that it was fun to play, a little bit on grass, especially after I cut my toenails, but still, I'm glad to be done with it. Grass Ultimate that is. My flight out got delayed a little bit on Friday, but otherwise no problems. Showed up extra early Saturday morning, wasting a first round bye due to none of us actually reading Bryan's detail email. We went 1-2 on Saturday. Played some Beer Schtick. Went to Church Brew Works. Great food. As usual. Got to meet Akira's girlfriend, Aimee Eggler, with whom I will be playing at Sandblast with in a couple weeks. She seems pretty cool. I'll have a better idea after playing in a tourney with her without Akira. Also got to meet Josh and Gwen's baby, Lila. Cute as a button. Went 2-1 on Sunday. More Beer Schtick. Played some dodgeball at the Duck X-ing Feature Game halftime. Last one on my side to get hit, after being saved twice by the medic. Some pool time, some margaritas at Don Pablo's. Monday made it to the B-Bracket finals against Seven Sages. Lost. Said goodbyes, got some Wendy's, got a room, Mina and Carl showered before I brought them to the airport, got lost on the way back, watched some TV. Tuesday finished up The Da Vinci Code, flew back to Chicago, watched some more TV for the afternoon. Took a nice nap with Tracy, made some Lemon Chicken and watched Entourage via On Demand. Not a bad weekend. Might go see War of the Worlds tonight.

Having some connection problems between home and work, so email is sporadic, and updating is little harder than it usually is. Just a notice, that's all. Didn't go to a movie, had to find Tracy's cell phone instead. Got some wine at Kafka Wine Co and brought it to the Casbah Cafe for dinner. Not bad. Too much appetizers and wine to enjoy dinner though. Pretty nice and quiet and laid back evening. Took the bus down again this morning, it rocks. 25 minutes or so. Very nice. One of these days I'll have to try it going back up too. Besides that, headed to beach tonight.

Might actually be headed home tonight instead of tomorrow. Played Schtick instead of ultimate last night at the beach, since there was ~30 people there. Fun, but completely different when played without a beer in hand and running. I'm looking to pick up some horseshoes out in Woodstock for a side game to beach. Also, walked over to Millennium Park at lunch yesterday. Not that far, and I also walked by the Daley Plaza Farmers' Market. I'll have to hit that up some Thursday.

Pretty good summer weekend. Went out to Woodstock, got myself a haircut, finally, got Horseshoes and Bocce for those days when there are too many people at beach. Went with Tracy to Lisa's mom's house for a dip in their pool. Ended up going to see War of the Worlds too. I liked it, but I'm tired with the limited character view of world ending events. Sunday slept a lot, got lunch at Nookies Tree, went to mass, stopped at the Gap on the way home, and headed back out to Homer Glen to drop Tracy off. A nice quiet night watching The Mummy Returns and other stuff on cable and eating leftovers. Nice. Gonna try and catch up on Entourage on Tuesday.

As you might have noticed, I've added a Flickr photostream to the sidebar. Why? Because I can. Also, with my new cell phone, I'm able to take pictures, send an email to Flickr, which then automagically get pulled through javascript onto this website. Pretty cool. Which hopefully means I'll get better at taking pictures and posting more of them. Also downloaded the newest version of iSync, which properly supports my phone. Which is good. No more hacks there. Anyway, didn't work out last night like I'd hoped, instead had dinner with Bryan at Silver Cloud, which wasn't a part of dodgeball.com last night, so I couldn't use it then. Also got to see Akira, Remy, and Katie Kelly, since I was in the neighborhood, or they were. Finally picked up my copy of Mac OS X Server, don't know when I'll get a chance to play with it. Headed out to Homer Glen tonight.

I know I need to work out, go for a swim, run, do something tonight, but I also want to install Mac OS X Server and start playing with that. And then there's my brother's old laptop that he shipped out to me that I'll probably want to play with as well. And I should get to bed early, at least try, again. I should also drink more water, eat healthier, and a bunch of other stuff too. Last night just ran some errands with Tracy, got to see Oxyclean work (not on an informercial, but in real life), dinner with the family. It was again, really nice. Tomorrow is dinner at Charlie Trotter's, this weekend is Sandblast. Should be fun.

Swimming was good yesterday. Definitely hurt a little to start up again, but then started cruising. Very nice. Still don't know why my right shoulder is bugging me, still. But it goes away, or I just stop noticing it after a while. Didn't notice it at all at Mars, so it can't be that bad. Got another computer yesterday, a Fujitsu Lifebook P1120. It was my brother's old computer as a resident. It's a mini. I'll probably end up putting a bluetooth card in it so I can use my cell phone to get online, and then carry it around with me everywhere. It's not quite half as big as my powerbook, but probably half as heavy. And it's definitely slower. And it runs Windows. I'm sure it will come in handy. Otherwise, not much. I've got to definitely try and keep up the swimming.

So that pretty much sums up dinner last night at Charlie Trotter's. Follow the link for more details. Felt nice to dress up though. Found out one of my favorite Italian Ice places moved off of Armitage. I've got to track them down now. Or try and new place. One or the other. Made a stop at the Library today, picked up some books. Looking forward to Islands in the Net. Sandblast this weekend. Oh, and I got a flash for my cell phone, which now makes it much more usable.

Sandblast was, well, a blast. A little bit sandy too. The beach actually got a little too hot to walk on barefoot, which I don't remember from previous Sandblasts. Tea & Strumpets finished 10th, forfeiting the 9th place game. Good times though. Got Woo Chon on Saturday night, thanks to Mina for the ordering. Also got to play some horseshoes, since I brought my set to the beach. Fun. Sunday just chilled at home, way too tired and sore to do anything. Ended up drinking some Coronas and watching Entourage. I got way too excited at Entourage, but it's a great show, and I like rooting for those guys. Might go see The Wedding Crashers tonight, probably going to Duke of Perth tomorrow. Still need to do some laundry.

So getting to River East is super easy for me from work, hop on the #124 Navy Pier a block away and get dropped off at the corner of the movie theater. Easy. Really easy. And like 15 minutes. Sweet. Good to know for the future. Wedding Crashers is funny. While I didn't cry, like the guy next to me, I still thought it was pretty funny. Dinner afterwards at Goose Island on Clybourn. Good food. Went with the BRs and Bryan and Russell showed up for dinner. Trying to hydrate today. Haven't felt all that great the last couple of days, I don't think I drank enough water after playing last weekend. So I'm working on it now. The Duke is postponed till at least Thursday. Which means I might be able to see The Day After Tomorrow on HBO tonight, if I decide to, and not do laundry, which i still need to do.

So no laundry last night, but definitely tonight. I got a reuben from Samuel's Deli and watched The Day After Tomorrow instead. It was in HD, and not too bad. I also got a Bluetooth PDA and PC Adapter Combo Card for Hydrogen and started setting that up. Works great, but not completely intuitive under XP to get it set up. Definitely not as easy as OS X, that's for sure. But I ordered it from Mwave, which actually still lists it as not being shipped. Crazy. Fast. Nice. I love the internet. So now I've got a super small laptop that I can carry with me everywhere and I can usually be connected anywhere as well. Sweet. So besides laundry, I've definitely got to pick up after myself too, as home is pretty messy right now. Oh, have I mentioned I'm going to Las Vegas the weekend after next? And they're in the middle of a heat wave, too: 116° F at the airport last week. Nice.

So I admit it, I buy bags of premade salad from Jewel. It's easy. I like the Caesar salads I think from Dole. And a bag makes a decent meal. So I had one of those, with anchovies, and broiled up some herb and olive oil chicken slices, and a failed attempt at garlic bread. Total cost? Maybe $10. But good and healthy and really easy. Makes me happy. I also finally did laundry last night. I did manage to get the blue out of one of my dress shirts, but the other t-shirt and polo still remain a nice stained blue. I also cleaned up a bit finally, so I can actually walk by the entrace closet without picking my spots. Next up, the couch/coffee table, or, where I spend all my time these days. Headed to the Duke of Perth tonight, finally, round 7pm. Making dinner for Tracy tomorrow night, gonna try Bryan's recipe for Bourbon Pork Tenderloin, so I'll try and pick the stuff up tonight and start the marination. Ha, marination. Sounds like a very enthusiastic fan base.

Work then friends. First at Rivers after work, a couple of Coronas, and then up to the Duke for dinner and a Tennants. Good stuff. Saw my first RAZR up close. Those things are tiny. Dogsitting Marla this weekend. Tracy's coming over tonight. And that's about it. Think I'm gonna see all the Star Wars: Clone Wars episodes, a special episode of MacGyver, Robot Jox, all of which was thoughtfully recorded by Russell on his DVR. Gives me plenty of couch time.

So Tracy and I are headed to Las Vegas this weekend, and instead of a nice 3 day weekend as we thought we'd book, we're actually only gone till Saturday. Ugh. Stupid. Times like this that I wish I'd used a travel agent instead of relying on myself to get dates right. Ugh. I think I've done this before with hotel rooms too. Ugh. Anyway, just gonna be a short trip, which actually might be a good thing since DefCon is this weekend, and trying to leave on Sunday could be just as bad as trying to leave the Sunday of CES. Anyway, dogsitting Marla was good. She was definitely a bit lower key this time, just lots of sleeping. People came over Saturday night, Bryan BBQ'd, good stuff. Sunday was hot. Watched Torque and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, even though they aren't very good, I sat and watched them anyway. I did get around to finally installing Mac OS X Server, but haven't done any configuring yet. Might get around to finally installing OpenWRT on my Linksys WRT54G. We'll see.

Couldn't get around to doing much of anything productive last night. So I finally watched Surviving Christmas, which wasn't too bad, and the latest episode of Entourage, which I think in the most recent Entertainment Weekly is described as a West Coast male version of Sex and the City. Which is kind of true, except all the characters, well, except Charlotte, had real jobs compared to the hanger-ons in Entourage. Anyway, doesn't make me not like it. And it keeps me wanting more, and I keep hating it when an episode ends. So enough of the Entourage love. I've really only got one working air conditioner, so I should probably get around to getting the rest of them fixed. Still got 3 books to read before I need to return them to the library by next Friday. And I haven't gone swimming in a couple weeks. So what else is new?

So I watched Super Size Me last night. First thing I did this morning? Went to McDonald's and got a McGriddle. Guess what I'm gonna do soon? Go get a Big Mac, maybe some Chicken McNuggets. Watching that documentary actually made me want McDonald's even more. So I'm going for it. Which would mark the 3rd time this week I've gone there for a meal. And it's only Wednesday. You know what? I need to start exercising again. I glanced over a photo of myself from a couple years ago, and man, I was svelte. Guess 2 years off an ultimate season will do that to a body, but still. You know what it's going to take? I have no idea. Exercising for exercise is a whole lot different that playing ultimate. I knew this when I stopped playing, but I guess it never really hit me until the movie and the photo. Photographic evidence of change. Ugh. Will I get off my ass and go exercise? Sure, starting next week. Always.

A sad note: my grandmother passed away yesterday or today, depending on the time zone, surrounded by her children who had come home to care for her. She was 90. She had been in the hospital for the last few weeks, and had recovered enough to get transferred home, where she soon passed on. She is loved, and will be missed.

Leaving tonight. Packed last night. Went looking for a nice summer blazer last night, couldn't find one I liked. Maybe I'll pick one up someday, maybe not. We'll see. Coincidentally, the Simply Wine episode on last night was about Vegas. Sweet. And featured Aureole! And really expensive bottles of wine! Right. I like high class, but not that high class. Some plans for the weekend: brunch at some buffet, gondola ride at the Venetian, dinner at Aureole, watching "O", maybe doing a little shopping, maybe doing a little gambling. Hopefully it won't be oppresively hot out, nor will it rain or something.