Chris, Curtis, Jon, and Mike, four of my ex-cohorts in audio crimes against nature at my old job, came out for a visit this weekend. It was the most fun I've had since I can't remember when. They stayed downtown in the Old Market area and I met up with them Friday night after work. Curt cooked me up a Manhattan while we caught up on the past few months and then it was out on the town. Well, almost. Before going out we actually hit up the hotel's complimentary welcome package, which included free beer. Who passes up free beer?
Then we hit the town, had some dinner at M's Pub, and then headed over to The Dubliner, and Irish pub with some live music. The only strange thing that none of us were really used to was that everything closed up at one. So once we closed the bars, we headed back to the hotel and had a few more brews and some pizza until everyone crashed for the night.
The next day, I gave them a tour of my audio facilities and some of the school. Then, we met up with Amy for some dinner at Spaghetti Works. After dinner, we did some bar hopping, but things didn't really pick up at the first couple places we went to so we ended up right back at the Dubliner. It seemed like one of the more happening places to go. The crowd on Saturday was noticeable younger, though. Not a huge deal, but some young tempers were easily flared.
All in all, a great weekend. I'm totally flattered that they would drive all this way to party for two nights. It was a blast and I won't soon forget it.
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
A Happy Pre-Thanksgiving
Finally I'm on vacation. They let us go a couple hours early from work today but while I was there we had some fun. Curtis was scoring audio for a new product demo video, so I was able to sit in and play the bass track for it. If it ever shows up on the web somewhere, I'll link it. I know that it's just a small potatoes demo but I'm proud of it anyway. Despite the fact that I'm not much of a bass player, I can hold my own on simpler tracks.
Last weekend, we hosted a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for two couples, Autumn and Claudiu and Todd and Andi, with which we are friends. Amy and I spent most of last weekend either shopping for the food and cleaning the house or preparing the meal. When it comes to the meal, I like to help, but I like it better when Amy is in charge. I don't mind following orders in the kitchen, just don't leave it to me to decide what to do!
As for the meal, we made a pretty traditional feast with the standard foods like turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and some home cooked bread. The stuffing is my new favorite and has been since our first Thanksgiving in Chicago. Amy found the recipe which includes the standard ingredients plus carrots and apples and some other stuff that I'm probably forgetting. The salty/sweet combination of the spices and the apples is delicious and I look forward to it every year now.
After dinner, we forced Todd and Andi into a game of Bang!. From previous conversations with Todd, I know that they're not much for games because that's what I've been told, but I think they had a fun time anyway. As a reward for their graciousness in allowing me to subject them to a game like Bang!, we played a few rounds of Catch Phrase, too. I'm just that kind of guy!
To all that stop by here, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.
----------------
Now playing: Bob Dylan - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
via FoxyTunes
Last weekend, we hosted a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for two couples, Autumn and Claudiu and Todd and Andi, with which we are friends. Amy and I spent most of last weekend either shopping for the food and cleaning the house or preparing the meal. When it comes to the meal, I like to help, but I like it better when Amy is in charge. I don't mind following orders in the kitchen, just don't leave it to me to decide what to do!
As for the meal, we made a pretty traditional feast with the standard foods like turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and some home cooked bread. The stuffing is my new favorite and has been since our first Thanksgiving in Chicago. Amy found the recipe which includes the standard ingredients plus carrots and apples and some other stuff that I'm probably forgetting. The salty/sweet combination of the spices and the apples is delicious and I look forward to it every year now.
After dinner, we forced Todd and Andi into a game of Bang!. From previous conversations with Todd, I know that they're not much for games because that's what I've been told, but I think they had a fun time anyway. As a reward for their graciousness in allowing me to subject them to a game like Bang!, we played a few rounds of Catch Phrase, too. I'm just that kind of guy!
To all that stop by here, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.
----------------
Now playing: Bob Dylan - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
via FoxyTunes
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Things Go Boom! Part 2: The Explosioning
I hate the 4th of July. I don't usually take any time off so both Amy and I go to bed at the regular time in order to get up at six o'clock. However, every year since we've moved here, a bunch of kids set off lots of large and loud fireworks in the intersection right near our house until two or three in the morning. The police usually show up, but they only do a drive-by while the kids are hiding, in our yard of course, shine a light around, and leave.
Anyway, this year in preparation for the noise, I even wore some earplugs to bed, which is something I used to do in undergraduate school when my neighbors would come home drunk and screaming at 4am on a Thursday morning. Unfortunately it didn't help enough. Instead of the usual bottle rockets, roman candles, and saturn missles, they had purchased quite a few M100s and began setting them off. At least I'm guessing that's what they were because the explosions were huge, enough to wake me from a deep sleep with earplugs in. This was around 11pm.
After the first one, I got up and looked out the window just in time to see the next one go off. It blinded me and shook the house enough to knock one of our pictures off the wall. We called the police at that point because I didn't want to put up with all of that noise until they ran out of supplies. While we were waiting for the drive-by, I went downstairs and watched the proceedings from our living room window. Over the next hour, the police drove by twice, each time waving their light around for a couple of minutes before departing while the kids hid in bushes around the neighborhood. After each pass, the kids would just come right back and start all over again.
Now, I don't like to be a complete hard nose on holidays but after three years of this annual activity plus the M100s this year, this was getting pretty old. Not to mention that I saw a lot of reckless behavior in a highly populated area that's been pretty dry for the last couple of weeks. There were umbrella rockets exploding right next to houses both occupied and unoccupied, various earth-bound devices thrown near cars, and generally just a lot of unsafe usage of the fireworks.
So around midnight or shortly after, one of the guys that had been lighting the fuses was walking past our house. I stepped onto the porch and asked him if he and his friends could cut it out. He lied and said that he didn't know what I was talking about so I explained how I'd been watching them for the last hour and that lying wasn't going to make me stop asking if they would quit. He started walking away and I thought that I'd like to see which way he went, but as I followed a bit, he wised up, called a friend for back up, and stopped walking. At that point, to shorten this story just a bit, he started to get a little aggressive and kept trying to provoke me to fight him or something. I would just roll my eyes at him as his friend tried to feed me more crap about how it wasn't them but some other people setting off the fireworks.
While we were having our friendly neighborhood chat, the police happened to roll by again, so when DJ Suburban Thug decided to say, "What are you gonna do about, little bitch," I only responded that perhaps he would like to speak to the gentlemen that just arrived. As I went to speak to the police, they must have found another hiding spot because when one of the officers asked me where they were, they had disappeared. I told him that they probably went into the alley on the east side of my house and he said they'd check it out.
As the officers were talking with each other, I went back to sit on my porch. But before I had even sat down again, DJ Suburban Thug was too stupid to keep his mouth shut. All he said was, "I feel sorry for you, man." Apparently, I have sold out to the man. Anyway, his failure to keep his stupid mouth shut was enough to give away his location so I immediately returned to the police and told them that they were very nearby and speaking to me from the proximity of my porch.
After another fifteen or twenty minutes I saw the group, about seven or ten of them, shamble down the street, get in their cars, and leave. Magically, all the noise left with them. Either that or those other people who had been doing it ran out of fireworks and went inside. I guess we'll never know.
The frustrating part of it for me is that I know that other people in the neighborhood don't like it either, but nobody ever actually does anything about it. I see them out in the street raising their arms in frustration the morning after when they see all the trash left in the street. I've even spoken with a couple of people the next day who also don't like their behavior. But, I sure didn't see those people out there with me that night asking for anyone stop and generally trying to take a little control of the situation. I'm sure they're afraid of some kind of retaliation, petty vandalism more than likely. But honestly, what does it matter that you keep your stuff protected when you can't even stand up for yourself when it counts?
Anyway, this year in preparation for the noise, I even wore some earplugs to bed, which is something I used to do in undergraduate school when my neighbors would come home drunk and screaming at 4am on a Thursday morning. Unfortunately it didn't help enough. Instead of the usual bottle rockets, roman candles, and saturn missles, they had purchased quite a few M100s and began setting them off. At least I'm guessing that's what they were because the explosions were huge, enough to wake me from a deep sleep with earplugs in. This was around 11pm.
After the first one, I got up and looked out the window just in time to see the next one go off. It blinded me and shook the house enough to knock one of our pictures off the wall. We called the police at that point because I didn't want to put up with all of that noise until they ran out of supplies. While we were waiting for the drive-by, I went downstairs and watched the proceedings from our living room window. Over the next hour, the police drove by twice, each time waving their light around for a couple of minutes before departing while the kids hid in bushes around the neighborhood. After each pass, the kids would just come right back and start all over again.
Now, I don't like to be a complete hard nose on holidays but after three years of this annual activity plus the M100s this year, this was getting pretty old. Not to mention that I saw a lot of reckless behavior in a highly populated area that's been pretty dry for the last couple of weeks. There were umbrella rockets exploding right next to houses both occupied and unoccupied, various earth-bound devices thrown near cars, and generally just a lot of unsafe usage of the fireworks.
So around midnight or shortly after, one of the guys that had been lighting the fuses was walking past our house. I stepped onto the porch and asked him if he and his friends could cut it out. He lied and said that he didn't know what I was talking about so I explained how I'd been watching them for the last hour and that lying wasn't going to make me stop asking if they would quit. He started walking away and I thought that I'd like to see which way he went, but as I followed a bit, he wised up, called a friend for back up, and stopped walking. At that point, to shorten this story just a bit, he started to get a little aggressive and kept trying to provoke me to fight him or something. I would just roll my eyes at him as his friend tried to feed me more crap about how it wasn't them but some other people setting off the fireworks.
While we were having our friendly neighborhood chat, the police happened to roll by again, so when DJ Suburban Thug decided to say, "What are you gonna do about, little bitch," I only responded that perhaps he would like to speak to the gentlemen that just arrived. As I went to speak to the police, they must have found another hiding spot because when one of the officers asked me where they were, they had disappeared. I told him that they probably went into the alley on the east side of my house and he said they'd check it out.
As the officers were talking with each other, I went back to sit on my porch. But before I had even sat down again, DJ Suburban Thug was too stupid to keep his mouth shut. All he said was, "I feel sorry for you, man." Apparently, I have sold out to the man. Anyway, his failure to keep his stupid mouth shut was enough to give away his location so I immediately returned to the police and told them that they were very nearby and speaking to me from the proximity of my porch.
After another fifteen or twenty minutes I saw the group, about seven or ten of them, shamble down the street, get in their cars, and leave. Magically, all the noise left with them. Either that or those other people who had been doing it ran out of fireworks and went inside. I guess we'll never know.
The frustrating part of it for me is that I know that other people in the neighborhood don't like it either, but nobody ever actually does anything about it. I see them out in the street raising their arms in frustration the morning after when they see all the trash left in the street. I've even spoken with a couple of people the next day who also don't like their behavior. But, I sure didn't see those people out there with me that night asking for anyone stop and generally trying to take a little control of the situation. I'm sure they're afraid of some kind of retaliation, petty vandalism more than likely. But honestly, what does it matter that you keep your stuff protected when you can't even stand up for yourself when it counts?
Monday, May 21, 2007
Party Weekend
Went out to Huettenbar this past Friday to see Molly off as it was her last day at PIL. Lots of Spaten with a dash of Jägermeister. Yum. Everyone got a little crazy but it was a good time.
Sunday was my birthday and since the partying was already out of my system, I spent the day napping on the couch. All this fun and relaxation made it hard to go back to work today, but I dragged myself out of bed this morning despite my complete willingness to stay in bed.
Sunday was my birthday and since the partying was already out of my system, I spent the day napping on the couch. All this fun and relaxation made it hard to go back to work today, but I dragged myself out of bed this morning despite my complete willingness to stay in bed.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Too Many Birthdays!
We've returned from PA over our long weekend celebrating both my mother's birthday and Amy's father's 60th birthday and retirement. Amy had planned a big surprise party for him across three states and it actually worked out really well. He seemed very surprised so that's what I would call success in this case. Brenda, a girl I knew in high school, ended up being there and I haven't seen her in probably six or seven years at a different friend's wedding so we said a quick hello and caught up before she had to leave. Her daughter was super cute and one of the only children I've met that isn't frightened to death of me.
I played tech support on Saturday and helped my dad figure out how to get his music scanned and resized with his new computer and peripherals. OK, dad, it's all up to you now! Just do it and unplug that old Win95a beast! We'll hold a remote retirement party over the internet for it if you want. I also set up my mom's new computer and peripherals which she considered part of her birthday gift, but really, it was just fun for me. I'm just glad I could help out. For her birthday, we took my mom out to dinner and gave her the annual double whammy of gifts for Mother's Day and her birthday.
I played tech support on Saturday and helped my dad figure out how to get his music scanned and resized with his new computer and peripherals. OK, dad, it's all up to you now! Just do it and unplug that old Win95a beast! We'll hold a remote retirement party over the internet for it if you want. I also set up my mom's new computer and peripherals which she considered part of her birthday gift, but really, it was just fun for me. I'm just glad I could help out. For her birthday, we took my mom out to dinner and gave her the annual double whammy of gifts for Mother's Day and her birthday.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Weekend Getaway (Slowly)
Amy and I went home for Rachel's wedding shower and Ian's bachelor party respectively. Joel and I took Ian to Dave and Buster's at the Waterfront in Homestead, blew a wad of cash, and had a great time in the process. There were only three of us, which was a bit of a disappointment. However, those that could not attend weren't simply no-shows. In fact, two out of the missing four were at another wedding. Both Ron and Ben were attending Ben's brother Chris' wedding. Adam couldn't make it due to his schedule and Jason was sick. They missed out on a good time, but nothing too wild. Our bachelor parties tend to be on the tame side as not all of this particular circle of friends imbibe, not to mention that we've never been the locker room bragging types, so the thought of a mostly naked stranger thrusting herself at us is not the kind of entertainment we need.
Regardless of how many attended or our lack of stereotypical vices, we had a good time getting together again. I know that some high school friends stay in touch, but I continue to find it amazing that all of us still manage to visit each other and even take group vacations together. It's been eleven years and we still make time for each other despite how slim that time gets. I usually wonder how many other groups of 5-6 high school friends remain that close even when they move across multiple states. I am sure we are not alone.
The drive to Pennsylvania was horrendous this time. Due to some nasty construction traffic, it took 10.5 hours to make a trip that will usually take us 8-8.5 hours. We sat for 2 hours in a virtual parking lot. However, we took a longer detour around the construction on the return trip but later discovered from one of Amy's coworkers who was also traveling west on I-80 to Chicago at approximately the same time that the traffic was merely slow. *sigh*
Now we have been back in Chicago for a few days and all is normal again. The house closing is approaching quickly with just over a month remaining until our move. Also, I have about 5 more weeks of leading the music at our church until I take an extended vacation which will be greatly appreciated. Looking forward...
Currently listening to: Miles Davis, All Blues
Regardless of how many attended or our lack of stereotypical vices, we had a good time getting together again. I know that some high school friends stay in touch, but I continue to find it amazing that all of us still manage to visit each other and even take group vacations together. It's been eleven years and we still make time for each other despite how slim that time gets. I usually wonder how many other groups of 5-6 high school friends remain that close even when they move across multiple states. I am sure we are not alone.
The drive to Pennsylvania was horrendous this time. Due to some nasty construction traffic, it took 10.5 hours to make a trip that will usually take us 8-8.5 hours. We sat for 2 hours in a virtual parking lot. However, we took a longer detour around the construction on the return trip but later discovered from one of Amy's coworkers who was also traveling west on I-80 to Chicago at approximately the same time that the traffic was merely slow. *sigh*
Now we have been back in Chicago for a few days and all is normal again. The house closing is approaching quickly with just over a month remaining until our move. Also, I have about 5 more weeks of leading the music at our church until I take an extended vacation which will be greatly appreciated. Looking forward...
Currently listening to: Miles Davis, All Blues
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