Seeing this picture of Ted made me pee a little bit....

Yes, that's little Ted in his baseball pants in the background. I remember playing Ted in little league...

yikes.

Good work, Miss Vancil. Even though I don't know you.

Here's a question, and then some comments on what's happening in my life...

I know very little about bidets. I've used one maybe once or twice in my life, and it made me uncomfortable to say the least.
That being said, I don't understand bidet etiquette. Here is the basic problem I have: drying. How do you dry? What do you do? Do you have a special towel for that? Now, let's say you're invited to a party at a house in France. All they have is a bidet, no toilet paper. What do you do??? I really don't know!

Now some quick updates on what's up in my life:
-I'm in the midst of writing the Zook Zone for the station. It is currently the bane of my existance. I do not enjoy it much. But it is what it is. Two weeks of this, and we're all good.
-I am running in the Chicago Half Marathon. If you would like text updates on my progress during the race, please let me know. I'm signing up for a texting program so interested friends and family can know my time. I think I'll be able to finish, as I got through 10 on Saturday, and felt like I probably could have done at least a couple more.
-Our softball team had another odd game last night. We had a player who knocked knees with an opposing player in a close play at second base. They accused Scot of doing it intentionally. Anyone who knows Scot knows that's not who he is. Now there appear to be some very hard feelings between two teams that had previously been friendly, and that's really unfortunate. I've enjoyed this Crackmonkeys season less than most in the past. But I really enjoy the postgame dining and drinks more than anything.
-Julia's parents met my mother on Saturday night over dinner. Everything went fine.
-Also, Julia's parents came to the softball game. I proceeded to slide in to third, scraping the hell out of my leg, producing blood. Then they saw the injury and the discussion that followed. Welcome to Crackmonkey softball!
-Also on that point, we lost Holly this year from the team, but gained lil' D, who cracks me "the eff" up.
-We have the circus coming in to town this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I despise clowns. I really, truly despise clowns. I have to work at this circus. It is a recipe for disaster.
-My friend Amber has a blog that you can link to on the right hand side of this page...she is currently moving out of her apartment in the Wrigleyville area as she switches jobs, and goes back to school. Her writing about it in recent weeks has been really emotional and well done, so if you have a second, give it a read.
-Also, Glenn had a really well put together blog post about race, and the Cambridge, Mass arrest. So hope over there if you have a second.

That's all for now.

Well I'll be darned.....

I surprised even myself, with an 89 on the course on Saturday. Now, granted, it was a shorter course, which is quite helpful for me...but I played shockingly like I used to. Steady drives, decent irons to get me in position to make a putt for par, and just hitting 2 or 3 of them. It was really fun. With a special thanks to Zack, Chris, and Pat, my cousins, for making it enjoyable.
We also had some time with my mom's side of the family on Saturday and Sunday as well, along with visits with Leigh and Louis, and my Dad and brothers. It felt like an awful lot packed in to about 30 hours. And as a result, I'm still worn out.
I think I'm doing well on my diet, as I feel much better. I haven't actually weighed myself in about 5 days. One thing that is helping is that I'm obviously running much more, with the half marathon about 12 days out. I have severe doubts about whether I'll be able to finish that thing. I got through seven yesterday, but it was a struggle. I have to do at least 9 this weekend in order to have any confidence in myself.
There is a slight chance I will be attending my first Cubs game of the year on Friday. Slight.
Julia's parents come in to town on Wednesday for an extended weekend. They are definitely going to the Cubs game. Along with taking a full day or so up in the city.
My new favorite for lunch is a turkey wrap with avocado. It's delicious. I wish, however, that I could buy the frozen half avocado packs from Trader Joes.

What else, kids. What am I missing?

Trouble is around the bend....or should I say, dogleg...

Yep, for the first time since last year, I'm returning to the golf course on Saturday as part of a family outing celebrating my Aunt Margi's 50th birthday. I'm expecting mass hysteria, and some sort of death. Likely a chipmunk or something, as I scald another ball along the ground.

As my Dad's side of the family knows, I used to be a quite excitable and cursing golfer who could shoot in the mid 80s on really good days, and was generally right around bogey golf at 90. But the game is just so incredibly expensive that I can't afford to play at a level necessary to maintain that pace. At this point, I know that I can hit the shots...I just can't hit them with any consistency. It's so frustrating.

Also tonight, I'm playing a little poker at the invitation of my friend David. They're playing Omaha, which is a game I'm not quite familiar with, but I'm going to try and learn on the fly. We'll see, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

I also would like to post some pics on here at some point from Australia. The entire catalog is up at facebook, for all of my facebook friends. I should really put them on flickr or something, shouldn't I.

Good weekends to you all.

Wow...my sleep schedule be trippin!

First, let me just say that Glenn's idea for a 30 bar bar crawl was horrible, and I'm sorry for anything that may have happened after 7PM on Saturday night.

Now, that being said, let me just say that I'm looking for any suggestions on how to recover from my jet lag. I'm really struggling with it right now. Again this morning, I woke up at 2:30, and just sat there. I did that last week too. On Saturday morning, knowing a long day was ahead of me, I took some nyquil to go back to sleep after waking up promptly at 4. Sunday, despite staying up until 3:30, I woke up at 6:30. ARGH! I've never had to deal with this before. I probably need a weekend to just get things back in order, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

I have had the suggestion of getting back to a normal exercise routine, and hopefully I'll be able to get to that over the next few days. Today will be a nice day at the gym, and then some golf and a run tomorrow, if everything works out correctly.

Outside of that, things appear OK. I'm just hoping to get back to normal this week. That would be very nice.

Random note

I'm going to try and drop about 10 pounds, and get to 160. I don't have a date when I want to get this done, but I'm really hoping losing some weight will greatly help the stress on my knees.

Well....if anyone is looking for a birthday present for yours truly....

Remember that Tauntaun sleeping bag that was supposedly for sale on Think Geek but wasn't, because it was April Fools and they were only kidding? So many people wanted it and got angry that it wasn't available. The company has now decided to try to bring it to life for real--if the suits at Lucasfilms will grant them a license.
Think Geek has done great April Fools prank products before (caffeinated meatloaf, anyone?), but this one was exceptional. It had the head of a Tauntaun, a fur outer lining, an inner lining with an intestine pattern, and a tiny light saber on the zipper to simulate the slicing action Han Solo performed to open the animal up so he could stuff Luke into it.

Think Geek's PR guy, Shane Peterman, talked with me on the record about the perils of Tauntaun sleeping bag pranks.
Will you ever sell the Tauntaun sleeping bag for real?

We are definitely trying to make it in to an actual item to be sold 
on our site. As of right now, it's still an "if," but it's turning in
to more of a "when." Things are looking pretty good, we just don't want 
to get too far ahead of ourselves. There's certainly been enough of a
demand, both from customers and from those of us that work here. Right now, we're aiming to have it available 
for the holidays, or at the latest, the 30th anniversary of The Empire 
Strikes Back next spring.

The joke price was $39 bucks. Is that how much it will really cost?

The price will very likely go up a bit once we actually make the
sleeping bag. Since we haven't gotten to the production stage yet, it's hard to say what the price will be, unfortunately. I think it's safe to assume that the kids size will be at a lower cost than the adult size, that much I'm pretty sure of. The cost of material and the actual production of it will dictate what the retail cost will be.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/style_council/interior-decor/tauntaun-sleeping-bag-april-fo/

Back at work....

.....and we're back.

In la. Sadly, not for the memorial for billy mays.