Chicago

After finally finishing my blog about the Colorado trip, it is now time to talk about an event that happened a little over a week ago, moving to Chicago.

Let's pickup from where we left off, just ending the most amazing week of my life with another Deer Tick show back in Chicago on Saturday night.

It is now Sunday August 24th, 2014.

Aunt Lil and I on her birthday!

Aunt Lil and I on her birthday!

John and I take off relatively early from Rachel's place in the city and I head home for a family party for my Aunt Lil. We have the party at Auntie Wanda’s. It is good to catch up with relatives and I tell them about my journey, unfortunately with no photos. There was great food and great company, resulting in a great party! My Dad and I stop at IKEA on the way home and pick up a new desk for my new place I will be moving to at the end of the week. It is pretty darn heavy, but I man up and carry that box out of IKEA all the way to the car, instead of wheeling it out on a dolly. Man Strength.

Monday August 25, Tuesday the 26th, and Wednesday the 27th were all spent packing for the new place.

ACS summer camp tees, keep or toss?

ACS summer camp tees, keep or toss?

Thursday 8/28 I am starting to get really excited about the new place, but still going through boxes and packing. Nothing new except realizing I have more than a lot of stuff. Stuff explains it well because most of it is not essential, yet I feel attached to it and do not want to see it go. I am making progress though and beginning to let go of more and more of this "stuff" since I really have no use for it anymore. We are talking about old childhood toys, posters, clothes, stuffed animals, things like that. Don't worry though, all the essentials like adult clothes, photos I have taken, computer equipment, video equipment, and my DVD collection are all being packed up.

Fri 8/29

Had to work pretty early, but was planning on getting out early as well, unfortunately I had to wait for the boss to get back with my keys, so I had to wait an extra 2 hours, but got the keys, so it was worth it. That night we ordered Jets Pizza for my final meal living at home. Half hawaiin and half bbq chicken. Mmm tasty Jets. I finish up the majority of preparing for the move by packing up my car and putting the rest of the larger items in the garage. I head to bed just around midnight. I found out the next day, Rachel was up until 4:30 am packing. Dedication! What a lady!

Some classic phrases put together by YaBoys over the years, found on the filing cabinet, in my room. You know many kids who had a filing cabinet as a kid? High class.

Some classic phrases put together by YaBoys over the years, found on the filing cabinet, in my room. You know many kids who had a filing cabinet as a kid? High class.

Sat 8/30
Move in Day! I wake up and go get the Uhaul with my Dad. Then we pack it up and head to the city to buy a couch off a guy on craigslist. Very nice guy and very nice leather coach with 2 recliners. Pretty heavy and somehow he took it upstairs by himself when he moved in. Must have been his giant calves. Man strength! We then drive over to Rachel's current place and began to put her items in the UHaul. Her parents arrive and meet my parents for the first time! Exciting times for everyone. We pack up most of her stuff, leaving a little for a second trip later that day.

Brian was nice enough to come help us move after playing volleyball. We drive over to the new place and get a perfect spot to start the move in, just in time too because 2 or 3 other groups moved in the same day and we beat them to get a good parking spot for the truck. The move in could not have gone any more perfect, even though the place was pretty dusty and dirty, everything else went flawless. No rain, we had a good system going and everyone was helping out in different ways. I can’t thank my parents, my sister, Rachel’s parents, & Brian enough for all of the help. We couldn’t have done it without everyone. My family heads out around 2:30 after a full hard working morning of moving in. Brian stayed around and sorted through all 360 or so of my DVDs, putting them in alphabetic order and arranging them on the bookshelf, or shall I say movieshelf. Amazing.

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Rachel’s parents help us do a few more things around the place and then we go out to eat right across the street around 6pm. First meal of the day tastes so darn good. I had a chicken sandwich. After dropping Rachel’s Parents off at their car (we did some rearranging of the cars earlier by still parking at Rachel’s), we head back to our place for our first night living together. We do a little more unpacking, cleaning, and organizing. Rachel falls asleep on our new comfy couch watching Friends as a I start putting my new desk together. About half way through I am pretty tired and we call it a night. What a day. Here is a little gallery from the move in.

Sun 8/31

I wake up and finish putting my desk together, while setting more of the apartment up. I clean the apartment, mopping the floor twice over, moving things around in the process. We go shopping to Walmart Express, Bed Bath & beyond and TJ maxx to pick up some things for the place. We decide on Wing Stop for dinner, which is just a few doors down. Chili Lime & Mild wings are our choice for the day. Surprisingly the same price as it is in Naperville. Delicious.

Around 9pm friends come over to check out the new place. Brian brings John McCoughly’s pick from the DT show at the Metro. First he helps with the move, now he honors us with a Deer Tick pick, what a noble man. Grant, Becca, and her roommate come over and we play Loaded Questions as well as Cheers Governor. Rach and Becca head out to GasLight Bar down the street, and Brian, Grant, & I jam out to some Deer Tick for another hour so. They both leave and I head to GasLight to meet up with Rach and Becca. We have a couple of beers that Rachel so kindly bought and then head back to our new place to crash for the night.

Mon 9/1

-Wake up late, clean a little then nap on the couch for a few hours.

Around 3pm wake up and start to clean and organize more. Have canned soup for lunch. Listen to Deer Tick for a solid 2 hours while swiffering the floor and cleaning. Head out to the store around 7pm and pick up some things, as well as McDonalds for dinner. 3 mcdoubles, 3 mcchikens, and a large fry, which came out to exactly $10. We must remember this order when we only have $10. We eat McDonalds while we watch Divergent. Divergent is a bit different than the book, but still a pretty good movie.

Tue 9/2

I found out about the huge celebrity nude leak at work. Apparently not having internet and being buys moving in over the weekend caused me to miss some serious internet news. The drive to and from work that day was not too bad at all. That night I brought weights back to the new place and got a decent workout in. I cooked some tasty pasta with peppers, onions, and brats for dinner with Rachel.

Wed 9/3

I took lower wacker on the way to work on Wednesday, which gave me memories from the movie The Dark Knight. I stopped at the parents’ house after work and did some serious cleaning and organizing, trying to get rid of old clothes and items I won’t be using anymore. I have also began to listen to Speak for the Dead (2nd book in Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card) on CD for my longer drives.

Thur 9/4

Standard day of life including work, eating, sleeping, and working out. I also finally received my prize pack from a stick trick contest on laxallstars. Pretty cool shorts. Gotta love free gear.

Fri 9/5

Worked late and then got home and met Rachel’s friends out at Gaslight. After a drink we had them come over to our place and played some drinking games and talked. We also played Deer Tick for them all night. Nice people and friends and always a good time with some DT on.

Sat 9/6

Woke up late and got Chipotle for lunch. The lady who was making my burrito sucked at wrapping it and ended up breaking it, throwing out the shell and some of my burrito with it, then tearing it again the second time she tried. I left a little upset, so stopped at McDonald’s on the way home and picked up and ate a McChicken before indulging in my burrito at home while watching Breaking Bad. After cleaning up and such, we had Tori over for what was going to be a grillout for dinner. Unfortunately we found out that the grills on our patio do not provide us with the propane to actually grill, so instead we just got to see some really big spiders. We came back up to our apartment and grilled burgers on the George Foreman. They actually turned out to be pretty good. Since they were smaller I had 2 double burgers. I topped them off with a couple of gummies and we had more friends over for the night.

Everyone has enjoyed seeing our place which is always a good thing! We found out that one of our friends who occasionally tweets/instagrams for KFC took a photo of Rachel and Sarah. Only Rachel made the picture, but look at that latina hand, lovely. Rachel looking cute has caused the photo to get 4387 likes right now! Woo!  Most peeps ending up going out, but I was determined to finish my Colorado blog, so I stayed in and worked on the blog until Rachel returned around 2 AM.

Sun 9/7

Rachel and I watched a bunch of episodes of Breaking Bad while eating some tasty frozen Jacks Pizza. We finished season 4 and the show is getting really good. I love the character development and cannot wait to see how the show ends with season 5. Only 16 episodes left! To Rachel’s dismay, I also watched a good amount of football. To be fair, it is the opening weekend! The Bears looked pretty poopy and proved it by losing to the Bills. I am excited for football to be back though. It is by far the best sport to watch along with hockey and lacrosse. Everything else I could really care less about, except maybe some world cup soccer. I spent my evening staying up pretty late finishing my Colorado blog, but finally finished and posted it as you all saw.

Mon 9/8

I actually finished my blog this morning, not Sunday night and posted it up. Be sure to check it out, as it has close to 100 photos of the beautiful landscapes in Colorado. After work, I stopped at home and grilled up 15 brats for the family. A tasty dinner for all!

Speaking of brats, it has been 3 years since cookout 2.

I leave you with this photo from the early 90s. Thanks for sending Aunt Lil!

Yaboy

Josh

Flag Day

Let's start off this Flag Day themed blog with the first track of the CD, Born on Flag Day, by my favorite band Deer Tick.

Wednesday June 11th was our first day of goalie camp. I started the day by headed to BMT to get a workout in at 7am. After the lift, I headed over to goalie camp for the boys. The skies were a little dreary and storms were in the forecast, but they held off. It did mist for the last 4 hours, but I wore my Walmart waterproof boots. Great investment a few years back for like $15. That evening we headed out to DT napes with some of the guys from the goalie clinic to Lou Malnati's for some deep dish pizza and beers. I had 2 blue moons, and somehow 5 pieces of deep dish pizza. 3 Sausage / Green pepper and 2 spinach / something else. It was so delicious. It may have been since it was my first meal of the day, or since the pizzas were in excess, but I gobbled and gobbled. So delicious, at this point I would say better than Gioradano's, but maybe just because I have not had Lou Malnati's since like 1999 for JQ's birthday party. Thanks for the pizza and beer boss.

Thursday June 12th. Another day of goalie camp, this time on the girls side. After camp, I went home and immediatley fell asleep. It seems I have been taking a lot more naps these days, not sure if it is since I am waking up at 6:15am to go workout at 7, or I am just lacking energy, either way, I have been getting some more sleep mid day. Thursday night I headed to some 3 v 3 men's league and had a great time being active and having a good time.

Friday the 13th of June, Ooo Ahhh, spooky. That's right, Friday the 13th was here, bring on the bad luck, or as my mom says, the good luck. I think I may be going with my mom, because as I shopped at Jewel for brats and beer, I found Old No. 38 Stout craft beers for $2.50 for a 6 pack. These prices were pre-prohibition like. What a deal. I picked up 3 cases and 2 packs of brats to go along with 12 italian sausages I already had at home. I also scooped some pretzel brats buns, can't go wrong with a pretzel bun. Unfortunatley Jmon couldn't make the cookout, so Beth, John, & I grilled up the meats for ourselves and my parents. Take a look at all that meat. Oh also, on the Born on Flag Day album by Deer Tick, there is a CD titled Friday the XIII, hope you're listening right now.

After cooking and devouring some beer brats, cheddar brats, and italian sausage, we will say 4 for myself, the daylight began to dwindle so we got the bonfire going. The first bonfire of the year was the best yet... But really, a bonfire under a full Strawberry Moon and on Friday the 13th couldn't be a better setting for a bonfire. We got the fire going, and then began to feed in one of my old failed bag boards. Basically I tried to make bag boards a few years ago, but jagged on cutting the circles, so they were a failed project. They have since been sitting on my back patio, but on this fine night, we were able to feed the over sized bag board into the fire pit slowly, but surely. The wood obviously did not fit in the fire pit, as it has a closed top and limited door space, but we made do. It was like the fire was slowly eating the bag board and we kept feeding it in. We also cooked up a tasty Banana s'more, compliments of John who thanks some French kids, not sure which ones, since he knows so many. You slice a banana with a knife down the middle, insert some chocolate of your choice, close it up, wrap it in foil, and toss it in the fire. The result is a gooey, and somewhat healthy treat of melted banana covered in chocolate. Mmm yum. Check out some of the photos, including John and I dressed in the same t-shirt. Done on purpose? It was Friday the 13th, you decide!

Full Strawberry Moon - June 13, 2014

Full Strawberry Moon - June 13, 2014

After our cookout, and bonfire, we ended the night with some long exposures and photos of the moon. Long exposures and sparklers may I add. Sparklers that I was gifted by Rachel for my 23rd Bday, yikes that is almost 2 years ago, well they finally were put to good use. I need some more ;) Taking these pics at night are fun and get the creative juices flowing, check out some from the night. My signature to the pictures would be when I would just throw the sparklers off the side of the screen. This resulted in many sparklers burning in the grass, one in a tree, and even one on the roof. Luckily none of them actually caught fire, but we were watching with a close, fearful eye.

That night, as I prepared for bed and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, I decided it was time for my long hair to go. The summer flow was no more. I brought out the hair trimmers from under the sink and began to buzz my hair right then and there. I did a decent job and had my dad touch it up in the morning. 

The next day, Saturday the 14th of June, also known as Flag Day, I kicked off the morning by cutting some t-shirts into sleeveless tees. So fancy. I also found out it was Flag Day because I saw some flags outside and asked my Dad what was with all the flags. He then explained Flag Day to which I said, okay. Fun fact, John McCauley, lead singer of Deer Tick, was born on flag day, hence the name of their second cd, Born on Flag Day. If you haven't been listening to the songs in this blog, you are missing out on some quality tunes. Here is another, straight blues jam.

Around noon, John and I set out on a 5 mile run. After that we got back and did a little shirtless circuit workout on the patio. Great day for outdoor fitness and activities. We continued these activities by setting up not only John's tent that he just bought, but also a tent we have had in my garage for the past 20 years, but have never set up. We did a pretty good job after about an hour of figuring out how to set it up. This is all in preparation for our camping trip to Colorado coming in August. Check out the tent warfare we had going on in Ashbury.

After a long assembly of the tents, John and I brought each tent down in about 5 minutes, pretty speedy if you ask me! After spending the day getting nice and tan in the backyard, I headed to New Lenox to spend the evening with Rachel. Before dinner we went a beautiful walk that ended with hand stands in the front yard. Both Rachel and I are getting pretty good. Watch out world. We had a delicious steak salad for dinner and then had Moose Tracks Icecream, my favorite, as we watched the movie the Descendants. 

June 15th, Sunday, was Father's Day. We started it off by going to Mass at Rachel's church. Before church started some guy approached us and asked us to do some delivering of the gifts. I stared at him wide eyed, but luckily Rachel's fam knew what was going on. We delivered the gifts to the front of the Church at the appropriate time, and as we were about to head back to our seats, the Priest told us how nice it was for Rachel's Dad's son and two daughters to help out and be with him on Father's Day. I just chuckled inside, not because I was referred to as her Dad's son, but because the priest referred to her Mom as a daughter to her Dad, even though they claim he winked, I think this Priest who alluded to drinking, was drunk and thought Rachel's mom was her sister. Those past sentences were tough enough to write, I can't imagine how they were to read.

After church we picked up some Panera on the way. All I wanted was a chocolate chip bagel, but apparently they were out, how do you run out of bagels at a bagel store? Unbelievable. We then walked around Home Depot in search for new housing designs, then went to Rachel's grandparents house on her mom's side to visit. When we got back from there I headed home to grill up some steaks for my Father on this Father's Day. My dad is one of the greatest people I know and one of my biggest influences. I don't know where I would be without him. Thank dad, I love you.

Just Kidding! Despite our striking resemblance, that's not my dad, that's Jerome Bettis. Here is my Dad and I in '95.

Father's Day evening, we watched This is the End and I did a bunch of video editing. Here are a couple of quality lax videos I finished this weekend / beginning of this week.

The last thing I have to put in this Flag Day post is a couple of documentaries I watched this past weekend.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston was a great documentary about singer/song writer Daniel Johnston who was brilliant, but also a lot of crazy. If you have the time and are into music, check out the guy who many claim is better than Dylan. The ups and downs in his life are drastic and interesting. 

I also watched a 30 for 30 on the Hillsborough tragedy in England in 1989. 96 people were essentially crushed to death because of pen style seating and overcrowding at a futbol match. There are so many things / parts of this story that make you scratch your head. A very sad story, makes me think twice about being up front for concerts. Scary stuff.

Hope you enjoyed it,


Josh