And the Academy Award Goes To...

Song of the Week: Go! by Common who just won an Oscar for his song Glory in the movie Selma. Turns out my Aunt and Uncle went to highschool with him! Amazing!

Tuesday February 17th, Rachel and I had some soup and bread for dinner and watched the movie Pay it Forward. Such an inspiring movie about a boy with a plan that in the end, comes true. Although I thought the end of the movie was rushed, it got the point of the movie across even more.

Wednesday February 18th, after work I did some organizing and cleaning, find old toys such as this home made toy bomb that was made with batteries from probably 1999. Oh childhood. I also finished the second novel in the Mitch Rapp Series by Vince Flynn, Kill Shot. Got to love how much of a badass that Mitch Rapp is. 

On Thursday February 19th Rachel and I made a delicious stir fry that we enjoyed whiling watching an episode of Mad Men season 5. 

Friday February 20th was another record setting day. This time I set a new personal record, shooting 98 mph with my right hand and 92 mph with my left hand. Both are 1 mph more than I shot a week ago. At this rate I will hit 100 in 2 weeks, but probably not unless I get into shape! After work I headed home and did some more cleaning and organizing.

I began Saturday February 21st with an early morning practice. After that practice I headed home and then Rachel and I went out to The Other Side bar for some lunch. We split a hamburger and chicken tenders while I enjoyed a Sheep IPA beer. This bar was really cool and I will definitely be back, considering while I was there they played great music (no country or rap), had delicious and inexpensive food (a hamburger and fries for $6.99!?), and the staff and environment was warm and welcoming. After that we headed over to my Aunt Jan's for a little family game night. We played games similar to charades and then charades as well. We enjoyed some pizza, whiling having fun with the family. Sophia & Nikolas were there as well and cute as ever. Baby Nikolas is always laughing and smiling, such a good baby! I also was able to play a little prank on Emma and Anna by changing their sign "Coat Service" to "Goat Service." Ahh I'm so funny. We played some spoons to end the night and then Rachel and I headed home and then went to bed.

Sunday February 22nd was another early morning for me as I had to go coach. After a scheduling meeting which was terribly designed and unorganized, I came back home and chilled before making some delicious chicken alfredo pasta for dinner. After dinner, Rachel and I planned on having the 87th Annual Academy Awards ceremony on as we did other things, however, we ended up watching the whole show in its entirety with Neil Patrick Harris hosting. With having only seen The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, & The Grand Budapest Hotel I thought all the Oscars given out were appropriate, but really I have no clue since I haven't seen any of the other movies. I filled out an Oscar sheet and only got 5 of the categories correct. There were some great inspirational speeches, focusing on giving thanks and loving your parents, suicide prevention, equality for women, equality for all people of other race, gender, sexual orientation, & religion, and being yourself & being weird. The big winners from the night when it came to total number of awards won was The Grand Budapest Hotel  and the film Birdman. I can't wait to get my hands on all of the films that were nominated and see if the winners were truly deserving. 

Here is a list of all the nominees and winners.

With that being said, here is a picture of Rachel and I from game night that I am now posting in honor of the Best Picture: Birdman.

Monday February 23rd was a simple day. I wrote my blog, then Mozilla crashed and I lost it all, so I had to rewrite it, losing some of the original spunk it had. Went to work and then went home and watched The Walking Dead episode from the night before and started to watch a 30 for 30 about the Russians side of Miracle on Ice, interesting perspective and awesome coaching techniques so far!

Video of the Week: Live performance of Oscar nominated Everything is Awesome. I had no idea it was written/performed by Tegan & Sara as well as The Lonely Island!

Movie of the Week: Oscar winning short film, Feast!

Coaching is about to get real busy.

Talk in 7.

Josh

Weird Al Fireworks

Tuesday July 15 - My sister borrowed all 10 of Rachel's seasons of Friends and has commenced watching. She is already on season 4 and I will occasionally watch some episodes with her. Even though I have seen a bunch, I will see some that I haven't seen and I can see why it is Rachel's (and my Aunt's) favorite show. Very funny and timeless.

It is official, Weird Al is back. He announced that he would be releasing 8 new music videos and songs from his new album Mandatory Fun, and he did just that. The guy has always been, and still is the best parody/comedy artist around. Dominated by his accordion and creative lyrics, he provides a unique style that is unmatched. I grew up with him during childhood and he is still killing it today. Give a listen to all the new songs/videos.

On Wednesday July 16 I started off my morning by going to dentist and getting a tooth prepped for a crown. More gollldddd. While being operated on, I had a great view of the pond outside, and while sitting there I saw plenty of ducks, a duck family & what look like otters running around across a cement platform in between the pond. Now I highly doubt there are otters around here, so I am going to guess they were muskrats of some sort. Fast little guys. Afterwards I drove over to the oil change shop and got my oil changed no problem this time. Later at work, the famous guy who broke the lacrosse record for fastest shot (Zakk Dorn) came in to hang out for a bit. It was interesting hearing his story about the events that took place and how it all went down. He ended up shooting 117 while there, still not his fastest. I used his stick and shot 96 with my right and 93 with my left. New records for both hands, as my previous records were 93 and 88 respectively. Perhaps the Epoch sticks that flex do make your shot slightly faster, or I was just in the presence of Zakk that gave me the ability to shatter my record. Since I play with Zakk, it was awesome in this video about "The Shot" when he gives a shoutout to our team, The Naperville Apaches. Boss status.

Thursday July 17 was a simple day, I set up my sound bar which I currently just connect to my phone or other music playing device and have just been playhing music, since my TV in my room is too old for it to work, but the sound is great and I can't wait to hook it up to Rachel's nice TV! Later that night we had mens league, good to get some lax in.

On Friday July 18th, I worked until 6 then drove to the city. Rachel and I ordered Jet's Pizza. We discovered that you can order a half and half of any pizza you want for no extra cost, so we went half BBQ chicken and half chicken parm. Don't forget the Turbo crust. Smart. As we dined we watched Breaking Bad and then Hot Rod, falling asleep on the couch.

Saturday July 19 started off with Rachel & I watching the last episodes of the Long Way Round, a great show my friend Phil tuned me in to. It is about Ewan McGregor and his friend Charlie Boorman embark on a 20,000 mile route from England across some western European countries, across Russia, Kazakstan, Mongolia, the Road of Bones, through Alaska, and the rest of the USA and finally ending in New York... Oh and all this being traveled on motorcycle. A great 9 episode series if you are into travel and culture of different areas. While browsing Netflix later, I found out there is a Long Way Down, same two guys, this time traveling from Scotland south through Africa about 15,000 miles ending up in South Africa, I am excited to start it to say the least..

A little around 2 pm we headed to the beach with John and his two Native American friends that were visiting from the reserve in South Dakota. After playing some volleyball in the water,  I taught one of them some lax tricks, since they were a lax player. Jason Derulo or some lame rapper dude was having a concert at North ave beach, so we were actually at went a little bit south to Oak Street Beach. On our walk back, we ended up basically back stage for the last 20 seconds of the Jason Derulo concert, interesting. After getting back form the beach, Rachel and I took the bus to Chili's for dinner in downtown Chicago. I decided to get the smokehouse BBQ burger and Rachel got the Quesadilla explosion salad.  After a tasty dinner, we head over near LSD to see the firework show at Navy Pier. We started to hear them going off and started to sprint toward the street which was only about 100 yards or so away. Wanting to stay at the same pace, Rachel and I ran hand in hand, which was was goofy and funny, but it felt so right! We saw the firework show and shared a moment with a woman driving a hospital bus who was parked watching the fireworks as well. At one point there was a very cool firework and we went "oooo" and the woman turned and says something along the lines of, "That was awesome." Moments shared with strangers, always a good time. We walked about 2 miles home, threw on the Great Mouse Detective and fell asleep on the couch for a second straight night.

Sunday July 20 - Started off the morning by going to the store with Rachel and getting necessities, aka food. We then watched an episode of Breaking Bad and ate a meatball sub sandwich that we made. I then drove over to Uncle John & Aunt Chris's place in Mokena. It was fun and enjoyable hanging out with the family and talk about camping gear I'll need on my trip. Cousin John was there, as well as Beth, my Mom, & Dad. We had a delicious dinner of brats, chicken, beans, corn on the cob & and few Sam Adams, as well as a Guinness. I think this was my first Guinness since I had one fresh from the tap in Dublin, Ireland.

Later that night, I started to clean out my room, and go through old toys and memories. I leave you with a few pictures from the night of Beth and I.

The next day, Monday July 21, I stopped at the bank and the library in the morning. At the library I couldn't resist the great deal on Magic Mike ($1). After all, it was the first midnight showing movie I had seen since Pirates 3 or something in high school and Rachel & I's only midnight showing movie....thanks summer camp. After work, I got home and continued to clean out some of my old things. Get excited for pics of old things next week.

Thanks for reading!

Josh