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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

Exhausted from the long day of moving

Before

After

Dining area

The view from our window... kind of..

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

Blood Moon

To start this April 15 post on tax day of 2014, as well as the full blood moon of April, I bring you a couple of anniversaries to remember.

Ahh, It's time to relax....On April 8th, 1994, The Offspring released their album Smash. One of my favorite albums from childhood just turned 20 years old. Wow, how the time goes by. It brings back many great memories such as playing in John's basement with John, Danny, & Pat. As well as Danny & I listening to this cd in our room, and putting track #3, Bad Habit, on super low, so our parents could not hear the famous words Stupid, Dumb$@#t, GodD@^n, Mother F#$&er.

Read this Rolling Stones article about The Offspring & their hit albums

The one year anniversary to my Zamboni Ride at the Blackhawks game on April 4, 2013 was the week prior as well. You can watch my whole experience above! Kinda long, but worth the watch if you are interested in how my life on the zamboni went.

This past week was full of lacrosse and a super productive week as far as videos and video editing goes for me. To top it off, we had the Full Blood Moon last night. Play the awesome song Blood Moon by Deer Tick to get in the mood and continue reading!

On Wednesday the 9th of April, I cut up some onion, in the most creative way I could, and then grilled it up on the stove top. After I cooked some chicken, and cut it up, mixed it with the onion and added some rice. I make some creative meals, usually involving me putting everything together in a bowl. After work, I headed to practice with my team that day, another indoor practice because the fields are too wet to use still, as well as our last practice before 2 games later on that weekend.

Wednesday night and into Thursday began my mass editing binge. I really pumped out some quality lacrosse vids this past week. Two quick game clips to advertise 1223 training are underneath this text, the rest will come later in the post. On Thursday morning I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the dentist where I was told that more gold is coming my way. Hooray for teeth and great dentists in the past.

Mother and I cooked up a tasty stir fry dinner together, which was quite delectable.

Thursday evening I went and taped the alma mater NV play NN at North. Caught an absolute beautiful sunset before the game started. I also found out I had left on my camera mic, so the batteries were dead. Cruz, who I had met up with at the game, and I headed over to Office Max to pick up a couple of 9 volts. 10 bucks for two 9 volts, batteries are expensive. The game was pretty rough to watch, but then I saw one of the wildest endings to a lacrosse game I have ever seen. A last second buzzer beater from 28 yards out. Crazy.

Check out the ending here.

I then submitted the game to LaxAllStars and was fortunate enough to be featured in an article where a similar goal happened in a game in Utah on the same night. Check out the article here. Yay publicity.

Here are a handful of other lacrosse videos I finished this past week. 2 lacrosse games and a long overdue Chesty Cam video from the Big Freeze with the Naperville Apaches.

I also finally had time to put together this little highlight video from an event at work about 3 months ago. Better late than never?

Friday April 11th was the date of my team party for lacrosse, but before I could get there, I had an encounter with an old scruffy dog. I came home from work and this woman was parked outside my house and began to approach my car. I walked over to her and she explained how she had found this pup walking down the sidewalk right in front of our house. It was walking slow and seemed to be old, so it must be someone close by. I attempted to pin point whose dog it was, but really had no idea, we tried a few houses close by, but no such luck. I then (somewhat regrettably) asked if she had things to do. She of course said yes and asked if I could take the dog, lucky me. I didn't really have anything going on until my party, so decided to set up camp with the dog down by the sidewalk, hoping the owners would come looking. After about an hour of talking to parents and neighborhood kids coming home from school, the owner finally came to claim his prize. I would later find out that this dog was 14, partially deaf, and partially blind... no wonder it didn't do anything I told it to do & seemed dead at one point. I also discovered that dogs really are a chick magnet, in my case, it was girls between the ages of 7-12 and we will say 35-50. Not ideal, but we'll take it.

After the dog incident, I had a fun team party which involved back-flips on a trampoline, beers, pizza, ping-pong & some xbox. I was sent home with plenty of goodies like usual, love my team mom! After that party, Brian picked me up and we headed over to Yorkville to hangout with Adam and Brandy at about 10:30p and stayed there until 2a. Just did some catching up and talking around the bonfire. We headed back, picked up my car and I was asleep right at 3am. 

A great start to the weekend in which Rachel was vacationing in Florida with Sarah, lucky girls!

On Saturday, my Mom, Dad, & I were unsuccessful in attempting to win some jewelry out in Orland Park, but we enjoyed free subs, free desserts, & free ring boxes with fake little plastic rings. Afterwards we headed over to my Aunt & Uncles to have a barbecue. On the way we stopped at Walgreens and I was blessed to find a bag of all Lemon flavored Jolly Ranchers, the flavor they have since taken out and replaced with blue raspberry, heaven!

At my Aunt and Uncles we had some grilled barbecue chicken, grilled Italian sausage, strawberries, jello, and I had some Sam Adam's Boston Lagers. All of it was so delicious, and the dog, Maggie kept trying to get some. What a beautiful dog!

Sunday April 13th marked the beginning of the Fox Valley season for my 8th grade team. Despite stormy weather, causing a 30 minute delay just two minutes in to the game, we were able to finish both games and came out with 2 victories, 15 - 9 and 9 - 0. Proud of my team playing hard in the rain and wind at Rachel's high school alma mater. Go knights?!

After the game, I stopped at Burrito Loco and picked up a coaching burrito for the two big wins. Celebrating alone, stuffing my face with a burrito, like a true champion.

That night I put in the movie the Conjuring which I really have trouble saying aloud, but is me having trouble to read anything new? The movie was actually an awesome scary movie, it gave me chills for almost the whole thing and was spooky as hell. Great movie, probably not the best to watch at 1 am right before I sleep, but I watched the whole thing and enjoyed it. The thought of possessions and hauntings is something I really am interested in, but that is for a later time.

Monday came, to perhaps give us the last snowfall of the year? I guess we shall see with that and the glorious Full Blood Moon was here! Usually known as a Full Pink Moon, but called the Blood Moon on this date because a lunar eclipse was to occur. A lunar eclipse is when the Earth is in alignment between the Sun and the Moon, so it casts a shadow on the moon, hence the eclipse. April 15, 2014 what a great day in history. I stayed up and took pictures from about 12:50am until 4am. Sometimes heading back inside because it was a bit chilly outside and I wanted to warm up as the full lunar eclipse slowly took over the moon. Finally around 2am if I remember correctly, the moon began to take on the orange/red hint, also known as the Blood Moon. I took a ton of pictures and some came out decent. I am looking into buying a new lens, and really should have considered purchasing a telephoto before this occurrence, but hopefully this occurs again and I will have the lens and more photography knowledge by then!

I hope you enjoyed this post and hope you were able to enjoy the Full Blood Moon, if not then you were able to enjoy my photos of it. I am looking forward to this week coming up which include a National Concert, as well as Rachel's Birthday!

See you next tuesday.

Josh

Pizza on Pizza on Pizza on Pizza on Pizza

You may have guessed the theme for this short blog... it is indeed Pizza. 

This past week I had pizza for 5 straight days, but here is the kicker, every day I had a different kind of pizza, so much more impressive.

Let me list them for you:

1. Wednesday: Little Cesar's pepperoni Pizza at work
2. Thursday: Domino's pepperoni/sausage pizza at work from my main man Sergio at a Domino's Express, only 1.3 miles down the road, but we were out of their delivery range...so I picked it up and Sergio gave us the hook up. Oh we also got that stuffed cheesy bread.
3. Friday: Aurelio's spinach/tomato at Rachel's parents in New Lenox
4. Saturday: Frozen Jack's pepperoni/sausage at Rachel's parents
5. Sunday: Giordano's deep dish sausage with the fam, welcome home Squid!

And that is how a man like me, is able to eat pizza for 5 straight days. From March 19th to March 23rd I took on the pizza world. Bam. So you probably want to know which was the best pizza? Well too bad, I was so hungry when I ate all of them that they all tasted so delicious it is impossible for me to decipher a winner. You will just have to perform this same test to decide!

The rest of my week was a little bit tame compared to recent weeks. Here goes.

Thursday night, the 20th of March, at 1223 about 12 guys from NIU came down for men's league and we were able to play a solid 4 on 4 game with 2 goalies. First time we got men's league going in a while, so hopefully that can continue. The night ended with my getting slashed square in the testicles. As I crawled off the field, I immediately regretted being unprepared equipment wise for this little scrimmage. 

I then arrived home, and made the decision that I needed to finish the highlight of the Adrian lax game I went to a week back. So I pumped out some editing for 4 hours, and finally cut the game to under 10 minutes of highlights around 3:10am. Here is the final product.

After I finished editing this game and watching it, I came to a realization that I really really really wished someone had filmed like this, or I was somehow able to, when I and all of my teammates were playing. This is by far my best highlight and I just love filming lacrosse. Awesome.

My video was also posted in a LaxAllStars article (click to view)

Friday after work, I headed to Rachel's parents for the weekend for her mom's birthday celebration. After we had the pizza Friday night, we rented Inside Llewyn Davis from RedBox. The movie follows life of a struggling folk singer, and had a sad, depressing tone for most of the movie, which I really enjoy in movies for some reason, so I thought the movie was solid. I would recommend this film, especially for those who enjoy folk music, or Justin Timberlake, as he has a cameo in the film and even sings a few songs for the soundtrack! Solid movie, phenomenal soundtrack.

Saturday, Rachel's family came over for her mom's birthday and we celebrated with some delicious pulled pork sandwich, macaroni & cheese, and salad. Rachel and I picked out the desserts, which were a big hit, Frosted Sugar Cookies and a Cookies & Cream Pie! Mmmm Pie.

Rachel, her brother Rob, his friend Tom, & I played cards that evening, which was when that frozen pizza was made. We played poker, blackjack, & finally I suggested hearts. We ended up playing a full game of hearts to 100. It made me remember how much I love the game hearts and really enjoy the strategy behind it, even when I lose.

Sunday, the 23rd of March marks the day that Beth returned home for Spring Break. After having a few private lessons at work, I arrived home and greeted Beth on her return from school. As a family we then headed over to Giordano's for a traditional welcome home meal for the squid. That night Beth and I watched 3 of ESPN's 30 for 30s in a row. We watched One Night in Vegas, about Tupac & Mike Tyson in 1996. Another about the US Women's 99 World Cup soccer team, Ninety Niners. And finally Four Days in October, about the 2004 Red Sox come back against the Yankees after being down 3 games to 0 in the division final. If you don't already know, I love documentaries and true stories, so watching these 30 for 30s is very enjoyable for me.

Also on Sunday, well Saturday, but I wasn't home, all of my photos I ordered from Shutterfly arrived. I ordered about 15 11x14 photos, mostly of me playing lacrosse. Let's just say I was missing the sport and went on a spending spree with half price prints. I also ordered a free 16x20 of the Chicago Skyline for Beth, & a night shot of Vegas for myself. Check out some of them below.

Monday night, after a small showing at the Master's Open, Beth and I headed to Steak 'n Shake. I picked up a chicken fingers & fries meal, as well as a triple steak burger & fries meal. Topped this off with a Snicker's milkshake and had my most delicious and only meal of the day!

That is all for this week. Next week

Here are a bunch of videos I found to be stunning & breathtaking.

This amazing GoPro video of a grizzly bear (above) reminds me of a similar video I made with some seagulls at the beach in South Haven (below). The grizzly is way sweeter and more impressive however. 

The Thompson trio at Albany are some of the best and most taleneted players to play the game. One word for this, amazing

Timelapse Showreel. Specatcular views.

Iceland Timelapse: Beautiful

Another timelapse from Iceland. Love the landscape.

Thanks for reading! Need to continue to edit videos for this next week and try to knock out some of the things on my to-do list!

Josh