Flying Solo, Together

April 8, 2014

Woo. April is here. Bring on the rain showers. Another fantastic week in the books, or I guess in the movies since I seem to watch way more movies than reading of books. Slow reading problems.

In case you missed it. Here are two videos I finished last Tuesday. One a little dancing with Rachel, Squid, & my cousins. The other a lax highlight.

Wednesday April 2nd I had a solid, early day of work, running some spring break camps that started at 7am. Later that evening I headed over to BenU and hoped on a bus with them and headed to Elmhurst for an away game under the lights. Filming the game went well, although entering the fourth quarter the heavens began to drizzle some rain drops down on us, luckily I brought an umbrella to protect my camera. I am about halfway through the editing process, hopefully the highlight will be out by Thursday.

After the game, which BenU pulled out, we headed to Chipotle for a team dinner, luckily for me, the camera man was included in this sweet deal. I picked up my usual, steak burrito, black beans, brown rice, corn salsa, mild salsa, a dash of sour cream & lettuce. Deliciousness, especially after having such a long day. But the greateness did not end there... When we were leaving, Chipotle gave us all free chips since they had about 100 extra bags and were just going to throw them out. So I picked up two free bags and ate on the way home & to Rachel's advice, saved the other one for the next day. I crawled into bed and turned on The Fast & the Furious, Paul Walker's finest film. Day over.

Thursday the 3rd of April was a busy day of editing videos, including the Trine BenU game seen above, a little chest camera action from a tournament in December, as well as the game I had filmed the previous night. I took a break about midday to go get my oil changed. I make it a habit to walk over to Disc Replay and browse for any movies I may need while I wait for my oil to be changed. I picked up Airplane & the original & only good Saw movie. You can see my entire movie collection by click here! For an afternoon snack, aka my lunch, I used my brilliant mind and created a full tray of nachos, using the Chipotle chips from last night. I topped them with some cheddar cheese, cut up some steak and layered it across the top and put it in the over at 420 degrees, nah only like 300. While this was cooking in the oven, I brewed up some mexican rice and completed my nachos by dumping the rice over the nachos. Mmm, I am quite the chef.

Friday, the start to the weekend! I headed down to Chicago around 4pm. Once arrived, I met Rachel at the train and we walked over to the bar Benchmark for spinach artichoke dip & a couple of drinks. I had a strongbow cider, tasted like apple juice. Oh and I was also wearing black swishy pants, so fancy, but hey can't help my work attire. On our walk back to Rachel's place we stopped at a liquor store and picked up two bottles of wine, one being "Flying Solo". Funny thing about it is, as Rachel put it, we were "flying solo, together!" Once we got back we started to cook up dinner. We made a tasty talapia, another fish filled with cheese, asparagus, & rice dish, not too bad! I had picked up a redbox earlier that day, so we put on American Hustle. I thought the movie was pretty good, but lacked something to make it a great movie. Or I just need to watch it again to really appreciate it, I'm not sure! We threw on a couple episodes of Workaholics, but somehow before the second one even ended, I was asleep on the couch to the right & Rachel was asleep on the couch we started on. Party animals!

On Saturday morning, I drove back to Lisle to film BenU play Augustana. I picked up some Jewel chicken on the way for lunch. It was a beautiful day out, so filming was much more enjoyable as I didn't freeze! I'll be editing the game this week and hopefully have it done by next week. I headed back to the city and arrived back at Rachel's, who was busy working out while I was gone! We watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad before her brothers came over. Then around 6:30 we headed to a local bar to grab some food, but Brian and Tori were going to be coming over around 7, so I left early and picked up some Jimmy Johns for dinner instead. Club Lulu #16, classic. All the friends came back shortly after, Rachel so kindly brought me 3/4 of the burger she did not eat, so I ate that too! Ahh how am I not super fat? Grant came over later as well and then we all played Cards Against Humanity. Had a drink called Old Brown Dog Ale & thought of Andy Mewbs and the real brown dog, as well as our trip to Georgia back in 2008 (pics below).

Brian, Grant, & I stayed for a few more drinks while everyone else headed out. We then met them out a little later a bar down the street. Rachel & I took off for home, but of course, had to pick up some McDonalds that was conveniently on the way home. Here is how the order went:

Josh, "Yes, can we have 2 McDoubles & 2 McChickens?"
Guy, "Is that all?"
Rachel, "And one barbecue sauce please!"
Josh, "Ok I guess".

And that is how Saturday night ended.

Chilling after John got his teeth knocked out (Story for another day)

Swamp Guinea! Where everything is deep fried!

Sunday

Frozen Jack's pizza to start it off while watching some more of season 3 Breaking Bad. I did a little budgeting in my preparation to potentially move out of the parent's house as well. Then I jogged a mile over to Grant's place in Lincoln Park and played some ping pong. I'm a little rusty. Had a hamburger from some polish place maybe? Wasn't sure of the language, but the burger was delicious. I then jogged back to Rachel's place. I need to start working out...

Rachel and I then walked over to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Many of the animals were still inside, but a handful of them were out and looking oh so happy, syke! Zoos are pretty sad places when you are older and understand what is going on as the animals walk in circles, imprisoned and drugged out of their minds.

We got back from the zoo and cooked up some pasta with italian sausage & veggies. We topped it off with a balsamic vinaigrette sauce. Just love cooking up meals with Rach! So fun and so tasty!

As the night was closing, we wanted to watch a movie, but also had a craving for ice cream. We walked over to Walgreen's and picked up a pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked. As we also walked we pondered how crazy it is how walking at 9pm in the city of Chicago seems so much more dangerous than out in the suburbs. It is very interesting how the darkness and night can create such an eerie mood.

As we settled down on the couch with our Half Baked ice cream, we loaded up the movie Turbo. A film about a snail who has always wanted to race and go fast. He ends up being magically induced with some serious speed and then ends up becoming a professional race car driver. I won't ruin the movie for you all, but let's just say it is top notch, provided many laughs, and is even suitable for the kids!

Oh, speaking of kids. These are two hilarious texts I got from my sister about things my cousins Emma & Anna said while at the Art Museum. So funny.

Pretty awesome weekend. See ya next week!

Josh

Blackhawks, Bulldogs, & Eagles

March 18, 2014

This past week was jam packed with another quick snowfall, a new computer, tasty food, a full moon, & a weekend full of mascots.

I was blessed with this past week with a plentiful amount of wisdom, check the links below:

Awesome inspiring video by Brandon Todd on putting in work to be able to dunk a basketball at 5'5

Rashard Mendenhall retires at 26 and explains why

Beth understands life backwards . My sister is amazing!

Pretty inspiring words from Kurt Vonnegut himself

I woke up Wednesday morning to my mom telling me how beautiful it looked outside. I threw on some pants and took a few quick pics outside, then decided to head to Knoch Knolls woods and took over 400 pictures! Good thing I wore my boots, as I had to traverse an overflowed river that covered the untraveled trail.

Wednesday afternoon, we headed to IKEA for work and I picked out a new desk for work for my new mac that is coming in. Things are getting official! My boss was nice enough to pick up the tab for Portillos for lunch. I had a delicious double cheeseburger. Mmm tasty, and then to follow up this meal, I had my mom's favorite beef stew for dinner after work. Yum Yum Yum.

This past week I was able to finish up another Izzy video set to The National, I Need My Girl. Cannot wait to see these guys live in a few weeks. This footage is from when John and I filmed Snow Mounds with my GoPro.

Friday, March 14 was here before I knew it. I headed into work and was super excited when UPS dropped off my new 21.5" Apple computer. I put my desk together from IKEA the day before and set it up. I finally have a place upstairs at work! Making moves! At 3, just after finishing setting up my computer, I headed to the city to catch the Blackhawks game with Rachel's Family.

I got to the city and met up with Rachel's brother Rob at his apartment. We waited for everyone else to get downtown and then met up at a local bar to grab a few drinks and dinner. Since it was Friday, the good Catholics at the table with me ordered a bunch of non-meat appetizers. I was on a different meal plan though, and ordered the chicken salad. It was Patrick Kane bobble head night, but after eating dinner and taking a cab to the game, we just got to our seats in section 321, in time for one of the best parts of Blackhawks games, the National Anthem.

I took another 350 pictures at the Hawks game, just a few are displayed above. One thing I realized while at the United Center, as I looked up into the rafters and saw all of the championship banners hanging. It is pretty amazing and awesome to have lived in the city of Chicago for the past two decades, as both the Bulls and Blackhawks have had some incredibly talented teams. I have lived in a great time for Chicago sports, as greats like Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson, Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp, & Duncan Keith have won championship after championship for us.

The Blackhawks played a mediocre first two periods and after an entertaining, hard fought third period, came out on the short end of the stick, losing 3 - 2 to the Nashville Predators. We then teased Rachel that she was bad luck, as it was her second game, and again the Hawks second time losing when she was there. As we were leaving, one of Rach's bro's friends came up to talk to us and Rachel noticed that he and his girlfriend had PK bobbleheads. Rachel then decided to say, "I see you have one too many bobble heads there..." Kind of in a joking matter, but then the girl said, "oh do you want this? here you go!" and gave the bobble head to Rach. I can determine two things from this occurrence, one, she was a very nice girl, & two, most definitely not a big hockey fan. Needless to say, the Patrick Kane bobblehead was the talk of the night and many a joke were made with him as the subject.

After the game we took a cab back to the bar we had lunch at and had a few more drinks with Rachel's parents and brothers. A few hours later, after a lot of great conversations, Rach's parents took off, and I stayed at the bar with Rach's bros until about 2am. Her brother Rob then took us to a vienna hot dog stand just around the block. He picked up a dog and fries for me, and I ate them on the walk back to his apartment, as I had to head home because I had practice at 8am the next day.

I got home around 3:15am and went right to bed, only to wake up 4 hours later to head to practice with my Fox Valley team. My team had a great practice, & I was very satisfied. After heading home, my Dad and I drove out to Elmhurst to catch Adrian College play Elmhurst College in lacrosse. This was my first game as an alumni! It is kinda sad that it took 3 years to catch a game, but to be fair Adrian has not played in Illinois since I graduated, the Aurora game was canceled earlier this year, & I am always coaching in the spring, making it near impossible to see any games.

It is crazy to think that the seniors on the team now, were just little freshman when I last saw them play and was a senior myself on the team. Wow does time fly! Adrian started off slow like always, but played hard to a convincing 14 - 4 win. I took a few pictures during the game (seen below), but mostly took video. I am working on a game highlight that should be out later this week. Stay tuned!

Another alumni Jeff came to the game, so it was good catching up with him and watching as well. I would have to say that the Adrian teams that I played on were better than the current team, but maybe that is just an alumni talking ;)

Go Bulldogs!

After the game, my dad and I met up with my mom at Culvers to have some lunch, just like the good old days at Darien Sportsplex, when we would go to Culvers with my Grandma and Grandpa, and anyone else who came to watch after we won indoor lacrosse games at Darien.

Sunday, March 16th was another day for lacrosse. This time I headed over to Benedictine University to watch the Eagles take on the Trine Thunder. The weather for this game, just a day later, was about 30 degrees colder, especially with a strong wind coming across the field.

The game had a decent pace, with both teams going back and forth. Finally in the final 3 minutes of the 4th quarter, BenU tied the game up at 7. The game went into overtime, but again, both teams failed to find the back of the net. This lead to a second overtime, in which both teams had chance, but BenU was able to notch the final tally with an excited double overtime win! Nolan and I have been working on an inspirational piece about overtime, so hopefully the video that I took at the game will do the trick. Check out the game winning save & goal below!

After the game, I could not feel my feet or hands, and I headed over to Gios to warm up by a fire and have a few beverages. He was kind enough to make me a warm tea and we snacked on snacks most of the evening while talking about the game and watching documentaries about Caddyshack & National Lampoon's Vactaion. We ordered a little bit of sushi & chicken fried rice for dinner. Not too bad!

Leaving Gio's I was able to remember that the Full Worm Moon was out on the 16th of March, & I snapped a few photos.

The past week I watched the Matrix trilogy. I do not think I had ever seen number two or three before, but was not disappointed. All of the movies were action packed and a pretty good watch while laying in bed. The three movies reminded me of Bruce Lee movies and other Asian fighting movies I watched in college with my roommate Dave, and thought these were kind of the "american" version of those. Pretty cool "matrix" scenes throughout with the slow mo fighting and dodging of bullets.

I also frantically put together a photo order from walgreens and shutterfly on Sunday. It included another 13 11x14 pictures, which I have a pretty cool plan for once I get my own place, and a 16x20 of a shot from Vegas. Hung a few more 8x10 photos from Europe in the basement. I'll post it once complete.

With the weekend over, St. Patrick's Day was upon us. March 17, 2014 was a busy day at work with a plentiful amount of social media postings. The best part of the day was again, what I had to eat:

For Lunch: Subway

For Dinner: Portillos, thanks to my wonderful and amazing team mom who brought it to me.

Then after an accuracy shooting class that I taught, the Master's Open took place. Probably our lowest amount of guys yet, but it was St. Patty's day, so I am sure a few of the guys were unable to drive to the facility.

Second Dinner: McChicken & McDouble (no picks)

On my way home from the Master's open I saw at least 6 cops, which involved 3 different pullovers. The last 4 cops put on their lights in my rear view, but ended up pulling a car a few cars back, must have been something serious with 4 squad cars for one pull over!

One last thing: Check out this crazy juggling video! Insane!

This week I plan to edit the 2 lax games I filmed and stay super busy at work with social media and website work. Nothing too crazy planned for this week ahead!

YaBoy Josh

Camera Stress & Old Man Laughs!

February 25, 2014

The last 24 hours for me have been quite stressful. With a dirty Canon 60D sensor, I took it into my own hands to clean it, ordering a cleaning kit offline. Yesterday I attempted to clean my sensor on my camera, they say you shouldn't even do it yourself, let a professional do it, since the sensor is so fragile. And if you do clean it yourself, touch it as limited as possible and with the correct materials. Well lets just say after multiple failed attempts to clean my sensor, I touched it and tried to clean it probably over 25 times. Huge mistake and probably worst decision of the year. I guess at least I didn't try to wash it in the sink or dishwasher?

It all seemed rather easy to clean though, just a few blows of air onto the sensor, 2 simple swipes, and voila, a cleaned and beautiful sensor is back in action. Not my case :(

After freaking out for nearly the whole morning yesterday, I finally got the pictures looking back to how they were looking before I attempted this awful cleaning process. Let's just say I hope and pray that my camera is still functional at its highest capacity and despite my ignorance and stupidity it still properly functions for the future. Otherwise I'll be out another grand to buy a new one.

There is only one thing to blame for this whole stressful process, and that is dust. Little dust particles somehow got into my camera and landed on the sensor, hence showing up in my pictures and causing this whole debacle. This experience makes me realize my overall dislike for dust. Dust is annoying, It is always there and reoccurring. I look to my left at 13 new 8x10s I printed out from Europe & Australia and think, these are starting to be covered in dust right now. How annoying.

My Auntie Frieda past away this past weekend as well. Even when living a full and long life, death is always a tough thing to cope with, but being there for your family is always helpful and important. She was always so nice and sweet to everyone. We love you! Rest in peace Auntie Frieda.

Despite this sad news and super stressful morning I had yesterday, the past week has been enjoyable and fun!

Yesterday was the first day of the "Master's Open" and wow did we get a good turnout at 1223 Lacrosse. About 30 old timer dad's came out and tested their hand at the game all of their kids play. One word to describe this event, hilarious. I had a smile on my face the whole time it was happening and couldn't stop laughing. Good to see my "old man" standing between the pipes again! He stood tall and had a bunch of saves. I am happy that this league is taking place and he can play at a pace more suitable for him, versus college kids running down and shooting 90+ mph on the run at him. Do work Dad! Some pictures below highlighting the night.

In other big news, it looks like I am going to be an Uncle, again! My brother Danny and his wife Sarah just announced that their 9 month old Sophia is going to be a big sister! How exciting! Sarah is due sometime in October and we all look forward to adding another member to the family!

Creative picture showing their feet and then baby shoes! Sophia is getting so big!

This past week marks the 3 year anniversary of the Ice Storm my senior year at Adrian College on February 21, 2011. As we slept ice rained down from the heavens, coating the college campus in a two inch sheet of ice. The ice was so heavy it snapped tree branched off, took down power lines, and shut down the school for the day. 6am lacrosse practice was cancelled that morning, and so was school, so I spent the day going campus taking video and pictures, documenting the whole thing. These two videos were made and provide great memories!

That day, we were able to scavenge some food at Richie as we sat in the dark, eating cereal, which was the only thing available. Later that night Nolan, Dave, and I were hanging out in Olivia & Erin's room when we got an email saying we were to have practice that night at 11pm since the power had just come back on. This was the worst news all day and really put a damper on the next hour before practice. On top of this, we were to have practice the next morning at 6am the next morning as well. At that point I made my decision, and let's just say that 6am practice was the only one I ever missed, and I don't regret it despite the punishment.

Last week I said I filmed Benedictine scrimmage Judson and was editing the game film. Well, here it is. My official first men's lacrosse game highlight that I filmed. It came out pretty well I think. I posted it to some forums and got some good feedback on how to improve for next time, including: adding white flashes for rough transitions, working on pan movements, adding a hero to some of goal clips by focusing on the player after he scores/goalie after a save, & keeping the artsy shots to a minimum if it is just for a highlight video.

My sister, the journalism major at Mizzou in her final semester, just got back to blogging and gives me some recognition for getting her back on track! Check out her blog, as she is a much much better writer than I!

Hockeypucks & Cupcakes

This weekend I spent Saturday evening drinking beers and watching season 3 of EastBound & Down featuring Kenny Powers with Rachel & her brother Rob. I had never seen the show before, but we watched the whole third season and it was pretty darn funny. Rachel's Dad also provided us with some takeout Chili's for dinner. Tasty!

Tomorrow, Wednesday I am going to watch Adrian play Aurora at Aurora at 5:30pm. This will be my first Adrian game since I graduated. Kinda sad, but I have been busy in the spring the past 3 years with Fox Valley and they haven't played out here since my senior year. I plan to film the game, but the high for the day is also 10 degrees, so we shall see. Go Bulldogs!

I have some big plans for taping lacrosse games and editing game film. Good things to come from MalutaVision!

Until next week!

Josh