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

The Yankee Clipper From Hell

On Tuesday July 8th, I finished editing the video I took from The National concert back in April. It was an awesome concert as I wrote about, read about it here, and now you can watch 25 minutes of it!

As the night wore on, and it was about midnight, I saw LaxAllStars was having a stick trick competition. (LINK to the contest with my entry at the bottom) I decided to put in some effort and nail the required combo. It took me more tries than I wanted to, but I finished the trick nonetheless and edited it into a video by 2 am. Officially entered for the contest. My entry is below:

July 9th, Wednesday, let's skip ahead to around 8pm when women's league was starting for lax at work. There were only 4 of them, and there was no goalie, so I threw on some box goalie skirt for a cup and jumped in net. It was not as terrifying as I remember it being when I was in highschool, but I am older, and these girls are better, so I didn't have to worry about getting hit on my body as much. It was fun and on the way home, Beth and I stopped at this place near our house called The Wing Stop. We ordered up 10 boneless wings, 5 lemon pepper and 5 parmesan garlic. I'm not sure if it was because I was so hungry, or just simply because they were, but these wings were absolutely delicious. Way better than anything from BWW. We topped off our boneless wings with some fries and a drink. Great night.

On Thursday July 10th, after I got home from work I cracked my final Man-O-Awe beer from Three Floyd's and drank it down while enjoying some taco dip my mom just made. We used some chips from Whole Foods that I had received a month back from a team party I was at. What was astonishing was that this bag of tortilla chips cost over $9. Who in their right mind would pay $9 for a bag of chips? I couldn't believe it, but the chips were a bit old, so we threw them in the over to make them hot chips to have with our taco dip. Delicious.

Friday July 11th, Happy 7/11. After the day at work I headed to the bank to deposit some checks. When I got near the bank, I noticed a handful of fire engines and police cars, parts of the road blocked off, and the smell of gas in the air. To my luck, the bank was closed because of some gas leak at the lot next door. Not being able to deposit my checks, I then headed to my next stop, the dentist. Turns out I need another gold tooth, so I stopped by and set up my appointment for next week. Afterwards, I was tired of having these checks, so I drove across town to another bank and made my deposit. On the way home I stopped at Best Buy in hope of finding a new sound system or soundbar, but nobody there was of any help and all I got asked about was my cable provider and told how I can lower my payments. Thanks Best Buy... not. This is why retailers across America suck and have terrible service now. They don't pay their employees enough, and then they don't care about them, so if there are any questions or arguments about pay, they can just replace that person with some other incompetent person who knows nothing about what they are selling. I went to Best Buy a few weeks ago and asked about camera lenses. All the guy working in the area told me was, "Uh... yea a lot of people buy this one, it's pretty popular," AKA you have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks for nothing. Now I know there are some people who know the product and are specialists, but this number seems to be declining every day as companies could care less about their employees. 

Once I got home from running all my errands. I fired up the grill with my dad and he cooked some delicious ribs. I finished up with some lemon pepper chicken and a couple of brats for later. Grandpa Bob was coming over hence the fancy meal of Ribs with corn, salad, mashed potatoes, & bread. A fantastically scrumptious meal. We spent the entire evening with G Bob at the dinner table, first eating, then drinking some after dinner wine he brought from California, and then talking about anything and everything from natural disasters, global warming, that sweet lady mary jane, and hiking. With G Bob only coming out to Chicago twice a year, it was great to catch up and hear stories for the evening. The night was a bit disappointing as it was the full SUPER moon of July, the Full Buck Moon, but it was unfortunately very cloudy and stormy out, so no moon pics from this month.

Saturday July 12 started with me going to work for 5 hours, then coming home. The results were in, and since I was the only entry in the contest I won. The guy who ran it did have some nice words about me though. (LINK to article about me winning the contest). Here is what he had to say: 

"First off, last week we only had one legit entry for the Combo Contest, so I was a little disappointed, until I saw the video. Yaboysjcubed absolutely killed the combo adding his own style and a few things I’m not sure I can even do.

Well done yaboysjcubed, you made me feel like I officially have to step my game up while I am here in Denver."

After watching Brazil lose to the Netherlands aka Holland aka The Dutch (too many unique names), Beth and I packed up and headed out around 5pm. We drove over to Rachel's Uncle's place for another grad party in Burr Ridge. It was fun hanging out with Rachel's family and eating some delicious Mexican food, while watching Bo the giant Golden almost eat a young boy, who was so happy about eating fruit kabobs. It was also interesting introducing Beth to Rach's family and having her experience that. Thanks to Beth for going and Rachel for having us! At around 7 pm we decided to hop in the car and head out to Libertyville, for a sweet Hotel Extended Stay party John was having. We got there in about an hour and then saw John's diggs for the summer (he is living in a hotel for work). We just chatted for a bit, then loaded up Mario Kart 64 for some Drinking and Driving. After the game everyone was ready for bed, in preparation for the big day at Six Flags tomorrow! We packed 3 people in the Queen bed and John volunteered to sleep on the solid rock ground. 

Sunday July 13th began with a wake up and workout kinda day. John and I pumped out a quick circuit before heading out to Six Flags. On our way we stopped at Subway to get some breakfast (it was already 10:30 so it counts as lunch?). We picked up some tasty subs, thought about eating half and saving half for later, then ate the whole sub. Six Flags was just a stones throw away from John's hotel party pad, or as he would say, in his backyard, so we were there in no time. We came in the rear entrance, which ended up going under the American Eagle, the first time we have ever come in this way. We thought we would for sure get free parking since we found the secret entrance, but unfortunately it cost more, $25 for the day. We parked the car and then headed toward the park, excited to take on the new fastest, tallest wooden coaster, The Goliath.

Despite all of Rachel's talk about getting sick on coasters and what seemed like not wanting to go, it turns out she is a Six Flags expert, knowing the park forward and back. After we spoke with lame Kevin who's favorite ride is Raging Bull and works at Six Flags but has not rode Goliath, and got our season passes, which no longer require a picture ID, quite the let down, we started off our day at Six Flags. This was the first thing we decided we will write in our complaint letter to the Six Flags CEO... All employees need to have rode all the rides... mandatory.

To Rach's misfortune, we would have to do the park backwards, since we were on the side of the Viper, instead of Superman. She still knew the entire order and I even threw out a map I picked up right when she told me, "It's all up here" and pointed to her head. So in true Maluta fashion, we rode the Viper first, as we walked toward it, the line was out of the gates, we all couldn't believe the line could possibly be this long. As John, Rachel, and I stood in line, Beth walked forward about 20 feet, then waved us over. The long line was to get into the water park, and there was absolutely no line for The Viper... Ahh tricky! Quite the start, then we got up near the front of the Viper and talked to some guy who was working and told us to wait about 2 minutes, since some nerds decided to use their fast pass and we had to let them by... even though there was no line anyway, but he wasn't cool. Another thing to add to the complaint letter to the CEO.

Rachel and I rode the Viper together, our first coaster together! After challenging the viper, we headed over to Raging Bull. This wait was significantly longer than the Viper, probably a little under an hour. We asked some young lady to snap some photos of us waiting in line, of course, like she said, the shadow was pretty bad, so we have a dark person in each photo effort, turned out pretty decent anyway.

Once near the top of Raging Bull, we all decided to wait the extra 10 minutes for the front row! Despite not getting the teal car like we wanted, we all were pretty stoked to ride front row, even Rachel who initially said she was not going to go no hands, until we were at the very top of the drop and began to go down slightly, she immediately grabbed my hand in the air and yelled out! Front row on Raging Bull was amazing and awesome. Flying threw the air so gracefully.

Once off Raging Bull we continued our walk around the park and stumbled upon a mystery coaster none of us had ever seen before. It had some loops and was red, but none of us were sure what it was. We finally found the entrance to this new coaster called X-Flight. Turns out they built it in 2012. It was a pretty cool concept, a kind of mix between superman and batman, where the cars are actually to the side of the track, versus above it. Very interesting to see and ride from the side compared to the usual on top of the track. The ride was actually thrilling and quite enjoyable. Definitely the surprise gem of the trip!

From X-Flight we headed over to the All-American American Eagle. The best ride in the park in my opinion. Classic wooden coaster that I like to call "Ole Rickety" There was absolutely no wait for this ride, so we just had to take the 5 minute walk where people used to wait in line in the 1970s to get to the Red/Blue split. We first headed toward red and rode in the back seats to get more rattle, more shake, and a more of your car is flying off the track feeling. After riding red, Rachel was getting a bit of headache so she took a break while Beth, John, and I jumped a gate and headed back to ride blue. We each had our own seat for the blue, I sat in the very last seat. Blue was just as fun and shaky as red, what a fun ride. Both times we rode it, our color train won (2 trains go at the same time and go on different tracks).

After American Eagle we headed over to wait in line for the new beauty of the park, The Goliath. We waited for about 90 minutes, in which the whole regular time of the World Cup took place, and then finally got onto the new wooden coaster. Although there was plenty of steel on this wooden beast, we hopped into the coaster. The lap belt was the tightest and most secure I have ever felt, along with a shin belt. The crazy part was that there was no shoulder harness or belt, but this coaster goes upside down! Insane! The Goliath starts off with an 85 degree drop that goes straight down. Again Rachel did not have her hands up initially, but right when the drop started, snagged my mid air and began to scream out with joy! The Goliath started off with a bang and did not disappoint throughout, it was a series of twists, drops, turns, and loops that we all wished did not end. Instantly became our favorite coaster from the day, living up to the hype, unlike the Dark Knight poop ride from years prior.

After Goliath we headed back to the car to have some lunch. Brats cooked from the day before that I had brought, some water, and chips. We listened to the first overtime of the World Cup while eating lunch as well, but still no score. It was around 4:20 when we headed back into the park. We were all pretty hot so we decided to start off with some water rides. The first was Roaring Rapids, the giant raft ride that gets you wet with water hoses and sprayers, not the waterfalls that they don't let you go under. It was only about a 30 minute wait and we cooled off so it was worth it. Feeling the water fever, we decided to wait for what we thought was the log ride, the Yankee Clipper. This ever so promising great ride turned into a dreadful 45 minute wait, where we saw a guy wearing gold grills, an african american man who seemed to be homeless, and was defintiely alone, try to squeeze his way onto the ride with 2 little girls and their mom, and a very creepy "dad" who was brushing his son's long hair in a very creepy manner. Even with all of this strange stuff happneing, it would not have been so bad until....enter The Yankee Clipper From Hell.

For our seating arrangement, we decided to appoint Beth as the captain, and she sat alone in the front seat. Then in the back it was led by Rachel, with me behind her, and John bringing up the rear. Now this is canoe style seating, so we didn't really have seats, but instead were sitting in each others laps. The ride started off smooth and we took a smooth ride out in the water. Then as we approached the steep incline up, the gates in front of us closed and horn sounded. There was a boat stuck on the incline above us, and then our boat headed straight for the closed gate. As we shouted out, "Brace for impact," we did just that as we crashed into the barrier with a bang. Then we looked behind us as another boat, oh these were boats, not logs, but we saw logs passing us the other direction....was headed right for us. Again we had to brace for impact as this boat crashed into us. Then a worker came running down from the top of the incline and shouted toward us, "I cannot come any closer so listen up, there is a delay in the ride, please remain calm and do not move, we will do our best to get you all out safely and as quick as possible, Thank you." Must have been ride protocol, since we were all laughing at how terrible this ride has been so far. In the meantime the logs kept floating past us from the opposite direction and another boat crashed into us. Finally after about 15 minutes of sitting comfortably in between John's thighs, the gates opened and we headed up toward what we would hope be the rest of the great ride. Instead at the very top, we turned, then took a drop down, where Beth was hit with all of the water right in the face, and bam, the ride was over. What a waste of time. Thanks a lot Kevin of Great America. And that was The Yankee Clipper From Hell. This will be going in our complaint letter.

After that piss poor experience, we headed over to Batman to wait in only about a 45 minute line. Batman has by far the best waiting experience, with the classic cop car into the fire hydrant, little children screaming, and that dush dush noise in the tunnel and up the stairs. The ride was fast and exciting, lasting about 40 seconds, 10 seconds more than I had predicted. After Batman it was already getting pretty late, so we decided to get a funnel cake, Maluta tradition again. Originally we were going to just get the funnel cake, but then it came to my attention that I could get a funnel cake with a pound of ice cream on top of it for just 50 cents more? How could I not go that route. Unfortunately, the woman in front of me with her 4 kids felt the need to have each of them pay separately for their OWN funnel cakes and drinks, so it took 4 times the time it should have. First of all, why are each of your 10 year old kids getting their own funnel cake. Second, why do they all need to pay separately? I understand building character and teaching lessons, but at Six Flags? Come on lady. Put it in the complaint letter.

While we were waiting for the cake, John of course claimed he wasn't going to have any. Good thing we got 4 sporks because we all devoured it once we set it down on the table. Delicious!

The final ride of the day was upon us. Superman. The wait was the second longest, taking just about an hour, but it was a great ride to end the day with. We wished that it could have released us at the peak of one of the hills and just parachuted us to our car, but instead we all vowed to take the ride in silence, with praying mantis hands up. For the photo, we all had our eyes closed and despite trying to look serious and sleeping, we had cracked smiles, but maybe it was just the G's pulling our face skin back.

Finally the day was over, we walked back to the car, drove back to John's hotel, then drove back to Rachel's apartment. After spending an hour or two there, Beth and I drove back home to our house.

A great & successful Six Flags Great America trip!

On Monday July 14th, I went to get my oil changed at Meineke. I stood there for about 20 minutes, waiting for someone to come help me at the front desk. Finally when someone did, it was just to tell me that their computers were down and I should come back in about an hour.... Thanks for nothing, another day without the oil changed, and another day of bad service. This place seems to always let us down. I was a bit frustrated so I headed over to Best Buy and bought a new Vizio 5.1 Soundbar system. Since no one had helped me earlier in the week, I did some research online and decided to go with the highly rated Vizio system. I am excited to set it up and use it in the new apartment with Rach's TV. Should be a great combo and really increase the sound quality for the place! Afterwards I came home and did a bit of cleaning before heading to work. After work I watched some of the home run derby. Luckily it was delayed enough from rain so I was able to watch. But wow, what a terrible home run derby. One of the guys who made it to the finals had only hit 2 home runs in the first round and some how advanced....Luckily the Cespidas guy can hit some out of the park and put on quite the show for the second straight year. He still hasn't learned to speak english though... which isn't terrible, but for a professional player, somewhat expected?  

After the derby and an eventful weekend at Six Flags, I cashed it in and headed to bed.

YaBoy is out

Josh

The Quarter Century

Tuesday June 24 I watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty... the 1947 version. It was pretty great!

Wednesday June 25th I mowed the lawn in preparation of Beth's graduation party. At work I attempted to make ethernet cables which brought me back to my college days in the IT department with Lee, Brad, Andy, & Derek. I spent too many hours that first week working there making cables that worked about 50% of the time. Tricky stuff.

Thursday June 26th, as we waited for men's league to start, we threw on the MLL game to watch our teammate Zak Dorn break the record for fastest shot. He shot 114, then 116, setting a new record. The MLL players seemed uninterested and were pretty rude about it. Not surprised. That evening I watched Captain Phillips by myself in my room. What a riveting and exciting film that keeps you on the edge of your seat. 5/5

Friday June 27th I went to Sam's Club with my mom in the morning to get some goodies for the grad party on Saturday. At work I finished the TCM Goalie Camp video I had been working on. Work was pretty boring so I put on Toy Story 3 for the last 2 hours or so. I didn't cry because I didn't make it to the end of the movie, I had to leave. I picked up Rachel from the train station. What a lovely amazing girlfriend, again coming home to visit me! We picked up Portillos for dinner. I had a double cheeseburger with everything except pickles! So did she! After eating so much and feeling so full, we fell asleep pretty early.

On Saturday June 28th, it was the Day of Beth's grad party. Family and friends came over for great food and great times. Johnny came over as well. After talking to my uncle john & grandpa bob about hiking, I realized I have no idea about anything about hiking. i need to get on that.

Rachel and Phil leave early. Johnny and I follow later, Johnny drives us to the city around 7. We get to Rachel's, pregame shortly and then get in a cab and head over to the House of Blues for the Lucky Boys Confusion concert. It was an awesome venue, very cool atmosphere. Big room with a great light show and sound. My first time at HOB. Lucky boys ended up not coming on until around 11:30, so our 9 arrival was a bit early, but there were 4 opening bands. The last opener, Penny and the Loafers was a pretty great Ska band. Once lucky boys came on, the screaming didn't stop. I sang every lyric (or close to it) to every song except one old one (LBC). I have never been so lyrically into a concert, it was amazing. At one point Rachel and I were looking at each other just screaming the lyrics, it felt magical.

They played their first big cd Throwing the Game cover to cover, which was awesome since I have listened to that so many times, especially to and from Summer Camp. After they finished off Throwing the Game, they left the stage as if we didn't know they were coming back to play some hits. They followed up with so many of their great songs, the only notable one left off was Mr. Wilmington, but a little bit of a downer song, so understandable they did not play. After the amazing show which left us sweaty and with no voice,  we head home by cab and get to bed around 2am. If you have never heard of Lucky Boys Confusion, I highly recommend them and actually insist that you give them a listen. One of my favorite artists of all time. Check some poop iPhone picks to prove my attendance of the show.

Sunday June 29th I wake up at 6:30am to be picked up at 7 am by Sean, a fellow Apache. It was short notice, but they convinced me to drive up to Milwaukee with them to win our 3rd consecutive Brewtown Showdown trophy. Before our first games we stopped at a gas station to get some provisions. I picked up a couple of packs of candy. CandyMan activate! We won our first game 13 to 5, I had a couple of goals and a few assists. The attack were working flawlessly together. Then was the championship. We played a brother rice alumni team, which included a friend from college and ended up losing 8 to 5. Sure they had some D1 guys, but honestly our offense just couldn't find the net. We had too many dropped balls and missed shots. I finished with 1 goal and 1 assist, but we fell short of the ultimate goal. Sean was nice enough to drive me back to Chicago. Once back I went grocery shopping with Rachel and we cooked up some pasta fresca for dinner. I burned my hand on a plastic spoon. It hurt pretty bad. Ow. We tried to watch wolf of wall street but I was very tired and fell asleep around 10pm.

I also finished my last two game highlights from the spring lax season this past week. Check them out. I am thinking a compilation of the best college and best highschool highlights to come soon.

On Monday June 30th, I woke up pretty early and headed toward the brown line to take the L to Union station where I would then take the metra to route 59. Right as I was putting some cash on my ventra card, a woman walked in and gave me a ventra card, saying it was good until Tuesday. As she left she said, "Pay it forward." This reminds me that I need to watch this movie and that I too should "pay it forward." The card actually worked and this got me thinking on my L ride to union. As I bought my Metra pass, I was thinking about what that woman said, and realized that I wouldn't be using the ventra card that woman gave me, so I went up to a woman who was putting money on her own ventra card, and gave it to her, telling her it was good until Tuesday and I had no use for it. I then walked away and hopped on the metra train heading to route 59. The train got in around 8 and I walked over to work, pretty convenient. I had an italian beef sandwich and fries for lunch from Taylor St. Pizza. That evening there was some pretty huge storms with very high winds going on. I had to work until 9pm, and went to bed pretty much when I got home. Before I fell asleep, I saw that our neighbors tree had split in half and that our street was flooding, typical street things.

Tuesday July 1st, the day of my birth 25 years ago. I have now been alive for a quarter century. Halfway to 50! Crazy. This year I spent my morning working out. I had to work at 8am, so worked out from about 7 to 7:30. I was born at 7:15am back in the day, so this year instead of sleeping when I was born like usual, I was pumping iron and getting big. Now we talking. I then spent the next 10 hours of my birthday at work, but this was 3 less hours than I worked last year on my birthday, so I guess we got that going for me. Luckily for me, I have the most amazing girlfriend, who took the train out to see me for my birthday. I picked her up from the station and we headed home. Once home, the family went out to eat at Steak 'n Shake for my birthday dinner. I believe we also did this for my last birthday. This year however, Steak 'n Shake is celebrating it's 80th birthday, so I was lucky enough to get a Birthday Cake Shake. Delicious. It came before my triple steakburger and chicken fingers dinner though, so I ate dessert for dinner and dinner for dessert. That night, once we got home. Rachel, Beth, and I watched Wolf of Wallstreet. An amazing movie that even though it is 3 hours long, kept my attention and deserves 5 out of 5 stars. Makes you hate business people though... so many of them are not good people. Cocaine and strippers though! What a life! Oh also Happy Birthday Canada.

I don't really remember what happened on July 2nd, Wednesday, so we will skip that day.

Thursday July 3rd, 2014, I got a slice of pizza for lunch while at work. I started shooting around and testing my speed since I rip tons of G's. I ended up going into beast mode and shot 92 mph. A new record for yours truly. That evening, I took part in a small portion of the agility class that we offer, and wow, I am so out of shape. My hips have never been one of my strengths, but after spending about 10 minutes in the class, I realized I need to get back into working out more, especially my legs. But that probably won't happen. Laughs. After agility, I stuck around for another hour and played in Men's League. Only 6 kids showed up, but it was some decent 3 v 3 lax with a goalie. After men's league, I headed over to John's and made him stir me up a colorado bulldog as we watched the end of Captain Phillips and talked about our future Colorado trip and other random things in life.

Friday July 4th! America's Birthday! Woke up and jumped in a u-haul with my dad. We headed over to Auntie Frieda's old place and helped move some old furniture and belongings like that. Very nice of Bev to allow us to take some things, also came across some very funny and strange things, take a peek below!

After this we stopped at my brother's new house in St Charles which seems like a nice place. After a quick tour, we headed back home and picked up Burger King on the way home. I got the double whopper with cheese. Tasty. Once home I quickly packed a bag and then got in the car and drove to Chicago to spend the weekend with Rachel. Unfortunately, somehow the city messed up and gave Rachel the wrong parking passes, so we had to park a few blocks away where we found some free parking. I was a bit exhausted from the day already, so I took a 3 hour nap from about 2 until 5 while Rachel went to the beach. Once I was up, the party was beginning shortly, so I dipped into some summer shandy's. Everyone then came over and I started to grill up the burgers, brats, and hot dogs. I was the chef of the party. The party was a great hit and very fun. Right around 9:15, I convinced some people to walk over and try to catch the Navy Pier fireworks at 9:30. We caught the last 10 seconds of the show, but then Rachel, Becca, and myself stayed while everyone else left and we got a private Bootleg firework show of our own. Some local Chicago folks lit off fireworks about 20 or 30 feet from us and it was a pretty solid show! At one point one of the fireworks tipped over and it shot into a small crowd of people. Bootleg fireworks at their best! After the show and after we were done cheering, we headed back to the party. For some reason I began massaging everyone that night, man, woman, or beast. It didn't matter, I was getting the knots out of peoples necks like it was my job. The night ended at some point, and then the morning came.

Bootleg Fireworks (Warning: Explicit)

It's been 4 years since this great firework show!

Saturday July 5th began at about noon, which was perfect since Rachel and I do not enjoy breakfast. I grilled up 3 left over burgers from the night before. The delicious, cheddar bacon filled ones. Unfortunately I did not add enough coals and it ended up being a slow hour roast of these 3 burgers that are supposed to cook in about 6 1/2 minutes. Regardless of the time it took to cook, they tasted fantastic! After chatting with Matt and Rachel and eating, everyone got dressed and ready and we walked about 2 miles down Ashland to Mary and Jeff's new apartment. It was very homey and they even had a cat! We only spent about 10 minutes there, then got up and walked another 2 miles to Chris's new apartment. We stopped at Jewel on the way as well, but I didn't go in. Chris was having a 5th of July party and it was pretty fun. He literally lives 2 doors down from a cash bar, so around 9pm we headed over to the cash bar, and despite thinking we wouldn't stay long, we ended up having a great time and staying pretty late. It was a very cool atmosphere, with tons of dart boards, a pool table, an outdoor back patio area, a jukebox, and some seriously cheap drinks. $2.75 for a beer is amazing, especially in the city. We somehow managed to squeeze 7 people into 4 available cab seats for the ride back to Old Town. Rachel and I booked it over to McDonalds once we got out of the cab and picked up 20 nugs, a McDouble, and large fry. We dined on that while sitting on her bed and then fell asleep for the night.

July 6th, Sunday, was the last day of the 4th of July weekend, and we started it off with some Chipotle for lunch. I was greatly saddened to see they had raised each of their menu items by 25 cents. Almost made me not want to get it. Savages. We then started a mini Breaking Bad marathon, by finishing the last 3 episodes of season 3 and watching the first episode of season 4. Walter White is changing and I love it! Straight blazing cats. Can't wait to finish the last 2 seasons (hopefully by 2015? ha.) After some Breaking Bad, we walked about a mile over to the REI of Chicago in search for some hiking boots for our upcoming trip. To our luck, Seamus, one of the staff members, was very friendly and knowledgeable and after much consideration between a couple pairs, Rachel and I both got our first pair of hiking boots! I went with the Merrell Moabs and Rachel went with the Keen Targhes. Both boots seems awesome and we are excited to break them in. We also learned from this trip to REI that we do not want cotton clothing, it absorbs too much water and is not good for outdoors. So we each also picked up 2 pairs of wool socks to keep our feet dry, warm, and not as smelly! Very excited for this trip! Just being in that store is so fun to walk around and look at it all, but also overwhelming and an eye opener about how much stuff we "need" to bring. I say "need" because I know we don't need it all. That evening we cooked up a tasty Quinoa meal with some Italian beef, spinach, pepper, and onion. Very delicious and a kind of, make it yourself meal, designed by Rach!

Monday morning, July 7th, I drove home then headed to work around noon. When I got home from work, I found that my birthday present from Rachel had arrived, a solar powered charger for our hiking trip! It looks awesome and I am very excited to try it out, as Rachel bought me an adapter to charge my camera batteries as well. The best girlfriend ever!

Well that is the end of this double post about my Quarter Century birthday and the birth of Canada & America as well. Hope you enjoyed it and I'd be surprised if you finished! But maybe not, since it was pretty light on the details... or was it!?!?! Dun Dun Duuuuuunnn.

Holla

Josh