Light up My Sky

Tuesday November 4th, I finished off American Horror Story Season 2 and had some Wings and Rings with young Squid.

Remember Remember the 5th of November. Wednesday I picked up a new lax helmet and watched a few episodes of Archer.

On Thursday November 6 I hit up the library and found a few vinyl records for sale and scooped them up. I also found out that the CDs and DVDs will be moving upstairs, to make space for a teen hangout area, such an inconvenience. Ugh. Best library in America no more. That night, I picked up Rachel from work and we hit up the drive thru at McDonald's, which was absolutely delicious even though they shorted us a McChicken. Scums. $15 an hour for workers my booty.

Friday November 7, I hung up blinds in our place and after work, made some rice and corn for dinner. I then just relaxed and hit the hay early.

Saturday November 8, cleaned around the apartment, hanging up blinds, hanging up pictures, and fixing doors and other adult stuff. I then picked up Beth from the train station around 2pm. After chilling at our place for a little bit, Rachel, Beth, & I headed over to Brian's and picked him up. We then hit up an Oktoberfest party around 5 at Phil's place. Great beer, great brats, and great friends. A little bit of hammerslagen as well. Slamming nails into a tree stump. I was brutal at it.  Around 8:30 we headed out on foot to catch the Yellowcard concert.

Once we arrived to the Concord Theatre, aka Congress Theater, we got our tickets and headed in. To our fortune, we missed the opening band and most of the second act. Yellowcard came on around 9:30 and jammed out for a solid hour. They rocked the place, and I was screaming all the lyrics to every song, even though most of them were wrong, I'm not good with lyrics if you didn't know. They played Light up the sky, Lights & Sounds, Only One, Way away, Ocean Avenue, and some of their other jams, pretty much all of their hits. I'll post the set list below. Somehow the music carried my body toward the front during Ocean Avenue and I was one with the moshers, woah! I made it forward and back through the mosh pit a couple of times without being too damaged. I was also chanting "We Believe You Will Play Believe" for the whole concert. Despite many people around me agreeing with my words, it didn't work.

Set LIST

1. Convocation

2. Transmission Home

3. Crash the Gates

4. Lights and Sounds

5. Only One (Piano Intro)

6. Make Me So

7. Illuminate

8. Light Up the Sky

9. Awakening

10. The Deepest Well (with Matty Mullins)

11. One Bedroom

12. Way Away

13. Ocean Avenue

14. California

Since they didn't play their best song besides Light up the Sky, listen to it above! We walked back to the party after the concert ended and then headed back to Naperville. By far the shortest concert I have ever been to, but it was awesome and the energy level was super high. I remember jumping up and down for nearly every song and screaming lyrics at Beth, Brian, and Rach.

Sunday November 9th we woke up and headed out around 9 to catch the Naperville Marathon. Rachel's brother Phil was running it and we were going to cheer him on. Beth came with and we met up with Rachel's family and watched Phil run all 26.2 miles. Nice work Phil! After the Marathon we dropped Beth off at home and then headed to Gordon Biersch for some lunch. I had a tasty Marzen BBQ burger while telling stories of our engagement with Rachel to her family!

After lunch Rachel and I drove over to my brother and sister's in St Charles. We got there and visited with the cute little kids. Sophia was licking walls, crazy girl. Nikolas was pooping, sleeping, and crying like the baby he is. Had some Panda Express for dinner, then we drove back to the city and called it a night after an exhausting weekend.

Monday November 10th.

Beth made some tasty tomato cheese bread for dinner. Nothing else really happened. Check out this inspirational video about running.

Headed back to U of I next week. Get excited.

YaBoy

Josh

Retro Gaming

Tuesday October 21, I watched a South Korean filmed titled Old Boy. Pretty disturbing with the twist at the end, but a great movie that I highly suggest if you want a thrilling psychological film about a man who is kept captive for over 15 years. That night Rachel and I watched some House of Cards.

On Wednesday October 22, I learned some important life facts. Salad and Spinach only have a lifespan of 3-5 days. Salad turns brown when bad, spinach turns black and smelled like poop. Later in the day I watched Cinema Paradiso, an Italian film about a movie theater back in the day running on film. The movie ended with this solid quote, "Life isn't like the movies. Life is much harder." I like this quote because it is true. Often we see movies and get an unrealistic perception of what life is or should be. Most often than not, we have to fight through tough times and it doesn't all work out the exact way we want. However, on the flip side, life is easier than movies a lot of times as well. The movie actually ended with the greatest kissing compilation of all time, since the priest wouldn't let them be shown during the actual movies, the film guy cut the clips out and made a compilation, which was way more complicated to do back then.

Thursday October 23, Rachel and I headed to Triva in Wrigley at Vines with Brian, Adam, Becca, & Jamie. The first round of trivia was solid for us, but it went downhill after that. I got the Vines Burger for dinner with curly fries. Fried HotDog on the burger, Yum. I realized that I have difficulties talking to people and ordering food. Ahh.

Friday morning of October 24th, I watched A Nightmare Before Christmas. I think I had seen it before, but only as a child when it scared me. It was a creepy but solid claymation film. I worked out and then followed up this workout with a triple steakburger from Steak N Shake before work. That evening, John came by my work, and I drove him to Chicago. We had some drinks with Rachel once we got back and then headed out to HeadQuarters to meet up with Adam, Brian, Phil, & Ryan. A beercade that is full of arcade games for free. Difficulty is finding one that is open, but luckily a VIP party ended after about 45 minutes and we were able to jump on all their free games they weren't playing. We played some Shinobi fighting game for awhile, and then some Rampage. As I was destroying buildings, Rachel was playing Space Invaders. Her first time ever playing this game which amazed me! After a while at HQ, we headed home and got some sleep. Check out the gallery from the night of Retro Gaming!

On Saturday October 25, it was the day of Adam's bachelor party. John and I had a couple of gummies before we headed out on an adventure. We first walked 1.5 miles to Patagonia and checked out their selection, then we headed over to Whirlyball but still had to time to kill, so we stopped at Moose Jaw and played a game of pingpong in the back. They have a ping pong table set up for customers to play and I edged John out in a headed match. The butcher stayed at home for the day. Barnes and Noble was next door so we went in and browsed around. On our way out, we stopped at the new samsung tabs. I loaded up some angry birds, and John loaded up Jcubed's 1000 pushups. He put it on high volume and we walked out of their giggling like little boys. Because honestly, it was hilarious. We then thought of some young child, or old lady walking up and seeing this:

After we left Barnes and Nobles cracking up, we were feeling pretty hungry and had a taste for 20 nugs, so we searched for a McDs. I swear we walked another 1.4 miles down Clybourne until we finally found a McDonalds right before Whirlyball. We were blessed with 40 nuggets, 3 cookies, 2 apple pies, and 6 buffalo sauces for 12 bucks. What a tasty deal. We ate up, then walked the rest of the way to meet up with the bros for some Whirlyball action. Whirlyball is an awesome game that is a combination of bumper cars, lacrosse, & basketball. I am not gonna say that I dominated, because I was really bad at passing and shooting, but I dominated handling the wiffle ball, driving around like a mad man, picking up ground balls, and blindsiding my opponents with every chance I could. We had 2 hours of fun and then played a couple more games that required tokens before heading out. Shot some hoops, played some air hockey, some foozeball, some retro gaming. 

John and I were able to get a ride back to my place from Brian and then we headed over to Brian's for the evening celebrations to begin. For dinner we got some deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's. I ended up eating 6 pieces, 2 short of a large pizza and felt pretty darn full. We played some drinking games, and hung out for a long while, then headed out to some bars to close out the night. 

When we got back to my apartment around 3, Rachel had left us a little present. Two glasses of water and some ibuprofen. Seriously, what an amazing girlfriend I have! I am so lucky!

On Sunday October 26th, we had a family party at my Aunt Jan's. Before getting there I had to drop off John at the train, then picked up my grandma on the way there. We had tacos for dinner, which was a first in our family parties. They were very delicious though! After the party, Rachel and I shopped at a super inexpensive market near my grandma and got some great prices on fresh fruit and lunchmeat. That evening I began to watch American Horror Story season 1. Watched the first 2 episodes that night.

Here is a hilarious spoof of Breaking Bad I found the other day as well:

The morning of Monday October 27, I watched 2 more episodes of American Horror Story, went to work, then came home and had Jet's pizza and watched 5 more episodes of American Horror Story. I guess I am in the Halloween mood and like this spooky stuff right now?

The big 3 years coming up this next week. Woo Woo

Josh

Shut it Down, Eat Some Pizza

On Tuesday October 14th, I picked up a free Nancy's Deep Dish Sausage Pizza and ate it for dinner while watching house of cards with Rachel. Cost $1.65. Thanks Rachel and the Ditka Dash!

Wednesday October 15th. I finished Devil in the White City on tape, a great book. It was cool to read about Chicago in the past, the World's Fair, and even the serial killer HH Holmes. I plan to do a little more research on the history of Chicago, and I am starting by reading (listening) to The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. That evening I started to watch the show Dexter as well. Had some Nancy's Pizza for dinner. No surprise there.

A day later, on Thursday October 16th, I went to the dentist and had no cavities, but braces? Really Doc, come on man. You know it's quality of my current teeth that allows me to get all the ladies, and makes me known in the film industry. It's Ya Boy and he ain't ever getting braces, not even invisaline son. Went shopping for groceries and found out that there are 2 different kinds of tuna, west coast and east coast. Bumblebee is from the west coast and starkiss is form the east coast. Thanks for the knowledge kind Jewel Osco lady.

I also found out why Zebrahead sounded a bit different at the concert. Their lead singer changed in 2005 and almost all of the songs I like are from before 2005. It starts to make sense now why it sounded different and they played more of their new stuff. Check out this video from their show at House of Blues (Cali) back in 2003. I wish I was there for that. Amazing.

That day at work, I had pizza again, this time Jet's Pizza for lunch. Hit up the store for fresh food on the way home and got a good workout in. Rachel and Becca got home from their work outing and we ordered pizza, once again. Sarpino's this time. At least I am mixing up the pizza companies right? That is my last 5 meals of pizza.

On Friday October 17 I got a solid workout in the morning, then headed over to my brother's house to visit the family. The new baby boy was cute and sleepy, napping the whole time I held him. Although I did hear some grumbling down below if ya know what I mean. Sophia was crawling under couches in a diaper and running around the house. Wild child. To no one's surprise, I had left over Nancy's deep dish pizza for lunch yet again. A 6th straight pizza meal. A lax mom hooked me up with some hot chocolate again that evening. Different mom this time, but amazing. Thanks! That evening the family loaded up Jcubed videos to watch on the big tv with our latest Roku purchase. Oh so many great memories and videos. Good family time. One of my favorites and a classic from the night.

Saturday October 18th I went up to Michigan to close it up with my Aunt Ruth. We cleaned up some beds, blew water out of some pipes with an air compressor, and drank a handful of beers while grilling some chicken. The grill was pretty moldy so I also had to clean the grill off before and after the meal! We found a couple of mice living in the bonfire pit in a bag from earlier in the summer. Perhaps you can spot the mouse in the snapshot to the right. We grilled up barbecue chicken for dinner and I learned a little trip about chicken and indirect heat. Always indirect grill your chicken, it may take a little longer, but the chicken will not blacken and will be oh so juicy. Also get your chicken thighs, for they are the juiciest compared to a breast. We headed back home after dark, but I was able to snap a couple of quick photos while up there. One being of the trailer during the fall, which I am not sure I have ever seen. And the other photo was of the night sky. Quite the amount of stars! Not as many or as clear as Colorado, but a decent shot.

When I got home that night, I was pretty tired and fell asleep before midnight.

On Sunday October 19th, after a day of watching some football, editing some videos, and getting another workout in, Rachel and I made a delicious dinner. Grilled and breaded chicken covered with cooked apple slices and cooked onions. All simmered for about 15 minutes and then served over some butter noodles. Delicious. 

On Monday October 20th, I had a chest and back workout in the morning and went in to work. After work I had some hangout time with John, Squid, and Izzy. A little monday night football to end the week. Then John and I walked about the town, checking out a local graveyard, a bit spooky, but saw the graves of many forefathers in the area, including those that our elementary school was named after. When then walked across town like a couple of old people, and saw the best Halloween decorations the area has to offer, a yard full of hundreds and hundreds of fake graves, statues, ghosts, ghouls, dead people, pumpkins, and more. Awkwardly ran into a guy we went to high school with who lives in the house next door, but managed to avoid eye contact and say few words, and then quickly made our way home.

A week of parties ahead. See you then playas.

Josh.