willie b's big city blog

dog poops on baseball field

2010-04-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

Katie was reprimanding me tonight for going so long since my last post. So when I saw this, I figured it had to be shared. I could absolutely see billy ray doing something like this. i laughed pretty hard:

http://deadspin.com/5516142/this-is-why-you-dont-bring-wayward-dogs-into-minor-league-ballparks

enjoy!

Columbus man hit by two bombshells from the steroids era - Indiana Intramural Records are tarnished

2010-01-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

it was no surprise yesterday when Mark McGwire finally admitted what we suspected all along - that he was using steroids most of his career...including when he broke the home run record in the summer of 1998.

it was a sad announcement, as it cast a shadow over a great summer for a group of friends from indiana university. it was their sophomore year when that baseball season began. soon after the season started, mcgwire went on a homerun tear, and the talk of shattering the homerun record began. a young sophomore at Indiana named Saad had the foresight to buy a boat load of tickets to the final three games of the season. And off he went to St Louis with his friends - and watched mcgwire hit 5 homeruns (#'s 66-70) in three games.

"It was a magical moment to witness a sports achievement that few ever accomplish. and to share it with some of my best friends and my lover Jessica, who would later become my wife. but this news of steriods takes away from the purity of the moment. "

"you know it just really hurts," Saad continued. "That moment meant so much to me, and now....now....now it was just a tarnished moment in history."

but less than 24 hours after mcgwire's announcement, barely enough time to cope with the news, Saad would be hit with another bombshell. one of his friends who was along with him on that magical summer trip to St. Louis, was also caught up in the steroids era. it was a bombshell that would send ripples all the way back to indiana university.

Apparently Saad's friend Moss was inspired by Mark McGwire's admittance and decided it was time for him, too, to get some guilt off his chest.

In a press release obtained off the AP Wire, Moss says "Back in the steroids era, I went through a phase where my only goal was to put on as much muscle as possible. I mean, other college students used performance enhancing drugs - remeber when Spitzer used Cabbage to attract the female carnies and ask them on dates? Or when Crumley gained 30 pounds by starting every morning with a beer? Same idea, only I used steroids."

Seen in this photo from 1998, moss' was so strong that his forearms grew to be thicker than most people's thighs.

Moss went onto apologize for more than steroids. "You know we used to play this game called 'the pillow.' We had this giant bean bag sized pillow that was really comfortable. And when unsuspecting guests would come over, we would tell them how comfortable it was. And we would ask them if they wanted the pillow. If they said yes...well..."

Moss was too choked up to continue. But in pictures obtained by the Associated Press, there is no need for words.

After getting the guest to say "yes" to wanting the pillow, Moss would then throw the pillow on top of the person and use his superhuman strength to hold them against their will for several minutes while onlookers pointed and laughed. You can see a photo of "the pillow" in action here.

When we showed Moss that photo, he was visibly upset. "It was roid rage. Pure roid rage. I'm sorry to all the people I hurt."

But most hurt were his teammates on the Acacia D-Team Intermural Squad. Indiana University went back to the record books, and changed all the team's wins to forfeits for both basketball

as well as softball

"If I had it to do all over again," said Moss, "I would never have let spitzer inject steriods into my buttocks. I just hope that everyone I let down can somehow forgive me."

Hi

2009-11-12T15:56:00.000-08:00

Love, Domo

As it stands now, there is about an 87% chance of us bringing a life size one home with us. We tried to free this one but he was tied down! It's a good thing or he would have run right for the TonKatsu (fried pork) place across the street and terrorized the hell out of them.

my quest for the domo kun chalice

2009-10-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

in previous posts, you may have learned of my obsession with domo kun...the little japanese character i first met in tokyo, who runs around getting into all sorts of trouble. not only is he awesome to look at, i really fell in love when i was researching him online and read this:

"Domo-kun is a strange creature that hatched from an egg. His body is stout but his heart is pure. Loves TV. Often causes trouble by daydreaming and not paying attention to things. Domo-kun's favorite food is Japanese-style meat and potato stew, and he has a strong dislike for apples, due to an unexplained mystery in his DNA. Domo-kun is known to pass gas repeatedly when nervous or upset."

he is my hero.

so i knew why the japanese loved him. i just couldn't figure out why he hadn't quite caught on in the US.

and then on my way home from work yesterday, i glanced over at a passing CTA bus and saw this.

now, it's a little blurry, no doubt due to how speedy and nimble our little friend domo kun is. but the sheer shock of seeing him on the side of a bus in chicago made me scream out "OH MY GOD!" in a way that katie almost stopped the car to ask what was wrong. upon finding out that i was freaking out not because of an accident or a health problem, she warned me never to freak out like that when she was driving. she thought i was having a heart attack or something. and i pretty much felt like i was - i mean, i had just spotted my little hero on the side of a bus...IN CHICAGO!

i had to get to the bottom of this...

so i went to 7-11.com and found this.

eeeeeeeep!! he's really here! and i can get a coffee served to me in a cup bearing his likeness! amazing!!

going to bed last night was like going to bed on christmas eve. all i could think about was waking up and getting to 7-11 to see what this promotion is all about.

so the next morning, still trying to wake up, i spurned my daily ritual of going to dunkin donuts and headed instead to 7-11. as i approached the store and saw the ad on the window, i knew something magical was about to happen.

my god! not only does domo serve coffee, he also apparently likes hot dogs! must be something he acquired a taste for during his trip to america. i bet he can't wait to get home and tell his japanese friends about it. they'll have to update his biography on his website.

but it was a little early for a hot dog, so i settled for my cup of joe in the domo cup and headed off to my meeting. fortunately i had some extra time before the meeting started, and domo and i had a nice stroll through the city. i mean, this is his first business trip to the US, so i had to show him the sights.

he was clearly impressed by the trump tower and the wrigley building.

but he was a little confused by the strange signs in our country. for example, this sign would suggest that when crossing the street, some sort of soccer ball or kick ball will magically appear at your feet.

you can barely even see domo kun in this picture crossing the street, so you probably can't see the disappointment in domo's face when he learned that crossing the street bears no such fruit.

domo and i headed off to my all-day meeting at the university of chicago. were having a great time together, until they sent us on a 15 minute break during our meeting. i went to the bathroom and returned to find that the meeting staff at the university of chicago had gone around the room during the break and threw away the trash...including my little friend domo. either that or they wanted him for their own. probably the latter.

looks like i'll have to get up early and make another trip to 7-11. who knew that each and every day will bring a new adventure with an old friend? at least until the promotion ends. so i guess this is proof that marketing really works. at least on dorks like me.

Nervous? Yes. First time? No, I've been nervous lots of times...

2009-10-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

You're probably wondering 2 things right now:

1. Why the quote from the movie Airplane?

2. Where are the photos from the moss/nazzaro wedding?

Let me answer #2 first - waiting on photos from benny and rebecca. They took about 200 photos that night.

Now for #1...why am I nervous? Couple reasons. First is this:

I showed up at hertz in houston today to find they didn't have the car I reserved. After our initial heated argument turned into a polite and cordial back and forth, the woman rewarded me with this yellow rocket.

I'm not kidding when I say rocket. The lady hand me the keys and says "now try not to get a speeding ticket." Despite her warning, I floor the sonofabitch every chance I get. Which results in me flying back into my seat for five seconds before hitting 80 and realizing I should probably lay off the gas...and then realizing my heart is beating 150 beats per second. I would never buy one of these cars. You're always looking for chances to punch the gas...then realizing that you're going 80 when it feels like 60...and then nervously looking around for cops. But MAN is it an experience. It is hard to fathom how powerful those beasts are until yo u drive one. And I'm not even really testing it. You can't floor it for more than 5 seconds or you'll be going 100mph. Unreal.

So, why else am I nervous? Well, it's:

Game 1
Cardinals vs. Dodgers
Our ace is on the mound

And I get to watch it from the comfort of my couch at the lovely four points sheraton in houston. Woo hoo!

So I do what I think any self respecting baseball fan and beer snob would do when on the road:

Get a nice 22oz bottle of some really hoppy beer (only choice tonight was arrogant bastard) and give it a bath in the hotel room ice bucket.

And order spicy thai takeout.

And bear down for three hours of white knuckle playoff baseball watching.

So if the night goes well I'll be toasting a hoppy beer to a cardinals win and a trip to the airport tomorrow with no speeding tickets.

Wish me luck.

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Scrubbies

2009-10-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

I still have to post pics from the king moss/queen moss nuptials. But I'm at britt's bachelor party in STL right now. So maybe this will distract you until I can find time to post.

Best part of the story? I ask this large man if I can take a picture of his t-shirt to send to my friends back in chicago. His response? "This isn't even my shirt, it's my wife's.". Thank god he was wearing it. That's gottta be a lotta woman.

Safe travels, y'all.

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thinking of you...

2009-09-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

Aaarrrrrgggg Austin

2009-09-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

So I'm down in Austin for work. My first trip to the wierd wierd city of austin. Awesomely wierd.

Met up with sheikh for some texas bbq - highly recommended. The pork ribs were unlike anything I've ever eaten in my life. I am already counting the hours until my next meal.

Then we went to waterloo for some record shopping. Odd, seeing as how I don't own a record player. But I picked up a my morning jacket EP for Benny...the least I can do for uncountable amounts of music he's burned me over the years.

We had hoped to go shopping for some boots...but the cheap boots store was closed. Katie was excited when she heard we were going looking for boots, and told sheikh to make sure I bought some boots with 3 inch heels so that she can actually wear her high heels and not tower over me. Cute. Maybe on my next trip, sweetie.

Then sheikh nasty took me to the UT campus to soak in the sights and be reminded how old we are. It was strange to glance in the library and see maybe 50 students...every single one of them with a laptop. My how times have changed.

Good times. Highly recommend Austin. We'll have to make a trip next year to SXSW or ACL.

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Annual Baseball Trip hits MIlwaukee

2009-08-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

The annual baseball trip, a weekend of debauchery, baseball and beer, turned into 4 dudes driving from Milwaukee from Chicago on a Saturday night. And as the honorable Mr. Anderson would say, “All the rest of you suckas missed out.” It would not be a trip to Wisconsin without a trip to Culvers. Not the healthiest of joints, in fact, if the Federal Government banned all of the Culvers(Home of the Carmel Fudge Cookie Dough Chicken Salad), I think that it would solve 99% of this countries health care problems. That and socialism of course, socialism solves everything.

Enough with the politics, back on the road we pull into Milwaukee and are greeted with not so open arms. Apparently the town of Milwaukee did not get the memo, that only 4 of us would be attending. The city was on lockdown, even the chairs were bolted down.

To ease into the day, we celebrated Milwaukee Irish Fest with several rounds at a pub. We quickly became the local favorites and Milwaukee’s mayor, personally drove the family station wagon over to meet us. Benny was very impressed, he stated "Wisconsin is myfavorite state, with Michigan being a close second. "

Without further delay, off to the ballpark for some Brats, Polish, and Leinenkugel. The park was wide open with fantastic views. We were able to make some friends and no one was escorted off of the premises this year.

And then who needs Neil Diamond in Vegas, when you can go to the Potawatomi Bingo Casino and meet Mr. Awesome. The Bears just traded for him at Wide Receiver.

Next year, baseball weekend is in a little piece of Heavan, we call Pittsburgh, PA. Home of the 6 time Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers & Iron City. Hope yins can make it. Simac, no excuses.

2009-08-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

my my it has been a while. i'm @ a westin in dallas and bored to death watching this tampa bay vs. miami NFL game, so i thought i'd cruise the internet. and so i went to one of my favorite websites...someecards.com.

if you haven't been there, you need to go immediately. hilarious. it's these incredibly random e-cards you can send to people. i came across this little ecard and it inspired me to post.

NOT. bwahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

now just to be clear, i have nothing against kids. nothing at all. i love 'em. they're adorable. they're hilarious. but when i saw this card, it made me step back and think...man, there are little kids popping up EVERYWHERE these days.

so rewind to a week ago. on sunday. i was coming home from the baseball weekend. our annual boys weekend where we pick a new baseball stadium we've never been to and make a weekend out of it. baseball weekend 2009 was milwaukee. and we had a blast. it was me, jones, benny, and jt. two of which have babies...although fortunately they left them at home. (by the way, i'm waiting on pictures from jones and am hoping he will post or send them to me so i can post). anyhoo...on the way home, jones says "you know saad is in chicago for the baptism of of his sister meredith's baby. are you going to dinner with them?"

"dinner with them" i replied? I had not heard about said dinner.

"oh yeah, we're all going to dinner. i'm sure you were invited. we're meeting at 5 at ranalli's" responds jones.

lord knows that emails have been known to disappear in my inbox, so i chalked it up to my lack of inbox-grooming and i said i'd be there.

i had no idea what i was walking into. and quickly realized that maybe it had nothing to do with my lack of inbox hygene. maybe i wasn't invited. now, why would I think that, you ask?

oh...well...maybe it was because THERE WERE BABIES EVERYWHERE!! saad's baby. gorski's baby. winter's baby. minnig's baby. jones' baby. even mrs. pederson was there with a bun in the oven! my god i was the only non-breeder at the table!

if i would have known it was a baby party, i would have at least brought a baby doll. or maybe beebob. i realize i don't have to change her diaper but i feed her every day. granted it's not from my man boobs but still i feed her!

all of a sudden there's talk about baby bjorns. and strollers. and diapers. and crawling. and teething. and burping. and formula. and breast pumps. and OH MY GOD I HAVE NOTHING TO TALK TO THESE PEOPLE ABOUT!!

even worse...in case you forgot...pregnancy is contagious. my god i hope i didn't catch it. guaranteed i caught it. i was surrounded by babies!!!!

and i'm being a little dramatic for effect. i love babies. had a wonderful time. and i am totally kidding about not being invited. but when i was cruising someecards.com for my daily fix of laughter i saw that postcard above and it was the perfect catalyst for a post.

well...i hope everything is well with all of you. and your babies. i'll see you on the flip side.

Old friends, good times in DC

2009-08-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

So I'm in DC for a few days. Nice to be back in the old stomping grounds and even nicer to spend that time with old friends. Justin and Mo met me out for dinner and drinks both nights. We got to catch up and re-hash old stories.

Here's a pic of the two, with Mo giving us her "I'm having a good time" look and Justin showing off his "I'm a badass muthafucka" vibe.

At one point in the night, we got to talking about dogs, and Justin asked me to tell Mo the story of how we went to the pound and how we came to the decision that Billy Ray was our pooch. And after telling the story, I realized that I don't think we have ever told that story on the blog. Lord knows it's been told many a time, so you may have heard this story before. For those of you who haven't...enjoy. For those who know this story all too well, enjoy your trip down memory lane.

So it was sometime around September 1999. The 8 of us had just settled into our senior year and into our new digs at 320 S. Grant St. And after much debate over whether we should get a dog or a potbellied pig, and then subsequent debates about whether we should name it Lieutenant Hamms, Shits, et al (if you remember the other names we were considering, please add them to the comments as either my old age or the several beers I have consumed over the past 2 hours are dulling my memory right now), we finally settled it by a vote - it would be a dog to be named Billy Ray Valentine. And for the record, we were only two votes shy of owning a potbellied pig.

Anyway, majority ruled and a dog it was to be. So Moss, Hicks, and I went to the Bloomington Animal Shelter to find our 9th roomate. And I remember walking into the shelter through a door and into a walkway with two stories of crates stacked on each side. We strolled down the walkway, and I remember stopping at the cage of a good looking little pup who would soon become Billy Ray Valentine. But we didn't know it at that point in time. We still had a lot of other dogs to consider. So we continued down the aisle, inspecting every dog along the way until we reached the end of the line.

As we turned back to take a second pass, we see a stream of liquid emerging from one of the cages.

"What in the hell is that," one of us asked?

"Oh that," said the woman showing us around? "Here, let me show you."

So she walks us to the cage, and as we get closer we see a dog standing on his hind legs, his two front legs up against the side of the cage, pissing into the walkway in which we were standing.

"What the hell is he doing," one of us asked?

"Well he doesn't like to urinate in the place where he lives, so he stands up and urinates outside of his cage. Amazing," she replies.

After exchanging glances of pure astonishment, we all replied in unison - "We'll take him."

And so it was. The beginning of a magical ten years. We never gave that little man full credit for how smart he was. And you can't put all the blame for that on us...afterall, the sonofabitch used to chase rocks for christ's sake. It took him almost 8 years to learn how to fetch! But that story about him pissing outside of his cage definitely explains why he once climbed out a second story window at 320 S. Grant and took a crap on the roof. If you haven't heard that story, let me know in the comments and I will post that one next. Regardless of how much (or how little) credit we gave him, old Bill definitely lived a life deserving of his intellect.

Hope you enjoyed reading that oldie but goodie as much as I enjoyed telling it to a couple of old friends.

Safe travels dudes.

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Not too shabby for a business trip...

2009-07-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

I hopped a United 757 at 7:57am to Seattle on my way to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for an all day meeting tomorrow. Got upgraded to first class and was feeling pretty sweet until I went to catch my connecting flight to spokane. Walked out to the tarmac to this beaut.

Propellers? Seriously? Suddenly things got a little hairy. I uploaded that photo to facebook, and sheikh commented that there should be a grandfather clause for airplanes, that if you get on a plane and it's older than you are, you should be able to act like you did when that plane first entered service. Like smoke cigs, walk up to the cockpit, and chit chat with the pilots during the flight. I asked the stewardess if that clause existed. She replied that "no, there is no such clause. And unlike the 70's, we are now referred to as 'flight attendants'. And just in case you get any ideas, there's an air marshall with a gun sitting in 2C." Bitch.

Anyhoo, I check into my hotel room, and this is the view from my balcony.

Nice.

I went down to the front desk to inquire about good local eats and the nice lady informs me that there's a water taxi that will take me to the golf course if I want to eat at the restaurant over there. Challenge accepted.

Here's the view from my table, from where I'm currently blogging.

That there is the 18th hole, floating in the lake. You have to take a boat out there from the tee box. I bet they sell a lot of golf balls here.

Pretty nice little resort. Reminds me of Lake Tahoe. And here I thought Idaho only had potatoes to offer the world. Not too shabby for a business trip. Too bad I have a solid 10 hours of meetings tomorrow, capped off with a 2 hour slot of public speaking from 8-10pm local time during cocktail hour. For those of you keeping score at home, that is 10pm-midnight chicago time. so that sucks. but then again it is during cocktail hour. and the drink of choice will be whiskey, of course. So i guess they balance each other out. Final score: David Anderson 1 - The Man 1. a whiskey or two should make for a doozie of a speech, though. I might ask someone to video tape it.

It's times like these that I can't believe I get paid to do this. But then I remember where I was a week ago today - speaking at a sales leadership conference at a Best Western in Kenosha, WI. Place hadn't been upgraded since the 1960's. You didn't need a grandfather clause for that one because the place still reaked of smoke.

Anyhoo, I digress. I better run to catch the water taxi back to the resort. I already broke my new year's resolution (if you remember that blog post from january) - but I'm gonna put on some soccer shorts and jump in the lake for a swim. Then it's a full day tomorrow. And thursday brings me a 7am back through seattle, arriving at 5:40pm local time. Back to reality. See you suckas on the flip side.

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Wrigleyville Odometer To Get Facelift

2009-07-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

Most Cubs fans know that since 1995, the Lakeview Baseball Club has maintained a Cubs Futility Odometer on its building on Sheffield Avenue, across the street from Wrigley. The sign marks the number of years since the Cubs have won a division title, NL pennant and World Series.

The sign will need a little updating this year to add the number of years since the Cubs filed for Bankruptcy.

Here is the new sign...

As you can see it's been 0 years since they won the division (08), 63 years since the NL pennant, and 100 years since they won the WS, and zero years since they last filed for bankruptcy.

Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go!

Birds vs. Small bears

2009-07-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

Great day at wrigley. Great day. Despite the fact that they don't sell corn dogs @wrigley anymore, still a great success. Go birds. GO BIRDS!
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Hilarious

2009-07-10T08:20:00.001-07:00

Oh man that's good stuff.
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batting 1.000 for cheese curds

2009-07-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

so if my last post from the road didn't convince you that cheese curds are sent from god, well...actually this post won't either. but it's my second road trip for work since i figured out how to blog from my blackberry and i'm 2-for-2 in terms of finding cheese curds to eat. only this time i found them in the great state of minnesota. and they were fried, as opposed to being covered in gravy and set on top of a pile of french fries like they do it in eastern canada. maybe i should start keeping track of how many pounds i gain this quarter.

anyhoo...so i have three clients to visit over the span of 2 days in the twin cities, and fortunately kate and xan had some free time to meet up with me.

kate and i were on our way to get thai food when i noticed people in twins jerseys streaming towards the metrodome across the street from my hotel. um...what? how did i not think of that earlier? so kate and i wolfed down thai and then ran to the stadium to meet xan.
$11 general admission seats. the cheap seats. it actually says "the cheap seats" on the ticket. priceless.

it was great. we were there for all of about 4 innings, but at least now i can say i've been to the metrodome. and i got to see a-rod, jeter, damon, teixera, and matsui (GODZILLA) bat. oh yeah, and nick swisher too (chuckle chuckle).

for those of you interested in the metrodome? well, i hate to say this but it sucks. the organ is lame, it sounds like one of those keyboards you buy for a toddler. however there were some moments when the fans got into the game, and it was LOUD. so that was cool. also cool were the little bags of mini donuts they were selling. but unfortunately i was too full from dinner to eat them. i know...disappointing.

but back to the metrodome sucking - we came across this guy in the stands and i had to get my picture with him. i mean seriously...they are only trade RUMORS at this point...but he is so convinced that Brett Favre is coming to the Vikings that he went ahead and had this shirt made. what an ass.

on the front of his shirt was a cartoon of favre standing in the state of minnesota and pissing on a packers logo down in the state of wisconsin. after this photo, i pushed him over the balcony (not pictured).

we then went to some hipster bar in uptown for a nitecap and some fried cheese curds. all in all a hell of a night.

it was great to see kate and xan. only thing i wish i could share with you would be a video of kate trying to demonstrate how she can control the temperature of her minivan with her voice. well, she never actually figured it out, she just kept hitting buttons and repeatedly yelling "67 DEGREES" at the dashboard to no avail. I can't remember her exact words because xan and i were laughing too hard, but I think it was something along the lines of "i know it works because lance and i do it all the time." By "lance and i," i think kate really meant just "lance." Lance, you'll have to teach her how to actually do it the next time you take the family truckster out for a spin. ah that's great. thanks again for the great night guys.

that's all from the road for now. later dudes.

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happy bday 'Merica!

2009-07-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

this was my first 4th of July in my new neighborhood, the ukranian village. with wicker park to the north and humbolt park to the west, we're nestled in between the right mix of folks who don't care about the things they care about in lincoln park. things like "waking up the neighbors" or "the law" - those things matter not.it was 2.5 hours of sheer madness. we alerted friends, and spitz and sharon came down to witness. spitzer texted from his car on the way down - "like freaking bosnia down these parts."
every direction you looked you were surrounded
and we even had shrapnel landing on our roof.
beebop was frightened and clung to katie's arm.

but when the neighbors busted out the big guns, beebop went and hid behind the toilet. i mean these fireworks were commercial grade. i don't know who bought them or how much money they spent, but we ooohed and aaaahed all night.

i tried to capture some pics, but really it doesn't do it justice...

maybe this video will help. remember, this isn't the city firing these off - it's locals. watch it until the end, so you can get a feel for just how close some of them are.
and the soundtrack to the video is provided by our neighbor's band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h1ezhAFBEk

so folks, mark your calendars - we'll be having a 4th of July party in 2010. we'll be taking up a collection for fireworks in advance so we can add our own contribution to the madness.

some things change, some things still the same...

2009-07-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

we had a small gathering on the 3rd of july this year to celebrate barbara's bday. and to celebrate the bday of 'Merica one day early.

to show you just how times have changed, look no further than these two pictures. the first one of jonesy and his little oneand of course our little man maxwell

it was a nice sunny day and in honor of the bday girl we ordered in bbq. kevin is all smiles after realizing the beans have both pork and cubes of steak in them! the girls apparently enjoyed the bbq tooand we spent the rest of the evening relaxing.
the sun went down, and the party continued. there's the bday girl on the left - deep into a conversation.and the little ones went home.

and only then did we realize that as much as things have changed, some still remain the same.

great success.we were excited to see the fireworks, but they ended up being a little disappointing.
only after 'Merica's bday the following day did we realize that we celebrated Barabara's bday 24 hours too soon...

Oh Canada!

2009-06-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

So I'm testing out blogging through my phone...hope this works. If it does, I'm going to start blogging the many interesting discoveries of life on the road.

I was in new brunswick, canada this week. Farthest east I've ever been on this continent. Apparently there is a time zone east of eastern time called atlantic time - who knew!?

Anyhoo...I walk into the terminal and they are selling live lobsters! And they were dirt cheap. I asked if they had them already prepared and out of the shell, but the only option was to have a whole lobster boiled right there and eat it. Not wanting to get lobster guts all over my suit (pretty much guaranteed to happen) I sadly passed.

But later I'm in the teminal and come across a place offering something called "poutine." I ask her what poutine is, and she looks at me like I'm crazy. "You must be from the states," she replies. Yes, yes I am.

Well this magical dish called poutine is three wonderful ingredients - french fries, cheese curds, and gravy. Lord.

I had to order it just to say I've tried it. The photo probably looks gross. And actually it is gross when you think about it. I went to the restroom afterwards to wash my hands, glanced in the mirror, and was noticably fatter than I was prior to eating said poutine.

But man was it delicious. If you need me, I'll be on a treadmill for the next three days.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

New MicroBrew to beat the summer heat

2009-06-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

It's summer time, the time of BBQ, Beer and Bonsai Trees(For our Far East contingency). With Billy Ray always on our minds, thought it would be relevant to post his favorite Microbrew. Here is a link to the promotional video: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=31956578

Stay thristy my friends.

where in the world...

2009-06-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

so i got a call from my good friend tim burckhardt last night. he told me that if i go more than a few more days without posting to the blog, it will be a full two months since my last post. has in been that long? in light of that fact, i was trying to think of a good title for this post. trying to figure out what you might be thinking...the best i could come up with was "where in the world is carmen san diego?" only after downloading that image did i remember that carmen san diego is a female. which i guess makes it funny. well i do sort of have man-boobs.

anyhoo...

yeah...it's been a while. what a summer. i know some of you have been keeping track of my travels because of that trip-it thing i added to the blog. it's a good thing i put it up there, too...because sheikh saw that i'd be in san fransico the same time he was out there. and we were actually able to meet up and have dinner after i landed the night before my meeting. nothing like sharing a beer while making fun of hippies. i love san fran.

it's been a crazy couple months since benny got married. been traveling a lot. add a couple wedding showers/engagement parties (not our own, mind you), throw in a wedding here and there, a weekend spent staining and painting...and suddenly it's been 2 months.

for those of you who didn't hear, our good friend KB got engaged! and so did my good friend dave britt. that's pretty sweet.

i feel a little out of touch with you all. but i am going to try my best to post more often. things look like they will calm down a bit in july after spending pretty much the entire month of june on the road.

next up...cards vs cubs in a couple weeks. i'll be sure to take photos. and capture stories.

in the meantime, keep it real. and if you have any good stories, add them to the blog.

miss you guys.

Update from Japan

2009-05-22T01:10:00.000-07:00

Everyone, even Domo Kun, is wearing a mask. This is how we found him when we walked in our apt...

what a weekend

2009-05-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

no time for words. but i believe these photos (courtesy of Hannah) say it all. just to clarify a couple things:

all these photos were taken on saturday.
no, we did not photoshop ourselves over pictures of assembly hall.
yes, rebecca is in fact wearing a wedding dress. those are wisconsin lunchbuckets. we were at nicks.

that saturday was definitely one of the best days of my life, and i wasn't even the one getting married. more later.

YES!!!

Congrats Benny and Rebecca!

Forthcoming Nuptuals Steal Men's Balls

2009-04-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

Associated Press - For Immediate Release - A Chicago area man and his college friend now living in Tokyo are both enduring a nutty spring. Since being engaged to their lovely and beautiful girlfriends, both men have found something they once valued highly now missing and unrecoverable - their testicles; more commonly referred to as their "balls." A manhoodhunt has begun that will turn into high gear this weekend in Bloomington, IN as a large search team goes balls out to recover their missing rasberries. Below is the photo of the men after their shocking realization that their gonads are now nomads.

nothing gets me riled up quite like stupidity

2009-04-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

have you heard about these republican "tea parties?" protesting excess government spending?

apparently they even refer to it as teabagging? it's all the republican rage these days.

and it's the stupidest thing i've heard in a very long time.

what a bunch of hypocrites...where were you when GWB was carving his way through iraq with trillions of your hard earned tax dollars (and the lives of young American soldiers)? probably investing in haliburton, I would guess.

apparently excessive government spending is OK, as long as it's YOUR party that's doing it.

the only thing that's worse than stupidity is double standards. at least Obama is spending your money on America.

speaking of stupidity...

in case you didn't hear the news, our favorite politician, David "Dave" Anderson was elected:
http://elburnherald.com/2009/04/08/april-7-elburn-election-results/

he won by a LANDSLIDE. He is now the President of Elburn.

It's a good thing that I complied with his request and removed that link I had posted to his website. Because I'm sure that would have made him lose.

And did anyone notice I haven't posted anything about the autographed election shwag that he promised me if I removed the link? that's because I NEVER GOT IT.

apparently, David "Dave" Anderson of Elburn is a teabagger too.

and when you go to his website now?
http://www.davidandersonforelburn.com/index.htm

vanished...off into the night. along with my hopes and dreams. i used to think he was different...a fresh face to politics. that he was not interested in making empty promises. boy was i wrong.

seriously...click on the link to his website and look at his face. look at that smirk. that smug bastard. you know why he's smiling? because he made a sucker out of me. or maybe he's excited because he's about to go do some teabagging.

well, i'm off to vacation for a week. i'll have plenty of time to think about how i'm going to get revenge on David "Dave" Anderson and his empty promises. I look forward to your suggestions as well.

See you suckas in a week.

let the games begin, etc

2009-04-11T18:57:00.000-07:00

that's the way katie's dad ended every email he sent me over the past month. i called him at work about a month ago and told him i wanted to fly down to florida and have a chat with him and his wife janet. i never explicity said why i was coming down there, but he knew. and he promised to keep it a surprise. i flew down to florida and took them to dinner...it was actually a really nice dinner. on the beach, watching the sunset. after stalling for hours, the sun had finally gone down and i was running out of time. i finally got up the nerve to ask her parents for her hand in marraige.

i wanted to keep it a surprise, and her parents didn't tell anyone. maybe it's because i basically threatened her mom's life if she told any of katie's three sisters. so a surprise it remained to the end. nobody really knew. hell, even my friends didn't know. well, they knew i was going to propose to katie at some point. they knew i had been ring shopping. but no one knew when. that's how i wanted it.

i wanted to propose to katie before we went to mexico next week. that gave me three weeks. fast forward two weeks, and again i found myself running out of time. i wasn't really sure how i was going to propose. i didn't have any spectacular plan. i just knew i wanted it to be by the lake or by the river. so i cooked up a plan to go on a bike ride one lazy saturday afternoon.

problem was, it ended up being too lazy of a saturday afternoon. see, the night before we had planned on a relaxing evening. it started with happy hour. then sushi. saki? why not. suddenly it wasn't such a relaxing night anymore. and then katie wanted to meet some friends at floyd's in bucktown. we walked into the bar and right into the teeth of a dice game with shots on the line. katie was not very good at the dice game. translation = katie had to take shots.

so we wake up the next morning, not feeling very well. well, i was feeling ok...see, i had a big day planned. and it was either today or...well, i didn't have a plan b. katie on the other hand, had a headache.

"katie, i've been talking about riding our bikes for weeks and today is the first nice day we've had in a while." to which she replied that she has been talking about her pounding headache since she woke up. i kept telling her how much better she'd feel after a bike ride. she told me she knows she'll feel better but thinking about getting on that bike makes her want to throw up. i kept thinking "you have NO idea how unbelievable you'll feel after that bike ride, but you won't know if you don't get your ass on that bike."

i somehow convinced her to go...and so off into the city streets we went, bike helmets and all. it's funny...because you hear the stories about all your buddies getting engaged. and how nervous they got, and all their plans went awry...

like how benny had planned to propose it on a walk and was so damn nervous he proposed before becca could get out of bed that day. or like how saad had this plan to propose in the middle of the bridge in lincoln park leading up to the zoo, and he got so nervous he didn't even make it to the bridge before he got down on a knee.

i kept thinking...man, how can it be that nerve wracking? i mean, you pretty much know she's going to say yes. just get down on a knee and ask. oh how soon i would find out...

so i take her down to wolf point...the spot downtown where the two branches of the chicago river split. and my excuse for wanting to go down there was to take pictures. i came up with that one so that she wouldn't be suspicious, i mean i take pictures of stuff all the time. and there i was, taking pictures of everything in sight.

stalling. let's see, how do you bring this up outta nowhere. hmmm...keep thinking. take another picture.

well, katie finally unknowingly forced my hand. "dave...we gotta get home if we're gonna make that class." oh yeah...that class. damn! so soon!? see we had a winemaking class at 2pm. already? ok, now or never. i was going over all those things in my mind i had wanted to say. how much i loved her, how the last year and a half of my life has been wonderful, how i don't know if i would have gotten through the last year without her, and how i didn't want to ever lose her, that i wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. and then i heard a click. it was the sound of katie strapping on her bike helmet and hopping back on the bicycle. shit.

"WAIT! um...before you go...i wanted to aks you a question." shit. that's not what was supposed to come out of my mouth. get down on a knee. "katie, will you marry me?" give her the ring. where's the ring. give her the ring dumbass! shit. the ring's in the camera bag.
shit. i grabbed the box with the ring and opened it. katie freaks out. finally says yes. i stand up to give her a kiss but can't because she's still wearing a bike helmet. wow, real smooth casanova.

it didn't EXACTLY go down like that. and didn't actually say "can I AKS you a question." I really said ask, but i typed it wrong and thought it would be funny if i left it that way.

but man...it never goes the way it does in the movies. but i think it's better that way. it was real. and at least she said yes.

afterwards we went to the one of most fancy restaurants i've been to, followed by one of the least classiest bars i've been to. and i wouldn't have it any other way.

we ended up at mulligans...the place where i first started falling for katie. over a year and a half ago, katie and her friend sharon came all the way up to mulligans hoping that "randomly" showing up at me and benny and spitz's favorite watering hole would be enough to get me to stop by. it did. and that's where it began. so it was fitting.

and our friends were there to celebrate. thanks for being there guys.

and if you don't get why we're holding a bottle of jameson, well...you'll just have to meet us at mulligan's for a drink and we'll fill you in.

and thanks mr. and mrs. wholey for keeping it a surprise. and thanks katie for saying yes.

let the games begin, etc.

still waiting...

2009-03-29T18:02:00.001-07:00

so, I got an email from David "Dave" Anderson's son telling me my merch is on the way...yet it's been a week and nothing yet. I really don't want to have to play hardball. but when you're backed into a corner, you do what you gotta do.

I'll give this guy some more time, but in the meantime i am going to start brainstorming on how to execute my revenge. timmy made a suggestion that we start posting all the scandalous things that David "Dave" Anderson has done and post them here. i'll keep thinking.

until then my friends have a great week. i figured i'd leave you with this shirt. it's pretty much one of the sweetest shirt i've ever seen. next to the one my sister got me for my birthday. i'll post that one later.

i'm going blago-esque

2009-03-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

ok son of mr. anderson...I just got a call from a good friend in elburn who asked me to do him a personal favor and remove the link.

i don't really agree, but a friend is a friend.

So I removed the link...for now...

so here's my proposition...have your dad send me an autographed piece of something from the election. a 5x7 photo of the man himself. or maybe a flyer or something. i want it to be personalized and say

To David "Dave" Anderson from Chicago

Thanks for all your support

Your friend,
David "Dave" Anderson from Elburn

Or something along those lines. Is that legal? Did I just stoop the the level of blagojevich? my god i've been living in chicago too long. The last thing I want to do is blackmail a candidate for a piece of election shwag.

but if it's not illegal, send it this week and i'll keep the link off. if not, I will be forced to re-post the link on principle.

is that fair?

politics get heated in Elburn

2009-03-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

you really can't make this stuff up folks. before you read this, go look in the comments on the previous post about david "dave" anderson...

apparently candidate david "dave" anderson who is running for mayor or whatever has a son. well, actually he has three (Michael, Ryan, and Joel). I know this because it's on the world wide web. anyhoo, i digress...one of the sons found our website and is respectfully requesting that we remove any reference to david "dave" anderson from the blog as it's not "doing [his] dad any favors."

Let me make one thing clear - I would never want to hurt someone's chances at getting elected who has the same name as me. and who puts their nickname in quotes just like I do!

especially someone whose positions I completely agree with. unless of course, the "Anderson Road Bridge" he supports on his website is actually a "bridge to nowhere." the last thing we need in Elburn is a Sarah Palin running around shooting animals from airplanes. but I can't tell from his website. although judging by your dad's picture, he looks like a pretty good guy. Plus I have a friend who knows your father and says he's a great guy.

not only does your dad have all that going for him, i think the tide in the election started to turn on March 2, 2009. i mean did you see all this negative press lately about your oponent??
she didn't even speak at the Lions Club Spaghetti dinner, citing the $6 cost:
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=276131

how embarrasing for her! your dad will crush her on election day. it will forever be known as "the spaghetti incident." OH NO!! now I've just linked your dad to the long awated and highly disappointing 5th album of Guns N Roses. now THAT is potentially career damaging. Let me take that back.

ah, i digress...

but since you "respectfully" requested I remove those links, and since you stated that your request is valid and fair, I will oblige and remove the link provided you give me a compelling enough argument as to why your request is valid and fair. to help you out, you may want to address the following points:

1. How is this negatively impacting your father's campaign? you say you are worried about people reading this and voting for the other person. I don't say anything negative or slanderous about him.

You may be quick to respond that some of the content is not exactly reflective of your fathers' values. ok...that is a good point...but who in their right mind would read this blog and think it is actually coming from or endorsed by candidate david "dave" anderson? And is the content really compelling enough to make one change their vote based on what they read here? if so, then how incredibly incompetent would that individual have to be? and do you even want to waste your precious campaign time and dollars worrying about that demographic? unless, of course, you think "incompetent morons" is a large enough demographic that it could swing the election.

2. show me how I am not supported by the first amendment of the constitution.

the picture posted was taken in public. if you didn't want people potentially taking pictures of your signs and posting them to the world wide web, you should not have paid for all the signs and then allowed people to put them in people's lawns.

secondly, providing a link to your website is not illegal. if you don't want someone linking to your website, you should not have put it on the world wide web.

if I am overstepping my rights as a citizen, I will gladly take them down. but if not, you could at least use some good old Chicago politics and pay me to remove the link. i mean if you want limit my first amendment rights, at least make it worthwhile.

I'm just kidding, I would never suggest that your dad would EVER engage in any rod blago-esque behavior. David "dave" Anderson is an honest man! that's why, if I lived in Elburn, I would TOTALLY vote for him.

and again I digress...

like i said...tell me how your argument is valid and fair and I'll pull the link down.

vote for me

2009-03-13T08:21:00.001-07:00

hey guys...get out and vote this weekend if you would. This election really means a lot:

you can read about all my policies on my website:
***LINK DELETED***

thanks hanson for submitting the photo.

yours truly,

david "dave" anderson

big enough for two anderballs?

2009-03-05T15:40:00.000-08:00

so i just got a new roommate tonight. and it's pretty badass. big chitty sarah. i think i posted this photo back around christmas time. but now there are two chicagoans in this photo.
or maybe it's chicagouns. chicagoites. no. no. definitely chicagoans.

so we're teaching sarah things like how the grid system works. where to catch the train. or who servers the best late nite burrito. or that the name "chicago" is actually german, and translated into english means "a whale's vagine."

and it's perfect timing...as spring is just around the corner. so we'll have to document sarah's first year in the big chitty.

welcome little anderballs!

Looking Back and Ahead

2009-02-19T22:53:00.000-08:00

The frigid wind and snow has me thinking about warm sand and good times.

new puppy! for a while...

2009-02-14T18:33:00.000-08:00

so our friends conor and teresa were at the dog park today when a guy walks in the gate with his dog. and a few minutes later the owner walked out the gate and never came back. the poor little pooch knew he had been abandoned, and was cowering in the corner of the dog park.

so conor and teresa took him to the vet to be checked...turns out the little puppy is in great health. the problem is they had dinner reservations, and didn't have time to take him to the shelter. so knowing that we're dog lovers, they called us. and we took the little guy in.

he was a good little puppy...and it was hard to get a picture of him because he wouldn't sit still.
he had a great personality. even though he was a little unsure of himself in these new surroundings, he was playful and real affectionate. whoever owned him taught him to sit on command. we kept him around for a little while before taking him to the shelter. it was nice to have a big dog around the house again. i love beebop, but little dogs and big dogs are just two totally different ballgames. it was like the good old days. he ate all of bentley's food. then chewed up her bone in a matter of seconds. he lapped up some water and slobered all over the floor. it was hysterical.

even though we only had him for a very short time, it was sad to take him to the shelter and let the little man go. but they said that he was a beautiful and relatively well behaved for a puppy. he was probably a golden mixed with either a pit or a chow. and he wouldn't be around long, someone would adopt him pretty quickly. so that's a good thing.

and if you're in the market for a cute little pooch let me know...you've got a 4 day window between when they get him and when they put him up for adoption...

Monkey Cam

2009-02-10T22:13:00.000-08:00

I put this on the sidebar of my blog but can't do that on your layout...anyhoo, I have been checking the live snow monkey cam in Nagano a lot lately....hope to soon have pictures of my own of these lil guys...

Click here

pure vermont maple syrup - worth the hype?

2009-02-01T10:45:00.000-08:00

russ and hanna stayed at our place over the holidays, and as a thank you they mailed us some real life vermont pure maple syrup. i was anxious to try it out, to see if all the fuss from hanna and russ actually has merit...i mean, can "real" vermont maple syrup really be that much better? not that I don't believe them, but Aunt Jemima and I have sort of had a pretty serious thing going since I first started eating pancakes.

it was the only thing allowed at the anderson family kitchen table on sundays (we had pancakes and sausage EVERY sunday). and although i've occasionally branched out into log cabin or other occasional brands, nothing ever compares. so could it really top aunt jemima? I was skeptical...

but i must admit, it is DAMN good. anything that you can put in a freezer and it doesn't freeze has to be the real deal. and it is.

i have been telling hanna and russ that i want to come visit them in VT. But then again I have been telling the same to Sheikh and I haven't made it down to Austin. I'm thinking that this syrup might actually be the thing to get me there...cause when that syrup runs out I'm gonna have to go get me some more.

verdict? worth the hype.

Coach Mayhew's Wildcats

2009-01-26T12:17:00.000-08:00

It was a home game for the Twin Valley Wildcats. Coach Mayhew seemed to have all his players (though one was sporting a neckbrace after a rather nasty snowmobile-tree mishap) and spirits were high. This Halifax team was the team to beat.

The other team consisted of both boys and girls and seemed to be quite a bit younger than the Wildcats, but they had a secret weapon. Casper. The kid was quick and pretty good at making baskets, despite the fact that he looked about 4 feet tall.

Coach Mayhew kept his eye on the game while talking strategy with the team

People were fired up...

Things weren't looking too good for the Wildcats at halftime...

It turned into a nailbiter in the fourth quarter... what was going to happen!

But alas, in the end, the good guys lost.

It was a good game. Wish everyone could have been there.

Billy Sighting

2009-01-24T01:48:00.000-08:00

I guess it's not exactly what I pictured Billy doing in doggy heaven, but then again he always has been full of surprises. Good to see he's having fun.

blues overdose

2009-01-18T16:12:00.000-08:00

so you probably know by now that i LOVE the blues. and it just so happened that my two favorites are magic slim and buddy guy. and they were both in town this weekend. i don't see any reason why i wouldn't go see both of them in one weekend.

friday night, wholey and i went down to legends to see buddy guy. buddy was his usual self, walking all over the bar with his wireless guitar. He took his guitar outside even though it was -5 degrees. all the while hamming it up with the crowd.

seemed like this time we got even more up close and personal time with buddy this time around:

although i did see a couple things which i don't remember seeing him do before.

like when he went into the womens restroom and played a few bars. a couple women ran in there after him. and he came out laughing. this is him leaving the restroom.

and he got behind the bar and took a shot of cognac from this pretty little bartender.

so it was a great night, he even played a couple of my favorites on the acoustic guitar.

saturday night, i went to kingston mines with a bunch of friends to see magic slim.

magic slim and the teardrops were ON FIRE. they came out smoking and didn't quit all night. if you don't believe me, click here. audio quality is so so...but watch it through the end because magic is fired up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2C8I7uovec. you might want to click on the link under the video that says "watch in high quality"

i've never seen that many people crammed onto the dance floor. i mean he had us rocking and rolling.

there's just something about the blues. it can put you in such a good mood.

by the end of the night, we were all having a blast.

as you can see

he heh

even had time to chat with magic and take a picture during an intermission. we look like little children next to the big man.

like buddy guy says, I can't quit the blues. god i love that stuff.

billy is back home

2009-01-11T07:47:00.000-08:00

well i went and picked up billy's ashes yesterday from the vet. it was actually kind of funny...i walked in and said I was there to pick up billy's ashes. and the customer standing at the counter looked at me and bit her lip.

the doctors came out and were real nice...asking how I was holding up and things like that. i said that i was fine...the first week was pretty rough, but it gets easier as time goes by. and the lady at the counter turns to me and goes "YOU NEED TO GET ANOTHER DOG!"

and i smiled and said maybe someday, but i'm gonna wait a while

and she said "NO, YOU NEED TO GET ONE NOW!"

i looked at the vet and we exchanged one of those "this lady is crazy" looks. the vet says "uhhh..it's probably best to give it a little time" to which the lady interrupted and said "A DOG WILL FIND YOU. SOMEHOW SOME WAY A DOG WILL LEAD ITSELF TO YOU"

and i was like "ooooohhkaaaaaaaaaaay." interesting.

so i'll get back to the ashes in a minute. but man it's been a rough week. i haven't wanted to blog about it because i wanted to stay positive. i was emailing moonbeam about this earlier in the week, and it was nice to vent. but when i got billy's ashes back and saw the surprise in the bag, i thought what the hell. i'll get to that in a minute.

when someone who has been part of your life for so long leaves, you expect a void to be there. and you don't really realize how big that void is going to be until it's there. but that's still pretty much expected. what kills you is all the little things that are not expected. when out of nowhere, something happens and it hits you...man billy used to be a part of this.

things like vacuuming. sounds silly, but vacuuming sucks without billy ray trying to slay the vacuum like it's some kind of horrible dragon. it used to annoy me that trying to vacuum with billy around was 5 times harder than normal vacuuming. now i realize just how much easy, regular, non-billy-ray vacuuming really sucks.

i was on my way to the middle of nowhere wisconsin last week for that business trip. the sun went down, and this truck was riding my ass with it's headlights in the rear view mirror. and i went to flip that little switch thingie that moves mirror down so the lights aren't in your eyes...

i don't know the last time i went on a 4+ hour road trip in my car without the little man in the back seat. every time you flipped that switch on the rear view mirror, there was the little man. snoozing away. not anymore.

so that part really sucks. it messes with your head too. like benny said on new years...out of the corner of your eye, you keep thinking you see the little man laying on the couch like he has been for the last 10 years.

moonbeam told me that when kevin moved to new york, he used to be really quiet when he pulled out plastic bags because he was so accustomed to having to be quiet with bags or Billy would think he was going for a walk...

There are ways, even ways you open a door to account for a dog that become habit.

It's MUCH easier now that those little surprises aren't much of a surprise anymore. but i imagine i'll be having them for a while. i hope so...because as sad as they are it's also usually funny. that dog was a character.

people have been really helpful though. like spitzer's email the other day to me and benny - "WHATEVER YOU DO, AT ALL COSTS, AVOID SEEING MARLEY AND ME. REPEAT...DO NOT GO WATCH MARLEY AND ME." i can't imagine spitz having to sit through two hours of that. but also apprecaited the heads up.

so anyway...back to the ashes. we didn't get any kind of fancy pants container to put his ashes in, and it looks like they just put his ashes in one of those big cookie tins. which is totally fine because we're gonna spread them anyway. but in the bag was a little purple velvet bag with a drawstring. definitely looked out of place, and i wondered what it was. opened it up and found this:

the little man's paw print. i mean wow. that was a nice touch.

i know they were going for the surprise effect, but it would have been nice to know. i would have paid them for 8.

best part about the paw print? you see billy's hair in the clay?
that sonofabitch shedded more than any creature i've seen on this earth. i'm sure kevin and katie are finding billy hair in their stuff over in tokyo. so it made me laugh really hard to see that his hair was baked into his clay paw print. billy's still an ass from beyond the grave. hilarious.

Nagano-The Legend of Billy Ray Valentine

2009-01-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

I completely loved and agreed with everything Dave said in his post about Billy Ray. Thank goodness he never pooped in my bed, although he did have his suspicions about me when I first moved into he and Kevin's apt at Diversy and Halsted. Up until then I was just a friend from IU to him...Billy and I were just partying lots then-neither of us took eachother seriously. I remember when I first moved to Chicago. I woke up one night at 4am on my back with the dog standing 100% on top of me-his front to paws on my shoulders and staring down at me because he was so pissed that I was sleeping in his spot. The next few weeks was a power struggle of him weezleing his way in between Kevin and I in that bed. Finally he gave up and decided a better punishment for me would be to completely destroy my green couch.

By the time Kevin and I moved in with Spitzer and Dave at the Halsted/Armitage place, Billy and I had bonded through something I think he only did with me-running. He would get so excited whenever I put my running shoes on. He got up to 5 miles with me. I have seen that dog be the naughtiest of the naughty, but not when running. He even heeled! He was a great running partner (except when there was a squirrel or rabbit in Oz Park spotting) One time I fell on my face while running (yes, clutz) and dropped his leash and Billy didn't run away. He just stood there looking embarrassed for/of me. I don't think I considered Billy to be "my dog" until then. Speaking of that, one of my favorite things about BRV is the sheer number of people that consider him "their dog" He has had so many roommates, caregivers and friends over the years. I don't know another dog that so many people loved. I feel comfort in the fact that Billy passed away with lots of friends that he must have considered to be "his people".

I would like to raise my glass to the parents of Billy Ray. You know who you are. You allowed this dog to be who he was. I would say "encouraged" him in his pursuits...from taking him swimming, the mastering the Spanish language, to humping faces, to developing his palate for a fine McDonald's breakfast...and just bringing out the overall humor of his personality. In all seriousness, you loved this dog and made sacrifices for him in a way I have never seen. If the spirit of BRV lives on the way I think it will, there will be many more happy times to come with the future dogs and people you raise....you truly get out of something what you put in, and the happiness we all received from this dog is proof of the love that was given to him. That won't end with Billy's passing.

Here of some of my favorite pics:

obviously yelling at someone to throw more rocks
Helping us train for Mt. Whitney

typical position
happy swimmer
Kevin's last day living with Billy
hungover on the couch he destroyed

Oh and one last thing. I was sad that Kevin and I personally didn't get to say goodbye to Billy, but we had such a great time seeing you guys in Chicago. We never would have booked that ticket so spur of the moment if it hadn't been for Billy's situation. He sure did a good job of keeping people together...

best new year's resolution EVER

2009-01-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

so by now you probably know that i stay in a lot of hotels as part of my job.

well you probably don't know about my new year's resolution. let me tell you first about WHY i picked this particular new years resolution. every time you check in to a hotel, the person at the front desk runs through all the wonderful things they offer at this hotel. free wireless. a fitness center. a business center. let me tell you about our wonderful bar and grill. blah blah blah blah blah

but i quickly became quite surprised at how often i started hearing things like "our pool is open until midnight and kept at a comfortable 83 degrees all year long."

i heard that so often, in fact, that i decided my new years resolution would be to bring a swimsuit on EVERY business trip that i went on.

well, here i am. the 6th day of the new year and my first business trip post-new-year's-resolution. Four hours in a car up to Steven's Point, Wisconsin. Population 25,000. Only way to get there is to drive. No frequent flier miles. Can't even take the Amtrak and get work done in transit. sigh.

nevertheless, this morning when i was packing, i held true to my new year's resolution and threw my swim trunks in my suitcase.

my reward you ask?

THIS:

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! HALLELUJAH!! HOLY SHIT!! WHERE'S THE TYLENOL!

I almost shit myself when i saw this. it's not a joke. I'm staying here: http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/hi/1/en/hotel/STEAA/amenities

I think I just might have picked the best new years resolution in the history of planet earth.

if not that, it has to be the new years resolution with the quickest ROI in the history of planet earth.

I'd love to tell you more about it, but I don't have much slip sliding left before they close the fucker down at 8pm.

later dudes!

nye/nyd in the big chitty

2009-01-05T17:00:00.001-08:00

man, has it been a rough week. you don't realize how big of a place the little man played in your life. he leaves quite a void.

but good times were on the horizon. kevin and katie were coming in from tokyo. well, technically salt lake city. but you could tell they recently came over from tokyo because they brought our friend domo-kun with them.

a few of us gathered to ring in 2009.

oldham and jess came from cinci in as well, fresh off of an amazing wedding and their honeymoon.
and so did my old buddy goodman and his fiancee jodi from portland

things started to get a little hairy when domo-kun started to rev up the party

for example

i think that's the makers talking.

at least domo had the courtesy to help me prepare the chili for our big new year's day festivities

on new years day, we headed off to mulligans...the old neighborhood pub. the owners were kind enough to crack the doors for us at noon instead of their regular 5pm. spitzer and I (and domo) made chili.

our plan is to have this become a new year's day tradition, because it was unbelievably fun.

we were there for about 10 hours. at one point we had 30 people there

jonesy came in from the suburbs

katie's friends came and ate chili

even maxwell made an appearance and ran all over the bar.

and we got to see some old friends we haven't seen in quite some time.

it was a perfect day. and the chili did not disappoint, as you can see both katie's and dave's eyes are screaming "if i eat one more bowl of chili i may explode"

or maybe that was the shots of jameson

we decided to have an objective 3rd party panel of mulligan's judges. spitz took one vote, i took the other, and the third said it was too close to call. lame.

but the court of public opinion had other things to say. as evidenced by this photo, my chili was clearly the crowd favorite.

man those were good times. good chili. great friends.

next year we will expand the chili cookoff. so start working on a recipe. because spitter is going to be bringing the thunder after a disappointing tie. hope to see you next year.

Thank Good God For Billy Ray

2009-01-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

Dear Bill,

It's hard to believe your gone. You will never be forgotten. We'll try reunions in your honor, we'll keep bloggin in your honor, you were more to us than we ever were to you. Thanks for being men's best friend.

Also, thank you for helping Kevin graduate from college. It's hard to believe that a dog could learn HTML and then tutor so he could finally pass X301 but you could do anything.

Finally, someday I'll see you again (I hope that it's not someday soon), but when I do promise me you'll give me a big old Billy hug and a Nagano to boot.

Love you Bill,

Saad

p.s. Please tell Dave, Ben, and Kevin for keeping tabs on you for so many years...

the end of an era: 4/1/99-12/29/08

2008-12-30T09:48:00.000-08:00

well...it looks like our optimism from the weekend was a little premature. billy had a REALLY bad day yesterday. we took him to the vet to find out that actually it was a little more than a simple UTI causing all of this.

i'll spare you the details...but in the end the little man was really uncomfortable, there was nothing we could do for him, and it wasn't right to keep him suffering like he has been over the past two weeks.

benny and katie and i were there with billy until the end...we made him as comfortable as possible, surrounded by those he loved. and he's better off where he is now...he's probably already running around in doggie heaven humping boxers in the face.

and the timing...well...it couldn't be worse. kevin and katie are 48 hours away from landing in chicago. hard to believe he couldn't hang on another 48 hours...but i think he went out when he wanted to go out. i'll explain...

like spitzer said in a post back in october when we found out billy had cancer...

the are certain things that billy just knows. things that you wouldn't expect a dog to know. but he knew.

and he knew from a very young age. billy was housebroken pretty quickly, he didn't have many accidents in the house before he learned how to hold it. but what's strange is when i took him over to this girl who i had a thing for back in college...he crapped in her bed. not once but TWICE! and it's not like he had an accident, he went out of his way to walk up the stairs, find her bedroom, and shit in her bed. on two separate occasions! what in the hell would possess a housebroken dog to do that? well what i would only figure out over the course of a semester is that this girl was psycho crazy. but billy knew. he knew right away.

or about 4 years ago when i was walking him in Oz Park. i let him off his leash, and he was a terror. chasing squirrels, humping dogs, running away, and causing trouble. i was chasing him all over the park for a good 30 minutes, yelling at him to get over here, and he was completely ignoring me and driving me crazy. until the police rolled up and got on their loudspeaker to announce that any dog owner in the park who didn't have their dog on a leash would be ticketed. i yelled again at billy to get over here and suddenly he turned around, ran over, and sat down at my side. he just knew.

and i think in the end, it was billy who made the call on when he wanted to go. you know it's really strange how things happened. i'm supposed to be in florida right now. but we went from 5 degrees to almost 70 degrees in 24 hours...which brings fog. the fog was so dense they had to close down Midway airport for 2 days. they NEVER close midway! so we had to cancel our vacation. that was on saturday, during billy's second spell. had our 7AM flight not been cancelled, billy would have been left alone for half a day between our flight out of town and benny's arrival back into town to pick him up. that was the day he was pissing blood. that would have been a bad day for him locked up here alone. now i'm not saying that billy has the power to change the weather and shut down airports...but it was just a really odd coincidence.

and i know he loved kevin. in his short decade on this planet, benny and i have been roommates with billy for 5 years. the only one who has us beat is kevin. billy died yesterday, on kevin's birthday. talk about a shitty birthday. but i think that's billy's strange way of honoring kevin. and as much as i know billy would have loved to see kevin before he went back to tokyo, i don't think billy wanted kevin to leave picturing billy the way he was yesterday. the same with everyone else who was coming for new years. billy didn't want us sitting around, trying to keep him comfortable and trying to nurse him back to health. he wanted us to just remember the good old days.

so he forced us to.

and we will.

i've had a lot of conversations with a lot of people about the little man last night. katie and i went to dinner, and i said that it was the end of an era. and we talked about that for a bit. is it really the end of an era? it sure feels like that. but i'd like to think that billy's mark on this planet is bigger than that.

i mean his blog went international when kevin and katie moved to tokyo. he was the one who connected us all...even connected people that don't really know each other that well. so it's going to be hard to continue this blog without the constant inspiration of our little man. but jones and i were talking...hopefully we can use this as a way to keep in touch. but that requires that people actually start posting stuff. let me know if you need a username and password and i'll get you one. you can start by posting your favorite story about sir william. doesn't have to be funny or witty. just your favorite.

and the other cool thing that came out of conversations with people last night is an annual BRV weekend in bloomington. we'll pick a weekend when kevin will be home from tokyo and all converge on bloomington. this first weekend will be to meet up and spread the little man's ashes all over the places he used to love. lake griffey. lake lemon. and i think we should save some for his other favorite places, like lake michigan and the little lake behind the ralston's (lock nes).

but we can use it as a reason to get back together every year, or every other year. the annual BRV weekend in Bloomington. a time to get together and catch up and tip our caps to the little furry asshole that brought us all together. so that the BRV era goes on forever.

remember the good times, the funny shit that always kept us laughing. it was a great run, BRV. you will be missed, but never forgotten.

i went back and found some of my favorite photos of the little man. enjoy.

day 1 at 320 s grant with billy ray:

billy as a puppy with that wart on his nose:
billy has dobie pinned on the front lawn while benny referees:
the pink panther...the toy that inspired the word baby...because that was the only toy billy never destroyed. i think he really wanted it to be his baby:

vacuuming will never be the same:

my favorite part about this photo is that it was not staged. billy got up and walked over and sat under the umbrella on his own:
billy's favorite pastime, digging in the trash
chicago dog beach
mayhew cabin (lake michigan) when billy refused to come in for dinner because he wanted to stay at the beach

tuckered out after a long day in lake michigan
i hope they have a lot of lakes up in doggie heaven.

billy ray is a pussy

2008-12-28T09:39:00.000-08:00

and by pussy, i mean the kind with 9 lives. seriously.

over the last couple of weeks, billy has had a couple spells of lethargy...trouble getting up the stairs, out of breath, gums losing their pink color (that's a really bad sign). they have only lasted about 24 hours, but it has worried us sick. benny and becca nursed him back to health during the first spell. the second spell came on my watch. right when we thought he was getting better, i took him outside to go to the bathroom, and he had blood in his urine. i mean it was like red kool-aid.

we thought it was the end. so we called billy's everyday vet, and they told us to bring him in around noon. that was like 2 hours from now! don't you know our dog is dying of cancer?! shouldn't I bring him in now? no, they replied.

confused, I called the place that removed his spleen for a second opinion. same answer.

so we tried to keep him comfortable and distracted.

benny was coming home from the holidays and was going to meet us at the vet.

on the way over to the vet, sarah was on the phone, explaining to her friend Erin what was going on with Billy. She explained that it didn't look good, but that we're still hoping for a little miracle.

when we arrived at the vet, it was like a celebrity had just entered the building.

rewind to last october...i don't know how detailed I got from when we almost lost the little man back in the fall...but it was bad. we had to carry billy from the car in to the vet's office. they told everyone in the waiting room that their pets' appointments were going to have to wait because there's an emergency. they told me that he was REALLY bad and we needed to move quickly to save him. every single nurse and doctor in there was working on billy...IV drip, x-rays, warming up blankets to try and raise his temperature, it was seriously like an episode of ER.

fast forward to yesterday...word quickly spread that billy was in the office, and all the nurses and doctors started coming out to say hi and stuff him full of dog treats. "oh my god billy you look so good!" was the standard response, followed by "if you would have asked me back in october that this little man would be standing here after seeing how he was when you brought him in, I would have told you that you were crazy."

all i could think was "yeah, that's great, but he's bleeding inside." we were all pretty subdued, worried that this would be the end for the little man.

but after giving billy a full inspection and testing his urine, the vet would return with good news. it's a simple urinary tract infection.

really? i mean really? that's it?

yes, that was it. unbelievable. they said he looks great, really healthy. they were big to point out that his coat was beautiful (apparently if dogs are really ill, they start to lose their coat). and they weren't concerned about his little spells of exhaustion. they didn't even want to test him, unless they started getting more frequent or getting worse.

our little man keeps hanging in there. obviously we're not vets, so we don't know any better than to assume the worst. but man we were sure the end was near. i don't know if this was the little miracle sarah was praying for, or if billy really has 9 lives...

either way, he's doing well. he's pretty lethargic because of the antibiotics that he's on, but other than that, he's doing just swell.

if any of you will be around for new years, we're having a small gathering in his honor at our place. kevin and katie will be in from tokyo. we'd love to have you - come usher in 2009 with BRV.

96 stories on christmas eve

2008-12-24T21:24:00.000-08:00

my sister sarah is in chicago for christmas. we've been doing a lot of relaxing, lots of laughing, and way too much eating...exactly what christmas should be about.

and christmas eve in chicago is a wonderful experience...no traffic, no lines, no waiting. so we literally walked right up to the hancock tower and got the corner table with the best view in the house.
we were waited on by a woman who looked exactly like angelina jolie. i mean this woman was stunning. it was the same woman who waited on katie and i several weeks ago. if you think i'm kidding about her hotness, both katie and sarah on separate occasions said she was so hot that even they would make out with her.

now that's some christmas cheer.

so we hung out, chatted for hours, told stories, and soaked in the magic of the tiny lights below.

on the way home we were escorted in a cab by a lifelong chicagoan...over 30 years in the big city. he was asking our story, how long we've lived in chicago, etc. i told him that my sister is from cinci and in the 8 years she's been coming up to visit me, i never took her to the top of the hancock tower. so we figured it was about time we made the trip to the 96th floor.

to which he replied "we sure look good from up there, don't we?"

that we do, mr. cab driver...that we do...

and the snow keeps coming

2008-12-24T13:11:00.000-08:00

this is the most snow and the coldest winter i can remember. and we're not even to january yet. but you won't hear me complain - at least not about the snow. i love it.

and so do the dogs. you saw billy in the snow earlier last week, so i thought i'd show you bentley running around in the driving snow...

she's so little that she can't stay out there long before she gets too cold. her little pink sweater helps her last a little bit longer in the snow.

and you have to keep an eye on her because you can lose her behind a giant mound of snow.

after a few minutes she's ready to come in and warm up. although you have to force her to get near the fire because both beebop and billy are scared to death of the fireplace.

merry christmas to you all from a wintry chicago.

billy ray satisfied with first big snow of the winter

2008-12-16T20:39:00.000-08:00

well, it's great to see that billy didn't lose his love of snow when he lost his spleen.

it's been pretty brutal in chicago over the past couple of weeks, so the walks have been shorter. and billy's had a lot of pent up energy brewing that he finally got to burn last night.

so we went on a long walk last night in the falling snow

he ran up and down the snowdrifts without a leash and ate a lot of snow...

and as always was on the lookout for neighborhood cats

and of course always kept his eye in the sky for squirrels

as you can see, the little man hasn't skipped a beat...

tis the season

2008-12-13T21:35:00.001-08:00

sorry it's been so long since posts...been a busy couple of months at work.

billy's doing really well. same old a'hole. actually he's acting a little differently since the surgery, as i mentioned in the previous post. he's living life to the fullest. and enjoying things he never used to put up with.

he used to get pissed at bentley and growl at her when she would would try to play with him. now he plays tug-of-war with her hours on end.

he used to get pissed when we would dress him up in costumes. lay on the couch and mope until we took it off. but now he just kinda enjoys it.

as you can see here, he had no problem dressing up as a reindeer. a reindeer with blinking antlers. don't know if it's his new lease on life that's making him appreciate things. or maybe it's the holiday spirit. either way, ebeneezer bill is gone.

merry christmas, y'all.

2008-12-05T22:35:00.000-08:00

Click here

the most amazing dog treats apparently come from japan

2008-11-25T15:41:00.001-08:00

sir william received a care package from japan today. there was a special messenger on the box to hand deliver the package...my little hero domo kun.
so we put the package under the tree as an early christmas for the little man.

one of the gifts was a package of these little treats. they looked strange but smelled like real bacon. they smelled delicious

also in the package was a little yellow stuffed animal. i gave it to bill, and i have never seen billy go so ape shit on a toy before. it was like the little bacon delights are catnip for william. he was running around, shaking it from side to side.

he finally calmed down after a little bit and put his new toy down.

when he finally relaxed for a few minutes, i asked him how the treats were.

he replied "this snack is soft and healthy. it uses a lot of nice beef."

good to know that the treats are as advertised.

kevin and katie - billy is very content with his new baby and his delicious crack-frenzy inducing treats. he sends his most sincere thanks

billy's half-brother found in bloomington

2008-11-17T18:28:00.000-08:00

so we were in bloomington for benny's bachelor party last weekend. we went to the iu basketball game on friday and the football game on saturday. we set up a tailgate before the game, and after a while we mosied on down to the acacia tailgate to drink a few beers on the old fraternity and meet some of the youngsters carrying the torch for us.

much to our surprise, we ran into this little guy:

if you think it's bizarre that he looks just like billy, it gets even more strange. he belongs to a group of seniors who live out and decided to get a dog. so they went to the same pound where we got billy and found that little guy. just like we did 9 years ago.

and judging by the likeness of this guy to our little william, it appears that billy's mom is still alive and well, whoring herself around bloomington like she always has. too bad old william couldn't have been there to meet is kin.

mystery solved...sorta

2008-11-16T07:41:00.000-08:00

my apologies for taking so long to get this up and posted. It's been a whirlwind of a fall...i got this right before billy got sick. and right when he finally got better, i hit the road pretty hard for work. this is the first time i've had a chance to catch my breath in a while.

so i thought i'd finally post the results of billy's DNA test.

you might be able to click on it to enlarge it. but let me just give you a little background. it shows you the primary breeds, secondary breeds, and then lists any breeds that are "in the mix."

let me translate for you...billy comes from a long line of bitches. skanky bitches. he has no primary breeds, but a slew of breeds that are in the mix. German Shepherd wasn't a surprise, but Doberman and Rotweiler certainly were.

so that's our little man. i'm a little surprised that no hound ended up in there...but what they said was that there can be many breeds in there, they only put the ones that stand out above the rest.

if you hang around bill for an extended period of time, you'll eventually hear him howl like a hound. i don't need no DNA test to tell me he's got a little hound in him. but i gotta admit that i look at him a little differently now knowing he's part rottweiler and doberman. and still 100% asshole.

and the best part of the whole thing??? they spelled his name wrong on his DNA certificate. Look at it again...Billy Ray Vanentine. Vanentine!!! aahahahaa god that makes me laugh. it's like they knew what an ass Billy is and did it on purpose. Vanentine. Oh man that's great.

by the way, billy's still doing really well...still running around and acting like a kid again.

vanentine...

Domo Kun

2008-11-15T22:13:00.001-08:00

After learning about the life of Domo Kun, Dave told me he thinks they are kindred spirits. I think the main reason was the love of pork??? Anyway, we have a new lil friend in our apt. Today is really rainy so he's been kinda lazy....

He has been in this position all day
He uses the bidet option on our toilet....
wants whatever everyone else is eating.
loves TV
he was googling himself today
likes the naughty anime
I found him hiding in the fridge
He likes the BV too...

life in the animal infirmary

2008-11-02T12:27:00.000-08:00

billy is doing REALLY well. he's totally healed from the surgery, started eating his food again the night before last, he's been going on really long walks, chasing and treeing squirrels, playing with his toys again...he was even trying to hump bentley last night. that's the first time in a many many years I've seen him try to hump a female dog. maybe it was his spleen that was making him gay all these years.

actually he's got more energy and enthusiasm than i've seen in 6 months. i wonder if his spleen wasn't really uncomfortable for him. or maybe he actually knows that he has a new lease on life and is making the most of it. back before he had his spleen removed, he pretty much viewed his little sibling as a nuisance, and would much rather steal all her toys than play with her. but not only is he now playing with her all the time, he's actually the one instigating it.
like in this picture below, he never used to put up with her little spaz outs like this:

good sign though is that he's still got a little asshole in him. as you can see here he still steals her toys and destroys them as she watches powerlessly. it's almost like she's looking at me like "dude, aren't you going to do something? he's destoying my squeaky lion."

but the good times didn't last very long...as the little pooch got spayed this week. she's young so she won't be down for long, but she's a little sore and groggy so no more playing with bill for a few days.
between billy's spleen and bentley's ovaries, we've been nursing dogs back to health for 3 weeks now. i'm starting to wonder if i shouldn't just quit my job and run a full time animal infirmary. i don't have much experience, but i did learn some things in college that apply...

...like the perfect recipe for a little bit of pain is an ice cold pacifico.

billy is well enough to make a road trip...and wanted to go hang with his old roomies...so he's staying with benny and becca for a few days. if you're in the neighborhood, stop by and visit with the little guy.

care package arrives for bill

2008-10-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

so I get a big envelope in the mail today...open it...and find this

and these

and these

the cards kept coming

dozens of get well cards for billy ray from ms. elizabeth's students. elizabeth hicks, that is (the artist formerly known as elizabeth cross).

it was the cutest and funniest thing i've seen in a long time. almost all of them said they hoped he gets better and gets out of the hospital soon. some of them drew pictures of cats and milk bones. one of the kids drew a big stack of pancakes (or maybe russ had stopped by elizabeth's classroom for the day and that card was actually from russ?).

this one was my favorite...in case you can't see the little orange faces towards the top...one is a happy face and the other is a sad face. the sad face on the left says "no play" and the happy face on the right says "play."
priceless.

so we showed them to bill, who was visibly moved by the gesture.

you wouldn't believe some of the things that these kids drew and wrote in their cards. you gotta see it/read it to appreciate it.

we left them on the fridge so that you can read some of them next time you're over

the other REALLY weird thing is that if you scroll back up and look at the cards, you'll notice that several of the kids drew pictures of billy in a bee costume. I actually went back to the cards and counted...6 of the 20 cards either had a dog dressed as a bee or a picture of a bee on the cards.

it makes me wonder if elizabeth told them the story of how billy went dressed as a bee for halloween one year when billy lived with me, spitz, kevin, and katie? this photo was taken on halloween 2005...almost EXACTLY 3 years ago to the day, when we dressed billy up as a bee for halloween.
god, he HATED wearing that costume. what an ass.

anyway...back to the bees and the cards...was it just a random coincidence? the timing of the cards is almost eerie. elizabeth, if you could shed some light on that, i'd be curious...

either way...

thank you elizabeth...please make sure to thank the kids. tell them it was much appreciated. and most importantly tell them that billy is doing MUCH better thanks to their well wishes.

he seriously is doing much better...i'll put up a post later detailing the little man's activities of late. you'll get a kick out of them.

more later...

2008-10-30T05:21:00.001-07:00

Billy

2008-10-28T23:52:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine likes to talk about how it took me close to six months to warm up to her and not be sort of a quiet, shallow, dick. Today I was thinking about my relationship with our faithful dog and I remember a rough start. For some reason he loved to tear apart the upstairs garbage, urinate on my floor, and poop on the roof outside of our upstairs bathroom. Let's not even bring up the time that the Boys and Girls Club next door called the house phone, I was the only one home, and I had to go get Billy next door. He proceeded to make me chase him around in circles while all the kids laughed.

Not all things were bad, I remember how much fun it was walking the little bastard over to the business school so someone else could walk him home (was a reason to actually go to class). I remember many a great night where we would toss things in Russ' bed across from the living room so he would tear it up (and poop in it once), and I was always very vocal in yelling "....her face" in regards to how he would take advantage of Harley.

Flash forward to Halsted Street and the two arch nemesis were forced to live together for the first time since college. Around Christmas time, Dave, Kevin, and Katie all had to leave town. I was left with Bill. Bill was left with me. For three days I walked that son of a bitch and it was cold. Real cold. And when I came home at night after work, he curled up next to me. For the following four years I feel like I've been Billy's keeper many times when I couldn't leave town with everyone else. Holidays, trips, etc. And it's helped me get over what I was missing because I was taking care of the dog.

The main thing I miss and will miss is the way Billy always knows. You have a bad day, he knows to just lay down and put a head on your lap. Too hungover to move, he knows to lay on the other couch away from you. Doing a mystery swipe because you don't have any bags on you to pick up his poop, he knows to get away fast. When you want to play, he'll always find his baby. When you're sneaking him food so Dave doesn't see, he's in the right position to catch whatever you drop. You need him to do nagano to impress a girl, he's spot on. Overall, he's the best.

Just like I wanted to start a pool on his heritage, I say we start a pool on how long he'll last. I take four years, this little asshole isn't going to let us off this easy. And four years would be too short.

bad news for our little man

2008-10-28T16:17:00.000-07:00

well guys it's bad news for the little man. it's called hemangiosarcoma and it's a pretty nasty cancer. prognosis is not good, less than 10% of dogs make it a year. doc said 3-6 months, 8 months if we're lucky.

the good news is that it's not a painful type of cancer, so he's not going to be in pain. and we're not going to put him through chemo...that seems kind of silly to put him through that. plus the doc says it wouldn't really do much, this type of cancer doesn't really respond to chemo.

so at least now we know.

and whatever time we have left with him, we'll just use to spoil him rotten. not like we don't already do that, but i'm talking country fried steak, biscuits and gravy. all that shit i used to not let people feed him (even though spitz always managed to sneak him a little love) is now officially fair game. benny, if you end up taking him for thanksgiving or xmas, he should get a full plate with all the fixins.

anyway...thanks for all your thoughts and prayers over the last few weeks. please keep them coming so that we can get closer to 8 months than to 3 months.

if billy makes it to new years, we might have to host a billy-themed new years. and if he makes it to his birthday in april, we're going to ask the city for a permit and have a block party. we'll have some sort of eating contest and let everyone challenge billy ray. before you get any ideas about challenging him, i have seen him inhale entire hot dogs without even chewing.

and even though this has been hard for me and for all of us, i try not to dwell on the sadness of it all... i just try to think about how much joy he's brought into our lives and also how much joy we've brought to his life. we really have spoiled that dog rotten and he's lived a pretty damn good life.

i think about all the people on this blog who have opened up their hearts and homes to billy and think of him as one of their own...

from the mayhews who trusted billy at their lakehouse (where he learned to fetch)
to the burckhardts who wouldn't let us come to st. louis to visit without sir william
to the Ralston/Nes family, who let billy swim in their lake until he collapsed with exhaustion
to the Andersons/Voglers, the later of which were rewarded with a chew-hole in their carpet (I still tried to blame part of it on my mom's dog Indy, but I am pretty sure it was all Billy)
to the Dillmores
and all of our friends who watched billy when we were out of town

I could go on and on, and there will be plenty of time to reflect on the little man's life and everything he's done for us.

I guess I just wanted to thank those of you who have sent such kind words of encouragement over the past several weeks. keep the good vibes coming billy's way and with any luck we'll have a blow out celebration come April.

voting day in chicago

2008-10-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

so i got up early today, took the dogs for a walk, and then explained to them that i was going to go vote after i took a shower. i got out of the shower to find this:
imagine that, billy endorsing a liberal. i asked billy why he was supporting obama. his response? "because he supports civil unions. it's too bad he doesn't support full blown gay marriage, otherwise i would have volunteered to work on his campaign." typical...always finding excuses to do anything other than contribute to society.

i was a little surprised, however, to see bentley had jumped on the obama bandwagon as well. i mean, normally she follows her big brother around trying to do everything he does, but her mother...well...how do i say this lightly...well, let me just give you a couple examples. she removed my obama magnet from the fridge, she ripped down and threw away the obama sign i taped to the window, and when she's talking to other right wing nutjobs, she refers to bentley's candidate as "obama bin laden." so i was a little surprised to see bentley going against her mother.

so i asked beebop why she was supporting obama...her response? "can you imagine 4 years with that erratic fear-mongerer in office? and that sarah palin...i can't bring myself to vote for someone whose IQ is less than my weight."

wow.

here's a picture of bentley, somberly pondering what life would be like if obama loses:

don't forget to vote, kiddos.

latest on bill

2008-10-24T20:12:00.001-07:00

well, billy's doing well...we took him to the vet to have his big yellow bandage removed and all of the staples.

he is now really acting like himself, and it's good to see. i think he hated having that bandage on the same way he hates wearing halloween costumes.

billy has lost a lot of weight...he actually looks pretty good. and he's back to eating his food again, so i'm sure he'll put it back on in no time.

as for the results...well...5-7 days has turned into 12 business days, as billy's doctor is on vacation. katie chewed them out several times, and when he comes back from vacation, he's going to have a nice surprise when he calls me to tell me the news.

i'm bracing for the worst but hoping for the best.

thank you all for your emails and text messages asking about the little man.

i'll keep you up to date as i find out. keep him in your prayers!

Yes We Can!

2008-10-20T21:07:00.000-07:00

Billy Ray, Sydney wanted to send you Get Well Wishes. Get Better Soon!

you know billy's feeling better when...

2008-10-18T13:03:00.001-07:00

we left the house for a couple hours and katie came home to find this...

couple things to point out about this picture:

1. Billy was actually totally sprawled out when we first found him, with his head on the pillow. But when I ran to get the camera, Beebop jumped up there and billy moved into the position you see him in now.

2. check out the look in billy's eyes. it's like he knows he probably shouldn't be up there.

3. he must have pulled the covers down because there's no way katie would EVER leave the bed without making it. bwahahahahahaha aaaahhhh i crack myself up.

also...we have essentially been forcing chicken down billy's throat all week, because he won't eat anything...even when he does eat, it's been a few pieces of chicken. well...today he was eating his food out of his bowl voluntarily.

little man keeps getting better!

now we have to hope for good news from the biopsy...

billy watch continues

2008-10-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

so it's starting to get a little obnoxious...i realize i am now updating you on literally every little thing that billy does. but it's so good to see. a couple more firsts today:

billy barked when someone knocked on the door (first time we've heard him bark in over a week)

he's also quicker on his feet, and almost jumps up instead of slowly dragging himself off the ground.

and probably the most encouraging thing we've seen to date...he stole bentley's bone little beebop has been so good while billy's been recovering. she hasn't jumped up on him, licking his face and biting his ears like she normally does....it's almost like she can sense that he's really sick and has been leaving him alone to rest.

she has also benefited from his recovery time, because she has pretty much had her way over the past week. without billy on the prowl, she has slowly been enjoing her bone...chewing little by little until she has had her fill. then leaving it wherever she pleases until she's ready for another fix, without having to worry about billy stealing it and devouring it like he always does. but now, it appears billy is really feeling better, because he stole her bone and proceeded to gnaw the bone into oblivion in a matter of minutes while she whined and watched helplessly.

sorry bentley, your time of ruling the roost is over. it looks like the asshole that we all love is slowly starting to regain his stride.

billy is more like himself today...

2008-10-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

came home to find the little man up and around, wagging his tail like crazy (that hasn't really been seen much at all since the operation) and actually eating (he hasn't really eaten anything since last friday).

so I wanted to give you guys the update and the good news.

he still has a big yellow bandage around his body, it's kinda funny. he looks like a banana when he walks down the street.

i'll keep the updates coming!

billy's home!

2008-10-14T19:28:00.001-07:00

i wish he could talk so we would know how he's feeling. but the best we can do is guess. and he seems to be glad he's home.
he made it into the car ok. up three flights of stairs ok. then proceeded to drink a bowl and a half of water. he's been laying on his bed sleeping peacefully all night.

it's really nice to have him home and to see him walking around. hopefully now he can begin healing a little more quickly.

thanks to all of you for sending your well wishes, thoughts, and prayers for the little man. they seem to be working so keep them coming!

billy's coming home!

2008-10-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

just talked to the doc, and billy's heart has stabilized so he can come home. They got him off all the iv lines, and billy even ate and drank yesterday.

so after work i'm going up to get him. benny and becca are coming over for a welcome home party.

thanks to all of you for your well wishes and prayers for the little man!

i'll send an update later tonight once we see how he's doing first hand.

billy update for monday

2008-10-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

the doc called today and said that billy's heart occasionally throws in an intermittent abnormal beat, but for the most part it has stabilized. they are going to try and wean him off the iv drip and onto oral meds, and hope that his heartbeat remains stable. if so, billy can come home tomorrow!

the doc didn't seem worried, he said that some dogs just take a little longer to stabilize than others.

i'll let you know more as i get word...

billy update

2008-10-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

well, it's been two days since they took out billy's spleen and he's slowly recovering. he seems to be getting better, but it's really hard to tell because they have him pretty drugged up...they have him on two different pain medications, they're pretty strong because billy is zonked out. but he shows little flashes of his old self. like when we started petting him, he started to stretch himself out so that he would maximize every square inch of his body that you can pet. and when you stop petting him, he gets pissed. and when katie said "billy, beebop misses you!" he whipped his head up like he was looking for his little roommate.

the docs say he's doing well, his heart rate is normal, but his beats are irregular. they said that's normal when you remove an organ, and if heart rate was elevated then they would be worried. but he's on medicine to try and regulate it, they just upped the dosage and it seems to be working. but it got irregular when katie and i showed up, which makes me wonder if we shouldn't just leave him alone to recover. i just called again to see how he's doing, and the nurse said his heart is back to normal rythm.

they pamper him about the same way we pamper him at home. when we got there they were putting more blankets underneath him. and when benny and becca stopped by yesterday, they dropped off a get well card from frankie pants that is taped to his cage.

so we're hoping that he'll stabilize in the next day or two and be able to come home.

more to come...

rough night for the little man

2008-10-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

woke up today to billy not jumping up off his bed when i asked him if he wanted to go outside. so i knew right away something was wrong. but when i tried to coax him up, he struggled to pull himself to his feet, then wobbled side to side before falling to the ground. literally 5 minutes later i had carried him to the car and we were off to the vet.

they were worried that we were losing him fast, his temp was way down and not very responsive. so they gave him an iv and but him under a bunch of heated blankets. after a few xrays, they determined that he had a mass on his spleen and needed to be sent somewhere fast.

so they sent me to an emergency vet clinic in the burbs, and an ultrasound showed he had a lot of internal bleeding from the spleen and it needed to be removed. they said it's probably cancer until proven otherwise, but to know for sure they would have to remove it. they say it's 50/50 chance of cancer. but there's only a 10 percent chance of that. for those of you on this email who haven't seen the naked gun, the "10% chance " line was a joke. but they 50/50 chance is accurate. i've bet on black and won, and bet on black and lost. thank god pilat's not the one holding the chips right now.

so we went ahead with the surgery. billy made it through surgery just fine and the good news is that when they opened him up, the mass was limited to his spleen. i was a little surprised they didn't find little yellow chunks of whiffle ball bat or snickers wrappers in there.

and i just called the vet...he is sleeping and recovering well, he went pee which is a good sign. i'll get to see him tomorrow in person. visiting hours start at 10.

so now we wait 5-7 business days for the biopsy. if it's cancer, they give billy 3-6 months. if it's not, billy lives out the rest of his life being an asshole and his spleen can rot in hell.

so keep the little man in your thoughts and prayers. thanks to all of you who have sent your well wishes. we all knew this day would eventually come, but didn't think it would come so fast. with a little bit of luck, it'll be a minor little hiccup.

Sydney Tess Jones

2008-10-08T06:34:00.001-07:00

Just got this message from Jones...

We are very happy to have a healthy baby girl, Sydney Tess Jones, weighing 5 lbs 8 oz. She was born a little earlier than expected on October 5th at 4:33PM; just in time for the Steelers kickoff. Christy and Sydney are doing very well.

please hammer don't hurt 'em

2008-10-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

just got back from a GREAT wedding in Cleveland...steve and jess got married.

the wedding was beautiful, it was at the courthouse right on lake erie. good times were had by all.

Chad and Elizabeth made the long trip down from Madison:

as did Saad and Jess and their new baby Hayden. You won't see any pictures of the little man, because Jess' mom came along and played babysitter while saad and jess let loose a little. and by "let loose," i mean:

yeaaaaah. my favorite part of the night was when i learned of a new dance move which is probably the most badass dance move ever. i can't believe I made it 30 years on this planet and have never seen this dance move before. apparently it's from an episode of the fresh prince of bel air (if you don't remember the episode, click here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7648826760854938877).

everyone was calling it the apache dance. it's so bad ass because:

1. it's almost embarrasingly simple to do
2. it involves pelvic thrusting

here is a sweet clip of the hammer and the younger hammer brother doing the apache dance:

the other sweet part of the night was that apparently steve's friends from high school and law school were unaware of the nickname we gave him in college. we made them aware. so hopefully everyone worldwide will now refer to steve as "the hammer."

the other good news is that we didn't end up getting into any trouble, although i'm not sure than climbing the thomas jefferson statue in front of the courthouse at midnight was such a good idea.

congrats steve and jess! thanks for the great time!

tokyo - post II

2008-09-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

well, we're back in the US. unfortunately. and back to work. I started uploading the 300+ photos i took, and that doesn't include the ones that either of the katie's took. i whittled it down to about 189 that i'll upload to ofoto so you can all see them if you want. and probably add a few from the katie's.

for those of you who prefer the cliff notes version, the post from last week was only from the first half of our trip. i'll post some pics later in the week from the second half of our trip. but in the meantime, i'll give you a little taste of japanese culture.

again...for those of you who follow katie's "tune in tokyo" blog, you'll know that the japanese are very fond of anything in english. but their translations typically end up either:

a. flat out wrong
b. flat out strange

either way, they are flat out hysterical.

here are a couple, but you may have to click on them to enlarge them if the photos are too small to read. anyhoo...

here's a menu from our first dining experience in Japan:
or if you're not in the mood to burn a gizzard or for a cock skin parcel, you could try fried chicken cartilage of the cock or even chorizo wing deep frying:
what?

this one's really bad...everyone knows that japanese people mix up their R's and L's. here was the happy hour menu, announcing their specials:

in case you missed it (I did), it's the old japanese version of a "half and half." if only they had offered a "brack and tan" too.

now this guy here...he either doesn't know what his shirt says or he has no idea what kurt cobain was actually about:the shirt didn't come out that well, but it says "Nirvana - fudge packing crack smoking satan worshipping motherfucker. wow

here's one of a sweet shirt we saw, that just flat out doesn't make sense

this was one of my personal favorites. in EVERY train station they had this poster of two white people on the train with all their backpacking gear. and a little japanese man in the corner trying to read his book. so they're trying to get the message across that they do not want white people bringing all their backpacking gear on the train.

the english translation?

please do it on the mountain.

okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay....

and i loved these little guys. in tokyo it is NOT acceptable to litter. you don't see trash ANYWHERE. and that includes cigarette butts. but they have a cute little way of letting you know why they don't want you throwing your cigarette butts on the street with these two examples:

you can't read it because of the glare, but under each picture is "meet" then "love" then "the end"
this one says "you tossed your cigarette out the window. you looked like you were fleeing the scene of a crime." and underneath it is showing you how the car "runs away," then the cigarette is the "victim" who they have chalked at the scene of the crime, and the dude on the right is the "witness" to the crime.

unbelieveable. ah tokyo. those crazy japanese.

more to come.

konichiwa

2008-09-21T17:31:00.000-07:00

ohio! i think that means good morning in japanese. it's 8AM tokyo time and we're watching the cowboys/packers sunday night game live, drinking coffee, eating breakfast, and trying to plan out our day today.

tokyo is amazing...it's such a beautiful city...so clean. the people are very friendly and very strange. if you've kept up on kevin and katie's blog, then you'll likely understand...if not, then i'll have to explain when i get home. everyone is very orderly and respectful, and there is no crime. there are no trash cans anywhere but yet there's no litter anywhere (you either hold onto your trash until you find somewhere to throw it away or you just don't eat or drink in public). it's very easy to get around, pretty easy to find signs in english (although english menus are a little more difficult to find). for a city of 30+ million, it's very quiet. in four days, i've only heard one horn. quite a change from when i used to visit kevin and katie in NYC and you couldn't go 30 seconds without hearing a horn, even at 4AM. and EVERYTHING is automated. you push a button to lift the toilet seat, open the fridge...hell, you don't even have to open taxi doors...the driver pushes a button that does it for you. there are seriously buttons for everything! the first night we got here, i pushed a button in the bathroom and an alarm went off...and security showed up at our door. oops.

but, just like any culture, for every good thing there's a bad thing. everyone says yes to everything, even if they mean no. but if that sounds like a good thing, it's not always good...there's a lot of repression in this culture. but no time for negatives, we're on vacation sucka!

we survived a category 1 typhoon (it didn't hit tokyo directly, but it has been raining since we got here...at times torrential downpour...but we have gotten a few spots of dryness and even some sun). we slept through a 4.9 earthquake this morning, moonbeam was the only one that woke up. i was kinda pissed off...i still can't say that i've felt an earthquake. at least now i can say i slept through one.

we've had a good start to our vacation. here are a couple highlights:

the tsukiji fish market: we got up at 4AM on our first full day (which is really easy when you're jet lagged) and that was really neat to see. i won't post too many pics, as katie and kevin have posted a lot on their blog. but here are a couple:

our most eventful day was saturday...which started around 11AM and ended around 5AM...we managed to cram in a buddhist temple, a baseball game, and karaoke into 16 magical hours.

here are a few highlights...

first, the sensoji buddhist temple was beautiful.

next we went to korakuen garden...a beautiful park that has been in tokyo since the 1600's. one of top three traditional japanese gardens in japan (apparently EVERYTHING has to be ranked in Japan).

it was beautiful...and very bizarre...here was this quiet, old park...and looming in the background was the massive tokyo dome. and some sort of amusement park. so off we went to the baseball game.

it was the last series of the year, and the yomiuri giants were battling the hashin tigers for the final playoff spot. the game has been sold out for a long time, but somehow kevin managed to score us standing room only seats:

baseball in japan is very different from baseball in the US. it's much more fan involvement. best way to explain it is just like a soccer game in europe...it's chanting and singing the entire time. and when i say entire time, i'm not kidding...the fans don't stop cheering, even if their team is down 9-1 in the bottom of the 9th. i was taking this video when Ogasawara, one of the Giants, hit a homerun:

then the next batter, Ramirez, went back-to-back. to say we were caught up in the action would be an understatement:

we weren't the only ones there in standing room only. in fact, it's pretty hard to see the game. i've never had so much fun at a baseball game where you can't actually watch the game. but people pay money just to be there, and sit in the councourse and watch it on tv:

or, like these two youngsters, you just stand there and watch the game on your cell phone:
remember how i was saying that it's a repressive culture? well, part of that shows at the ballgame, where the people who serve you are ALL WOMEN. no men. even the beer vendors are girls:

but the fans were nice. the 1st base side of the stadium is the home team's fans, the 3rd base side half is the away team. there is NO trash talking. period. everyone is just there to enjoy the game and root on their team. and we got our picture with a couple of the enemy's fans:

and this guy was our favorite. and his buddy in the background giving us the peace sign:afterwards, he asks us where we're from. I said chicago. and he goes "cubs! fukudome! fukudome!" everyone here loves baseball, and you can watch american baseball on one of the several TV stations that are dedicated to baseball.

we capped off the night with dinner. and more beer. i love the japanese food. i can't get enough of it. the sushi is very different from what we eat, but it's much fresher. only problem is that it's very difficult to find a menu in english. fortunately, a lot of them come with pictures, and you just point at what you want and hold up the number of fingers that correspond with the quantity you want:

(sarah, i took this picture for you because I know how you love taking pictures of food):

the highlight of the night was karaoke. karaoke joints are different than in the US. there will be an 8 story building, and on each floor are 4-5 little rooms with a karaoke machine. so you don't sing karaoke in front of strangers, only your friends. i thought it would be weird, but it was actually a lot of fun because you get to sing like 20 songs.

here's a montage of katie singing with a little help from her backup dancer, kevin san aka "the robot:"

but the best way to share this experience is with a couple videos:

like this one of kevin singing "18 and life"

or this one of the katies singing "shoop." best part about it is when the waiter comes in with more beer. oh, don't mind us, we're just rocking out to some salt and pepa. this will also give you an idea of how you communicate in tokyo. they pretty much talk to you like you speak japanese and eventually through hand signals, you somehow get the message:

hilarious.

sorry it was so long, I have seriously taken 200 photos in like three days. more to come.

labor day weekend

2008-09-07T11:50:00.000-07:00

man, it's been a while since the last post. my apologies. still awaiting the doggy DNA test results.

this past weekend we were told by the government to celebrate labor, and to do so by taking an extra day to do all the things you get to do when you don't have to labor. and sarah came into town, which was a nice treat.

we didn't really do much all weekend - it was wonderful. we spent most of the weekend on the rooftop...in fact saturday night we had a decent view of the fireworks on Navy Pier.
we found time for our new favorite pastime...going to the maxwell street market

for those of you who have never been...you HAVE to go. it's like stepping out of chicago and going to another country. random people selling anything and everything...

stuff that you look at that think to yourself "that was either stolen or fell off the back of a truck."

i mean just look at all of this crap:

or this crap. note how this guy's station wagon is full of even more crap.

but the girls made sure to scour every inch of the place for deals

and were really proud of their new jimmy choo purses. which clearly are authentic.

my big score (not pictured) was the best taco al pastor i've ever had in the united states. for those of you who don't know, tacos al pastor are the best pork tacos ever invented. they marinate on this thing that looks like a giant gyro...they carve it right off of it and onto your tortilla

the lady that sold it to me didn't speak english. well, she knew how to say "one dollar" in english. they handmade the corn tortillas right in front of me. now that i think about it, i'm ashamed i didn't take a picture of it.

the other big event of the weekend was a labor day bbq

we had a good crowd
it was a good night for some relaxing and drinking

billy referees a game of bags:

by the end of the night, billy was tuckered out

if he really knew what labor was like, his ass would have been up still partying. that asshole hasn't had an honest day's work in his life. at this point i'd settle for an unhonest day's work. although i'm not even sure what that means.

that's all for now...hopefully i'll get the DNA results back before i leave for tokyo.

STATUS UPDATE - DNA Test: Submitted

2008-08-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

well...the DNA test has been submitted.

it was a strange experience. i didn't want to compromise the integrity of the DNA sample, so i put on katie's purple dish washing gloves from under the sink.

it was a rather strange experience. seeing as how only women do the dishes (that's what jesus said - it's in the new testament), i had never worn anything quite so strange before.

and this whole "DNA testing" was so cutting edge! I was clearly out of my league and a little confused at first. as i read the instructions and gathered the materials, william clearly knew that something fishy was going on.

and so did bentley.

she watched closely as i took the sample from william's inner cheek.

but all parties came out unscathed. the DNA sample has been mailed in and all bets are off! oh, wait...no bets have been taken. no one has come forward to organize the pool. although if one of you wants to take the initiative, i can tell you that my grandmother is in for $20 and my mom wants to place a bet too (it runs in the family...we love that crazy little thing called gambling)

we have 4-6 weeks before the results come back...

after 9 month battle with pregnancy, columbus woman finally prevails

2008-08-12T05:54:00.001-07:00

after a long and tiresome battle with a foreign invader in her stomach, Columbus businesswoman Jessica is finally free of the parasite, according to her immune system.

"what a wonderful experience it has been," elated Jess. "Such a wonderful 9 months, it's quite an emotional roller coaster but one look at Hayden makes it all worthwhile."

"this woman has given it a name?" replied Jess' immune system in shock. "I have tried for months to get rid of that thing...inducing vomiting, forcing her to eat pickles...nothing worked. and she's given it a name?"

Hayden Curtis is the full name...he was born last week...
cute little bugger at that. congrats you two! can't wait to meet the little one...

i also can't believe saad has a kid!

Rodeo Anderson

2008-08-03T19:13:00.001-07:00

The photos are worth a few words and the video is a thousand of them. Thanks for a great weekend... (My next post will include pictures of MiniSaad.)

Pork Explorer.

funny because it's true.

The main event...

baseball weekend 2009

2008-07-31T19:20:00.000-07:00

well...we kept the tradition alive. much like last year in denver, we waited too long and so not many people were able to attend. so next year we've made a vow to pick a date and pick it early. there is even some talk about spring training either in florida or arizona. but i digress...back to baseball weekend 2009...

Well...it's never a good idea to start the day with games of beer pong...

but we did it nonetheless...and then head off to the casino...

where we pretty much all lost our money. a lot of money.

but we did gain something...we met the future benny...kicking it with his sweet gold chain and cowboys shirt...

but we finally made it to the game...and started to drink beer...

and eat food...

Then is started to get ugly...Yust and Stimac got the good idea to exchange slaps to the face...

after the game, a bunch of the guys thought that we hadn't had enough beer and that we should go to the cadillac ranch for a night cap.

and ride the mechanical bull...

that's not very hot...

but this is...

ah...guys weekend. what a blast...well, at least for most of us...

by the end of the night...our designated driver oldham had just about enough of our tomfoolery. poor guy. you should have let us get the limo, hammer!

check out jim!

2008-07-31T07:13:00.000-07:00

check out Jim's new wheels!

But if he keeps this up, he might not need them some day.

pretty sweet.

time to answer the question we've never been able to

2008-07-24T16:39:00.000-07:00

what kind of dog is billy?

the first opinions we got on what breeds billy is made of were from the ladies at the SPCA in Bloomington, Indiana. One thought he was part lab. another said he's part shepherd. another woman thought he was greyhound. greyhound? really?

that was the first of many opinions we got on the billy's history. we once had a dog walker almost flip out on me and benny because we disagreed with his assessment that billy was part lab. and my all time favorite was when i was walking billy ray up roscoe ave during the oyster and guinness festival, when a drunk fat man pointed at billy and screamed "OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT MUTANT BEAGLE!"

so for the last 9 years of billy's life, we've regurgitated one combination or another of those breeds any time we've been asked. of course, always prefaced by "well, they found the little asshole running around the fields of Bloomington, Indiana...so no one really knows what breed he is..."

well now, thanks to the decrease in the cost of DNA testing technology...

and thanks to the internet-literacy of the one and only chris "eddie clitzer nitzer"...(spitz was the one who actually found out about this dog DNA test and emailed it to us)...

and of course thanks to billy's immediate family (ben, kevin and katie, spitz, saad, russ, sheikh, crumley) for all sending me $12 to subsidize the test...

we will be able to answer that question.

here's the list of breeds the DNA test will screen for:
http://www.canineheritage.com/breeds.php

there's been a lot of talk about a pool where you can guess the breed...i don't know if any of you want to create a spreadsheet and send it around?

post a comment if you're interested in either participating or running the pool. or send me an email.

i just ordered the test kit online, i'll send you updates as i get the kit, take a swab of billy's dna, etc...

Mulligans - Ecuadorian Style

2008-07-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

What makes it Ecuadorian style? The butcher next door. And yes, in case you were wondering, that is a pig, gutted and fried whole. If you ask for chicharrones (pork skin), she'll just slice you off a piece. Billy would love it.

living like hippies isn't all it's cracked up to be

2008-07-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

So six of us packed up our stuff and headed to Rothbury, Michigan over the 4^th to attend the first ever Rothbury Festival. Four days of camping and live music. It’s just like Bonnaroo but in Michigan…and with only 40,000 happy campers, it’s only about half as big as Bonnaroo.

In attendance were me, Katie, Benny, Becca, Sean, and Marissa

It’s really hard to condense 4 days into one blog posting and not make it obnoxiously long. So sorry for that. I emailed everyone and asked them for their favorite moments. I also emailed Theresa and Conor, our friends in the Ukranian Village who watched Billy all weekend, and asked them what there favorite moments of their 4 days with Billy were. Here are some of the highlights:

Benny:

music, music, music. the music was fantastic! panic stole the show for me (as usual). friday and sunday were the best days for the music. the whole phish buzz was great. dmb put on a great show. snoop dog and modest mouse were my biggest surprises. the black keys and gov't mule were solid. also, i will see uncle boogie pants here in town. it was cool to actually see them (i had heard about them). i saw two members of the grateful dead and they both played "fire on the mountain" AND "sugaree." what a lineup! everyone pretty much brought their A game.

It's really no secret that Benny and I BY FAR got the most enjoyment out of the music. I really wish that everyone else shared our same passion for these bands. Passion might not be the right word, in fact I was pretty out of control for a good portion friday...here was our friday in this order...

Snoop Dogg
Drive By Truckers (photo below...fired up)311
Modest Mouse
Yonder Mountain String Band
3 hours of Widespread Panic

By the time we made it to panic we were pretty much whipped into a frenzy.

Even though the others didn't share our passion for hippie music, the one thing musically that we ALL could agree on was that Snoop Dogg is amazing. He rolled out on his pimped out bike

And started throwing "left handed cigarettes" into the crowd. I never thought that 30,000 hippies would go ape shit over snoop dogg, but they did. and it was hilarious to watch.

Speaking of hippies...

Katie realized that "hippies are not my scene, I am not a hippie, I don’t want to be a hippie – I actually already knew this yet wanted to appease my boyfriend in pretending I was some sort of hippie music fanatic, low maintenance, go with the flow, super cool chick, weekend camper, no showering sweet ass girlfriend – but never again all at once – separately, maybe."

Benny:
There is also a bad side to hippy life. we were up front waiting for phil and friends to start on sunday night. this guy behind me started arguing with his girlfriend (she wouldn't give him his $300 sunglasses back). well, she squeezed his sunglasses and broke them. he then slapped her in the face, she got up, he spit in her face, then he pushed her down. this older guy (probably in his 50's) came out of nowhere and punched this guy in the face. this was in front of hundreds of people. we all basically made him leave. then she went running after him. it was one of the most awful things that i have ever seen. it still makes me very uncomfortable just thinking about it.

Katie:
In a separate incident, we had a domestic violence fight break out at about 2:30AM between neighbors Christy and Brian after Brian wouldn’t give Christy $10 for her weird posters and then threw her phone to the ground and broke it in half. When they started hitting each other and when Brian threw Christy into the side of their tent, Dave and Sean flew out of the tents to break it up. And Dave was wearing a t-shirt, boxer briefs, and one sock.

How I only had one sock on, I don’t know.

Marissa and Sean both enjoyed the trippy hippie human choo-choo train. Imagine it's around 1AM, and you're walking through this forest...and in the distance approaches a pack of about 15 hippies in a flying v formation being led by a master hippie wearing some sort of costume you would find on the drum major in a marching band. They would shuffle shuffle shuffle and the stop. Then shuffle shuffle shuffle then stop. And they all did it in unison. It was creepy and entertaining.

There was one big aspect of the festival that was missing...showers. None. But there was a lake...we walked to the lake to find it was beautiful!

And that you couldn't swim in.

Unless you didn't mind sinking three feet into mud. Bummer.

BENNY TO THE RESCUE. He heard his neighbors talking about the water park. The water park turned out to be the other most frequently mentioned highlight of the weekend. And when we say water park, we mean a full blown waterpark, with water slides, a lazy river, and all...

It was full of dirty hippies, paddling around the lazy river and cleaning themselves off. I am pretty sure that the owners put 200 times the amount of chlorine they would normally put in the water, because my eyes were burning for about 2 hours after leaving the lazy river. either that or it was just hippie funk.

The other big discovery of the the weekend is that there is life on other planets. Alien spies do exist! We found this guy wandering around and attempting to interact with humanoids. This photo doesn't do it justice, he really looked like an alien:

He came up to our tent and spoke in slow, oddly constructed sentences. This was our first interaction with the alien on Thursday:

"Hello"
pause 15 seconds
"I was just driving by and saw all these tents and didn't even know this music festival was going on. So I decided to camp out."
await response. after response from humans pause 30 seconds.
"which bands are you going to see?"
wait for response from humans. pause 20 seconds.
"I'm just going to wander around in there and soak it all in."
slowly walk away

At first we joked that he was the alien. Every time we saw a light in the sky, we wondered if it was his buddies coming to join him. Sean commented that the alien must be here scoping out places to draw his crop circles. Katie thought he was here to discover this "music" that humans make. We saw a blimp flying overhead...it was clearly piloted by the alien. and on and on...

We got a lot of jokes out at the alien's expense over the course of two days. but by Saturday morning, we were completely convinced that the alien was real. Here's how it went down.

Katie: has anyone seen the alien today?
alien appears within 30 seconds. NOT A JOKE.
Alien: good morning
Marissa: oh my god look at katie's hair.
Katie's hair is literally standing up, like she has her hand on one of those giant static electricity balls in a science fair.
Sean: The alien is stealing Wholey's knowledge.
Katie and Marissa laugh in alien's face.
Alien (oblivious to earthling humor): so, what was your favorite band yesterday?
Dave and Benny start 15 minute conversation about the best day of their lives (DBT, Modest Mouse, Yonder, Panic...blah blah girls are bored to death, alien feverishly is taking notes on paper).
Dave to Alien: who did you see last night?
Alien (this is NOT A JOKE): my favorite band was Primus. I really liked the giant astronauts they had on stage.
Everyone except the alien - jaws open, staring at the alien in disbelief.

Here is a photo of the Primus stage, astronauts and all...

I'm not sure how the conversation ended, i think we were all in disbelief. We avoided the alien the rest of the weekend to ensure none of us were abducted.

Oh man...what a weekend. There's so many more photos I didn't post...including my favorites of the hippies lighting of fireworks, the cops playing bags with the hippies, and the 4th of july fireworks that went off above the stage right after panic finished. but if you want to see those, let me know...

And to bring it all to a close...I emailed Teresa and Conor (our friends who watched Billy all weekend) and asked them to give me the top five things they learned about William over the course of the 4 days:

5. Despite our best efforts to keep him off of our new offwhite, Ethan Allen couch (we waited a long time to afford that couch!) - Billy found a way over, around, under a barricade of other "blocking" furniture to find a perfect spot for a nap.

4. His running days are over, he can make it about 1 mile at Teresa's slow running pace of 10 minute miles. He is officially a walking dog - but he's good for a couple miles - no problem!

3. Apparently, he doesn't like fireworks - Who knew?? Note to self: Do not dog sit over the 4th of July weekend when you live on the west side of Chicago (otherwise known as Beirut). :)

2. He thinks he can catch squirrels. Seriously, he really thinks he can chase down a squirrel. He even tried to jump up a tree in hot pursuit of one sly gray squirrel.

1. He wanted to sleep with Teresa so badly that he woke Conor up early in the morning, followed him to the living room, pretended to fall asleep on the floor while Conor dozed on the couch, then snuck back into the bedroom to join the, still sleeping Teresa, for a few more hours of comfortable sleep. No problem jumping right into her bed!

oh bill...what an ass.

Coolest Dad Ever

2008-07-14T00:07:00.000-07:00

Although they don't show him in the clip, must be the coolest Dad ever. Kick ass seats to the Cubs plus feeding the kid beers all day long.

you know it's hilarious season when...

2008-06-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

you find this in your car...

Spartan pride in Ecuador

2008-06-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

I have had a lot of ridiculous things happen to me while traveling. I have run into high school friends in a crowded square in Germany; I have met people in both the Netherlands and Ireland that we discovered were friends with long-lost friends of my own. I've projectile vomited off Broadway.
But I would have to say that last night's incident reigns as the most bizarre thing that has happened, yet.

I am down in Quito, Ecuador with a group of 24 U.S. high school students. I am teaching them Ecology and Wildlife Conservation while shuttling them from adventure to restaurant to hotel. It was at a restaurant where this particularly odd interaction occurred. i was standing at the bar, paying the bill to the man standing on the other side. He is a Kiwi and his English-speaking staff brings a lot of gringos in to the restaurant. I was wearing a pair of tan field pants, a light blue fleece jacket and carried my orange back-pack. There was no way to know who I was or where I was from.

Just as I handed over my cash, I was nearly knocked sideways by an extremely intoxicated American man who nearly deafened me as he shouted "GO BLUE!" into my ear. He then began singing Hail to the Victors at the top of his lungs while hugging me tightly - actually putting me in a bit of a headlock. The Kiwi tried to remove him with words and then physically tried to remove this man from me. He was going on about how he was at UM in the time of Bo. I glance back to see the table of students behind me silent and staring, obviously on the brink of being scarred for life. One of them put her hands up and mouthed "what should we do?". I shrugged tried to look calm as the man grabbed my ass.

I managed to push this guy back a bit and tried humor to get out of the situation - not wanting him to get angry in front of the students and figuring that I should probably know how to deal with drunk Wolverines by now. But the Kiwi - wise to the rivalries of the Big Ten - said, "Hey back off, she is a Spartan fan!". And that did it. The UM fan backed off, giving me a look that hid none of his disgust.

I smiled, herded my kids out of there as quickly as possible and assessed the randomness of the situation. Neither man knew me; neither man knew I was a Michigan fan; neither man gave any explanation for their actions.

Yet somehow... this actually happened.
Anyway. Had to share.

2008-06-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

PORKCHOP SANDWICHES?!

2008-06-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

well, it's a sad day with the loss of George Carlin. So I thought'd I'd do two things.

1. Lighten the mood
2. Answer a question I've gotten a lot lately regarding my PORKCHOP SANDWICHES t-shirt

Caution: For those of you inclined to skip past the commentary and launch the video...beware...this is NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

So you may have seen my PORKCHOP SANDWICHES t-shirt. It's simple really, just a red shirt that says PORKCHOP SANDWICHES. Everyone thinks it's funny for some odd reason, probably because it's random. and they always ask me where/why I got it.

But I can't really tell the story behind why I bought it because it has always been one of those "you had to be there" moments. Like "I'd explain it to you, but it wouldn't be funny unless you saw it yourself." so rather than waste a few sentences, i just say "I found it online and I love porkchop sandwiches." which is absolutely true. I love porkchop sandwiches.

Sometimes I would go a little deeper....

You all remember GI Joe? And at the very end of EVERY episode, they had this little 30 second public service announcement? Teaching kids about fire safety, cooking safety, safety safety...you know...all kinds of good things to learn them kids about?

well some guy, Fensler someone or other, took all of those public service announcements and did voice overs to make the little innocent clips into very weird and in some cases horribly offensive. it's PURE GOLD.

When I first I found them on the "world wide web" a few years ago, I loved this one so much that I bought the corresponding shirt. ended...because shortly after I bought the shirt, "the man" came along and made this Fensler guy take all the videos off of his website and stop selling his corresponding t-shirts. The people who created GI Joe apparently didn't think it was funny.

but now, thanks to YouTube, the videos have resurfaced. and now the full story of "PORKCHOP SANDWICHES" can be told, along with the original video.

and as you watch this video, picture me...walking down the street, smelling someone cooking pork, running into a house with excitement screaming "PORKCHOP SANDWICHES!" only to find out the little bastards had ruined the pork and started a grease fire. and then the F-bombs fly.

actually, the more i think about it, that might be how I would react. that's kind of sad. which is why it's funny? anyhoo...here's the video. enjoy.

and remember...NOT SAFE FOR WORK

oh lord, that kills me.

beached whale spotted on lake michigan beach

2008-06-08T12:38:00.001-07:00

whales in lake michigan? oh yes. witnessed it first hand. went to the beach last weekend with billy, jt, and maxwell.

it turned out to be a disaster, as maxwell loved the beach so much he covered himself in sand from head to toe and dad had to take him home for a bath.

billy was his usual self, playing in the water like he's 2 years old again.

but we noticed something unusual when we saw the coast guard helicopter hovering nearby.

"woof woof woof" said billy
"what is it boy?" i asked
"woof woof woof"
"there's a whale on the beach?" i interpreted
"si cabron" replied billy
"where is it, boy?" i asked bill
"woof woof" replied billy and he took off, using his nose as a compass to guide us to the beached whale.

i know, i'm going to hell. couldn't resist.

billy ray pleased with the coordination of his outfits

2008-06-08T12:34:00.001-07:00

in case you need more proof that billy is gay, look no further. he is now into his "outfits" as he calls them. and by "outfit," billy means matching his collar and his toys. i also caught him reading spitzer's Us Weekly for fashion tips. his favorite part of the magazine is "who wears it better" where the readers get to vote on who pulls off the same outfit better. and i only know about that feature because katie told me about it. i swear.

billy ray is moving to california

2008-05-30T20:08:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to a note on my pillow.

"dear dave, benny, becca, and katie. I am moving to california to be with my people. people who understand me. i will miss you. love, billy"

my lord. you've got to be kidding me. i never thought billy read the paper. but evidentially, he does. the california supreme court overturns the ban on gay marriage and billy skips town. unbelievable.

so i jump out of bed and find billy walking down the hallway to the front door, dragging a hobo sack in his mouth. i look inside to find four squeaky toys, three rawhide bones, a one-way greyhound ticket to california and picture of frankie pants.

you have GOT to be kidding me billy.
what? don't judge me.
don't judge you? we've never judged you. we've always loved for who you are.
whatever, you don't understand me.
you're right, bill. i don't understand why you're such an ass. but that has nothing to do with you being a homo.
see what i mean? you just said it! i'm a homo!
yeah but that's cool. whatever.
no, it's not cool. there's no one here who understands me. that's why i'm going back to cali.
billy, you live really close to boystown. which is in chicago, illinois. we'll take you there any time you want.
you've never taken me there.
actually, kevin and moonbeam and i took you to the gay pride parade back in 2005. oh yeaaaaaah. man that was sweet. that was so much fun.
billy it was 95 degrees and gay dudes kept putting beads around your neck.
i KNOW! that was so hot.
i know it was hot, you almost passed out. you had so many beads around your neck you couldn't keep your head up.
i know that was so awesome.
billy you almost died that day.
died and went to heaven!!
you are so GAY!!
I KNOW! That's the point.
billy, this is going nowhere. if you go to california you will end up alone and homeless. like this dog.oh that's not hot.
exactly. if you stay here, i promise that benny will take you to the gay pride parade in 2008.
really? did benny really tell you he would do that?
yes, billy. yes he did.
oh man i love benny.
i know you do. and he loves you. so much that he'll take you to the parade.

he heh...have fun at the gay pride parade benny. SUCKA!!!!!!!!!!!

is it wrong that i find this funny?

2008-05-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

so i came across this on the news today and it blew my mind. evidentially there are these tribes living in the amazon who have never come into contact with civilization. ever. that just blew my mind. http://www.survival-international.org/news/3340

then i read on and they had spotted one of these tribes while flying over the amazon, and showed this picture. couple things of note...these guys:

1. paint themselves different colors
2. look like monkeys
3. are trying to shoot down the airplane with their bow and arrows
4. are trying to shoot down the airplane with their bow and arrows

yes, i know i repeated that last one. because it absolutely kills me. unbelievable. i mean what is going through their heads right now? i bet they're shitting themselves. he heh

ladies and gentlemen...our "president"

2008-05-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

01.20.09 - i'm counting down the days...literally

the earth is fine

2008-05-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

i know i put this in the sidebar, but it's too good to have anyone miss it, so I wanted to post it.

who would have thought george carlin could be so wise. he really gets it...

George Carlin - The Planet is Fine Funny Jokes at JibJab

i almost caught pregnant today

2008-05-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

so saad was in town this weekend and decided to organize a large group of folks to attend the cubs game. with such a large group, benny, becca, katie, jones, and i volunteered to arrive early and save seats. so we got there about 2.5 hours before the first pitch and staked out our plot in left field.

one by one, the other parties started arriving. first jess, and her little belly. then her cousin marcy, her husband, and baby. then minning, and his pregnant wife.

i'm convinced that when you first get pregnant, you go out and buy one of those expecting parents books. and no matter what book it is, the first chapter is entitled How to Hold Conversations About Your New Lifestyle.
"hey ____________ (insert name) how are you!? long time no talk? what's new?"
"oh, not much, just making babies"

i heard that same exchange about 6 times in 2 innings.

having nothing to contribute to conversations about baby bjorns (is that how you spell that?) or whether you should buy a crib on craigslist, us "non-breeders" huddled in a group at the end of the bleachers. oh no!! jones was sitting amongst us! he's a breeder too! we had been infiltrated! by the time saad's friend scofield and his pregnant wife arrived at the game, i looked down at katie and becca to see unsettled looks on their faces. i mean seriously out of almost 20 people, there were only 6 of us who aren't expecting or already had a kid.

"jesus christ these breeders are everywhere!" i said to becca.
"i know, it's like they're multiplying...coming out of the woodwork." she replied
"i hope it's not contagious...i mean, can you catch pregnant?" i wondered aloud

and we came to the conclusion that yes, pregnant is probably contagious. so i left the game and went to 7-11 for some condoms. not because any of us were planning on having sex, obviously we're all still virgins. but juuuuust to be safe, benny and i each wore condoms for the rest of the game and made the girls sit at opposite end of the bleachers. becca and katie decided not to make eye contact with any of the pregnant females or to breathe any of the air they exhaled.

in the second inning, becca was getting hot flashes and katie was suddenly asking me to get her pickles and ice cream from the concession stand. my god it's moving much quicker than we anticipated! at this rate, we were considering leaving the game to catch a Lamaze class.

alas, the girls didn't catch any "pregnant" from the other expectant couples. phew...

not that we are hating on you expecting parents...we're really excited for you. but man was it a little eye opening to be surrounded by so many pregnant people our age. the times they are a changin, i guess.

soon our fantasy baseball drafts are going to turn into fantasy tee ball drafts. I can just hear the conversation now.

Dave - "i started jeff jones jr in left today...he went 2-4 with a pair of runs. he must have got his mom's genes"
Benny - "god damned little saad had 14 errors and wore the collar (went 0-4) for me today. he just got benched"

6.8 earthquake shakes Tokyo

2008-05-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A strong earthquake struck off the coast of Japan early Thursday, the national Meteorological Agency said, waking up people 100 miles away in Tokyo. All reports indicate, although alarmed, our good friends Katie and Kevin are fine, finding solace in a doorway during the aftershock effect.

In mysteriously related news, Japanese scientists are researching whether it was actually an earthquake at all. Seismic evidence indicates that the earthquake like ripple effect may have been caused by an unidentified force in downtown Tokyo. Japanese officials are now conducting a joint research project with the Bloomington Geological institute. It seems a very similar type of seismic wave happened during the late Spring of 1998 in Bloomington, Indiana, coming from an apartment complex titled the Varsity Villas.

The only correlation between the two “earthquake like” events is that they both took place during the NBA playoffs after a Utah Jazz loss. Scientists are wandering if it could be caused by an overly excited Jazz fan and speculate that the latest earthquake could have been caused by a Gaijin. The case is currently still under investigation.

Billy Ray Valentine, a life long Jazz fan, commented: “Utah necesita jugar una defensa major” Billy then went on to bark at the vacuum cleaner.

i can no longer associate with you common folk

2008-05-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

well, i had a life altering experience this weekend. katie got me tickets to the cardinals cubs game in st. louis for my birthday. so katie and i headed down to the lou and met up with timmy and jennifer.oh wait, i forgot to mention...the seats were in the third row. behind the cubs on deck circle. section 6. that's not a typo folks...we sat in section 6. i've never sat in a section with less than three numbers. hell, i didn't even know single digit sections even existed!
when we pulled up to the stadium and flashed our vip parking pass, we realized how important we were. for at least one day. we parked in the front row of the lot and walked about 15 feet to the front entrance. "the help" was waiting to hold all the doors open for us. "the help" was waiting in our own private elevator to push the buttons so that you don't have to lift a finger. there was pork tenderloin in the pre-game buffet. pork tenderloin! and "the help" who carved it for you were wearing white gloves!

we were so close that you could talk trash to all of the cubs players when they were on deck...and they actually heard every word you said! only problem is that people like soriano and fukudome don't speak english very well. after a good ribbing of soriano about him dropping two fly balls on friday night, he looked at us and smiled. we were really laying into him, and he smiled. it was hysterical.

there are a lot of perks to sitting in the front row.

like when peter gammons (aka the dalai lama of baseball knowledge) walks by and smiles at you on his way onto the field. or when bruce weber (the coach of the illinois basketball team), after throwing out the first pitch, walks by your seat and you can look him in the eye and yell things like "go hoosiers!"

or when you're trying to take a photo and fredbird comes out of nowhere to jump in your picture.

or when you are so close that the crack of the bat actually hurts your ears it's so loud. this photo was taken a split second before pujols launched the pitch into the outfield seats. if you click on the photo to zoom in, you can see the ball right in front of pujos about belt high. old ted lilly really served that one up for him. but it's hard to believe how fast those guys can swing those bats.

or when all you can eat and drink is yours the entire game at no additional charge. and you have your own designated waitress the entire game. we decided at this point that we should probably not say too much or even make eye contact with "the help," as they probably have some sort of disease. some sort of disease that gives you poverty.

on the way to the game, katie turns to me and says "when they say it's all you can eat and drink, i think that is essentially them issuing you a challenge. and you should really try to eat and drink all that you can." challenge accepted. as witnessed by this photo of jennifer, we definitely took advantage.or in this photo...you can see behind jennifer, the "help" brought out about three trays of beer for us at when they "cut you off" in the 7th inning. cut you off - ha! not in the good seats...they just bring you enough beers at once to last you the rest of the game.

and, judging by this picture, you can see that i have had enough beer to try and sneak onto the field. alas, we're not that important, because as hard as we tried they wouldn't let us on the field. bastards.
the funniest part of the day was after we were making wisecracks about how important we were all day, the waitress walks up to us in the top of the first inning to take our order and looks at timmy and jennifer and goes..."hey, aren't you guys my neighbors? do you live on eichelberger street?" it really was their next door neighbor. timmy turns to us and says "shit, we've been outed. we're just a bunch of commoners." we laughed about that the rest of the game.

so it was a great day, it's nice to have a taste of the good life. hope you all get the chance to do the same some day. even if it's just for a day.

the state vs. billy ray valentine

2008-04-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

well, it's been 2 years since spitz, kevin, katie, billy, and I moved out of that apartment on halsted and armitage. we've been locked in a legal battle ever since. landlord claimed billy destroyed the carpet on the second floor (the second floor is a key point to remember for later). those of you who know billy know that he's too lazy to do that.

but, as i was dwelling on the situation tonight, something struck me...billy really is a bastard. after all these years of mooching off of us, he's finally upped his game and now has us in a lawsuit. god what an asshole! I mean SERIOUSLY! you've really outdone yourself billy.

but I think we have a pretty solid case. LET JUSTICE BE SERVED, SUCKAS!!!

so you may be wondering why I'm posting this so late. well i'm so giddy i can hardly stand it. i actually have to take the stand tomorrow! under oath!

for a while i was laying in bed thinking of how I'm going to poke holes in their case. I mean I'm pulling out ALL the stops. I actually have a receipt from when Moss took billy to the vet in 2004 and had to get him a prescription for Rimadyl. I looked up Rimadly and printed it up on 1800petmeds.com - "Rimadyl (carprofen) is used to treat pain and inflammation from conditions such as arthritis and other joint diseases including hip dysplasia". even better, when you look at the notes the vet wrote, it talks about entering billy into an elderly care program. excuse me your honor, I would like to enter Exhibit E. "really, a dog with arthritis climbed up a flight of stairs to destroy your carpet? please, the only thing billy goes up a flight of stairs for is food or squirrels. and i'm pretty sure we had neither up there. i rest my case."

and this is my favorite...so the landlord claims that he mailed us a copy of our lease (which is like 15 pages) in a letter dated October 20 . I saved all the letters, checks, and envelopes...and in the letter he claimed to have mailed us the 15 page lease. well the envelope that arrived in was a regular envelope metered at 37 cents. tomorrow morning I'm going to try and shove the lease in an envelope (not sure if it's even possible) and get it metered at the post office before the trial. my ass that thing is going to be metered at 37 cents. if it is, i'm going to be really sad. but just the thought of being able to say "if it pleases the court oh honorable judge, let me enter exhibit F, showing you that our landlord is a lying sack of shit."

oh man, i missed my calling. i should have been a lawyer. or a writer for CSI. or MacGuyver.

actually all my plans are probably irrelevant, we have them in violation of two counts of the chicago landlord and tenants ordinance. so this might not go to trial, they might realize they're fucked and try to settle. their lawyer already contacted our lawyer about a settlement today. so wish me luck! If it goes to trial and we win, it's a cool $9,000.

i'll give you an update soon. hopefully it's something cool and not lame, like we settled out of court. talk about a letdown.

also, many thanks to justin dillmore...the man who talked me through this process before we went out and had to hire an illinois lawyer on our own. saad, before you get jealous you weren't a lawyer 2 years ago.

dude looks like a lady

2008-04-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

got this photo in an email from aunt kathi today. all her email said was " Gee, is that Steve Tyler signing Kathi's Aerosmith album?"

that's all i know...aunt kathi...can you give us a little more background on this???

engrish.com within the good old USA

2008-04-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of engrish.com...we talked about it during previous posts...it's a website dedicated to awful translations from mainly japanese into english. If you've been keeping up on katie and kevin's blog, you would have seen tons of material to that effect.

Wholey and i were in San Francisco last weekend and I spotted this sign in a shop in Chinatown.

Just goes to show that you don't have to go overseas anymore to see bad translations from foreign languages to engrish.