Safety First

With summer winding down, it means it will soon be time for the big German beer fest in Lincoln Square. Still, as this article points out, you can never be to careful, wherever you go.

Park Ridge Update

So while I've been up to my eyeball's ass in job-related work (worked 110 hours last week!) life has continued on in Park Ridge. The girls have both been sick with the croup, and are only now showing signs of feeling better. Cindy is finally succumbing to the illness, so that should make this week more interesting.

The Mexicans hired by the Greek next door have dug a giant hole where a very nice mid-century home used to be, and they've managed to dig the hole so close to the property line that much of our yard on that side of the house is now sliding into the hole, thanks to 48 hours of rain we've had. I need to run and buy some additional fencing so the girls don't wind up in the hole. So besides f'ing up our yard, the Greek didn't make many friends in the neighborhood last week when he also got the city to chop down three beautiful pine trees in front of his house in the parkway. He claimed they were "dirty." My neighbor across the street is saying the only thing "dirty" about those trees is the way he suspects the Greek got the city to chop 'em down in the first place. Wonder what he'll do for an encore to win the neighbors' love and respect? Slaughter a bunny and hang it from the construction fence?

The sinkhole next to our house was the big topic of discussion on Saturday night. Despite the rain, the annual Knight Avenue block party was held, and quick thinking Dave jury-rigged a full-on tiki bar in the garage (I had the parts) and 1219 became the center of the party for the North Side of the street. The South Side of the street was shored up by a gathering of Irish at the big construction on that end of the block – yet another hyperbolic ethnic stereotype that is a contractor or developer and richer than Jesus. They seem like nice folk, though, with some nice kids, though they stayed away from our tiki garage. The Polish developer form across the street with the $1.4million house for sale came by with his wife and a bunch of wine, and everyone else was there too. Neighbor Tony came by and talked to me about his diarrhea while I grilled brats and burgers for everybody.

As the night wore on, Aidan and Reese retreated inside to catch the umpteenth rerun of High School Musical 2, which was probably the biggest story of the weekend in their world. Actually wasn't half bad, as far as those movies go. Of course, at this point, I'm happy just to watch them be happy, and to have something other than Cinderella to watch with them...

Gotham Update

See, that just looks cool to me. Ol' Bats. The Chicago Skyline. Batman didn't make his home in Minnesota, no sir.

They're done shooting downtown near the office, pushed out my the Brangelina bunch and their shoot'em'up, but it will still darn cool. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Miami Blues

On Tuesday, I woke in our basement at 1219, where the family has been sleeping while the upstairs floors have been refinished, to Aidan hacking sick with a bad cough, which subsequent medical examinations have determined to be the croup. Since that time, I've been at work, traveling to Miami to work on a Motorola RFP response, and in that whole time, I've had approximately 2 hours of sleep. I've just finished a draft of the document after a day of complete clusterfuckery and now, what with the local time being 5:35am and the team scheduled to be back together at 8am, I think I'll have a High Life, watch either the sunrise over the Atlantic or Spider Man 3 here in the hotel, and just keep going.

Hey! So We Bought a House!

There it is. In Park Ridge. And it's finally ours. Renovation currently under way...we've been living in the basement for a week while they refinish the cork floors upstairs. In our house. Yay.