Monday, Monday

You know, Monday gets a bad rap. New Years Day is all about hope and resolutions and turning over a new leaf and all that stupid stuff. "It's the beginning of a new year! Hooray! Let's get blasted on champagne, kiss strangers, and order a Bowflex!"

Mondays start a new week 52 times a year.

Well, I guess Sundays technically do that, but stay with me here.

What does Monday get in return? Grief.

Today wasn't so bad. It's terribly cold. My hands have hurt all day. Also, I was downtown and told some people to give me a call if we were going to be meeting for work. Unfortunately, T-Mobile's downtown network went down today, so I missed the calls. That's pretty great. Thanks, guys. Oh well.

Tomorrow is a teaching day. That's always fun.

Funny Story.

So. Speaking of the Bears.

There was this one time when I attended a regular season game between the Bears and the Panthers. We were cheering for the Panthers, which was no huge deal until the guys behind us went from drunk to wasted and the Panthers really started to lose. Soldier Field is not the place you want to be while cheering for a losing visiting team.

While I hate confrontation, sometimes when I have angry drunks hurling insults at the back of my head, my mouth just starts going. No real destination in mind. Just going.

The game ended as things really started to escalate. The guys threw some punches, though none of them really connected. Security escorted us all out of the section, and the guys told us they'd be waiting for us in the parking lot. They weren't. Or maybe they got lost. It's a big parking lot.

Anyway, I was telling this story at a bar in Old Town one night, complete with details and physical reenactments when I look up and see the very same guys. It was amazing. What are the odds? This was at least a week later and in a totally different part of town.

They didn't see me, and none of the people I was with seemed to believe that it was actually the same guys. But there they were. Strange.


SO I BUSTED A BOTTLE OVER ONE GUY'S HEAD!

Or. You know. I would have.

Bears and such.

Look what I found on my doorstep this morning.

Ok, so that's a lie. I just found this guy on google images. There's no WAY anyone in this town would part with a spindly and clearly frightened dog wearing a Bears sweater on a day like today! The Bears are headed to the Super Bowl!

Now I'll be honest. I'm not that excited. I like the Bears, but they aren't my 'team'. They are my number two team, and who wants to be number two? It would be disingenuous to play the fairweather fan now. Don't get me wrong. That's not stopping EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN CHICAGO, but I opt to not go that route.

There's a real sense of guardedness among many of the Bears fans. I'd say that's especially true for the fans who really seem to follow football and are fans of the game, and not just the team. They all say we're going to win, but it doesn't feel like most of them believe it.

Still, if they pull it off, look out. It's never too cold to riot.

I actually left before Sunday's game was over. It was a thrashing, and I'm no gaper. I went to the movie theater around the corner and caught Children of Men. It was a real stunner. The acting was pretty excellent, the cinematography was gritty and realistic, and the dystopia presented in the movie seemed alarmingly possible. Go see it.

Cagematch

So last night I performed twice. I had an 8 o'clock show with Cowlick at the Playground and had an absolute blast. I love those guys. It's really a group that makes you feel comfortable doing just about anything. On top of that, we had a great crowd with lots of evergy that helped fuel the performers. The other groups had good shows too. Always a good time.

After that, I had a midnight show at the iO Cagematch. Our group, Hell Hath No Fury, is composed of people who have all been cut, dropped, passed over, or otherwise disrespected by iO. What a fun group. Seriously. We've performed together twice, but never really rehearsed. The shows have still been north of solid. I hope we can stay in the race. The cagematch has a bracket system based on audience votes. We've advanced to the elite 8. Fun times.

Lake Shore Drive

Know what song I like? Lake Shore Drive by Aliotta, Haynes, and Jeremiah.

There are certain songs that really make me miss certain places I have lived. These aren't necessarily songs I've loved forever, though I tend to like them a whole lot. They also aren't songs that I was incredibly keen on the entire time I lived in the place. In some cases, I don't even discover the song until I have lived in a place a while, or even moved away. Some tunes that jump to mind are Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show, which makes me yearn for the mountains of North Carolina, and Carolina in my Mind by James Taylor, which remind me of my childhood in the swampy midlands of South Carolina.

Lake Shore Drive is turning into that song for me for Chicago. Until now, the closest I had come was Sweet Home Chicago, which is fun, but not quite 'it'.

The song feels like something out of "A Mighty Wind" in spots, has the sort of cutesy drug references you might expect from a lot of folk songs, and sings the praises of a road on the shores of Lake Michigan at a time when the winds off the lake make it pretty inhospitable and the city seems bound and determined to ensure I never drive again. Still, I dig the tune.

Anyway, if you don't know the song, here are the lyrics:

There’s a road I’d like to tell you about,
lives in my home town.
Lake Shore Drive the road is called
and it’ll take you up or down.
From rags on up to riches
fifteen minutes you can fly.
Pretty blue lights along the way,
help you right on by.
And the blue lights shining with a heavenly grace,
help you right on by

(Chorus) And there ain’t no road just like it
Anywhere I found
Running south on Lake Shore Drive
heading into town
Just slippin’ on by on LSD,
Friday night trouble bound

And it starts up north from Hollywood,
water on the driving side
Concrete mountains rearing up,
throwing shadows just about five
Sometimes you can smell the green
if your mind is feeling fine
There ain’t no finer place to be,
than running Lake Shore Drive
And there’s no peace of mind, or place you see,
than riding on Lake Shore Drive

(Chorus)

And it’s Friday night and you’re looking clean
To early to start the rounds
A ten minute ride from the Gold Coast back
make sure you’re pleasure bound
And it’s four o’clock in the morning
and all of the people have gone away
Just you and your mind and Lake Shore Drive,
tomorrow is another day
And the sunshine’s fine in the morning time,
tomorrow is another day.

(Chorus)

Grumble Grumble

Well, we're two weeks into 2007 and I have fallen off the blog wagon. I'll see if I can rectify that. I just haven't been in the mood and sometimes I feel like I'm just spurting boring crap into the ether.

Anyway, here's a few random highlights and lowlights:

-The City of Chicago is close to losing a resident. I love this town most of the time, and am its fiercest supporter. Still, in the last week, I have been taken for close to a grand by the make-the-gestapo-proud tactics of the Department of Streets and Sanitation and the Department of Revenue. I pay your stupid inflated taxes. I buy your stupid city stickers. Give me a damn break every now and then, Chicago. And by the way, even a mild Chicago winter could be a little nicer. Don't do me any favors.

-I got a new part-time job. Document management for a bank. Is it super-compelling? No. However, I do get to work a TOTALLY FLEXIBLE 15-20 hrs a week for a decent hourly wage. While I am there, I never have to answer a phone or talk to anyone. I get to scan and organize documents while listening to music and daydreaming. Not bad for a part-time gig.

-I had a blast a sketchfest. Both shows were a smashing success, and it was a fun environment.


Anyway. Times are a tiny bit tough. Lean, but never bad.

Sketchfest

Every year, some comedy types here in Chicago host SketchFest. Folks from all over come to perform. Most of the groups are from the US and Canada, and I’d bet that the largest chunk of those are actually from right here in Chicago.

For the first time, I’m taking part in the festival. Twice, actually. Fowler Family Radio Hour performed opening night to a very warm response, and Cowlick performs tonight.

One thing that gets a little old about the improv/sketch scene here is that it gets a little insular. You end up getting the same folks through the door for event after event. The audience gets jaded. Things stagnate.

Sketchfest brings in a lot of fresh blood. I hardly recognized anyone in the crowd, and they seemed to really enjoy the show. That was fun.

Long Break

Well, I had a great Christmas break. It was a week and a half of warm weather, fried nonsense, bonfires, presents, and jokes. These days, going home almost has a sort of summer camp feel to it. During the holidays, there are more bodies than beds, so cots, air mattresses, and couch-sleeping is all pretty much par for the course.

As you can see, Mom made a visit to the App State bookstore before Christmas. I nabbed Bailey a Cubs outfit, too. We're doing our best to indoctrinate her nice and early.

It was warm. One day I washed my car in a bathing suit and a t-shirt. Another couple of days we drove around with the top down. We ate like kings, spent lots of time with friends and family, and even drove through Boone on the way back.

One night we even had this little redneck extravaganza:

The smoke in the foreground is from a bonfire. In the rear (in front of the barn and under the tarp) you can see a silver pot on a burner attached to a propane tank. That contains a frying turkey. The pickup truck contains several wooden pallets that fueled that bonfire.

yum.

Anyway, the trip was awesome. It 's good to be back in Chicago, but things are pretty hectic right now. 0-60.

Hap hap happy days.

I'm in SC visiting my family for Christmas. Expect updates after the Christmas Crazy winds down.

For the record, it's like 70 degrees out.

Hmmm.

So I was pretty jazzed about my trip to Chattanooga and the ASU/UMass game. (in case you hadn't noticed).

Now I'm back in town, I've got my mind on Christmas, and I'm temping for the day to earn a little extra holiday cash. (That's what you do when you work from home and don't have much else to do on a particular day.)

I'm sitting at the desk of a UMass grad.

Hold on. Mild irony is on line two.

2 in the bag.

I just got back from Chattanooga, and boy, oh boy what a game! It was an awesome experience. On top of great football and AMAZING weather, I saw tons of old friends that I never get to see anymore. We tailgated for about 6 hours, which seems about right to me. You should have seen the stadium parking lot. UMass fans were scarce. It was like a home game. And we weren't the only fans to make the journey. Chattanooga seems pretty close to Boone, but in reality, it's about a 5 hour trek. Fans coming from places like Raleigh had about an 8 hour drive on their hands. There were lots of fans there, though, that I am sure traveled at least as far as we did to see this game.

We nailed it. The Mountaineers started out shaky, but corrected with the sort of precision and ease that makes ASU such an awesome team. That only underscores by faith in the talent of the team and the insight and skill of the coaching staff. UMass put up a solid fight. They are a good team with a lot of talent. The game was no walk in the park, but we just out-fought, outran, and out-played these guys.

Lets do the numbers, sports fans:

Miles from Chicago to Chattanooga to Chicago: 607 + 607= 1214
Hours in the car, round-trip: 9.5+9.5= 19
Motels stayed in: 2 (though since one of them was a Motel 6, maybe 7?)
Chick-fil-a or Bojangles restaurants in Chicago: 0
Percent chance that I would visit the south without eating at both of those joints: 0
Degrees outside: 68
Clouds in the sky: 1 (Maybe. All day.)
Approximate percentage of Finley Stadium's seats filled by ASU fans: 80-85
Total number of fans in the stands: 22,808
Number of DI-AA National Championships to have that many fans in attendance since the championship moved to Chattanooga in 1997: 0
Years Armanti Edwards has been alive: 18
Other 18-year-olds I know who can run or pass like he can: 0
Kevin Richardson's 2007 Rushing Yards: 1,676
Number of years Richardson has left at App: 1
Number of years Edwards has at App: 3
Times in the next 3 years I think we can rock this thing again, at minimum: 3
Points scored by Appalachian State: 28
Points scored by UMass: 17
How right Adam Witten was in guessing the score, by percent: 100
Riots started by UMass students in Amherst (story): 1
Riots started in Chattanooga or Boone by ASU fans: 0
National Championships won by App State in the past two years: 2
Rough percentage that amounts to: 100

How awesome this weekend has been for me, for the school, for the team, and for football, on a scale of 1-10: 11.

Go App. And then go again. Because that's what you do.

Chattanooga-bound.

App State is headed to the Division 1-AA National Championship in Chattanooga, TN.

I am heading down to see the game. 600 miles. 9 and a half hours. Who cares?

My friend Shelby, a fellow Chicagoan and ASU alum got the tickets first thing Monday morning, which is fortunate. The initial ASU allotment of 7500 tickets sold out in the first part of the first day. The additional allotment of 950 tickets sold out in a little over 3 hours. Anyone who still wants tickets can jump on ebay and pay a hundred bucks a pop for them. Yikes.

I can't even tell you how pumped I am. Armanti Edwards? Kevin Richardson? Marques Murrell? Yes, please. These guys are playing some of the best ball out there.

I'll let you know how awesome it was when I return. My pick?

App State: Eleventy billion, six hundred million, four hundred thousand and four.
UMass: 6, scored during halftime while ASU was relaxing in the locker room listening to James Brown while Chancellor Peacock showed off his juggling accumen.

BSOD

The 'blue screen of death', they call it. It's a lovely little device that lets you know your computer is a goner.

Why mention it? Because I was greeted by one when I turned on my computer Saturday.
I was on my way out of town, so I didn't think all that much of it. I figured that when I had time I could sit down and figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

I get back Sunday night, go do my Fowler show (which was awesome this week, by the by), grab some beers with the cast, come home, and see that the BSOD remains. No time to worry about that. I get some rest.

I wake up Monday. Time to temp all day. I assemble furniture fresh out of the box from the Chinese factories for a furniture company sample show. Then I run some errands, have a Cowlick show, and head home.

Screen: Still blue and deathy.

No worries. I'm sleepy from a long day. Snore. Snore.

From 7:30 this morning until sometime after noon I try to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. I get the standard Dell runaround and they pretty much tell me that I have to buy a new hard drive and start from scratch.

I say, how much will that cost? They say at least $150. I ask what the dimensions of the hard drive are so I can shop around. They won't tell me. The guy refuses.

Me: "You won't tell me what size hard drive my laptop requires?"
Him: "I told you, 40 gigabyte, 60 giga..."
Me: "No. I mean the dimensions. Inches."
Him: "I won't tell you that."

The guy then tries to tell me that only Dell hard drives will work in my laptop. Horsecrap. Dell doesn't even make hard drives, to my knowledge. They use Hitachi or Samsung or whatever parts like anyone else.

I tell him I want to speak to a supervisor.

He hangs up on me.

Eventually I get a guy who helps me partition, format, and reset my existing drive. Worked like a charm, but it wiped out all of my notes from Dallas, all of my old work emails, and anything else I forgot to back up on my existing hard drive.

Great. Square one. Still, at least it's a square.

So long, Dallas

Pleased to meetcha.

Yee-haw

In the lobby of my hotel, there is a giant statue of a cowboy getting thrown from his horse.

Super.

Last night I wandered around downtown Dallas for no less than an hour, and not even convenience stores were open. I ended up eating chicken wings and drinking Budweiser at the bar of a Hooters.

It seems like everyone who works downtown, or at least in the vague vicinity of where I'm staying (though I walked around a lot. I must have covered a couple of miles, albeit in sort of a circular fashion) pretty much lives somewhere else.

There are also some abandoned buildings, like the Dallas Grand Hotel. That place is right frightening, but I didn't have my camera when I passed it.

There's a few examples of that kind of juxtaposition between the modern, shiny Dallas and the decrepit, aging Dallas. Right across from our hotel, which is deluxe and modern, is the boarded-up Dallas High School. No apparent attempt to redo or tear down the place. Just a boarded-up ghost of a building.

Timmy does Dallas.

I'm in Dallas for a telecom conference. Oh joy of all joys.

It's not a bad conference, as these sorts of things go. I just don't really like traveling for work. I barely know the coworker that I'm here with and the meetings are usually less than exciting. I don't really feel comfortable in the room where I'm staying, and most of the people at the conference are... well... not really my kind of people. They're generally either several decades older than me or super-slick sales types.

The part of Dallas we are in is so boring that listening to lectures on telecommunications is blisteringly attractive compared to tottering around the maze of homogenized office buildings and bar-grills. If I can find a grocery store or something of the sort, I'm going to buy a bag of cheetos and a sixer and hole up until my flight leaves on Thursday. I'd normally be more adventurous in a new city, but I am exhausted after spending all day talking and listening and standing and wearing uncomfortable shoes, and have a day full of the same crap tomorrow.

Some people live for this stuff. I just kinda want to go home.

Door County

It was rough, but I braved the snow, got free of Chicago, and am up in Door County for Cowlick's annual Christmas trip. Martin's parents have a place overlooking the bay, and there are hot tubs and saunas and all that good stuff. Tough life, I know.

On the way up, Scotty and I saw dozens of cars that had spun off of the road and were hanging out in ditches. There were a few close calls, but we made it.

Quick shout out to the world's drivers: If the roads suck, you're driving way too fast and cutting people off, and you haven't had an accident yet, it isn't because you're a great driver. It's because you are lucky. Slow down, moron.

Ahem. Sorry.

We had our secret santa last night. I got a nice flask, prefilled and everything. My gift? The biggest bottle of Maker's Mark I could find to the biggest Maker's Mark fan I know. Sense a trend? That's one of the things that Door County is always good for.

We played some games and went swimming. It's our third trip up, and the first since Sarah left for Boston. The first time we had an odd number. Weird.

That picture of Jason is from last year. I don't have my camera cable.

Crap.

Thanksgiving, et. al.

Well, I hadn't planned on it, but I made my way down to South Carolina for Thanksgiving after all. It wasn't under the happiest of circumstances, so the whole trip was painted with a tinge of sadness, but my family is nothing if not 'game'. We roll with punches pretty well. Even punches straight to the jaw when we weren't paying attention.

I got my brakes fixed Monday and hit the road around two. The drive itself was more taxing than usual. My sleep from the night before lacked in quantity and quality. I listened to a couple of books on tape, ate at a Waffle House, and caught a few hours of snooze time at a rest stop in Tennessee. That all helped.

I pulled into my Mom's driveway around 7 am on Tuesday. Everyone was still in bed, but, as I found out later, had barely slept since Sunday. Everyone, that is, except for my sister-in-law Amber and this kid:


(That picture is NOT of Amber and Bailey. That's my brother Sam. He just has Farrah hair.) She made the long drive kind of ok. Over the next few days I ate, drank, laughed, and cried, all in complete and total excess. It was a sort of extra-gluttonous Thanksgiving.

We didn't do the traditional dinner at Grandmama's house like we usually do. It was too weird. There was one of those guestbooks on a stand in the entryway and people kept coming over and bringing food. Nothing says 'condolences' like pie says 'condolences'.

To be totally honest, my brothers and I kinda stuck around my mom's place to avoid the funereal feel of my Grandma's. Mom, Grandmama, and Uncle Harry all lived within about ten or fifteen minutes of eachother. We'd go and hang out with the larger family for a while, but then we'd have to come home, play with a baby and deep-fry turkey.

We fried two of them. We had a pot of 350 degree peanut oil on a cooker in our back yard, and cooked a couple of those suckers after we injected them with creole spice and cajun butter and rubbed them down with spices. It was our first and second tries, and we already have plans to do at least 3 for Christmas.

The funeral itself was on Friday. Gun salute. Bugle call. People were pretty stoic until then. We all kinda lost it when the rifles started going off and they folded up the flag. Even my Grandma. And she's made of die-cast metal.

I drove back up on Saturday. I went through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It was an extra 45 minutes to go that way, but when you're driving for 15 or 16 hours, that's a drop in the bucket. A few years ago we all took a trip to the Smokies with Uncle Harry and his daughter Jessica. It was on that trip that I fell in love with the mountains, and it was that love for the mountains that took me to App State, where I fell in love with improv, which brought me to Chicago. The trip to the Smokies was my Uncle Harry's idea.

Back.

I'm back from SC. I have lots to talk about, but no time to talk about it. I plan to post a full update tomorrow. Until then, enjoy this picture, which I like to call "Spaghetti Aftermath".