Open 24 Hours / Horray for Woodman's!

This is the greatest grocery store ever. It's one of those places that has everything you could possibly think of, and some things you've never heard of. It has the greatest liquor store in the area. Hundreds of different wines, every micro-brew beer under the sun, and even though I'm not a hard liquor man, every type and brand imaginable. Oh, and did I mention the prices are the best in the area? Not to mention it's open 24 hours! Perfect!

It's a pretty good time to get groceries. At 10 pm on a Saturday, the place is a virtual ghost town. The only drawback is the kick-ass liquor store isn't open past 9:00. I love to go there and just pick a new kind of beer to try. Lately I've been getting this micro-brew out of Chicago called Goose Island. The Honker's Ale is their "basic" beer, and is really good. I'm also a big fan of the Nut Brown Ale and the India Pale Ale. If you're local, give it a try!

Insistent

This cat is crazy. Every morning, while brushing my teeth, he completely loses his mind. He sits on the toilet, absolutely demanding I pay attention to him. His eyes glaze over, his tail puffs out to twice its size, the hair on his back stands up, and he climbs all over me until I pet him. This is bizarre behavior for this one, since he's usually the anti-social type.

We had some crazy weather again today. We didn't get a whole lot of snow, but we've had 30+ mph winds, and it's been pretty cold, so most of the roads were covered in ice. The snow was blowing so much that it completely obscured my vision a few times. I was nearly run off the road by a bright yellow moving van, filled to the brim with Mexican musicians. True story. The trip home this morning, which usually takes about 25 minutes, actually took me nearly an hour. It felt odd to drive 35 - 40 on I90, but after seeing about 6 cars in the ditch and a semi jackknifed about 1/2 mile away from my exit, it was obviously necessary.

Outage!

I should have titled this post “Outrage” instead. I’m writing this on March 1^st in Microsoft Word, because my internet has been out for about 16 hours now. Once again, the Midwest has been hit with a series of pretty nasty storms, and surprisingly, this is the first time we’ve suffered an outage of any kind. The “Outrage” comes from Mediacom’s piss-poor customer service department. I called to try to find out what the problem was, and waited on hold for about 20 minutes. Funny thing about their recorded message when you’re on hold, it gives you about three different things to try to re-establish your connection. Unfortunately, two of those things require AN INTERNET CONNECTION! After finally reaching a rep, I told him what the problem was. He asked for my phone number, then said, “You’re part of an outage right now.” That’s it. All that time on hold so he could tell me what I already know? I asked, “How long will it be out?” To which he replied, “I don’t have that information.” That’s 25 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

*Update
So obviously, they fixed it. Think they'll credit me for the 16+ hours of no service? Nah, I didn't think so either....

February: In Review

Well, I'm now two months in, and I can honestly say I'm ready for spring. I never thought I'd "run out" of things to shoot in my house, but it seems I'm getting to that point. I've decided that the last day of every month will be a little "break", and that I'll be posting my three favorite shots from that month, and recounting the major things that happened.

The Bears lost the Super Bowl. Boy, I'm so glad to be thinking about that again. That was probably the biggest event for me this month. It was really great to see them there, and to spend that day with Dad watching the game.
I also learned this month that Chrysler's cutting 11,000 jobs. They haven't really said much still, but they have announced the buyout packages. If you have 1 year or more of service, they will give you $100,000 to walk away. How crazy is that?!? Too bad I'm not eligible....

Here's my three favorite shots for the month. Bring on March!!

The True Cost of Bottled Water

From treehugger.com:
"In summary, the manufacture and transport of that one kilogram bottle of Fiji water consumed 26.88 kilograms of water (7.1 gallons) .849 Kilograms of fossil fuel (one litre or .26 gal) and emitted 562 grams of Greenhouse Gases (1.2 pounds)."

Pretty stunning stuff. I read this article the other day, and I had to share it. Fiji water, which this bottle is not, is the second highest selling imported bottled water behind Evian in the United States. It's pretty amazing the price people are willing to pay for something that comes out of your sink for free. For the record, Steph buys one bottle per week, then re-fills it about a zillion times. Wouldn't want to look like a hypocrite, right?

Source

My Tools

This is the camera I use primarily to take my photos. It's a Nikon D70 Digital SLR. 6.1 Megapixel, with a 18-70 DX Zoom Nikkor lens, and a SB-600 Speedlight. Quite a step away from what Grandpa used to use, right? I also have a Kodak DX6440 point and shoot camera that I take with me most of the time, but the results simply can't compare to what I get with this.

I think it's important to note that even thought digital cameras have dominated the market in the last 5 or 6 years, and the megapixel levels keep climbing monthly, no digital camera will ever compare to what you can do with film. Some of my best shots were taken with my Nikon N65 and a roll of Kodak TMAX 200. Hopefully, once spring gets here and I actually have the time and motivation to leave the house, I plan on taking some shots with film. I probably won't get them on the blog right away, but they'll find their way here eventually.

My Grandpa's Tools

Just a camera, right? No. This isn't just a camera. This is my Grandpa's camera. This is the camera he carried with him all across Europe during World War II. This camera has traveled more than I have my entire life. Grandpa decided he wanted me to have this when I became interested in photography. When he gave it to me, it still had film in it that had been used! Unfortunately, when I had it processed, the film had been exposed at some point. It would've been amazing to see what was on it. Grandpa has a photo album he's showed me a couple times with photos from the war. He had a friend who was a photographer for the Army who took some seriously disturbing shots. He has copies of some of those, and another shot of a ship absolutely filled with soldiers. Somehow, Grandpa managed to actually find himself in the shot, and has circled the location. I really wanted to shoot with this camera, but unfortunately, you can't get any film that will fit in it. I'm really honored he wanted me to have it.

Movie Night

Well, Illinois weather kicked us in the butt again. We're getting hit with a pretty bad storm, so Steph and I stayed in tonight and watched a couple movies. The Prestige, which is based on a book I read a couple weeks ago, was fantastic. The other movie we watched was Thanks for Smoking. That was alright, but nothing to rave about. We also have An Inconvenient Truth, but we'll likely watch that later. Steph, the first shifter, can't stay up all night like some of us....

Dodge Loves Crackdown!

I recently bought this awesome new game for the Xbox 360 called Crackdown. I won't go into specifics, but basically you're a genetically engineered superhero running through this open city, fighting against organized crime. The first day I played, I ran across this billboard! It seems DaimlerChrysler's marketing department decided to advertise the car I build, the Dodge Caliber, in this game! You can also see billboards for the Dodge Nitro. I just thought that was cool.

Insomnia

God, I can't sleep. This happens to me about once or twice a week. I'm tired at work, tired on the way home, tired when I get home, then about 8:30, I wake right up. I gradually get tired again, but by that time it's about 11:00 and way too late for me to be going to bed. Steph usually wakes me up at 6:00, so I get less than 7 hours of sleep. That may be enough for some of you, hell for some of you that may be a lot of sleep, but for me, that's a disaster. I really need a lot of sleep in order to function.

I'm going to try to go to bed. Wish me luck.

Nap Time!

We don't let the cats sleep with us. That would be total madness. Since Steph and I work different shifts and are sleeping at different times, the bedroom is really only open for about 3 hours a day. As soon as Steph opens the door to get me up, at least two of the cats immediately get on the bed and go to sleep. This is typically enough to get me out of bed. We used to keep the bedroom open when we slept, but Punkin doesn't seem to understand that when I'm sleeping, I really don't want to pet him/play with him. Pretty annoying at 3 in the morning.

Yuck!

This awesome birthday card arrived to me today from my family in California. My nephew, Noah (that's him in the picture), drew this portrait of me! The caption needs some explaining.

A couple years ago, when Kathie and Noah came to visit from CA, Noah was felling a little under the weather. He had a seriously runny nose, and when I was holding him on the way out of the airport, I basically looked at him and said "Yuck!" He thought that was the funniest thing he had ever heard. All through their visit he and I would go back and forth with "Yeeeeeuck!" Fast forward another year, Kathie and Noah are here for another visit. Now understand, Noah is just a toddler, which makes this story much more awesome. As soon as Kathie and Noah came down the stairs into luggage claim, he looked at me, his face lit up with an amazing smile, and he said, "Yeeeeeeuck!" I'll never forget that as long as I live. It was great.

Mmmm..... sausage

I've just realized how much freakin food I post on this blog. There's a few reasons for that. One, food is good. I like food. It's tasty. Two, when it's too cold to even think about going outside, the last thing I want to do is take pictures there. Three, I'M RUNNING OUT OF THINGS IN MY HOUSE TO SHOOT!!! I'm not kidding. It's getting out of hand. I really can't wait until the weather starts to change again so I can actually go somewhere to shoot some pictures. This winter thing is getting a bit old.

Recharging

It's funny how small electronics have slowly integrated themselves into our lives. Even Stephanie, who is a self-proclaimed "tech-hater", has an iPod and a cell phone! You never know how much you "need" something until it's been invented and you own one. For example, before iPod, I carried around a massive CD binder, filled with about 80 discs. Now, I carry this little white and chrome device that not only has those 80 discs on it, but can also potentially hold another 250! It's really amazing. I'm to the point now where I couldn't imagine not having an iPod. Apple's marketing department would love hearing that. The best part about the majority of these devices is the rechargable batteries! Can you imagine how many AAAs we'd burn through if the iPod didn't recharge? Sheesh....

Poker Night

Played poker tonight, as you can see. It was a lot of fun, and I actually won some money! We played a cash game with a $5.00 buy-in, then if you run out of chips you can re-buy for $5.00 unlimited times. I was lucky enough to not need a re-buy, and walked away ahead $11.00.

This is one thing that is really difficult with my new job. Working 6 days a week, third shift, we haven't been able to spend much (if any) time with our friends. I just hope they realize that it's not that we don't want to hang out and do things, it's just very difficult when you only have one night a week. There are people who Steph and I really value as friends, and we don't want to lose that.

Too...Many...Books....

Is it possible to have too many books? Well, there's certainly too many books on this shelf. Steph and I both read pretty constantly, so we've amassed a small collection of paperbacks and hardcovers. She probably reads more that me, but an hour lunch break will do that to ya. I thought I'd list some of my favorites and recommendations.

We both really like Stephen King, and although he's no Chaucer, he's certainly entertaining. Even if you don't like his typical fare, I would recommend his Dark Tower series to anyone. This series is King's Lord of the Rings.

I just finished reading The Prestige by Christopher Priest. Wow. Absolutely fantastic. There was a movie based on this book in 2006 that I really wanted to see. It was actually a sleeper hit in 2006 and was nominated for an Academy Award. I'm looking forward to its release.

For those of you into fantasy/sci-fi, one of my all time favorite series is the Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I've probably read this series about 5 times. No small feat considering it's seven books.

Finally, I want to mention the Bourne series of books by Robert Ludlum. These are the Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremecy, and The Bourne Ultimatum. If you liked the movies, you should love the books. They're very intense, and very fast paced.

If any of you have any recommendations for me, feel free to post them in the comments. I'm always looking for something new to read!

Pitchers and Catchers Report!

Possibly the four greatest words in the English language, the title of today's post is the unofficial start of Baseball season. I can't wait! After the Bears dropped a deuce in the biggest game of their lives, I've been counting down the days until the opener. Oh, it's 46 in case you're wondering.

Okay, so I want to clarify what I was alluding to in yesterday's post. From the New York Times:

"The Chrysler Group is set to announce a restructuring plan Wednesday aimed at securing its place in the crowded American car market — and within DaimlerChrysler.
The plan is expected to include the elimination of about 11,000 blue- and white-collar jobs along with the closing of one and possibly two assembly plants — in Delaware and Missouri — people with direct knowledge of the plan said this week."

This is obviously big news, but I'm not quite sure that's it's bad news...yet. This could be a really good thing for me. It all depends on the amount of people that will take the expected buyout/early retirement packages at the Belvidere facility. They're going to need people to fill those positions, not to mention the positions myself and people like me are currently filling. On the other hand, since I'm considered a "temporary" worker, they could just sack the lot of us and call it a day. Right now, I really don't know how to take this announcement. I remain cautiously optimistic.

My Wii is Glowing!

I'm a gamer. No surprise there, right? For all of you living in a third world country, this is the Nintendo Wii. It does this really cool thing where if you have a message, the disc slot glows blue and pulses! Very distracting, but very cool. The games are controlled by moving the controller in physical space. No 16 button controller here. Very simple, very accessible, very hard to find. My Wii isn't feeling so well right now, so I'm sending it back to Nintendo for repairs. No big deal, it's all covered under warranty. Nintendo has the best customer service around!

I decided to stay home last night, because the road conditions were not good. I hate to miss any work, especially considering DaimlerChrysler's recent announcement, but sometimes you have to be safe.

*edit*
To give you a better idea of what this Wii thing is all about, here's a short video of Dad and I playing Wii Sports: Bowling. Please ignore Dad's comment about his "gay" pink bowling ball....

Third Shift Annoyance #4: Shoveling in the Dark

Fun, fun, fun! I love to shovel! Nothing beats a huge pain in the back, biting sub-zero winds, and soaking wet shoes! Not to mention it's pitch black outside! WOO-HOO!! Picking up the sarcasm yet? Yeah.

So we've been hit again. We actually didn't get that much snow, but add the 20+ mph winds, and you've got some serious drifting. On the way home this morning I saw 4' drifts on the road. Needless to say, the plows were running a bit behind schedule. I parked my truck in the driveway when I got home, and when I went outside tonight, there was a 3' drift right up next to it. I tried to move my truck to the street, backed up too far, and immediately became stuck. 1/2 hour later, I finally started my favorite chore. I'll be parking on the street until this crap melts, but Steph can get in and out of the garage now. Your welcome honey!

Harmony

I had some seriously disturbing dreams last night. I won't get into details, but it was one of those dreams that stays with you after you wake. Have you ever had a dream that put you into a very strong emotional state, then when you wake up you still feel like that? It was one of those.

I must say, however, that I am far from a "normal" sleeper. I talk, toss and turn, steal the covers, and occasionally I'll just have a walk about the house. Far from normal. I had a sleep study a couple years ago, but since I was incredibly uncomfortable, I couldn't sleep when I was there. The doctor said I woke up something like 47 times. Some ridiculous number like that. Needless to say, the test was inconclusive.