after a full 10 hours of sleep, we got up and headed a few blocks over to north coast cafe where i had an omlette that (cover your ears nashvillians) rivals any omlette i’ve ever had from the pancake pantry. it was called the yianni and i was mocked by my friends when i ordered it but when it showed up in all its spinach, feta and onion glory, we all knew who made the right choice. alongside some hash browns, two slices of rye toast and a great cup of coffee it was one of the finest breakfasts i’ve had in quite some time. definitely a place to check out if you’re in chicago.

after that we split up and brian and i headed out to do some shopping. i finally got to go into the container store instead of just nerdily surfing their site. and the highlight of my shopping experience in chicago: sur la table. holy crap. its seldom that brian has ever had to say that he can’t get me out of a store, but i think i might have shed a tear when leaving sur la table today. i got some great stuff, most notably a cake holder and some new measuring tools. YAY!

after a late lunch at home, we all tried to avoid being old people and napping until christie’s friends came over for the party. we walked over to the beach where i purchased a jumbo ice cream sandwich. yummy:

a note to shannon’s nashville friends: i just thought you should all know that he changed clothes before this party and wore something besides a white or black tshirt. apparently he never felt the need to dress up for us:

christie’s friends from chicago came over as well as donnie who happened to be in town. we stayed up until well after midnight (yes, midnight!) at which point:

1. shannon wished he was drinking more beer, but was too tired
2. brian wished he was sleeping, because he was too tired
3. i wished i was blogging, but was too tired
4. christie was still mocking shannon. never too tired for some of that.

after our final night of something we liked to call “air mattress wars” (we won’t get any more descriptive than that…) it was time to wake up and drive home, sans shannon. its always sad when you leave your friends behind, but lucky for us, we had some excitement to break up the drive home. we stopped in indianapolis to visit our friends philip and crystal (who are actually coming to visit us in nashville on friday!) it was great to see them and their new house, and we had a great lunch together. discovered that philip is also a new convert to running, with a really great reason for his running. check it out here. he was diagnosed with cancer a few years back and is running the chicago marathon to raise money for cancer research this fall. a fantastic trip to chicago ended on an even better note - next trip to chicago: october 7 to watch philip cross the finish line

managed to experience a bit more of chicago today than yesterday. started out with a 3 mile run down waveland and around wrigley field a few times - it was about 50, overcast, just a little bit of rain and no hills. pretty much perfect.

went downtown to do all the normal touristy chicago stuff. a few out of the ordinary, notable things:

this big shiny ball entertained us for quite some time:

i’m in love with the fancy designs on top of the lattes from intelligentsia:

leave it to us to make something not intended to be touristy become very touristy:

brian squishes large face man

i’m so stupid for only bringing my all stars to wear around while i’m here. i should know better by now. owie.

i finally tried a burrito from chipotle at lunch today. we don’t have them in nashville, but i had heard good things, and confirmed that they do indeed have tasty burritos.

then for dinner we tried a place called sheffield’s - found it at chow.com on their message boards. they had fantastic beverages and really good bbq. (yes, we came all the way to chicago and enjoyed burritos and bbq today)

we decided our big goal for today was going to be to stay up until 10pm to mentally and physically prepare ourselves for the ‘welcome, shannon’ party that will be happening tomorrow night which might require us to stay up until 10 or even 11. i really love being around my friends that are equally as lazy as i am. we really struggled with making ourselves not go to dinner at 4pm. i’m pretty sure we’re all ready to retire together and commit to lives of early bird specials at the golden corral buffet.

so now, its 10pm and we’re back at christie’s again where:
1. shannon’s drinking beer
2. brian fell asleep
3. i’m blogging
4. christie’s mocking shannon

upon arriving in chicago and magically landing a parking spot right in front of christie’s building, we proceeded to finish up the quickest move ever. about 6 trips from the car into the apartment. suh-weet. we walked around to check out the neighborhood: wrigley field, local coffee shop, some stores (so brian could buy a jacket. he forgot to bring one. i, on the other hand, brought three.) its overcast and in the upper 50s - fantastic! went back to christie’s and ordered a pizza. christie had to go to her dance lesson so the evening ended up consisting of:

1. shannon drinking some beer
2. me using my computer
3. brian falling asleep

chicago sure feels a lot like nashville…

we’re so lame.

tomorrow is my last day as a full time employee!

a few weeks ago i put in my notice, planning to leave and spend all of my time on my freelance work. the big drawback was that i can’t get a personal insurance plan, because of my arthritis. however, i knew i could pay to stay on my company’s insurance for 18 months, and while pricey, i just really felt like it was time for me to work for myself. so i went ahead and quit, because i was confident it was what i was supposed to do, even if i wasn’t sure what i was going to do when the 18 months were up. what do you know? once again, god showed up and less than an hour after quitting i was offered a sweet deal that would have me working part time and keeping my benefits for at least a couple months and maybe longer. complete no brainer: deal!

so let me just say, my career as a freelancer is going to kick off in style. a particular favorite client of mine here in town has invited me to join their staff at the historic belcourt theater tomorrow evening. what will we do? watch a movie? perhaps see a distinguished singer/songwriter perform? nah. the invite said to “enjoy some serious guitar hero action and cold beverages”. no, i’m not kidding. i’m going to play xbox on a theater screen tomorrow night. with cold beverages.

then i’m not going to work friday because i don’t have to go to work on fridays anymore (wow, it feels really good to write that - thursday is totally the new friday). instead, i’m going to chicago to help shannon move and my running route this weekend will include a lap around wrigley field.

all that to say, i’m really excited about the next chapter, and whether this lasts 18 months or 18 years, i’m ready to love what i do every day again. its been a rather rough year career-wise, but as of tomorrow at 4pm i can (finally) say that i’m satisfied, and yes just maybe, possibly even happy with how it all panned out. only took me a year.

Are you going to live your life wondering, standing in the back, looking around?
Are you going to waste your time thinking how you’ve grown up, how you missed out?
Things are never going be the way you want, where’s it going to get you acting serious?
Things are never going to be quite what you want, even at twenty five you got to start sometime

Are you going to live your life standing in the back, looking around?
Are you going to waste your time? Gotta make a move or you’ll miss out
Someone’s going to ask you what it’s all about, stick around nostalgia won’t let you down
Someone’s going to ask you what it’s all about, what you going to have to say for yourself?

I’m on my feet, I’m on the floor, I’m good to go,
All I need is just to hear a song I know
I want to always feel like part of this was mine
I want to fall in love tonight

-a praise chorus :: jimmy eat world

competence fell off the wall

Originally uploaded by xetark.

you need to click on this to get the full story. it was so perfect i couldn’t believe it actually happened.

again, it appears as though my mischievous signage has gotten me into trouble. (you may recall the “life threatening diarrhea” sign of late 2000 in which the dean of student affairs held a sign in front of me that read “to whomever stole my grape juice: i hope you suffer from life-threatening diarrhea” and asked me what i hoped to gain from making that sign and posting on my door. after a moment of consideration, and holding back laughter more than i’ve ever had to before, i said “i thought it would make my roomate laugh?” which was apparently not the right answer.)

at work, when you share a common kitchen area, it is important to keep said areas clean and tidy out of respect for your coworkers. i understand this. however, sending me the entire company an email saying that everything in the fridge will be thrown out at 2pm, and implying that all of the employees are as disgusting as some is almost more offensive than someone’s chinese food leftover from last week. what, exactly, am i to do with with my perishables when the refrigerator rampage is happening?

so, i decided to put a note on my hummus so that it would not be thrown away. my hummus and triscuits (olive oil and rosemary variety) are perhaps the highlight of my workday and i was not going to be robbed of that small joy. of course, i couldn’t just write “don’t throw away” on it. what a waste of space! i was going to have a platform, a stage, if you will. perhaps i could make the kitchen clean up squad smile, or chuckle or, god-forbid…laugh.

received the following email before i left work today (it only went to managers)

——(fw message)——

from: accounting
to: all managers within the company

Was just handed this I thought about sending it out to everyone, but ….

This person ‘thought’ they were being funny, I hope. When someone takes their time to clean out our fridge, I don’t think this note is very humorous, especially given our recent discussions on ‘decorum’.

what?! we’re decorating? no one told me or i would have added some sequins to my sign.

view my sign which was taken from my hummus, scanned, saved in pdf format and attached to the preceding email

i have to say, i take a little pride in the fact that someone took the time to scan it in and circulate it around the office.