Let's see. 75 degree days. Electric blanket is on my bed. Turning on the space heater in my basement. Football has begun. Rangers in training camp. I am working nights. Yep, fall is here.
1) Sunday went like this: Four eggs with guac for breakfast, church (starting a series on Ecclesiastes), Come Thirsty (smaller crowd), Real Time (Jets win!), Festival of the Vine, mini-golf and Muldoon's with Derek. Outstanding day. I wish someone was there though. All in all, it could not have been much better.
2) Breaking it down, CT has to end at a reasonable time. 12:00 and that was long enough. Real Time is a very nice bar, but the food is just too expensive. So I was happy to see their $1.25 slider football special. Two cheeseburgers, one turkey burger, and two BBQ porks and iced tea cost me $6.25. I guess the iced tea was free! And I probably drank five of them, so I came out the winner in that one.
3) My booth was surrounded by Lions fans. So with the Jets hammering the Texans, I was definitely the loudest one in my section. And I am quite excited about this aggressive, attacking defense. I have never in 20 years seen the Jets play D like this. If the offense can just protect the ball and get in the end zone maybe twice a game, this could be a fun season. And I must say I am excited by Mr. Mark Sanchez.
4) After getting washed out last year, the Festival returned to downtown Geneva. I heard about 2/3 of the Stingrays show and they were excellent as always. The keyboard player was not there though, so I couldn't hear "Light My Fire." For food, I had the egg roll/fried rice from Gen Hoe, the Cuban sandwich from Urban Grille, and an apple cobbler with maple-honey ice cream from some place. I was hoping for the Urban Grille banana cream pie but they decided to pack up and leave with 90 minutes remaining before closing time. No good! No good! But the cobbler was more than fine. Oh, and I had four different wines, two red, two white. And as I pretty much expected, my companion did not show up.
5) So it was around 5:30 when I walked to my car when Derek called. Next thing I know, I drove to Wheaton. With wine in my system. Last time we hung out, he beat me pretty good in bowling. Of course, this was Wheaton Bowl where they don't have any balls that weight less than 35 pounds. I had the upper hand in mini-golf, I took him down by nine strokes. Then, we headed to Muldoon's to watch the first half of Bears-Packers. There were about 30 Bears fans in the bar and they were pretty crazy. With each interception by Jay Cutler, they only got more aggravated. It was a very ugly game. We talked about some guy issues, the whole thing. Left there around 10 pm and finally made it home. Back to the 12 hour work day.
6) The Peoria move went very well. 2.5 hours each way. I was very pleased the whole unloading process took under one hour. And the drive home was cool. I went through a lot of towns I had only heard about: Chillicothe, Serena, Newark, and Yorkville, for instance.
7) The New York Mets cannot score a run off Pedro Martinez in CBP over eight innings. God, please numb me.
8) Terrestrial radio continues to digress by the week. Or is it the music of today that is just plain lousy? I try to watch my spending, but man alive, XM radio is getting more appealing.
9) I am very ready for the locker rooms at the health club to be finished with the remodeling process. A steam room and a working sauna would be welcome additions...
10) Four days till The Final Countdown: I will really miss Bryan and Nigel.
Song pick: "When Love and Hate Collide" Def Leppard
