Day 158

This blog entry is being crafted 30,000 feet above your heads. I’m on my way to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for my second of four Edward Don conferences. The first was the one I went to in Dallas in late April. Dallas in late April is much better than Florida in June. The forecast is calling for rain and humidity the whole time I am there. Oh well, I’ll be inside the whole time anyways. The good thing about this conference is that unlike the Dallas conference, I have two other reps with me who actually know what they are doing,so my job is more of an entertaining, handshaking and “being seen by the right people” situation. The other reps will be doing the majority of the talking during the two days of rotations, which is nice. The only bummer is that I am missing the Artie Lange roast on Howard Stern tonight. Oh well, life goes on.

I know some people hate it (Jaimo, Tony Kornheiser, John Madden), but flying doesn’t bother me in the least bit. I have been a business traveler now pretty much extensively for the last 7 years. I don’t know about you, but every time I fly, I have the same exact thoughts at the same exact time. Right when I take off, as the plane is starting its ascent, my thoughts immediately are “what if I die in a plane crash” and I think about Leah, my mom, and my brother. Or when Leah and I fly I think about our families in general losing us both. I know that may sound crazy, but it happens without fail; especially when I get on an earlier flight, I think about Leah asking herself why did I get on an earlier plane and why is our luck so bad? Kind of a morbid train of thought, especially when I am writing this on a plane, but as you know, I’ve tried to share my random thoughts on this blog as much as I can. It has become such a big part of my routine and has really helped me personally deal with all of the shit I have gone through. I’m not trying to have anyone feel sorry for me or anything like that – I know how good I have it – but sometimes I wonder what I did in this life or any other previous life to be dealt the numerous blows I have received. By the way, still no offers on the condo.

We have had such a great week of weather – yet another reason this trip to Florida is so untimely. 70’s and sunny, not humid at all. We have been taking Casey on walks every night this week. Last night we had another showing for our condo. The silver lining in all of these showings and open houses is that our place is always clean and we have packed up a lot of things. On one of our walks this week, Leah and I have essentially made the executive decision of making July 18th our move date with a caveat. Since we would have to store our furniture in Cleveland anyways, if we haven’t sold our place by them we are going to leave our furniture in the condo. It shows better with it in there anyways, plus we wouldn’t have to pay to store it. We will take all of our clothes, electronic equipment and boxes with us. I will be coming back to Chicago for work, so I can let the movers on one of my trips to remove he remaining stuff. This works out well for everyone. That being said, anyone who reads this, Saturday night July 8th is going to be a big blow out going away party for us. The great Ags and Dave have taken the lead on this. Time and place will be announced soon, but its going to be our last big night in Chicago. Lock me up for shedding a tear or too at the end of that night. Come one come all.

My Yahoo email is still down. They are still giving me run around and it is beyond aggravating. Hopefully by today it will be fixed, but this is getting ridiculous.

This Saturday and Sunday is the staple of every summer for almost everyone I know who lives here – the Old Town art fair, the best street fair of the summer. That is yet another great thing about Chicago, the summer street fairs. There is pretty much one every weekend in a different part of the city. There is this one in Old Town that I love. We usually hit the Sheffield Garden Walk, Retro on Roscoe which takes place in August on our street, The Taste of Lincoln which we hit every summer as well. That is just naming a few. C-Town has the Feast of Assumption and the Rib cook off. The good news is that we have a big house in our dream neighborhood!

Still waiting for my Tribe to go on a big run. We can’t seem to get a streak going. Everytime I think we are going to turn the corner, our fundamentals let us down. Tuesday night was the classic Tribe loss. Bad managing, an error followed by a stolen base, and a single and we lose by 1. Leah asked me the other day how I can have the same conversations every night with my brother and Ags. I told her “how long have you known me? This is par for the course, every summer, pretty much every night.”

Don’t forget to watch the season premier of Entourage this Sunday on HBO. That is the best show on TV right now and approaching my legendary status with Seinfeld, Dallas, and the Sopranos.

I am starting a new feature on this blog that goes along with our move. It’s the Leah work countdown. We started one on the fridge and at the end of each day, she X’s off another day. As of this morning, she has 19 days of that horrible commute left.

Days Till Leah stops working: 19
Song of the Day: “What You See is What you Get” by Xzibit