Looney Junes: My Crazy Busy Month from A to Z

It's been a hell of a month for yours truly. A little bit of everything has happened. A tour of the alphabet is in order....

Awesome girlfriend and cat family. I'm loving the new set-up and loving it even more with the loving g/f and cats that inexplicably entertain me on a daily basis. We've all adjusted to the new neighborhood quite well.

Bowling this summer. Our team has sucked so far this year. However, to start the second half of the year, we swept our first series. Let's see if this carries over into July & August.

Cell Dwelling at US Cellular Field. I've gone to a few games there this June, both unique in their own ways. I experienced my first-ever fog delay on a Monday night game when the White Sox faced the Blue Jays. I also attended the second game of a doubleheader on June 28th as the White Sox blew a 9th inning lead against the Indians.

Donations. Thanks to a last-minute pledge for money in my St. Jude/Warrior Dash efforts, I was able to gather a total of $1070 from my network of family and friends. I know those kids at St. Jude appreciate every single dollar donated. Thank you to everyone who donated.

Exercise. I need to find a gym soon or find new workouts to do. I don't want to regress to what I was before January 1st.

Fit Happens Champion. Over 30 pounds lost. Still have about 20-25 pounds to go before I'll be completely happy.

Game 6 - in both NBA & NHL Finals. Watched both in different venues (NBA at home, NHL at a bar). Each viewing experience left me shocked and reaffirmed why I love watching sports - the unexpected, unscripted drama that you can't get anywhere else.

Holding pattern. I had big plans coming up (trip to Seattle, new bowling league in Fall) that may need to be put on hold with the layoff. Hoping that I can find work quicker than the three months it took between jobs last time.

Ink for my computer. Yep, need some more ink. I had no idea what to write for the I portion of this blog, as you can tell.

Job search in progress. Yep, out of a job starting the end of day, July 5th. Any help would be much appreciated.

(5)K runs. I did my first one in quite a while on June 2nd. Fittingly enough with one of the guys who helped get me into shape. Thanks Chris. Going to try making them a monthly thing. Might hold off on this, depending on cost of 5K. Me needs to save some dough, yo.

Logan Square - love the new neighborhood feel. Moved here June 1. Love it here so far.

Mohawk. It may be short-lived, especially if I start to get interviews soon. I got it in dedication to my cousin Marilyn and the Warrior Dash run. Plus I look awesome with it.

Networking. It's the key that got me my last two jobs. It's exactly where I picked up when I heard the news of being laid off. So far, it has not produced results, but I have faith that my networks will be what gets me employed again.

Olivers. This remains my go-to suburban bar, particularly after bowling on Wednesdays before heading back to the burbs. I caught most of Stanley Cup Game 1 there, the end of Game 4, and always share good stories and good times with my friends there.

Pizza places. My favorite part of moving into a new Chicago neighborhood is to try new pizza places. I do miss Pat's Pizza, but there's a few good joints around here that I'm sure we'll enjoy just as much.

Quarterback Keeper. In less serious news (or more serious, depending on your level of fantasy football interest), trying to decide who to keep in my fantasy football league. Earlier in June, I was thinking Kaepernick. Now, I'm thinking Peyton Manning. I'm not sure how much longer Peyton has. I can keep either one of these guys for the next three seasons. Who would you choose?

Rear ended on June 14th. It was my second accident in a row where my car was not in motion when I got hit. Luckily, it was only a few minor bumps on the bumper. The guy who hit me offered to pay for my troubles, but I was not about to bother with that.

Stanley Cup Playoffs. Definitely the most active I've been involved with hockey in my life (from betting it to watching it). While I give bandwagon people a hard time, I have no problem with them. Bandwagons breed new fans of a sport, and that's never a bad thing - as long as people take the time to learn the sports they follow.

Trans mount. I needed a new one of these for my car (I couldn't tell you what a trans mount is or where it is in my car). I was about to get a new one and pay $400 last month at Firestone, but they didn't have one for my model car. Luckily they didn't - totally forgot about what was covered by CarMax and the warrant. Just got it fixed by CarMax for the low price of free.99.

Uncle Brian. Still is awesome to say. Will always be awesome. Every moment I've had to hold my nephew Brayden has been a fantastic moment. The last two times I saw him this month, he has been looking around and soaking in his environment. Can't believe he's already six weeks old.

Victory parade. I debated whether to attend the Blackhawks parade, but my parade experience in 2010 was all I really needed. Millions of people, with even just 5 or 10 percent of them drunk and an even higher percentage annoying, was not my cup of tea for this year's celebration.

Warrior Dash completed on June 16th. It was much tougher than when I did it three years ago. Glad to be a part of Team Carter.

eXcel Spreadsheets. As I was transferring files to my personal email before my work computer is taken away, I forgot how many excel spreadsheets I've worked with over the years. Many of my blogs had data stored in excels.

Year is half over. The year has flown, but it feels like this month has lasted longer than 30 days, as you can see by this blog.

Zombie Seinfeld. I caught this production on June 14th, right after the rear-ending. It was an excellent adaptation of Seinfeld that does not require one to love zombies (I can't stand zombie stuff) or even Seinfeld. Great job by Jeremy & Dan Eden, as always.

"On the Sixth Day, He Gave Us Cable"...& Battling the Packed Stress from South Loop to Logan Square

To think, this time last week, I was hanging out at the place I called home for 26 years while in limbo - waiting to move into our new place in Logan Square with our South Loop life packed up in the 17 foot U-Haul on the driveway.

A move like this had many components: some exciting, some stressful:

• Trying to remember all of the small details was a pain in the ass. Did I forget to cancel this? Did I remember to change my address for that? What time on Saturday are we going to be able to move it? What do you mean I didn't bring all of the cable equipment back that I was supposed to? There was just so much going on, and trying to manage it all was a hassle.
  
• Luckily, I had a great group of people helping us move out of the South Loop and another great group helping us move into our Logan Square abode. So much had to get packed, wedged, unscrewed, (random verb)ed...you name the verb, it was probably done in the moving process. These groups of people were the main reason I was able to keep it together throughout the three day process.
  
• Speaking of the moving truck (ok, I'll just bring it up), I was terrified to drive that behemoth. The previous biggest vehicle that I've ever drove was one of my parent's mini-vans back when I was 18 or so. This was no mini-van, but rather a 17 foot truck, packed upwards, across and side-to-side with expensive furniture, clothes, books, electronics & other random stuff. If you've ever drove one of these trucks for moving, you may have had the same apprehension that I did. For me, I'm not sure if the toughest thing about driving it was (1) being stressed from the move and not being completely focused and ready to drive the vehicle, (2) never having ever drove a vehicle of that size, (3) the on-and-off rain bursts that occurred, fittingly enough between the hours of 4-5:30pm, (4) not fully trusting myself to read the side mirrors correctly and constantly wanting to look through a rear-view mirror that does not exist or (5) driving through rush hour. After I got done with driving this back to my parents, I just wanted to pass the hell out.
  
• Once we moved in, what was there to do for six days without cable and internet? Most of this time between Saturday evening and today, I was occupied with stuff outside of the apartment, so I didn't worry about this problem as much as I could have. Night 1 without the web led me to look at old newspaper articles of newspapers that I saved from famous events in my lifetime (i.e. death of Michael Jackson; night 2 was spent at a Chicago bar with my friend Angie and then passing out with Jen much earlier than I normally would go to bed; night 3 was spent in part listening to Game 7 of the Heat/Pacers on my new radio app (how I imagine people in the 20s listening to the radio...on their apps); night 4 was watching Entourage on DVD for the first time in a long time with Jen; night 5 was bowling in the burbs...and on the 6th day, He gave us cable.
  
  A couple of my bowling teammates wondered what I did without cable/Internet at our place for 5 days. Makes you wonder what the next wave of technology will be consuming our lives so much in the next 10-20 years that will make future generations of people who move wonder "how was I able to live without this for almost a week?" Internet and cable have become as common to most first-world citizens as breathing and heart disease.
  
• Now - the buying of new stuff. What gets added to the list of stuff we need? Charcoal grill, check. New TV for the bedroom, check. New computer desk for my currently chaotic office, check. Patience is key for both me and Jen as we strive to satisfy all of our material needs to be met as soon as possible but realizing that certain things (like the TV) could probably wait a little bit.

These are just a few of the nuggets that came from the moving process. It was a lot more stressful for some reason this time around, but the added stress gave way to more satisfaction in the moving-in process than last year did.

Have you moved recently? I'd love to hear how you handled the stressors that came with the move - or if you were able to avoid stress in the process altogether.

Choose Your Own Adventure: The Chicago Apartment Edition

I remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books where turning to page 43 would lead you down a very different path than page 61. There would be many times where I would pick one, but would read the page I didn't pick anyways. Just to see if I made the right choice, and how the outcome would have differed if I made a different choice.

Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. The page you choose is the only page you get to read. Granted, not every page leads to an important and immediate impact to your life. This point in my life is not one of those cases. After all, why the hell would I start with this Choose Your Own Adventure crap if I was deciding between the pros and cons of eating a peanut butter sandwich versus a turkey sub for lunch.

When the page you decide to turn is where you plan on living next, we're talking about a whole different book. We (me and Jen) started the process of looking for apartments later than we would have liked, but after things were cleared up in my life to start breathing again, we started Operation Find An Apartment (OFAA for short - ok, we never called it an operation, you got me).

Last week, we looked at a nice place in a neighborhood called Ukranian Village that was home or soon to be home to many of Jen's friends and co-workers. Unfortunately, our interest went from 10 to -50 when we heard that cats were not allowed. Back to the apartment hunt.

Last Friday, I was able to lock up two apartment viewings for this week. Both of those opportunities faded like a fart in the wind when one of our appointments went from being moved from Sunday to Tuesday, only to be outright canceled when the guy who was going to show us the apartment called to tell us that the tenant decided to renew their lease. And the other apartment ended up being a piece of crap. Son of a...

Luckily, I was able to secure a viewing of a place for the same time slot as the canceled appointment. Finally, a decent place that allowed cats. A smaller place than many of the places we've looked at, but a place that interested us enough to start the application process.

All the while, one more apartment viewing scheduled for the week for a place in Logan Square. I filled the paper work on the other place out in the meantime, just making sure we had a go-to place in case this last viewing ended up being a dud. The problem was, it really wasn't a dud.

When seeing this Logan Square unit, it was as if I was able to picture our current items (computer desk, furniture, television) in this particular place. I gathered that while Jen liked the charm of the first place, the extra space that we get from this place (it's essentially a 3-bedroom apartment that's advertised as a two-bed) at a more affordable price was enough to make us collectively decide that we want this place.

The Choose Your Own Adventure part of the story comes into play a couple hours after we got the application for the Logan Square place. After waiting to hear from the Tuesday apartment on whether or not we would be able to move in June 1st (apparently, the tenant said she wasn't going to move out till July 1st in between the apartment showing and Wednesday), I got a call from the landlord of that place while waiting in my car as Jen ran into Walgreens. "Good news Brian, you are able to move in June 1."

Since I wanted an extra day to assess our options, especially since we're leaning towards Apartment 2, I hesitated to give a definite answer on when a good time would be to sign for Apartment 1. I mean, I think we've made our decision that we like the second place better, but we're still waiting on whether we are approved to sign for that place. Also, we're unclear on whether there is any competition for this place. In the event there was, I immediately put our application check in the mail, hoping that it will get there right away. I also sent our applications via email to Apartment 2's landlord, whose housing group consists of an Italian family business that dates back to the late 19th century.

While we don't want to risk losing a place for a place we might not even get, I think we are going to take that risk. We're turning to page 61, and soon we will find out the results of our choice. We may never have the chance to see page 43's story, but when it comes to making choices, you must always go with the choice that you can live with, the one that makes you the happiest. We can live with the choices that go awry but that we made with the best data available and with our short-term and long-term happiness in mind.

Let's hope that page 61 is a great page for the two of us.