Update

Not too much has been going on, so this is really just an update. After a very eventfull weekend at Beloit and in the great second city of Chicago, I hopped in my car and drove up to Toronto, Ontario. Allow me to say that this is the city I plan to live in when the Bush dynasty reinstates the draft. Come on, we all know he's already rigged the next ellection and he doesn't even have an sons to protect like his grand 'ol pappy did for him. In addition, my own grandmother said she'd do whatever it takes to get me across the border, I happily told her I already had a place to stay.

I spent a week and a half roaming the city, visiting all the little neighborhoods (little italy, chinatown, the chood, the gay village and a miniature bollywood) and, needless to say, I had the time of my life. I think I was going through some weird phase, however. I had a little difficulty focusing during conversations, couldn't really remember things that had occured no 20 minutes before. Apparently I was only using 1/3 of the standard 10% of my brain (as Carsey likes to say). That's alright though, because it's all gone now and I was ready just in time to leave the city. Oh well, I'm sure I'll be back there within a couple months.

So, I drove back to Chicago last Wednesday or Thursday, can't really remember. I was taking the roads at 95mph pretty much the whole way. 8 hours later, hen I was turning into my neighborhood, I noticed my trusty Passport 8500 radar detector wasn't on. Well, let's just say either I've got the eyes of an eagle (not likely) or for some reason I was particular lucky for a long stretch of road (also not very likely). I was back in town at approximately 3pm at which point I pretty much collapsed on on my bed as I was exhausted from a mildly long drive and waking up at 5am after staying up until 2 to watch Annie Hall - great movie by the way.

As for my time in Chicago, it's mostly been spent spacing out. I've tried to be relatively productive, but usually all my attempts were unsuccessfull. Although I was particularly helpfull yesterday. My grandma's cd-changer ate a few of her cds so I went over to her house to help her out. While there, my grandpa told me his HDTV-DVD/VCR-DVD Recorder-TIVO-Stereo weren't working together properly. You know how you can get points when you use credit cards and those points let you buy stuff? Well, my grandpa has managed to rack up a lot of those so he purchased probably about $10k worth of electronics for free. 5 manuals, 4 hours and an equal number of asprin later, the whole thing is working flawlessly. Grandpa's happy, grandma's happy, I'm happy (because grandma's a good cook and they were nice enough to feed me, the starving college drop-out that I am) and I'm on my way back home.

Today, I've got a friend coming in from out of town who I am meeting downtown. We're gonna wander the city a bit, see if we can't find any hidden treasures. Then, it's off for Colorado again on Thursday. I've got to get up there to help set up for my dad's wedding. I also need to stop off in Denver to pick up my grandma and give her a ride up (that will be fun!). It usually takes me 5:30 to get from Denver to Telluride, but with her in the car I have no doubt it will take closer to 8. After the wedding I will be free to get off this rock.

Get an EVO!

I went over to Adam's house the other night at around 10pm. After hanging out for about 2 hours with him and Luke, we decided we needed something to do. Adam, of course, quickly suggested Denny's and I think we all know why. I'll give you a hint, it's not the food. Luke and I settled on Jack's, as it was still open for another hour. I still cna't believe the damn place changed their hours from 24 to a 1am closing time. That sort of thing pisses me off. I mean, where am I supposed to get my fix when it's 4am? You can't honestly expect me to go to Denny's EVERYTIME.

In any event, the food was awesome, as always. Then Adam and Luke had this amazing idea to check out the Admiral club. I figured, why not. As long as I don't have to dish out any cash for a sleazy club, it's fine by me. Where here's the interesting part. We drive downtown, drive past the club and try to find parking. I went one way, nothin'. Went another, nothin'. So I needed a place to turn around, perferably a parking lot of some sort. I quickly check my rear view and notice there's a cop following me. I'm thinking, "God damnit. What the hell did I do?" I pull into a McDonald's parking lot and start to turn around. The guy follows me in and pops on his lights. I pull into an empty parking spot and the two cops walk up to my window with their hands resting on their holsters. The only thing going through my mind right then was "Who the hell did I buy this car from?!" and "I hope to God Adam doesn't say anything stupid".

I roll down the window and the cop #1 says "Don't worry, you didn't do anything wrong... What kinda mods you got done?"

GOD DAMNIT! My heart was racing at a thousand beats a second and this fucker didn't have any reason to pull me over in the first place other than to shoot the shit about imports.

I looked up at him very much relieved and said "Why do you guys have to do that? You scared the shit out of me."

Turns out, cop #1 had recently bought a WRX STI and was trying to talk his partner (cop #2) into buying a WRX as well. While I was glad the car wasn't stolen, that didn't help Adam's mindless-self from saying anything stupid. "Get an EVO!" to which cop #1 started unbuckling his sidearm.

We all talked a while longer, totalling about 20 minutes, with these two Chicago cops. Then they got back into their squad car and peeled out of the McDonald's parking lot to let us on our merry way.

The End

Oh yeah. Didn't enjoy the club. Honestly.

Norbert - is he from 1950?

Alright, so get this. I went down to Denver while in Colorado to visit my family, including my good friend Al. When I got to his apartment, he said he had been having a rough night as he had just been in a fight with his girlfriend. I'll leave out the specifics of that. However, he had been in a similar situation as Norbert, a good friend of his, who was also at my friend's apartment. Norbert had received a phone call from his girlfriend not 2 hours before that consisted of the phrase "I think we should start to see other people". REALLY? Now boys, should you ever get a message like this, pop in the latest and greatest CD by Jeff Foxworthy in which he disects the meaning of sentence. My favorite part is: "There is no doubt that she has already cut the pony from the herd and if she ain't ridin' him yet she's at least pulled the sattle out o' the barn". This is the point of no return. You can't backtrack from here. The seed has been planted, watered, and already grown into a beautiful adultry bush.

Some time in between receiving that first phone call and my arrival, Norbert's phone rang again with his girlfriend apologizing and reversing her statment, asking that they try to work it out. He took the bait and called it an evening. When I arrived, he was still coming down from the night's events and was eager to share with me the story. It later came out that his girlfriend attended Beloit College and he was planning on going back to visit the same weekend that I had.

Fast forward two weeks. I had a hunch his girlfriend would dump him. Call it telepathy, call it psychology, call it what ever you want, just realize I called this to at least 10 people weeks before. In any event, I got to Beloit on Friday night. After visiting with a number of people, catching up on the summer and plans for the next year, I decided it was a good time to try to get in touch with Norbert. I called his cell, no one answered. After repeated attempts to contact him to no avail, I asked if anyone knew where his girlfriend lived. Not surprisingly, EVERYONE knew who she was and, indeed, EVERYONE knew where she lived. So I was escorted back to the place where Norbert's girlfriend resides and waited out front with some friends for him to get back. He showed up about 10 minutes later crying, apparently his girlfriend dumped him not 5 minutes before. I offered him a place to stay, access to food and even to come back to my place in Chicago to hang out for the rest of the weekend. You see, his girlfriend was nice enough not to lead him on. No no, there would be no playing games with her. She gave him the opportunity to drop $200 of his own cash, deal with a grandfather he doesn't particularly like in order to borrow the man's car and then spend $30 on gas to get there, not to mention travel time, plus he filled the room with $80 worth of groceries. She, being such an honest and selfless person didn't allow any of this to happen without dumping him immediately afterwards. Oh yes, and what's more, my friend Norbert got there on Thursday and wasn't scheduled leave until Sunday afternoon. His wonderful little concubine of a girlfriend dumped him FRIDAY NIGHT. She didn't want things to go on the way they were, with him in a completely alien place, knowing absolutely no one who attends to the school, 1200 miles from his own life in Denver.

Wow... She's a keeper.

Needless to say. I showed Norbert a good time. He came out with me Friday night, we went to TKE and partied with my good friends Brandon and Marty Myers (haha). Then Norbert went back to Chicago on Saturday and we had an awesome time that night as well. Hookah, party, DePaul, went downtown, good times, end of story. He left Sunday morning to return to Denver and he even called me later that night to thank me, and to let me know he got in all right. This man whose name is obviously not Norbert, is a fantastic person and I wish him the best of luck. And any girls interested in an amazing guy that's willing to give you anything and everything at pretty much the drop of a hat, let me know, I'll point you in his direction ;)

-More about the weekend later. Good stories to come.

Winding Down, Gearing Up

So my time in Telluride is coming to a close. I'll be here probably another day, then it's off for another 20hr drive back to the good 'ol, generic, bland, unimaginative, unfulfilling, land that is the Mid-West. I don't know why they call it the "mid-west" anyways. Probably because people who live there want to believe they're part of the west, but the people of the west wouldn't let them call themselves the "west" and so they qualified the name by placing "mid" infront of it. Crafty wasps.

So here's the plan as it stands today. And by today, I mean this moment, because in the moment following this my plan could change entirely. On Wednesday I will leave Telluride and start heading back to Chicago by way of Denver. I'll have to spend some time there to see the family and get my cheeks pinched (and not in a good way). Then it's UP to Beloit for a day or two to help celebrate Fuck and Booze (more appropriately called Funk and Blues), then back to Chicago for another day or two on my way up to Toronto to visit a good friend from school. I'll probably stay there a couple weeks, then back to Chicago for Yom Kippur (non-Jews need not be concerned). Once I've had my fill of Jew-food, if there's time, I'll be jumping back into my car and driving out to Southern California. I'd like to scout out some property and some business ideas before my dad's wedding, for which I will have to be back in Telluride within the first 2 days of October. Should he sell a painting or two, and afford to join the local health club, I may decide to stay and work/workout for a couple weeks until I have enough money saved up to get a flight off this enormous, patriotic rock that is the United States. Amazing, millions of people are trying so desperately to get in here, and yet I'm attempting to get out.

So, that's "The Plan". We'll see what actually works out and what doesn't. However, at the moment I have no attachment, no appointments, no places I need to be by a specified time (with the exception of the wedding) and so my life belongs to no one other than me. In any event, we shall see how it all works out, or doesn't. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, but expect nothing.