Category: Life

Life happens in the small moments…enjoy and learn from them.

Life

Back from Vacation

I am back from a quick trip to my annual family reunion/home/Penn State. I got a lot of driving in (1400 miles) and I had a lot of interesting conversations with some family members. I sometimes forget that I am related to hardcore Republicans and people that say “well some things that are mentioned in […]

Politics Standards

US documents.

After having quite the discussion this morning with co-workers, I thought it might be handy to have the links of some of our important documents. Declaration of Independence US Constitution Bill of Rights It is always good to go back and re-read the documents that have shaped our country.

Politics Standards

On the Gay Marriage Amendment

I have had enough. The jokes, the comments, the bashing, and now the proposed marriage amendment? I do not understand the big deal…and I am tired of the christian right constantly trying to tell me how to live. Bush wants to “preserve marriage”, but he and his christian right friends do not get it…so let […]

Politics Standards

operation: republican in office

I bet all Americans (well all Americans that do not want to see the same fiasco as “Operation Brother Jeb: 2000”) feel relieved to hear we now have a plan to hold elections, even if under attack, during the upcoming November election. Perhaps we were fooled by Operation Brother Jeb: 2000 in the 2000 election, […]

Serenity Now!

Metra Rail and Police

Not sure what is going on…with all the elevated terror warnings my city and the Metra seem to think that putting six police officers at my train station to hand out ticketsto riders that run in front of the gates when they are down is a good idea. Sure, the Metra has a responsibility to […]

Serenity Now!

Flood = Standing Water = Swarms of Mosquitoes

Whoa. I did not just play a crazy round of paintball…no those are welts from the mosquitoes. I grew up and ran around where we had dirt roads and lots of foilage, but never the kind of mosquitoes that left welts. I was using OFF’s (yes even OFF has a web site…and a killer URL) […]

Serenity Now!

Spot Nazis

Any Metra rider knows exactly where the doors open for the trains at their stops and then places themselves there each day in hopes of being one of the first people on the train, if the train is crowded to get one of two remaining seats. I have been riding the Metra every weekday for […]

Life

The Engineer Returns

Well…if you go back about a week in the postings personalities you will meet the “engineer” of the group…and well, he returned yesterday as we were moving the nasty, wet, stinky sandbags from my house to the road. As we were moving the sandbags on dollies and wagons, the engineer approached and asked if we […]

Life

Need a Date? Get a Dog!

About three months ago, my girlfriend and I adopted a retired greyhound. She is absolutely wonderful (the dog 😉 ) and we are very happy we adopted her. There were plenty of things we did not expect since this was our first dog, such as her love for hotdogs and the fact that she sleeps […]

Life

Personalities

Well, after spending the last few days sandbagging and preparing for a record breaking flood, I learned quite a bit. First and foremost..how to properly sandbag a soon to be flooded area. Second, there are a lot of weird personalities in my community. We had the “shovenist male”: “I do not mean to be a […]

Life

Chicago Metra Riders In the Summer

Well, it is getting to be that time of the year when kids are out of school and the wonderful stay at home mothers, teachers, and vacationers, as wonderful as they are, decide to bring little Johnny, Judy, and their two strollers downtown to enjoy the city of Chicago. For all of us regular commuters, […]

Life

Black Sneakers Do Not Equal Black Dress Shoes!

Ok, I have put in enough time thinking about how ridiculous people look when they try to pull the “black sneakers=black dress shoes” when they dress themselves in the morning. Men: do not wear sneakers with suits and try to pass them off as shoes just because they do not have logos on them. As […]