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This is an archive collection of entries from  my main personal blog, My Mundane Mid-Life.

This collection of entries is from January 2007.

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December 2006 MAIN BLOG February 2007 Next
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Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Wolves 4 - Marlies 5

Chicago Wolves Toronto Marlies

read more of this entry »


posted at 10:44 PM | Link | Wolves | § |
Defending commercial jets against...?

I had heard talk about this, as an option for the future, but I had thought it was going to be expensive. It turns out, they are actually doing commercial flight tests of ananti-missile system. The tests, though on commercial MD-11's , are all on freighters from FedEx, so no passengers are involved.

posted at 12:50 PM | Link | Mundane | § |

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Christmas Number 2

Up until this past Christmas, the "extended family" celebrated Christmas Eve together. This year - just us. Today was our regular Christmas Eve.. actually, a little bit better because everyone could be together... and today was the only time that everyone was available...

Was a little dicey, though... with the Bears in their first playoff game after a bye... and they BARELY won.. as everyone was traveling to my sister's house in Bucktown.

posted at 10:16 PM | Link | Mundane | § |

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Wolves 3 - Bulldogs 6

Chicago Wolves Hamilton Bulldogs

read more of this entry »


posted at 10:37 PM | Link | Wolves | § |

Friday, January 12, 2007

Wolves 0 - Pengiuns 1

Chicago Wolves Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins

read more of this entry »


posted at 10:34 PM | Link | Wolves | § |

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Wicked

We went downtown and met B&B to go to the Ford Center for the Performing Arts (also known as the old Oriental Theatre on Randolph) to see Wicked.

Boy, do I have mixed feelings about this experience.

On the plus side, gorgeous venue, and it was really great and refreshing to be around people (mostly women that actually dressed-up to go to the theater... they way it always has been.. and should be... (in my opinion).

The script for the show... is ok... good, even. The cast - first rate.

The seats sucked. We were in the "Dress Circle" which is the first level above the main floor. But - way in the back on the theater. What made it worse, is that it was easily 20 to 30 feet underneath the balcony, so your view was clipped at the top, and I could see the very top of the stage. I had no idea that having that clipped effected the way I enjoyed the performance... but it did. I guess I just need to see the whole proscenium, even maybe the ceiling as well, to feel that I was actually in a legitimate theater, instead of a drive-in theater. The audio sucked. It was fine for dialog and solos, but put a full orchestra and full chorus up, and it was mush. Hated the frequency envelope that was used - made the orchestra sound small, canned.

Did I like it? Let me see it again and I'll tell you.

Afterward, in the rain, Carol & I walked around the corner on State Street and caught the end of the 10 o'clock news at Channel 7 (WLS - the local ABC affiliate, where I worked 30 years ago), who has a glassed-in studio right there on State Street underneath and sort of to the side of where the regular studios and offices are at State and Lake.

I even made a prominent spot in the crowd shot at the end of the news!

posted at 11:22 PM | Link | Mundane | § |

Monday, January 08, 2007

Philosophical differences of Rock?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum announced the inductees for 2007.

I've got an issue...

Museum name? The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Rock and Roll.

Using that as the MAIN focus... why, oh why are they inducting Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum???????????

read more of this entry »


posted at 05:28 PM | Link | Mundane | § |

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Why do I feel devastated?

I recorded all of the events of my party last night, dinner, cake, gifts.

I transfered the files off my iRiver this morning, and listened to it...

I listened to dead air... hours and hours of dead air... I had cabled the in and out of the mic preamp backward, and it didn't record a single thing.

Even though I wanted to use pieces on my podcast, I really just wanted it for myself... a record of people coming out and being with me, celebrating my birhday...

...and GOD did his hit me hard. Suddenly, the new year felt a thousand times worse... I wanted a copy of a part of my life, and I lost it... and then - I lost it. I actually started to cry... well, bawl actually. It was just another log on the fire... and the sense of loss was just so real to me... a recording of a one-time-only event, never to be reproduced. Gone. Only to be locked away in my brain, as a memory that lately seems to fade all too quickly. Maybe that's why I wanted the recording... a a backup to my failing memory.

It hurts.

It hurts really bad.

posted at 01:24 PM | Link | Mundane | § |

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Party

Regardless of how this year has started for me, tonight it didn't matter.

We hosted a small party of family and friends at the Weber Grill in Schaumburg. It was wonderful - the food was good, the company was great... Janie & Gary had just come back from their home in Santa Fe which was buried in the same snowstorm that hit Denver... but no one has heard about how bad it was in New Mexico.

We had everyone come over to the house for cake.. (and to open presents, as well). Carol got the cake from Deerfields bakery. It was chocolate with an off-white fronsting... with black pinstripes and the White Sox logo! GREAT GREAT cake... one problem though - we have NO idea what the black frosting is made of, but it stained our teeth.. it stained our skin (and yes - we could not was it off!) and stained our clothes. Gave us a good laugh.

Lots of great presents (mostly new shirts(?!)) and a great gift certificate from my sister Diane - City Segway Tours - Chicago! I get to ride a Segway around the museum campus this summer!!!

It was a monumental birthday for me, and it was wonderful to have people together... for me. It meant an awful lot to me. I don't think anyone really knew, but.. it REALLY touched me, even though it was just a small dinner, and cake, and a few gifts.

posted at 10:22 PM | Link | Mundane | § |

Friday, January 05, 2007

I do not like 2007

Every single day this young year has sucked for me... loads of bad luck... the bifold door on our pantry fell off, our nice new-ish gorgeous patio door was dripping water during a rain storm,.. I had a significant birthday (OK, that really shouldn't be a sucky thing), and then i went to my neurologist today as she was giddy that she actually found something in the cerebral spinal fluid they sampled a few weeks ago - now giddy, is not good, it just means that something was found ad so many possibilities exist, and most of them aren't good ,and most of those have some nasty treatments...

Is it too early to want the year to be over?

posted at 07:23 PM | Link | Mundane | § |

Thursday, January 04, 2007

50

50

I could say that this is going to be the high temperature today, which it is... it's been unseasonably warm for a while, with about a month straight of above average temperatures... No White Christmas for 2006.

I mean... I could say that for today...

...but, no... the 50 is up there for a reason.

Today is my birthday and I turn <shudder> 50 today.

I am no longer in my 40's... now I am viewed as being old. I think I become eligible to join AARP today.

Over the past years, I have actually started to come up against instances of ageism. I have the issue when I'm in Second Life. It doesn't matter which life I'm in, I've seen it and experienced it.

I have to rationalize that - overall - I am happy, and that I'm still alive, without any major medical issues and that I am still working full-time (which, trust me, I wouldn't do if I could find some means of support).

Happy Bitrhday to ME.

posted at 09:01 AM | Link | Mundane | 2 comments | § |

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

The Wall

I hung the pictures on the wall tonight.

I had this grandiose plan to put some of the ~40,000 digital photos that I have on a wall in my family room and have it done in time for Thanksgiving. We bought picture frames at Ikea that fit what my design vision. I had mattes cut to fit the frames. Then, as I was just beginning to choose the pictures for the wall my hard drive crashed. It took a while, but I had the drive recovered and I got my photos back. Over the weekend, now that the holidays are just about over, we started the work. I had selected 61 photos. We whittled it down to 30. We started assembling the frames, hanging the picture frame wire (which SUCKS - thank you so very much Ikea), traded the existing 5x5 mattes with my new either 5x7 matte or 4x6 matte, and mounted the photos.

I bought a laser level and marked the wall. What I had hoped to have was 30 photos. They really wouldn't fit in the space available in the wall - we had to cut down to 24. Then I decided a design change, where instead of 3 rows of 8 frames, I decided for 3 rows with 8-7-8 frames, cutting the group down to 23 pictures. It was hard to come up with a final cut, but we did. (oh, and in the process of marking the wall, I dropped the laser level about 5 times, all of them barely missing Indy The Bunny's head, who was crawling around the floor at my feet wanting to know what I was doing. The second to last crash did the level in - it no longer auto levels, and I then just took measurements and manually adjusted the level. I LOVE the laser level! Too bad I broke it...)

The frames we bought are about an 1¾ inches deep, and there are two mounting positions within the frame for the matte - forward against the glass, or back against the back of the frame. i decided to alternate each picture in a row - front, back, front, back... etc So I had to go through the frames and set the spaces for front mount or back mount...

Then Carol cleaned the glass, sealed up the frames, and I hung them on the wall tonight.

A once empty wall now holds 23 pictures of family and friends. It was startling to see this once empty wall now filled with frames and photos.

And now... we're thinking about other walls...

posted at 08:00 PM | Link | Mundane | § |

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Rear view mirror

Driving to work this morning... and there's more traffic than the last few weeks.. (duh)... clear skies... sunrise.. low on the horizon...

Nothing I hate more than, as I'm driving, traffic comes to a stop in front of me, I apply the brakes in a safe fashion... and you HAPPEN to glance in the rear view mirror, seeing the car behind you careening toward you... only to have the driver jerk the wheel at the last minute, throwing the car onto the shoulder to avoid plowing into your trunk... because the driver isn't paying attention to the traffic in front of him...

posted at 09:14 AM | Link | Mundane | § |

Monday, January 01, 2007

Happy New Year 2007

Hey there everyone... a new year is upon us...

We spent the evening last night at B&B's, with friends... ringing in the New Year... after SUFFERING through watching the Chicago Bears LOSE to the Green Bay Packers... which.. the WHOLE thing, about the NFL MOVING the game from noon to 7pm... on New Year's Eve, causing chaos in homes, restaurants, and bars around Chicagoland, (do you have/go to a party? do you open your business instead for Bears fans to watch the game?)

We watched the local coverage of New Year's celebrations around Chicago, and heckle the people being shown, whether they are the local hosts doing a poor job transitioning from remote to remote... or the choice of clothing that everyone being shown is wearing... and... perhaps the sad state of decent music being played at these venues

So... that was last night.. celebrating with friends...

This morning, it was the Tournament of Roses Parade. We caught the KTLA broadcast in HD on Discovery HD. We normally watch the HGTV coverage, because of the different approach to it (all bout the float decorations and materials), but... it's just damn hard to pass-up HD broadcasts...

And George Lucas as Grand Marshall... an Ewok float... a Naboo float... original costumes from the movies... The Grambling Marching Band dressed in Empire Officers uniforms playing Star Wars music... and 200 marching stormtroopers, in uniform and all variations of them, all of them fans from around the world. Way cool...

Well.. it's way too late in the day to say "Rabbit, Rabbit!" as your first words of the day to have good luck (or, if you blew it, before you go to sleep tonight, you can still try to get some luck, your last words have to be "Tibbar! Tibbar!")... But.. I wonder what happens on a day like this? I mean.. are we supposed to say "Rabbit, Rabbit!" as our first words after midnight, instead of "Happy New Year"? or... is it the first words to utter after you awake for the day?... I'm so confused...

posted at 03:21 PM | Link | Mundane | § |

 

That's it for the entries in this particular Archive of my blog. If you want, you can look through other entries by selecting the links in the right-hand column of this page under either Archives by Month or Archives by Category, or you can search the site for specific keywords by using the Search page.

This Blog was last updated Friday December 18, 2009 13:03:12 CDT (-06:00 GMT)
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