01/30/2011 - Who works on a Sunday?

I mean seriously? Who works on a Sunday? That is for the birds......Needless to say we got a few walls up and standing on the second floor. Those are 12 gauge metal studs. They weigh approximately 58 lbs a piece. That is a heavy piece of metal we are putting up there.

01/29/2011 - Merlot & a Masterpiece

So Friday night we go to this place called Merlot & a Masterpiece and just like it sounds, you drink wine and paint. Well I am not a good painter. And as soon as the pictures get uploaded I will edit this post with the picture. I didn't take any pictures.

01/28/2011 -

Cold.......It's hard to work on steel when it is this cold.

01/27/2011 - Hard at Work

It's cold in the trailer......turn on the heat

01/26/2011 - Big Ben Gets Raped!

I don't know if anyone else saw this, but we did at my place. I can't believe it happened, but as the same time I can. I wonder how many moments like this are Lost and Gone Forever 1 e, simply because we did not have DVR. I Love that DVR catches everything and no moment goes away.

Oh and Rashard (The humper) is a U of I grad...I'm just saying....

*1 Lost & Gone Forever - Guster

With our free amazon money from livingsocial.com we bought a new board game and some MP3's. It is called Ticket To Ride. It is a fun game we have spent several hours playing. It is surprisingly simple to play, yet pretty difficult to be good at.

Essentially the goal is to build trains from city to city and earn points for completing the route.

I think Julie has beaten me 2 times at this game and I vow to never let it happen again!!

There is an online version to at daysofwonder.com or something like that.

01/24/2011

These good looking dudes enjoying a drink. C$ got iced. Enjoy that grape.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

01/23/2011 - Championship Sunday

Anyone who thinks that the Superbowl weekend is better football than the conference championships is sorely mistaken. These games this weekend are historically better/more entertaining than the super bowl. And as was the case this year, sometimes hated rivalry's allow the games to have another level of entertainment.

Well either way, we had some people over and Julie made a ton of food for us :) It was delicious!

01/22/2011 - Lazy Saturday

Today was a pretty easy going day. Slept in, watched The Usual Suspects, which actually impressed me. I didn't guess what was going on until the end which was fun. We also watched Inception, which was pretty good. I love streaming Video. Anyone that hasn't seen either, I would suggest watching them.

01/21/2011 - Hockey Game

Went to a hockey game this evening. I really like having access to my company suite. The Prairie Thunder aren't very good, but they fight and the tickets are free.

01/20/2011 - Construction

So today it snowed, however our owner was still making the trip down from Chicago. He makes it every Thursday so we pretty much have to be working. Well we finally got enough of the steel welding complete that we can start to set floor trusses. As you can see from the first picture we have 4 man lifts working in very tight quarters to make this happen. From the second picture you can see even more man lifts while we are setting these trusses. This job is built like a bomb shelter there is more welding that has to go into this than any other project I have seen. All this for student apartments...Sheesh....

But we are making progress and it is visible.

01/19/2011 - A pup named Filson

Sorry to go dog on you two days in a row, but I thought this interesting. So I am at work, on the throne browsing the Filson hunting catalog. All of a sudden along comes this dog that looks familiar. So I read the little blurb and sure enough, this dog is none other than Matt Quintero's dog.

He sent in this little blurb and the pictures and they posted his pictures in their catalog. I think this is cooler than being re-tweeted by some D-List celebrity or sports talking head.

01/18/2011 - Depressing

I'm not sure what is worse. The fact that I get up and go to work every day or the fact that when I get up to go to work every day the dogs get to stay at home and relax. Well today I was forgetful enough to forget to grab my work phone. Well I turn around and come back home to get it and come to find this........

Yes, while I am out busting my ass, these two knuckleheads live it up on the bed. Must be a rough life sleeping all day long waiting for us to come home and feed you, isn't it Ebs? She doesn't read this, but if she did I'd want her to know how I feel.

It's not a surprise they do this, but just a groin punch when I come back home and see it. At least at the end of the day when I come home Grace runs to her crate and acts like she was in it all day.

01/17/2011 - MLK Day!!!

I wish I had something witty to say about students & government workers getting off of work/school for MLK day, but I don't. I do however have this wicked awesome pie chart to offer.

I hate pie charts.

01/16/11 - Birthday Swiss Cake Roll

So this weekend we also went to Alicia's parents house to celebrate Tim's 30th birthday. I'm pretty sure this was the earliest I've ever celebrated a birthday. However, I think when someone turns 30 you gotta show up and help them celebrate that they are now Old.

I'm not sure if the giant "30" candles were old school enough, so Alicia's mom busted out the Video Tape Recorder. It was pretty awesome. I kinda wanna see it plugged into an HD Tv.

Anyway, dinner was awesome, Spaghetti & Meatballs AND Turkey Tetrazzini AND Swiss Cake Roll shaped Ice Cream cake

01/15/2011 - Pageants

Well, Saturday Julie and I drove south to Springfield to cheer on my cousin Lauren at her pageant. She is Miss Adams County 2010 and represents Adams County at the State level against something like 66 other counties throughout the state. It was quite an affair and its definitely a stressful lifestyle/weekend for those involved. I'm not sure I'd be cut out for something like that.

Anyway, she did great, but apparently not well enough as she did not make the top 12. Oh well, it's good experience and she said she had fun.

Her picture after winning Ms Adams County, I believe.

01/14/2011 - Technology

So I am making a trip to Sams club to get paper towels, toilet paper, kleenex's and dog food and as I am walking in, I see this cute older couple at the photo machine. I hear the old lady say "I put the SD card in the slot, now we have to crop the pictures". It was awesome. It's so easy to use technology anymore. I remember when cropping a picture was a 20 minute process and usually required some expensive software. Now you can get pictures in 5 minutes from Sams club and have them printed out while you are standing there all for less than $0.03 per picture....Crazy.

01/13/2011 - Y M I N I L ?

So I'm leaving the bank and I see this gem of a licence plate. And I think how fitting given the events of the past week. I get a break on my check for the social security adjustment only to find out that our Governor thinks it's a good idea to raise our state income tax 66%. That is retro active to January 1, so I have 3 weeks of back taxes I have to pay already!

Then to top it off also in the Bill the corporate sales tax rate is raised from 4.8% to 7%. Well nothing hurts a small business more than raising taxes. As if the businesses that are still around have the extra cash. I have seen several companies move out of state just to avoid this income tax. I'm shocked that back home Knapheide hasn't moved across the River to his Missouri plant with more of his operations. It would make financial sense to me. It is no wonder people are outsourcing everything.

So that begs the question.

Why Am I In Illinois?

01/12/11 - Smartass Printer

I'm not sure if our printer is a smart ass, captain obvious *salute*, or just plain stupid, but I think this is a paper jam. I think we need a more better printer.

1-11-11 - Snow

Most people I know got snowed on today. One thing I like about the winter is the scenic way that trees look when snow hits them.

But on the contrary, one thing snow brings with it are people who don't know how to drive. I'm not sure if these people never knew how to drive or if it is just amplified by the fact that there is snow on the ground. Either way, I wish there were a way to teach everyone how to drive in the snow and adverse conditions. Perhaps some sort of class that everyone is required to take before driving. Maybe if that was a little more idiots proof we wouldn't have as many accidents when it snows. Now, knowing my luck i'm going to end up in an accident just because I posted this.

hey at least I didn't post it while driving.

01/10/11 - Back to the Grind

So back at work today for the first "full week" of the new year. It was pretty cold today and ask you can see no block is going up, however, we do have steel getting erected. This is a positive sign, should be seeing a lot of progress on this project over the next couple of months. We have 5 stories to build by August 1, I hope we can make it!

The two towers are the stair towers, the shorter Tower is the elevator shaft and the two "walls" are demising walls that will hold the floor systems and keep the 1st floor commercial tenants separate from each other.

This area needs a Chipotle bad, but I think that about every area.

01/08/11 - Dog Park!!

So we went to the dog park today. How can you resist these faces? I know I couldn't. It was cold and a little snowey, but fun. They love going to the park and get so excited.

That black blur on the left is Grace. She literally runs circles around all the other dogs at the park. There were 3 other dogs there, which we were surprised to see considering the weather. I guess they needed exercise too. She is most definitely one of the fastest dogs I've ever seen, at least she runs the hardest.

01/07/10 - Holiday Party

Some of Julie's co-workers getting food in the buffet line, one table at a time goes soo slow

Holiday Parties - These are meant to be before the new years, but not in Julie's company. We have them afterwards. I think that's because the prices to rent conference rooms are cheaper. Either way, we had a trivia competition between the tables and the questions were rigged. Who knows which president banned the xmas tree from the white house? Seriously? Anyway, the food was delicious, and the beer was free, so I can't complain too much.

PS. When we first walked in we played a real life game of Clue. They handed you a card and a checklist and everyone had to go around talk to random people and find out who done it. It was fun and got people talking to people they wouldn't normally talk to. Julie had been working on the game all week and it was a big success, everyone had fun.

01/06/2011 - Cooking @ Home

What happens when you cook at home? Yup, dishes need to be done. Blah. I suppose it is a small trade off for not having to wash clothes. And yes, that is a bottle of vodka shaped like a trumpet. It is called Jazz Vodka and is absolutely fantastic on the rocks with a twist.

PS, I'll try not to make this entire blog food and such, I'll make it more interesting than that. I wonder if I can create a post from my iPhone...looks like I need to do some research.

Old School

So I thought things were going well. I thought things were looking up. Al Davis is a senile old bastard with no clue what is going on. He spends 95 million dollars on a shitty QB, essentially handcuffing the team to a bedpost for 5 years. We finally get rid of JaMarcus and have a very respectable season under the watch of the new coach, Tom Cable. We go undefeated in the AFC West, which isn't saying much, but it's 6 games we would have lost 2 years ago. And boom he fires the coach, like it's the coaches fault that Bruce Gradkowski and Jason "I suck" Campbell are the QB's that we have to trot out there. And way to go on Darius Hayward bay instead of Crabtree or Maclin. That worked out well.

Don't get me wrong, Tom Cable is an asshole, he punched his assitant coach in the face breaking his nose in two spots less than 12 months ago. If Al wanted to fire Tom he should have done it then. Now, who does he think he is going to get that will replace Tom AND let Al make all the big decisions? None of the big name coaches are going to come to Oakland to be Al's puppet.

I am anxious to see what we do in this years draft, considering we don't have a first round pick as Bill Simmons has pointed out several times in his articles, that it belongs to New England.

I would think getting the 17th pick in a draft would not warrant firing the head coach. Perhaps firing the GM would make sense considering the awful decisions that have been made over the past decade, but big Al would never fire big Al. I mean he won superbowls in the 60's.......

Christ....

So this isn't a picture I took, but it is a picture fitting for this post. Look at the guy! Why do I punish myself

Work - Bleh

So this ironworker at work has been the biggest PITA I've ever dealt with. I'm sure there are worse, but this guy lies to your face, underperforms, & to top it off thinks everything is everyone elses fault. It's hard to run a successful job when you have someone like this on the jobsite.

But on a lighter note, I got to see 90' joists with 1" or less deflection being installed, those things were huge.

01/03/11 - MEAT!

So, we bought a 1/4 of a cow. Not just any cow, but a grass fed farm raised cow. The ground beef is about 95% lean and delicious. I hope it all fits in my freezer.....

01/02/11 - Kids

I just spent the last couple of days with my 4 nieces (3 of them in the picture). Sophia, Morgan, Gretchen.

I am in no way shape or form ready for kids. It would be all well and good, but we ended up driving them to a hockey game & spending 15 minutes while they "sing" Paramore or T-Swizzle was enough to drive me away. Also, at the game, popcorn, was that really necessary?

HOWEVER

The picture below shows Julie with Ashyln (other niece) and they were enjoying themselves reading a book. Not saying my other nieces are well behaved, but this weekend they did more harm than good to the "When are we going to have kids question?" everyone asks.

We are due for a boy, right? I'll have a baby boy....think happy thoughts.....

01/01/11 And so it begins

So I have decided to ring in the new year with a project for myself. And I, much like many people am going to do a "project 365". For those who don't know, that is take a picture every day of something that I find interesting or helps define my life. At least that is my take on it.

So today, day 1, January 1, I bring to you 3G test results for Quincy, IL. This is awesome that Qcy has 3g, just in time for the 4G network to be rolled out, but it will make trips back home much more bearable. My phone was just that, a phone when I went back to Quincy for so many years.

So Happy New year and three cheers for 3G network.

Hip Hip Hooray!!!