Thank you but no, thank you.

Ugh.  I was not kidding about not feeling so great on Tuesday, b/c this week took a turn for the crappy, literally, as it went on.  But thankfully I think that is starting to pass.

I don't feel much better though, b/c after a long day and a conversation with the wife, I decided to withdraw my application to a job at Notre Dame that I was scheduled to interview for next week.  It was a tough choice--the job was interesting and I really liked the person I had my first round interview with.  Unfortunately, neither my wife or I like the idea of commuting to Chicago/South Bend from a point inbetween, and the salary for this ND job is not enough to support a soon to be two-child household, even in South Bend. 

Once I realized that, I didn't want to waste the search committee's time, especially after just being on one where an applicant wanted a 4-day work week so he wouldn't have to move and we basically laughed at him.  It's too bad; I was looking forward to having the chance to take a day trip to ND, even for a 4-hour interview.  But I think it's the right decision.

So it's back to the grindstone, looking for something that's a better fit.  It's out there.  We just have to find each other.

Current beer-scale: 6 or 7 whiskeys tonite will hopefully burn this out of my stomach. 

I'm not superstitious...

But I am a little stitious.

I used the same mug all football season on Saturdays, even took it to Vegas with me so I could keep the streak alive for the BYU game.  And that's all I've used it for since August.

So here it is at my office for my morning cup today.  I'm not saying it will make a difference, I'm not saying it matters at all.  But I feel better having made it the full season with the mug, and can't wait to see the game tonite.

Current beer-scale: a nice and steady 6.8, with 4 tallboy IPA's and a big ND mug waiting for me at home.

Already?

Football! 

And by "football" I mean NFL, a week away still.  It didn't even dawn on me that Notre Dame starts their season in two days, which pretty much scrapped any Saturday plans the wife and I might have had. 

As fun as it will be to have football to watch this weekend and Oktoberfests to drink I'm a little down.  To be this "meh" about ND football is a bummer.  Maybe it's not having the high expectations that everyone else seems to have, maybe it's preparing myself for falling short of those expectations, maybe it's just that we've had a shit-ton of other stuff going over the summer and not having had time to miss football.  Or maybe I'm just a little older than I thought and I have other things to get excited about.  Whatever the reason it's a downer. 

But football is here dammit, so let's get it on!

Current beer-scale: 8.9

never been happier to say good bye-week

Wow. There's a dull roar in the back of my head after a fourth straight week of close finishing and drinking way more Saturday beer than I planned to. I've never been so glad to see an off week coming up in the football schedule. At least it was a great morning to ride into work.

Golden Tate right before he was somersaulted to the 3-yard line in OT (credit AP).

Never mind NBC 5 kept cutting out or going to "Access Hollywood" or whatever retarded celebrity crap so I didn't actually see the play. At that point I could barely watch anyway. But christ almighty did that game have everything, and winning makes everything tolerable. I still can't believe that late 2-point conversion counted and thank god it did, so great job Robert Hughes on pushing the entire pile into the endzone with you. Now let's hear the Bears beat the Lions senseless (b/c I'm down to a radio now that the digital conversion happened vs the old office tv) and it'll be another fantastic weekend.

Well, fantastic when I'm not thinking about the message from HR I had when I got in this morning at least. It seems a manager position above me is suddenly open, and they want to meet about it early this week. So it's feast or famine; get laid off or possibly take a position with the institution that was going to lay you off with a slightly better title, working w/people you really don't trust anymore. Goody.

Just keep ridin'. Things will work out.

Current beer-scale: 6.7, way higher than it should be after all the drinking yesterday. Thirsty.

woof

Think I pushed it a little too hard this weekend, with Bears, Irish, White Sox and drinking, drinking, drinking. Oh well. What else is Labor Day good for.Bears game was the only one we didn't have tickets in hand for showing up, but considering it was the last pre-season game and the starters would probably play all of one series, we didn't think it would be too hard to find tix. And it wasn't--we didn't even go scalpers for them, we went up to the box office on the south side of Soldier and got right in. Decent seats too.I had to take a shot of Walter on the way out to go drink more.
So that was our Thursday night. Saturday was South Bend and the 35-0 home opener win over Nevada. Afterwards it was drinking and cigars until the mosquitoes ate us into oblivion. It turns out a buddy of ours that got laid off last August showed up, still laid off and kinda enjoying it at this point. This was on top of hearing about one more guy getting laid off from the ND athletic department--we're gonna have to make up jackets or something.

I'm blaming my current state on the cigar. Labor Day is usually pretty hard on my allergies; a ride out to the boonies of Indiana plus a rubusto really wrecked me for the rest of the weekend. Oh well. It's a short week and I can stuff myself to the gills with medication until Thursday. So much for interviewing this week. Fun.

Current beer-scale: 8.1

ETA: There's something really awful about riding home in 70 degree weather and getting home soaked with sweat. Unpleasant.

fall is only good for football

I'm holding off counting this morning as a success 2nd test of Frankenbike but I have reasonable hopes for the return trip this afternoon. It doesn't look like we're getting the rain that was forecast for today so maybe I'll get lucky all the way around as the day ends.

Which would be a nice change of pace from yesterday. Not that yesterday was terrible. I made it to SB w/o any catastrophes this time, and managed to have at least a little fun once I got there for the game. Watching the longest overtime game in the history of the stadium, which ended up a loss, wasn't exactly my idea of a perfect afternoon though.

I admit, my attitude could have been better going into the whole trip. That drive isn't always the most pleasant, and when I'm going alone it's always hit or miss what the game experience is like. Sometimes I get lucky, yesterday wasn't one of those times. Still, I found myself enjoying the purity of a November home game in cloudy fall weather at a few points yesterday.

The sprinklers came on just as Pitt had run it's first play in overtime. Ah, fall.

On the way home I was thinking about how badly I just wanted to get home. There were times when I would have felt just the opposite; that I would have been dying to get back to campus and would have hated leaving. I didn't hate going yesterday, but I'm definitely not approaching day trips like that with the same zeal I'm talking about here. And I realized that's b/c campus is no longer home for me, and hasn't been for some time. I'll always look back fondly on my time there, and I love who ND helped grow me into. But as an adult I've fully moved on now, and have my new place to call home. Not exactly the deepest moment of reflection I've ever had but it still surprised me at how hard that thought hit me. Probably partly b/c I just wanted to get home so bad, and still have a long night ahead of me. Oh well. It was still worth the trip out there and I'd do it again, especially if I had company next time. And beer. That would have really helped.


Current beer-scale: 5.4

Portland/Seattle, w/a subtle motif

Onwards and upwards, from San Fran to Portland and Seattle. This leg of the trip was literally awash in alcohol, from the moment we stepped off the plane.

We were greeted in the terminal by a fantastic wall display featuring locally built bikes of all makes and models. The single-speed cyclocross caught my eye.

I totally need one of these.

From the airport, it was downtown while we waited for a former roommate to finish up at the office. I had time to stop at Powell's, which is always fun. No pictures from there though. Once closing time hit, it was off to the roommate's place where I met my new best friend--his kegirator.

We hit it off immediately. The seemingly endless supply of frosty-cold delicious Full Sail Amber was easy to get used to. I could never be a fully functioning member of society with one of these in my house. But since I was on vacation, it was easy to put back 5 or 6 pints each night after we got back from going out. I ended up hiding the bottles of Full Sail we had at the tailgate later in the week so they didn't get instantly consumed. This is why my beer-scale scores have been so low lately, but I'm starting to perk back up. I'm going to have to start looking for it in Chicago while I have time.

Portland wasn't all drinking, even thought it was most of it. On a drive up the coast we stopped in Astoria and Seaside. I believe this is the beach where they filmed the car race at the start of Goonies.

Once it was time to head to Seattle the drinking started back up again, and included some bull-riding Friday night. Surprisingly, it took less drinking than you would think to get people up on that thing.

Yee-ha

And as one last blowout, we decided to get up as early as possible to set up our tailgate Saturday. We ended up shopping at about 7:30 and getting to Husky Stadium at 8:00 AM to set up for a 5:00 PM game. Outstanding. We only had to move once, after the head of parking lot security told us his underlings had it wrong and we were in a reserved lot (PS-way to go guy. You're in charge of a parking lot. You've accomplished a lot, and of course that gives you every right to be a dick to people from opposing teams. Now if only your employees knew what the fuck they were doing too, you'd have something to be proud of).

Actually, the same thing happened 3 years ago at the same game, only that time it was other tailgaters suggesting we move b/c we were in this family's spot that's been there for 30 years. That was alright. Security, not so much. Anyway, once set up was done I could head back downtown on the bus and catch a nap before coming back and drinking more.

Our beer depositories on my way out.

5 hours later, but who the hell brought O'Douls?

I have to say it was a lovely tailgate. Especially once the Portland club sponsoring everything showed up and consumed every single remaining beer, liquor, and over 200 feet of sandwiches. I swear, it was like something straight out of the Bible.

The game itself was fantastic, a great way to end a great vacation. Getting up the next day at 4:30 AM to catch a 6:00 AM flight was not fun, but air travel basically sucks anyway so what the hell. It was a wonderful 10 days, and the further into the workweek I get the more I wish I was still out there. I guess that's why you take pictures.

Current beer-scale: 3.2

on the road again

Caution: This post contains highly positive content about the University of Notre Dame.

The ironies of bringing a bike on a two-hour drive to South Bend in the hopes of saving a little time are not lost on me, but man was that a great idea. It gives whole new meaning to the bikes vs cars debate. With the bike, instead of an hour+ walk from a buddies house, it's a few minutes' ride and suddenly I'm at a tailgate. And when the game is (finally) over, hop back on and beat everyone to their cars, beat traffic out of the bend, and cruise home in time to run to Scooters. Awesome.

And it's always fun to play with the panoramic setting on the Kodak. I love this feature, maybe a little more than I should.

A perfect day for late September. I wouldn't really feel that way now if ND had gotten killed, but they didn't so I can reflect postively.

A vertical panoramic of Touchdown Jesus. I'm actually surprised at how well it turned out, seeing how I didn't think about lining up the elements in the mosaic for the two shots until I had already taken the first one and realized how dumb it was to line things up that way. Still, decent look at the library I spent a lot of time in.

The old reliable, the panoramic from the seats as I filed in. I was steady enough to hold the camera, so despite seats that get absolutely no shade until November I knew I'd be alright with enough water.
Unlike one of the guys infront of us, who immediately after coming in and trying to start some shit with the Purdue fans a few seats over, spent most of the game hunched over, hiding from the sun by putting his head in his shirt. At least he didn't puke, and at least we weren't sitting in front of him and worrying about it all day. Notice the class ring on the right hand. Truly, an inspirational example to alumni everywhere.

An action shot of Kyle Rudolph (#9) catching a 5-yard TD from Clausen. Nothing but luck on this shot, but you can see the ball on its way by the 5-yard line. I especially love the guy in the white shirt already giving the "touchdown" sign. I admit to being baffled by this offense. When they're clicking, watch out. When they're not, they make me want to puke. But they seem to go back and forth between the two for no discernable reason. I guess that's why good coaches get paid. Still, I refused to buy the wife a #7 jersey this weekend and opted for Maurice Crum Jr. instead. What the hell, she wasn't there. If I'm surprising her, I get to pick what I'm surprising her with.

All in all a great day, and thank god, b/c I get to do it all over again next Saturday, only an hour earlier thanks to the 1:30 cst start. Tremendous.

Current beer-scale: 8.5 (extremely high due to the nature of Sundays in the office and impending Sunday Night Football Bears action)