Phew!
Man, I'm a hard workin' man. I'm spending a lot of time at work trying to learn everything and when I come home I'm not so much in the mood to blog. I've been here for one month now so I'll give a briefing on how things are going over all.

-The job is going really well and my bosses have been very happy with me.
-I love the city. Its so much more interesting than Greenville and is a nice change of pace.
-My condo is great. I'm finally settled in with the exception of the kitchen (nudge nudge Pat). I'm going to take pictures later of the place so you guys can see what it looks like.

Thats about it for now. Things are going well for me, but I do miss my friends in NC. I miss them, but not the rest of NC.

Dukes of Cook
Earlier today I was walking down the street from the grocery store. My mind was drifting when I heard a car horn blaring. I looked up and there was this van barreling through a turn up ahead right past an old lady crossing the street. The van was within feet of her as she threw up her hands screaming. Once the van passed by she just kept on walking like nothing happened. People drive pretty aggressively here. I actually like it though. Its better than the poky drivers of Greenville.

Also, I apologize for the boring post. You'd think going 3 days without posting anything I'd be able to supply something more interesting. Problem is this is the only thing that comes to mind at the moment. I'll try to liven things up in the future.

Something else I could tell you is that I'm finally settled in to my apartment. I still need a bunch of kitchen stuff till I can start cooking again, but the living area is feeling good. Today I put stuff up on the walls which is what I was saving for last. I'll post pictures later of my bachelor pad.

Howlin' Wolf
One of the running jokes held by the 201 (particularly Charlie) involves people who wear shirts with pictures of wolves on them. There isn't much to the joke really. You know the shirts I'm talking about, and you know what the kind of people who wear them are like. It takes a special person to wear a shirt like that, but it takes an even "specialer" (just invented a new word) person to put wolves on their oversized pickup truck. I discovered this wonder of the world during my 14 hour drive from NC to IL. It was taken somewhere in the nothingness that is Indiana.

Also, it looks like there's going to be a hold on new Featured Flavas. For some reason my uploads aren't going through when I put songs online. I have a feeling it might have something to do with ECU cracking down on file sharing.

Shitty O'Keas
Tonight Dr. Chandler and some of my former fellow Hospitality Management students came to my restaurant to visit and have dinner. Later on I met them down at Kitty O'Shea's for a few beers and a shot. Afterwards I passed out on the train and missed my stop. When I woke up I was surrounded by Hispanics and had to piss like a race horse. I ended up whizzing in an alley on my walk home. It was quite relieving.

Hot Ass On The Pier
Today Budweiser had a little party for all the Navy Pier tenants so they could suck up a little to the people that sell their product. They supplied free beer and lots of snack food including these big delicious chocolate chip cookies. The big attraction though was that they brought the Budweiser clydesdale horses. Those things were massive too. You guys remember the Budweiser commercial that aired during the Super Bowl that was about the donkey who wanted to be a Budweiser clydesdale? Well, I love that commercial and as soon as I saw the horses were going to be there I said they should bring the donkey, because donkeys kick ass. Sure enough they did. He just stood around and didn't do much, but its ok cause he's a donkey and thats what they do.

BarberShop 3: Boys Town
Since I have just one more day of training at work that requires me to wear a "hat" I figured it would be a good idea to spend part of my day off to get my hair did. So I started walking around the neighborhood hoping to find a place. I figured that since I live in the traditionally homosexual neighborhood known as "Boys Town" it wouldn't be hard to find a good place to get my haircut. I walked into the first place I saw and soon as I walked in I had the feeling this place was a bit more expensive than I had planned. Oh well, I was already inside and it would be weird if I just turned around and walked out. Some little Asian lady cut my hair and she was doing a really good job. Almost too good of a job. My fears of a steep charge were rising. As I was sitting there a guy and girl later walked in and were looking for someone who worked there named Stephen. The girl had a very mannish jaw structure by the way. They also kept referring to Stephen as a "she." Once I was done with my haircut (looked good) it was time to find out how much this thing was going to cost me. Yikes, $35. I also gave the girl a $5 tip cause I figured since I usually give $2 for a $12 cut, $5 for a $35 cut seemed proportional.

That's my little barber shop story. Now I'm going to go back to watching the Cubs game on TV and occasionally looking out the window at the sailboats floating across the lake in the sunset light.

God's Beautiful Creatures
The other day on the bus I got the honor of witnessing an amazing human being. He was talking to the bus driver for a good few minutes so I managed to get a good idea of his character. I would say he looks kind of like Beetlejuice from the Howard Stern, but with this guy's hair, and he talked a lot like this guy.

Glocks and Gats
Yesterday this one guy at work told an interesting story. Apparently, he got shot 6 times a few years ago. When he was in the emergency room his younger brother found the guy that shot him and killed the guy. At the murder trial the judge said the guy had no remorse for the murder so he put him away for life. When I asked him why the guy was shooting at him he kinda laughed and said, "Fuckin' with them dudes."

Meg Madness (a recap)
Since my last post Meg's visit here started Sunday afternoon and ended Thursday morning with a whole lot of great times crammed in between.

Here's a recap of everything we did: ate at a great pan-asian restaurant (got sushi, honey almond shrimp, and red bean ice cream), go to the Lincoln Park Zoo (free zoo with awesome monkeys and polar bears), take a boat ride down Chicago river (tour guide talked about architecture), showed her where I work and introduced her to some of my coworkers, ate dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, went to the John Hancock observatory (really high amazing view of a sunset over Chicago), saw the most amazing church courtyard ever (really old place right across from John Hancock on the Magnificent Mile) watched some episodes of Sex & the City (its become a tradition of ours), went paddle boating in Lincoln Park South Pond, had lunch at Portillo's, went to the Contemporary Art Museum (sucked balls, but we had a good time making fun of its retardedness), enjoyed gelato and a smoothie while people watching on the Magnificent Mile, went to Murphy's Bleachers (a bar next to Wrigley that was named best sports bar in the country by Sports Illustrated), saw a Cubs night game where Greg Maddux shut out the Mets and the Cubs hit 4 home runs (final score 7-0 Cubs), Went to the Cubby Bear bar outside Wrigley, while at work Meg amazed me with her thoughtfulness (she put together my desk, bought me a pineapple plant, a desk lamp, some plastic plates and bowls, and some Old Style beer), went to North Pond restaurant (very fancy place located inside a park), danced together in my apartment, and then said goodbye the next morning.

Phew! I think that's everything. I had an absolutely great time and I'm so very glad she came. I miss her already, but the plan is that she'll be here again in August. I consider myself very lucky to have her in my life.

Back Like Chiropract
This is my first blog post from my new Chicago condo. It took me a while to get the internet guy here. Work is going well and I'm slowly but surely getting settled into my place. I came here with no furniture whatsoever so I've spent pretty much all my money trying to collect the necessary items. I don't even have plates after living here for a week. I had to use my pizza pan as a plate one night.

Megz is here now visiting so we're going all over the city checking out fun stuff. We're going to get some breakfast then check out some museums now, and go to the Cubs night game tonight. I'll catch up more on whats going on here later.

Moving Day
In just a few minutes here I'm going to be leaving Uncle Bill's to pick up the keys for my new condo in the city. The car is all loaded up and ready to go. I won't have internet access until Thursday night most likely so don't expect to see me online or see any blog updates until then. Once I get settled in I hope to post on here as often as I used to. In the mean time though, keep on rocking the free world.

Feel free to call the cell piece too. Preferably after 9pm CST (10pm EST).