Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

Yes Jennifer.

i like visiting my parents for a reasonable amount of time. asheville is really nice and has good places to eat and it's relaxing to be at my parents' house. DC will be cool because i'll get to see my sister and her husband and baby (who is just two months younger than evie), and sarah's sister just bought a house so we'll have somewhere free to stay. i think the thing that irritates me most about visiting family or having family visit is having to adjust my schedule and my list of things i want to do to accommodate someone else's routine or priorities. i'm not very good at this but i think i'm getting better.

Yes, I consider myself lucky to truly enjoy spending time with my parents (and my second set of parents, i.e. Tom@s' parents), my brother and my extended family. In recent years I have put a stop to traveling, every year, to both Omaha, NE and the U.P. over a week in Christmas--because, frankly, it was too much time in a car and not enough time relaxing. Now I do it every other year, which is alright. Once M@tt moves here, I suspect I'll go home even more often, as we'll be able to split driving duty.

In other news, just because we're supposed to have about the same amount of snow as last year, does not mean that traveling will be nigh impossible from November 1-April 1.

And, now, I am leaving work!

Jeff and I got stuck in Philly last Christmas due to the weather so we're using the weather as a good excuse not to travel, not clutching our pearls about the inevitability of weather-related travel mishaps. Just, you know.

anyone go to the great american beer festival last week

I would have liked to but wasn't able, I think Jeff was going?

♪

That was in Denver, right? Yeah I didn't go to it.

I'm going to the Barrel and wood aged beer festival.

^^^that's what I was thinking of

Jenny-I figured as much. Also, I think I don't mind holiday travel that much because I rarely fly. Airports and holidays are really designed to test one's sanity.

Oh man yeah. For example, when we were stuck in Philly, as we were waiting in the airport for our rescheduled flight home, we saw the departure time for our flight come and go with no announcement of any delays from the airline or communication of any kind from airport personnel. I was basically rocking in my chair chanting "calm blue ocean" to keep from crying/murdering someone.

i really hate air travel, this is why we drive to NC most of the time even though it's a long-ass drive.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/8096463-418/woman-jumps-to-her-death-inside-thompson-center-downtown.html

This was not me. Also, that happened about 14 minutes after I left work last night.

God damn. We joke about this a lot at work and I knew there had been previous indoor suicides but this is the first one since I started working there.

that's crazy

Wow!!

Hey, John, wifey, Kathryn ct and i are going to genes sausage shop later to hang out outdoors. Join us!

Mick (ha typo) we are considering yr show.

Ladders. They are everywhere.

we were just up by gene's a little earlier this afternoon. probably before you guys were in the area.

thanks for your consideration.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: we are not playing that show tonight, because it appears that our frontman and his wife may be having a baby instead. don't go to that show because i won't be there. unless you want to see the other bands.

Wow. Congratulations!

They updated that article from this morning. I didn't know it wasn't a state employee until just now. But the way the article reads sounds like the public can't access about a million different places to jump to your death from inside the JRTC, and they can. I have to say, the narrow margin by which I missed this has had me a little freaked all day.

A Northwest Side woman who jumped to her death from the 15th floor of the James R. Thompson Center may have climbed on a chair before plunging over the chest-high wall into the building’s atrium, authorities said Saturday.

That's the lead sentence. BREAKING: SHE CLIMBED ON A CHAIR, MAYBE.

If a show coincides with a delivery, rockers or their wives should give birth on stage FFS.

Now I don't feel as bad about missing yet another Advance Base show.

I just want to say that I love Tylenol PM.

You shouldn't be taking so much acetomenaphinngnggggg. Get some Benadryl for when you don't have aches to go w/ your sleeplessness.

The marathon is going by below my apartment on Clark and it's pretty loud and been going on for a while.

It's fun in that way. It's endless.

Where can I get a haircut today before 1 p.m.? I usu. go to Gabby's but I forgot on Friday. I really, really want a haircut.

xp - yeh, it's still going strong.

i thought the beer fest was in chicago. glad i didn't go now

i slept for TEN HOURS

i feel like a new person

...and now you look in the mirror and your face is a GORILLA FACE!

it looked more like a messed up potato after ten hours of sleep actually

No Twilight Zone transformation, though? That's a relief.

I remember hearing this song on V103 driving from Minnesota to Ohio a few years before moving here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmYiOPcJxhY

I am going to ask this here because the more the merrier:

does anyone want to go see the band CAVE with me on saturday 10/15 @ the hideout?! $10, i will probably get tix in advance to coerce myself to go (assuming that anyone is willing to go with me)

here is a video of their flatbed truck milwaukee ave stunt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv1RVkqacZM

A 35-year-old firefighter from Greensboro, NC died running the marathon today.

Whoa. RIP, and that's very sad. And one of the last people you would expect to die from running, according to the article, anyway.

Perhaps the lesson here is, don't try to run 26 miles. Maybe that's the lesson; maybe there is no lesson.

But it's so fun.

Yeah, sounds it. ;)

I spent most of the day spectating at mile 23. Its fascinating to observe that amount of fatigue on so many people. Felt bad for the ones that were really struggling.

Love the new Scare Quotes/FFs songs y'all
Totally fuzzy Flying Nun

thanks! i like them too. we recorded them a little while ago but i was waiting to see if we could get together enough for an ep or something.

Amanda, I am a maybe for Cave.

That guy was 500 yards from the finish line. What a strain on the body.

oh sorry i haven't gotten back to you about cave. still thinking about it. i know this is annoying and i apologize.

I do not apologize because I have been a good little show-goer lately but today I'm feeling incapable of a decision.

please keep recording them

oh good, jesse! i think it will be groovy. decide later, that's fine. i just wanted to know if i would have to steel myself for going alone or not.

anyone i don't care how long you wait as long as you are considering it, i will go
just kinda hard to motivate if i know for sure no one will go with me. would prob still go, but it's nicer to know that i could possibly not have to skulk around alone.

we tried to record a third song but had some problems with the performance (sarah and ben didn't have much time to learn the song) and the recording (a big chunk of the song didn't record for some reason). i cobbled together a version using the parts that did record, which i was pretty happy with, but ben and sarah didn't agree so i didn't put it on here. but i was excited about that song too so either i'll record it on my own or try to get together with ben and sarah someday to rerecord it. it's harder now though because ben doesn't have his practice space anymore, so we'd have to do it at a rehearsal space, which might suck. that's part of why i decided to go ahead and put these songs out there, because it seemed unlikely we'd be doing any more recording anytime soon (also due to ben's baby scheduled to arrive next month).

maybe this video from a 2010 performance at the hideout will help you change your mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blr9QiU5HVc

not change, make up rather