Cubs Win... Holy Cow!

I spent a few days in Chicago last week. Even though I'm from Missouri, it was only my second time being in Chicago. It's about a seven hour drive from where I'm from in Missouri.

My first visit was at Christmas a few years ago, when my family went to see Les Mis. The main thing I remembered from that visit was that Chicago parking is really expensive.



I was with my friend Jeff, and he pointed out that you can't go to Chicago without going to Wrigley, so we got tickets for the Cubs game on Friday afternoon, versus the Mets. I like the Cubs, and hate the Mets, so it was a good game to watch, even though both teams have struggled this season.

We took the subway to Wrigley, and meandered around outside for a while. I bought a $5 hat from a street vendor. Of course we took obligatory pictures by the iconic red sign, and by the Harry Carey statue.



We asked some parking attendants where a good place to eat was, and they sent us to Wrigleyville Dogs. The food was OK. A good adjective for the service would be "disgruntled". They did more barking than speaking. I asked for a cup of water. The cash register dude claimed that they only had bottled water, and they couldn't provide a cup of water because they didn't have a sink! Right... Jeff tried the Wrigleyville dog. He thought it was good but the actual frank was too small. I haven't eaten a hot dog in 15 years or so. I wasn't about to start wolfing down sodium nitrates at this point, so I got a Gyro plate. It was OK.



We went and got our seats about 15 minutes before game time. It was cool to see the other Wrigley icons -- the ivy, the rooftop bleachers, etc.



We had good seats, on the 1st base side about 30 rows up. Jeff went to the gift shop, and I sat down and studied the ticket "guards" who were checking the tickets of people with seats down closer to the field. The guard closest to us didn't seem to be checking tickets very frequently, so we decided to make a break for it, like in that Seinfeld routine ("There must be some mistake -- oh, I see, our seats are BAD, these seats are GOOD, that's the mistake.") .



We strolled right by the guard and sat in a completely empty row about 15 rows up from 1st base. The row slowly filled up over the next half hour, but we didn't get bumped until about the 7th inning, and then we only had to move over about 6 seats. So our crazy lawless gamble paid off.

I've always assumed that Cubs fans would be easy going, accepting of their team's perpetual incompetence, but I was in for a surprise. The fans were really into the game, even though their team is out of contention. They were most energetic in yelling at their own players. They were continuously berating Milton Bradley and Alfonso Soriano for their lazy/lousy fielding. When MB finally caught a routine fly ball, they all gave him a big jeer/cheer, and he bowed to the crowd.

It was a great game to watch. There was some action early, then it was tied 1-1 for a lot of the game. Then the Mets went up 2-1, I believe in the top of the 8th. In the bottom of the 8th, Soriano got up to bat. The fans were riding him big time for his poor fielding. I read later that he's playing injured, but I think the reason they were so mad at him had more to do with his contract and the whole season, rather than this one game. But he got up with 2 men on, and atoned for his poor fielding by cranking a 3 run homer to put the Cubs up 5-2, and they held on for the win. Holy Cow!

Speaking of Cubs fans, I'm putting out an ABP for Tyler Mollick -- where is that guy? Doesn't appear to be on Facebook... let me know if you've got the scoop.

Your firearms are useless against them!

I noticed what looked like water damage on the ceiling in one of my rental houses. There was a strip about 4 feet long, in the seam between 2 sheets of drywall.



There is a bathroom on the floor above, but I couldn't see anything that might be leaking upstairs, so I had my handyman Nick cut open the ceiling. He called me up, and said "Uhhh... it's not water." It was some sort of waxy substance, and it seemed to be coming from the plumbing up above, so we thought maybe it was from a melted wax ring from a toilet. But when Nick opened the ceiling a little more, we realized that there was way too much of it to be from a wax ring. I called my old roommate's dad who has a lot of remodeling experience and asked him what the mysterious substance might be. He said he couldn't think of anything related to plumbing, but asked if it might be HONEY...

Nick went up in the attic, and sure enough... "BEES! Bees Everywhere! They’re huge! They’re ripping my flesh off!" Just kidding, there weren't any bees. But there was an abandoned beehive that had melted and created a big mess. The beeswax and/or honey had dripped down to the floor below and caused the drywall damage.

We had to replace a big chunk of the ceiling. New adventures every day in real estate!

Angel's Landing

On my recent trip to Zion National Park, one of the hikes I went on was Angel's Landing. This was actually the 3rd or 4th time I've done that hike. I love it because it has great views all the way up, and the best view at the end. Also because it is somewhat strenuous and mildly dangerous, so you feel like you've accomplished something when you make it to the top.

Check out the footage below to get a feel for the hike:

Almost To The Top



At The Top

Still Shot At The Top

See more pics from the trip here.

Short and Sweet Voice Mail Greeting (Sprint)

When I posted a while back about 10 annoyances, number 3 on the list was:

When I'm trying to leave a voice mail and I have to sit through a long obnoxious automated message, such as "The caller you are attempting to reach is not available. At the tone I will take your message, or press 5 to page this person. Press 6 to leave a call back number. When you are finished with your message, if you are satisfied with your message, press pound, or hang up to deliver the mesage, or press star for more options. [PAUSE...] [PAUSE...] [CALLER COMMITTING SUICIDE...] BEEEEEP!"

I discovered, in my voice mail (which is provided by Sprint), how to eliminate the long automated greeting. Here is how to do it:

1. Call into your voice mail
   
2. Main Menu
   
3. Press 3: Change Personal Options
   
4. Press 2: Greetings
   
5. Press 1: Change Main Greeting
   
6. Press 3: Add or remove caller instructions that are played after your greeting
   
7. Press 2: Do not want these instructions played
   

That's it! Together we can make the world less annoying one voice mail greeting at a time! :)

Remote Control Your PC... For FREE!

I've tried out GoToMyPC a few times over the years, and I always thought it was very cool, but I never needed it enough to pay $20 per month.

I recently came across a provider of a similar technology called LogMeIn, and this one has a free version! It seems to work just as well as GoToMyPC. Check it out!

Semi Annual

Semiannual, last I heard, mean's every 6 months. There's nothing in the definition that would make it acceptable to mean "once a year, but 6 months after the other one that we refer to as annual". But yet that's exactly what the church uses it to mean in reference to general conference!

Can someone explain how they can get away with this? Do they think their tax exempt status makes them dictionary exempt as well?? I think I was confused by this for about the first 25 years of my life. (Me: "Wait, wasn't the last one the 160th??") I'm still outraged by it. I'm tempted to boycott conference or start a Facebook group demanding that the naming convention be changed.

Aside from that, conference was really good.