theprotagonist5

I feel like nothing in my life is automated right now. All new all the time. Some excerpts for the log books:

I am at the point where I am at Steve's place pretty permanently now so its time to turn off the phone/internet at the condo and "gasp" I have to loose my old ameritech email address I have had since 1997. Sad. I don't use it so much, but I run a lot of newsletters there that have to be changed over now and I have to make sure I don't loose anything particularly good in the files or loose any contacts that may still use that old address. If you're reading this wondering how to contact me in the future, please use my yahoo.com address. It will be a few weeks before I have time to filter through all those emails though and get away from that monthly $75 bill. We also had to get my parents some new dial-up internet last night since they use my free DSL backup dial up plan that will be going away. And OMG! I can't believe I surfed the internet like that in 1997. Holy monkeys is that slow!

My brother has a girlfriend again and I'm not totally wild about her. Odd, I usually like his GFs, they're always cute and nice but there is something odd about this one. I am not sure what it is yet. I get a back country, rural, city hating kind of vibe from her. And in the current Obama democratic reform metropolis era we're in, I'm not sure why she thinks it's ok to make fun of other ethnic backgrounds that she goes to college with. Yes, she's in college, I think she's 23 and Scott is 31. Big age diff, but he doesn't seem to care. She's definitley naieve about a lot, including her financial expectations of the world (who Coach handbag collection as a student?) and she uses a whole language of words I don't understand (dirty rice?, is that rural speak or youngspeak?) but as per usual it's not my place to mention anything. I do want my brother to be happy, and he seems like he is, but I guess I just thought of him with a classier more worldly girl. Sigh...

My commute time has doubled with the metra, craptastic. I used to like the simplicity of walking out my door and to the train whenever I was ready and now I rush through everything at an anxious pace to get out the door at 7:30 am for an 8 am train and a 8:35 bus to get to work by 9 am. On the way home it gets better. The 121 only runs at rush hour, so if client rush work comes in at 5pm I get stuck taking the 151 or 157 busses which can take an hour to get to union station from michigan ave. Then IF you get there at the time of an express it's a 30 min train ride to the burbs, if not its a regular train 1 hour trip and another 20-30 min drive home from the station. Steve bears the brunt of this also being early to work after dropping me off and staying late every day until I call and say I will be at the train station. I get to work from home on Fridays, but since they laid off our work from home analyst here last week and gave out all his accounts to the 4 remaining ones, I am not sure doing that is a positive for my career. It's hard to stay in touch with management from home.

Living together is a challenge sometimes with commuication. Not a seriously diffcult one but here's an example. We have needed to clean Steve's garage since I met him. He had a 2 car garage with 1 car for 12 years so the old tires, old exaust pipes, mufflers, brakes, yard equipment, oil change equipment and a whole bunch of random garbage crept up. We smooshed it a bit to fit in my car a while ago but this weekend we finally did something about it. The thing was "clean the garage" meant 2 totally different things to both of us. I meant, take everthing out, put it on the driveway, put it back in better order and throw out stuff you don't want to put back in. He meant to take everything out, wash the floors and just put everything back somewhere. Ugh. We eventually did get everything washed and strategically placed and now have room to walk around the cars and got his old desk out of the loft used as a makeshift workbench.

Wedding planning is plugging along. I just have to say though I neevr though I would be spending $4K on flowers. Yes, it is exorbitant, yes I tried to cut back the quote, but we have a fancy shmancy florist that is actually very good and Steve's mom insisted on not cutting back and paying for things. I feel a bit guilty because its double what we budgeted for and somehow it is going to come up later that she paid all that for the flowers at our wedding. Especially if Steve's brother gets married and his GF wants flowers worth half that. I am wating for this to somehow backfire, but I couldn't keep pushing to pay for it myself when she called the florist and managed things from there. I am also alarmed that our small budget wedding is now near 23K in total overall cost. I'm not writing that to brag, I am writing it out of embarassment. We might have 75 people max but the cost of everything from the reception to the rehersal dinner to the brunch the day after has been quoted and the the total is alarming. I want people to be happy when they come to the wedding, but I also know they won't remember any of it a year after it happens. We're committed to all the decisions we've made, but I feel bad that my 15K goal went out the window despite a few good deals like buying a $200 dress and Steve finding a great deal on a very nice artcarved wedding band at James & Williams.

My blogging has lagged latley because we're a bit swamped at work. I have more clients now that the work at home analyst has been laid off and next month is big hell quarterly report month with the largest client. I am not sure how everything is going to get done at home and with the wedding when I am most likley going to be working looong hours. It's interesting trying to find time to get wedding stuff done, move my stuff to Steve's one car load at a time, have an overloaded workload and try and fix up Steve's place to eventually sell. Oh yea, and we're supposed to have *more* time together since we live together now. Sigh... I think eventually things will calm down but not for a while.

And lastly the other thing squarley on my mind latley is trying to loose weight before the wedding. Initially I did when we got engaged and I bought a dress that just *barely* fit me because I thought I would loose more weight before the wedding. Hmmm. That hasn't happened. I'm still about the same and skipping snacks or cutting back on calories is impossible when I am stressed out at work. I am beginning to get worried more and more about this because I only have 3 months left. While technically it is possible to loose another 10 lbs by then, I would be happy with 5. I just don't know where/when/how this is going to be possible.

I have been reading some posts here today and trying to catch up on what is happening with everyone. It seems like everyone is located pretty far away now and it is almost hard to remember when we were all in the same city and (most of my friends here) were dancing swing at various places like rumors, willowbrook ballroom and fizz every week. Although I am not buying any houses, changing jobs, having babies or having any other drama in my life right now I should probably write something to sum up life latley. 

Steve and I are doing well. He is still as awesome as ever. I think he and I are probably as compatible as you can be and I think we both hope we are going down the same direction path type thing. We think we know where it will end up but not to jinx anything we will just wait and see. I think that might be my only small frustration, that I am ready to jump into the lets make it official phase and he is not quite yet. He thinks he will but it's just a bit fast to know forever type things when you haven't had a lot of experiences to compare this to nor maybe enough time to date and be super super sure. (it's been 11 months) I guess people's emotions move at different paces even if they are both very much in love. At least I feel good that we are happy together, we never really fight and we seem to have the same aspirations and goals in life. After all the ups and downs I have had in my dating life I feel lucky to have found him and that our relationship has grown into something serious like this and that it makes us both happy.

Otherwise work is ok allbeit a bit boring at times since things can be repetitive but hopefully the company and product will be stable for a while considering that there are no web marketing jobs out there right now, not even with my varied web marketing background. I am also trying to continue gathering more knowledge and am in a Statistics class on Thursday nights at Triton (community) college. I know it's hard to remember college but back then I studied education and had no purpose for a stats class. So, even though I know a lot of the concepts from every day use, I thought going back and taking the class would be helpful for now and for later if I needed it as a pre-requisite.

I am also happy that ChicagoWeekendFun.com is continuing to grow. Some days it is one step forward and two steps back but month over month I usually see growth. I just have to find time in addition to everything else going on to do research and post. I hope it continues to grow and be an interesting side project for a while, I really enjoy being in charge of my own site after working for a site and it is really exciting to see what happens new every day and figure it all out. These new blog ad networks have also made it worth just about anyone's while to start a site with no minimums as far as impressions or clicks go. This is really revolutionary in the online ad world. Some will drop out though, I have noticed a big drop in inventory latley, I hope a few good ones survive.

In other news Zeus is still here being as cute and lovey dovey as an 18 lb cat can be. He enjoys many belly-rubs and mornings watching the birds outside. It has been a year now since I adopted him and I really think he has taken all that time to adjust to the change in living quarters and having me as an owner. He is much more relaxed and social now than he was a year ago at this time.

Hmm...not much else happening really. I joke that Steve and I are the most consistent people in the world. Nothing super interesting or dramatic ever really happens to us. But then again, we kinda like being boring. We are going to go see "Turn of the Century" at the Goodman on the 24th (with Jeff Daniels in it of all people) and Robin Williams Standup Comedy at the Chicago Theater on the 27th. (my Bday, ack! 33) Of course I will blog about both on CWF. We also will be heading out to his folks lake house in Indiana one last weekend to put the boat away for the winter soon. (did I mention I have 3 gallon ziploc bags of Indiana picked bluberries in my freezer?) Otherwise, his mom continues to try and teach me to cook as we have the opportunity, and my parents continue to let me make a mess of their kitchen cooking on Sundays when Steve, Scott and I come over to visit. Somehow cooking and working can't happen on the same days though...too much stress there. (that is why I avoided it for so long!!)

In other people's news, Lisa D had her second baby Rachel and Janice is pregnant with her second child due in February. I can't wait to see all the holiday cards this year. Steve and I should do one with all 3 cats just so we don't feel left out. I have posted a few pix on here of Amy and DJ's baby Zoe and she is doing well at 6 months also. It's just baby crazy right now... well not with me specifically...

Anyway, I hope that is a telling update and that everyone else is having a fun fall and  that things are going well.

I was someone not much interested in the world beyond my town growing up but as an adult I am finding that my life crosses paths with information, entertainment, work and design from all over the world every day. I find it interesting that not only do we do this all the time, it's almost not a big deal anymore that we are all so interrelated. Here are some recent examples: 

1. I am actually on the phone with Singapore right now while we sort out some info on an international campaign. I also get to call London later. International media has begun to become a bigger part of my job and it's interesting and cool. The media properties right now are all across Asia. The previous one was all across Europe. Pretty cool.

2. I have been listening to the live "Swell Season" concert online at NPR at work to block out all the noise chatter when I am crunching data and Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are from Ireland and the Czech Republic. It is interesting to hear his Irish accent and her Czech/Irish accent in the concert when they talk between songs. In the car these songs are great to sing along to. Listen to the interview and concert here

3. Eddie Izzard is coming to town this week and Steve and I are going to see the show on Thursday and Friday. A few upper corner balcony seats are still available online at Ticketmaster, get them quick before they sell out!. Eddie of course is from the UK and likes to say he is British European. (kind of like I'm polish ukranian american?) His humor and standup shows have influenced me in a much more positive way about global relationships and cultural uniqueness. I want to find out what it is like to live, work and be a part other places. All the differences are interesting and sometimes shed light on how odd we are in comparison too if you think about it. I have bought a fair amount of stuff from UK Ebay that isn't available here. It is probably also worth mentioning that my favorite TV show has been TopGear which I discovered because Eddie was on it. I have found access to all the episodes and bought a good number of DVDs and books from Amazon UK from TG. (not to mention the Stig T-shirts from the UK for my brother and the region free DVD player)

4. As per always Steve and I are thinking of going to France for a Vacation. I know the currency conversion isn't in our favor, but his brother lives there so there has to be a cost benefit there and we don't know how many years he will be there. Steve even plays online mporg (?) games online with his brother in France and other friends all over the country. I am glad I have my passport ready and Steve even got one too. This is still a very costly trip though, so don't be suprised if as far as we go is Indiana this summer if I have to keep fixing my car. Grrr...

5. I am still a fan of Flickr and the every day photos from all across the world. You can learn from flickr. I find it interesting that the photos, contacts and sometimes recipies I like aren't even from the US. 

6. All this is in addition to the fact that I drive a Swedish car, have furniture from Ikea, work on a Chinese (Lenovo) computer, buy clothes made in China and other low cost manufacturing countries and email to keep in touch with people all over the world all the time. We used to think email was making the world a smaller place, when I think business is starting to really be global for all size companies and our relationships are following suit. It never ceases to amaze me that all these people in other countries not only speak english very well, but they also know our technology and business practices well. I feel lucky to represent my country and company when working with them and hopefully show both in a positive light.

Anyway, I just wanted to aggregate this for posterity since I was feeling kind of international today.

I hope all is well wherever you are today.