Last night my dad took me to a Tigers game. It was a good time. Comerica Park does not compare to Wrigley Field, but it's still a cool park. The scoreboard in the largest in Major League Baseball.


There's a great story behind this sign. It used to be just the General Motors center field wall. With the economy absolutely beating Detroit to death, General Motors obviously could not afford the advertising dollars that would be required for this sign. When they let Mike Illitch (the owner of the Tigers and a good deal of Detroit when you think about it) know, he not only gave the sign to General Motors for free, but he put the other two major car companies on there as well. That's a really great show of solidarity for the city of Detroit.



After the game was the fireworks, which I had only ever seen from Hockeytown Cafe while working. They were pretty impressive. I've always loved fireworks, but honestly never understood why they were so exciting. That's something I guess I was never meant to know.



Then I went to meet Cakes, Drew, Mariah, and Alex at the Tap Room. We were all there to meet Cake's new girlfriend, Rebecca. She's pretty cool from what I can tell, but I didn't really get a chance to talk to her much. I'm sure she's great.

ABC Pharmacy was another one.

So yesterday I went and became a member at the YMCA so I could start working out and such. On my walk back to Belmont to get on the bus, I passed a condo development and they had a artist rendering of what they hope the building would look like, including shopping at the ground level. Of course, they can't promise you a Starbucks or a Chipoltle, so they came up with generic versions.

We did some grocery shopping this weekend and rekindled our love for both Aldi and Trader Joe's. We bought roughly the same stuff we usually get on a big trip, but by going to these stores, we saved at least 50 bucks. And I got some pretzel bread so I can make my favorite sandwhich, Hot Turkey with Cheese on Pretzel Bread. Deeeelish.

It happens all the damn time.

So I've been neglecting the ol' blog again. This time, it's for a semi-legit and not at all lazy reason. I've been working for a website called ChaCha.com, making extra money answering questions that people text in. I've made about 32 bucks this week. I'm trying to go 5 bucks a day for work nights and 10 bucks a day on days when I don't work at all. That equals out to about 280 bucks a month. Anyhow, I'll catch you up on the past week, including a few pictures.


So last weekend, Jerry and Corrina visited from Detroit. Corrina was here to take a tour of the French Pastry School that she's thinking of attending next year. We started our Chicago adventure with a nap in the apartment and then headed to Ian's Pizza for dinner. The it was off to iO, where Corrina volunteered to talk about her day and then let the improvisers re-enact it. Having a few friends in the show, they spent a good amount of time making fun of me.
The next day we woke up and went to Wicker Park to visit a bakery owned by a graduate of the Pastry School and ate some absolutely amazing baked treats. We went to Reckless Records, Myopic Books, got Mexican food for lunch, Italian for dinner, and then saw Too Much Light. Sunday we went for breakfast and then watched Kristen's improv team rehearse. Good visit all in all.

Not much went on during the week. I watched the Scrubs Series finale and got a little emotional. Kristen went organic. I took her to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the American Theatre Co. for her birthday. This is a special show for us, since it was the show we went to on our first date. It was awesome.


This past weekend we did some Spring Cleaning and had a pillow fight. We also went to a fancy dinner at the Palm courtesy of Kristen's mom and her friend who get's $50 gift certificates when she stays at Swissotel (the hotel where The Palm is). I had a 40 dollar steak and Kristen had 30 dollar Chicken Parmesan. Everything was awesome!


Today I was given my own office for the week at work. We have a vacant office, so the most productive member of the marketing staff the week before is given the office for the week. The office is really weird. There's not much in the way of decoration, and I had the feeling today that I was some guy who had started his own business and this was his home office. But it is fun having my own office for the week. I was much more productive today.

My most recent improv class seemed to have an obsession with scenes that referenced sodas. Both obscure (I can recall at least 7 Crystal Pepsi references) and mainstream (many characters drank Coke Zero). I'm just now drinking my first Coke Zero and I'm reminded of a conversation I had with my friend Bryan last week. Coke Zero basically tastes almost identical to Regular Coke, but with no sugar or calories. So it's Diet Coke, but it tastes better.

So I ask you this, dear reader. Why does the Coca Cola bottling plant have two different vats of soda? One that has a bitter diet aftertaste and one that provides the same diet concious nutritional value as the the diet brand, with better taste. Shouldn't they just start selling Coke Zero as Diet Coke and say "Our Diet Coke tastes like regular Coke now!" I can't understand the logic.

I realized I have yet to talk much about my new job. I had to snap this picture on the fly. I've only been there 5 days, so I don't think it would be good to become the "blog" guy just yet. Maybe in a couple weeks. Anyhow, that's my desk. Dennis the Conquestador is keeping an eye on everything just like he was at Careerbuilder.

I'm working in the Marketing department for a small IT consulting firm. It's alot of cold calling, but it's not as aggressive as CB was in the approach. It's basically like "we're just trying to get the word out, if you aren't interested, that's cool, we won't call anymore". I really like that aspect, but I'm suffering from culture shock. It's all I can do sometime not to fire off a snappy rebuttal when people tell me no. I'll get used to it though.

Yesterday was an awesome day. It was my Aunt's 60th birthday so to celebrate we took a day trip to New Buffalo MI. The reason for our destination was 3 fold.

1. We're renting some houses there this summer for a McGillen family trip. We got to check out those houses. They are really nice.

2. It's a pretty suitable meeting place. My parents, aunts, uncles, brother, and cousins from MI all met us there. It's only a 3 hour drive for them, and only an hour and a half from Chicago. Aunt Colleen also came from Iowa to suprise Patti. She hung in Chicago (actually La Grange) with Patti and Peggy. We don't see Colleen as often as we'd like, since Iowa is pretty out of the way. I think it had been about 2 years since I'd seen her. So that was really cool.

3. We ate at Redamak's. For those who don't know, Redamak's is a seasonal burger joint that's only open from April to October. To be honest, it's not the greatest burger, but they are good. I wouldn't make the trip just to go to Redamak's, but New Buffalo is a really quaint town and it'll be great to spend at least 2 or 3 days relaxing with my family this summer.