March Update
Topic: Daily

I'll start off with how works going and what's happened this past weekend as that is really all I can recall at this moment.  I didn't realize that people still check to see if I update this thing so here goes.  I've gotta cut down on the Facebooking...  It is so out now because all the old people are on it! j/k

So, work has been a myriad of emotions, mostly negative feelings.  So we're supposed to be lucky to still have a job, yeah, but the job sucks.  You work so hard every month and get nothing extra.  I've grown accustomed to not making bonuses anymore and working overtime.  I probably make more working over time than I would if I got a bonus anyways.  Management thinks morale is high, but you hear people complaining everyday about policy changes, incentive changes, vendors we deal with, management, the new Bank's software, etc. etc.  I guess I'd be considered the Senior Loan Closer now since the other lady on my team moved back to Maryland at the beginning of February and all the other closers on my team are temps.  I'm just fed up with the whole situation but I know my manager is trying hard to make it easier but he has to go through so much red tape that he has to hound and hound and hound upper management to get anything done. 

This past weekend: 

Friday:  I headed out to Brickhouse with my co-workers, Rock, Mel and Joe to hopefully get this waitress we got when we went there a couple of weeks ago.  Didn't pan out that way so we just had a couple of beers, ate and left.

Saturday:  Headed out to Muay Thai.  It was somewhat of a subdued workout, skipping the sparring and working on technique and conditioning.  At the end of class, we were doing sit-ups in the ring for literally about 10 minutes and then when we were done with that, we joined the beginner class just when they were doing our normal 300 crunch cool down.  We did a lot of Ab work that day.  I'm thinking about taking the conditioning class but that starts at 8am.  That would be the hardest part for me, waking up at 7am on a Saturday.  But it may be the dagger for the other contestants in our Biggest Loser bet.  I had to rush out of class as Carter's 3rd birthday started at 12pm.  

I headed home and cleaned up.  Headed over to the Burr Ridge Community Center for the birthday party.  It was a typical kids b-day bash.  Spongebob was there and they had a face painter.  Good food.  Had a little spillage on my white shirt with a rogue Italian meatball.  It always happens with tomato sauce on my white shirts.  I hadn't seen a lot of people in a while.  Took some pics.  It was a bit of a Spongebob overload with the spongebob tablecloths, spongebob cake and a midget in a Spongebob costume.  It didn't seem like people were hanging out after the party so I headed back home.

Some of the guys and girls from Muay Thai class were planning on heading out to watch some amateur fights at another gym in Lansing, Illinois. They were teams from Team Toro (which apparently is right by my house in Burr Ridge and Active Edge Fitness.  I had all intentions of getting to Counterstrike to meet up with everyone at 6:30, but I fell asleep and ended up waking up at 6:27pm, so I was about 10-15 minutes late.  We headed out to the South Suburbs in good time.  The fights actually didn't start until about 8:30pm so we were sitting around for about an hour.  Our Muay Thai instructor was a judge and a ref, switching off every other fight or so.  I don't think the card was set in stone at the beginning but there were about 8 or 9 fights.  Most of them were Muay Thai bouts, there was one just straight boxing.  No elbows or knees to the head were allowed.  The only blood I remember being drawn were the heavyweights who still weigh about 30lbs less than I do and they were pretty out of shape.  The guy who lost called it quits after he got a punch to the body and after getting a bloody nose.  He seemed to be proud of it though as he walked out of the ring with a big smile on his face.  It was good to see fighters in similar stages that we were in, who are just starting out (not that I'm going to fight) but I think it was a good experience for all of us to see what our first fights could be like.  

After the fights, we headed out to Hooter's in Downers Grove.  They finished remodeling the back section.  They removed the wall partition put in a giant bar and put in tables surrounding it.  It's a lot more open now.  We ended the night gorging on wings and fried pickles.  Good Stuff.

Sunday -  I was planning on going into work.  I made the decision on Friday since I didn't want to stay to finish the work the jerks gave me to do for Monday. 

But, I had also promised one of the girls, Gaby, from Muay Thai class that I'd do a photo shoot for her and her fiancee so they'd have pictures for their Save the Date announcement.  She called me up and asked if I could meet up at around 2pm at the Naperville Riverwalk so I headed towards downtown Naperville.  Now, I'm not normally a fan of downtown Naperville but during the day it's pretty cool.  Unfortunately, the sun shining down directly overhead doesn't provide for optimal lighting for photos so being an amateur photographer, I had issues with shots being overexposed or when taking shots inside the wooden bridges, not being able to get the river in the background because of the extreme difference in brightness between the inside of the bridge and outside.  I normally don't figure out how to fix these problems until I encounter them so I have to read up on how to fix it.  We roamed down the Riverwalk trying to find some good places to take shots from.  There were some good spots, unfortunately, it being so early in spring, there were no leaves on the trees and the ground was all muddy.  It was basically colorless so the shots may look better in black in white.  

By the time we were done it was already after 4pm and I didn't want to go into work that late so I made the decision to go into extra early on Monday.  Probably 7 or 8am to get what I need done before my regular start time.  I'll probably head out there during the summer when there's some color and foliage on the trees to take some pics. 

I headed back home and took a nap. 

I got a call from Bigs at about 6:30pm asking me if I wanted to go to Cheesecake Factory at Oak Brook.  After some debating, I ended up caving in and headed out to meet up with Bigs, Joanna, Espo, their friends Tony and Michelle and a surprise visit from B Lee who I hadn't seen in a couple of months.  Bigs told me that it was going to be all couples and he didn't want to be the only single guy there.  I had actually already eaten a couple of hours before and I didn't want to get hooked into eating again. But I went.  I had some Thai Lettuce Wraps, which were really good.  The sauces were delicious.  But I ended up having dessert, not so good (for the diet).  It was a good time, with the typical Big Mike jokes, good food, good company.  Didn't end up at Antipasto or in Indiana or the city this time.  No 15 hour outing tonight.  If I ever want to go out to eat or go drinking on Sunday, I know who to call.  I don't normally like to go out after 7pm on Sundays as I like to prepare for the coming work week, but it was nice to not wallow in self pity, dreading what bullshit I'll have to face the next 5 days. 

Good news is, there's only 15 days left of this mandatory overtime.  Hopefully only 2 days until I/we win big in the St. Patty's Day Raffle and Tuesday is supposed to get up to 70 degrees!  Spring is finally here! 

 

I haven't posted any pictures up yet.  I still have a bunch of pictures from Counterstrike's Grand Opening, Justine and Ryan's Meet and Greet and pics from Carter's birthday,  I may post up the pics I took of Gaby and her fiancee too.  

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The Year So Far
Topic: Daily

I haven't had the time or energy to start working on the 2009 site yet.  Work has imposed 8 hours of mandatory overtime for January and will most likely do the same for February.  It's been a challenge trying to get in 8 extra hours in a week when I don't even want to be there for the regular 40 hour work week.  It's hardly fair when this is supposedly required for everyone in the Retail Channel but come to find out that not everyone is being made to do it.  On top of that, they've taken away 3 bank holidays from us (giving us 3 floating holidays instead)  It looks like I will be taking close to a month off of work sometime during the summer, which actually isn't so bad.  I've got to get going on finding a gym membership outside of Counterstrike so I can get some extra cardio in and maybe some lifting.  

Last week, we had a visit from my brother Eric, who came to tell us he will most likely be getting a job as a contract EMT in Iraq for a year at least.  It's good money, tax free and any trips back home or anywhere else would be paid for by the contracting company.  So, we had a family party and my sister's.  I haven't uploaded any pics to Shutterfly yet.  I've uploaded a few to facebook but have a lot more.

This past Friday, I headed out to Summit for a co-workers birthday.  Since my mom has my small digital camera, I wasn't able to take pics but it was a good time.  Studio 63 is club of which most of the patrons are latino.  Music was pretty good and consisted of a lot of old school freestyle and house music.  Beer was extremely cheap and 2 or 2.50 a bottle!!  It was way too cold though.  

This past Saturday, a few of us, Marino's, Doydora's, Manalad's and Art headed to Oak Brook Drury Lane to have dinner and watch Miss Saigon.  It was a pretty good deal at about $53 for both, not including gratuity or alcohol, although I did not drink.  

Sunday, I hibernated for a good portion of the day.  Monday is a holiday but it was strongly recommended that we come in and it was either we come in for 8 hours or don't come in at all.  We do have a choice though, we either get double pay or we get a floating holiday.  I will probably do double pay because I will be more likely to forget about the holiday and lose it at the end of the year.  This week is going to be pretty busy so I'm hoping to get a head start on work for Wednesday and Thursday, because those look to be the worst days so far. 

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2009 Blog in the Works

A winner never quits and a quitter never wins! So, the 2009 Blog is in the works.  I spent New Year's Eve in B-Ridge, close to home.  It was a good time.  Appetizers were there to munch on.  Had some girlie drink to start off the night, Pimm's w/ fruit and lemonade.  I'm not sure what is in Pimm's but it smells and tastes wierd.  The rest of the night was Sangria and champagne. 

I swear, the local New Year's Eve footage is so bad compared to New York's.  None of the venues they were shooting from were actually in Chicago, except for the hosts who were not at a party, but were just shooting from the top of the Trump Tower.  The parties were shot in Burbank, IL and a casino in Hammond, Indiana.  Not quite comparable to New York.  The night was quite subdued with all the families and a bunch had come after midnight.  Next year, I'll have to come out of the "comfort zone" as Meesh mentioned and  do something different.

So, 2009 is here.  January as far as work goes will be rough.  They've imposed 8 hours of mandatory overtime for everyone.  This means that I will need to go in at 8am and work til 7pm, if I want to be able to work out at night.  

I was planning on signing up for a membership at XSport formerly Powerhouse Gym.  Counterstrike, Ross's MMA school, is opening up a new location that is more suited for its purpose so for $15 dollars more a month than what I'm paying now, I've got access to this place whenever any class is going on.  Which means 5-10pm Monday through Friday and Saturdays.  I'll have to see what kind of equipment this place has before I committ to another membership at a gym.  

I have almost 3 weeks of vacation, + the 2 weeks that I will accrue this year that I need to use before the end of the year.  I'm hoping to travel somewhere this year to help use some of that up.  Somewhere I've never been before.  We'll see.

So, there's motivation again to lose weight, which I need especially after the holidays and having lost sight of my goal in the past few months.  It's going to be hard this month and I will be exhausted when this month is over, physically and mentally.  I'm hoping that with the proper diet and excercise I can see the same amount of success I saw last year.  I know it will probably take more now since my body's metabolism has adjusted to less weight so it looks like it's going to be bye bye rice again.  Maybe for Lent, I will become vegetarian.  That sounds a little extreme and I don't know if I'll be able to do it.  Or maybe just pork, beef, and chicken.  

Anyways, I will use the rest of the week/weekend to work on the 09 blog and upload the rest of the 08 pictures to Shutterfly and Facebook.  I will need to rest up well this weekend because Monday starts a harsh month.  

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GOODBYE 2008!
Topic: Holidays

I have obviously neglected this little blog and since it is the last day of 2008 and I'm trying to decide if the upkeep on this thing is worth it.  Anyways, 2008 had it's moments.  The announcements at work first that Wholesale was closing down in April, then waiting to find out if we still had a job, then getting bought out by Chase in September, and then waiting to see if we still had a job...  It was a year of waiting to see what happens.  Although, we've been told that we have jobs, I'm still waiting to see what 2009 will bring.  2008 has been a really depressing year, but it also has had it's great moments.  I've lost 60 lbs (more or less), and have become a lot more active than I was a year ago, we've added 3 more babies to the crew (Nisha, Brandon and Connor), I got my DSLR and have got great shots of all the memories with family and friends from 2008, Obama won the election... 

So Good Bye 2008 cuz 2009 is moving in! Happy New Years, Everyone!

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Playing 5 Week Catch up

It's going to take a lot for me to remember what has occurred over the past 4 weeks...  If it weren't for the pics I took, I'd have total memory loss. This entry started 2 weeks ago so I can only remember the major events.  Here we go, memory don't fail me now...

 Saturday October 25th - Jen P's birthday at Republic.   - Headed over the B-Ridge to ride with Vic, Kris and Jeanette to go celebrate Jen's birthday.  Since I missed the ghetto fest last year, and I've been on somewhat of a long streak of going out, I headed out.  Little did I know that it was an actual club and was in the heart of clubland in the "old" Crobar, Circus, Zentra neighborhood.  It's been years since I'd been to that area.  It was cold but it was a good time. Some of the guys were out at the UFC fight so it was mostly ladies.  Had a good time dancing and meeting new ppl.  Bigs, Jay, Tina, Lisa and some of Rey's co-workers spouses/friends came out and of course Jen's friends.  The music was good but was quite loud as they had the subwoofers and the speakers right on the dance floor.  After the club, headed back home with Kris and Vic and stopped off to get some Sliders at White Castles.  Perfect way to end the night.

Halloween Night - I had work til 7pm.  I got off about 15 minutes early and me, Rock, Joe and Crystal headed out to ghetto Champs for a couple of drinks.  I was hoping to see the Thai/Irish/German waitress there but she wasn't working.  It was quite dead and the customers were mostly old people, probably staying away from home to avoid having to give out pennies to trick-or-treaters.  

After having a few drinks there, I headed out to my co-worker Janet's house.  She had talked about having a Halloween party about a month earlier but hadn't sent out an invitation until the Tuesday before Halloween, so not a lot of people made it out.  In fact, when I got there, there was only 1 guest.  Toya, a former co-worker and her kids.  Eventually another co-worker showed up so we just sat around and talked.  It was a laid back get together. I headed back home at around 11:30am.  

I actually wanted to keep Halloween cheap cuz I had planned to go out to dinner for Kenny's birthday the following day.

Kenny's Birthday - Headed out to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for dinner. It was expensive but it was probably the best Ribeye steak I've ever had.  There was about 11 of us at dinner.  Ambience was more of a date place.  Lights down low, really cramped space, but it was great nonetheless.  

After dinner, we headed out to Motel Bar by River North.  It was a small lounge, didn't play any good music but it was a good time.  

The weekend of the  8th: ????? I need to research that... It's not registering in my brain

Friday, November  14:  Got off of work at around 7pm and headed over to Jen P's place to help paint her townhouse.  She had a lot of walls to paint.  Since I had a 4 hour Muay Thai seminar on Saturday, I opted not to go to Rey's birthday at Barley Corn, plus I had already committed to helping Jen before I found out about the get together at Barley Corn.

Saturday, November 15:  The instructors were scaring me, telling us that Paul was going to be pretty hard on us, pushing to see how far we can go.  The class started out pretty hard, warm-ups were: Running 10 laps, Jumping rope, push-ups and suicides (sprinting 3/4 of a basketball court length and then sprinting backwards) as a circuit.  We did this sequence for about 10 minutes.  After the warm ups, the rest of the seminar actually wasn't that bad.  Paul's teaching style is different than his brother Rafael's.  Paul tends to stop in the middle of a technique drill to explain the technique in more detail and break it down to the simple physics of the body movement.  It's definitely good information though.  The class went a little long but it was a good experience.  After the seminar, me and Jay were hungry so we headed over to New China Buffet for some Grub.

Saturday night:  Headed over to the M.analad's  to watch the UFC fight.  It only ended up being me, Karl, Michael (Jeanette's bro) and Mark.  I was hoping for Couture to win but Lesner knocked him out.  During the fight, Michael had left to go buy Guitar Hero (w/ the drum set and microphone).  Ended up hanging out a little bit to play.  They had a lot of good songs on there.

Sunday night, Nov. 16:  Decided last minute to head out to Medieval Times for Rey and Vic's birthdays.  I was so tired but I missed Barley Corn so I got a ticket for me and B Lee and made it there about 30 minutes before showtime.  The show really hasn't changed since I went there the last time for Dedok's birthday.  The princess was quite cute, unfortunately nobody got a picture with her.  It was a good time eating with our hands and watching horses poop.

Friday - 21st:  Headed out to Ghetto Champs with the co-workers, Rock and Joe to see if "B" the cute Thai/German/Irish waitress was there.  She was working. 

I thought I was good to go at work.  I was going to leave at 6:30-45 but some of the managers there don't have any time management skills and they were scrambling to find some fool to do a rush file.  I was that fool.  I got done with it by 7:10pm but I still had to do my "information security" checks, which pretty much consists of checking to make sure everyones desks are clear of sensitive borrower information.  I didn't get to Champs until 7:45pm.

I was actually surprised "B" remembered us, and she actually gave me a hug when I walked in.  Coincidentally (and unfortunately) her boyfriend was dj'ing karaoke night that night and she had said that there were going to be a bunch of Filipinos there.  Her boyfriend and his friend Derrick were going to be there.  Just as she finished saying that I looked over and Dedok was carrying some karaoke equipment.  Fricken' small ass world.  He brought his crew with: Phil P. Ricky M. , Jennifer, Paul S. and eventually Jay, Bigs, Peter, BJ, John Jay, Ross, Derek C. and Dennis showed up too, maybe some others too.  I was just to f'ed up to remember.  Good times.

Saturday, November 22nd:  I actually woke up at 9am and I still headed out to Muay Thai class.  I was tired but I was able to keep up.  I just didn't want to spar and get jacked in the head.  After class I went home and took a nap.

Saturday was also our 13th Annual Thanksgiving Dinner:  It was a smaller turnout than last year but Rudy and Thuy had joined us in celebrating this year.  It's definitely more like a family party now in comparison to 7-8 years ago when we'd eat and then we'd go out after that.  I actually got a late start,  I woke up from my nap at around 4pm and still had to look for all the parts of my deep fryer and I had to get some pork bellies.  I didn't get to B-Ridge until about 6pm.  Deep fried 2 turkeys and the pork bellies.  The food was good.  The guys sat around playing poker and the girls stood around talking, the kids were playing around.  Typical family party events.  

Sunday - I went to church and then watched the Bears game at the Marinos. 

I haven't gone to church in years.  Recently, I've been praying.  I pray to God everyday before I walk into work for help.  Help me to get through the day.  Help me to deal with these morons that are running this place, with our incompetent vendors, with just being able to keep my calm.  For the past 2 weeks, I've been able to deal with it.  It hasn't been bad.  I felt that I owed it to him to start going again.  So I went. 

I hate my job. Almost everyone hates their job where I work.  People are just miserable and there are new rumors emerging everyday.  People came running upstairs on Friday telling us that a certain department was laid off and certain people got e-mails that told them to pack up their things and their stuff is subject to security searches as they leave.  Stuff gets so overexaggerated and misinterpreted there. The fact is it was only an informational e-mail and the people that were thought to have been laid off were just in a meeting.  Im assuming someone went down there and saw that nobody was around.  I don't know.  People are stupid. 

We've been waiting for 2 months to find out what's going to happen to us.  They told us we'd find out by or before December 1st so everyone is on edge.  I'm not on edge, I just wanna know my fate.  I either get laid off w/ severance, or I stay through the transition make my pay + 100% pay for a specified time and then get severance, or they keep me.  I'm hoping for the first 2, really.  I hate that I work for a company that contributed to the current economic disaster and for a CEO that made millions in bonuses for annihilating this company.  I have never played the lotto this much before.  I'm so looking for a way out but I'm also scared about the lack of jobs that are out there.  I'm just anxious waiting for the answer to our future.  

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Another Weekend Update
Topic: Weekend Updates

Friday - I was going to head out to Ghetto Champs again with Joe and Rock, cuz I wanted to see the part Thai/German/Irish waitress from the week before.  Pictures from that are on my Shutterfly site.  There were some pictures in there that I didn't post but I was flirting with her a bit and was helping her role up silverware so she could get out of work to go watch her friend in a go-go dancer competition at Crobar.  That fell through since it was not pay day so Joe didn't want to spend any money or drive home intoxicated.

Bigs had texted and called me earlier asking me if I wanted to check out Fatburger in Orland Park.  Fatburger is a burger joint that they go to out in Vegas whenever they're out there.  I told him whenever I go to Vegas, I'm the only big guy with the crew that I go with and they're more interested in gambling and partying than finding places to eat.  So the finer dining places in Vegas are still a mystery to me.

So Bigs picked me up with his buddy Dennis and we took off to Orland Park. 

It had been only open for a week and a half so I was expecting a big line.  Bigs said they had to wait in line for 30 minutes and then another 10-15 for a table.  It wasn't that bad at 8pm on a Friday. Hilariously, one of the workers there recognized Mike since that was the 3rd time he's been there the week and a half since it's opened up.

I got a double King which was two 1/2 lb patties with an egg.  It was really good.  Next time I have to check it out with some Chili on it.  

After the grub, we headed to the closest bar,Granite City.  We had a couple of beers.  I struggled with the 2nd one because I was so full.  After that we headed home.  

Saturday -

Morning - Headed out to Muay Thai class.  There are 3 brothers.  Rafael is our main instructor.  He has another brother, Paul,  who teaches Muay Thai in Florida. He has another younger brother, Ray who's quick and really good.  Watching him spar with some of the guys kind of scared me cuz he didn't really know how to hold back but he's good.  Paul was a really good instructor, pausing our techinque drills to tell us what we were doing wrong and why we were doing certain things.  It was a good work out. Raf had told us we were taking pictures and I guess we have a good core group of dedicated people so we took our first "team" picture.  It's kind of exciting knowing that some of us will be fighting.  I'm not talking about me but as long as I can afford it, I'll be there to help out the guys that are fighting.  Once Ross finds his own gym, I'll definitely be going there on the off nights to work out.  I'm paying more for the class than I was paying when I was a member at Lifetime but right now, I'm only limited to 3 nights of class a week.  I'm hoping that by being in class, the gym will be open all the time to work out. 

I headed over to the Cuevo's for Rose's surprise birthday party.   I had to stop by the bank to withdraw some cash beforehand, saw Phil's brother since he works at West Suburban and then had some time to kill since the surprise was at 3:30pm.  I was going to get something to but then I got a text from BJ saying that Rose wouldn't be there until 4:30pm so I headed straight there after picking up a case of beer. There was only 6 of us there at 3:30 and was a really good thing that she didn't get there at that time because she didn't really know 3 of them.  It was me, Joanna, Espo and 3 of Mark C's friends that had only met her like twice.  But they were cool people.  The Manuel/Cuevo clan always have a smorgasbord when they throw parties and this time was no different.  So much food.  

I snacked on pigs in a blanket and beer while we waited for Rose and more guests to arrive.  There was a lot of people there by the time she got there.  She was pretty surprised.  There was even a little cultural exhibition with some Filipino dancers.  

 

 

The rest of the night was a good time.  Played some bags.  Kicked some ass at first with Espo but then once it got dark got annilihated by Peter and Bigs.  What we played for kind of showed our age but we were playing for chugging half a beer.  The food was good.  The Cuevos' had some cousins there, old school old world cousins.  I went out to eat my food in the backyard and there were a couple of buckets with random goat parts.  Hooves and all.  I thought they were going to deep fry the thing which probably would have been really good but they ended up making caldareta and grilled goat with onions vinegar and pepper.  Old world palutan.  We watched a portion of the Bulls game which the Manuel's parents were at and who had seats right behind the bench so everytime they panned the court Rod would point them out and we could see Mr. Manuel waving everytime the camera passed by.  Then they busted out Buzz on the PS3.  It's a trivia game that can be played with up to 8 people which was actually pretty fun.  I was Nicole's brain partner.  I wasn't really playing but I was giving her the answers.  It was kind of embarrassing when it came to sports questions and I barely knew any of them.  It was a good time.  Took a bunch of shots of what, I don't really know but I chilled out and sobered up until about 1am and then headed home but not before I packed up some food.  

 

 

Good times.

Sunday - woke up a little before half time of the Bears game.  It was a good game.  I can really tell the offence is getting more confident.  Especially Orton.  His long throws are getting more accurate he's utilizing more than just Forte.  At the same time, the defense was a bit disappointing giving up 41 points but after this week hopefully everyone will be rested up recovered and things should be looking up.  The rest of the day was just depressing looking towards my first full week of work in 3 weeks.  

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Columbus Day Weekend
Topic: Weekend Updates

Friday Oct. 10th - I had the day off.  2nd week in a row of a 4 day work week.  The week before, on Friday was the day I got into the car accident.  The 10th was my co-worker, Katie's wedding.  I didn't make it to the ceremony which was in Romeoville, but I was the first co-worker at the reception.  It's kind of uncomfortable being at a wedding where you know absolutely no one, at least for the first 20 minutes or so. 

 

 

The co-workers all showed after a little bit.  The reception was at the William Tell Holiday Inn which coincidentally is where we had our Office Christmas party 2 years before, but in a different room.  Dinner was family style.  I was sitting with some of my co-workers and a couple of Katie's college roommates.  Dinner was good until I got a glass of wine in my crotch.  I was sitting against the wall so I couldn't back up in time but luckily my suit is black and the wine was white so after fanning for a few minutes with my napkin, you couldn't tell it was wet.  

It was a good time, same old bartenders that I remembered from the Christmas party, and same rule of no shots.  So we ordered tequila on the rocks and just divied up the drink in a couple of wine glasses and took shots that way.  It was one of our managers ideas but there's always loopholes, just like at work.

Katie looked beautiful and looked very happy. Congrats!

Saturday - 

Morning - I headed out to Muay Thai class.  I don't really know if I can call it class now.  Although, I'm not sure what I'm training for if I'm training for anything.  Do it call it class or do I call it training...  I guess until I have a better idea of what I want to do with this ability, I'll call it class.  Well Rafael is somewhat of an experienced instructor/fighter.  He's been in several fights but his first class instructing us, I guess he's pointed me out as being someone that has got really good technique.  Raf has been bringing in other fighters/instructors and they all think the same thing so it gives me somewhat of a bloated head thinking that someday in the far far off future, I could kick someone's ass in a fight.  

I headed out to Libertine with Big Mike and Jay for Michelle, Petrie and Mark Espo's birthdays.  I picked up Bigs at his house and then we headed over to Jay's.  Jay drove to the city.  We got to Libertine and Mark and Joanna were the first one's there.  Joanna kept grabbing my sleeve and since I was wearing a new coat, I thought I had left a tag on or something.  She kept doing and was chuckled to Espo saying that I didn't notice.  Then it kind of hit me... I looked again and looked at her hand. She had a big ole rock (engagement ring) on her finger.  I was a bit shocked but not surprised.  

I opted for the cheaper open bar which was 35 bucks but still ended up spending 120 bucks on my credit card buying shots.  It was a good time though.  Haven't been out like that in a while.   BLee and Tina came out too from our crew.  I guess Tina already knew about the engagement so she was there.  

After the party, Jay, Bigs and I headed over to La Pasadita off of Division but the line was too long so we just headed to the Oasis off of 90 and had breakfast and McDonald's.  

Headed home and slept through the first half of the Bears game.

Sunday - I had Monday off so I headed down to the city again to hang out at Greg's.  Played with Buerhle and pissed off Greg by shuffling the cards in Buerhle's (Greg and Michele's dog).  Now everytime someone shuffles the cards Buerhle tries to attack the cards.  By the time I got there, it was Kris, Vic and BLee.  Greg's other friends had already left since the Bears lost from that last second 48 yard field goal.  Still pisses me off.  Ordered some Thai Food, but we all ordered Chicken Pad Thai but they must have heard wrong because we all got Chicken Satays.  Good food.  Lost at poker.  Headed home.

Monday was Columbus Day -  I had the day off.  I don't remember what I did that day.  But I went back to work on Tuesday and work has been shitty ever since. Well, shittier than usual.

 

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Weekend Update
Topic: Weekend Updates

Saturday - So, Bigs, Jay and I had planned on meeting up for lunch at Lou Malnati's.  We hadn't done that in a while.  We planned for 1pm.  Espo and Joanna ended up joining us for dinner.  I had planned on just having lunch and possibly hang out somewhere nearby.  It ended up being a 13 hour session.

Lou's was great as usual.  There were 5 of us.  We ordered 2 large pizzas.  The usual Deep Dish, Buttercrust, Sausage and Mushroom. Espo had suggested adding pepperoni in addition to one of them.  It was really good too.  Added that extra touch of saltiness.  I think it was Big Mike that turned me on to tabasco sauce on the pizza and it's hard for me to do without it now.  We had about 4 pitchers of beer.  Not really because we wanted to drink that much but they were giving away a free Bears Mug per pitcher.  We got 4 free Bear Mugs and we got another one complimentary from our waiter.  As we were finishing up, Espo suggested we go to Horseshoe. We went.

After settling the bill, we all headed over to Big Mike's house since he offered to drive.  So we met up and headed out to Hammond, Indiana.  Espo and Bigs called in to reserve their names at the poker tables.  I hadn't really planned on gambling too much.  There was a bar right next to the poker room so me, Joanna and Espo headed up there.  Espo put 5 bucks into the Video Poker machine in the bar but then they called his name.  I ended up finishing up for him and won him about 41.50.   Sat at the bar hanging out with Joanna.  Coincidentally Jaime and Voltaire were there too.  And then Peter and Michelle met us up there.  So once Michelle got there, I opted to walk around a bit with Espo.  Saw Peter at one of the Blackjack tables, saw Jaime playing at the Dealer-less Texas Hold-em table.  I wanted to play something before I left, so me and Espo went to go use up the 41.50 that we had one on some high limit slots.  We hit up the $5.00 Wheel of Fortune.  We got the spin but unfortunately, we weren't playing the max bet so we didn't get to spin the wheel.  We ended up losing the 41.50 and ended up putting in another 40 dollars each.  Lost that.  I put in another 40 and lost that. Good times.  Not.

After dinner Joanna, Espo, Jay, Bigs, Peter, Michelle and myself ended up heading out to the UIC area to have dinner at Juniors.  We ended up eating so much there.  We all had separate entrees and wings for the whole table.  The Tater Tots there are to die for!!  So crispy on the outside and soft on the inside!  Yum-Yum!  I was getting pretty tired by then but we ended up going out after that! Marlyn and Phil were going to head out to meet up with us.  After a bit, they changed their mind.  We thought that was the end of the night.  But then Bigs wanted to meet up with some people at Fulton Lounge, so we headed over there.

We were all pretty underdressed.  We were wearing shorts, sandals, not typical going out gear but they let us in.  John Jay, Ross and Mark Cuevo were already there.  It was a different type of lounge.  Looked like someone's living room with bookshelves and couches.  Not so big on the dancing, the music wasn't that loud and was some wierd euro/techno/tribal/electro type music.  We hung out for a while, had some more drinks and finally called it a night.  

After all was said and done, me, Jay, Joanna, Espo and Bigs spent about 13 hours together starting the day at 1pm and ending at 2am.  It was like we were 21 again, but minus the ability to stay awake past 12am!! haha.

Sunday - I fell asleep after getting home at around 7am.  I woke up, remembered watching Chicago Philippine Reports, at noon,  fell back asleep, and then woke up again just in time for the Bears game.   It's nice not having anything to do.

 Saturday mornings will be booked as Muay Thai class is being offered 3 days a week now.  Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings now.   I need to get motivated again to work out, outside of class.  It's getting increasingly harder for me to have the desire to do it.  Maybe this will kick start my motivation. 

 If you're interested in any classes check out Ross's website: http://www.counterstrikemma.com

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Work Update
Topic: Daily

Just so I havent left you in the dark about the job situation... I still have a job for now.  When we went in to work on Friday, there really was no mention of anything except for the water cooler chatter.  No meetings, nothing.  The e-mail we received the night before was from the CEO of Chase basically telling we have been bought out and everything will be business as usual until further notice.  So, inevitably there will be lay-offs, however I don't know who, when or where. 

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Bought Out
Topic: Work Woes

So, I'm not going to say my company name because technically now it no longer exists but we are now Chase.  I knew we had few options left and being bought out was the most likely scenario, especially with our west coast, and chicago bank branches, which Chase has been drooling over for a long time.  I can pretty much safely say that I will be out of a job once our current pipeline has been depleted.  Chase wants the bank branches, not our home mortgage division.  Besides, I used to work for them and got laid off.  Ironic that I will be laid off twice by the same company.  Am I happy? I'm sort of relieved and worried at the same time.  I'm relieved that I will get some sort of severance package should I get laid off and that I'm not going home with nothing had we gone bankrupt.  Although, I'm not so sure the details. 

I found out when I got a call from a co-worker who is currently working the 2nd shift and said we all received e-mails that we got bought out by Chase.  I was at Muay Thai class at the time.  So after class I rushed home to log in to my work e-mail and lo and behold, we've been blocked from outside access.  So I guess they don't want anyone finding out until we get to work tomorrow, if they were so oblivious to the world that they wouldn't have heard it otherwise. 

Funny thing is, the whole Retail branch had a big all up meeting telling us how much we're improving and what our plans for the future were going to be.  We were going to be hiring temporary staff. Application volume has gone up.  Blah, Blah, Blah.  They're buying us lunch tomorrow and this and that.

Oh well, we'll see what happens tomorrow.  Tomorrow is going to really be an interesting day. 

I need to watch the news now to find out more about what happened.

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