Memorial Weekend 2005

This year, we were fortunate enough to have both Friday & Monday off for Memorial Day. It was my first 4-Day weekend in Chicago, and boy did I have a full agenda.

Friday:
Had brunch at "Sweet Maple" with Manlee, Michael, Jason, Fu, David, Winston & Sunny. People have been raving about this place, but I've never been able to go b/c it's only open from 7am-2pm. So this was my chance to give it a go. I was not disappointed. The French toast was superb! The home fries, however, was a bit less than par.
After brunch, we started our 4-hour journey to Egg Harbor, WI for our camping trip, the headline activity for the weekend. David drove Manlee, Fu, me, Jason & Michael as well as most of the food and equipment in the Nissan Quest. About 2 hours outside Chicago, we took a pit stop in Racine for a Chick-fil-A sandwich (YUM!!), and stocked up on food and supplies at the local Walmart (Supercenter). We finally arrived at the camp site around 7pm-ish. The ride was pretty enjoyable over all, with the comfy seats and a DVD player. (Watched "Spanglish" between Milwaukee & Door County.) After setting up camp and grilled some grub, the second car with Lamont, Kat, Carina & Preston arrived late at night.

Saturday:
Oatmeal and bacon for breakfast. Then some of us decided to take a hike, but it really wasn't much of a "hike" at all. However, there was a snake sighting. Lunch was steaks & hot dogs. The steak was delicious! Props to the chefs! After lunch, we drove to the lake (I think it was Green Bay?) for some kayaking & sightseeing around town. Quaint town. BEAUTIFUL scenery. (I think I love Wisconsin!!) Saw a fish boil (over), had some frozen custard, and headed back to camp. Grilled porkchops, chicken wings, Italian sausage & veggie skewers for dinner, roasted marshmallows & hot dogs for midnight snack around the camp fire. My favorite part of the day was just soaking in nature (in a very pleasant 68 degree weather) and chatting with everyone by the fire.

Sunday:
Woke up, washed my very greasy hair, and packed up. After lunch at Culver's, we headed back to Chicago. (Watched "American Chai" en route.) I came home looking forward to a nice long shower and a nap, but instead, I was greeted with some furniture from the Hongs and a domestic disaster involving a shattered bottle of red wine on the carpet. Quickly, I had to sped to Target for the proper cleaning supplies. After that was under control, most of the camping folks came over, and we went to dinner at Penny's Noodles. After dinner, we met and hung out with Norm over dessert at Ghiradelli's.

Monday:
Met up with Irene, Lynn, Stan, Wei & Frank for lunch at Joy Yee's. Afterwards, I attempted to go to the CCUC picnic, but I was deserted by my own smallgroup. :( So, I went to Michigan Ave. for some retail therapy. Too much of money spent later, I met up with Frank & Wei for dinner at Rosebud on Rush. Then, I drove them around for a quick tour of the "north side," which also brought an end to my holiday.

Whew!!! I'm exhausted, and I'm not looking forward to working tomorrow. :(

Pictures to come, hopefully.

Rob & Amber Get Married

Just saw Rob & Amber's wedding this evening on CBS. They got married at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. We went there on our cruise vacation! (aka, M.O.A.V. 2003)

The whole thing was actually really sweet. I so want them to work out. They look like they are just so genuinely in love with each other. He bought her a house for her wedding present, and she got him a painting of the famous Boston Red Sox players and had it autographed. They cried, I cried. It really was cute!

This makes me really excited about MY wedding. How I just want to have a big party and be married in the end. Nothing else matters. :) 142 more days to go! Snap!!

Ruined by "Testicular Virility"

So, it is done. Not only were Laura, Christine and I on TV last night, we were on multiple times! And now, we're on the worldwide web. So, here's what happened...

Yesterday, Laura (L), Christine (C) and I went out to lunch at Grand Lux, to celebrate Laura's news. No one else know about her "news," so the three of us had some team/girl bonding time. After lunch, we took a leisure stroll down the Magnificent Mile, shopping for Christine's mom's birthday gift. On our way back to the office, we passed by the NBC towers. Some reporter looking guy approached us and asked if we were from Illinois and if so, could he ask us a couple of questions. He then proceeded to ask us if we had heard about what the governor said, and what it meant to us. First of all, I don't even know who the governor is much less pronounce his name. And I don't watch the news, neither do Christine & Laura. So, Mr. Reporter Guy told us that the governor had said something about his "testicular virility" and asked us what we thought it meant. Since we're all very funny people, we came up with some CLEVER replies to his question even though we don't really know what those two words mean together. Christine said something like "it means he has a lot of sex drive." Then the reporter turns to me, but I told him that I'm not from Illinois! L & C protested and told him that I'm totally from IL. (Whatever.) So he asked me the same question, I said (thinking that I'm SO FUNNY and that none of this would actually EVER make it on air) "does it mean he has lots of testicles?" Lastly he turned to L, who actually gave a really good answer. I can't repeat exactly what she said, but it was something about a male reproductive organ and if you've got one of those, that means you're really smart. Then he asked us what we thought about it, L & I both said something about it not being appropriate, and C said "yeah, are we reverting back to the Bill Clinton days?"

So we left there thinking that there's NO WAY they were air our comments because we were so stupid. We were more worried about it popping up on Jay Leno's "Jaywalk Allstars." Then 4:30 rolls around, C's mother-in-law calls her to tell her that she's on TV. Then we all started panicking. But I really wasn't worried, because are they really going to air me saying "testicles" on television?

This morning I get in, a multitude of people email me and tell me how they saw me on the 10 o'clock news. Then after I come back from lunch, my assistant shows me the NBC5 Website...Sure enough, we're now a streaming video. (http://www.nbc5.com/politics/4505391/detail.html click on video or images) And then, my BOSS made a powerpoint slide of all the images from the site along with our comments; my assistant proceeded to post them outside our cubicle walls.

This has been a very "snappy" day.

For the record, we were JOKING!!!!!!!

Alone Again

Just sent the Wongs back to Texas yesterday evening. It was fun having guests and being able to do all of the "touristy" stuff without feeling too guilty or lame about it. :) We did squeeze a bunch of stuff in the 4 days that they were here. Although, it felt like we revolved everything around food and where to eat, etc. My tummy was uncomfortably stuffed the whole time.

Highlights of the weekend:
1. Architecture cruise
2. "Body World" exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry
3. Ed's Potstickers. :)

I hope they all had a good time, even though the temperature was pretty cold for TX standards and we had to make 3 trips to the Navy Pier for them to finally see it.

So, I'm all alone again in this "Land of Stinky Onions"...until Nancy gets here on Sunday.

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Just met Sara Moulton (of "Sara's Secrets" on The Food Network), and she told me what kind of pots to put on my registry/use. Pretty cool.

I may have been on the 4:30pm news on NBC with some really dumb/ditzy comment about "testicular virility." Christine's (my co-worker) mother-in-law saw her on the news and said that there was an Asian girl too. It is possible Laura's comments were aired as well. Dude!!! I really hope not... but we don't know for sure because Christine's mother-in-law doesn't know what Laura & I look like. I thought for certain my segment would end up on the cutting room floor because it really was so DUMB. OMG...this is NOT good.

Ah yes! "Sponteneity" is My Middle Name

What would some one do if he/she hasn't had his/her fix of Chick-fil-A in over a month and half? Well, driving to the closest location seem to be the most logical answer. So I did, for 2 hours to Racine, Wisconsin. Ok, Jason did all the driving, but I stayed awake the whole time! :) The nearest Chick-fil-A to Chicago is in Racine, at the Regent Mall food court. Really, it was only 68 miles away. I mean, it was Friday evening, and we had nothing else to do. So we took a spontaneous roadtrip! I got to be there for James & Jason's inaugural Chick-fil-A experience and made it back by 10:30pm to pick up the Wong's at the Halsted stop.

It was my most satisfying meal this week. Yum!

OMG!!!!!

Ok, I have to be completely honest. This is going to be a little bit "x-rated," so, if you're offended by that type of stuff, please DO NOT READ ON. However, I still have to blog this because this happened in Chicago.

So, I'm at work, diligently working improving my client's business ;), and all of a sudden, half of the people on my floor started cracking up, laughing very loudly. I was starting to get a bit annoyed because their laughter was distracting me from my "very busy" advertising work. So then I headed over by the window (along with about 7 other irate people) about to yell at someone, then I saw...

There was a lady who (from her backside) looked to be in her mid 20's, wearing a bright red tank top, no pants, doing the "deed" with a naked guy (who looked like he's 50) with her back pressed against the glass on the window seat at the Hard Rock hotel across the street from my office. Yep, they were having sex. I saw way to much of "it" to know that there's no question what they were doing. For a good 15 minutes, they had NO idea that my entire office is witnessing their post lunch "activity." Finally the guy looked up, (I assume saw all of us), and he froze for about 3 seconds, then quickly grabbed the girl and disappeared from the window.

Ok, I know it was completely inappropriate, but I could not stop laughing for like 20 minutes. The whole floor was dying laughing. Man, I felt so bad for those people. How embarrassing!!!!!!! What would her mother think! But then again, they were really stupid to be doing that with the curtains wide open in downtown Chicago.

Vertigo Tour, Chicago, 5.10.2005

Saw U2 in concert last night at the United Center. It was AWESOME! One of the best concerts I've been to. (i.e. the New Kids on the Block concert in 1988 ;) ). Bono rocks the house!!! It was my first time seeing U2 live, and I was very impressed w/ the show. Laura & Christine who've been to every since U2 concert since the 80's thought that it wasn't as good as the past ones. I guess the band's getting old. That's what I love about U2. They've been around for decades, and it's still the same people in the band. Love it!!

Of course it was a tad "preachy," but do you expect anything less from Bono? I also thought that they'd have a longer encore set, this being the last night they're in Chicago and all. Overall, it was a great concert. I was so glad that I'm not amongst teeny-bopper running around in their down-to-where-the-sun-don't-shine lowcut jeans and tube tops. Drunken 30 year-olds in tube tops dancing, now, that's another story...

Oh yeah, even got to ride in a limo to and from the concert. It was "almost" like prom. :D

Mother's Day 2005

Mom and Bee were in town this weekend. Happy Mother's Day mom!

Highlights:
1. High Tea at the Drake
2. 1154 Lill - 2x Erica bags
3. Marshall Fields
4. Ed's Potstickers - so far, my favorite Chinese restaurant in Chicago
5. $26 spent in parking fees

Reinforced ideas:
1. I DETEST driving and in Chicago!






At the Drake - Unfortunately, the only picture of the 3 of us together this weekend

Next weekend, invasion of the Wongs! :)

Just Looking at Things Differently

Finally saw "Wicked" tonight. It was SO good. Loved the songs. Loved the creativity in the storyline. I'm just glad that I finally got to see "The Wizard of Oz" recently so that I actually understand what the story is about. I'm SOOOOOOOO gonna try to get front row seats and see this again! I hope Jason enjoyed it too and hope that the dinner before hand with my entire team plus other industry people didn't scare him too much.

Thanks Parade!

Philadelphia?

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American Cities That Best Fit You:

75% New York City

65% Philadelphia

60% Chicago

60% Los Angeles

60% San Francisco

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

'Tis the Season...

for visitors?

Rey & Judy came in this past weekend. Whirlwind trip. The only time I could see them was to drive out to Westmont for lunch after church. At Triple Crown, no less. I didn't even know there's a Triple Crown outside of Chinatown. It was VERY different. Anyway, finally got to meet the famous "cousin Dennis." Dimsum was good. They flew back that same evening.

In the next 2 weeks, I'm going to be bombarded w/ out-of-town visitors. I am very excited, but also very anxious at the same time. This weekend, mom and Bee are coming, for Mother's day. Bee and I are undecided about what to do with her. I feel tremendous pressure to entertain her. I don't even know why, I know she doesn't even care to be "entertained." She just wants to see us, I'm sure. But there's just a lot of anxiety to "disappoint" her, like not meeting her "expectations" for her trip. I mean, not with "activities" per se, but more like not enough "quality" time and conversations.

Next weekend, Bryan and his family (minus Mr. Wong) will be coming for like 5 days. Even MORE pressure there to show them a good time. I just don't want to be a bad host. I don't think any of them have ever been to Chicago? Also, I know that when they normally get together as a family, Mrs. Wong spends a lot of time in the kitchen cooking for everyone. (I think that's her love language.) But, hello, I don't have a kitchen!! What will we do? I just pray that it won't be too cold, otherwise, Bry will truly make up his mind about not liking Chicago this time. Ha.

Anyway, I'm still excited for everyone to come here and see a piece of my life as a Chicagoan. :) (Ooooo, this reminds me, Irene's in town again, I gotta see if she wants to come into the city for dinner sometimes soon.)

P.S. Happy Birthday Jason! Oh, how I wish I could be 23 again...
P.P.S. Happy be-lated Dan! I'm glad I'm not 37! :D