Sunday, July 29, 2007

Threadless again...


Since Rob is on his way back to Sioux Center for the weekend, I thought I would write about his new Threadless submission to make sure people go and vote. I like this design a lot, and think a lot of people will, so I think you should definitely see it. If you want to check it out and vote, click this button:

Lumpy Finds a Sock - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

Monday, July 23, 2007

Monday, July 16, 2007

How to Be Dutch in Chicago



Spoon Concert: free
General Admission to Shedd Aquarium: free with pass from library
Movie at second run theatre: $3 each

and that was our weekend.

WXRT sponsored a free Spoon show at Schubas. I was planning on trying to track down the reps from the station on Wednesday night as they went to various Wicker Park & Bucktown locations to give out tickets, but I managed to win a pair of tix off the Schubas website, so I didn't even have to mess with that.

You've probably heard Spoon on the trailers for "Stranger than Fiction". The first song on this trailer is them... they had 6 songs on the film's soundtrack. They were on Letterman last week too.

The show was super-crowded, but good.

The Chicago Public Library has passes to all the major museums that can be checked out for free admissions. The shedd passes seem elusive, so I grabbed it as soon as I saw it was availible.



Logan Theatre is a second run theatre near here. It's really old-school, but for $3, it's a great deal. We caught "1408" there. I like Stephen King short stories. It was no "Shawshank Redemption", but it was pretty good.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Around Our Neighborhood





Threadless

I submitted my first Threadless submission in a long time. My scores have gotten worse with every design... I suspect I'll probably get such a low score that the design will be dropped before the week is up, but it's worth a shot.

It's kinda disturbing & creepy. Don't say I didn't warn you...

That being said... if you want to check it out (and give it a 5) click here.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

another good thing about this city...

I always kinda assumed that there were no real good FM (as opposed to online, not as opposed to AM) radio stations anywhere. There were 4 main popular stations back home. A rock station and a pop station from each Sioux City and Sioux Falls. I think they all try so hard to be popular that they're always behind. When they do get a good track they play it to death (except of course on Z-98 with the no-repeat guarantee).

However in North Carolina we found a station that seemed really good. We were only there for a few days so I can't really say for sure. Then after we got back to Chicago I started listening to 93XRT (93.1 WXRT). I never thought I'd be such a big fan of an FM station. I still listen to RadioParadise, but in my car I don't even have a CD player, let alone web access.

If you're ever in the Chicago area check out 93.1

Monday, July 09, 2007

Mates of State

Mates of State is a drummer & keyboard/husband & wife duet. We saw them live once when they were here in Chicago in the fall of 2005. Meg likes them a lot. I like them too. You may have seen them on TV and not even known it was them. They are featured on this at&t commercial.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Chicago Loves Food & Music

Regarding the comments from Meg's post...

The "horrific" crab wasn't so horrific actually. His leg span was no more than 5 inches and he was quite entertaining. He looked like a leaf blowing in the wind when he ran and could bury his entire body, except his eyes in a matter of seconds.

The other photo, the purple and blue balloon, on the other hand could have been quite dangerous. It was a portuguese man-of-war. Apparently something had already had his potentially lethal tentacles for dinner. This is probably one of the strangest things I've come across in my life. They are actually not single animals, rather communities of zooids that work together as one unit. Strange.

The people in the top photo are:
• Two fish that my dad caught at the same time
• The fella on the left is the First Mate of the charter fishing boat
• The one in red is my brother-in-law Josh (who is soon to be a father)
• The one facing him is my Aunt Beth from New York
• The one with the beard is Dad
• The one in the foreground is my sister Kris (who is soon to be a mother)

And regarding our "IKEA" house... the shelves in the bathroom & above the oven, the wooden cart next to the oven, and the lanterns in the living room are all from IKEA. I think the frame Brielle put on her print (in the bedroom) was from IKEA too. I think we'll get a table from IKEA pretty soon as well. Then we don't have to eat on the couch and we can play RUMMIKUB again. (I hate playing on the floor).

In other news...

I haven't posted in quite some time because mostly I've just been looking for work. I'm sure that most potential employers will probably come across this blog so I hesitate to write anything about job searching. I'll just say that I've pretty much decided that for the time being I will consider myself a freelance graphic designer who, depending on the outcome of my interview tomorrow, works part time at a department store.

Meg had little trouble finding a job. I'm guessing the industry she's working in is somewhat less likely to dig up blogs and such, but none-the-less I never want to too much about work. As much as I'd like to keep family and friends up to date with our lives, I think we'll probably be posting mostly stuff about the stuff we do with our free time.

That being said, I'll try to post more often... stuff like this:



On Saturday we went to check out Linoln Park's Pizzafest. They advertised the event as having every kind of topping and crust imaginable. It turned out that only three pizza vendors were represented and with just cheese, beef, and pepperoni. Apparently this was the first year for the event and they didn't really know what to expect. Oh well... the music more than made up for what the festival may have been lacking in culinary diversity. Over the Rhine played a free show. We snagged seats (on the ground) quite close to the stage and the show was excellent.

Yesterday afternoon we braved the crowds at the mind-bogglingly huge event known as Taste of Chicago. We tried the small portions from various vendors, but the highlight was these crazy homemade potato chips from Harry Caray's. This isn't a great shot, but you can see the drill contraption that they spin the potato on to make one super-long curly pile of chips. The hot BBQ sauce was quite tasty.



After slowly maneuvering through the crowds by the food stands, we headed over to the band shell to catch a few country shows, Craig Morgan and Sara Evans. As much as I enjoy country music concerts, give me the Sioux Empire Fair over Taste of Chicago any day. I think Meg and I were the most "county" people there. And we're not very "county". Don't get me wrong, they put on a good show. It just felt kinda wrong.