I saw this on Twitter but cannot find the tweet because I forgot to like it. Or maybe I did but the poster took it down. Anyway, the joke is:
Made me some Avocado toast. I guess I’m not buying a home anytime soon
These turned out to be delicious. Now i just have to figure out how to flip them over without breaking the yokes.
I started blogging at ChicagoNow on October 1, 2012, although I haven’t really published much since Boris and Natasha were born. Anyway, the Powers-That-Be at the Chicago Tribune and Alden Global Capital closed the site down today.
No one communicated anything to us either by email or on our Facebook Group. We knew it was coming when our last community manager resigned at the end of June and said we’d heard something in a few days. And honestly, I suspected the end was coming when our first and best community manager Jimmy Greenfeld took the trib buyout and left. Then the annoying ads in the middle of our posts came.
Some bloggers continued to post even though the Front Page (landing page, home page whatever term you prefer) wasn’t updating. A few bloggers wrote goodbye posts that apparently caught the higher-ups’ attention because those were taken down.
It’s kinda crappy the way they chose to go about it. Some of those blogs brought in large audiences which I’m sure led to decent passive revenue. I suspect our site didn’t cost them much especially once they cut the monetary rewards for Best Post and Best Gallery (which I won a few times).
No skin off my nose as I wasn’t one of the paid talents (they use to pay some of the heavy hitters but stopped that years ago and the heavy hitters went elsewhere). But I was hoping to post a Last Post on my blogoversary in October and was also hoping to link to a podcast I might be on; the ChicagoNow traffic would have helped.
When I joined CN, if you wanted to get a space there, you needed a pitch. My wife and I were house hunting and so Adventures in House Hunting was created. Ironically, sometime after my first or second post, we made an offer on a house. That house would be the home my kids were born in and filled with treasured memories.
At some point, our Editor announced that you could blog about anything you wanted. Spoiler alert: you always could, but this just made it official.
It was like Hogwarts for Bloggers. I know with Rowling's TERF issues that reference is not as pure as it once was. I said what I said.
I made many virtual and even real friendships with many bloggers here. I also pissed off a few and we are no longer FB friends. boo hoo.
Some people were really cool, including the heavy hitters. They gave my Fan Page a like when that thing had more currency than it does today. Others felt it was a zero-sum game and wouldn't click the button, which is fine. Except for the one person who kept asking me for tech support but couldn't click like. WTF.
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It was a 5 hour drive and with 3 drivers and two cars, one person just doesn't get a break. One of our only local friends said that 3 days at the gulf is plenty. We went down on Tuesday and were going to leave Friday morning but we were expecting to have bad weather late Thursday evening through Friday. I'm not sure why that would be a problem other than packing the car in the rain. I'm also not sure why we still left once the weather report showed the rain would pass us.
But mostly, I'm pissed that we couldn't leave until 6 pm because Katness wanted to take the kids to a water park and get them the snowcones they were promised. That meant driving 5 and half hours in the dark.
Most of this trip was reliving her last visit here just in her husband's place. We went to most of the same restaurants as she did last time.
Edit from the Future: I was going to write more about this trip last July but life got busy and I had other things that took my time. The main thing is when we got home, I pretty much ignored Katness and didn't do anything during the remaining days of her visit. Nightingale went with her to various places of course, but I stayed home.
We got together again in St Loius the weekend of Columbus Day because our kids were off, and by then I was over it.
Depending on how you look at it, 2022 is half over, or 50% complete. So on that note, let's talk about my Steps stats.
I was doing really well at first. Between NG and I going for walks and my being able to eck out a 1-mile run, I was able to hit the 10K steps usually before dinner time. Then one day, I did something during a run and my knee had inflammation. It didn't go away with rest, so I iced and ibuprofen and it eventually subsided but didn't completely disappear.
Since we are on cheap insurance, we tried to wait it out, but finally, I went to a doctor to evaluate. She gave me a steroid shot and all has been great since then. Unfortunately, based on our experience with knee injuries, we suspect that there are underlying issues. Perhaps another lacerated meniscus.
So I have to do Physical Therapy for a few weeks and if things don't get better, I can get an MRI. Not sure if our insurance will cover any of it because no one can ever tell you what something will cost. And half of America is scared of Universal Healthcare because, socialism.
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The other day I’m doing laundry and I put the load from the washer into the dryer. Before doing so, I take a blanket out of the dryer (from the previous load) and walk not 10 yards away to put it on the sectional.
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| Ryder: a near-death experience changes ya, man |
Close the door and hit start. A few minutes later I happen to walk by and hear a thumping. I open the dryer and see my cat had gotten in there without me noticing. Luckily it had only been 5 minutes and though he was gasping like he was out of breath, he’s fine now, though it took a day before he would purr.
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| Elsa needs another cup of coffee, or something stronger |
We laugh now but I shudder to think what would have happened if I didn’t notice for the entire 30 minutes. Our Google Research showed that this is not an uncommon occurrence because cats love to explore new places and warm laundry is very attractive. It also showed that many of these occurrences don't end well, so again, very fortunate.
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To say I'm losing faith is an understatement. I know I've blown a few interviews, but it doesn't seem mathematically possible to have blown them all so badly that no one will take a chance on me.
To be sure, there have been 5 places this year alone that should have taken me on, based on my experience alone. Two were even contract gigs which would be low risk if it didn't work out.
In my field, there are a few options. I can work for a law firm and be a Widget Engineer. They might call it something different. If I'm lucky, I can find another Audit or non-law firm company that uses the No-Name Software. Finally, the last option is to work for one of the consulting firms that get hired for short-term implementation or upgrade projects.
And I'm so ANGRY. Angry that my Office Nemesis is still employed there. Angry that he was allowed to bully and harass me with no repercussions.
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In my old apartment, and later in my condo, I had a wall devoted to my Running Achievements. Specifically, it held the framed marathon certificates and the medals I received from completing various races. At first, it was just marathons but over the years, smaller races decided to give finisher medals as well. When we moved into the house, I left the certificates in the moving box, thinking one day I would find an appropriate place for them. The medals went on this:
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| I paid $5-10 for it at a garage sale I drove past during lunchtime when I worked out in Oak Brook Terrace. |
Now that we've moved to Mississippi, I've decided to purge a lot of things. I was going to just put up the certificate from my best race, the Spirit of St Louis Marathon in 2006 where I ran a 3:29:54, along with a few medals from other milestone races. But then the challenge was, how do I pick?
My first marathon? sure. My best Chicago Time? My International Marathons? Too many to choose from.
And then one of the daily deal emails I got had a coupon code for a discount at a place that makes custom metal things, especially medal holders. It would have cost $80 for the two but with the discount code it dropped to $53, so I pulled the trigger and ordered them.
So I decided to make another shrine to running. And I'm certain my runner nickname will give my brother-in-law Jethro something else (that concerns him not the least) to be upset about (he cannot stand that my vanity license plate has Chicago in it).
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| These cost a bit more |
It took a few weeks for my medal holder to arrive and when they did, I didn't exactly have the energy I had when I started this project in my head. But I started slow. First I added the Personal Best and then built everything around it. Not every certificate is going up, just the more meaningful ones. This is mostly because I didn't always invest in good frames and don't want to now. And also because I only have so much wall space to work with. I'm not sure how many medals I will put up.
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| Also rearranged the office a bit |
I've also saved almost every racing big and a variety of Teflon blankets that they hand out post-race. I always thought I could do something cool with those. For now, they will go back in the smaller box and be stored somewhere out of sight. And when I shed this mortal coil, I want my family to dispose of this stuff as they see fit. No need to keep it around and create any unwanted clutter.
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