The Fighting Illini. Literally

Last night, Mike and I did something we've been meaning to do since we moved to Champaign. We finally attended an Illini hockey game.

I used to follow NHL hockey quite regularly, and my team was the Chicago Blackhawks. Jeremy Roenick, Tony Amonte, Chris Chelios, and Eddie Belfour were my heroes, and I tried to catch every Blackhawk game on TV that I could. I also didn't discriminate, pretty much as long as hockey was on TV I tried to watch it. I never did get to an NHL game, but we did go to Milwaukee Admirals games. I didn't know the players as well, but we always had a lot of fun.

I ended up with a free pair of tickets to Saturday's game against Eastern Michigan. I figured the chances of us seeing a win were pretty good, as Eastern Michigan was 4-13 as of Friday afternoon, and Illinois was 14-2 (and they were last year's ACHA champion).

It was fairly easy to find the ice arena, and I even lucked into a parking space in one of the nearby lots. The seating at the arena was general admission with bleachers on the upper level. We grabbed coffee and hot chocolate at the concession stand and went upstairs to find some seats. We ended up in one of the corners looking down on the ice. We were incredibly close to the action, and when play started and some of the shots boomed off the glass below us, I really felt like we were in the game.

During the first period we were on the defending side, and we saw Eastern Michigan score one goal. It turned out to be the only goal they scored at all. And the traditions we saw at Admirals games were also observed during the Illini game. When the Illini scored, the crowd erupted in cheers of "it's all your fault" and during Billy Idol's Mony Mony they chanted "hey, you suck!". Can't you just feel the love in the air?

At the end of the first period the Illini were leading 3-1. During intermission, there was a five minute exhibition of the Champaign-Urbana Youth Hockey club. That was a lot of fun seeing all the little kids skating around with sticks bigger than they were. It was kind of like watching someone trying to herd cats. There was lots of falling down and lost pucks, but a couple of goals were scored and everyone had a lot of fun. Then it was time for the Zamboni to come out and resurface, which meant the Zamboni song had to be played.

We stayed in our seats during the second period, and got to see three more goals since Eastern Michigan was defending that side. There were also a lot of crashes into the boards below us, and you could see that some tempers were starting to fray a bit.

At the end of the second period, we decided to go downstairs and secure a spot on the other end in front of the glass. It was colder down there, but we were right in the action. A couple of times the players would come whizzing by, and while there were no crashes directly in front of us, there were plenty nearby. We saw more goals scored and banged on the glass in celebration.

And then, with 1:48 left to go in the third period, all hell broke loose. I think it started by a spectacular crash with a player practically upended. Those two players were thrown in the penalty box with a 10 minute game misconduct, and play resumed. Next thing we knew, helmets, gloves, an sticks were on the ice, and two players were going at it. The refs tried to separate, but couldn't get between them. Then another two started in on each other. As we're watching the two fights, I look towards center ice, and the goalies are going at it! The whole crowd was up on their feet, and the fights just kept going. Finally, the refs were able to break up the fight. The goalies stopped fighting, and in the true spirit of hockey shook hands and man-hugged afterwards. Everybody went to their benches, and the refs started trying to sort out the penalties. I'm pretty sure that the only two players who weren't involved in the fight were the ones already in the box. The annoucer kept trying to call the penalties, but he kept getting confused. In the meantime, the three groups that had been fighting were escorted off the ice. When everything was finally sorted out (and it probably took a good 10 minutes), those players had been disqualified from the game. Yes, even the goalies! At this point we decided to leave, since the score was 9-1. (I checked this morning, and the final was 10-1).

We've already decided that we are going back. Due to winter break, the next home game isn't until January. And I know that not every game will be as exciting, but it was a lot of fun for not a lot of money-tickets are only $7. Concessions are reasonable too (but it's college, so no beer!) If you're in the Chambana area looking for something to do, check out a game. And dress warmly, the ice is cold!!!

Birthday Bliss

My birthday was on Black Friday, but the celebrations started Wednesday at work (since of course I took off on Friday). Several of my coworkers brought in food (yum, veggie pizza, chili cheese dip, and even chicken wings!), and my friend/coworker Marla took me to lunch at Applebees (love the shrimp & spinach salad there). While we were at lunch Birthday Elvis appeared on my office wall. I will have to take good care of him until I can pass him along for the next birthday in our building!

Thursday was Thanksgiving, and we took the trip up to Milwaukee to be with family. We haven't done that in a few years, so that was nice, and the weather cooperated. My sister Kelley, who has had all sorts of medical trouble this year, was able to leave the nursing home for a few hours to spend time with us. She wasn't able to eat, so I ate for her :) It was just great having her home, and she is convinced she will be home by Christmas.

Friday morning did not find us up at the crack of dawn to fight the crowds. Mike did some shopping of the online variety, and we met his mom for breakfast before heading back home. Once we returned home, I was kicked out of the house so Mike could take care of my birthday present. I went to the mall and picked up a Christmas present for my mom, and then went to the library to get a new book. Mike wasn't ready for me to come home yet, so I curled up in one of the chairs and read for an hour or so. I've always wanted to do that but never indulged, and it was very nice and relaxing. When I got the go-ahead, and I came home to find my present-a brand new laptop all set up and ready to go! All my bookmarks, files, even my desktop background were all there waiting for me. This was the coolest present ever :) We ended the evening with dinner at Shanghai 1938 and back home where we opened up a bottle of wine. All in all, it was a fantastic birthday!

I'm baaaaack!

And I had a weird afternoon.

A while back when Mike put up new cabinets in the garage, he also built me a recycling center. It's basically a cabinet with an empty space in the middle, and we found some stackable recycling bins to put in this space. When the bins are full or getting close, I take them over to the local recycling center. Today was one of those days, and since it was cold I was wearing gloves. I picked up a bin that had aluminum cans, opened up the dumpster, held it upside down over the dumpster, and felt the bin slip out of my gloved hand into the dumpster. Yep. I grabbed the side of the dumpster and pushed myself up to see if I could reach the bin, but it landed approximately in the middle of the fairly empty dumpster, so I had no chance of reaching it. And this is the second bin I've lost recently. Well, I still have the first one but the bottom is held together with duct tape. I let someone stand on it because he had dropped something in the dumpster he shouldn't have, and I didn't even think about the fact that it wouldn't be sturdy since there is an opening in the front to allow you to have a way to put in your stuff if another bin is stacked on top of it. Of course, that wouldn't be the bin that fell in the dumpster.

So from there I head to the grocery store. I swipe my debit card and it comes back "declined, contact bank". Pretty funny since I'm in the debit card manager at my bank. So I whip out the checkbook and proceed to slow down the line. The store has one of those cards where they punch for how much you spend, and once it's full they scratch it off and see if you won something. The cashier starts scratching my card, then picks up the intercom and announces "we have a holiday cash winner on lane 5". Now, I won $10 last year, and I asked her how much I won. She shows me the card and says that I won my groceries. Whoo-hoo! Of course, the guys in line behind me say "hey she's got more" and start pushing their stuff down. Would that I could, guys. So she hands me my check back, and I go to the service counter to fill out some forms. The manager starts giving me a hard time because I have "hippie bags" from another store, but I sass him back and tell him that I was trying to spend money in his store. They wanted to take my picture too but that was not gonna happen. The funny thing was is I only spent $42 (hmmm...that's the answer to the question of life!), but hey, I'm happy to have it. Now I can use that money to buy some new recycling bins.

I'm Sorry, Mr. Squirrel

Just call me the bringer of death.

I ran over a squirrel today. First time I've ever done that, and I feel awful. Up until now, I've managed to successfully avoid turning anything into roadkill, but today the squirrel's number was up. I was heading west on Curtis Road, and I was approaching the stop sign on Mattis, so I was starting to slow down. I noticed something in the road, but the sun was in my eyes so I couldn't quite see. When I got close enough to realize it was a squirrel, it was too late. A quick check of my rear view mirror showed a car behind me, so stomping all the way down on the brake was not an option. I'm not going to risk someone rear-ending my car (or in this case, Mike's car, sorry babe) for a cute fuzzy nut loving squirrel. He was frozen and trying to decide which way to go, and I pulled slightly to the right, hoping he would dart to the left or stay still. The sickening THUD I heard told me that that plan didn't work, and he ran the wrong way.

All the way home I was picturing the front tire as an abbatoir. I was so sure that every person I passed going the opposite direction would see squirrel guts painted all over the front of the car. I was also convinced that I was leaving a bloody tire track for someone to follow. When I got home I looked for gore and thankfully there was none. In fact, the tire and front looked fairly clean. So maybe I ran over his tail and he's fine, just hurt. But probably not.

I'm sorry, Mr. Squirrel.

How come....

Whenever I have time to blog I have nothing to say?

Instead, when I'm too busy to blog I think of all the things I would blog about if I had the time.

Like the new class I'm taking at the Fitness Center called "Drums Alive!" It's pretty much an excuse to jump around and bang on an exercise ball for 45 minutes with real drumsticks. Only fun until someone pokes an eye out. And since there are people who are even less coordinated than I am in that class, it's a real possibility.

Side note-I'm listening to the worst song ever-Bobby Russell, "Saturday Morning Confusion". I think I need one of those drumsticks to put in my ear canal.......

I took the day off on Friday. Which would have been fantastic except for the cold I started getting Thursday night. So that meant most of Friday was spent laying on the couch, and I didn't really shake the cold until Sunday. The injustice is I have the equivalent of 60 days of sick time and I get sick on the weekend when I can't use it.

Work's easing up a bit. We have another big project coming up similar to other projects we've done before, but the good thing is this time I have a staff that can take care of the day to day stuff while I attend meetings and concentrate on this project. But my employee with the longest amount of experience is going on maternity leave soon. I hope she comes back. To my department, that is.

I'm also working on a certification that gives me a career change option. I'm almost halfway through the class now and I enjoy what I'm learning. It's still a little scary to contemplate a career change, but I'm starting to feel stagnate in what I'm doing now.

Two new shows to check out-Sons of Anarchy on FX and Trueblood on HBO. The writing is very original, and the characters are extremely engaging. I've also starting watching Fringe, but I'm not sure how long that will last. Mike and I poked a lot of holes in the pilot, and he's not watching it anymore. Also, the special effects guy must be JJ Abrams' cousin or something, because every location change was announced in GIANT FLOATING LETTERS. It got rather silly after a while. Another show that was watched and jettisoned after one episode was Raising The Bar. Predictable, predictable, and predictable.

I leave you with the song "My Girl Bill" by Jim Stafford. Boy, I'm glad I don't remember a lot of songs from the Seventies...

The Cheeseman Cometh

Our company recieved a visit from the Cheeseman today. The Cheeseman drives down from Wisconsin with string cheese, cheese curds, and beef sticks, and sells them at various businesses. I'm not sure how he started coming here. It came up in a conversation one day about string cheese, so I told the person who is the contact to let me know the next time he stopped by. Sure enough, I get an email today that the Cheeseman will be here this afternoon. When he arrived, he had a basket full of goodies along with extras in the truck. Regular cheese curds, garlic and dill cheese curds, smoked string cheese, pepperjack string cheese, regular string cheese, pepperoni bites, beef stick bites, and combinations of cheese and sausage.........I'm in heaven!!! I relieved him of a package of smoked string cheese and a package of beef stick bites. The cheese was just made on Wednesday, and it's sooooo good. If your only experience with string cheese is the processed crap they sell in the grocery stores you don't know what you're missing. The Cheeseman keeps track of your name and what you purchased so he can make sure to have some on hand next time. The cheese and sausage is sitting on my desk and it's all I can do to keep myself from ripping the packages open and chowing down, even though I'm not hungry. MMMMMM........cheese.........

A Happy Accident

I subscribe to Light & Tasty magazine, and received my new issue the other day. As usual, there were a lot of tasty-sounding recipes, but a pancake recipe caught my eye. I had almost everything but needed to get wheat flour and wheat germ. Saturday I went to the store with list in hand, and purchased those items as part of my shopping trip.

I go to make the pancakes Sunday morning, and find that I bought wheat bran instead of wheat germ. So I made regular pancakes instead, and debated what to do with the wheat bran. There was a recipe for muffins on the package, and they sounded interesting, so what the heck. And I'll admit, I wanted to use the new oven!

I will humbly say, the muffins were awesome! As the name implies, they were very moist, and they baked up big and fluffy. Out of the dozen, there are two left, and one of them is going to be my desert. If you like bran muffins, check out this recipe. I did make one change-I didn't add the raisins, and I didn't quite have enough nuts, but that didn't detract from the taste at all. Thanks Bob's Red Mill for the marvelous muffins! And maybe next week I'll try those pancakes.

Moist Molasses Bran Muffins

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup Wheat Bran

1 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 cup Raisins (Unsulfured)

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1 cup Milk

1/2 cup Molasses (or Honey)

3/4 cup Applesauce

1/4 cup chopped Nuts

2 Tbsp. Oil

2 Eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 400�F. Combine wheat bran, flour, baking soda an baking powder. Stir in nuts and raisins. In a seperate bowl, blend applesauce, milk, molasses, oil and egg. Add to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. Spoon into greased muffin tin (or paper muffin cups) and bake for 15-20 minutes. Makes 12 marvelous muffins.

Wired for Travel

I took a quick trip to Milwaukee this weekend. This was the longest I had driven by myself-previously my longest trip had been from Champaign to Valparaiso, IN for business. That was about a three hour drive as opposed to the 4 hour drive (with stops) to Milwaukee. This trip also marked the first time I have driven through Chicago. Usually I make Mike take that leg of the journey. Although admittedly I took the tollway instead of the loop, but still! It actually gave me a lot of confidence.

The other things that gave me confidence were all of my gadgets. Let's see, I had my iPod hooked into my car stereo, so I had plenty of tunes to listen to. Nothing says keeping yourself company like singing "Radar Love" at full volume! And in case I got a phone call (or needed to make one) while driving, I had my bluetooth firmly in my ear so I wouldn't have to distract myself by fumbling for the phone. Since I was taking the tollway, I also had the IPass so I wouldn't have to slow down to pay for tolls. That saved my change for the City of Champaign's downtown parking changes, but that's another story. And last but not least, I had Garmin Nuvi. Ah, Garmin, you are so good at telling me where to go! And your guidance was especially helpful coming back when I was in the wrong lane and missed my exit to 57. She guided me back to the interstate no problem!

Did I really need all of those gadgets? Well, outside of Garmin probably not. But they sure made life and the drive much easier!

Vacation Fun

Mike and I are on vacation this week. Originally, we were going to go to Toronto and see Rush (one of our favorite bands), but instead we decided to stay home and remodel the kitchen. It's something we talked about doing for a while, and we finally decided it was time to do it. The only thing that is staying the same are the cabinets. Everything else-floor, countertop, sink, faucet, appliances (whoo-hoo!) are new. It's not finished yet, but it will be soon. We forgot to take some before pictures for comparison, but I think we have a few pics from a couple of Thanksgivings ago that show the "old" kitchen, so those will have to do.

It's not all work though. Over the Fourth of July weekend we went to Chicago. No particular reason other than to get out of town and spend time in one of our favorite cities. We saw the fireworks at Navy Pier, drank a lot of beer at Rockbottom and Fado's, did a little shopping, and ate our way through (and got sunburned at) the Taste of Chicago. My favorites at the Taste were the Sweet Baby Ray's meatballs and the pad thai at Star of Siam. Star of Siam is located by this really cool bookstore called Afterwords, and I've been curious about it. I think we will definitely eat there next time we're in town! We also did some dreaming about what it would be like to live there. More expensive, and we wouldn't be able to live like tourists, but there are so many things to do and job opportunities! There are also enough parks and open areas that I would be ok not having a yard (I think!).

Tomorrow I'm heading up to Milwaukee for a quick trip, while Mike will stay here and hopefully get some much-deserved couch potato time. This week has gone by much to fast, and it hasn't helped me that I've had phone calls from work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Maybe next vacation my phone will mysteriously stop working......

On the Fence

I haven't blogged in a while, simply because most of my posts the last couple of months would have been "I hate my job" posts. We're on the back end of a huge project and things are finally settling down.

Which is giving me time to think about whether or not I want to make a change. Earlier this week I was ready to walk out the door. Today things weren't so bad. Part of me is scared to make a change, but a bigger part of me is ready to do something different.

Each job has its set of problems. I might be ready for a completely different set of problems.

Most Useless Store Ever

I had to stop on my way home from work today to get new batteries for my garage door opener. They're the watch style batteries, and I figured I'd stop at CVS. It was on the same side of the street as the direction I was heading, and if I wanted to stop at Walgreen's I'd have to make a left turn in and a left turn to exit. This was during Champaign's rush 15 minutes, and I was feeling lazy, so CVS it was.

I didn't learn my lesson the last couple of times, but I've learned it now. I can never find what I want in that store. If by some miracle I do, I get a cashier who's older than dirt and keeps trying to get me to sign up for their little reward card. This time, I walked in and immediately headed to the photo area. Surely they have batteries, etc. over there, right? Not so. Instant and digital cameras as far as they eye can see, but no batteries with which to load them. OK, time for a walk around the store. I started wandering around and was just about to ask an employee when I spotted a rack with batteries. When I reached it, I realized that the rack was the end of the toy aisle, and the only batteries they had were the usual suspects. So I started wandering some more, and this time no employees were around. I wandered back to the pharmacy area (thinking hearing aids and batteries), and found another rack shoved into the corner. This rack had the usual suspects and some 9 volts, nothing else. I cursed myself for my laziness and left the store, walking past the crowded checkout line with the 147 year old cashier. I jumped into my car and headed back out of my way to Walgreens, where I walked right in and found a veritable plethora of batteries.

I can now get into my garage.

Censored No More!

A human being at Blogger finally got around to looking at my new blog and decided it's not spam. I'm still not sure what caused me to be tagged. Originally they said it would take four days to look into, and it was really about a week. I was getting fed up yesterday and found a place on the Blogger help forum where you submit your URL to someone's worksheet and they would turn it over to Blogger. I'm not sure if that's what finally got me fixed, or if it was the natural course of events.

My first new review is out there, and I'll be moving over my old reviews eventually.

I've Been Censored!!!!

So I was going to tell you about my new blog (yeah like I have time for this one)! I am going to start doing a series of book reviews. I published my first post yesterday, just a short introduction. I looked at it today and I've been BLOCKED! Apparently something triggered the Blogger robots into thinking I was spam.

I've filled out there little form verifying that I am a human being, and they are taking my case under review. Hopefully, I'll be back in a couple of days. So keep checking-right now the link is off to the side with the other blogs.

Cat Pics!!!

It's been way too long since I posted any pics. Here ya go:


It's darn near impossible to get them in the same shot, so I have to settle for this. Bootsie's in the back-you can barely see her, she matches the bed! And Hershey is up front. They do sleep together at night but I only see it if I happen to wake up.

And this is Bootsie in one of her favorite positions:
She lays on the floor like that all the time, and loves to have her belly rubbed. Even if you're not rubbing her belly she'll lay like that. She was helping me make the bed that day, as seen here:
And this one is just too darn adorable:
Hershey doesn't stay still long enough for me to take her picture, but here's one of her:
She's usually up, down, up, down, up, down, you get the idea. Or if she is doing something cute she stops the minute I pick up the camera.

Not a very good blogger, huh?

The writer's strike is over, guess I better get back to work :) Seriously, I've had some family stuff going on that's not put me in the mood to write. I started a post about it and I'm not sure if it's going to make it out of draft form, but we'll see.

So Mike found this cool site last week called Librarything.com. Off and on over the years, I had looked at various software to catalog all of our books, but I never found anything I liked. Librarything isn't software, it's web-based. It's very easy to add books, simply type the author, title, or ISBN. I use the ISBN because I also like to keep track of paperbacks and hardcovers. You can rate the books, mark if you're currently reading it, write review, upload covers, mark when you added it to your collection, there's all sorts of cool things. There's also a neat little widget that lets you show random books from the library on your blog-check it out on the right! I've been working on adding my library, and I noticed it's changing the books on my widget. There's also links to sites that have book swaps, so I might check that out next time I'm ready to thin out my collection.

Writers' Strike-Blessing or Curse?

I know, I'm the 56,009,247th person to post about the writer's strike. Better late than never, right?

Why is the writers' strike great?
-More time to watch movies. The Netflix account has been getting a workout after being neglected for a while. The irony is that I'm using this time to catch up on a TV series-Battlestar Galactica (the new version). If you get a chance, check it out. It's not campy like the old one.
-I don't feel chained to my television. Even though we have Tivo and rarely watch live TV, you still have to keep up with what's on so you don't get that plot spoiler when your office mates start talking about what they watched last night.
-More time to blog. Although I'll let my reader(s) decide if that's good, bad, or indifferent.

Why does the writers' strike suck?
-Reality TV. I could deal with it if it's interesting bordering on educational, like Top Chef, What Not To Wear, and Meerkat Manor, but Dance Wars and American Gladiators? My IQ just dropped ten points.
-I enjoy the shows that I watch. Obviously, otherwise I wouldn't watch them. I'm not pining away here wondering if Sam and Dean from Supernatural are ever going to be back slaying demons, but sometimes you just want to space out in front of the TV.
-Britany Spears. OK, she has nothing to do with it but the media makes her out to be the Devil Incarnate, so might as well blame her for this too.

Looks to me like the strike is mostly a blessing. No matter what, it can't be all that bad for us to maybe put down the remote for a while and start connecting with one another again. Or watch Terminator, the Sarah Conner Chronicles. The previews for that show look pretty good.

Happy New Year!

Wow, it's been a while since I posted anything! Sorry I've been away, it's been a hectic couple of months. Work has been driving me crazy, and it's probably a good thing I haven't blogged about that. Bank mergers suck, end of story.

But it's not all been bad. If you read Mike's blog you've been keeping up on what we've been doing. A trip to Chicago, Thanksgiving at home with friends, Christmas in Milwaukee, some good movies-that pretty much sums it up.

We didn't do too much for New Years Eve. We were invited to a couple of parties but wanted to go out to dinner and see a movie instead. We tried to go to Farren's, but they were closed and decided to try Nitaya Thai instead. We hadn't heard completely positive things about that place, but you don't know until you try, right? The service was great, but the food was only ok. I had shirmp pad thai, which was rather oily. They also left the tail on the shrimp making it messier to eat. Mike had pad see ew, and while the meat and veggies were good, the noodles were overcooked and mushy. But overall the experience was good, and while we probably won't go back I'm glad we at least tried. After dinner, we headed to Boardman's to see Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. I gave it three stars on Netflix-there were some great performances, but the way the story was told was a little too melodramatic. I think the movie was trying too hard to be like Memento with the flashbacks. We then went home, opened a bottle of wine, and watched a little TV before deciding to watch Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny.

We finished watching the movie this morning (wine makes me sleepy!!!), and haven't done much of anything at all today. It's snowing outside, and both of us are feeling pretty lazy. I've got Italian beef in the crockpot, and the first ever NHL outdoor hockey game in the US on TV-I love hi def! We were invited over to one of my coworker's for the Rose Bowl, but I think we'll just stay home and watch it here instead-I really don't feel like leaving the house! Maybe later we'll pop in Live Free or Die Hard. I'm really enjoying the writers' strike-we're able to catch up with a lot of movies.

More later, but for now Happy New Year!