7 posts tagged “chicago”
her son, James, graduated from college! yay! with a degree in accounting. he's already got a good job lined up and he's going to be fine... he also got engaged this week to his sweetheart, the lovely Barbara T. and, it so happens that Barbara also graduated at the same time and same school with a degree in finance.... nice, huh?!... big week end...
so i flew up on Friday evening to Chicago...
on Saturday we got up kinda early and headed to the college for the graduation. we met up with Linda's sister there and then, after the cerimonies, with lots more family.
James' and Barbara's...
John, James brother, and his girl friend, Jamie, made the trip up from near Philly. and Barbara's parents and brother were there. also James and John's dad came from New Jersey with his kids, 10 yr old twins iirc. and we all took lots of pictures. :-)
next we drove out to see Linda's mom and dad and took John and Jamie with us and Carol, Linda's sis, and had lunch. it was nice for them to see their grandson John since he's not up there too often. he and Jamie had a good week end too. it was Jamie's first time in Chicago and John took her on a long walking tour the day before and they took lots of touristy pix with their beautiful new camera..... :-)
then Saturday night James and Barbara hosted a big party at her parents house... family came out in force. lot's of Barbara's family were there, and James had a good showing too. me, Linda, Carol, Linda's Mom & Dad, James' Uncle Dave, Uncle Jim, James' dad and the twins, brother John & Jamie... and a good time was had by all!
we all got to say congrats for graduating and getting engaged...
and company and the food were really good! Barbara and her family are Polish and the food was mostly Polish dishes and fantastic. i also really enjoyed her family. lots of fun, delightful folks. i hope to be invited back for more parties! :-)
Linda and i left the party 'round 10:30 as it was winding down... but, as we passed the movie theaters on the way home, we decided to see if it was too late to catch the new Star Trek film. yay, there was a showing starting in about 10 minutes so we got our tickets and enjoyed the heck out of it!
the new ST was lots of fun, good movie... :-)
then on Sunday i got up, packed up, drove to the airport, called my Mom, and flew home.
so last week end i did go to Chicago and i did see Linda and i did have a good time...
these are a couple of pics of the Republican Party offices in Evanston, Ill. and the GOP County Committeeman.
we went to the office a couple of times so Linda could get some work done that needed to be done...
Sunday was the big day. Church in the morning was wonderful. the whole orchestra was there with the praise band and the choir. good stuff. after church we had another, even bigger musical experience waiting. Linda's Mom, Jean, is in a community choir and orchestra that was doing a concert that afternoon. it was fantastic. the orchestra was huge and and choir was even huger! they did a variety of classical and not so classical music and i really enjoyed it...
i'm flying up to Chicago tomorrow evening. i'm going up for Linda's Mom's 80th birthday. that'll be nice, but mostly i'm excited to see Linda again. i haven't seen her for three months.... that's a long time!!... i hope she recognizes me at the airport. i've changed a little. my hair is longer. i've gained weight. i have more tattoos. i'm shorter but my arms are longer. i wear an eye patch now. i walk with a pronounced limp because of my peg leg. i got rhinoplasty done then i grew a beard from my eyebrows down. i have a mohawk and a nose ring but not on my face.... but i think she'll be able to pick me out of a line up.....
we'll see tomorrow evening i guess.... just look for the guy in permanent KISS make up.
:-)
last week end i flew up to Chicago to catch the first show in the Mike Roe "John The Baptist" tour. Mike is traveling for about a week visiting friends and playing small solo shows and dubbing it the "John the Baptist Tour" because he's "preparing the way" for a new 77s record and a probable 77s tour this summer.
Linda and i drove from the airport right to the show on Friday night. the concert was held in the "live room" of the studio at BackThird Audio, a recording studio in downtown Aurora, with about 40 or so fans in attendance. it was a special and intimate night with the very talented singer-songwriter. Mike Roe entertained us with his impecable sense of cool and beautiful music and his sense of humor.
after a brief introduction by our friend Jeff Elbel; Mike entered the room wearing a black t-shirt, jeans, his Burks with socks, puffy black hair and chin whiskers, and dark shades, sat down with his Taylor accoustic guitar and proceeded to blow the house down. Mike began the night with what he refered to as a warm up song about adultry and sin, but he assured us that he'd redeem it in the end. then he played Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes' and redeemed it just like Lou Reed did almost 40 years ago, by going right into the very next song on that great VU album, "Jesus." it was impressive and moving. Mike joked through the night, and as he played song after song he told us stories of the 77s in the studio, his daughter's musical aspirations, disreputable roadies, his buddies, and of the old song writers he was honoring by playing their songs for us in the room, and on the highly anticipated new record [probably titled "Holy Ghost Building"]. the meat of the night was the new record, Mike played every song he expected to be on that release when it comes out, and talked about the choices. the record has been in the works for two years and will be mostly traditional blues, rock, and americana music with that wonderful 77s twist.
Mike Roe is a very talented fellow. he has a variety of moods and styles to his voice as well as his guitar playing. he can grumble, mumble, scream and rock as hard as any guitar-hero you know, then he can turn around and pick out beautiful melodies on his six string as he sings sweetly and tenderly. as Mike took us through the process of the evening's show, he played his accoustic for a while then stood up and put on his unusual Kay electric guitar for a few tunes, switched to his Fender Strat, and then back to his Taylor accoustic to finish the night. Mike deftly drove through some originals and played all of the covers he'll be putting on the record he's mixing, and promoting at the same time. it's always a treat to see Mike Roe do his thing live, this night was no exception. good times.
sigh,
worked three nights this week including last night. so i'm kinda tired.... yeah...
but i'm headin up to Chicago today!! so i'll probably be able to catch 20 winks on the plane, hopefully. i'm looking forward to the week end. not sure what we're doing, but i'm ready to just do some simple relaxing things with the Lovely Linda! i'm excited! in a my calm cool way. :-)
cya soon dear!
the week end in Chicago was good. we did go to the theater to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream - A Queer Tale." it was very good. i really wasn't sure what i'd think, but i enjoyed it a lot.
the theater is down town old Chicago, down the street from Wilson Blvd. where JPUSA is. i don't know what the building used to be, but it made a great small theater. the room that they built the set in was a large dance hall maybe, or more likely a bank atrium, with tall ornate columns, the room had stone and glass in the 30 or 40 foot ceilings, and a broken clock set in the same stone and in the center of everything. around two walls they built bleachers and put up chairs for about 70 people. most of the seats were filled this Friday night. the rest of the room and against the other two walls was the set; a multi-layered, massive, design of steps and stages with curtains, smoke machines, and lots of nightclub lights. the performance was basically Shakespeare's play in his words, with a few twists, and some modern turns of phrase. one seemingly simple twist turned the whole play on it's ear and made this companies focus; they changed the gender of Lysander (is male, here is female) and Helena (is female, here is male). not to mention a very talented drag queen plays the roles of Egeus the father of Hermia, and Titania the queen of fairies. the production is very clever, well staged, full of energy, sparkle, dance, song, fun, shakespeare, skin, and gay-ity.
Krystal plays Peter Quince, the carpenter that helps direct the play within the play for the wedding. she was, of course, the best thing in the play. it was great to see her having fun in a play she enjoys doing. and she was so good at it... good times!
but second to Krystal was the guy that played Titania. after seeing the show i was sold on this kid, i'm now a big fan of his. his stage name is Titania Divine, real name Kari, and he is fantastic! i don't know for sure if he took "Divine" as an homage to the great Divine from Baltimore, the king of queens!, or not. but i'd guess definitely. he even reminded me of Divine somewhat. he's not big at all, he doesn't really look like Divine, but he's got presence like Divine. and he plays both genders in the production, like Divine did sometimes. i thought he was great....
TD was my fav, but i enjoyed the whole cast and the experience was definitely worth it.
the next day we continued the costumed revelry by going to the Renaissance Faire. i took some pictures there, so i'll blog about that later when i can post some pics with it.
the Lost Dogs are playing in Virginia tomorrow night. at Jammin' Java. i've never been there, but i know it's been around for a while. but i have trouble going to shows during the week! i love the Dogs! but i just don't know if i'm going to go to the show. aargh. getting up at 3:30am every morning to go to work can really cramp your style if you your style is night owl concert goer... :-)
about a month ago i said that i was watching 24 on the internet at work. update: since the day after i wrote that, i have not been able to watch 24 on the computer. i think Metro blocked us 24 viewers! .... oh well....
i had some fun with the doughnut in the box (see my pictures). update: i still have it up on top of a cabinet that i keep other toys on. the doughnut has not turned green at all. it still has most of it's color, but it looks like it's hard as a brick.
i preached the message yesterday. i haven't done that in a while. we had a nice P&W set and then i talked about worship. it was well recieved. :-)
i probably have talked about Chris and Beth from Germany and that they moved to MD about six months ago. update: they're moving to the Chicagoland area now. Chris got a job with a company up there and so they're moving as soon as he can find a place to live. fortunately for me, since i like them, i go up there on a regular and i'll get to visit them still.
i have been working here for more than 27 years. update: i still do and duty calls right now so i gotta go.
ttfn
