Monthly Archives: July 2008

Wedding Reception Recon – Maxim’s: The Nancy Goldberg International Center

During lunch earlier this week, Liz and I had an appointment to check out Maxim’s, a potential spot for our wedding reception. The location is actually underground, and the entrance begins with a winding staircase. We learned that they’re currently re-upholstering everything… which is good news for us. The main foyer (at the base of

Continue reading »

Bleh

I’m swamped. And pooped. The past few days I’ve set my alarm to wake up early, and just end up turning it off and rolling out of bed around 7AM. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves, but sadly… it’s been a little busy/hectic lately. I’ve got some interesting pics to post, just didn’t have enough

Continue reading »

Storm and Blackout

Around 10PM, Liz and I were finishing up dinner and washing dishes in the kitchen. As we were talking, the lights flickered once, and the entire apartment went dark. It’s been ages since I’ve had to scramble for matches and candles, but it was kind of fun in a way. We were forced to slow

Continue reading »

Logan Square Farmers Market

Liz and I have made it a habit to swing by the Logan Square Farmers Market on Sunday mornings. On the last trip, we picked up some fresh flowers, fresh eggs, and got a nice, early breakfast in at Lula’s to start off our Sunday. We may have to try these blueberries the next time

Continue reading »

Merlin Mann: Inbox Zero

Though I don’t follow his 43folders.com site religiously, I’m a big fan of Merlin Mann. In fact, his talk on Living with Data was a pretty eye-opening thing for me, and helped me look at my job (and my approach to work) in a totally different light. Below is a Google Talk that’s made the

Continue reading »

Saturday Managers Meeting

Today was a Saturday. And I was part of a 7 hour meeting for work. Above is what the conference room and table looked like, at the end of those 7 hours. To clarify: there were good and bad things about this. The bad things, obviously, was that it was both on a Saturday, and

Continue reading »

Grillable Dessert: Blueberry Crumble

In addition to grilling out for dinner tonight (Porterhouse steaks), Liz and I made Blueberry Crumble (a la the recipe from Steven Raichlen’s BBQ University. I made this once before, a long while ago for a Fourth of July cookout… way back in 2005. Can’t believe I’ve waited 3 years to try this recipe again,

Continue reading »

Hey… Nice Rack!

Jeff, installing the new server rack that just came in. We’re upgrading our local environment, particularly our local staging/testing environment. In order to have a true staging environment for us to test on, we needed to purchase a new set of servers to more accurately mirror our production environment. This has been talked about for

Continue reading »

Flash Games Trifecta: Totem Destroyer, Pandemic II and Fantastic Contraption

I’ve been meaning to post these games for the past week, but something else always came up. So now, I’m going to combine all three into one. I’ve lost a lot of time between each, so I hope you’ll lose a little as well. Totem Destroyer is a really fun game where you have to

Continue reading »

Remembering the Vending Machine Challenge™

Anthony and Cathie stopped by the office today, to say hello and to share their good news (they’re expecting, and about 4 months along). The pic (above) is old, as I didn’t have my camera on me at the time. It was great seeing them, and catching up a bit. After all the changes in

Continue reading »

Everyone… Meet Baby Audrey

Liz’s sister Tricia has been expecting her baby the past week or so, and today was her due date. Liz got the call in the late morning that Tricia and gone in to the hospital (around 11AM)… and within an hour or two, the baby had already arrived! After work, Liz picked me up and

Continue reading »

Office Construction: Cube Buildout

Lots of changes today! We had a small crew in to the office, installing a ton of new desks/cubicles near the Affiliates, they built out the remaining open offices, and brought with them a little furniture. At long last, we have a seating area near the front desk. Gone are the days where prospective hires

Continue reading »

BBQ in Niles: Goodbye Bryan and Jamie

Liz and I headed out to Niles, to attend a going-away BBQ for Bryan and Jamie. We rounded the corner, and immediately saw a ton of people and tables, all spread out. The BBQ was a mixture of friends and family, and hosted at Jamie’s parent’s house. And apparently, the two adjoining houses also belonged

Continue reading »

Late (and Foggy) Night at Wilmette Beach

Lisa was back in town this weekend, and Liz, Jake, Alexandra and I met up with her for dinner over in Wilmette. We had dinner and drinks outside at C. J. Arthur’s, and watched the sun set. Unfortunately, there were a lot of sad circumstances all around. Lisa’s back in town because her family had

Continue reading »

Good Bye Bryan, Good Luck Peabe

With great sadness, this is something I’ve known for a while now… and something that many of us knew at work: Bryan is saying goodbye to Emmis Interactive, and heading out to the West Coast. He’s going out there with Jamie, and will be pursuing his artistic career full-time. While it pains me to see

Continue reading »