The business has started

While I haven't been terrifically busy today, my brother, Marty, was coming back through Chicago after doing two weeks for the Army Reserve up in the land of cheese (Wisconsin). He brought back a buch of cheese and some chocolate cheese fudge. He spent the night at my sister's house so I spent the evening at my sister's house. We picked up my brother-in-law at the train station, had dinner, and watched Monty Python.

Tomorrow my evening will be spent at a One Brick Happy Hour. Friday, I will be working at a benefit at the Museum of Contemporary Art and on Saturday I will be going to Indianapolis for my cousin Wendy's Open House. I may have time to write although I may not.

Until next time...

Monday

I figured that I probably write something today because I am going to be very busy in the upcoming week and I don't know if I will have time to post even if I really want to. My weekend could have been much busier than it was, but having said that, I was pretty busy on Saturday. I don't think I did anything of note on Friday, I did go to lunch at Kuhn's Deli and I bought the book for our book club meeting this this month (Marley and Me) which I also ended up reading this weekend.

On Saturday, I went to the Greater Chicago Food Depository for the afternoon. It was hard work but I didn't mind because the place is air conditioned and my apartment isn't (yet). I was only gone from about 11:30 AM until 7 PM (We went to a Mexican restaurant called Muro after we were done working.) but I was tired and was happy to relax afterward.

I was supposed to meet someone on Sunday but something came up for them and we had to postpone.

Over the next week I have things scheduled Thursday through Saturday and from Monday the 26th until Wednesday, July 5th. I am not sure that I will do everything that I have scheduled, but I do know that I will be busy. I will try to post when I can.

More deer

I had a couple of stories about deer gone wild last week and I happened to see another story that happened here in the Chicago area. A 13 year old Orland Hills girl was playing in the cul-de-sac in which she lived with her friends when a doe(a deer, a female deer) ran by and knocked her over. What is up with the deer in recent days?

In my recent days, I had an uneventful weekend, but yesterday I had dinner at Brazzaz. Red Eye, the Chicago Tribune's tabloid newspaper that is marketed to young adults (25-34) had a member appreciation night. We didn't receive the full menu and it was served hors d'oeuvres style but it was free and it was very good.

A quick post about the devil and deer

As I quicly mentioned yesterday, yesterday was 06/06/06. Some people were trying to equate it to 666, the number of the beast as described in in the King James version of the Bible. Several fundamentalists have equated Rock and Roll with the Devil's music. As a result of this, several Rock musicians have tried to use this to their advantage and played it up. Allmusic.com, a website that I use frequently (its a great music reference site) came up with a list called the Devil's Playlist. It left out several obvious picks like a few songs by The Rolling Stones, Elvis, Charlie Daniels, and Cliff Richards but it made some good choices.

I also mentioned yesterday a deer gone wild in Racine, Wisconsin. Apparently, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale has had their problems with deer attacks. Last year there were seven people injured, this year there have been four. A police officer shot a doe that attacked yesterday that was eventually euthanized. It is fawning season, so officials suspect that the attacks have been prompted by the does trying to protect their fawn.

News

I was looking at my blog earlier because I was wondering how I had managed to post so often and saw that a lot of my posts were about news stories that I happened to find interesting or funny. There were several stories about deer and volcanoes for whatever reason so today I will talk about deer and volcanoes.

First off, I have heard many stories of deer finding themselves in a persons domicile. When I was a teenager, a deer ran through my grandmother's neighbors house. When I was in college, I worked as a mosquito sprayer for Clarke Environmental Mosquito Management. I was driving in a subdivision next to a forest preserve in Glenview and there were deer in someone's front lawn. Aparrently I spooked it, because it jumped through the picture window. Now, on Monday morning, a spooked deer in Racine, Wisconsin jumped through a family's window and ran through the apartment before becoming trapped in the bathroom. Unfortunately, the family dog was also in the bathroom and was kicked unconscious. The deer's kicking also turned on the water which ultimately flooded the apartment. Police got the dog out of the bathroom and anesthesized the deer to remove it.

I have talked several times about Mt. St. Helens since it started erupting in September 2004. As of late it continues with its low level volcanic activity. A volcano in Indonesia, Mount Merapi, has started erupting spewing lava and gas. Indonesian officials have mobilized to evacuate 11,000 people.

One other thing, today is June 6, 2006, or 06/06/06 and it doesn't mean anything.

Past weekend

I didn't do everything that I wanted to do this weekend but I did have a good time. I went, on Friday, to see Jonathan Alter, the Editor of Newsweek, talk to Jeffrey Hiller, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, about Alter's new book about FDR's first 100 days. I am not an FDR scholar but it was very interesting and I liked the comparisons that came up comparing FDR and the current president in how they do different things.

Saturday, I went to the Choke, Inc. Garage Sale where for $5, I could fill a plastic grocery bag with CDs and other music memoribilia. I stuck strictly with CDs and ended up with 41. I did take a chence on many CDs because even if I'm wrong, I've only spent about $0.12/CD. I haven't nearly made it through the CD's so far, I have only listened to 14 and there was only one that I thought was total crap. 8 I have liked, 3 were OK, and 2 were positively mediocre. If things continue this way, I will have done pretty well. I was going to go to the Printer's Row Book Fair but it took me a while to go through all of the boxes of CDs, carrying them around they were pretty heavy, and I didn't feel like carrying them around more than I had to,

I also didn't go to either book fair on Sunday simply because I didn't think I had the time. Yesterday, we met for our monthly book club meeting and we discussed Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult.

Overall, it was a good weekend although I did get sore from carrying the CDs. It was OK though because I made out like a bandit.

Upcoming weekend

Today was entirely uneventful but I do plan on having a literary weekend. Tomorrow, I am going to Northwestern to listen to Jonathan Alter, the editor of Newsweek, talk about his new book about the first 100 days of FDR. Saturday, I plan on going to a garage sale by Choke, Inc. Choke, Inc. is an Indie music distributor and they are moving to a larger space but they want to get rid of much stuff as possible so they are selling CD's for a buck or fill a plastic grocery bag for $5. I will also go to Printer's Row Book Fair. I probably won't get anything their but I want to see if Lake Claremont Press is there. Sunday, The Other Book Festival is going on at a club downtown and Harvey Pekar is talking, but my book club meeting is at 7 PM so I may not be able to see him. I will have to do some calculating, but I hope I can swing both events.