The 30 Journals

This post is just what it sounds like... 

What a lot of you should know is that sometimes my brain can go racing and into overdrive. Sometimes that can make me go crazy and as a result I say and do things that are in no way, shape or form representative of the true me.  

I wish to come on here to discuss something that probably only one other person knows, someone who is my best friend and who I consider a legitimate kid sister whose friendship I think I may have jeopardized with recent actions.

Throughout the first batch of years in my life, I always noticed that I was… well... a weirdo. I was always usually hyperactive, I would make it a point to always be the center of attention, and as a result I was unable to make a lot of friends, and I was always bullied throughout Elementary school and the seventh grade.

In the 8th grade year, it was worse. My natural hyperdrive mode got the best of me. I was beaten up and bullied all throughout that year. The teachers did not know how to handle me and sent me to a psychiatrist at Childrens Hospital in Cincinnati. In the spring of 1998 I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, something that I feel still affects me to this day. I was prescribed Ritalin. As a result of two things… the chemicals in the air at the P&G plant I lived right by, and in my opinion the Ritalin, eventually I contracted Lymphoma. The Ritalin was stopped, and I went through the chemo treatments and returned to good health. Afterwards, I was put back on the Ritalin and then began developing other problems, the worst case being a really bad pneumonia. I stopped the Ritalin for good. The processes continued.

But something about me was still a miss, even 15 years ago. I still continued to feel restless. I was continuing to be hyper, and I closed myself off from everyone. It’s like I just wanted to take in each and every thing anyone was willing to give me the opportunity to take in. It led me to a lot of trouble, I found that over time people had used me and my mind, even when it tried to tell me “Rob, what the fuck are you doing”, I still let them in and use me and spit me out. I could not and still can not tell who was bullying and who was nice, so I built a wall around myself and pretty much refused to let people into it.

Then when I graduated and was on my own, I found myself always telling myself to do certain things and some things were largely forgotten. In college, I lost track of time for the things that had to do with my schoolwork and developed more time for things that to a normal person make absolutely no sense. It was like I needed a notebook to remind me of everything, and, I shit you not, I began making schedules for myself of when to do things that should be spontaneous and fun. Rigid timing belongs in sports games, not when your going to the store and then you go home to simply brush your teeth and go to bed. I also kept forgetting about the simplest home tasks, and I still do. It’s like sometimes I will cook an entire meal and never clean up the mess until a few days later when I nearly injure myself tripping over everything. Sometimes, I don’t even shower or brush my teeth when that should be the easiest thing TO do.

As far as friendships and relationships are concerned, I feel like I so unfairly hang on to the select few friends I have and refuse to let people in. When I have friends, I find myself completely devoted to building and maintaining friendships that sometimes I will say and do things that sometimes will be completely knowledgeable and of good faith, and some things will be so stupid and can and will and completely blow shit up. A lot of people leave me as a result, and sometimes I will feel a massive crush of pain when I realize I was the one who fucked it all up.

I met this woman named Elizabeth back in 2006 and we became a couple. Something would happen and we would fight… and this would continue all the way until the breakup a few years later. We loved each other, but it was just so incompatible. I never have told anyone this, but there are cases in which I could have stopped it. I could have been more attentive to her. I could have cared more. I was more in it for myself than her at times. As a result, she cheated on me. And sometimes I feel like I deserved it because I just feel like I could have been a better boyfriend.

The first thing I did after the breakup was… well… not take it too well. I took it out on a lot of people, and as a result I built my walls back up but no one wanted to break them down. Even to this day, I will go to a bar with the best intent of finding someone to talk to... but its like my body just totally shuts off... and I find myself once again alone at night.

And if you want further proof of how I feel my mentality jeopardizes things, take this weekend. My best friend and I finally met up after 12 long years of building such a great friendship. Good parts came out of it… I was able to protect her from all the idiots that Chicago could carry for the sake of fighting for the relationship between her and her fiancé… I stayed with her and her sister when an anxiety attack sent her to the hospital… I even brought a few roses because that’s how I like to show my support and get well soon shit for my friends… and I made her sister, her brother in law and her niece really like me.

  When the weekend was over, a steady rush of panic hit me that I thought my best friend would never want to talk to me again. Its like I know that that would never occur, but its like tell my brain that. I got emotional, a natural feeling for me. In my haste I got a little too overemotional and reached out to my friend. Then, on Tuesday night, I said absolutely the worst thing I could say, which I wont divulge it but I realize it was very very bad. THIS is kind of thing that has cost me so much in my life and it happens to me a lot without me even knowing it. I invest a lot and it is all good, and then POOF, Rob fucks up and it all vanishes like flying dust. I have always had a bad problem with tactfulness even when I know the true score, a score I have been helping to fight for, and now I fear my lack of tact has begun to seriously cost me.

I always feel like I take friends in and then foul it up so gloriously. I always tell people they did it they did it, and now I am looking at things that are wrong in my life and I am realizing that there are definitely the majority of my pawprints on the wrong things.

 For me, things like this trigger what I feel I also have… a solid state of depression. It shows, too… its like I can have a great day and then the night is just plain shit to me. Sometimes something bad can happen and I will let it drag for days. I find myself reading the same things, watching the same movies, and all in the comfort of my home where sometimes I find myself refusing to leave for anything, not even to check my mail in the afternoon. I find myself physically unable to go down and work out and shop every day. I sometimes find myself taking sleeping pills just to go to bed and when I do its only for a few hours at a time.

Anyway, the reason want to share all of this with all of you is because I was always taught (a stereotype that reigns forever) that men were never supposed to reveal true feelings…that no matter what kind of mental issues they have they are not allowed to talk about it… they are just supposed to step up and be the big hero. But I find that theory to be 1940’s style bullshit. I want to be a guy that changes all this, to let it out there that I and others are not the strong willed people that people expect me to be.  

Part two of my tale begins around 10pm last Thursday night. 

The alarm was set for 3am so I can do my March Madness brackets and get out of the house at a decent time for the 6:45 bus out of town. I was so excited about the events that would take place the next day that I took double my dosage of my sleeping meds and it still wouldn’t work for me. It got to the point that I resorted to just simply putting on the clothes I was going to wear the next day anyway… a move I only made twice in my life. I am not kidding with that!

At 1:45 am Friday morning, I woke up to use the bathroom and ended up in an exchange of texts with Patti. That ended about 20 minutes later. I tried my hardest to go back to sleep for the 45 minutes I had left before the alarm rang.

At 2:30 I decided screw it and got into the rest of my clothes and went to my laptop to finish the papers from the previous night.

At 4:45 I posted a facebook message notifying Patti that I was heading out of my house, and at 5:15 the Metro bus arrived and sent me downtown, and a transfer and almost getting hit twice by cars heading to the next street, I was at the MegaBus stop, and at 6:45 I departed for Chicago on a steadily crowding MegaBus, leaving a text to Patti telling her I was leaving town. Thankfully I was able to catch a bunch of sleep on the way to Indianapolis, and when we arrived for a pit stop I was way too nervous to eat but I knew I had to eat breakfast and I did. And after we hit Indianapolis (another text) people boarded up the bus. Someone had to share the seat, and fortunately it was a guy who was going to college and could use some counseling, so at the very least I was able to have a three hour conversation that kind of dragged the nerves away. YES PATTI I WAS INCREDIBLY NERVOUS!!!! 

Patti started texting me around the time I was hitting the Illinois border, and the moment was drawing near… 12 years of forming a bro-sis bond was about to come to pay off with a final and glorious initiation.

At 11:55 am, the MegaBus pulled into the Union Station stop in Chicago, and I placed a call to her telling her I was at the station. Fortunately for my shaky thirsty ass she was delayed getting into town from her train ride from her twin’s house. A call at 12:12 tells me she can see skyline.

So here is what was setting up…. 13 stops brings you from Libertyville, Illinois to Union Station…. It was the 13th hour of the day in Cincinnati… the track that brought her to Chicago was #13…. And she called 13 minutes before she arrived, and the call ended at the end of the 13th minute of the hour…. And for the 13 minutes it took her I found the coke machine and the nerves quickly went away…. Then I found the bottle of 5-hour energy and my fatigue went away…. Then, at 12:25 or so I found that some crazy, blonde haired, green pantsed wild-child-at-heart was making a full sprint for the arms of a guy that was only in Chicago for about a half hour…

I had just thrown the bottle of energy in the trash, and I was aware of the train’s arrival by the bells clanging. But nothing prepared me for when I turned around and heard her voice.

My long lost and long awaited kid sister had arrived, and the 12 year wait was over. Damn, it didn’t take me long to start crying and her too, and I must have lifted her ten feet in the air given our height differences. And after she called her fiancé and her twin to let her know I had her in my custody, and after I spoke to Beth for a few, off we went to enjoy the spectacular and boldly unpredictable weekend that was upon us!

Hello everyone…. I am here today to let everyone know that I have decided to return to regular blog postings beginning immediately… I have had a real problem in my life with letting people in and letting people know about my life and everything about it. There are two people that I wish to thank for giving me the power and energy to get me back to the blog writing so I CAN INDEED bring people in. The first one is someone I don’t exactly know very well… we met in Chicago and she caught me in a very bad weekend, and I am knowing more and more about her and liking it. 

However, the 2nd one can only light a candle to herself in the game of life. And THIS particular one has a history lesson built in that I wish to now share with everyone. And its going to be in multiple parts, so this is part one with other parts of the story involve what happened to me this weekend. This story begins sometime in October of 2003. I had just turned 19 and was a freshman at Northern Kentucky University. About 18 months before this story started, one of my favorite teams in the National Hockey League, the Detroit Red Wings, won the 2002 Stanley Cup just a week after I graduated from St. Bernard High School in Cincinnati. In the first part of that fateful season, the Red Wings and Lightning were in the middle of separating seasons. The Wings, traditionally the best team in the league, had been going through a nasty slump. 

Sometime in the middle of October, I went onto Yahoo! NHL Chatboard one night to air out my grievances. As I was chirping about how bad I felt my Wings were acting, along came a woman who went by the screen name “hockeycrazedbabe”. A resident of Ocala, Florida, she was a fan and follower of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who were in the beginning phases of a run that would eventually win them the Stanley Cup at the end of the next spring. hockeycrazedbabe proceeded to let me know her frustrations towards my comments. After a bit of time apologizing, I proceed to have about an hour long conversation with her about hockey and I found out the reason she chided me was because she was actually born in Detroit and was one of the biggest Red Wings people anyone knows. At the end of the evening I asked her for her name… Patti… and added her to my Yahoo list. And for the rest of the season we would communicate and discuss the season. During the season, the Wings would improve fast to claim the President’s Trophy that is given to the best record, and would fall to the Flames in the West Semifinal. Tampa Bay, her other team, would win the Stanley Cup with her, now in the summer before her senior year in High School in Ocala, in attendance at the St. Pete Times Forum. Later on, her Detroit Pistons would capture the NBA title with their win over the Lakers.

Here’s the thing, though… as the summer wore on it became apparent that this particular one would be one hell of a chat buddy. We began talking to eachother and not just about hockey. We discussed life in Ohio, life in Florida, and life in general. I helped her and her high school boyfriend prepare for four back to back to back to back hurricanes. 

But for the most part neither of us really ever took things seriously. Separate lives in separate states. Flash forward to 2006… I entered into a relationship with this woman named Elizabeth, took up ownership of a bike shop, and began work with a football team in Cincinnati. Patti and me basically had hit a stop point and kind of lost track of eachother even though we would check in once in awhile. Elizabeth was pretty much keeping me on a short leash and I had no way of getting out of it without going for my own throat, so when the breaking point had hit I went to Facebook and reconnected with Patti, and throughout the course of the relationship with Elizabeth, things were good with Patti in terms of keeping my own sanity with the whole mess.

In September of 2008, I finally reached a critical phase in my friendship with Patti in the strangest way possible. Basically around the same time, me and Elizabeth had broken up for good, and Patti and her new boyfriend Jeff had began to develop problems in their relationship... you know, the normal growing pains of any building of anything. While these weren’t the best moments of our separate lives, the fact that we could get ahold of eachother and vent about things made eachother feel better.

Flash forward again to sometime in January of 2011. More conversation and it continued throughout the next two years to the point where we were now texting eachother. Most of it was about her wailing over Jeff and her issues and I was happy to read and offer help, just as she was happy to discuss my relationship with Melissa, who has to go through dialysis for bunk renal functions. Finally, in November of 2012, we had decided to begin Skyping and calling. Throughout the next year, we developed a brother-sister style dynamic. We both had eachothers numbers on speed dial and we used them often. We finally had also decided it was time to meet.

December 2013 was the first real shot. The Red Wings were in the prep stages for the New Years Day Winter Classic. Patti called me up and was lamenting about going to the Classic by herself… I called her and said “im in” without any thought whatsoever. Then, some stupid stuff had occurred and I was out of the loop. A few days later, she graduated from the University of South Florida, and went to Detroit without me, which was a big bummer story but I completely understood this. I could tell Patti was legitimately hurt by the circumstances surrounding these changes of plans, but I reassured her that at some point in the next year we would finally do this.

We continued to Skype and call and FB eachother on an almost every day basis. FINALLY, Patti received a job offer in Boise working for a TV station as a reporter, her dream job. She went to Boise and dumped Jeff and finally found the true love of her life in Logan, who began their life as her crew photographer. On March 15, they got together finally… at least that’s when it popped up on FB. That weekend I was in Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day festivities like I do every year. She calls. She want’s to go home to Florida, and I tell her she has to stay the course, she has to stay the course. Thank God she stayed the course because she found the man of her dreams and made it public days later… Logan Schenk, 35 year old gamer and a well respectful and respected gentleman, was now in the picture. She told him all about our steadily growing brother-sister style dynamic and was all for it which was a breath of fresh air.

The big break in our quest to finally meet came in December. Patti came to me and announced that her twin sister Beth and her husband were bound for Chicago for the husband’s reassignment in the Navy. The first thing I said after was that she and Logan, now engaged, need to come to Chicago and let me show them around on St. Patrick’s Day. I will never forget the actual day she said she was doing this. February 7, a Saturday night… the tables officially started spinning when Patti emails me a copy of a reservation he made with the Getaway Hostel where I normally stay at in Chicago.

The next few weeks were nothing but talking, planning and coordinating…. And as the days led to the morning of March 13, Friday the 13th, 2015, the sleep became less and less… and less… until the 12th day of March…

Welp, another three or so inches fell on by beloved Cincinnati this morning and its still snowing…. Weve had about 15 so far this winter and two months remain. Today, just when it looks like its going to get better with a high of 40, Tuesday is supposed to be 7… Cincinnati has the wackiest weather I swear.

Speaking of cold weather, I am all in favor of cold-weather Super Bowls.... but when you have a date lined up, YOU KEEP THE DATE! You don't flex time the game because of the elements! That is the risk you take, Commissioner Goodell!

So yesterday was not a good day for my health!

Remember when I told you that I could not sleep and stayed awake for awhile? Well when that happens too much my sinuses go ballistic. So without going to gross guess what happened to my sinuses? Yeah… blah…

I excused myself from work around 3 and got home, and collapsed in my bed at 6. With the interruptions in the day (Ma waking me up to check on me and feed me chicken soup + around 3 waking up to go to the bathroom and checking my mail), About 15 hours sleep LOL…

The translation is a lesson to all: Get your sleep!

Hit the gym hard and got 1.2 miles in too, which is good for keeping things quiet in that region… hoping to have lost a pound or two this week…

I have decided that instead of only coming on when I have something to delete off the list I have of the 30 things I want to do before I turn 30…. A list which I realize might not get accomplished… I have decided to turn this into a regular blog so I can motivate myself to write almost every day. It’s one of the New Year’s Resolutions I created and wrote on a list that I keep with me to make sure I do it.

 I write this morning because I am about an hour away from going to work and I found myself unable to sleep. I woke up at 6 to go to the bathroom and was unable to go back to bed. So I got up and stayed up. The morning ritual begins… look up OKC to see if anyone is even remotely interested in talking to me… nothing. I really need to ditch online dating; it has provided me absolutely no leads to the end of my horribly stale love life… I swear, Cincinnati is the absolute worst city to date someone in.

On top of that, today another inch of snow got dumped on Cincinnati, and it is currently 5 degrees outside, and I have to go into it in awhile. Watch the Metro be 30 minutes late LOL…

I am happy to announce that I am making my triumphant return to regular blogging today.... so much happened. I finally have the ability to actually sit on a computer and write what I wanted to say.

First of all, in the month it has taken me to actually do something with this blog, I have knocked down numerous things from the infamous “30 List”… the problem is that the list, as it stands now, will not quite get done, so I will be making tweaks to the list as I go through to complete 30 things.

#4 is now gone… that was a good tailgate, completed during the Bengals’ “Hat and T-Shirt Game”, when they flossed the Minnesota Vikings a few days before Christmas and won the AFC North later on in the day. I hung out with a tailgate group known as the Bengals Bomb Squad that always has the largest party in the lots of Paul Brown Stadium, and the guy that runs it does everything in his power to have people over for a great time. After they knocked down, the Bengals beat Minnesota big time, and then won the division after New England wasted Baltimore a few hours later. Sadly, the dream came to an end, as it usually does… in the first round of the playoffs…

#7 is gone…. That was the New Year’s Blowout… and I think I nailed the great blowout that I was hoping to have, and it wasn’t any festivity that happened, although I did do a lot. My normal MO is two days, but beginning with this trip it will be three days, and it started with this trip, primarily because I wanted to rest on the 1st instead of immediately getting back on the road after only a few hours of hangover ridden sleep.

Some key factors that led to a lot of hassle this particular trip

-          When I entered the city at 6:30 AM, the temperature was somewhere between 3 and 5 degrees above, depending on the area of town you were in…. it was also windy as hell which made it worse… seriously, what gets Mother Nature off on making it so windy when its cold and then turns off the wind when its hot? I had no gloves, which is my usual mistake. All I had was my Bengals helmet ski-mask and another cap I put underneath. Word of advice, people: Head to Walgreens for hand warmers!

-          Already predicted… and already seen… was snow. There was not only a winter storm warning for 8 inches by Wednesday, but also a lake effect warning for another five before activities ended for this particular trip.

-          I was facing having to wait another eight hours to finally settle into a room at the Getaway Hostel.

Realizing all this, I trudged on into Lincoln Park after a 30 minute train ride into the city. At least by doing this I assured all my money and baggage was in place unlike what happened last year when I got pickpocketed…. Thereby completing the unfinished business I had mentioned just before my birthday trip J

Also quashed was my big wait for a room… it took only three hours, not eight… great timing considering they know my schedule each time already LOL. It came with a con: there are no grocery stores open in Chicago anymore… the rats who run Dominick’s moved out of Lincoln Park, and the Lincoln Park Market closed the day before I came! So my first activity of my trip was walking about a mile down Clark Street to Trader Joe’s, which pretty much is a more fun version of Whole Foods; the whole store is organic and overpriced! $20 for $10 bucks of stuff just to freaking make chili for people to try! Yeesh!

Upon my return I finally managed to get a few hours sleep before going down to make my chili. There was some hesitation on the part of a lot of people to try it, but I finally did… including the concierge staff… and it was a blast! Chili is my favorite dish to cook, and to have Aussies and Germans and the Japs eating and enjoying it, and wanting the recipe, it warmed my heart.

The common Monday night activity is to go see my favorite band, JW Williams’ Chi Town Hustlers, at the Kingston Mines. By that time, the snow had began to fall, leaving a slippery three block walk to the Mines…

And of course there was beer to be drunk...

Also, during the chatter, someone waved in front of me a batch of fried Okra… a food that I never considered trying ever… but at that moment I determined “Why not?”. So I took whatever the hell okra is, bit in, snapped a photo, and with two bites of that slimy fried goop, #16, Try a Different Food, went by the wayside.

Of course, I had to find a way to be totally clumsy…. Just as I was about to leave the Mines for the night, I ran into a hidden part of the staging and got a piece of wood embedded in my shinbone… there was blood everywhere and as I was limping back to the hostel, I noticed a nice trail of it, my first major travel injury EVER. After about a half hour with the hostel’s med kit, I was in bed. NICE MOVE, ROB!

Tuesday was New Years Eve, and it dawned, for me, two things… one, a runny nose led on by my lack of sleep, and also the major hangover that caused me to not sleep LOL… not even cereal and oatmeal could help this hangover. New Years Eve is always the day of the biggest thrift store blitz I do for the year, and with 50 or so thrift stores in Chicago, I was not messing around!

So after I found an Old Country Buffet for lunch, I took to the bus and train lines and found three Unique thrift stores and found some good deals. First was a new shirt for work I badly needed. Then came the big find of my excursion, an old Chicago Enforcers XFL jersey that I immediately wore upon purchase… quite proud of myself.

Then to the hostel to celebrate 2013’s end and 2014’s beginning! Heavy drinking, Heavy Dancing, TWO New Year's celebrations (the real one I came for and the one for the east where I reside), and a lot of snappers.

New Years Day was a day of rest, as I planned… the only major event being to go to the DePaul campus and watch Xavier get thumped by DePaul, which a 3 year old could see happening… then I got talked into a nice drinking binge on the other side of town where we helped someone celebrate her 21st birthday, we engaged in a game of flipcup, and I stumbled back to go to bed for the trip home.

Hey, gang.... it has been forever since I was able to find a computer worthy of processing my blog.... I have been incredibly lax on the electronics side of things, as work and family deals have taken precedence.

I begin by asking people to pray for my mother. She lost her job two months ago and has been struggling since then to find another one. Luckily, she has a good son standing by her side to provide everything so the house has been kept in perfect order.

I am currently preparing for my new years trip, which will cross the 2nd thing from my list. Now that things in the house are stabilizing, I am happy to say that my #7 is booked, budgeted and packed. For those of you who forgot, #7 is New Years Anywhere... this time I decided to perform some unfinished business in Chicago.

Last year at this time, I arrived ready to blow the town out of the water. A sneaky thief put an end to that theory by stealing my backpack while my back was turned, resulting in all of my money and a few things precious being lost.

To show the city of Chicago that I am not afraid of thieving hooligans, I am returning on the same day as last year and staying a third day. I am taking certain precautions in the meantime to insure the safety of my valuables.

Everyone, I am back! It has been a little while... things are hectic...

I have decided on two minor changes to my 30 list in an effort to get the tackling of the list some more progression. So far, I have only accomplished one thing and I refuse to be lazy about it anymore!

17 was Comedy for Amateur night.... is has now been changed to ...

17- Go through every episode of a series I would have normally not watched

Its a more lofty goal for me to do that. It had to be at least a few seasons in length and had to be already ended. I have chosen The West Wing for this project... 156 episodes of politics and Martin Sheen as the president... At this moment I am watching the very first episode

Okay, Rob Nation and fans of my journals...

It's been a busy week and so sorry I went off the grid... ill warn you that these things will happen once in awhile.

Last week, I nailed the first thing off of my 30 list, when I attended WWE Smackdown. Some stuff happened and my friend Sofi (http://sophiesjourney.tumblr.com) has talked me into some revisions to my list… starting with #7.

If you refer to my list link, something has been changed… #7 was Chicago for New Year’s Eve…. Let me take you back to my experience when I did the exact same thing last year…. I got a bag loaded with electronic gear pick pocketed, along with a wad of my money, and had to beg Ma for cash just to feed myself, and it wasn’t exactly the best time.

I was intending on getting myself back up and running in a town I will have visited for the 14th time in two years, but lately some things have been bothering me about the town I love so.  Don’t get me wrong, I am in love by the trip with Chicago, but I have woken up to reality: the year before my 30th birthday should be about new experiences… so therefore I have come up with a new #7…

7. Gigantic New Year’s Eve Blowout!!!! Anywhere!

It took me awhile but 30 just became 29 on my 30 Before 30 list!!!

All it took was a trip to US Bank Arena here in Cincy, as well as $18 for a cheap seat.... to knock off #23 on the list...

23- Attend a WWE Match

The seats were not too bad either... I was a few rows back in the bottom of the two seating bowls (they blocked the top one off) and had a great view of the ring and the action that was to come

From there a great night of WWE wrestling.... As part of the current storyline of the group, this gang known as The Shield found themselves plastered all over the show. But in between AND including their onslaught on the roster, there were some great moments and some awesome matches.

All in all I had fun and it was a very great show! And now I have something to finally cross off the list....

#23- Attend a WWE match

Friends, this man is a big sorry-sorry :(

When a teenager stays up all night and sees that sun the next day, it is like they have accomplished something, like they have made a conquest of time and space.... as they get older, they see that sun and it is kind of like God's flashlight, especially when they get to drinking age.

It is just like summer and hot weather, especially Cincinnati summers... even if there are mere days left in technical Summer. Cincinnati's heat can be so brutal on a man. When I was 16, 17, 18 I was able to deal with it no problems at all. As a 29 year old, it took its toll and wrecked me all week last week. I was lucky I was able to keep my house in working order all week. 95 degrees in the middle of September kept me out of commission.

Thus you fans of my blog suffered LOL.... my bad.... but it did allow me to revise my 30 list after looking at it... I DID reserve the right to interchangeability as long as 30 things were accomplished, and I am wasting time already.... so I am back at it and ready to start this list...

Im going to start something here and let you know what my picks are each week for the NFL season... Week One is below

Thursday

Denver over Baltimore (WIN)

Sunday

Patriots over Bills

Seahawks over Panthers

Bengals over Bears

Dolphins over Browns

Vikings over Lions

Colts over Raiders

Chiefs over Jags

Saints over Falcons

Bucs over Jets

Steelers over Titans

Niners over Packers

Rams over Cardinals

Giants over Dallas

Monday

Redskins over Eagles

For my full day in Chicago I decided that a nice long day of walking was in order... in earnest I went down the strip in Lincoln Park and ended up at the Lincoln Park Zoo... I found myself walking through what might have been used for the set of Revolution LOL

Later I ended up at the movie theater, and having absolutely no imagination, I go see the movie Kick-Ass 2.... and it really was not the snore inducing crap show I thought it was going to be...

After dinner, I hit Pizzeria Uno for my birthday dinner.... wings and deep dish pizza... what a combo!

And that was pretty much the joys of the trip. When i returned to the hostel, I went to drink the rest of the night, and my 29th year on earth, away.... and at midnight I marked my 29th birthday by stumbling back to my room and going to bed.

Around 6am I wake up... or at least I regain my full mental faculties... and land myself in Gary, Indiana, just a stones throw from the actual city of Chicago, and I am draining still because it takes me forever sometimes to get fully awake. By the time I finally got back to that state I had gotten a bus to the free Red Line stop, went 16 stops to Fullerton, and then made my stop at the Chicago Getaway, where a warm bed was, while not exactly waiting up for me because it was not check out time yet, very imminent. I always pick that place to stay in Chicago because a lot of the people who work there have become great friends, and also because it is a place that is a five star place for a two star budget... I love the ratio!

So I had to wait a little bit for my room... no worries there... I started my journey into the city with a nice lunch at B-Dubs... the Reds were waiting for me!

and had a ice cream to celebrate my coming birthday...

Next stop was a trip to DePaul's soccer game against Northwestern... it was not a big thing for me I just was interested in catching another team doing SOMETHING... I stayed for a half and then I went back to base... still, Wish Field is a pretty nice field to play soccer in, and it marked the first ever appearance live by a Big Ten program... well for me anyway...

After a trip to the grocery store and a nap, I cooked and got cleaned up for my night at the nightclub.... Kingston Mines Blues Club is a place I frequent when I am in town... usually a mandate for me. But performing were two of my good friends, JW Williams (top) and Milwaukee Slim (bottom)... it was a blast, and the beer made me drunk, and there was dancing.... if you are not doing the bottom two at once in Chicago there is something wrong!

also, these were there too :)

And, the 2nd act was there too... Mister Carl Weathersby!

Sadly the night had to end.... I was back in my room and in bed at 2am... drunk, tired, and happy :)

I started my day around 9am with cleaning and finishing touches to my packing efforts, and at 12 noon headed straight to the casino, and spent a good three hours there gambling away my afternoon money...

Sunday was the day of the 2013 WEBN Fireworks.... WEBN is Cincinnati's rock station and along with WLW they are the two flagship stations. It went on the air for the first time on August 30, 1967. For their tenth anniversary, they shot off fireworks along the Ohio River, and people flooded in to see a show that was meant to just be a one time employee party. Even though WEBN was initially just a small station and the publicity came from only their own personal mouths, about 80,000 people showed up and then had to crawl between and underneath rail cars to get home when a train got stuck on a nearby station.

The show got so many popular reviews that in 1978 the city asked WEBN to arrange an annual show on Labor Day and they would do the rest to make sure a big all-day party would accompany it. Riverfest was born!

I was born in 1984, and attended my first fireworks in 1989, on the deck of my Dad's friends boat on the water. I have experienced it on both sides, my ex's apartment in a locked-in building which directly faced the lawn of the park, the purple bridge, the Kentucky side, the highway next to the show, all over. This year I was determined to join the lunatics at the WEBN booth where they would be the MCs for the whole day and attract the craziest of the crazies!

Soooo, at 4pm, with no knowledge about what was next, I decided to walk down to fireworks, a mile and a half walk by my route from the casino... around 5 or so I made it over there. The theme of the fireworks was zombies... and I immediately began a transformation from a quarter-hungover, physically drained Cincinnatian to a guy that just left the bar after a feeding frenzy!

Luckily the picture got taken. I participated in a zombie walk and during the walk that fake blood stuff started itching like crazy! SO I bailed out of the walk and washed that mess off my face.

With the three hours to go before the fireworks, mile or so throughout the course of the rest of the day trying to find the WEBN booth and/or as good a seat as I can get. My legs were about to give out on me when I noticed a leeway to my dream spot... a primarily empty spot... and I parked right in front of the WEBN stage and home of Ignition Control!

Shroom and Abby, the two DJs, the latter being the hottest DJ in Cincinnati, were there to greet everybody. A lot of people give WEBN a lot of crap because they had a second to none DJ group... and they still do, despite a ton of changes made throughout the years.

At 9:05, the fireworks began to another awe-inspiring soundtrack that, for the maker, becomes the greatest honor a WEBN employee can ever have.

Here is the show for ya:

http://www.webn.com/fireworks/articles.html?feed=430712& article=11616549

After the show ended, roughly around 9:45, a bottleneck of about 300K filed out, with me staying behind a little bit to avoid the rush, and to collect all the Coke caps for points the idiots leave on the Serpentine Wall. Needless to say everything went so well!!!

The walk then began to the Greyhound Bus station... and it was just that! 1.3 miles, 88 degrees, feeling like I lost 20 pounds just walking the whole day....

At 12:30 AM, I boarded a Greyhound to Chicago.... my legs incredibly sore, I resorted to an Advil PM and slipped into sweet unconsciousness....