seven random things

I'm only doing this 'cuz Chons said I wouldn't.

1) I like crunchy things.

2) I love soup. Especially ___________ , _____________, and ____________ ... You fill in the blanks... (I had to edit because Chandi mentioned a third...)

3) I love my friends. Especially because they know me and love me anyways. Okay, that's it for the sappy stuff....

4) I want to be a family man.

5) I like the color blue. Just ask Alyssa.

6) I like my little house and will be sad if I ever sell it.

7) I like animals. Eating them or petting them.

Your turn~! I could tag some people, but 1) I don't want to.

La Jolla @ sunset

Well, I haven't updated my blog in few weeks... I thought it might happen this way since I'm back into my "groove" of work, blah, blah, blah... Nothing much new going on now, which is why I haven't been motivated to post anything.

Last night B and C, Jenica, and I went down to La Jolla to grill and watch sunset. Ben and Toni met us down there so I could shoot his graduation pics... They turned out well! I'm surprised (really) anytime my pics look good to me. I also shot a pic of the sunset which wasn't spectacular in any sense, but I pumped it up a bit (as you can see) and it looks pretty cool...

It's Saturday and I spent most of the morning doing chores around the house. I haven't been there much in the past month or so, so the lawn was visible from space and needed knocking down. I also broke out the weed eater, and even swept the driveway! I was sweating a lot. And now my arms hurt. They'll probably hurt more tomorrow. I'm way too out of shape...

I also had an interesting conversation with two Jehovah's Witnesses ladies that knocked on my door. They were real interested in talking until I started questioning their theology and defending my faith... They said they'd be back, but we'll see... I probably shouldn't have gone to the door with that chicken carcass in my hands... I think I scared them.

Later on I finally took some of my old work pants to the Salvation Army thrift store. I'm slowly getting rid of the junk in my house. At this rate it'll only take me a couple more years to get just my room cleaned. Tenacity is the key. Speaking of my house, my former housekeeper just left town last month or so without saying anything. My old neighbor told me she moved away and now I'm looking for a new person to clean my house. Don't even try to tell me about cleaning it myself. I don't care. I like having someone clean it; and they do a much more thorough job than I ever would. Maybe you should hire someone to clean your house.

Right now I'm hanging out at the B&C's with all the usual suspects. We're eating dinner soon, which is a lovely marinated, grilled chicken dinner with beans, rice, and tortillas. It's a local version of EPL (El Pollo Loco), but better...

Oh, and a customer gave me a camera... Ain't that cool... It's called a HOLGA 120, and it's a cheap, plastic medium format jobby that takes funky pics... I'll post some as soon as I get some film, shoot some pictures, have them developed and printed, scan them, photoshop them and post them. If they're any good. We'll see!

Clarkston, MI

Well, as you can see, I spent the weekend in Clarkston, Michigan with Genevieve's family... It was quite the drive out on Friday after class. By the time I got over to Enterprise, got back over to the room and packed up, and then on the road, it was about 5:15ish. I got stuck in some "rush" hour traffic leaving town, and that coupled with the toll roads, time zone change and travel, I arrived at the Benson home about 11:45 that night. Well, that was the hardest part of the trip, except for leaving...
Genevieve's family is awesome. They were gracious enough to let me stay over for the weekend and just hang out with them. Saturday morning I slept in until 10:30, and then spent some time with Cindy (G's mom), Joslyn and her precious little girl Kalin drinking tea (no coffee drinkers in the house) and chatting... (thanks to G for correcting the misspelled names). Ben, and Gunar showed up later (her dad and bro) and we all ate some delicious BLT's. A lot like the MLT's, where the mutton is just right; mmm I love that... Gunar gave me a tour of the back 40; literally 40 acres of mostly wooded lowland, trails, ponds and creeks... It was cool just touring around on the quad checking things out, hearing about the family history of the land from Gunar. Later that night I went with G and J to a Passion play at a local church. It was professionally done, and interesting. But it was good to just go do something and see the little towns like Holly, and Fenton. Sunday morning I went to church with B and C (not that B and C), Ben and Cindy. It's a nice ind. Baptist in Lake Orion with a school and a really good choir. The best part was meeting Anne, who I talked to for about 5 minutes, and haven't been in touch with since, but hope to at least say "thanks" to soon. She was extremely nice to take me to Sunday school. It's probably the shortest date I've ever been on. She probably doesn't even know it was a date. I prefer to think of it that way since I rarely go on dates, and she's the first girl in a long time I'd even consider going out with anyway. She was lovely. Anyway, after church we all (me and the Benson's) went downtown and ate lunch together. We wanted to go take pictures afterwards, but it'd been cloudy and rainy all day and we weren't sure if the weather would be nice enough... Well, as you can tell by the pictures above, the sun came out for just a couple of hours that day. We headed over to Depot park and let Kalin play and run around while I took pictures. It's a cool little park with a playground on one side and a gazebo on the other with a creek running down the middle. It starts up the road from Mill Pond and runs under the old mill towards the park. Quite the quaint little town. I left later on that afternoon and drove back to Schaumburg, sad to leave, but glad that I got to spend time with Genevieve's family. It was nice seeing where G grew up too, and visit Michigan for the first time...
The other pics are of Trouble, their dog, and an old wagon that's been on their property since before they lived there...

Portillo's

Portillo's is an interesting place. There's over thirty of them in the Chicago area, and as far as I know they're all decorated with some type of theme. For instance, the one here in Schaumburg is set in a 50's diner motif, much like, if not the same as, the one in the picture in my previous post. I haven't been to any of the other ones, but the one close to my hotel is large too, and just plain fun to go to. It's busy and crowded and the food is just smokin' good... Of course I say the "food", but I don't think I've ever eaten anything there except the Ital. beef sandwich, and the Chicago dogs. Now lemme tell ya about the Chicago dogs. They're your basic dog, BUT, they're piled on top with tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers, if my memory serves me right. It's like a salad on a dog, but even though it may sound weird, they're awesome... The picture I've included with today's entry is a phone picture of the sandwich I had today. It was just as good today as I remember, even to go. Speaking of "to go", even the drive through was interesting. The first thing I noticed driving up to the restaurant was the police presence out front directing traffic coming out of Portillo's! As I made my way around the back, I noticed at least three people walking down the line of cars as we made our way up to the windows. Well, two of them had headsets on and they were there to take orders on the fly. The third person was a guy with a wad of money and a credit card machine who would complete your order as you continued to drive up to the window. There was actually another guy taking the orders out to other cars that had to wait, I'm assuming for larger orders... I picked mine up at the window after only waiting a little bit. Over all it was quite the smooth operation... If you've made it this far, you no doubt know more about Portillo's than you'd like, but I tell you, it's worth even hearing about those Italian beef sandwiches. I just had to write that one more time.

Tomorrow I may head over to Michigan after class for a weekend road trip. If it works out I'll be visiting G-money's (aka Genevieve) home where her mom and dad still live near Detroit (but, from what I've heard, far enough away to be nice...). I hear that her sister Maria lives there sometimes too, when she's not in Germany, or camping. But she's not there now, so I won't get to say hi to her this time. Her brother and his family still live nearby though, so it'll be cool to see them again... I'll update my blog again if I end up going over to visit, and hopefully have some pics to upload...

Chicago

So, I've decided to start a blog... I'm in training near Chicago for my company right now, and I have lots of time to try things like this. I'll try to add some pictures as I go since that's what I do. Shoot things. With my camera that is.





Food.
This is my favorite subject. Next to photography. Or maybe more. It depends if I'm hungry. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's my favorite subject no matter what. So with that, I will speak of my favorite local eatery. Portillo's. This is a picture from their website (no I didn't take that one...) It's just down the street from the hotel and is where I usually head soon after arriving in Schaumburg... My choice of food at Portillo's is the Italian beef sandwich. They serve other food there at Portillo's, but the Italian beef sandwich is my favorite by far. Now, I've had the sandwich at other places in California, but there's nothing like having a fresh one here in Chicagoland. I get mine covered in cheese, peppers and completely dipped in the au jus... YUM EE... I haven't had one yet this trip, but will let you know as soon as I do... :0)