Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Saturday in the burbs, you'd think it was the 3rd of June...

My day started with a ringing phone at 7:09am. I was half awake anyway, contemplating rising. It was my wife calling to say she was "home" and that she'd forgotten to call the prior night. I asked what her plans were for the kids and her folks regarding the Parelli seminar. It sounded like she and her brother were going early to get seats, her mother and my daughter a little later and that they'd probably leave after lunch to do some shopping. My son and grandpa would also go later so they could return home when they wanted, independant of everyone else. I wished her fun for the day as she did me.

My morning was sunny, the pups were hoppy, and I chomped on toast as I watched the 3 canine tip-toe through the grass, happy to be out and alive. With class starting at 9am I had to hurry them back in, coax the two runts into their crates, feed the big guy his kibble and cut green beans and be on my way.

The mornings commute was also a 2 diet pepsi drive, and rather than listen to Mike & Mike I cranked up Korn's latest efforts and drove with the windows down revelling in the wind and sun.

The morning session was to be delivered by Tom Trone, a serial entrepreneur and current executive at Deere. The topic: Leadership and Management. I like Tom. He's a very down to earth person and instructs from experience, which he has much of. I've known it for a while, but I much prefer leadership to management. I'm glad there are people that have the attention for detail to be managers, otherwise what a mess business would be!

My partners and I did lunch at Giordano's, a local pizza house, but we were good and had salads. I added a cup of minestrone soup. $12 for soup,salad, soda, and tip.

As this was the last class session prior to our oral presentations, the afternon started with a review of the presentation outline and expectations for its contents. The finale was a review of process engineering related to positions and role definition.

Happily we were dismissed earlier than I expected, around 3pm. After wishing the others good weekends, I set off, with the sun still shining upon me. I stopped by Bust Buy to drool over the DSLRs, but really to use their restroom. I was highly tempted to get the Canon Digital Rebel XT, as there's a $100 rebate making the price just over $700. However once you add a zoom lens, memory card, bag, and other goodies, the price would be well over $1000, so I resisted.

I grabbed some soda, diet Dr Pepper since the diet pepsi was warm, and made it home to let the pups out. I was thrilled to find they hadn't messed their crates and they were thrilled to have me let them out. They are like popcorn kernels popping when they get out, hopping up and down, on top of each other, over each other. It never fails to make me smile and often evokes laughter.

We played in the yard for a good amount of time. At one point Ginny snuck under the fence into the next yard. When I called her back, Dakota was standing near the fence, looking at me, then the hole under the fence, then back at me. From the hole spung this little terrier in a bound like a jack in the box clown! It was hilarious.

Since we were in the yard, and the weather was great, I decided to start weeding the flower beds and made some good progress. I also fed the roses with miracle-gro rose food. Can't wait for them to come up fully. I have about 15 planted in an area behind the house.

Harry reminded me it was time to eat with his usual woo-woo-roo. More kibble and green beans, and this time the babies got a couple of beans too.

By this time the sox game was on as well as the NBA semi-finals. I watched both, but mostly the Sox. I tinkered around with the web sites I frequent, worked on some of the Zombie mix from the night before and shot of some stupid emails (sorry).

My son decided to take a late dinner with his girlfriend which reminded me I was getting pretty hungry myself. So instead of eating, I headed to a bar and grill downtown Naperville. Since I'd never been in there at night before, I didn't know what to expect. Good grief the crowd was young!

I talked to one of the bouncers for a while, an underage bouncer. I didn't know that they could be underage, but he seemed pretty good with the position. Another kid had only been working there 2 days. I was impressed with the number of bouncers and coordination between them. Kinda like the movie "Roadhouse" without the fighting lol. I also talked to a 22 year old kid just graduated from college now working in his dads jewelry store.

Convinced by now there was nobody older than my own kids in the place, I left and picked up more Taco Bell than I should have and returned home. My son and his girlfriend were there. Being rather late, I drank some water and hit the sack and slept like a baby (except for the waking up crying once an hour).

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