the J spot

Comparatively speaking, mine was better overall. The dinner was good at hers, but I think the reminiscing at mine was better. She graduated with a little over 400 kids, but only about 50-60 showed up. The people she was wanting to see didn’t show; she pretty much hung out with people she sees on a regular basis now.

They had a DJ, and there was some dancing (not by me, cuz I don’t dance), and the night was pretty good, but nothing spectacular. And I’m not just saying because I didn’t know anybody, but she even said, she glad she went to this one, but probably wouldn’t go to the next one. Conversely, I can’t wait for my next one.

On my way home from work, I was mopedding down Elston Avenue and I came up on a stalled vehicle. A girl was inside steering and a guy was pushing it from behind. I stopped and helped get the car off the road, so hopefully this good deed gets back on Karma’s good graces.

We got swept again tonight, for the second week in a row, at bowling. Not because we didn’t bowl well (I bowled a 538 series), but because the other team bowled better. They’ve obviously been sandbagging up to this point. Oh well, after this crappy week, I wasn’t expecting much.

Are you f*cking kidding me? We got towed tonight from a parking lot at Winnemac Park, and was 170 bucks to get it out!!!

Lindz and I met some friends at a park up on the northside of town for Cornhole and Croquet. At about 10 after 11pm, we make our way back to the parking lot and realize our car was gone. We at first thought it was stolen, but there was a big “Towed by Such & Such Towing” sign on one of the lightposts in the lot. Lindz dialed the number and asked if our car had been towed… “Oh yeah, we just got that in a few minutes ago!”

Apparently, we parked in a lot that switches from public parking to private permit only parking for over-nighters at 11pm. And we barely missed it.

Shit! Sometimes I hate this city.

Yesterday I discovered that one of our balcony windows was spider-webbed and would need replacing ASAP. That sucked.

Also, Lindz got a ticket on her moped today, for parking on the sidewalk. She’s going to fight it and see which laws the judge will use to make a determination: Illinois law says that mopeds can park anywhere a bike can, whereas Chicago law says that mopeds are considered “vehicles” and vehicles can’t park on sidewalks. So we’ll see.

This morning I couldn’t find my wallet, although I didn’t really look that hard for it as I was already late for work. I got a call from my Discover credit card at about 10am, and they were calling because of “suspicious activity” with my card last night, namely a string of purchases at gas stations in the city about every 30-45 minutes all night. Some where only $10 and $15 purchases, but they said by the end of the night, they got bolder and did $20 and $30 purchases…. Shit! My wallet must have fallen out of my pocket after I gassed up my moped going home last night. Good thing I’m not liable for any of those charges.

So I spent the better part of the day calling all my credit card companies and banks to close down all my cards and reissue new ones. Another good thing was that it appeared my Discover card was the only one they used, as the other cards didn’t have any activity on them last night.

And now I gotta make a trip to the DMV to get a replacement license. I hate that place.

In addition to the moped rally ride on Friday, the rest of the weekend shaped up to be one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time.

Saturday was Summer LAN Fest, so the day (and night until about 4am) was spent playing games with other local LANners. Call of Duty 4, Team Fortress 2, and Unreal Tournament 2004 were among the games I played. Prizes big and small were raffled, but I didn’t win anything.

On Sunday, my friend Grae unfortunately couldn’t use his 4 tickets to the Cubs game, so he gave them to me to find others who could use them. After meeting up with my friend Scott and selling the other two, it turned out to be a great day for a Cubs game, even though they lost to San Francisco 4-2. Later in the evening, Lindz and I met up with the poker crew at my office and played some Texas Hold ‘Em until about 11:30pm. I was ahead $9 by the end (on a $5 buy-in), so I was happy. What a perfect end to a great weekend.

On the way back from dining on sushi, we were trying to decide on what to do. I remembered there was a moped rally going on this weekend, and Friday’s activities was a meet-n-greet social followed by an evening ride downtown. Since we both were already on Lindsey’s moped, we made our way over to the meeting spot, chilled for a few with the other 25-30 people, and drank a beer or two. We then ran home to gas up, but I decided to give the second can of Fix-A-Flat a try on my moped’s back tire (it’s had a slow leak for a while). And it worked! So now Lindz and I each had a moped for the ride that evening.

We met back up with the group, which by this time was about 60-75 moped’ers strong; invaded, no swarmed, a gas station; and then buzzed our way down Elston Avenue to the parking garage by the Best Buy. We chilled there for about 20-30 mins to discuss the finer points of mopedding, and then headed out on the rest of the ride, which included a trip down Milwaukee Avenue, Upper Wacker, Lower Wacker, and Franklin, ending up at the Apparel Mart, where we were going to watch the “races”, which were to happen on Lower Wacker. However, security kicked us out after about 30 minutes, so no races were seen.

We then buzzed back up to the neighborhood where we started, but by this time it was getting late, and Lindz had to be up early in the morning, so we decided to call it a night and head home.

I’ve been looking for a new moped to get, and this 1977 Puch Maxi caught my eye. I bought it knowing it wasn’t running, but the guy I bought it from said it was working last summer when the throttle cable broke and neither he nor his son got it fixed before selling it. It’s got a bit of rust, but the frame is in great shape. Slap some new tires and tubes, along with the throttle cable, and it should be ready to ride.

Mark Faje, a guy on mine and Lindsey’s bowling team, invited us out to a fireworks show that he has helped put on for the last 8 years — Teddy’s Chicago Fireworks Show. These were 4" and 6" mortars — professional-grade stuff — that they were lighting off about 50 feet away from where we were sitting, all within a small parking lot off Augusta and Leavitt in Chicago’s Ukranian Village neighborhood. Lasting about 45 minutes, it was an intense show; we could feel the “ka-thunk” of the mortars exploding out of their canisters. I’ll definitely be going to this show again next year.