Insane Random Ramblings

Since I never did a Chicago recap, my list today will be: The top 5 things I liked about Chicago.

1. Diversity. I grew up in NJ and Philly and there is all kinds of people there. In Pittsburgh you basically have black and white and that’s it. There are a few people of other races scattered around but not many.
2. The shopping! There were so many stores that we don’t have here. We don’t have Nordstrom’s or Neiman Marcus, not yet anyway. We also saw Brighton, Chanel, Tiffany’s and Van Cleef & Arpels. Not that I could afford to shop in any of those places but it was still nice to window shop.
3. The people. Most of the people were really nice to us. We didn’t do a lot of the typical tourist things and we tried to blend in with everyone else. So it was nice to see how everyone interacted with one another.
4. The transportation. There are 2 train systems 1 for the city and 1 for the suburbs. Then there’s the buses that run in the city. You can always get around and the prices are fairly reasonable.
5. The activities. There is so much to do. The shopping, the city landmarks, the Navy Pier. You have your pick of activities and you’ll never be bored.

All in all I really liked Chicago and would love to go back for a visit. With their harsh winters I couldn’t ever see myself moving there.

From The Office Party Planning Committee…

16 Reasons Why Alcohol Should Be Served At Work…

1. It’s an incentive to show up.

2. It leads to more honest communications.

3. It reduces complaints about low pay

4. Employees tell management what they think, not what they want to hear.

5. It encourages car pooling.

6. Increase job satisfaction because if you have a bad job, you don’t care.

7. It eliminates vacations because people would rather come to work.

8. It makes fellow employees look better.

9. It makes the cafeteria food taste better.

10. Bosses are more likely to hand out raises when they are wasted.

11. Salary negotiations are a lot more profitable.

12. Employees work later since there’s no longer a need to relax at the bar.

13. It makes everyone more open with their ideas.

14. Eliminates the need for employees to get drunk on their lunch break.

15. Employees no longer need coffee to sober up.

16. Sitting “Bare ass” on the copy machine will no longer be seen as gross.”

It’s that time again and I hate it. I need to pay my rent, car insurance, and utility bills. I need to move the money over from my savings accounts to my checking account to cover everything. I put all of my check in savings to gain interest until I need the money so I’m not actually using savings to pay bills. Man that would suck big time.

I need to figure out how much I have left over from my Economic Stimulus check so I can start planning my next vacation. I really want to go on either a cruise or to an island. One of my coworkers is going to Jamaica next week. I really wish that was me. I’ve never been to Jamaica and I’m not taking a real vacation this year.

Once I’m done with school I’m taking one heck of a vacation!

You would think that since we just got back from vacation that I would want home cooked food, but I don’t. Right now I have a taste for a Chili’s steak. They put this steak butter on them that is so good. We spent so much money this past weekend that I really don’t want to spend any more money than I have to. We don’t need any food for lunch so we don’t have to go shopping. And yes we do have food in the house, I just don’t want any of it.

We might take a little trip to the mall or something and get something to eat. We can also browse around the mall and look at clothes, air tools, or sneakers. I really need a new pair of white and/or blue sneakers. I have 3 pairs right now. One pair is pink so I don’t wear them very often. Another pair is blue and they’re cracked down along the seam so they have to go. The last pair is starting to crack across the top and down in the front by the toes. I should only have to spend about $35 or $40 on a new pair.

But I’m not doing anything else until I eat.

I wasn’t able to check my email for 4 days on my other blog. I couldn’t believe that I had so many spam comments. The crazy part is that when I tried to delete them, it only deleted slightly over 300 comments. Then I had to do the process all over to get the other 200 and some odd comments deleted.

I can’t find my API key on that blog to block the spam out so I keep getting all of these stupid messages. It’s really annoying especially since they’re not real comments. Just silly spammers looking for a link-back.

I’ll have my thoughts on the city and what we saw later. It was a good time I just wish we had longer to stay in the city. I have a quiz today so we had to come back for that. Nevermind that I’m not even ready for the stupid quiz!

The little things can make me happy at work. Since the Penguins made it to the Stanley Cup Finals we get to wear jeans. I work at our corporate headquarters so we don’t get jeans days very often. We usually get them on the first Friday of the month. To have a bonus day or two is wonderful.

We don’t get to wear sneakers but that’s ok with me. I keep a pair of dress shoes under my desk to just slip on. I won’t worry about my pants being tight or taking my diet pills tomorrow or this entire weekend for that matter. I’ll eat what I want and worry about that stuff next week when I come back. This is a nice little way to start off the weekend!

John and I decided that we are going to Chicago for the holiday weekend. We plan on leaving on Friday after work and coming back Monday afternoon. We wanted to stay until Tuesday but I have a quiz so I have to be back before 6pm. We would have to leave Chicago at 9 or 10am and drive almost straight through. I would be pretty tired from that ride and wouldn’t want to sit through class so we decided to come back a day early.

I went and made sure my car was road worthy. I don’t need anything done to the battery, air conditioning compressor, or the transmission so we’re ready. I have my handy-dandy AAA card ready just in case anything happens. Now we just have to get some money from the bank. We’re getting a 3-day bus pass that’s around $10 and I’m sure we’ll get good use out of that. Our meals will probably be on our debit cards because we don’t want too much cash.

I’ve never been to Chicago so I’m super excited. I can’t wait until Friday!

I’ve been eyeing digital cameras recently. I’m doing some travelling to places I’ve never been and I would like to take pictures. I usually get those Kodak disposable cameras but for some reason now I want a new digital one. They’re not too expensive but I don’t know if I really want to buy one right now.

I never spent my Economic Stimulus money. Part of it is to pay for my trip to Chicago this weekend but I’ll still have a nice amount left over. Maybe I’ll try to convince John to go in half with me for one. Then I would definitely get one.  But right now I’ll just keep looking around.

I can’t think of anything to blog about today. I have a bunch of topics that I want to cover but I’m really drawing a blank. It’s probably because I’m stressed about school. I have a entire book to read tonight because I slacked off this weekend. I did find some summaries about the book online so that should make it go a little easier.

I also have a handout to read before tomorrow. I’m meeting one of my classmates before class starts to study for the quiz so I won’t be able to read the handout then. I guess I’ll read that today and tomorrow during lunch. Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting to write about tomorrow.