pointless babble. why are you even here?

Now that I have a nice, shiny new bike, it’s time to invest in some worthwhile riding gear. Back when I had my old bikes, I just wore whatever I had around. Hoodies, mechanics gloves, normal shoes….. anything I’d wear from day to day.

Before I even bought the new bike, I purchased a nice pair of black boots from Timberland. The main selling point was that they were 100% waterproof which I later confirmed. They are pretty comfortable now that I have broken them in, they are very durable and they look really good. Plain black boots, nice and simple. So, I’m all set there.

I have a leather jacket I got for Christmas a few years ago. The thing is pretty beat up now, which would be fine, but it has a good number of holes in it too. Huge holes, as a matter of fact, that I have stitched up so I can wear it before I get something new. It’s also not meant for riding, so it catches the wind like crazy and makes for a bad ride. It’s ready for the trash, and it’s time for a new jacket, preferably one made for riding.

In the last month, I’ve been going around to all the local shops here checking out what they have for jackets. They are generally all made for the kids on sport bikes, with the exception of a hand full of lame leather jackets. They all have some kind of logo on them, either from the company that makes the jacket or the manufacturer that licensed them to make it… or both. I just want a plan leather jacket with no collar and no writing; something clean and functional. Apparently I’m a minority….
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You know everyone keeps saying that identity theft and credit card fraud are on the rise? Well, I’ve known a lot of people that have fallen victim to both, but I always maintained a “that won’t happen to me” attitude about it. I guess it was bound to happen to me sooner or later, and it finally did.

Apparently someone was trying to cash a check against my Discover card and that got flagged for some reason. Then I was talking to the lady in the security department, she said that sometimes what happens is people steal the checks they send you and try to use them. This is most likely what happened in my case.
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Well, as mentioned in my original St. Pat’s post, I bought a motorcycle. Not just any motorcycle, but THE motorcycle….. or at least that’s my opinion of the bike. Since then, I’ve had the oil changed and there was some other service done too (which I’ll get in to in a second here). Yesterday I took some time to clean it up and today I took it in to work. People were freaking out all day asking who’s motorcycle was parked in the lot, and once they found out it was mine, I got all kinda of kudos on it. The thing is a beauty.

I’ll make this one quick. First, here’s some pictures!
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Well, it’s a few days late, but that’s how it goes….

If you took the time to check out Aaron’s gallery, you saw a bunch of pictures from the party after the pub crawl. Nobody was really taking any pictures AT the bars (except for the couple that Emily took which I don’t think are online yet), which was kind of a shame, but that’s how it goes. Really, there wasn’t much to see there anyway, just us drinking. I think you can imagine that on your own, and if not, check out some of the other galleries I have.

However, you might be asking yourself “hey, what’s the deal with the guy passed out in that chair with the bottle of beer on his head?” You’re right to ask about him, as it’s a pretty good story. However, since that was closer to the end of the night, we’ll save that for the end of this article Continue reading →

Well, I know I said I was going to update the site here once I found out more about my back and all, but you know me, I’m a sucker for not coming through. Besides, nothing happened out of everything. The pain slowly went away, and while it’s not completely gone, I can move around again. The doctor basically told me to keep taking pain killers and see how it goes. Needless to say, I’m not going back to her……

More recently, it’s March 21st, which means March 17th came and went. What does that mean? Simply that St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone again, and man was this year awesome! Originally, the plan was to meet up in Milwaukee on Friday, hang out with Aaron and the rest of the gang, play some video games, sample some of the party beers the night before and get some early sleep for the long day of drinking ahead (which of course involved going to the bars at 6:00am). I was also going to bring up the 2 Wireless Rumblepad 2′s I have to make a total of 4, thus making the MAME gameplay exponentially sweeter.

Instead, my poker game at another Funger’s place ran long (I was suckered into another game) and when we finally wrapped it up at midnight, the Milwaukee crew was heading to bed. Fine by me, cause while I missed out on some quality MAME, I did basically break even on the night, got some beers, got some awesome pizza and went to sleep around midnight. The suck part was that I had to drive up to Milwaukee in the morning, but that wasn’t a big deal since I was only coming from Racine and not Illinois. All in all I was fine with everything. I had a sharp new haircut, I made it up to Unger’s place in about an hour (which is usually how long it takes me to get home; stupid ass Illinois drivers), and best of all, I settled on a price for my new motorcycle! More on that a little later though. Continue reading →

Well, I called the insurance company this morning to get the approval for my Cat Scan. The lady wasn’t sure why I was calling and not the doctor, so I gave her the doctor’s number and let her call them. I called called the doctor’s office to schedule my blood work, my follow-up appointment and warn them about the call from the insurance company and ask that they call me back once they have this confirmation.

As the day progresses, I hear nothing. Finally around 2:00pm, I give the doctors office a call. Apparently my doctor needs to talk to the insurance company still, but I’m told I’ll hear back from them soon. Around 3:00pm I do, and I’m told that the insurance company wants x-rays to happen first before they OK a Cat Scan. No problem, the order gets faxed to the office and I’m all set. Continue reading →

Well, as mentioned, today was supposed to be my magical CT scan. I was supposed to know if there were any problems at this point and hopefully have a game plan in place to help me make my back pains go away. But like I said, supposed to….

So, I drink down a bottle and a half of the Barium stuff, which wasn’t bad at first but it got worse. It was like a watered down, lemony coconut milk flavor, which the same consistency. The faster I tried to drink it, the worse the aftertaste was, and trying to suck down 900mL of the stuff wasn’t easy. But, I did what I had to do. I also read that it acts like a mild laxative, which is probably the cause for my most recent bathroom bout.

Anyway, I get down to the place an hour before the scan is supposed to happen. That’s a half hour before I even needed to be there, and considering how crappy the weather was (raining on snow, lots of ice) and the fact that I ended up going the wrong way several times on my way there, wasn’t bad. I noticed a guy in the parking lot having a problem starting his truck, so I tried to jump start it but it didn’t help. The guy JUST had a baby the night before too, which has to suck. Not the baby part, but the whole not being able to get the car started to get your family home. Continue reading →

Here’s me, this spry young kid at the ripe age of 26. And not 26 and a half or anything like that, I JUST turned 26 at the beginning of the month. I should be in the prime of my life with no serious health issues to worry about or anything like that. Hell, nobody under 30 or so should have issues. Yet, Money has had kidney stones, Jeff K had his appendix burst and Mikey has high blood pressure and has been on meds for the last couple years. What’s that mean to me? That I’m not as invincible as I once thought I was….

Knowing all these people with some pretty serious health problems, I figured it was just a matter of time before I got something myself. With a family history of heart problems and kidney stones, I thought for sure it would be something along those lines. But, no. For me, I’m having back problems. Grated, it’s not major organ problems, but the back it a pretty important piece of the body, and mine is killing me. Hooray!

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Yes, it’s my birthday today. So far I’ve been made to tie a birthday balloon to my chair at work, got lunch paid for and had a number of people say happy birthday to me. Later tonight will include a trip to Mickey Finn’s and this weekend, more Whirlyball! So, there are sure to be pictures of all that up eventually too. But, birthdays are overrated; on to other things.

It’s been about a month since the last post, so it seems like as good a time as any to update things. The new guy started at work and he’s fitting in really well. He seems to know what he’s doing and he’s getting the hang of the system here. We also had the show we sponsored air, but without much added business. Still, things went pretty well, the show turned out really nice and there’s nothing to say people won’t buy from us later.

We’re also still on track for our move to the city over the first weekend in March. The official plan is to pack everything up, have a moving company move it all over the weekend and they be back in business at the new place the next Monday. We’ll see how well that goes over….. still, it’s pretty exciting! In preparation for my commute, I purchased a Nintendo DS Lite; more on that in a little bit. Continue reading →

Well, I finally got around to uploading all the remaining pictures from the last year. These include some pictures of a guy I used to work with doing his DJ thing, pictures from our Toga Party and pictures from Matty’s Whirlyball party. It’s been a long time coming, that’s for sure. I’ll be putting up pictures of the New Years party in the next couple of days too. Continue reading →