Home "improvements"....

After a disastrous two weeks of having to shower at the campus rec center, my new hot water heater is finally working (having been set on two-pole circuit, which caused an overload and burned out the element after only 3 days).

Of course, my wall still has a gaping hole in it because the landord wants to "wait" and make sure nothing goes wrong again, but I'm not waiting any longer so I've got all the necessary items to build the access panel door that will actually allow me to access the thing if there's a problem and look the way I want it to look. Of course, the old problem has created a new problem.

The new problem? Power tool lust.

As much as I love my Estwing hammer, I spent about twenty minutes drooling in front of the nail gun display at Lowe's (which I can totally blame on John, who spent most of Friday helping build a theater set with a framing gun), and now all I want to do is go back and buy this...

Some good things that actually came out of my trip to Chicago

So, despite the unpleasantness of the 14.5 hour layover and an unplanned detour to a Holiday Inn that was in dire need of new decor, there were a few good things that happened while I was in Chicago.

So here goes:

1. Eating Comiskey Dogs .

Yes, they're a bit terrifying at first glance. A foot long with onions, green relish, yellow mustard, tomatoes, sport peppers, a kosher dill spear, and a generous sprinkling of celery salt; they're definitely not for the faint of heart. I will say, I'm chuckling just thinking about the accounting department going through my expense report and getting to the receipt for dinner at the ballpark.

2. Seeing old friends.

I hadn't been to this CASE conference in two years, and I forgot how much I missed it. I saw folks I haven't seen in a few years, and finally got to meet some people I'd never met in person but have know for years by way of professional listservs or because I picked up the phone and called them asking for samples of what they're using for direct mail campaigns/phonathon program materials/etc.

3. Being in Chicago for the first time in a LONG time.

I can't quite remember the last time I was there, but it was probably right after college. I don't even remember who was playing for the Cubs, I just remember being totally enamoured of Wrigley Field and trying to find places from The Blues Brothers (what can I say, I was on a mission from God. Gimme four whole chickens, some dry white toast, and a Coke).

4. Being a stone's throw away from Vosges Haut Chocolat.

Since moving upstate, I haven't been near a Vosges in a long time. Not that I'm complaining, since I get to eat some darn good chocolate (and much of it made under the watchful eye of IACP award winner Peter Greweling) but I have missed making those runs to Soho to get wasabi truffles and green curry/coconut chocolate bars. Imagine my delight to find a Vosges right near my hotel and that they had a new addition to their wares: Mo's Bacon Bar, a slab of deep milk chocolate with applewood smoked bacon and alder wood salt. Two words for it: Dee. Licious.

5. The glory of seeing Nolda get super pissed off because I won.

The great thing about 5 years worth of friendship with Nolda, we totally get each other's insanity. Of course, we both work in annual giving, which is its own special brand of crazy, so I guess that's not so suprising. So, we're talking to Stephanie, one of the vendors at the conference, who reminds us both to put our business cards in to the box for their drawing - and the prize is an iPod Touch. Now, I can barely get my alarm clock to work right, so I'd never even thought about any thing remotely like an iPhone or iPod, but I figured I'd put my card in. Imagine my surprise to find out the next morning that I'd won, and to be able to sound a barbaric yawp of a "HA!" in Nolda's face. He spent the rest of the day sending me text messages about how much he hated me, he got just as many calling him loser. Schwartz (pictured above, on the left) only added gasoline to the fire by joining me in torturing him. But really, within 5 minutes of us giving each other shit, we were already plotting our next get together.