aces weekend.

eileen and i made the postwork trip to chicago friday afternoon, arriving by 830 or so to the gurs pad. mayhem ensued.

neil was there. dave was there. with minnesota losing it's second in a row to the yankees, we were tuned to the debate. one guy looked confused, the other just looked pretentious. i don't think we paid a whole lot of attention. eric, our reason for coming, arrived from o'hare about 10 or so. he ordered dinner and the group made small talk for awhile. eric, in town for the marathon (running, not yelling), went to sleep while gurs, dave (with some prodding), neil, eileen and i went to the hungry brain, which will heretofore be referred to as heaven. beer was cheap ($3), the company (soon to include jim wysock and ac slater and roomie pete) was tremendous, and we overstayed our welcome.

saturday saw my parents picking eileen and i up in wrigleyville at 8, for a trip to south bend to see the irish and the lil brother. while interstate 80's untimely construction kept us from arriving as early as planned, dad did managed to squeeze in an ultra-fast tour for aunt, uncle and two cousins who met us there. game was a nice irish win, a pretty well-played 23-15 victory over stanford (if one without big plays or any turnovers, i think). we returned to the boy's apartment, which is large enough and quite nice (i think a two-bedroom, one-bathroom that currently houses three tenants) , and my mom and the boy's friend's mom got all 'mom' on us, setting out vegetables and pretzels and cooking hot dogs and hamburgers and (four) chicken breasts while we watched the twins blow their lead. i'd say we spent a solid two hours there, and i didn't find myself wanting to leave any earlier. that's something.

we got back to gursland at 1030 or so, and spent about an hour or so hanging with mwysock and tex before it was time to sleep.

sunday was an adventure. up by 730, out of the house with neil, eileen and eric's friend dave by 800. stopped by a friend of governor paymer, who was also running the marathon, and headed out to the sixth milepost to look for eric and robby. didn't see 'em. headed to the eighth milepost (other side of the block) to look for eric and robby. didn't see 'em. (actually, i waited a bit longer to see eric...others saw robby.) after the 5:30 (that is, five hours and thirty minutes) pace crew came by, we dispersed.

neil home. dave to find eric at the finish line. me and eileen to see sharon. woof, sharon! brunch was fantastic and, after a return trip to the neil-gurs-wilson-dave apartment, it was time to head back to glenview for 'senior-style' early bird dinner. chicken. and ribs. and salad. and corn. and potatoes. and some sort of dessert. my mom's absolutely ridiculous.

and then it was home, around 830, and then it was to sleep, by midnight. (actually, i fell asleep with lights on.)

other things:
- my dad was kind enough to tape the cats victory over indiana for me. he got all of the double-overtime victory on tape, with at least four minutes to spare. (it was a four-hour game, after all.)

- i needed a large performance by ahman green tonight to avoid an 0-5 start to the fantasy football season. i didn't get it. i'm getting nervous at this point.

- it sure looks to me like brett favre doesn't have the accuracy (although he still has the zip) that he once had. this packers performance was, in a word, pathetic. (while i've enjoyed watching favre, i'm also rather enjoying them being awful.)

- i extended my phone plan by two more years today. i got some sort of $100 credit towards a new phone, so i purchased a sub-$100 phone, which is to say that i paid nothing. i think there's some sort of audiovox promotion going on, so i took the one that the guy recommended. he assured me that it'll get me my voicemail and things like that. when i told my customer service person that i didn't want the fifty-buck accesories pack, she got all angry at me. i hope she realizes that it's not because she's a bad person.

- i would have been better off starting antowain smith tonight than ahman green, although i still would have lost.

- i hope that wisconsin beats purdue on saturday. then the cats ruin undefeated wisconsin's season the following week.