The Great CBC Fire

A fire broke out at the Corner bakery today. Right after I clocked out of my shift, I went over to get a drink. All of a sudden, I see people leaving the restaurant to get a closer look at this fire. Smoke was everywhere, and the flames went up about 30 to 40 feet. People started moving their cars away from the fiery bushes. By this time, I ran inside to get the fire extinguisher; I've never had to actually use one in my life, so I was kinda nervously excited about the fact that I might be able to use it. Anyway, I got out there, and the fire spread to more of the bushes, and a small bit of it got on a nearby tree. Luckily, that one went out quick. The fire department came about 4 or 5 minutes later, and doused it all. I got a photo of the blaze (if you could call it that).



Not going to lie, it was really cool. Now, I want to go to a bonfire party or something, and eat some s'mores. Who wouldn't??

Choke On This!

This is probably old news, but I can't freaking wait for this.

Back to the Grind...

So, the end Summer came and went, and I must admit that it was probably the shortest one I've been through. Right after the trip to Austria, June was somewhat of a quick month. I really don't remember the majority of it, just my birthday, a shrimp broil, and a family outing here and there. Though it was quick, much relaxation occurred and still had a lot of fun, with a trip to the beach, a few jam sessions and BBQs, and most importantly: ball games.

The first week of school was just as fast as summer. I like all of my classes for once. My Monday and Wednesday classes are all fun; I start off with Musicianship Lab 144 (essentially ear training), where I have to be best friends with solfege, my voice, and the keyboard. Right after that class, there's Music Theory. It compliments the Music Lab, seeing that it goes into the specifics and fine workings of all the notes and whatnot. It'll be good because my theory needs a lot of brushing up on. I'm also crushing hard on a bunch of the girls in those classes. I mean, they're all cute, they can sing, and most of them can play piano, if not, another instrument. It's a win-win situation. I end those days with classical guitar lessons and Chicago History. I've always wanted to take that class since high school, so I'm happy I finally have the opportunity. We have to do these different field assignments out in the city, and write papers on our findings. I think for my first one, I have to choose an El line and ride it all the way through and write a paper on it.....details are to follow I guess. It's not like I don't do that already. 

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my longest days, and I only have 2 classes! My Music History class is no big deal, though my professor has a lame grading scale: 94-100 as an A, it goes on like that. Below 70 is failing, yadda yadda. Then, I have a chunk of time to myself until 4:15 when my Java II (Data Structures & Apps) starts. It ends around 6:20 because of a lab, but on Thursdays it ends at 5:30. 

This week wasn't all about classes either. I was able to score tickets to 2 Cubs games (one of which was yesterday night, with Aramis Ramirez and his game winning grand slam.....the place went fucking ape shit! The other game is for next Tuesday, against the Astros. Hopefully it won't get rained out like last time!), meet up with a bunch of old friends, shoot some pool, and get my daily routine all hammered out. 

Short anecdote: I lost my agenda book on Tuesday, which was fucking stupid of me because I left my Tuesday Cubs ticket inside it. I realize it had been missing on Wednesday night, when I was unpacking my things. Thursday morning, I go to the lost and found, and luckily, they had it, ticket and all. Also, yesterday they were giving out free Indian food, along with cotton candy and sno-cones. Then we watched Mr. Bean's Holiday. I felt like I was a child again.

So what did I learn this week?

-Back in the day, Chicago was a shit/mud hole. People hated it. Once it was established as a city, everyone hated all the Irish people. 

-There ARE good people in the world, and they return lost agenda books to their owners, among other good things.

-Chipotle is overrated. 

-The Cubs will never cease to amaze me, ever. I'm pretty sure about that one.

-I have better sight-singing skills than I thought, and I have relative pitch. Bad ass.

-It's okay to be a possible 5th year Senior, which is probably what I will be.

-Even if you didn't have a good first week, you have Monday's off day to look forward to. Unless you start school the day after Labor Day. Then I've got nothing for you.

I can't wait to head to Wrigley again on Tuesday! Oh, and for the classes to keep on going. Because for once, I'm going to be on top of the ball on everything. Just watch.

So THAT'S What Burnt Flesh Smells Like!

The last few days have been a bit more eventful than usual. Good thing too, seeing that it's my last week of freedom before school starts. 

Sunday started off like any normal Sunday: Mom comes home at 8:30, wakes us up to get to church, we arrive 10 minutes late, I nudge Mom awake every 5 minutes in the pew, shake a few hands, get some host, leave. As we were about to leave, I see Charly coming over to hug me. Now, Charly never goes to church, ever, unless she's with someone else. A few years back, she went with Mike and Brooks for a few weeks. This was all after she met our then-new pastors at a Pascal's Teen Club meeting, with the rest of El Groupo and McManus. That day, she was with her new boyfriend, Tom. He was a nice guy; we shared our respect for Michael Phelps (and the fact that we both think he's a fucking stud). Quite a nice surprise to see them. 

(Don't worry, the burnt flesh part comes soon)

Later on that day, I went over to the bakery for some breakfast, to visit my friend Steph on her last day (until break), and to upload photos. After I finished eating, Ryan came up to me with a proposal: he had to make 2 catering deliveries. If I helped him with these, he would split the tips that he could get with me. The only catch is that people won't tip us, and we wind up with nothing. I really had nothing to lose; there was a Cubs game on the radio anyway. So I went along for the ride. Both places were funeral homes, one by my house and one in Park Ridge. The Park Ridge one was one of the nicest ones I've ever stepped in. It's still weird for me though; going to funeral homes is like going to hospitals. I can't freaking stand them. Death is death to me, you can only go so far to make it look "presentable." As for hospitals, I hate the smell, and they provide too many bad memories. Anyway. We got back around 3 o'clock. About ten minutes later, cop cars were all over the parking lot. Apparently, this one woman drew a gun on somebody. Luckily the police stopped her in the act, and immediately arrested her, guns drawn and everything. The other guy she was with was taken in for questioning. They searched her car for a long while. Needless to say, business at the Corner Bakery Cafe was halted for about an hour. Everyone came and watched everything unfold. I must say, it was a lot more interesting than the stupid teenage parking lot brawl a few months back. 

I woke up around 6 AM the next morning, with my lower left jaw throbbing with pain. It was coming from my wisdom tooth; the gums around it was all swollen. It was unbearable. So I called my dentist, set up a quick appointment, downed an ibuprofen, and hit the sack. Woke up again, drove to the dentist, and he diagnosed something called pericoronitis. Bascially, the gum tissue around the offending wisdom tooth gets infected and swells up, making it hard to swallow, open your mouth, and chew. It could get really gnarly and spread to more areas of the mouth, if left untreated. His remedy? A low-level laser to burn away my gum tissue, to make room for the wisdom tooth. Hooray! Now, all my wisdom teeth are fully grown in, so there wasn't a huge demand for any extraction. I didn't think it was going to hurt much, but I was wrong. SO wrong. The novocain shot to my cheek and gums was probably the worst pain I've ever experienced at the dentist, and I've had my fair share of fillings before. After my cheeks went numb, he prepped the laser, and burned away. Even with my cheeks and gums numb, I still felt some of the laser's effects, and jumped each time. It was not fun, at all. I took a whiff after he was done, and I asked if it was really me. Apparently, burnt human flesh smells like really bad burnt popcorn. After it was all over, he put some extremely potent purple liquid (all I had to do was spit, and I'd turn something purple) on the gums to help it all cauterize, gave me more ibuprofen, and called it a day. 

Later on that day was Dave's BBQ/pool/birthday party/jam. It was quite fun; Rock Band was played, his Dad offered us $25 to kill a notorious possum, and the cops came because we were causing a disturbance in the pool. Sure, it was late, but sheesh. Minus the part where I really couldn't eat much, when Adrian walked around with his ass hanging out, and when Squini flashed his nuts at Dave (he had a Speedo), it was a very enjoyable night.

My jaw still hurts, I can't eat anything solid, and I'm running on painkillers. I hope I don't feel this shitty when school starts. 

Until next time, take care of your wisdom teeth. 

Family Matters

Ever since the crazy rained out spectacle at Wrigley Field last Monday, I really haven't had a lot of time for myself and this blogging business for a few reasons. One, I can get extremely lazy and not do it for long stretches of time, and two, family from California visited, and stayed at my house: 2 families of 5, including my grandparents and 2 little toddlers.

 It was good seeing all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins again. That Monday night, their flight got delayed for a few hours due to terrible weather in the city, so they didn't get around to flying in until 4 AM. I tried to sleep for a bit, but to no avail. Leanne, Marion, and Marc all greeted me on the couch, and in a dazed state, I got up, and hugged and greeted everyone. Shine came down next, followed by her two lil' brothers, Zach and Zion (aka Bullet or Nah-Nee [what he calls himself]). After showing off what I've been up to for the past few months (guitar playing and collecting all kinds of tuneage), we set up all the air mattresses. Now, you would think that having 16 people all stay in one house would get pretty cramped. In a way, you're right. But not for our casa. The master bedroom easily fit 9 people, and every other room took care of the rest. 

I always like it when family comes to visit, because we get to play tourist in our own city; it's a good chance to show off your local skills and whatnot. As an entire group, we hit up Navy Pier, the Sears Tower Skydeck (where we saw one hell of a sunset), Millennium Park, Wisconsin Dells (a 3-day vacation within a vacation which involved getting a few ticket jackpots in a local arcade, late night cap gun fights, getting grub at Monk's, and riding around in a 15-passenger beast van; it all kicked so much ass), Lou Malnotti's for bad-ass pizza, and Auntie Sang's house for a little family reunion with representatives from both my Mom and Dad's families. One day, Ate Jen and I brought our cousins downtown via the CTA; they thought it was amazing, due to the fact that they never take the train and they never rode a bus before. Imagine, they loved the CTA.....they do live in a suburb in California (Stockton), so I guess that makes sense. Anyway, we showed them Wrigleyville, the Magnificent Mile, and everything else in between. I even took them to eat in at Superdawg; they were shocked that ketchup was omitted on the blessed dogs, but they soon discovered that life is better without the red stuff, and a lot of hot peppers. 

At home, we kept our eyes glued on the Olympics. All I really have to say is that I'm crushing on Alicia Sacramone (though she did screw it up for the US team event), Shawn Johnson is my favorite, and Michael Phelps is fucking unstoppable. We also celebrated Marc's 15th birthday, and had an Eagles jam session into the wee hours of the morning. 

In all, having all the family over was a real good time. If anything, I miss having a full house; it's too quiet in here now. It was a really quick goodbye at the airport, since we had to take two cars and we couldn't really stick around at the drop off point for more than 2 minutes. Hugging 12 people in less than a minute is real slick work. And we (meaning myself, Marion, and Marc) pulled an all-nighter, so we were like zombies this morning.

During their visit, I was able to hang out with Andy, Huey and his girl, Charly, and Costa for a while on Monday. We mainly played with a Nerf football on the island by Andy's place, talked in Huey's backyard and Smyser's playground, and in honor of Mike, drank a 6 pack of cream soda on top of one of Wright College's hills. I felt like I was back in high school again, except with more talk of drinking, Cubs baseball, and oddly enough, high school.

I just woke up from my second nap of the day, and saw the Cubs steal a game from the Marlins and Phelps getting his 7th gold medal by a mere one hundredth of a second. I honestly have no words to describe how good he is and how the Cubs are playing ball this year, but I have a feeling I'm going to be trying to describe them in later entries.

Sad news: Dad told me last night that my Tatay, my great grandfather passed away. He was 104. As sad as I was, I was happy that he could go finally see Pampa in heaven. He outlived him, and hell, he had an amazing and full life. It's a pity I couldn't see him at least one more time.

Well, school starts up in a little over a week, and I still don't fully know what my schedule really looks like yet. I'm actually looking forward to all of my classes this semester, and working really hard on all of them. I've gotta make the grade, and kick huge amounts of ass, with less procrastination. I really hope this all works according to plan....but then again, I can't really expect anything. 

One last thing. High Fidelity the book > High Fidelity the movie. That is all.

"Mother Nature, You Capricious Slut."

That's what I thought as I sat in the Upper Deck at Wrigley Field a little earlier this evening. 

My friends Chris, James, Lilliana and I all went to the Cubs game today, versus the Houston Astros. The weather was a bit humid, but still excellent and we got peanuts and caramel corn from Nuts On Clark. The seats in the upper deck were perfect, and I had my pencil and scorecard ready to go. Everything was going great, despite the 2-0 lead that Houston sprang on us early. But, at the top of the 6th inning, the weather immediately went to shit and it started pouring after the lightning came. The grounds crew sprang into action, and laid out the tarp across the diamond. We the fans weren't expecting much rain, but we were in for a huge surprise. Word got around that there was a tornado warning, and severe storm warnings had been issued and whatnot. The Friendly Confines were greeted with sheets of rain and flash after flash of lightening and rolling thunder. It really was a sight to behold; this was my first Cubs game with a rain delay, and it was quite amazing. I'll post pictures up, I promise. 

Anyway, two siren warnings were issued. That was exciting, but quickly got annoying. 15 straight minutes of blaring sirens can get taxing on the ears. But what was cool was seeing an Elvis impersonator and some fan get onto the field and streak across the wet tarp, slip 'n' slide style. At one point, you couldn't even see the scoreboard, the sheets of rain were that thick.

After a little over two hours, and the tarp getting removed and put back on again, the game time was set to resume at 10:20, which it eventually did. Not much could be said about the game itself, seeing that our bats weren't swinging with authority. But, you could hear a pin drop in the whole park; it was that empty. All the die-hards remained, cheered their hearts out, and the game went on. We even made it to the 7th inning stretch. When the bottom of the 8th came around and LaTroy Hawkins took the mound (wtf?!), a huge crack of lightning chased him away and the rest of the players away, and the tarp came rolling on. The crowds were told to leave, and the park was drenched. The game was called, and the Cubs took the loss :( At least Milwaukee still lost! Huge props go to the Menards grounds crew. They're fucking bad ass.

I'm exhausted, tired, wet, and my family from California will be arriving in about an hour and a half, seeing that their flight was delayed. 16 Filipinos living in the same house. This one's going to be one helluva visit. 

Happenings

I've been reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby recently, and it's gotten me to get used to listing things. This is good for this here entry simply because there's been a lot of things going on. I'm not quite finished with it yet, hopefully I can get more into it before my cousins from California arrive. Anyway, on with the list.

-Sadly, I'm not going to Warped Tour this summer. Again. There just aren't enough good bands to see, despite Motion City, Gym Class Heroes, and Reel Big Fish being in the line up. But....
-...Dad comes home tomorrow afternoon! I've gotta pick him up. He's been away since late June, and I miss him. I'm also off work tomorrow, and that's a definite plus.

-Jac was rolled up in a ball next to me for the longest and just got up and did the longest stretch and yawn when my sister entered the room. All he does all day is perch himself on top of the living room couch and bark at other dogs, pee, poop on the carpet, and eat the food that Mom keeps giving him (including, but not limited to meatballs, steak, and fish). 

-By Monday night, there will be 16 people living in my house. Family from California are coming to visit (2 families of 5, with my grandparents) for a few days. That's one more person than the McCallister family in Home Alone, and seven more people than the Full House bunch, not including Comet. That's fucking insane. 

-Total number of tickets won by us (Jordy, Jess, Ate Jen, Brandon, Jack, and myself) at Chuck E. Cheese: 2,283. What did we get? A Sorry/Uno board game (2000 tix), and a bunch of candy. I also won 2 bags of cotton candy. I've had better outings at Skee-Ball, but my high score was 38,000. Ate Jen and I also found a faulty machine tucked away in a corner that lets you pull out more tickets than you actually won.

-Got a haircut today. My hairdresser's name was Destiny. As I somewhat expected, she wasn't that bright. But, she did a nice job and was pleasant for the majority of the session. Some quotes:

"Wait. Are you telling me the Cubs and White Sox could be in the World Series? Like, how does that work? Is that even legal in the MLB?"

"Okay, can you tell me what the Sox were called before the White Sox?"

"Yeah, the Chicago White Stockings."

"Yup. That sounds *looks around, whispers* kinda gay. Like no offense to gay people or anything like that, but that's like, so gay."

"I still call it Comiskey, forget about U.S. Cellular. And 'Wrigley Field' is too much to say. I just call it Cubs Park. Cubs Park. I mean, come on."

*sigh* At least she was a Cubs fan, and I have a nice hair cut. She also complimented my hair, likening it to the infamous Uncle Jesse. 

Enough about the Rippers frontman. Speaking of the Cubs, I'm heading to the game on Monday night against the Astros. It's 70's night at Wrigley, and I'm planning to either deck myself out in 70's apparel, or make a sign. Most likely a WGN one...we shall see. I've also stumbled upon one helluva (illustrated!) Cubs blog here. Let's hope that they can pick it back up again with the Pirates! 

That'll be all for me for now.

Let's go, Lilly. Show these Pirates who's boss.