Weekends are too short

It's a nice Sunday afternoon in Phoenix. I just returned from Chicago and all the hustle and bustle of the busy weekend, so I decided to unwind and write a blog. I slacked over the weekend, but that's only because I was incredibly busy. Don't worry—I don't hate you guys or anything. (At least not most of you... just kidding!)

I know Stacey hates me for this, but I managed to fly to and from Chicago without any delays. I was incredibly fortunate that the weather was nearly perfect, unlike the thunderstorms that she had to put up with on her travel days. It's funny, I didn't really feel homesick at all until my plane approached O'Hare, and I could see familiar streets and buildings that we were flying over. When I saw the skyline in the distance, that's when I realized how much I missed Chicago. Sure it's got its quirks, and calling the weather "flaky" is an understatement, but no place is perfect and few others have the appeal (to me) of the Windy City. Alas, my stay was short, but I shall return soon—and, before long, I'll be back for good!

Before I left for Phoenix, I set my TiVo to tape the series finale of Alias, which I couldn't watch live because it conflicted with the season finale of 24. When I got home on Friday, I discovered that it wasn't on there—apparently, it had been deleted because of a lack of space. You can tell the TiVo not to automatically delete programs to regain space for future recordings, but I neglected to do so. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Thankfully, ABC is streaming the show on its web site through the end of this month. I didn't have time to watch it this past weekend, but I will make up for that this weekend. (Unfortunately, the internet access at the hotel here in Phoenix is insufficient for watching this stream... needless to say, I was disappointed to find that out.)

On Saturday I went to the White Sox game with Stacey. My company had an outing there, complete with a patio party (a.k.a, free food). We both had a good time, although we were worried during the drive that we'd get there late. Traffic on 290 was absolutely horrible, and we figured that it was just congestion and that the whole drive would be like that. While I'm thankful it wasn't, I'm pissed at the reason why traffic slowed down—gapers! Some damn car was off to the side of the road, with a police cruiser parked behind it. Needless to say, the dim-witted Chicago drivers had to slow down to get a good look at this non-event. People, this is not exciting, nor is it a rare occurrence!

Stacey and I both enjoyed the patio party, although I think it's kind of a rip-off. Okay, so I didn't pay, but that's not the point—the patio party tickets were $40 each. I don't know about anybody else, but I did not eat and drink $40 worth—even using the inflated ballpark prices. I guess if you drink more than the one beer I had, it might be worth the cost. Foodwise, though, you'd have to make multiple trips and get lots of food each time to cover the cost. (And even if you did make it worth the money, you'd have to worry about blowing thousands of dollars when you have the ensuing heart attack from eating that much ballpark food!) Again, I'm not complaining about the outing, I'm just warning you ahead of time that you might want to think about whether this is worth the money should you ever have the chance to purchase patio party tickets.

As you know, I'm a Cubs fan, but I will admit that U.S. Cellular Field is not a bad place to go see a ballgame. I enjoy Wrigley Field a lot more, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Park Formerly Known as Comiskey. It definitely doesn't have the charm or intangibles of classic parks, and it probably doesn't have as appealing of a design as newer parks like Camden Yards. It is, however, clean and comfortable, and it has much better parking and bathroom facilities than the home of the Cubs. It does have its share of hopelessly drunk morons, but that's an affliction common to all major league ballparks, I'm afraid.

In other news, I'm thinking of going to use the pool in a little bit, but it's a scorcher out there right now so I'm not sure if I want to endure that heat. It doesn't help that I just cut my hair, so now I have massive scalp-sunburn potential.

On that note, I'm out of here. Catch you next time!

-Mark