Category: Review

Posted on

Weekly Post 12/16/2019

Highlights:

  • Lunch with a highschool friend
  • Started bringing leftovers for lunch
  • Finished The Wire

Lowlights:

Goals for next week: Try to reduce my lunch budget

Following last week’s post and I had another business lunch set up with a highschool friend downtown. Just to talk about the future and see if our forces could align and expedite some progress. This is still a new experiment for me so there is a lot to figure out and organize before these business lunches will start producing some juicy results. Either way, it was fun to catch up and talk about old times and the present comparing stories at how similar and yet different our lives past have been and how we still have a lot of the same experiences.

 For the majority of this week, I broke out the old’ lunch pail and brought leftovers to work to eat for lunch. To be fair these meals were planned leftovers with the full intention to have them for lunch the next day. In my quest to keep reducing my expenses on food this seemed like the next logical step. We quickly found out that usually dinner is the most expensive meal of the day and having the same meal for lunch the next day just doubles my spending. The good take ways for this habit is that I am now building a routine to bring lunch rather than going out to eat five days a week. If I can keep this habit than the next step would be to meal plan for lunch and be mindful of what the food costs are compared to a usual fast food meal. Those meals range between $12 and $8, If I can get my spend down to $7 or $6 I would be very happy. I don’t have a plan yet other than to keep bring meals from home into to work and once that habit it and nature then start to plan out my lunches.

I watched HBO’s original show The Wire. This came out right at the tail end of Highschool and finished up while I was still in college. Never really heard of it even though around that same time I was watching Entourage and Sopranos every Sunday night. Soon after though, this show kept getting recommend both by acquaintances and on my regular websites. I Started this show multiple times when over the last 6 or 7 years and never made it past the 3rd episode for some reason or other. New shows that come out that “You have to watch” it always got put on the back burner. Then I read another article about the 50 best TV shows you need to watch. I can’t remember which article but it kicked me in high gear and I made it past the first season in one weekend. That first season of The Wire was so good I just kept pressing play.

It hooks, line and sinker me in as I made it through the 2nd season in the by the end of the next week. after those first two weeks, I was on roll watching it every chance I got, during lunch breaks, in the morning before work. I was addicted by the time I finished the 4th season I was burnt out. Only 12 more episodes to in the final season… it took the entirety of that next week at that same feverous pace finish out the whole series.  

This was an awesome show. Lots of intricate storylines that build from season to season, yet each season had its theme that leads to entertaining season finales that almost stretched over the last 3 episodes of each season.

Watching this show blitzkrieg style isn’t recommend due to the 60 min length of each episode, If I had to do it again I would have tried to keep it’s at a season a week. That would have probably kept me from having that burnout feeling towards the end of the series. The Wire would be a must much recommendation from me, I’m sad a neve got into this show when it was airing that could have been fun to witness.

The 2019 Bears season is over. What a disappointment, there was so much hype after last year’s level of play and in the supposed progress we made in the offseason. The offense installed the 2.0 version and Mitch was making leaps and bound type progress. All that hype washed away after the season opener loss to our archrivals the Green Bay Packers. To be fair I did hold on to some hope that they could pull to it together but, halfway through the regular season it a was fools’ errand to still believe that this team was going to be better than where it was last season.  

It will be a long offseason, hopefully, I can fill it up with some golf and baseball and hockey.

Posted on

Weekly Post 12/9/2019

Highlights:

  • Steak and Cigar night Round 6
  • Family Birthday Brunch
  • Great business lunch

LowLights:

  • Can’t drink like I used too

Goals for next week: Keep inviting people to business lunches.

This was an action-packed week with tons of lunches and dinner and things to celebrate. It wasn’t easy on the pocketbook but lots of fun and some action items to follow up with that should lead to greener pastures hopefully in early 2020.

We celebrated the wife’s birthday with lunch at a new spot in the west river north area called Pacific Standard Time. It had a very west coast feel to the interior which wasn’t overdone and overall it was very pleasing to the eye and had a great contrast with the grey Chicago winter weather that has now settled in for the rest of the year. The brunch menu has the usual staple items that were decently priced for a river north restaurant. 

I ordered the steak and eggs, always nice to have a breakfast steak in my opinion. The highlight of the meal was the hot sauce they gave with the eggs and it was liquid hot magma. Passing this around the table to see who was brave enough to try and watch their face melt after only ingest a small was too funny.

The last big meal of the week was at GT Prime for the 6th semi Quarterly Steak and Cigar night. There will be a full recap post on this meal that will be published shortly that will give a full break down of the most expensive steak I’ve ever eaten. With all the steak, bourbon and cigars mixed with a late-night, I paid the price for it on Friday morning through the early afternoon. I can’t swig them back like I used too, and for the most part, I’m kinda happy about that. I’ve always been a big drinker and now that my life priorities have taken my attention elsewhere not going out and getting blasted every weekend night has been a hard adjustment but one for the better. Both for the here and now and the future. I will now need to learn drink at a pace that is new to me but this will be a necessary tactic to have when I’m out with boys for fun night out and not have to pay for it dearly the next day.

Posted on

Weekly Post 11/11/2019

Highlights:

  • Beard is coming in nicely
  • Bears beat the Detriot Lions!

Lowlights:

  • Only ate fast food for lunch

Golas for next week: Find a place to eat my bring from home lunch at

After a week and a half, this is the best shape my beard has been in since I started participating in No Shave November. The major tip I have learned is to stated conditioning the beard as soon as you can. I started after day 5 of no shaving and my beard hasn’t itched once. In the past years, it would develop this horrible itch underneath my beard. It would always sneak up on me before I knew it and the only remedy would be a couple of days of conditioning in the shower.

This year has been the most comfortable by far also due to the constant brushing whenever I walk past the bathroom. I read somewhere once that the brushing also stimulates growth which would be difficult for me to judge since this is the only time of the year that I will rock the beard. I will keep you guys posted on the beards progress in the coming weeks.

Finally, the Chicago Bears won a game, I was really about to lose all hope on this season and pretty much lost general interest in most of the NFL games while were all enduring some really bad football played by the Bears in the past weeks. It is nice to start the week with a little pep in my step on a victory Monday.

The new work location is still making my lunch decisions pretty limited to fast food only options. I still haven’t found any better/healthier options yet and starting to worry that I will have to mine the menus of a restaurant to eat more responsible. This is a task I have never attempted and don’t have much confidence that I will be able to do without just ordering fries all the time. The quest will continue until I find some good lunch options.

Posted on

Weekly Post 11/18/19

Highlights:

  • Quick Family trip to Disney World

Lowlights:

  • Cold and overcast in Florida
  • Bears Lost to the Rams
  • Horrible Mochas

Goals for this week:

    • Breakfast smoothies all week and find a place for lunch salads

The family and I headed down to Orlando to spend some time at Disney World and get some good extended family time in before the holiday gauntlet comes barreling down. Having two families within driving distance means that every Holiday equals 2 holidays. 2 Thanksgiving in one weekend is fun but a lot of time spent in the car when all you want to do is sit on the couch and digest lol

It’s nice we can get together before all that starts and enjoy our time together without being time-crunched in a natural spot where everybody can chillax and have a relaxing time without the usual hosting pressures.

The highlight of the trip was Brunch with Mickey and Friends. Tons of great photo ops with the OG Disney crew, they all came by one by one once the table had finished their 2nd plate of the buffet. The actors did a great job handling all the little children and the varying age of the groups. They mad sure every guest that wanted a picture got one and we’re very aware that I had the Sony A7II camera and not iPhone and the charterers made sure to give me the majority of the poses so my camera could do all the hard work and send off the pictures to everyone after the brunch.

I was pretty happy with how most of the pictures came out. I can tell that I am getting better at composing my pictures. I am starting to see how a picture should be framed before I raise the eyepiece to my eyes. In turn, I’m becoming a lot more efficient at taking pictures. I use to take 1000 pictures and the only handful would be worth editing or post right out of the camera. Where now am constantly moving to be in the best shooting position resulting in a better sample of pictures without having to wade through 95% to find the better-looking pictures. Now it’s about 20% decent looking pictures with about 1/2 the number of total pictures taken.

There happened to be a coffee shop that masqueraded itself as a full-service Starbucks when I did my trip due diligence to figure out my food, drink and golf options for the trip. I was very stoked to see there was a full-fledged Starbucks on a property within walking distance to get my Mocha fix all week. As soon as we walked up the first time I knew something was up as there were no building architecture ques of the usual Starbucks look. Then I saw it, the sign that put me in a 5 min depression “Starbucks Coffee Proudly Served Here” I didn’t have any hope for the Mochas after that, but since I’m a glutton for punishment I went ahead and got a Mocha each morning I was there. The mochas scored 5 to 6 out of ten on my scale with major points being deducted due to the overuse of nasty chocolate syrup. The other major factor was the expresso tased like it was over roasted burnt and gave some off-flavors that I didn’t enjoy. I was happy to get back to the airport to have a decent Mocha at a real Starbucks.

The weather did not want to cooperate while I was in Orlando. It just happened to be record-breaking cold weather while we were in Florida, seriously it was low 50s and high 40s on one of the evenings. There was one night when it wasn’t freezing, but still pretty chilly I was able to sneak away and hit the hot tub and smoke a cigar.

It was a fun night to smoke one on vacation but it was most certainly against the rules to be having one in the hot tub. I was on edge the whole time, all nervous that I was going to get busted and ruin the family vacation. Looking back what were they going to do? Lock me up and kick my family out of the Villa?? 99% sure they would have just told me to put it out and leave the hot tub.

Overall this was a great trip and something I look forward to all year. Yea the weather could have been better but if you need nice weather to have a good time- change your fun parameters and start having even more fun.

Posted on

Weekly Post 10/7/2019

Highlights:

  • Broke under 230 lbs
  • trying out intermittent fasting
  • No work on Saturday

Lowlights:

  • Bad take and bake pizza
  • Bears lost

Goals for next week:

  • Lose 1 lbs

I started to experiment with Intermittent Fasting. I choose to begin with the 18-6 protocol. With a 6-hour eating window and 18 hours of fast every day. This should increase the rate my body drops that unwanted fat I’ve been packing for so long. It will be hard to execute this diet if I have to move off my cushy 9-5 pm work schedule say to my early 6-2 pm shift will make that window to small since I will be up on average for 3 hours than usual. Meaning I will most likely not have a long run but will be having to cycle on and off depending on my work schedule. This will be an exploratory experiment to see if I can handle it and to observe how fast my body and mind adapt to the eating schedule.
It was another tough Bears loss to the Raiders in London. We looked and preformed flat and willfully underprepared the entire game. Credit to Coach Gruden for beautifully scheming Mack out of the game. This is all I want to say about this game as this season is quickly becoming depressing.

There was a sweet deal at Mariano’s for $12 for 2 Take and Bake pizzas. As a big fan of these pizzas, this was a no brainer for me. The 2 types of pizzas were straight sausage and 3 meat. We ate the 3 meat on the first night and it tasted great, the next night we heated the Sausage and boy did it disappoint. There was to much cheese and the cheese tasted watery. It as was painful to eat. I only made it 1.5 slices before I gave up, they were that bad. I finished the rest of my dinner with a nice big bowl of Jerry Garcia ice cream. I will give Mariano’s another shoot if this deal pops up again. Who knows I could have just been unlucky and picked the only bad pizza out of the place, and if it’s just a bad as the first one it will only be a 6 dollar loss and I’ll get to have ice cream for dinner again.

Posted on

Weekly Post 9/16/2019

Highlights:

  • 2 Workouts
  • Meditated
  • New Camera Lens
  • Finished another book

Lowlights:

  • Pretty sore for my workouts
  • Still, haven’t hit the golf course

Goals for next week:

  • Stick with the morning smoothies
  • 3 Workouts
  • 2 Meditation sessions

It was a pretty productive week. especially in the health department. For some reason, I have found it very hard to find time for a 15-minute meditation session. I was able to get one session this week and I’m pretty proud of that. I’ve read that most of the benefits come from being disciplined and staying consistent to earn all that meditation can bring. I need to make a better concise effort to work this into my weekly schedule. The harder part for me was finding a place that is pretty quiet and is isolated from all the foot traffic at work or even go outside and stay a good distance from the roads. It might be a little scary sitting in a park all alone with my eyes closed. It might be a little easy for something to happen to me, so I will try and stay inside, for the time being, I also snuck in 2 work out this week as well, I will be focusing more on my diet rather than burning calories to see if I can achieve my goals faster.

I was able to finally was able to pull the trigger on a real deal lens for my Sony A7II camera. I had been using the kit lens and achieving some good results with it. After taking some online courses and learning the mechanics of the lens and how wildly advanced my camera is compared to my amateur skills. I started to do some of the course homework shoots. shooting in manual mode at night or taking a fast aperture sorts picture. I found that I was pushing the kit lens to its limit and missing out on some nice shoots sue to the lens that came stock with my camera. This was a large investment for me but, it will help take better pictures and this lens with stay in my arsenal of camera gear even if I upgrade my camera body.

Finished up another audio book making it 8 books in total this year. Extreme Ownership was very intriguing to me and was jam-packed with a lot of actionable ideas that I have already begun to bring into my work and personal life. Each chapter was broken down into 3 parts. First was a battlefield story from Iraq. Middle being what the leadership principle is how it helped win the battle and the last being the application to the work environment. I plan on reading the rest of Jacko Wilik’s books due to how fast and to the pint he got. Always a fan of efficiency, Next on the list is the book that was adapted to the movie Field of Dreams.

Posted on

Weekly Post 8/26/2019

High Lights:

  • Finshed my Excel Course
  • New Stand up desk
  • Quick 9 Holes

Low Lights:

  • Rained Out Golf league 

It was a whirlwind golf week with my Tuesday Golf league getting rained out. There are very few weeks left which makes this a big loss. last-minute invite on Sunday to play 9 holes did help soothe that burn for a missed round. We even ended up playing those 9 holes at Jackson Park. I played the first 4 holes really well. My swing was on plane and I was able to keep the ball off the tee and hit the fairway or just off the edge which I believe helped me keep my swing intact by not hitting a difficult lie. That is what usually throws me off a good clear mindset and lets the doubt and mistrust in my own swing for me. Typical mental midget stuff for me I guess, this is why I need to really get back to drilling the swing at home. If I can keep this swing all the way to back 9 were talking about personal record-breaking scores 🙂

In other news a huge upgrade to the home office this week. I purchased one of that mechanical stand-up desks. https://www.autonomous.ai/ So far so good, It was a little bit to set up. It took the better part of the afternoon. It took even longer to wire up all the cables to keep them as hidden as possible. To be fair I am a little OCD when it comes to hiding and tucking wires so that’s where most of the time was spent. The desk does look good and works well so I pretty dure this was a good purchase.

To cap this week off I was able to finish off my Udemy Microsoft Excel course. It took a while the as the course is just over 17 hours long and does come with a bit of homework but I was able to keep up with the course while the instructor was explaining the projects. I wish I had taken this course way earlier in my working career. I always knew that there was a lot more power to Excel than what I was using. but most of my work project only required my novice level of skills. This course did teach me a lot of basic level information that will increase the speed at which I can build worksheets. that alone was worth the price of the course but, the real added value of this course. It has opened my eyes to what the next levels are to this program and where I can direct my attention to further advance my skills and become an Excel Jedi Master.

Posted on

Weekly Post 7/15/2019

High Lights:

  • Downloaded a Stretching App
  • League Night
  • Biked Home From Work
  • Graduation Party In the Burbs

Low Lights:

  • My diet

Its time for me to start eating better.  Ive have been ona fast food and take out diet for the past 6 weeks.  Going to subscribe to one of those pre packaged meals services.  avoiding the the trips to the grocery store and and trying to manage the quantity of food needed is the main advantage of these meal servies.  Havibg all of the ingredients measured and ready to go like a cooking show will allow for a faster perp to table time.  Faster cook times will also help gain a couple moinutes of sleep each night with should pay divideds all around. 

My car also got a nail in the driver side rear tire which was a bummer but Costoco was able to plug for less than $20 dollars #Lovethatplace  This causeed me to Divvy(bike) the 4 miles home form work one day it was also the hoyest day of the year so far so I promblty counted that a workout first one also in 6 weeks.  I’m going to trying a bike more to and from work to get some light cardio in to get some fitness back in my life.  On this same note I downalaed a strecthing app to help meet one of my new yeers resoultions goals. If work settles down just a bit i shuld be ablke to carve out 15 minutes in the office to strech it out.

I also noticed that if I bring my own breafast I am not craving a mocha so the Mocah coutn for this week is down. Two thumbs up..we’ll see if it lasts lol.

Capped the week of with a rainy Sunday evening in the burbs to celebrate the gradulation of Highscool. Always fun to head out to the burns and walk barefoot in the grass without fear of stepping in grass and dogpoo. A few beers and some good tacos and old friends really hit the spot. 

Posted on

Weekly Summary 4/8/2019

Highlights:

  • Big time night with the Boys
  • Wine Wednesday

Lowlights:

  • Low amount of sleep

An action-packed week and weekend lead to some serious low amounts of sleep.  

Wine Wednesday with the Family to celebrate my fathers birthday was a delicious dinner that turned into a Bourbon fest with some heavily poured glasses of Bookers Bourbon.  Bookers was my grandpas’ favorites so it is always nice to enjoy a couple of glasses and hear fun stories about him.

Dinner was homemade Italian beef made by my sister.  She nailed it with the ratios of meat and bun.  The majority of the time I don’t order this sandwich at the restaurant due to the mess it comes with. I walk out of lunchtime feeling like I need a shower to clean up.

Not sure when it will be my time to host a Wine Wednesday, but I will for sure post the full spread of food and drinks.

Now onto the weekend.

This Saturday as a college buddies birth party.  The weather was super nice and sunny with the temperature pushing 70 degrees. Standing on the deck was almost too hot, but that was just that “fools Spring”  feeling.  once the sun started to set that cold air overcame the warm sunlight and we head indoors to watch the Michigan State and the Texas Tech basketball game.  Made a live bet on this game and one a unit so I was feeling pretty good.

The after party went back to the birthday boys house since the sun had set.  Old jokes and stories came about with beers.  The party was running its course and someone mentioned that “We should go to the Casino”  This came at the perfect moment where everybody was deciding whether to go home or go out and there was a handful of us ready to stay out.

The uber ride to the casino was pretty funny with a honda civic packed with a bunch of drunks dudes amped up for the casino.  When we arrived at the Casino there were cop cars with lights flashing.  Turns out there were literal “gypsies” in the casino that were caught selling drugs and solicitation dates just before we got there.  

This group was referenced pretty heavily at the craps table we started playing at and there were some serious jokes at their expense being told by the patrons and dealers alike.  

It was long night ant the table but I ended taking home some cash to have a fun breakfast the next day.  I’ll be back for some more action soon I bet. lol.

Posted on

Weekly Summary 4/1/2019

High Lights:

  • 1st Round of the year!
  • New Bed

Low Lights:

  • Lack of workouts
  • still eating like a pig

Cantigny Golf course

Last week there was a solid Saturday Afternoon that was low 50s and sunny.  Was able to snatch a 2:10 tee time at Cantigny Played a solid round with a couple of buddies and one of their friends for an almost chilly kick off round of the season.

I shot under 100 for and hit that ball pretty well off tee. As usual, my short game got the better of me especially 50 yards and under.  I can’t wait to focus on that in practice this year.  It should shave at least 6 strokes off my game easy.

Other big news was that for the first time out of the hotel, I am sleeping in a King size bed.  What a game changer to have all that room.  I had been having trouble falling asleep once in bed for a while now.  I tried a lot of things like blue light glasses and not looking at my phone after 9:00 PM.  Since I started sleeping on it I’ve fallen asleep super fast and stayed asleep which is always a good thing.

Looking forward to next week I’m going to keep logging my food and hit the gym 3 times this week.  Working on portion control might be easier than a stricter diet.

Cheers to another productive week.