All posts by Keith Garner

Only in America!

There is a fight this Saturday night at the United Center: Brewster vs. Golota. Supposedly its the first professional fight in Chicago in some long amount of time.

So, I’m sitting around coding and we’re hearing some screaming from out on Michigan Ave. We hear stuff like that all the time being located where we are. Finally, my curiousity got the best of me, so I went to look out the window and see what it was. “Oh, dude, its Don King.” So we went down to what was the official weigh-in for the fight.

Sadly, all I had was the crappy camera in my Hiptop2/Sidekick2.

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Also, here’s a meta-photo of Rachelle taking pictures of the event.

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That’s her hands and camera on the left. I suggest checking out her much better photos in this post on chicagoist

Geeky Internet Fan-boy moment of the day

Out on Michigan Ave I finally ran into Rachelle of rachelleb.com and chicagoist fame while she was covering an event for chicagoist (and maybe for her own blog as well.) Her camera is what convinced me it was her.

I introduced myself and said what a fan I was. She remembered me from some comments from the two blogs. Hopefully, I didn’t come off as too much of a dork.

The misnamed Elgin-O’Hare might only be half misnamed!

From today’s Chicago Tribune: Deal is reached to build western access to O’Hare

Chicago and three other government bodies will announce a formal agreement Tuesday to move forward on building a western-access roadway into O’Hare International Airport, according to transportation officials.

The agreement calls for extending the Elgin-O’Hare Expressway into the airport, but only after Chicago’s massive O’Hare expansion project is completed.

Behold! The Elgin-O’Hare Expressway might actually reach one of the destinations in its name! Well, within the next 10 years. For now, its still more the Hanover Park-Itasca Expressway.

RIP, Baby the cat

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Tonight while we were settling down to watch TV, Baby, our beloved cat, passed away. I’ll update this post later with more details, but about an hour ago, he unexpectedly left us while sitting on Sarah’s lap.

Just as a note to our friends, Sarah doesn’t really want to talk yet. So, eventually, I’m sure she’ll appreciate some condolences, but not tonight.

More later.

[Update 5/15: Baby the cat died in Sarah’s lap last evening when Jason, Dinah, me, and Sarah were sitting down to watch some tv. It was very sudden, he seemed fine all day, so we have no idea what happened. He climbed down off the top of the couch to sit on Sarah’s lap. He was just sitting in her lap, then started spasming and moaning. Then he just stopped breathing, his tongue was out and eyes dilated and he was gone. It probably wasn’t more then 30 seconds.

Sarah got really upset as he was “her first baby” and they spent many, many years together. Luckily, Jason was here, so while I took care of Sarah, he took care of Dinah.

Its still pretty tough to talk about, for all of us. We still have to do something with Baby this morning, but the vet doesn’t open for about another hour.]

You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me.

Fiction and reality merge again!

From The Big Lebowski:

Walter Sobchak: You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don’t wanna know about it, believe me.
The Dude: Yeah, but Walter…
Walter Sobchak: Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o’clock this afternoon… with nail polish.

From reality:

‘The jig is up’ – Assocated Press

SAN JOSE, Calif. – The finger that a woman said she found in a bowl of Wendy’s chili came from an associate of her husband who lost the digit in an industrial accident, police said Friday.

I don’t need no one to tell me about heaven, I look at my daughter, and I believe.

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Today is Dinah’s first birthday. As cliched as it sounds, it doesn’t seem like that long. I have no idea where the time went. In the past year she’s gained over ten pounds and gotten quite a few inches longer.

Its a milestone in her life, and in mine and Sarah’s as well. All three of us have survived the year and are happy as we can be. I’m really not sure which is more shocking, her making it or Sarah and I making it.

There’s been “rough times” in the past year that involved Dinah not sleeping through the night and us being up (usually as a result of illness.) But that’s as bad as its been, and that’s really not all that bad. All in all we’ve been blessed with a happy, healthy, and friendly daughter.

We’ll have a birthday party, cake, a smash cake, all that fun stuff planned for today.